Tag: homeownership

It’s funnier when it’s not applicable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I make a lot of references to the Jessie Spano caffeine pill freakout from Saved by the Bell.  A lot of people make references to the Jessie Spano caffeine pill freakout from Saved by the Bell. It’s a great pop-cultural reference for when one is super excited about something, almost almost to the point of it being scary, or maybe it actually is scary.  Or maybe the part where she breaks down and talks about being scared is omitted, and it’s just a reference to the part where she sings I’m So Excited, all drugged out and addled that we all laugh at.

But how many people remember the context of the rest of the episode?  Why Jessie Spano was on “caffeine” pills in the first place?  I doubt nearly as many as the people who make references to the signing part actually do.

Jessie was taking speed because she felt that there weren’t enough hours in the day to study and cram for her lofty academic aspirations, and used the extra time not sleeping to hit the books.  Sure, it created a mild addiction and an eventual crash that led to the iconic exciting moment, but the context of it revolved around the perceived feeling that there is not enough time.

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The occasional heartache of moving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have vague memories of when I was eight years old, moving from my birth home in (then-) rural Virginia to the bustle and civilization of Northern Virginia.  One of the things that stuck with me was that when my family pulled away from the house for the last time in our old Toyota Celica, was seeing a neighborhood girl that was my age standing in her front yard, and she waved at us.  I remember her name was Evan.  I remember being at an age where moving wasn’t that big of a deal, although my sister was pretty miffed at moving from an area where elementary school was K-5 to a place that was K-6, meaning she had to put up with one more year of elementary school and sharing the bus with a little brother.

When my family moved again when I was in the fifth grade, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal then either.  Sure, it kind of stunk knowing I’d have to start over again at another new school, but my family was doing well financially at that time, and we were moving into a huge baller home, and there was something exciting about switching schools mid-year.  It also helped that my new school was slightly behind in curriculum than my former one, so I literally coasted for a while before actually getting back to learning.

It was during my sophomore year of high school that my family moved again.  This one I remember being a little harder to cope with, mostly on account of the fact that I was a moody, broody 15-year old then, and the fact that the circumstances behind the move weren’t necessarily positive or free will; the restaurant business was going downhill, the family’s finances were following, and it was more like being forced to downsize and move to a smaller home, rather than it being a bright and promising change.  I didn’t particularly care for moving back then, but growing up has made me understand and accept why it was necessary.

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Discontent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am not happy.  I have not been happy in quite some time, to be perfectly honest.  It has little to do with the year, or things that are happening around the world, because I feel that the state of my country is going down the shitter in my humble opinion, or that the Atlanta Falcons choked the biggest choke there possibly could be in the Superb Owl.  Although, alternate outcomes of either of the last two might have made some days brighter than they’ve been, they are not the reasons to why I am not happy.

It’s the world immediately around me that’s making me feel brought down lately.  I thought I’d feel a little bit of reprieve when some particular events came and went, and would be in the rearview mirror, but I can’t honestly say that things do.  I’m relieved of the unburdening of some of the responsibilities, but the fallout and aftermaths of them linger, and they are still far from resolved, and no matter how much I can tell myself that I shouldn’t care, I still do, because that’s what I do, I care, I give shits, even when I don’t want to.

In a nutshell, my parents’ divorce is going poorly, my family is basically in shambles and I’m in the process of moving all my shit out of the house I’ve lived in for the last 14 years and dealing with a lot of anxiousness pertaining to changes in life.  I do not feel like I have an adequate support system behind me leading me to feel like I don’t have people to really speak to without conflicting interests, and it doesn’t matter where I go, because I don’t really feel like anywhere is necessarily home for me right now.

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The obligatory 2016 year in review post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Frankly, I don’t much feel like writing lately.  I’ve been leaning on the crutch of trying to find an intriguing story to me with hopes of sparking some motivation to write, and opting to not force the issue and not writing anything if nothing emerges.  Otherwise, I haven’t felt particularly driven to write, and it’s safe to assume that when I’m not busy, have plans or something to do, I’ve kind of been in this depressed state of being, where my life simply kind of feels like it’s on hold and I’m not particularly happy with my life.

But as far as I can observe, that seems to be a general sentiment felt by many, as 2016 comes to a merciful close – not particularly happy.  Make no mistake, whether you believe a narrative can be conveniently encapsulated within a calendar year, or if it’s coincidental to be insulated within twelve particular months, 2016 was a pretty rough year.  Maybe it was because of the litany of celebrity deaths, from Prince, David Bowie to the seemingly endless coverage of Carrie Fisher.  Maybe it’s because of the election of a president that is a known bigot, sexist and racist and the dread of knowing that he will be in charge of the country for at least the next four years.  Maybe it’s the ever-growing dredge and pessimism and ‘if it bleeds it leads’ mentality of the media and the social shitstorm it brews over social media, leading to this endless cycle of negatively connoted news we’re incessantly exposed to.  Maybe it’s because in our own personal lives, we’ve dealt with loss, bad news, or diminished feelings of hope for the future at the home front.

Or maybe it’s a little bit of all of the above, or any combination of such.  Who really knows, but it goes without saying that for most of the people in my own little world, the negative outweighed the good by a tremendous margin, and that notion in itself is why I’m one of the many that is looking forward to 2016 ending, and hoping that 2017 might just be a little bit better.

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Life in limbo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a little bit of time since I didn’t write about a particular subject in mind, and blabbed on about life in general.  At least, I think it has; it’s sometimes hard to keep track when my brog is still down, which I’ll address in a little bit.

But saying life were all peaches and honey would be inaccurate, I hate to say.  Things are not completely in the toilet by any means, but I’d be lying if I said that I woke up every day and didn’t have a sense of unease and general discontent with life as a whole over the last few weeks, months, and maybe even 2016.  Sure, it’s en vogue to talk about how shitty of a year that 2016 has been in terms of people dying, the rise of Donald Trump, and other negative things, but when I stop and think about things in my own little stratosphere, I have to say that 2016 has been a pretty downer of a year.

Sure, my vacations to Europe and Korea were pretty good, and I can definitively pinpoint where I felt the most happiness I have in the year, maybe longer, but in the grand spectrum of the package as a whole, 2016 has been kind of crappy.  And as a result, I feel like I’m more often sitting on a happiness rating of like 40, out of a 100 on any given day, with occasional spikes of good times and happy moments sprinkled here and there.

Part of my general discontent with life has to do with the fact that I’m an empathetic person, prone to letting the misfortune and unplesantries of others affect my mood.  There’s no denying that part, and it sucks, but I’m an empathetic person who cares about others despite my best efforts to not sometimes.

But I would say the other part has to do with the fact that my future is kind of uncertain as the year winds down, because life is moving forward, I’m not getting any younger, and truth be it, there’s nothing wrong with moving forward; it’s a natural progression of life.

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This is me lately

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Minus the caffeine pill addiction, but it’s how I feel way more often than naught.

I have a lot of things that I feel I need to do: edit down nearly 2,000 pictures from Europe and Korea.  Write about experiences in Korea.  Build a prop.  Take care of household chores, like replacing the kitchen light and paring down the shrubs.  Write some more, about random, inane things for a brog that’s been down since fucking April, that nobody will see until I migrate my site.  Clean my house, so that I can someday sell my house.  I need a haircut.

So what do I do?  Write about how I feel like I don’t have enough time, or any time, instead.

In my defense, I am currently not in a place where I can do much of my self-imposed workload, although I could write about Korea but I was there for two weeks how can i parse it all down to a few words???

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Getting penalized for being competent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Well that’s bullshit: program funded by $110 million federal dollars will provide up to $50,000 of relief to homeowners stuck in underwater mortgages; under specific conditions, none of which demonstrate the ability to be financially responsible much less competent at all

There’s no sugar-coating it, my home’s been underwater for the better part of, since I’ve lived in it.  The house was purchased in 2004, the value of the home rose a little bit for each of the first three years, and then the housing bubble popped, and the values of homes sunk faster than Yahoo stock.  My life was in a way different place back in the day, but I remember getting the first letter that stated that my home no longer had any equity that could be borrowed from, and as far as I know, that hasn’t recovered, even to this very day.

Needless to say, I’ve become very attuned to the concept of underwater mortgages throughout the years, and I should feel fortunate that my household has been in the minority of most underwater homeowners, and that we’ve always been able to pay the bills every month, and have been able to maintain good standing with all home expenditures throughout the years.  We’re actually getting to the point where the mortgage is practically whittled down to where we might be able to even hit a break-even point, with the underwater estimates.

At this point, a push is a win, and Jen and I can brush ourselves off from this failed gamble and figure out the next steps in our lives.

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