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.

Wandering at 10:30

I write because I'm bored.
I write when I'm motivated.
I write when I'm on deadline.

Period. Punctuation. Pears. Pineapple. Pens. Pencils. Paper. Paper Crane. Crane Man. Korean. Bahp. Chopsticks. Samgyupsahl. Lettuce. Healthy living. Mom. Nagging. Carefree. Freedom. Room. Free doom. Mushrooms. Mushroom Cloud. Nuclear. Are We all going to die. How many are there? North Korea. How much should I really worry. Crazy. Dictator. Starvation. Execution. Liberty. Justice. Freedom. America. Materialism. Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton Don. Kanye. Pharrell. Dress. Sneakers. Blazers. Chains. Jewelery. Jesus pieces. Wood or gold. Wood. Splinters. Gold. Greed. Greed. the Grinch. Green. Money. Money is the Root. Of Love. Of Homes. Of Dreams. Of Children. Of Adults. Of Parks. Of Baseball. It Makes the World go round. Gordon Gecko. Greed is good. Goodness. What is goodness. Discomfort. Smoking. Drinking. Sexing. Texting. Sex-texting. Ah. Hunger. To feed one's family. Breadwinning. Breadeating. Gender. Stay-at home dad. Bill Clinton. The House Husband. The fraternizing, sexualizing house husband. Rings. Commitment. Commitment to pain to love. Commitment to make new yous. Children. Babies. Baby Names. Gwenyth Paltrow. Fucking Apple. Are you kidding me. Money can really make anything happen. Jay-Z. "And she named me Shawn because it was her right." Late-night. Head-spinning. Letterman. Leno. Conaan. Leno's a douchebag. Letterman is too but he's funny. Double-breasted suit. Old school. It's all about the fit. The very best man can be dethroned by looking like a slob. He can lose respect and status by simply having one-to-many buttons on his jacket. Think about that lappelle gentlemen. In the end it's all about being a gentlemen. Because being here is a privilege. You need to act accordingly. Live accordingly to the gospels of suffering and pain and love and compassion and humility. With privilege comes great obligatory pain. Let's suffer together. Joy Min. Joy Min thinks people who blog are weird. He's probably right on the money on that one.

The Fashion Issue

Fashionista even when my car can't keep up with my grind. Yes that is MY Honda Odyssey. Yes that scarf is actually my hoodie.

Let's Begin. Tour of the Sartorially Inspirant (new word: Spread the good news)

One of the only artists still in his boy band phase to kill it, day-in, day-out.

T O P

Johnny Depp and his hats. Never seen anyone who can pull off that seamless cool of an old-school hat. Always carefree. he looks like he's having fun with what he wears, the greatest quality to have.

the Tweed thrifting king of http://www.proprpostur.com/

Josh Kissi of streetetiquette.com/ Love this guys blog. Another thrifter who works retail at jcrew. Takes the staples that companies like Uniqlo, clarks, jcrew offer and layers them with sweaters and jackets of American classics to create a current look that constantly pays homage to the past.

New one for me: thecreativeroutine

the Fabric of Joshtime

If I were to have in my possession a new Years resolution is NOT TO BE LATE. PUNCTUALITY WILL BE KEY.

I too like so many of the constantly disgruntled people of the tri-state area, dislike the New Years resolution. Personally, it makes little sense. New years falls almost directly at the midway point of my Winter break, so while the workforce of America is refreshed and ready to reach new heights of ass-kissing and social mobility, I've developed the uncanny gift of not only hitting the snooze button but turning that wonderful cellular device off.

I wake up when I please. I play videogames as I please. I still cannot work when I please because of the previous two-points. The correlation between the time spent on social media and the lack of any true sensation coupled with the nonexistent feeling of accomplishment is as steady of a point as possible. Yet people have livelihoods based on twitter, tumblr and more

Anyways, yea, getting to places on time. Simply enough, actually it's a mix of two points.
First being the trivial, nonsensical one, I thought arriving late was in style. What's that saying fashionably late...yeah. Like any good played-out utterance, the phrase fashionably late did hold a particular truth in my own life.

1) No cool people ever showed up on time; it was only the losers that did. Fact !

I can see how it has to do with how cool people make living look so effortless. Sometimes I would feel like real, genuine cool people just didn't have to make the effort to see other people, which would then lead me to envy just how much of a dick a cool person can be :D

2) At home and up till my 18th birthday, no one really stressed any really negative sentiments over my lateness. Fact !

I guess people were just more lax, except my high school who penalized me for coming back late from a delightful lunch at Chic-fil-A.

Wow, I hope I'm not boring you. I'm kinda boring myself. BUT, LET'S PRESS ON. (Do i need a comma after every conjunction?)

Ahahah I can't believe this is my first entry of the year. Not much has changed has it Josh?

Joshtime- My roommate, JJ, came up with an exact formula but basically Joshtime is realtime on lag, extreme lag. Possibly in increasing 20 min. incriments at a time.

I pledge to work on being on time because, for the first time in my life I've begun to realize that people are counting on me to be on time. Not just because their time is valuable, I like to think it's simply because they take a great, casual or formal joy of seeing me as soon as possible, or simply just a little earlier.

oooooooo ANOTHER NEW YEARS RESOLUTION: LEARN HOW TO TELL A REALLY GOOD JOKE.

Link of the week:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlZDtPVzOwA&playnext=1&list=PLDF451B722A941138&index=42

Stand-up comedian, Hannibal Burress, on apple juice

Typing on ma bed

the english teacher whom I admire and aspire to be like said this once, "Find that turn of the phrase. Find a way to arrange words in an order that sounds different but pleasing, jarring yet sound. Make people think beyond the mere text on the page and you'll have them hooked."

Turn the phrase.

Certain pieces of advice really stick with you. No matter how many hours of schooling you've had that tells you otherwise, you make sure to credit that advice by directly implementing it into the work you're doing currently. For me, I write so many papers and strangely enough, I'm not very good at it. I lose focus of a thesis or topic sentence and I end up writing something that consists of many clever little phrases strung together aimlessly, all of them squirming to gain a significance that is not supplanted by context. Through a talk with my roomie, I realized that my prayer life has become this too. or has always been this. a series of clever phrases.

Ever since I was little, I marveled at these pastors who would make these elaborate and beautiful prayers that lifted my spirit. I wanted to be that man who could spin words to do tricks and amaze a crowd and I consistently surprise myself when I look back and remember just how many times I've had to speak in front of a large crowd.

July 24th, 2007

In the large sanctuary of my Church was the 500 member congregation, I was to be baptized that day. My youth pastor had clumsily forgotten that one of the baptees (hehe) had to give a short statement after their baptism for the adult congregation. With the promise of a free lunch later, my pastor pegged me to do the speaking. I walked up to the very top tier of the stage and walked into the tub, white gown and all, and was gracefully dunked by my head pastor, the most spirit-filled man I've met in my life. As I came up out of the water, there was a microphone at my face. Panic arose in streaks across my face and then I spoke.

"It is such a great privilege to be baptized here today with all of you great people. I am so sure that this is a new beginning to my Christian walk and I am so blessed to be baptized with some of my closest friends. Thank you."

The adults couldn't get enough and that speech was a big point of pride for my parents when the congregation was able to identify me as their child. You turn a phrase correctly, you'll have them hooked.

Wow I haven't written one of these anxiety-riddled Christian entries since my xanga days.

Prayer has become this constantly need to top what I said last. "How do I phrase a prayer of repentance in a more appealing manner? How can I make this prayer neater?" I just want to cry out and not give a damn about what I sound like.

A Half-Hearted Love Letter to the Great State of New Jersey

There is nothing like New York City in Christmastime. As the city itself is lifted in unison by the conglomeration and undeniable saturation of Christmases long, long ago, New York always appears in its' best behavior. For once the city's gray slush is completely outdone by the monument to Yule Tide joy.

I've observed all of this holiday hoopla gazing in deep, handsome contemplation from across the Hudson. Yes, I am a registered New Jerser, Jersian (We have not been able to think of a cool name for ourselves)

To my fellow Garden Staters! and the rest of you who live underprivileged lifestyles of certain blindness and scarcity of trees. I am embarking on this journey to define my own, very private New Jersey as a means of promoting the

burgeoning field of New Jersey tourism.

Pictures will be scarce; let my vivid wor

ds create the images of this Northeastern paradise for you.

I grew up around a lot of trees, lots of tall trees who've grown up with the generations of family names and legacies in my tiny little town. If someone were to refer to a place of residence quaint, it most often means that the kids who do the residing are bored out of their narrow, narrow minds.

There is one street lined with barbershops and pizzerias which my town affectionately calls that commerce. Glen Rock NJ where suburba

n housewives breed hyperactive, extra-curricular children from the driver's seat of an SUV and an outdoor pool.

As I further remove myself from the home I grew up in, I am increasingly more critical of how I grew up. I realize this more and more after I had forgotten so much about the sleepy little town full of power brokers and businessmen. I'm helping my sister out with college apps and because we went through a lot of the same things : lack of diversity, wastefulness, ignorance, extreme wealth and privilege. It's been tough to guide her apps without tapping into that deeply engrained sense of bitterness and regret.

Because there were no other Asian kids, I h

ad a miserable time. The days where I wanted to be a white kid made it that much more confusing when battling with an Asian American identity that is constantly mocked by students and teachers who somehow maintain a pleasant tone of voice.

I did have white friends but I know it's really difficult for me to open myself completely to them. I feel like they will never truly understand any which way I perceive my life, their lives, the world. I'm trying to break this. After so many papers where I've praised diversity and differences in thinking, how can I not appreciate varying worldviews and life experiences?

It's a matter of comfort.

I've gone great lengths to make college as racially different from high school. From my very closest friends to simple acquaintances, I've surrounded myself with Asian people, falling into the grand generalization that Asian people, men in particular can only hang out with themselves. They are the least committed to diversity building in the ethnic spectrum. Frankly, I don't really give a damn anymore. I've surrounded myself with people that make me happy and that I've enjoy talking too. There wasn't too much of that back in Jersey. In fact, I would trek my ass all the way to Queens to find some decent Asian people to hang out with.

But it's home. Park benches, kids on bikes, the piz

za from John's Boys, the stoner, underachieving drop-outs. Home is a one-acre ranch with a backyard full of gophers and a shed that me and my dad built. We tried growing tomatoes once and the gophers just ate em all. Now we, gopher and man, live harmoniously together.

New Jersey continues to confuse me. Towns of extreme wealth like mine are then surrounded by cities of such dire poverty, riddled with gang life and an entirely different racial landscape. Asian people have found these niches in rich white communities, single-handedly giving any sort of semblance to a diversity movement in suburban America. With issues of red-lining slowly being eliminated one by one, Asian parents are prone to flock then attack areas with attributes from good schooling, safety to the cleanliness of the public pool. It's their nature. A grand immigrant tradition of unrestricted upward m

obility and moving to anultimate goal, whiteness.

Can we gain the world and not become white?

Not that there is being white is so horrible, but because I enjoy Asianness. It's an extremely distinct trait that not many people have the privilege of holding inherently and walking with daily. People will always change, but can I control what I cha

nge into?

New Jersey, I am like so many of your bitter kids who leave you for New York or California. But i guess you are okay. The trees keep me coming back.

"Look ma, I'm confused but I still love you." NOTICE THE TREES. They're beautiful.

Iconic Man/ Black Men are killing the game

blogger/lawyer who loves his wife (lessgentlemen.com)

Denim

Ye w/ knit tie

THE Black Ivy (streetetiquette.com)

Spike and his shoes