Passionate love.  It's what we call it when it's actually just infatuation.  But with pessimism aside I must say that I like you quite a bit.  I'm hoping that you'd be getting the picture by now but even if you don't have the same sentiments(or just don't care), it's quite alright-I love you.  Really.  Today I learned that unconditional love is the way to go, even if it's plain impossible without the help of God-but that's why I pray about this.  But please continue to make me smile with your being in my life, as it really does brighten it up in so many ways.  I really thank God for you everyday!

Then there's the music.  I struggle with the sheer magnitude of how great it is.  Infinite, and never-ending, created by the one and only Almighty.  It's so beautiful and I have not even began to unravel a fraction of what I know I could achieve through a life of faith and hard work.  My soul yearns to create and play what it cries out-"Glory, glory, to the Lord Almighty."  Just in the pure rush of freedom that is undoubtedly the expression of music.  True music rings out clearly when it is used for it's true purpose.  Touching, soothing, and healing souls-but most of all, Glory, glory.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of praise songs, guitar songs, whatever songs waiting to be played.  Thousands of techniques, chords,. scales, etc.  It will take literally years, no-decades of work perhaps.  But I do not have the time to wait that long, so God help me-Help me push through to become the best.

I'm not afraid to admit my passion for anything, God, music, and even a girl would not be an exception.  I no longer hide my passion-nor just speak of it as if it were some out-of-reach desire of mine.  Passion is mine and it drives me to work hard for the things I want.  What do I want?  His will to be done.  The above mentioned may not be written in, but I also know God has placed it in me. 

I will love, play, and worship passionately.

I wanted to post to my livejournal because if I were to ever look back on this and try to remember my life-there would be this huge gap that I wouldn't remember without the help of random posting :]

So at this point I am:
A sophomore in college, studying music while taking random crap at Ohlone - Classes are a bit tiring
Taking private jazz guitar lessons - Totally awesome, can't wait till I get better
Trying to practice my butt off for the above mentioned - I intend to become one of the best
Facebooking much too often
Trying to learn how to dance.  Well.
Saving up money for a motorcycle - Wow, lots of money needed :0
Teaching guitar  - For the motorcycle (as well as teaching experience)
Loving Jesus - Lots of ministry and fellowship-very thankful for everything that's happened
Really content


I have a random realization.  There is an ongoing pattern on girls I've crushed/liked/been involved with/whatever-ed ever since the end of my senior year.  THEY'RE ALL DANCERS.  What is with me and dancers?  Anyhow, it makes me laugh at how I've been single for like years on end :] - It makes me question whether or not I'll ever have a girlfriend in life...Oh well, celibacy sounds tough-but I may not have a choice in the matter xD


Alright, that should be enough.  Back to life.

*Edit*
Read through all my old entries and...

Wow, I just realized how melodramatic my life was back in high school, hahahha.  I used to complain about EVERYTHING.  And I think I was a heck of a lot more eloquent back then-Nowadays my writing isn't quite up to par because I'm not posting entries every 5 seconds something slightly bad happens.  

But I'm really thankful to see that there is a change in my writing (although, significantly less eloquent) because not only has my attitude towards life changed, but I believe I achieved many things that I thought were impossible back then.  God has really strengthened me over the years and shown me great things :]

After reading my entry on wanting to study music, I stopped talking about it and I strove towards it.  Today, I'm really proud to say that I am well on my way to studying music in college and hopefully on a professional level in a couple years.  As well as musical theater serving a greater purpose in helping me become more animate and social with others-definitely works with the youth group that I'm serving right now.  

I also remember certain entries implying that I really didn't like my church that I moved to-it's great to know that I absolutely love the people at my church and that I feel like God really has a hand in my life right now.  

Then there are the entries on my certain lady friends-I'm glad to say that there's absolutely no more drama between me and the opposite sex.  Feels good!

Dang, loads has happened.  Praise God !

Mediocrity, I will not fall to your standards
Sin, I will not lose myself to you
Life, I have found


I have better things to do than to screw around with the useless things in life.

It's been about two and a half months since I've posted anything and I guess it's time for that rare occasion when I jot down something that has some kind of relevance to my life.

I've often asked Pastor Jason, "PJ, you're a youth pastor-is this what you wanted?"  And quite often, when I talk to others about the general idea of what they want in life, they're usually met with "I don't knows" or "Not really...but my parents/family/friends _______, etc."  He's the first person I have ever met who has said they are living their dream-in a world where our hopes and desires become fragmented from day one, I'm thinking about what I want, very seriously. 

He asked me this after I said that I really wanted to study more into guitar-

"So you say you want to study guitar and then what?  There's a bigger picture, something that you want with all your heart.  What do you want?" 

We were made by God-and God has given us our innermost, genuine desires in life.  Usually, it's like that because it coincides with His desires.  So I'm searching for that...

I took Musical Theatre into serious thought-  I've improved a lot throughout the years I did shows.  Through all the rehearsals, training, and overall insanity of the theatre, I realized that this is something that I've only been doing just because I thought I had some kind of inherent talent deep down inside that would blossom as I progressed into more professional performing arts.  Yes, I can sing in tune and I can nail those harmonies pretty quickly now-I can act the part to the best of my ability, and although I stumble, I work hard at getting my dance in shape.  But would I make it?  Would anyone seriously consider me for professional musical theater?  A rhetorical question-the answer would be no.  I'm not limiting myself off from anything.  I'm just looking at the pure reality of it all.  I honestly cannot say I'm talented enough or that I would want to even put in the work to get to that level.

But, truth be told, if I have any talent in anything, I don't recognize it.  I'm not trying to act like I'm a sad, little boy that feels like there's no purpose in the world, but I'd really like some solid answers on my life. 

Then there's what I want to do-the impossibility of it is even worse than musical theater.  I want to study guitar.  I want to become a music major and get my b.a. and go on and get my masters in music.  But I even laugh at myself out of spite.  We take a good look at aspiring music majors-the kids who studied violin and piano ever since they were 3 years old and they go off into Juilliard to become the best.  Then we take a look at the guy who has never had a real guitar lesson in his life and he wants to do the same.

Truth be told, you can't just do anything you want in life-it's a fallacy that society thrusts into our arms from day one. 
A person who is tone deaf can never become a singer or anything that has to do with professional music.
A person who is blind can never become a photographer.
A person who has no sense of smell or taste can never become a chef (futurama!)
And so forth.  We aren't perfect.  But the good news is that we were designed to do something (at least in the Christian standpoint):

I want to know what I'm supposed to do.  If I somehow got an answer for guitar, then I would do it, even though my chances are pretty close to zero at this point.  If it's something else, then so be it.  I just want to know.

My head is pounding, my eyes hurt as they stare into this painfully bright computer screen, and I feel like crap.

As soon as my eyelids droop, my head starts acting up again and I'm forced to stay awake for another agonizing moment.  Except the pounding just keeps on going.

I feel lonely at church sometimes-It sucks to be one of those people who is kind of one of those floater types:
"they're-okay-but-they're-still-new-to-our-church-people."   Sometimes I sit around and I wish I had the whole experience of actually growing up in one church.  Knowing everyone and actually making your best friends at church is like the ideal form of fellowship to me.  Alas, I feel somewhat cast aside because I don't have any of that.

I haven't really been hanging out with anybody else.  It's somewhat nice to revert back to my antisocial stints...Solitude suits me when it comes to anything besides theatre and church.

Then there's that spiritual loneliness-I just don't feel that personal relationship or connection with God whenever I pray or read the Bible.  Sigh.  That totally sucks.  Maybe that's why I wish I had more in my friendships with other people at church.  Emptiness, go away!


I wish I was ten times better at playing the guitar.  Twenty for drums and bass.  Thirty for piano.  Forty for electric.  Fifty for life.

Pound.  Pound.  Pound.

Paramore was good
There was some band named Spoon or something?
Jimmy Eat World was incredibly awesome live
Angels and Airwaves...not so much
Modest Mouse = whatever.

Very annoying girls to the right
Slight suspicion that the guy behind me was trying to grope me
Kept getting smashed into the woman left of me
My right ear is slightly deaf
Legs are gonna fall apart

Concerts are like...uhm lets see:
The band/stage is the moon or sun
And the audience is the body of water
Gravity kicks in and everyone goes flying into the front
With one push everyone goes in some direction
Crazy.

My chest feels constricted
I feel like everything is closing in
I'm begging for escape
From my worries and my sins

I have no words to describe this feeling
This heavy, agonizing curse
Lord take my heart
And take away the hurt

All I need is you

I have a good friend of mine who entered this contest and she has seriously had this dream ever since she was little to play the role of Ariel from the Little Mermaid-I'm not asking you to vote just cause I asked(but please feel free to xD) but watch her video and please vote for her if you think she deserves it.

I don't care if you've been involved in musical theater or if you're a tone-deaf hobo-just vote for her please!

(if you've already voted for her and blah blah blah, please just inform anyone else you know-thanks)

Hurray for Lauren!
VOTE >:0
http://www.broadwayworld.com/mermaidvote.cfm?id=130

In no way am I angry(anymore at least) at anyone from church.  I'm just feeling kind of sad.Throughout my entire life, I have always hated one thing about myself that always leads me to irrational bouts of anger and frustration-My temper mixed with my pride.  Though I'm not quite as violently rebellious as I used to be, I was reminded strongly of myself (yesterday at church) when I lost my temper with a guy named Isaiah at church.  As I would frequently lash out immaturely and impulsively against anyone who criticized me(constructive or not), I totally saw myself in a whole different perspective.

We were all meeting together(juniors and seniors of the youth group + mister-college-boy-Will-Kwon) for the retreat staff meeting.  Typically, Pastor Jason starts us off by telling us to pray for our focus on God and pure hearts.  We get down and pray for ourselves to be forgiven of our sins throughout the week, for the success retreat, etc.  So afterwards, we get straight to working on body worship, preparing for games, making designs for the T-shirts and everything.  We start testing out games and I honestly get uncomfortable whenever guys start flirting with the girls at church, but I feel like I'm in no position to say anything.  However, yesterday, it got a little out of hand and a lot of sexually suggestive comments were being thrown around like it was nothing and I was already ticked off because the word "gay" was being used consistently to describe negative things. 

(Completely off-track but as a side note:  I absolutely hate it whenever people use the word "gay" to put something in a negative context.  It's not that I'm supportive of homosexual rights and whatnot-It's just completely insensitive for people to deem the connection between homosexuality and "f***ed up" to be the same thing.  "Oh, that's so gay.  Why are you being so gay?  That's hella gay."  Friggin ridiculous, man.  Yeah, you might not actually be thinking about gay people when you say that, but you know that that's what you base it off of.) 

Okay, so I basically got really mad and (feeling like a self-righteousness dickhead) said, "Guys, why the heck are you guys being so secular?"  Of course, the response would came to be something along the lines of "we're just messing around" or "take a joke."  I'm not blaming anybody for this cause I know exactly what they meant by it, but, we had just gone through some "praying for purity" and "right mindset for God."  I mean, we are the retreat staff for goodness sake...All these times PJ tells us that we should be role models for the younger kids of the youth doesn't even seem to comply with half the stuff that was talked about yesterday during games.  I'm totally at fault for getting pissed off at people but out respect for the truth, I'm not the only one who is.  I remember the point where I was so deeply immersed in my sinful behavior that I became numb to every single wrong move I made along the way.  If we sign up to be retreat staff, leaders, anything that puts you up for scrutiny from others, we should better be damn well sure that we're not gonna act like that.

"But the words you speak come from the heart-that's what defiles you.  For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander."
Matthew 15:18-19

I hate criticizing others for things like this because if they've done it once, I've done it  thousand times.  It makes me feel hypocritical but I also just felt obligated to say something.  Maybe I should just ignore it and get over it?  But then I wouldn't be keeping anybody accountable...Ugh, I'm frustrated because everything is just so obscure.  What is right?  What is wrong?  Blahhh.

I guess it would be to gently and lovingly remind my brothers and sisters in Christ (and myself) that we need to always make sure that we're pure in our hearts before we even try to do God's work.  And if talking trash defiles the heart, then we're just going to have to find other things to joke about other than things like sex.

Sigh.  God is good and I'm wondering if I'm going about things the right way.

So a lot of questions flashed through my mind before I began writing this.  There's no editing but I think about it as I go along. 

Who am I writing to at this very moment?
Well one would assume that I'm writing out to a mixture of my friends, myself, and to the unknown imaginary audience that totally cares about what Will Kwon writes in his journal.  I came to the conclusion that I'm actually writing to myself mostly and that it helps clear my thoughts.  Truth be told, this has to be wrong because it only narrows down the bigger problems in life which I rarely ever mention on my journal or facebook(or anywhere else).  I write about the petty "Oh, you know...school and stuff,"  but where is the brutal honesty that should be in my journal?  It won't help me grow if I don't even open up to myself. 

So from this point on, this is not for my friends but moreover for myself.  Let me delve into the confines of my mind and try and lay them all out so I can take a good long look at them and sort through the priorities.  Anyone is welcome to read this but reserve judgement for someone who actually cares about what you think of their lives-As for myself, I will take a look at everything from the good to the bad and try to learn, change, and live. 

The entire breakdown would come down to 3 very general categories-God, Relationships(friends and family), and School

God - By far the most important above all else.  I think the only characteristic that I can truly affirm as positive within myself, would be the fact that previous experience without God, has made me hold onto Him(in varying degrees of willingness) no matter what.  However, I am a spiritual rollercoaster and a double-life Christian. 
Nothing to the extreme, really-I don't go off praising God one moment and get drunk or high within the next.  I do act completely differently around my theatre friends than I do at church. Some great examples would be that I, a self-proclaimed Christian within the confines of the theatre, do not care whenever someone talks about anything sexual or secular in general.  In fact, I will most likely, without fail, make a joke about it and join in.  I get bothered, but not enough to drop out of the conversation or avoid talking about anything that would bring me down spiritually.  I get caught up in the whole cycle of purifying myself on Sunday and slaughtering myself for the rest of the week.   Therefore, I will have to make the choice to either give my heart wholeheartedly to God or continue to compromise and lead a double-life, which makes me no better than the drunkard, or druggie, or anything.  Sin is sin. 

Spiritual battles that are going on with myself currently is the obvious-lust and spiritual emptiness.  Although I've never had sex and I will try my hardest to abstain from it until marriage, I am not afraid anymore to express that I struggle with it.  It's a constant battle of trying not to think about it and acting upon it.  I completely gave up pornography a long time ago but along the way I would relapse and fall back in the cycle of destroying myself and asking for forgiveness.  I'm always trying to fight against it and I think I'm finally starting to win because I'm not relying on myself for once.  I think every Christian guy(and every other guy in the world) walks down this path and finds him to always be a slave to it at certain points of his life.  It sucks how American society completely advocates sex and doesn't even try to censor it from the youth-it's completely normal to have had sex up to my age of 18.  How sad is that?  But anyhow, ignoring my random tangents, I will no longer be a slave to something that I know won't make me feel any better about myself.  It's not gratifying to give in the lustful pleasures-how many times must I regret spending my time in front of the computer, wasting my life away on porn and video games?  It never ceases to amaze me how I fill myself up with all that crap and I never seem to get that God is the only thing that satisfies.  A memorable verse revolved around a common message about spiritual emptiness-"As a dog that returns to his vomit, so is a fool who repeats his folly." Proverbs 26:11
I'm exhausted.  Truly drained of all my strength and joy because I continuously make the same mistakes.  But, I refuse to make the same mistakes now.

Beyond the double life, lust, and general struggles, I know that I just need to find my foundation in God.  That's it.  Cause God is good all the time.

Relationships - Friends:
I neglect my friendships because the truth would just be that I take what's convenient about a friendship and throw away the rest of it.  If you want a good friend, I am not the person to turn to because I never answer my phone and I hardly ever call anyone.  But then again, if my habitual phone silencing is all there is to validate a friendship, then I have never had a friend.  This is mostly directed to the people who constantly complain that I don't pick up my phone:  Live with it.  I'm not perfect and neither are you.  If you can't appreciate how I've made the effort to try and keep it with me more often, then forget everything else.  I don't need my friends to grate my face into the ground some more by conveniently reminding me at every minute that I'm flawed in the areas of maintaining a healthy friendship.  I may be an idiot about a lot of things but I'm not so unintelligent that I don't know my own shortcomings.  So, now that I've finished that, take it from me and brood on your own flaws, not mine.  Don't get me wrong, I respect your opinions and you, but you don't see me attacking you for anything I think is inappropriate going on in your life.  I'm working on trying to be a better friend to anyone who comes my way but don't foist your standards upon me because I hate that.  I guess I'm being a bit defensive but like I said, I'll work on trying to be a better friend to all. (I don't have a best friend!)
Friends in Christ:
I don't nearly spend enough time with my Christian friends and yet, my most of my valued friendships are among them.  I can't say I've been trying hard to reconnect with people but we can at least say that we're friends.
Family:
I still have a really hard time sometimes with my parents but I know I love them because they actually try to attempt to find peace with me.  We may have our different views and we're often at odds with each other but they try especially hard to overlook a lot of my bad habits and attitude.  SO!  Mom, dad-I appreciate you guys cause I doubt anyone else could have really put up with everything I've put you through.  Hope I can say this to you in person one day.
My sister is one of a true hero(or heroine in her case) in my life.  She is my second-to-Christ and I love her because of all the care and love she's poured out to me.  She never fails to put me before her friends and always supports me through every hardship I encounter.  All I can say is that I need to show my appreciation for my parents and my sister by changing.  Change being more respect and thankfulness for them.  I'm a totally crappy son and a crappy brother so I know I have a good long way before I can really be genuinely respectful and loving towards my parents and sister, but I resolve to ask God to help me out for all of this.

School - Ohlone really is a bummer for me and as usual I'm lacking the dedication to attend more than 3 classes a week when I'm taking 6 separate courses that holds classes that meet at least 2 to 3 times a week in itself.  Bottom line is that I need to ditch my lethargy and get right to the work.  I screwed up so badly this semester that I'm surprised that I didn't consider running away to some far away country in shame(changing my name to "The Will").  But honestly, I can't expect myself to do well if I didn't even show up half the time.  One reaps what one sows, I suppose.

Theatre is the path I feel like I have some merit in.  But maybe God has something else in store for me-This is an open ended area because I have yet to get well-connected with God again so I have yet to find out if this is what I really should pursue.  Cast aside all hopes and dreams for the sake of Christ and you will receive much more than achieving all those hopes and dreams.

I always get this nice soul-cleansed feeling whenever I clean my room.  It's extremely strange but when I clean my room, it radically changes the way I approach the week.  I guess my life really runs parallel to the state of my room(just kidding).  But that clean feeling is something that I intend to get when it comes to all these aspects of my life.  I can throw a couple shirts and jeans into the hamper but the real clean up job is really myself and who I am as a person.  I have clearly defined what I want to be-not what I am, but what I intend to be:  A God/Family/Friend-loving, non-hypocritical/contradictory, solid student.  Tall order, but I'm not the one that can make it happen.
-Will

Hillsong United is crazy. 
I totally agree with David when he said that 90% of it was most likely emotional hype from everyone but it was fun nonetheless...He was like "GUYS!  Lets sing Our God is an Awesome God.  Right now!"  after it was all over.  Haha, I love that guy.

I sort of fell into place pretty close to the front with a lot of people from my church and I decided to be nice to the younger girls of church and pushed them in front of me so they could get a better view of the band.  My reward for that was an awesome sweat-filled crazy time with a bunch of masculine men-Paul included. 

Being my very first concert(I don't really count choir or orchestra), I had absolutely no idea of what to expect.  It was like a sophisticated praise night I guess...Everyone kept screaming for Hillsong and stuff but David was like "Yeah!!  Jesus!!!"  Good times.

I give up in a happy way :]

Philosophy Midterm Tomorrow - Getting it covered-I will do my best.
5 Page essay due in 3 days - Barely started - I'm okay.
God is good - All the time.

Putting on a happy face and punching myself in the stomach.

There's that cliche saying about how you never truly appreciate something until it's gone-Once again, it has rung true in my life and i'm sitting here, feeling very empty.  

God is always with me, no doubt about that-However, leaving my church is one of the most painful things I could possibly go through.  It was just 2 short years that i've spent at HKBC and they are by far the most memorable and cherished years of my life.

I have always wanted to play guitar and lead praise.  Today James asked me if I could play guitar and Prisca (current praise leader) was going to ask me to be the next praise leader.  How ironic that God would listen to my desires and have them presented to me but have me move away from all of that.  Though my intentions for wanting to become praise leader wasn't sincere in the beginning, I know that God has confirmed that i'm at least worthy to do so now and that's more than enough.  

I walked into that church angry, confused, and heart broken.  You see me today, walking out, proud that I have had such a wonderful group of people devote themselves and love me along with everyone else.  Through God's amazing power, I have been changed drastically, for the better.  

I spent most of today recounting all the memories I shared with each and every single person in the youth.  Lets see if I can remember them now-

Ecuador
Maple Story
Swiggles
My piano song
Making fun of Priscilla and Prisca
Summer retreat
Noah's Ark
Discipleship Training
Random talks with JDSN
Basketball
Soccer
Hot cheeto puffs
Guitar
Mafia
Send Your Reign
Car Washes-Water Fights
"Makes you fat."
"So-ckuh!"
"Jellyfish!"
"Painting!"
Kickball
Rite Aid
Small Groups
Ping Pong
School
Lydia's Strength
Yale's Hair
Prisca's Awkwardness
Priscilla's Common Sense
Sam's pose in pictures
Steve Oh's Randomness
Josh's Affection (for Priscilla through rude comments)/Clavicle/getting hit by a car
The 3 Stooges
Joseph's Trolli Eggs
JDSN's jokse/dancing/messages
Daniel's homosexuality
Kyle's awesomeness
James' (and my) dance
James Ko's Guitar Lessons
Water World
Grace Night
Christmas snowboarding with ramen for dinner
Happiness
Spirituality
God's Word/Power/Grace/Mercy/Righteousness/Love

I doubt I even covered a good solid amount but this is just off the top of my head-
All in all, I thank everyone at Hayward Korean Baptist for being "my church."

I really liked these...

Send Your Reign has three goals. 

 

Exaltation – ultimately every soul, every tongue, and every creature is to exalt, glorify and worship God.  This is the reason why we exist and SYR seeks to do that through music, dance, media, and most importantly study, obedience, and reading of God’s word!

 

Unification – it isn’t enough that one church does well with a huge church, huge youth group, and an awesome praise team.  We are all ONE body as it says in God’s word (1 Corinthians 12:20) and we are called to save souls, not compete for them, we are to worship in one accord, not to compare praise teams, and we are to live out our faith together, not divide ourselves over non-essential truths.  Can you imagine a body part working against the body?  We call those headaches, stomach aches, a cramp, or even cancer!  When we work against each other we forget that we are actually hurting the body of Christ.  But when we become one, we are force to be reckoned with and that is something Satan is straight up on preventing that from happening. 

 

Intercession – without prayer, all of our goals and ambitions are just that.  We do not dare go before God without seeking Him first.  Jesus interceded for the lost and believers alike and if we follow this model we will see fruit and astonishing results.  We want to be a generation that still believes and will believe with no double-mindedness that prayer is powerful and works.  8)