Are you on dieting?

A few days ago, i read an article about food menu for an idol group. It's only 1200kcal per day while it should be 2000~2500kcal per day for adult. Everybody got a shock after read the article and felt sorry for them. I understand they are entertainer, so the beauty and body shape is so important for them. However, they are too young to eat only that calories. According to some health research, it is sometimes dangerous for women's bone health if they had dieting hard in their youth. Everyday from waking up to go to bed, we see skinny or slander women on TVs. And I agree that people want to be more beautiful and be looking good and diet to loose weights. But this heavy diet can give bad influence some teenagers or women.

I have seen lots of women taking diet peels in my workplace and others. I don't want to say it is bad but what i learned from it is ... i think it makes people feel bad and sensitive. Once they start to take the peel, they don't want to eat and looks depressed and got some nervous. So i don't recommend to my friends to take one.

snowy weekend....

I had a christmas party with my friends yesterday in edgewater,NJ. It snowed heavily in the evening, so it almost covered the road when we was out the place. It finished around 10:30 pm but I got home around 12:00 am because we should drive very slowly... During on the way home, we saw a car turn in 180 degrees. It seems the car was stuck in the snow and tried to be out of the snow, but it couldn't. Fortunately, the main road was cleared by snowplow car, we could get home safely. But one odd thing we saw yesterday was....we saw a police issued parking tickets in that heavy snowy situation....Anyway, this year has almost gone & i hope everythings what i hoping is coming true in the coming year, 2010.

Merry Christmas!

How to get best price for lease car...?

Thesedays, i consider to lease a car because i live in New Jersey. I have postponed to have a car because i take a bus to commute to school and house. But i graduate this month, so now i need one. And I found some useful information as i searched information about car leasing. I think it will be helpful to someone concern about car leasing. The tips for leasing is as follows:




Step 1 - The Information Request: After you choose a vehicle, fill out your basic contact information as requested in the PriceQuotes form. This information will only be used by dealers to provide you with pricing information on your new car request. Please note that your accurate contact information is required in order to process your purchase or lease quote request. Without accurate information, we are unfortunately unable to process your price quote request.


Step 2 - Record and Compare Price Quotes: Make sure to document and save all pricing information you receive from dealers. Sometimes you will have to send a follow-up email to the dealership to get a solid price or lease quote on the automobile of your choice. Be firm but polite for best results.

Step 3 - Follow Up: Let the dealers you contact know that you are not the typical car buyer and will only visit the dealership that offers you the best purchase or lease price. Car dealers value a phone call above an email and will often be willing to offer you an even better price. Ask for that new car price quote in writing, by email.

Step 4 - Persistence: Now that you have one price quote on the new car of your choice that is lower than the rest, call back all the dealers to allow them a second chance to 'outbid' the lowest price or lease quote. That way they have an opportunity to beat it. Don't forget to take all fees into consideration when calculating pricing.


Step 5 - Offer Your Own Incentives: Dealers have incentives to offer, but so do you: You can offer a dealer a positive rating on the Customer Satisfaction Survey that you are asked to fill out after you buy or lease the vehicle. You can also offer to review their automotive dealership on dealer review sites as well. Additionally, you could commit to servicing your vehicle at the dealership. These incentives have been known to extract excellent deals on new cars, whether buying or leasing.


Step 6 - Enjoy Saving Money and Drive Away Regret-Free: Congratulations. You should now have the lowest price in front of you. You should request a statement in writing from the dealership that they have the car you want, including the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and purchase or lease price you agreed upon.


(from www.pricequotes.com)

Assignment #3 : What went wrong?

“It could have been prevented. A lot of lives would have been saved.”
- Pearl Ellis, Hurricane Katrina victim


On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina swallowed New Orleans, Louisiana, and over 80% of the city was flooded by water. This catastrophe killed more than 1,400 Louisianans and damaged more than 100,000 houses and properties, so most of the area was uninhabitable for weeks. After the disaster, people started to ask “Where was national guard and army? (Frontline)” and “What went wrong and to whom we should blame for it?” The important fact is that it was the human disaster not the natural and the most of victims were poor and black. In addition, emergency preparedness was not settled properly against the disaster and victims didn’t get enough help for days even after the emergency situation.

Before Hurricane Katrina attacked New Orleans, there were many warnings about vulnerability of the levee system and costal erosion since 1976. According to many academic experts, the levee in New Orleans could not protect the city in strong hurricane situation and the U.S General Accounting Office reported that the greatest natural threat to the New Orleans area is posed by flooding from sea surges, waves, and rainfall. Moreover, after hurricane protection project was approved by Congress of President Lyndon B. Johnson, New Orleans still hasn’t the hurricane protection for 17 years after Hurricane Betsy in 1965.

One of the huge mistake in preparedness for the disaster was FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)’s failure in response during Katrina. Two years after 9/11, FEMA was merged into the Department of Homeland Security. According to former chief of staff, FEMA, Jane Bullock, it was the largest re-organization in 40years and FEMA became an office (sub department of Homeland Security) and very small. Therefore, cities and local government have been having lack of communication system in emergency situation and this prevent first responders’ take adequate action immediately in the emergency. In emergency situation such as a disaster, FEMA should response and make federal help within 48 to 60 hours following the disaster; it didn’t do anything before or during Katrina.

Furthermore, thousands of people were strand at superdome for days until securers came to help them. For days, the victims were not given even waters and in very dangerous place. Also, dozens of school buses which were usually have been used for rescue were under water, so couldn’t be used after Katrina. Therefore, this failure of evacuation led to preventable death and delay in relief.

As mentioned in “Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents are Rarely Accidental(2008)” by Marc Gerstein, lots of accidents were not unpreventable random occurrences. Hurricane Katrina also was not the unpreventable natural disaster but the result of inaction of men. That’s why we regret about this catastrophe because so many people’s life could be saved and could prevent physical damages if we hear more carefully about the warnings before it happened.

White Tiger (Zodiac)

A lot of pregnants in Korea is excited to deliver their baby in 2010. Because it is "White-Tiger" zodiac year which comes every 60 years. There are 12 zodiacs we have but also have other 10 criterions. So, it takes 60 years to be exactly same zodiac with the same criterions. And every 12 years, we can meet Tiger zodiac but 2010 is the first"White-Tiger"zodiac in 21C. Then, why is people excited for this zodiac? People have believed the baby who are born this year becomes brilliant and excellent officer. And elders usually don't prefer to deliver girls in Tiger zodiac year because they think the girl with the zodiac is too much strong. But they don't have to worry about "White-Tiger" zodiac baby.

If someone say it's just our traditional customs, i cannot refutate it. But I still don't understand why people believe and care about this when they have plan for baby. At least until now, i cannot find any coincidence between the personality and the zodiac....

Men's fickleness

Recently, Tiger woods' scandal has been a big issue. In a point of view as a woman, it is unbelievable story that he had a lot of women and some psychologist says that he is sex addicted guy. Maybe, he has been so stressful because he has been a legend golfer. Even elders in my country knows who Tiger Woods is. So i guess he should have relieve his stress through women, but it became tragedy to him in the end. Today, i went to church and one of church guys said that women don't know the fact that so many guys cheat on his wife. According to his opinion, maybe only 10% of men will not cheat on his wife throughout entire his life. Guys, Is that true? Also he said that .... so women should understand her husbands if the husband cheat on her only one time. Some point i can understand but i probably get soooooo angry if i know my husband cheat on after I get married in the future. Should i try to find 10% of guys who will never cheat on OR should i understand guy if he makes mistake. I still struggle for the answer.

End? New Start??

On this thursday, I bought a starbucks coffee before i went to the SOC4900 class. And it was shiny day w/ chilly wind. As walking one block to the building, i thought how many times i walk through this road and passed by this building during my college years. This is my last semester, so there is only one week left to attend school. There has been nice, happy, sad, frustrated, excited.....days during i attend this school. I met a lot of friends in this school even though many of them already gone to my country. When i started the study, it seems never ending story but now it seems just a dream. In a week, one of mountain in my life will be end (someone may not agree that it's a mountain, but it is to me, kk) and simultaneously, it is a new start in my life. I thank god that I can achieve the second BA degree and could study in NEW YORK. To anyone who graduate this semester, i would like to say "CONGRATULATION & GOOD LUCK TO YOU GUYS!!!!!"

Assignment #2 : New Orleans

New Orleans is often referred to as the unique city in the U.S and “horrible site but perfect situation” as we discussed in the class because of its history, culture and geographical features. New Orleans is the city where European settlers, African-Americans, Indians and Creoles mingled and coexisted closely together and produced its unique culture, food, language and music. So the city itself is the unique in terms of its culture and history in the country. The city experienced white flight same as other urban cities did but have higher index of residential segregation as well as system of schools. Also, the geography and other factors led the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.

With the civil rights movement in 1960s, the city also had desegregation in school system as other cities in the country. However, in “New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape”, many Catholics who didn’t want this integration with black people sent their children to parochial schools and didn’t want to pay school taxes because they didn’t get immediate benefit from it. And New Orleans developed private school system as to function as gatekeepers for admission into the city’s ruling elite. Therefore, with this racial tension and low investment in public schools, the public school in New Orleans was abandoned to black population who had insufficient educational enthusiasm. Desegregation of school system led more segregated school system in the end.

New Orleans had significant white flight as other urban cities in the country. Since desegregation of school system was effective, Catholic population and even blue-collar middle class white family who are unable to pay for private school fled to all white suburb area. As a result, there was significant decline of white population in the city and blacks outnumbered whites by 3:1 (the lowest white population since 1850) in 2000. Also, this residential segregation led the city had serious crime rates during 1980s and 1990s. Through these events, the New Orleans became more segregated and crime-prone city.

On August, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was covered by water when several levees failed to protect the city from Katrina disaster. The levees were built between the town and the Mississippi river since the 18th century against flooding of the river and storm surges from the sea. But due to this man-made engineering mistake and wetland reconstruction process, the city had land loss and coastal erosion between 1930 and 2005. There were many warnings by experts that the city is vulnerable against flood even with minor storms. According to the wind speed measurement (high wind speed) and other geographical feature such as the city lies below sea level, the Katrina disaster had already been warned and the city should be prepared against the disaster. However, as mentioned in “The Great Deluge” by Douglas Brinkley, with power on the side of shipping, federal moneys earmarked for levee improvement and other public safety projects often turned into harbor upgrades and other initiatives that actually improved the chances for a hurricane to do even more damage for their economic base such as interest of shipping and oil industry.

As mentioned earlier, New Orleans is horrible site to live in terms of its physical location (i.e. hurricane) but it has perfect situation because its favorable competition compared to other cities. However, as the city depending on shipping industry, oil, and tourism as their main revenue source, New Orleans had invested money in its harbor and other industry rather than protecting the city against Katrina. Even though many warnings were given to the city several years before they suffered from Katrina disaster, the city failed to protect itself against disaster and couldn’t save itself.

filling the stomach? or life?

I went to a homeless shelter today with my church family to serve meal to homeless people. We put foods in plates and serve them for about 1 1/2 hours. During homeless people eat the foods, one of them fell on the floor suddenly. He couldn't move and almost unconsciousness. So we called an ambulance to help him and he was rescued within 10 minutes. According to the other people, it is the second time for him to get rescue since last month. I am not sure it's because of alcohol or drug.

However, we were little bit upset because other people beside the man who fell on the floor didn't care about him. People just ate their food and didn't say anything and left the place when they finish eating. According to one of our church people, people can be like that if they are so hungry. I questioned that filling their stomach (it was only one meal) is more important than someone's life? I know that I cannot completely understand their situation. Nobody can say whether it is right if they are not in the situation. But i just surprised about the scene .

my birthday

Today is my birthday. When I woke up, i called to my mom and dad to say thanks. Since a few years ago, I always have said to my parents thank you on my birthday. I couldn't realized parents love that much before because it was always given to me since I was born. However, I get older and older and live separately with them to study in new york city, i realized how much our family and parents is important to me.


In Korea, mother makes brown seaweed soup for their kids on kid's birthday morning. Because we have customs that a woman who just delivered a child eats brown seaweed soup and everybody should eat brown seaweed soup on their birthday since they are born. But now, my mother is in my country, so I made the soup by myself this morning and i missed her as eating the soup. and i wish i can have a vacation to Korea on my next birthday and eat my mom's soup....That will be the biggest present to me.

Assingment #1 : Citizen Journalism

As a new communication method, blog’s role gets bigger in our life because it is not only expression of blogger’s opinion on their own blog but also it has influence on reader’s thought even more than main journalism in some times. It is true that ‘Freedom of the press’ is guaranteed only to those who own one as the journalist Abbott Joseph Liebling said and this also applied to the situation in Cuba that only a few people who can access the internet can see or do blogs. Even though there still be some invisible limitation of access for someone who cannot access internet, blog can provide lots of advantages to potential citizen journalists.

There are many advantages blogs have such as blogger doesn’t need any special training like journalist, blogger can post their writing immediately whenever they want without pre-censorship by institution or any special tools as Salam Pax(Baghdad citizen), Lieutenant Smash(American soldier participated in the war) and ntcoolfool(Virginia Tech student) did. Therefore, blogs provide to potential citizen journalists to write their opinion on their blog freely and make it possible to share their posts with other people anytime when they access internet. Occasionally, people more rely on blogger who really participate in the event than journalist in media.

Yoani Sanchez who posts her real life in Cuba also takes advantage of these blog features. In the nation’s situation that freedom of press is not guaranteed and the standardization/uniform of opinion is enforced by Cuban government, she posts her writing on her blog, Generacion Y, people around world can read her life in Cuba through the blog. With her blog, we can realize the real Cuban citizen’s life that they cannot live only with legal job and there still be a lot of restrictions in access to internet or speaking their own voice freely. But, Yoani jumps over this environment and give her own voice on her blog to be read by anyone inside or outside of Cuba and this is why we call her a brave woman and a citizen journalist. So many people outside of Cuba can see ‘real’ Cuban life through her blog and sometimes people believe and rely on her blog more than Cuban media.

However, Yoani just put her candid opinion or feeling on her blog as one of citizen in Cuba but it does not represent all of Cuban citizen’s opinion. Of course, I admit the fact that her posts are alive and have more reality compare to the articles issued by Cuban government. But it is risky to generalize Cuban life only after referring her blog. It could represent many Cuban citizen’s life but not whole of them.

It is definite that blog provide many advantages to potential citizen journalist like Yoani Sanchez has been doing. It is impossible for Yoani to express and speak out her voice outside of Cuba without blog. Blogging is a great way to reach outside of Cuba, and also outside of Cuba can reach to inside of Cuba, as vice versa. However, as a substitute of journalism, some of liabilities are required on blogs. Some people are apt to think it is whole idea and truth if they stick to specific blog. Therefore, bloggers should consider the power of influence of their post and be careful when they write something even though it is not a main media. Also, readers have to judge opinions on blogs with critical thinking. As more freedom requires more responsibility, freedom of speech has more responsibility on its reliability.

Black Friday

Today is black friday (the friday just following Thanksgiving day) and almost of retail stores offer big sales for today. The United States is the heaven of shopping and sale, especially for black friday & Christmas. Anyone who have plan to buy LCD TV, GPS,....would go to bestbuy or target, etc. around 5A.M (5A.M? .....it sounds crazy but really really lots of people do it.) to buy whatever they want. And on black friday in the last year, I went to Woodbury Common Outlet with my friends for shopping. We didn't intend to shop a lot but just wanted to enjoy the American culture. But it's so tired work, too much traffic on road and even did not experienced not that much benefits from shopping. And I disappointed with black friday shopping at that time and decided not to do this anymore.

However, I went to a NJ mall with my aunt today AGAIN as soon as she suggested me to go to the mall. I couldn't reject her suggestion, and I don't know whether it was just group mind or my greed. We went to the mall around 2pm. There still be lots of shopping people. Black friday...whether it is mass psychology or American's shopping culture... it's definitely great sales strategy for retailers.

Artists in NYC

When I came to New York a few years ago, it seems interesting that many amateur artists (musicians, singers and other performers) perform freely in subway station or in the street in NYC. It was so fresh and looks romantic because It was rare to see that kind of performance in the street or subway in my country, South Korea.(I could see it only in a few of artist's street...)

And recently, I saw one interesting pianist was performing at Union Square subway station when I was waiting for the train. I still wonder how he could move that piano under the subway station. Weird and Amazing!

Anyway, I love NY for not only it resembles my hometown, Seoul (crowded,busy and exciting..) but also i can see this full of romantic artists everywhere I go...

The Nutcracker Ballet

The Nutcracker Ballet is based on the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" written by E.T.A. Hoffman. The music for the Nutcracker ballet was written by Tchaikovsky in 1891 and it was introduced at the Mariinsky Theatre of Russia where the home of the Kirov ballet in 1982 for the first time. Since it was It has been introduced the Nutcracker ballet, it has been one of the most popular ballet and become an annual holiday tradition especially christmas season. The Nutcracker ballet will be performed from November 27th,2009 to January 3rd,2010 at Lincoln Center.

Tip: Students can be offered special discount when purchase the ballet ticket from New York City Ballet which is located at Lincoln Center. In my case, i can get a discount coupon at "Student life" center at Vertical bldg of our school. Enjoy the performance w/ good deal price!

Intro...

How do you start your morning?

I start my day with a cup of coffee. It arouses me from sleep and refresh myself. Maybe, lots of New Yorkers do like me. One of advantage of living in New York is enjoying delicious coffee easily. and my favorite cafe is 71 Irving Place, Dean & Deluca, Starbucks, Gregory Coffee, etc.






For someone who prefer sweet & bold taste might like 71 irving place
Between 18th and 19th Streets(between 18th St & 19th St) New York, NY 10003








For someone who likes sweety & slightly bitter taste
likes Dean & Deluca coffee.
Of course, there are several kinds of coffee you can choose in Dean & Deluca.

I fell in love with Manhattan blend these days!






Starbucks which is loved by many New Yorkers.
And they just introduced starbucks winter season cup
this week.