Julie_Kim's Blog

In the relatively short year and half I have been in Philadelphia, I have covered the murders of three Philadelphia Police Officers. It feels like a lot. Officer Cassidy, Sgt. Liczbinski and now Officer Nazario. For all three officers, I play catch up, trying to gain insight into who they were, what made them tick and why they loved the job so much, they'd risk their lives every day for it.

Today, I covered Officer Nazario's vigil on the corner where her police cruiser was rammed. It was touching and I think it helped her family and friends to go there and see that so many people care.  I ask why she became a police officer.

She loved to help people, she loved what she did, friends and family told me.

I ask my friends who are police officers, I ask Commissioner Ramsey, how do you guys do what you do. The only answer that seems to fully explain it, they are heroes.

My oh my, when I left my previous job at the FOX station in Orlando, FL and came up north, I thought I had seen the end of  reporting on stories about alligators. Never say never, huh?

I got to meet a 29 inch gator today, captured by Warminster's Public Works Director, George Mullen. This is his third gator that he's captured. He's ready to get a job wrasslin' gators in Florida. And a 3 to 5 foot gator was spotted in Horsham last week and that's still out there.

There's a place near Orlando, called Gatorland. Yes, it's a gator themepark, with thousands of gators all over the place and they do have an alligator wrestling show.  I had done my fair share of stories there, even sitting on top a seven footer for a camera piece and holding a 3 footer during a live shot. The mouth was always taped tho :p Leave the wrasslin' to the experts.

No I didnt touch the gator I met tonight. Although I did get stung by a honeybee (bees) when that hive fell off a truck on the NJ turnpike over the weekend.  But the past week has been interesting, Bats, bees and now a gator. What's next? It's what I love about the job.

 

Not that kind of Batman with a cape and grappling hook but a guy with a bat problem. Tonight, I covered a couple in Kutztown who have more than 150 little brown bats hanging out in their attic. I spoke with them tonight and an expert from Albright College. When you say bats, I think “ugh, rats with wings.”

 

I learned quite a bit tonight, even petting one in Dr. Karen Campbell’s hand. It’s fur was soft and unlike what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting something more reptilian or …gross but bats are actually very interesting, maybe even cute? Ok well, maybe not.

 

They are the superheroes of the ecosystem, consuming up to 3,000 insects a day. The homes where the bats are nesting are right next to a creek. When I stand out in the bright lights at night, I usually get attacked by mosquitoes. What makes it worse, I am severely allergic to DEET. But tonight, I had no problem, no insect bites at ALL!! WOW.

 

I’m a fan. Although I still think they’re a bit creepy.

For about half an hour, I have been listening to the Dalai Lama speak before a sold out crowd in Stabler Arena. These are the kinds of days when I feel very privileged to do what I do.

The Dalai Lama stepped on stage and gave his trademark greeting, putting his hands together and bowing, to University officials, the crowd and even hammed it up before the dozens of still photographers. The crowd chuckled in appreciation.

His Holiness spoke about "Generating a Good Heart." What he said are things that we know deep inside. The theme of his visit "Listen, Learning, Love."

He said these are the things to a calm mind. A calm mind is without fear, anger, jealousy. He said to combat such things, you must listen and you must love.

There are days where I have too much worry. You probably do too.  I have bills to pay, I'm not getting along with someone I know, I want to get to the next step in my career, competitiveness, the desire to attain something etc. Etc. I toss and turn at night sometimes with worry and with what feels like weight.  These reasons and whatever reasons you put on the stress list is what causes such unbelievable anxiety and depression when things don't materialize. He said it's inevitable that all "hopes and ambitions will not materialize." It's true. You can't always get what you want. What do we do when we don't. Do we doubt, get depressed, angry or resentful.

There was a point when the Dalai Lama answered questions submitted through a website. One asked "why us there so much anxiety and depression in this day and age?"

The Dalai Lama responded, "You should ask American," much to the laughter of the audience. He then replied that he believes there is too much competitiveness in society and the desire to get more, more, more. A calm mind is key. If you don't have a calm mind, you don't have perspective. It's something I need at times. Listening to him today gave me the ability to re-start a dialogue within myself about why I worry and what I can do. The path to enlightenment is tough.  

Go ahead. Laugh. Most people had their tonsils out when they were a kid, I get to have mine out at the ripe old age of 31 (if Michelle Williams has no fear about revealing her age, then I can go the distance too!!!)

I get my tonsils out on Friday the 13th. No I do not believe in bad luck, so there! I will be gone for 2-3 weeks but no worries, I will be back. I am kind of worried because I have never gone through any kind of surgical procedure or had anesthesia or anything like that. That freaks me out pretty badly. The doctor warned that recuperating could be hard and painful and that my voice may change. If I came back sounding like a man, you guys would still love me, right?

I've heard that having your tonsils out is like being on a liquid diet. I look forward to the pounds melting off of me with my diet consisting of only soft babyfood like things like scrambled eggs, soup, jello, pudding, ice cream and my famous rice gruel. Yes, I said gruel and it does taste good.

Anyway, I will be back to blog occasionally. I have some books to keep me company.

JT- Check out the new David Sedaris book for a laugh. It sounds like you're reading too many serious things. It'll be a good break and I'll be reading it too.

Yes. Really. It happened. About 2 weeks ago, I approached a nice older woman who was waiting on the corner for the ice cream man. She had two pomeranians. I approached her but paid no real attention to the yipping dogs because little dogs yip.

As i was talking to the woman, the black pomeranian went behind me and bit me!!! I thought at first it had scratched me and as I was conducting the interview with the nice woman, I touched the back of my leg and felt blood. I went back and sure enough, little dog drew blood!! After verifying and making sure the dog had all its shots, I went over and made friends with the two pom poms.

I saw them today as well. The little black dog remembered me and didn't bark or bite!

See what we go through to get a story on tv?!

The New York Philharmonic gave a monumental performance in North Korea Tuesday. The fact that the Communist country opened its gates to roughly 300 musicians and journalists is huge and many are hoping it signifies something more, maybe a bridge to unite families.

During the Korean War conflict, millions of North Koreans fled to the South. You Myung Sook ended up there as a nurse with the North Korean army....The army told her to stay in Pusan, that they'd be back in a week. One week has turned into so long. She is now 80 years old and doesn't know what has happened to her mother, father, grandfather, sisters and brothers. Speaking to her today was emotional for me. I can't imagine living in the dark, yearning for answers, a reunion, a word, a letter from relatives for SIXTY years. It breaks my heart and makes me want to weep.

I am fortunate that all my family were already in the South. As a first generation Korean American, I have always been intrigued by the reunions that started happening around the year 2000. I assumed that many families would get a chance. I was wrong. Korean Americans are generally left out of the diplomacy. Technically, North Korea and America are at war so diplomacy is difficult.

The fact that North Korea allowed so many to come in, with what appears to be very little political propaganda could mean the isolated country is ready to become less isolated. It would mean so much to hundreds of thousands of Korean Americans who are still waiting. Sadly, many of the Koreans who left North Korea are dying. The average age is over 80 years old.

I hope. I hope there is something that happens soon. I hope I can do something as well.

 

Of my joining the FOX 29 news team! That's on Saturday, January 19. I can't believe I've been here a year already. One year ago this week, I was living out of a suitcase in my newly rented apartment, sleeping on a borrowed mattress - my only furniture. I remember that it was REALLY cold and the heat wasn't reaching my bedroom so I would sleep with my winter coats on top of me through the night. I had just arrived from Orlando Florida and it was a shock to my system.  

Needless to say, I've settled in, everyone.

1 year doesn't mean much I guess but it feels like it zipped by. I remember when I got here, homicides were happening at a rate of 1.5 a day. I got here and I was like, wow, I never had to do so much crime/death/murder. It was hard to get used to. 

I covered my first snow storm (always a dream to a reporter coming from Florida hurricanes), I found my favorite coffee spot, Cafe Ole!!, my dog figured out that it's ok to pee on the sidewalk, I found my favorite boutiques - Charlie's Jeans, Three Sirens, Lost and Found, I found a place to pursue my black and white film photograpy and I made some friends. Oh yeah! I learned how to "blog."

 Not bad in a year's time. Anyway for those who continue to tune in and say hello on the street or cyberspace, thanks for the encouragement and support. As Frank said, It was a very good year.

For the past two nights, I've covered the story of a fight that broke out between two 7th grade Philadelphia school students. The first night, I covered family A which claimed that their daughter is the victim of ongoing bullying that's gone on for months. Today, I spoke with the other family.

There's a lot of he said/she said type stuff going on. The school district is now involved and if you go to our news site, you can see the solutions that are available for parents who are worried about their children.

I spoke to a lot of people out there, with and without children. Some of the answers I got surprised me in the sense that many of the parents I spoke with said that if they knew their child was being bullied and was called out to a fight, that they would support their child fighting back the bully so he/she can be left alone. Do you support that theory?

Bullying these days is so confusing to me. I remember being made fun of but I was never called out to fight. I don't know if I would have fought. I mean, my older brother used to be a bully and I used to fight him back but he's family. One time I decided to fight. I was in elementary school and the guy was in junior high school. He was throwing rocks at a girl who lives on my street so I got into it and yelled at him. Then they (two boys) started paying attention to me, kicked me and threw sand me. Needless to say, I recovered but I look at what kids go through these days and it really shocks me because the bullyying these days seems to have progressed far beyond what I went through. I have to wonder, I survive if I had to go through it all again in this day and age.

 

So New Year's Resolutions, you make em and then you break em. So I won't make them. How about, reflections on what you've learned this year, that you hope to build on for the following year and the year after that and the year after that? In no particular order for me..

1. Smoking is a filthy habit (but it feels so good!!!) Yes. Sadly back on that wagon again for those of you keeping up on my blog. As people of my parents' generation get older and sicker, I wonder what my outlook will be and it bothers me that I am trapped in this nicotine addicted routine. Still trying.

2. Never forget who your friends are - On this job, you typically move every 2-3 years and the collection of friends I've lost touch with is shameful. I am trying to reconnect with them because I realized after the death of a good friend this year - Troy Cutter - god bless you - that you don't have forever after all. Troy was young and healthy and one day, poof, I got the phone call.

3. Never forget who your friends AREN'T - and who you don't want them to be - bad people are a waste of time. Troy reminded me at just the right time. I wish he was still here.

4. Never buy toys for your twin nephews that are different. If you buy a toy for one, the other must get the EXACT same thing, in color, size and everything. You may think they won't mind because it'll be so much cooler to have more of a train set but they don't care. Then your family will look at you and blame you for their fighting and crying and you will have to make a last minute run to the toy store. BAD AUNTIE!

5. Don't continue spoiling the 70 pound chocolate lab - he will continue hogging the bed and taking food off the counter and eating your expensive lipstick.

6. Don't leave a chocolate bar in your work bag and leave it on the ground. Even though it is unopened, the dog will find it and eat it and then you will sit around and worry about your dog getting chocolate poisoning.

MORE TO COME? Probably, we're always learning aren't we?

 

Ok. I'm going to be a sentimental cheese for a second. It happens so rarely but this is a special occasion. This Thanksgiving is the FIRST Thanksgiving I will have EVER celebrated on the actual day. Usually because of work, trying to get to family, Thanksgiving falls on Saturdays or Sundays. Not this year!!!

So I am thankful for that. I am thankful that my family is healthy. I am thankful for my big goofball dog who managed to steal a KitKat bar from my bag this morning and eat it -- so I am extra thankul that he's not sick again. I am thankful to the people I meet on the street who make me feel good about my job. I am thankful to the man at the bank who gives biscuits to Charlie, I am thankful to the men and women who serve our country and who will be missing out on their family gatherings.

I am thankful to my good friends who have supported me through the years. Philadelphia is a special place for me because I am back. 5 years ago I was working at my first on air job, making 13 thousand dollars a year and trying desperately to make ends meet. My friends in Philly paid for me and flew me here and took me to Bistro St. Tropez for a filet mignon. I licked my plate.

What else, guys? There's just so much, it's time to sit back and appreciate it all. So tell me something good.

I got to meet a really cool family today. A school teacher named Louis Borda and his 8 year old daughter Veronica pulled up in Luigi as I was waiting outside Citizens Bank Park.

Luigi  is a red 1967 Fiat, named after a character in the movie "Cars." The Borda girls had cut out letter Ps and pasted them on the tiny car, making it a real Phillies fanmobile. I asked Veronica if she was into baseball and she said, "No, but my dad is teaching me so I am starting to like them." Her dad said that he wanted his daughters to love the Phils as much as he did. Although they don't have tickets to the post-season games, he said they'd "sit outside the ballpark and listen to the game on the radio, like in the old days."

The more I cover the fans and their families, the more I start to realize how important it is to have some kind of commonality or connection with your kids. My brother and I grew up as latchkey kids. My folks worked so much that they never made it to any competitions or anything like that or really got to know my interests.

If I were to have children in the future, I'd probably want to introduce them to photography, my love of reading, nature and travel and comic books and all things science fiction. If they liked any one of those things, I think I'd be real happy. It's really something to watch some of these families with little kids, all decked out in their Phillies gear. Not knocking the Phils or anything like that but little Julie Kim Jr. will be wearing a Star Wars T-shirt.

Monday I attended the 15 year anniversary of NY1, a Time Warner Cable station, the first local 24 hour newschannel. While in college and shortly thereafter, I worked there as a shooter and desk person. Anyone who'd been an employee through the 15 years was invited for the celebration and trip down memory lane.

I remember going to my high school reunion and the small smirking part of my soul fervently hoping that the mean pretty girls of my youth turned out to be mean and ugly girls grownup. Ahem. Oh. Where was I?

Oh yes, this reunion was different. As a 20-23 year old, I got to cover so many different things, big breaking news to politics. I trained several people to shoot and at this reunion, I saw them again and found that they had grown up and moved onto other jobs at the network affiliated stations. They had gotten married, engaged, had children, gotten out of the business. It's such an odd feeling. I worked side by side with these people in the hot summers, cold winters and various news cycles, driven to do the best we could, even though back then, we were the youngest, newest kids on the block in a city that likes to chew you up and spit you out.

It's a proud feeling to look around the room and see network correspondents and producers, documentary photographers, producers, executive producers for national shows and realize we all started there.

There's also a feeling of regret. You move so fast when you're young, always onto the next thing, what's next, where to and I lost touch with a lot of these very wonderful people. It's an odd thing, these reunions, like a weird time warp, quantam leap kind of thing. Maybe I'm thinking too much. Yep. That's it.

So---on March 4th of this year, I boasted about how it was my one year anniversary of quitting smoking. Sadly, I fell off the wagon at a year and a half. I was out having a good time with friends and then another friend of mine who didn't realize what I had gone through to quit, kept handing me lit cigarettes....and I caved. I was weak. Friends and co-workers who read my March blog tsked tsked about coming forward and admitting that I am weak.

Sigh. So I've started over and here I am at 22 days without smoking a cigarette (who's counting?) It's pretty amazing how you can be so addicted to something. I really get a feel for how difficult it must be to kick the harder drugs. I mean, if I'm jonesing for a ciggie after I eat  a meal, what does John Doe with the crack habit feel like?

I haven't done anything special for this quit time. I just went on vacation. Since I've been back, I intentionally go into bars that allow smoking so I can be tempted...but I've never caved yet! I do feel a bit healthier but I am eating quite a bit! I can't control myself! Anyway, thought I'd share with you all in case I run into you somewhere, you can encourage me and if you are a smoker, please please, please don't give me one, no matter how much I beg and no matter how much money I throw at you.

 

The family of Kwok Wai-ho, the 69 year old who was brutally beaten and killed now has closure. Police Friday closed arrested and charged the 17 year old suspect.

What Kwok's family did is courageous. We in the news, see many families taking the lead, speaking out, hoping that by showing their pain, it'll resonate with someone who may have seen or know something. It worked here. What is so extraordinary is that this was an Asian family that spoke out.  When a friend saw my story air last night, they said, "isn't it stereotypical for you to say that Asians who are victimized, don't report it to police?"

Sadly, I don't think it's stereotypical. I think its just the way it is with Asians. I am a first generation Korean. My parents came to America without knowing any English. When I was a kid, our home and car was vandalized, someone threw a rock through our window, my parents chose not to report it. Why, you may ask? There was a serious language barrier, a lack of understanding on how police/justice works here in this country and the feeling that they'd be retaliated against and that it would get worse.

Speaking to Kwok's family, they reiterated the same points. The fear and the lack of understanding keeps most Asians quiet. It also perpetuates the victimization. The family says they have started a fund in Kwok Wai-ho's name in conjunction with the Citizen's Crime Commission. It will help other Asian families who are victims of violent crime do what they did, speak out, offer reward money, get the culprit caught. I think that's amazing. But Asian families need to first take that first step to speak and report the crime.