The End?

I love this blog too much to quit on it…however, there are going to be long stretches of times when I don’t write in it, frankly because I resist the urge to write anything depressing, as most writers are prone to do.
Plus, most of my attention is on my newest blog, where I’m excited 99.5% of the time since I’m talking about something that I L.O.V.E. It’ll be a happier time there, haha.

However, no, this is not the end. Check back occasionally. Maybe you’ll find a surprise once in a while.

Bag Lady

“Bag lady you gone hurt your back dragging all them bags like that. I guess nobody ever told you all you must hold on to is you. One day all them bags gone get in your way. So pack light. Bag lady you gone miss your bus. You can’t hurry up ’cause you got too much stuff. When they see you comin’, they take off runnin’ from you. It’s true, oh yes they do. One day he gon’ say you crowdin’ my space. Girl, I know sometimes it’s hard and we can’t let go. When someone hurts you oh so bad inside, you can’t deny it- you can’t stop crying. So if you start breathing, then you won’t believe it- you’ll feel so much better.

Bag lady, let it go, let it go. Girl, you don’t need it.

I betcha love can make it better.“

– Erykah Badu; Bag Lady

Besides being a believer….

This is all I want. That’s it.

Happy Birthday, Yumi Park!

Where do I begin? My little munchkin is now twenty-one! How time flies by!
On May 29, 1991, Yumi Park was born. As you can see in the picture below, I’m already immune to her screeching, something that she is still capable of doing today.

Yumz, you’re my best friend in the whole wide world.

Just like I took care of you when you were younger, you’re taking care of me as I get older! (mostly always buying this broke bum food) There’s no other person that knows me more than you – the good, the bad, the pretty and DEFINITELY the ugly side of me.

Just like you tell me, I’ll tell you this: you are special. You are a beautiful human being, inside and out (albeit really annoying sometimes) and your constant love and sacrifice for the people around you encourages and motivates me. Thank you for giving me strength during the rough times, defending me when I was too weak to defend myself, and loving me at my worst.

I want to encourage you, Yumi, to continually seek the Lord. It’s rough for you, I know, what with work and everything. But girl, you and I both know that without Christ, we are nothing. Without Christ, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Keep seeking, keep pushing.

You’ve grown into such a beautiful and mature woman. I’m so proud of you. In every thing that you do, you do with so much heart and dedication. You are someone that I truly admire and deeply love. Happy Birthday, Kid. I’m so glad to be your sister ❤

By the way, to all of those suckers that have hurt my sister in the past, this is to you: you’ve  made the biggest mistake of your freaking life.

And to the one that will come to her in the Lord’s time: you just hit the jackpot, buddy.

Rusko? I’m sold.

A few months back, two of my friends, let’s just call them L and V, asked me to go to a Rusko concert with them. I had no idea who Rusko was and why I was spending thirty something dollars on him but I thought the experience of going to a concert with L and V alone was worth it.

On the day of the concert, I wasn’t as excited as my friends were but I was curious as to what the atmosphere would be like. I’ve been to plenty of live band concerts before but I’ve never been to a dubstep concert. My friends warned me that yes, there will be people poppin’ drugs and warned me not to wear a cardigan for it will get lost in the crowd. We parked and walked towards terminal 5…and my jaw dropped. First of all, we were the only people that actually dressed normally. Secondly, all of them looked like they were still in high school, which they probably were. Lastly….we were the only people that actually dressed normally. I’ll give you a taste of how the ladies dressed:

Yes. Boots with the fur. Horror come to life. 

My expression said it all: Are you kidding me?
My friends encouraged me and told me it would be fun so I believed them. V joked and said maybe I’d find a man at the concert. Ha ha, real funny!

Anyway, we got in and DJ Magic something or whatever his name was (the opening act) was performing. I went straight to the bar and ordered myself my stoli ras and sprite to calm my nerves. Was I nervous? Yes! Why? I don’t know! After he finished (he was actually quite good), a few minutes passed and the huge letters that spelled out R-U-S-K-O lit up, making the crowd go wild. The energy around me was addicting and I couldn’t help but get excited as well.
V and I were always near the weirdest people, including a big dude that was spazzing out by himself lookin’ like he was going through some sort of seizure or the guy that pushed me so hard because he was so high (don’t worry, I pushed him back real hard) or the INSANE blonde girl that kept putting her hair in V’s face while pushing her into a corner. I mean…everyone was out of their MINDS but whatever.

During the concert, I heard a familiar tune and my heart rate started going double time. I knew the tune and I thought, “wait…no way…” Through my peripheral, I saw L point at me and V look at me saying something and then…I heard it…the familiar whistle…the gruff voice…of DMX. I wasn’t on drugs but people would definitely have mistaken me for being on something because I went CRAAYYYYYYY-ZYYYYY. I mean, I was enjoying myself before but after he mixed my hype song “Party Up (Up in Here)”, I was SOLD. Sold, I tell ya!

By the end of the concert, I was sweaty, wet because people went wild and spilled their water and/or beer on me and smelled like weed (because everywhere I was, someone was blowing smoke in my face blegh) but that was the best time I had in a long time. I shouted, I danced, I went mental and it was so much fun. Overall, a wonderful time. Definitely glad that I went. Something everyone should experience at least once in their lives.

This is the “before” picture, when we were lookin’ fly.
If you only saw the “after” picture….

“Hitting On” Women

Today I witnessed something that isn’t easy to erase out of my mind.

As some of you know, I’m a teacher at an afterschool academy. If you don’t know what is, it’s probably because you’re not Asian or familiar with the Asian culture. I have two students that I tend to favor – one girl and one boy. Everything was going along swimmingly today…until the last thirty minutes of school. The girl was asking for a paper from the boy and the boy ended up getting annoyed, said a string of curse words and threw the piece of paper in her face with enough force that it made a mark. I sat up straight from my chair, offended for her but meekly told him to apologize and told him that it wasn’t right to hit girls. He half-heartedly apologized and my advice fell on deaf ears. I thought everything was fine but a few seconds later, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable at my response, or you can say, lack of response, and looked towards the girl. The boy asked her a question about a sheet and with an unusually high voice, she answered. She was slouching lower and lower, covering her face with her hair. That’s when I knew that she was crying and trying to hide it. Trying to act like everything was okay. I got up and pulled her outside, whispering in her ear so she wouldn’t be embarrassed.

As soon as we left the classroom, the flood of tears came. Uncontrollable, raw, and absolutely heartbreaking. When looking at her slumped over, crying figure, the feeling of deja vu was overwhelming. I had seen this before. But where?

And then I realized that this exactly mirrored my own experiences.

After that startling realization, I got a second shock as I again realized that I unknowingly took the role of a typical Korean woman in situations that involved some sort of abuse: meek, passive, and wishing the situation would go away. That was exactly how my mom was. That was exactly how my “friends” were. They sat and watched one of their own get hit and no one spoke against it.
So the promise that I made to myself whenever some idiot hit me was, “When some other woman is getting hit, I’ll never stand idly by. I’ll say what I have to say, do what I have to do to protect myself and others.”

Yeah. A lot that did for me today.

I mean, how can I have cringed when having to face a FIFTH GRADE BOY because I didn’t want to feel his wrath? Because I didn’t want curse words thrown at me? Because secretly, I didn’t want to have to admit to myself that nothing has changed since I was young and boys still learn this kind of violence from their dads?

This is the main reason as to why I limit myself and stay away from the majority of Korean men. Not all but too many of you hit your women. You emotionally scar your women. I will never be subject to that ever again in my life. I was too late in defending my girl before but I’m saying something now: No amount of sweet words, apologies or gifts can erase the scar of being hit by a man because you’re too immature to keep your anger in check. Keep your filthy hands to yourself.

‘Don’t let yourself feel worthless; often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; and don’t worry about losing your ‘personality,’ as you persist in calling it; at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4pm.’

– This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Oops, I Did It Again

I said I’d never do it but like Britney, I did it again. I tried to be someone I wasn’t.

There is an ever raging battle with being myself and being who everyone expects a woman to be.

Listen, I’m not an ordinary female. I grew up watching Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, preferred wearing my dad’s old pants rather than glittery dresses, did not learn how to put on makeup before going to London last summer, and did not try on heels until I was a senior in high school. To me, every single shade of pink should be banned in the universal palette of colors and trying to act cute (other than when I’m just joking around)  while using a fake, high pitched voice is absolutely unappealing. Shopping for clothes is just not my thing and I prefer hoodies over dainty, napkin-like t-shirts. My regular speech is a mix of slang and improper grammar and if you ever want to hear me use proper grammar and wonderful speech, I’d be so glad to send you my fifteen page historical essay on Nazi Germany.

Why do I force myself to become that way when in reality, I cannot fit that mold for the life of me? For the past few months, all I worried about was how I could change myself so that people would like and accept me. Mainly, I just wanted to change myself to become the very person I despised because I wanted to be liked by the opposite sex. I even compromised my own STANDARDS in a man because I just wanted to please someone else.

Compromise. Ugh. What an ugly word that is to me.
The realization that I did just what I said I wouldn’t do three years ago kills me inside.

Just because I don’t fit the mold of what a female should be like doesn’t mean I’m not feminine or it doesn’t mean I don’t try “hard enough” as some of you like to tell me. If you fit that standard, fine. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just saying it’s not for me.

Just give me a break. I’ll just never be that type of girl. And if you force me to be the standard, my whole being will reject the idea of it. Not trying to sound obnoxious at all but if you can’t accept me for who I am and everything that comes with me then I’m sorry. You’re really missing out.

So in conclusion, I’d like to apologize to myself – for trying to change an already wonderful me into a dull and boring other.

Well, I Have Lost You

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that’s permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more.
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish -and men do- 
I shall have only good to say of you 

Edna St. Vincent Millay