Last Updated on: Sunday, September 5, 1999
Book Reviews
Doug Choe
UCSD Student
Refuse to give me a grant, will ya!
My life so far as been rather quiet and non-eventful. Most of you probably didn't hear about me until you accidentally came across this poor excuse of a web page. Well, you'll soon hear about me in the near future. From what, I don't know, but you will.
I split my life into five parts:
Years in Korea
Years in Canada
Year in New York
Years in Orange County
Years in San Diego
Years in Korea
1977-1980I was born in Seoul, South Korea though I did not live there. I don’t remember all that much about it. I vaguely remember living in a town that was a little primitive. I wouldn’t call it a modern town. My house had an outhouse and nothing too modern near by. There are two things that really stand out during those years in Korea. First was that I had frequent nightmares about monsters made out of crap coming out of the outhouse and attacking me because I kept accidentally dropping slippers down the crap hole. The second thing is my earliest recollection of a lie. I told me grandmother, I lived with my dad, mom, older brother, and paternal grandmother, that I wanted to go ride one of those stupid spring horses (the plastic horse that bounces back and forth on a spring) and she would give me money. There was this lady who had five or so of them and she’d let you ride one for like ten minutes for an equivalent of a quarter. Anyway, instead of going to her, I went to a nearby arcade. I remember playing this game where you’re this mama boxing kangaroo and some evil monkeys stole your baby. You hop up and down and go up levels via ladders to get the baby while dodging stuff thrown by monkeys and punching them once you get a fruit that appears once in a while. I just remember the characters and don’t exactly remember all the details. I don’t remember if I did this more than once. I did this when I was like four or so. I think that’s kind of sad, a four-year old already lying to his grandmother.My dad left for the states to work when I was very young. My mom, brother and I went to Canada to live with her relatives there while my dad got us visas and found a place for us to live. My grandmother either stayed in Korea or moved in with my dad’s younger brother’s family in Tijuana. I don’t know why they lived there, they just did.
Years in Canada
1980-1981My mom’s side of the family lives in Canada. I don’t know if all of them do, but a big hunk of her family does. When my mom, brother, and I moved there, we moved to Montreal, I believe. I think it’s Montreal because I remember owning an Expose glove while living there.I think each family unit over there owned a liquor store. I remember visiting a lot of liquor stores that were owned by relatives. My mom’s side of the family was large compared to my dad’s. My mom has four or five siblings while my dad has one or two. I say that only because in one really old picture, it had my grandmother, dad, his younger brother, and a woman who I think was his sister. If she was his sister, she passed away long before I was born because I don’t remember a paternal aunt. Both my grandfathers and my maternal grandmother are deceased. I never met my paternal grandfather. He passed away when my father was young. I loved all three grandparents. My maternal grandfather the most. He was really fun and I have only good memories of him. I remember one time I went to a toy store with him and he bought me this toy truck I really wanted. I was so excited and ran and hugged him. When I looked up I saw it wasn’t my grandfather. For some reason I can’t fathom even to this day, I accidentally hugged this total white stranger instead of my grandfather. The thing I truly loved about my grandfather was that, unlike my paternal grandmother, he loved wrestling. Back when I was little I really liked wrestling and one day he saw me watching it and he sat down and watched it with me. He laughed out loud from all the antics and stuff. The next day he woke me up and asked me to turn on wrestling. I miss him. I miss both my maternal grandparents and my living paternal grandmother.
Anyway there were only two things that occurred in Canada I feel are worth mentioning. First of all one day I ate a whole bottle of Flintstones Vitamin because I liked the taste. I would ride around the living room with my plastic tricycle and every time I circled the living room I took a vitamin. Let me tell you, the next day my fecal matter was in multicolor. I felt really sick too. Even to this day I cannot look at a Flintstones vitamin commercial without feeling sick. (Just to remind you, I was like four or five at the time, so I did some pretty stupid things.)
The second thing worth mentioning is that it was at Canada that I was first introduced to Star Wars. IT was in 1981. My cousin took my older brother and me to see Star Wars. For the longest time I swore I saw Return of the Jedi because Star Wars came out in 1977. It wasn’t until a few years ago I realized I saw a re-release of it in 1981. That movie made my time at Canada a whole lot better and more interesting. My brother and I got one of our uncles who worked at a lumber mill (or he just went to a hardware store) to get us two wooden poles. We would carve them and paint one blue and the other red and beat each other silly playing Darth Vader and Obiwan Kenobi (who was who, I don’t remember.).
My brother and I would buy those Star Wars trading cards instead of baseball card (my brother once yelled at me for buying a pack of baseball card.). We bought so many that we played go-fish with the cards.
Finally it was time for us to go to the States. However for some reason I can’t remember, we took a bus from Montreal to New York (that’s another reason why I believe I lived in Montreal because it’s on the East Coast like New York.). There we lived with a family that was friends with my parents.
Year in New York
1981-1981I do not recollect any memory of my stay at New York. I don’t know where in New York we stayed at. I don’t remember if I went to see any of the New York monuments. All I remember is that we lived in the family’s high story apartment with them and my brother accidentally killed one of their numerous pet turtles.My brother was playing with one of the turtles when it started heading out to the balcony. My brother tried to grab it but it bit him and walked off the ledge. The father told my brother the turtle’s ghost was going to haunt him that night.
After a few months at New York, we finally moved to California to meet up with my dad.
Years in Orange County
1981-1996We moved to Orange County, California, when I was about five years old to live with my dad. Like I said earlier, my dad moved to the US a few years earlier to work and the rest of us came when our visas came about. Nothing really big happened when I was little living here. I did once get into a solo bike accident where the handle bar when deep into my right knee cap where I saw bone. I had to get stitches and have a two inch long scar there. I lived in La Mirada then moved to an adjacent town called Buena Park when I was in the seventh grade, I think, and then moved to another adjacent town called Fullerton when I was a sophomore in high school. It is where my mother and father presently live.In La Mirada we lived in this dingy aparatment complex called Casa Vieja. It was crap. I shared a very small room with my older brother. I visited the place a few years back and I just could not believe I shared that tiny room with someone. It was amazingly small. We then moved into a bigger apartment in the same complex and I had my own room. The reason for this was because my paternal grandmother started to live with us about that time. The grandmother from Korea. She lived with us till the end of my senior year. I guess she was there to help my parents raise my brother and me. My parents were gone most of the day working and I didn't see them a lot.
When we moved to Fullerton, we moved in a two story town house on Humboldt Dr. It was a nice place. I had my own room. Nothing extremely bad happened during this time. No broken leg or anything. Well, actually something did happen. I had a surgery that was EXTREMELY painful in a place I don't want to mention. Let's just say I couldn't do anything active for two weeks.
My family moved into another apartment complex/town house in Fullerton during my sophomore year of high school. It was two story and I had my own room. Small, but mine. That is where my parents presently live with their female jindu dog, which is a Korean bred dog. I don't remember what they call it, but my brother calls it "Corona" after the beer. Nothing extremely bad happened other than I went through high school during this time.
I had all my schooling here in the states. I attended Emery Elementary School, then Buena Park Jr. High School and finally Sunny Hills High School, where I graduated with either high honors or honors, I don't remember which because I kinda block all memory of high school because I seriously hated it. I wasn't popular and I particulary didn't have a great time. I played two years of football, it was fun, but I hurt my back and had to stop. My grades weren't too great, but good enough to get into UCSD, Roosevelt.
Years in San Diego
1996-PresentI just recently finished my third year here at UCSD. UCSD isn't actually in San Diego. It's in San Diego County, but it resides in La Jolla, a little rich town filled with old folks. Everything closes at 9:00 P.M. A pain in the butt when I have the munchies. Anyway, I am a Econ major and hopefully when I'm done with it all I will get a well paying job and have free time to make the world a better place. yeah right. Other than a short stay in Downey for a summer, I have been living in San Diego County since fall of 1996.
Presently I'm working for the UCSD Psychiatry Department, part of a research group on finding the cause and cure of bipolar disorder. I've been working for the Psy. Dept. since January of 1998. It's paying for food and fun right now. It's a repetitive and boring job but it pays well and my co-workers likes me and I get along with them and I'm happy working for them. Too bad there isn't any future in it. I don't know what I'm going to do after college. No definite plans. Hopefully something will turn up.
