My Birthday Wish: Educational Opportunities for all

Can you just see the mischievous smile?
This is my rock and my home: my family.

Perhaps I'm starting to get old enough that I forget when my birthday is approaching or maybe I'm young enough that procrastination is still an issue, but lo and behold, my 24th birthday is tomorrow, Sunday, July 17th.  I have been inspired by some amazing friends to raise money for a great cause for my birthday.

The charity I'd like to raise funds for in honor of my birthday is the DREAM Scholarship Fund.  You can donate by going to this link (http://krcla.org/en/Dsf_give) and selecting the right-most Donate link "For all other states (NAKASEC)".  Please include in the memo a notation to the effect of "Tim Huey's Birthday Donation Drive".

Checks can be written out to "NAKASEC," memo "DSF - THuey Bday" and mailed to:

NAKASEC

1628 16th St. NW

Suite 306

Washington, DC 20009

I believe in this cause so much that I myself am pledging that for every four dollars donated I will match the funds with one dollar of my own.  So if this drive raises $400 I will donate $100, if $1000 then I'll put in $250, and so on and so forth.  My favorite number is 7, so my goal is to raise $700 by the end of the month of July.  With your amazing love and support I know this will happen.  

So what is the DREAM Scholarship Fun and why is it so important to me? Founded in 2007 by Korean American Youth who for the past decade have campaigned for the passage of the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act), the DREAM Scholarship Fund will award several $1,000 scholarships to students in California, Illinois and nationwide who face undue financial hardships.  For more info please check out: http://nakasec.org/blog/2499.  This video also provides a great personal perspective of what the DREAM Scholarship Fund means to recipients 

Education has given me so many wonderful experiences and opportunities in life, including the chance to work in Washington, DC now.  It is only fair and just that I do all that I can to provide equitable educational opportunities to others so that our society can become an even better place in the future.  I think we can all agree that education is a crucial part of solving the issues our world faces today so please donate and spread the word.

With that I thank all of you who stuck with me and read this all the way through for your time, consideration and support.  Bonus: please enjoy the attached baby and little troublemaker family picture of mine.  I know what you're thinking, "Cute kid, what the heck happened?!" 

Peace and love,

Tim

Zen like focus...and right now I'm focused on asking YOU to help me raise $ for the DREAM Scholarship Fund!

Bike time for Free.99!

Score. Just got a bike FOR FREE! You all don't get how helpful this is in the part of DC where I live right now. No more 20 minute walk in 97 degree heat back from Safeway worrying that my refrigerated goods are going to sweat out. No more getting stranded by a super late bus, the only bus that comes to my part of town.

Like I said, this is a score. So I spent a lil money on a bike lock and pump, whatever it's totally worth it. Yay! :D

DC Housing CUHRAZINESS!

For the longest time I've been meaning to blog about how crazy the DC housing scene has felt this past month.  I've been extremely lucky to be staying with an amazingly generous friend that I roomed with last summer.  For the second summer in a row he's temporarily given up his bedroom for my use, insisting that it's "no problem" because he's out of town a lot and when he is in DC he's fine with staying with his boyfriend.  Furthermore, in lieu of me paying him rent, he's asked that I donate the same amount of money to an animal shelter in Costa Rica that he spent some time at recently.  He repeatedly says of the owner of the shelter, "she can use the money more than I can."  Seriously, this man has a heart of gold.

Now, regarding the housing craziness, well for one thing there are the prices.  I'm relatively new to the renting game so to speak but the prices in the District are at least comparable to the SF Bay Area and I keep hearing from friends from other parts of the country that either area's prices are ridiculous.  I won't get into numbers, but yeah it's ugly.

Faced with this challenge but armed with my relatively easy-going personality I figured I'd go with a group house or some sort of shared housing situation.  Little did I know how competitive that gets.  Maybe it's because of the bad economy that people aren't buying homes but instead flooding the rental market with competition.  I've been to countless open houses in the past few weeks and every time I see a steady stream of would-be renters coming for tours and putting their info down as interested.  It's exhausting for everyone involved, landlords included.

That moves me to my next point, the terrible response rate of Craigslist posters.  I have to attribute it to the overwhelming number of inquiries each post must be generating that exhausted households and landlords must be giving up at some point with trying to respond to each inquiry and/or notify them when a room is no longer available.

I literally was walking to an apartment to view it having already set up an appointment to do so, when I called to check the address and was met with a voicemail machine saying that the place had already been rented out.  Apparently the landlord couldn't be bothered to cancel the appointment(s) they had set up already.  Rude, but sadly I can understand why, if not accept that as a reasonable excuse.

I've had at least four close calls where I thought I had a place only to be told I hadn't made the cut, or that I had called to commit only hours after someone else had already secured the place.  One time I even viewed a place, took a walk to think things over and when I called two hours later to commit I was told someone had put down the deposit right after I left.  Sigh.

Thanks to my friend I'm not homeless yet, in fact there are some positive developments in that regard that are still in flux so I can't share them yet.  I have a lot of friends coming to DC now as interns and the like that are looking for summer housing which is also making things crazy as I do my best to help them.  I've heard some crazy suggestions so far on what can be dones to secure housing, including overbidding for a room during the open house process, which I think is ridiculous considering the posts are for a stated rate, not soliciting best offers.  I think it just corrupts the whole process, but that's just my opinion.

In any case, my advice when seeking housing in DC be it temporary or long term leases is if you don't have infinite amounts of money, have back up options/couches to crash on and leverage your networks for housing options.  Two out of the four really close calls I've had with housing were the result of networking through friends rather than traditional Craigslist postings.  Networking for housing options is more likely to yield an actual response instead of waiting and wondering if anyone's read your Craigslist email.

Well, wish me luck, and best of luck to all of you out there in search of DC housing!

Check out THE VOICE!

So my family's a Dancing With the Stars kinda bunch, so every Monday and Tuesday night we'll sit down in the family room and catch our favorite stars and pros twirl around the ballroom as Bruno, Carrie Ann and Len give scores and make weird comments.

That said, I was intrigued when NBC started promoting this show called The Voice on Tuesday nights.  Despite it being on at the same time as the DWTS results show I decided I had to check it out so I channel flipped during the first episode.  Great talent + good banter + great concept = I'm hooked.

For those who aren't familiar with the show, the basic premise, at least in the initial stage is that the reality singing competition is looking for the next great Voice, irregardless of looks and performance ability (read: sucking up to the judges).  It starts with blind auditions where the four celebrity coaches (not judges mind you): Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, pop powerhouse Christina Aguilera, creative genius Cee-Lo and country star Blake Shelton all have their backs turned to the stage as the singing hopefuls perform.  The coaches each must pick 8 singers for their own team to move on in the competition by hitting a "I want you" button when they're convinced by the singer's voice alone.  They have until the end of the song to do so, otherwise the singer is out of the competition.

This round has been the most compelling conceptually and it has delivered with some unexpected performances, coaches exchanging charming banter as they campaign for why a singer should join their team and some surprisingly warm hosting from former MTV TRL VJ Carson Daly.  Great moments have included when all four coaches have hit their buttons, giving the singer the difficult but enviable choice of whom to go with, as well as Adam Levine mistakenly thinking one male singer, "was a chick".  It truly was about the voice.

The next round is the battle round where coaches must pair up their singers to pit them head to head in duets after which that coach must decide which one stays in the competition and which goes home.  It really is gut-wrenching because everyone's so good.  If you only watch one bit of The Voice (all episodes are on http://www.hulu.com/the-voice) I hope it's the last battle of episode 3, where Cee-Lo's first pairing, Vicci Martinez and Niki Dawson belt out Pink's "F**kin' Perfect" which everyone hailed as the best duet of the night.  I loved it so much that I downloaded the 2 minute song on iTunes right after seeing it.  Watch it, you won't be disappointed.

Hope you get a chance to check out this great show, like I said I'm hooked and I think you will be too.

Tim welcome to the NAKASEC, dive right in!

So this was my first half week of work at NAKASEC, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium.  The first couple of days were simple half days of orientation, paper work and getting to know the people I'll be working with.

It was Friday that things got really hopping as I dived right into my role as Operations Manager by researching new office set-ups, equipment, travel arrangements and more.  It's probably indicative of the passion, focus and workaholicism that we all bring to the table that none of had eaten lunch until 12:30pm or later and none of us left the office until after 6:45pm ON A FRIDAY!  Our office closes at 6pm so that's not quite as horrific as it may sound to you 9 to 5ers, but still.  I think we're all going to have to keep after each other about self-care throughout the months.

If you'd like to learn more about NAKASEC, please visit our website at www.nakasec.org.  Thanks for reading!

Happy Mothers' Day 2011

My mom seeing me off to DC!

 Yesterday was Mothers' Day. Being nearly 3,000 miles from home now, I felt the need to do something besides a simple phone call to my mother. We'd done a combined celebration of Mothers' Day and my going-away party as a family the week before, but I knew there had to be something more I could do.

I'm so lucky to have an inspiration like my Paw-paw in my life.  She's been through so much and just keeps on adapting and thriving.

Enter the Jubilee Project. I've been a huge fan of this YouTube channel/group for about a year now (check out their video "Love Language" it's amazing). The concept that these three guys have put together is to film videos to raise money for charity. They find a charity that's in need, create a video related to the topic and post it while appealing to their fans to sponsor the video with a penny per view for that month (sponsors can always put a cap on how much they're able to donate). Then people can support by simply viewing and sharing the video as many times as they can, being touched by the subject matter and raising awareness as well.

In any case, the Jubilee Project created this Mothers' Day video for the month of May and I decided it would be a fitting tribute to my mother, grandmothers and all the other women in my life past, present and future to become a sponsor of the video. Here it is:



http://youtu.be/3D6s36W1Ngk?hd=1

For more information about the Jubilee Project check out:
http://www.youtube.com/​jubileeproject
http://www.jubileeproject.org
http://www.facebook.com/​jubileeproject
http://www.twitter.com/​jubileeproject

Of course I couldn't help but be inspired by this video to create an addendum to it of my own. So amidst the streets of DC I filmed my own thoughts on a world without mothers and why I love the mothers in my life, edited it and emailed it to my mom and Paw-paw (grandma), all on my iPhone (gotta love technology sometimes). That video will remain private for just them, but I encourage all of you to do something similar for the women in your lives if you feel inspired to do so.

Although my Ngin-ngin may not be with us physically anymore, I know she's always with me making sure we've all eaten and playing card games with her grandchildren for which only she knows the rules.

I hope you all had a wonderful Mothers' Day and got to spend it with the ones you loved, either physically or via technology (yay Google video chat). I know that this sun always shines brighter with the comfort of his mother's love and support.

P.S. Here's another touching Mothers' Day video, a music video this time from Seattle artist GOWE (Gifted on West East). His debut performance of this song was at Kollaboration Seattle last year and apparently it had plenty of people in the audience tearing up. An emotional true story:



http://youtu.be/fXcblBDTAoQ?hd=1

The Sun has come out to Play in DC!

> Wednesday morning I arrived at Dulles Airport after a nice 5-hour direct flight. Got picked up by my awesome relative, Uncle Baldwin who treated me to a yummy IHOP breakfast before braving the traffic back to DC proper. He helped me unload and shop for groceries as I settled in for a short stay at my old apartment where my former roommate Brad is letting me stay while he's volunteering at a Costa Rican animal shelter. After settling in I promptly knocked out for a 4-hour nap.
>
> Next was an ironing rampage to get all the travel wrinkles out of my pants and shirts, before making some spaghetti for dinner. (Yes, Tim has some domestic skillage!)
>
> Okay pretty basic stuff yeah, but at least I've adjusted to the time zone quickly and now I'm off to a political activism talk by actress Tamlyn Tomita (Karate Kid 2, The Joy Luck Club, etc.) near the White House. Sounds like a great way to reintegrate into DC life right?
>
> Peace, love and solidarity everyone.