O the Places You Will Go

I'm terrified of greener pastures. It's this creeping doubt I have inside my head, pounding its point relentlessly.

I helped write my little sister's college essays this winter break and she has this notion, that may or may not have been directly fed by me that California, the West Coast is the place she needs to be. So when we had both realized what was best for her, we went about solving this problem of convincing the Universities out in California that they need her to be there too.

And I remember when every prompt she had about moving, new challenges or accomplishments would arise I had this one quote stuck in my head from a teacher who had trumpeted this very phrase up till the date of my graduation,
"Go West, young man. Grow up with the country."

This notion of moving to a place where reputation does not lead him first through a door is near impossible nowadays with facebook and tweets signaling your very triumphant or quite quiet entry into this new doorway to new people. But it petrifies me, nonetheless.

I know what is waiting for me in Jersey. I have no idea where my career is going to take me. I have no idea where God is going to take me. I have not the faintest clue on how my life will play out day from day. But I have known what awaits me in Jersey, no matter what time I choose to inherit my home and my one acre. It's this suffocating predictability that so many people are find pleasant. Suffice to say. Say. Sufficient to say. Self-sufficiency.

Making your own bones. How sweet would it be to make new friends. New, good friends, worthy of your time and reciprocal interest. I wish my life was like an episode of Friends where I could ask out a girl in a coffeeshop or making a lifelong friend with a person I just met today.

Life without a laugh track, man. Ignorant of my marks and cues, I'm living without a laugh track, teetering.

This is where I've dreamed about starting new!

1. California

2. Seoul

3. Jejudo

4. Hawaii

Ahhahaha I just realized all of my fantastical aspirations involve lots and lots of year-round sunshine. I sincerely hope entertaining these fantasies in my head never grows dull!

Creative non-fiction/ memoir

I'm taking a Creative non-fiction class and it really stresses personal voice and memoir along with journalistic integrity. While writing I realized it kinda sounded like a blog entry, so being the lazy ass that I am, I've chosen to excerpt my own writing, effectively plagiarizing myself. YES.
Please excuse the grammar. I really need to learn.


I used to think in Korean. I have the great privilege and shame of not being able to do that anymore.

Lemme see. I was bout 5 at the time when I fell. I just started kindergarten but coming from a Korean household English words would flee from the grasp of my tongue.
My Korean parents spoke in stories, idioms, riddles, and jokes. All that which would have been lost by the prisons of the English alphabet.

So I lay there crying in a hospital as a doctor wove my face together with needle and thread; I’ve never felt more man made or robotic. I was being fixed. With my kindergarden vocabulary I shouted,

“NO MORE. NO MORE. NO MORE.”

I cringe when I think about this.

I’ve devoted myself to releasing myself from stereotype. I’ve cringed more about the use of Asian accents in cinema and TV and even in my household than anything else that exists in this world. SAD. To be proper, unaccented Americans is what I’ve wished for my family for a long time.

It is my shame that I cringe at my father. That because the strength of my mother cannot translate into English, my heart tears because people cannot see her intellect and resiliency, people will not see that she is no housewife and never will be because of the constrictions of a language form.

A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.