Sanfrancisco trip

I and my hubby went to Sanfrancisco for a week and it was enough time to refresh for us. See the picture. We enjoyed lot's of seafood from cram chowder soup to cooked fish. Especially, fresh crab with a garlic sauce in Crab House which is located in Fisherman's Wharf was great! It way pricy a little bit but worth the price. This crab soon turned into ruins with our endless hammerings:D

Lake Tahoe

Have you heard about Tahoe Lake?

Lake Tahoe is a large lake in the States, which ranges from California to Nevada. Acutally, I've never heard of it before but I'm getting so into its magnificent landscape and natural scenery after searching it.

We can see snow on the mountain surrounding this lake up until April or May and it is famous for the winter sports such as ski or snowboard.

I and my husband made a dicision to go there in the coming aniversary. Hope that we enjoy all the activities as much as we can :D

Frozen yogurt ice cream

I love frozen yogurt ice cream. Yogurt shop is a kind of trend today so there are many franchises all over the nation. It comes in many flavors from plain to green tea and we can add topping with fruits on it.
I dropped by one in Edmond but can't remember its name. Good, though.
Yogurt shop always advertise that yogurt ice cream is sugar free and non fat, however, from my experience that I made it home, I assume it can't be true.
But I still cannot stop eating it.:D


picture from http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/reviews/blog/2007/07/the_next_big_thing.html

Stormie Omartian

In this week, I read Stormie Omartian's autobiography my church pastor's wife introduced to me. Literally, her life was such a stormy. Stormie was raised by a mother who was mentally ill and very abusive. After severe hardships and troubles, she became a christian and now she is working as a famous American Christian author.
She wrote another book titled the Power of a Praying Wife. Actually when I read the book a couple of months ago, it wasn't that touching and I didn't feel any special thing about that book. But after knowing her life story, I got to take the book off the shelf again and began to re-read it.

And I could read between the lines now. I've learned more about praying and it taught me how important praying is and how to pray for my family and my husband.

I'm looking forward to God's working through my prayer.

Information about her...
http://www.stormieomartian.com/bookstore.html

Refreshing my life

After having hard times, I decided to face all these situations and go through it.

It is true that it never rains but it pours. As for me, unpleasant things such as medical bills, broken computer, and ill body kept on bugging me since spring break began. Now I think I'm getting better. No more pain. :D Thanks Janet and Colleen. Your comments cheered me up.
And I bought new laptop, finally so I no longer have a problem in accessing WebCT to do a homework. Medical bills? Still there and nothing is solved but I'm gonna negotiate with hospital about bill and pay for it on the installment plan.

I have heaps of unfinished work that I need to solve but at least got my tail up:D

Julie, go for it!!!

the worst day in Dallas

I don't feel good cuz I've notied there is something wrong in my stomach since spring break started. After having gloomy spring break, I visited hospital for checking up last Friday. My husband took a half day off to be with me. We waited for a long time though we booked it but I wasn't seen by doctor since my insurance was rejected. I belonged to the family insurance of my hus company but the person who is deal with employee's insurance in HR made a minor mistake.

That's why all this happened.

Coming back with distress and annoyance, a new medical bill from the hospital I visited last winter for a miscarrage was waitting for me charging me almost $3500.

In various ways, it was a super gloomy day.

It is not easy for me to stay here apart from friends and family.

Anyhow, I'm really really looking forward to reforming medical system successfully as soon as possible.

picture from http://www.nottingham-therapy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/tears.jpg

My lovely doggie:D

I have a puppy called sarang (in English, literally means "love" but more likely to be "sweetie" or "cutie") Sarang is a 7 year old black poodle. I raised him when he was a year old puppy.

When I left my home in South Korea, I had to say good bye to him.

It's been almost 2 years since I saw him.

He is really royal and lovely doggie to my family. Whenever I was in a bad mood, he came up to me quietly and began to lick my hands. And he always sleeps on my pillow and never sits or lies down on the hard ground. Now I really miss him.

Dallas museum

This is my first museum trip for a long time. I went to Dallas Museum with a friend of mine last Friday. My husband is reluctant to escort me to the hot places in Downtown by the reason of traffic congestion. As things turned out, I knew that the problem was my husband's nevigation of bad performance.

Anyway, I had a wonderful time for recreation there. So I decided to upgrade my husband's nevi as soon as possible, so that I may have more chance to visit there without hubby's grumbling ;D

The story of tea

I prefer to drinking tea than coffee. I got a tea set with my birthday gift. It was consisted of many kinds of herb tea and beautiful tea cups made of ceramics. Everyone knows that tea is good for our health by reason of relieving stress, stimulating a circulation, and boosting immune system. In Asia culture, drinking tea has old tradition and it means a variety of tea has been studied and developed. However, there is a certain way to enjoy tea as best as possible and perfect tea for each one. I linked a site to find this. ENJOY! :D

How to make perfect tea

http://articles.smashits.com/articles/food/95121/how-to-make-perfect-tea.html

Right choice of tea for you

http://www.thedailymind.com/health-at-work/tea-health-the-types-problems-and-health-benefits-of-tea/

Qipao(Chinese dress)

Last Sunday, one of my church members called me saying she has something to give me and I followed her to the parking lot she parked her car. Opening a trunk, she took a small paper bag out of it. There was a beautiful Chinese costume in the bag. Absolutely, she is Korean and there is nothing to do with china. Moreover, not only we don't wear Chinese traditional clothes, but we don't have it. Anyhow, I got it and tried to put on it at home. Unexpectedly, it's amazing. My husband works for a Chinese bank and hope I get a chance to wear the dress someday!

Crazy about baking

I bought GE hand mixer to make Rotiboy burn. This is very famous in Korea and I was so into its soft flavor and coffee scent. This bun is also known as the Mexican bun and franchise business was started from Singapore. I was eager to taste this bread but I could not find the store here. That's why I decided to make it for myself. The Rotiboy consists of three parts: the filling, topping, and sweet dough. Here comes the recipe. http://chezannies.blogspot.com/2007/02/rotiboy-butter-buns.html

Next day, my intensity for baking continued to rise and I am successfully done with making streusel bread. It looks like hot bread sold in the bakery. I told my husband that I want to run a bakery shop. He's careful in talking that I should focus on cleaning a disorderly house. :**<

Terrible day!

These days superfine fiber product is raising as a cutting edge technology and many items made of the superfine fiber are emerging in the market. Beddings made of superfine fiber fabric is also famous for its insecticide-treated and heat retaining function.

Last month, I got a superfine fiber bedding set including sheet, pillow covers, and comforter from a sister in law with my birthday present but I threw them down on the floor hesitating to wash all of them. It's really annoying my husband to take all the heavy things to the coin laundry.

Anyhow we took it to the laudry inside the complex but washer looks a little bit small compared to the load we have so we devided the load into two machines. After an hour, terrible things happend! When we opened the washer, we found beddings remainning detergent on the top and even unwettable both of them. Taking back huge and heavy beddings, we put them in the bath tub filled with water. I let them leave to dissolve in the water all night long and I spent more than 2 hours stepping on the laundry with moaning and groaning.

Finally, we got clean and fresh new bedding set.

In this morning, I checked warning tag on the comforter: NEVER SOAK IN THE WATER MORE THAN AN HOUR! AND DO NOT STEP ON! So frustrating...

The real Mt. Sinai in Arabia?

A few years ago, one Korean published a book titled "Shrub" and it has been talked a lot. The author worked for a prince in Saudi Arabia as a family doctor during about 7 years and he was a favorite with the prince. Finally, he got to visit all the prohibited biblical areas in Saudi Arabia thanks to the king and found the truth that Mt. Lawz in Saudi is a real Sinai in bible. He explored that area 13 times and took a lot of evidences after a life-staking adventure.

Actually he was not the first person to discovery. Many scholars have insisted that fact for ages and recent archaeological researches strengthen it's claim that traditional place Mt. Sinai in Egypt is not the real one the bible has showed.

Still many pilgrims visit the mountain of Moses located in southern Sinai peninsula where Moses is believed to have encountered God. To identify the Mt. Sinai, the place must have Elijah's cave, twelve pillars, split giant rock, water streaming from the mountain, and traces for living and burning and the mountain requires same conditions and sceneries around the mountain in the bible. As for me, recent discoveries seems more reliable because it's more persuasive when it comes to the evidences.

Today, the fenced and guarded mountain Lawz, contains 60,000 pounds of advanced military technology to control public access.

Elim in Saudi Arabia in the Midian Region, with 12 wells, as mentioned in the Bible. Left picture

Right picture
Aaron Sen who is one of biblical scholars stands in the split of this giant rock. Notice the obvious signs of erosion in this desert region.

The BASE Institute’s film shows Cornuke, who snuck onto the mountain. This movie clip contains some detailed images and pictures that help convey much information regarding Mt Sinai.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAAoYKQQgZo&feature=player_embedded#

Teaching philosophy

I think teachers should have a clear motive before teaching someone. In my country Korea, many parents force their children to enroll at the education college to make them teachers without considering their aptitude and character at all. It is often said that the teacher guarantees stable and secure life in Korea. I know a friend of mine teaching in the elementary school without any interest. She didn't want to go to the education college but she chose her parents' best not her best. Teachers have a great influence on the students through teaching whether it’s good or bad so we should have a sense of mission about our work because we are powerful. This is my basic principle of a teacher. Let's teach if we love teaching, let's teach if we are ready to love, and let us not teach if there is not any good motive at the bottom of the heart.

photo from School of Rock 'n' Roll

Why do I want to be a teacher?

Dead Poets Society, Freedom Writers, and Dangerous Minds! These are my favorite movies that strongly effected me. There is a common element in that all those movies are based on real stories and show special relationship between a teacher and students. All the while I was watching the movies, I thought there is no other job except a teacher who has a powerful influence on human beings. I was so impressed and touched even though I was not a teacher at that time. I promised myself to be an important and meaningful person who has influence on someone’s life, sometimes gives a turning point or stepping stone of those who I’ll meet in the future. Now, I decided to walk along the way they lived in those movies as a teacher. I’m not sure if I would be that kind of a great teacher, but I'll trying to make an effort to follow them by learning and finding some qualities a teacher should have.

Opening

Pensées is the collection of notes written by Pascal who was philosopher and mathmetician dealing with life and religious matter in 17th.

The reason I named my blog Julie's Pensées is this will be a space filled with random thoughts and essays on life.