stupid ethnic writers

Okay, one more post before I get back to work.

Do you ever hear Chinese-American writers use a lot of Chinese in the things that they write? Probably not, right? Why do Spanish speaking writers always feel the need to write things in Spanish? Does it make it more authentic? It sounds pretentious to me. Especially when they don't translate in the text. I was listening to some short stories written by some Latina women last night on NPR, and nearly all of them felt the need to be all authentic and write random words in Spanish, when English would have been perfectly acceptable. It's formulaic! It's not just Spanish speakers. I went to a show where some random semi-popular Samoan girls were reading their poetry and doing the same thing. After a while it got annoying. Japanese writers don't do that. In an Ethnic Lit class I took at Cal, the Indian writer didn't do it, the Native writer didn't do it, the Chinese writer didn't do it, but the Mexican one did. It's like a prerequisite! I can do it too. Here:

I sat down with Obaachan at the kitchen table.
Rice powder gracing the stained wood grain.
I put the picture in my pocket.
Nani sore, musuko?
Nothing, Obaachan, I say
Sou desu ka.
Yes, Obaachan, I say
Atashi wa...
Obaachan doesn't finish her sentence.
The deep red maguro and nearly pink toro
Fitted perfectly on the cooked kome, the gohan
She used the chawan and tsugued the rice in the rice-cooker
Nee...
I pay no answer
Nee, musuko. Ano hito... Dare kashira?
I don't know how to respond.
Linguistically, intellectually, emotionally
Ano hito wa... anata no... ne?
She doesn't know how to ask the question. I don't know how to answer.
Ano hito...
Yes.
Ah. Sou desu ka.
The amaebi, tai, hamachi, all finding their place on the sweetened gohan
Ganbatte ne.
She puts down the sashimi and looks at me over her purple megane
Kono kazoku wa... Gomen nasai.
She bows her head slightly. I don't know why she's apologizing.
Aishiteru, musuko.
I love you too, Obaachan.
She starts in on the saba.
I am puzzled.
My phone rings.
It's him.

See?? It's great, isn't it? BECAUSE YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE'S SAYING. It's a stupid device. They use the language like it's a device. So annoying.

And we're back.

I haven't blogged in 7 months. Not since Grandpa died. Since then, I have moved to LA, got a new job, see very few people that I care deeply about, have lost a little weight, lost another person close to me, moved in with the girlfriend and the cat, and met some interesting people along the way. So, basically, since I last wrote on here, nearly everything changed in my life. Mostly for the better, thankfully.

LA is not so different from the Bay Area. The main differences are of course the weather, the traffic, and the immense geography. It takes so long to travel from any one place to another. And the traffic makes not a lick of sense either. I am glad for the holiday season because no one is going to work, which means my commute is 15 minutes both ways instead of the usual hour.

I haven't written a creative word in months. When I was in the academic setting of Cal, I wrote all the time. Partly to prevent myself from studying, and partly because it was just easier to write when surrounded by creativity. I know I am in the global capitol of the entertainment industry, and I should be in my creative element here, but I'm just not. I haven't been able to write a poem, a story, or (clearly) a blog post since moving down. My life is so far from creative now. I'm a piece of clay that has had the water sucked from it. Even this post lacks a certain beauty that I once had in my writing. It makes me very sad to see this. Perhaps if I write more on here, then I will get some of it back. We shall see how long I can keep this up.

I was looking for a TKD place down here for a few months. No dice. All these places cater to kids, and I'm a little spoiled having trained with adults for 7 years. I would love to train at UCLA, but the hours are a little ridiculous for working professionals like myself, and USC doesn't allow non-students to participate in the program. I went searching for an Aikido place and found two interesting prospects. Once I land a permanent job at SCE, where I am now as a temp, I will definitely invest in a few months of classes to get my chops back up. I really miss AKD. I told the masters at both places that I was only a 4th kyu, which is sort of like saying I'm an intermediate who can roll reasonably well, but can't do much else. It will be sort of exciting to start over again, having beginners mind at a new place to learn from a new master. It will be good martial arts practice for me to empty my cup of all the things I think I know and fill it with things that I do not. That is the true meaning of martial arts practice. The teacher is the student is the teacher.

I have embraced my Buddhist roots a little bit more in the past few months. I have been dealing with a lot of loss, and being able to let those things and people go has been a great unburdening for me. It is freeing to be able to be okay with not having something. Being Buddhist really helped me in all the transitions I have had to do in the past months. I think it may have started up when I was writing my personal statements for USC, which I by the way am not planning to attend. I decided that while my personal statements were artistic and beautifully formed expressions of myself, it was okay to take part of them away and change them completely as needed. Art is a transient experience rather than a solid piece of form. A painting will change in both meaning and actual form from the time it is first created to when it turns to dust. Every stage between is art, and different from the adjacent stages. That does not cheapen the art but deepens it and strengthens it. And then when I had to move back home from Berkeley, i let go of a lot of things. A lot of possessions primarily, but also plans that did not pan out. Realizing that I was where I was in my existence and not before nor after helped me to realize that where I go from here all depends on how I am right now in the moment. One of my Muslim friends said to me "you should just believe in God, Ben." I proceeded to defensively explain my beliefs about what I consider to be "God," which is something similar to The Force in Star Wars. Instead of her telling me something Islam-centric to convert me, she simply said "yeah, sure that's God." In literary theory, it is generally understood that people create art and write to understand and bring themselves closer to what is known as the "sublime." The sublime is considered to be all that which human beings cannot experience themselves. We can climb to the top of a mountain, but we will never know the mountain; we can fly in airplanes but we will never feel what it is like to be a cloud; we can die but no one can know what that feels like or what happens after. Those are all "the sublime." Just like the big lion from Narnia said, "I am known by another name in your world." I think it isn't particularly difficult to reconcile my Buddhist beliefs with my understanding of "the sublime." In Zen Buddhism, the primary practice is to "just sit," where you bring yourself closer to your true self through meditation. What is your "true self?" When you strip away all the things that make you your "false self," all that is left is what the Christians would consider a soul. That is when you, in Buddhism, reach "enlightenment," or "Nirvana." "Heaven." "Jannah." All describe a "place" or state free from suffering and full of joy. Closer to God. Closer to your own divine and true self. It's really all the same. All strive to bring yourself to a level of understanding of yourself, of the world and universe, and all strive to bring you to the end of your worldly sufferings.


I end, as always, with a haiku:

Sitting in silence
What is the mountain? The cloud?
Someday, I will know.

Branching Pathways

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, specifically about the dreaded question of “What if?”

Recently, while at work, So-youn’s email address popped up in my gmail chat list. Knowing that So-youn herself couldn’t have signed on to her email account, my brain immediately processed that someone was posing as her.

me: hello... who is this? I freaked out a little just now...
so-youn: im sorry i freaked out and signed out. this is ***. it says she is on invisible. i didnt mean to confuse anyone. im not even reading her email. i dont know why i logged in.
me: well, I'm not confused...but just surprised. Hello, ***.

Long story very short, ***is very cool and we relate to each other on several tangible (ie. she has my glasses and phone) and intangible (ie. she wants to save the world and she has played with both ends of the academic spectrum) points. She’s loads smarter than anyone I know, and it is all I can do to keep up with her dizzying intellect at times, and I sometimes have to look up words she uses during our internet conversations. Anyway, so I’ve been thinking a lot about So-youn the last couple days, primarily because of my new friendship with ***. I looked back at all our old email correspondences and chat logs on gmail yesterday and the day before. She certainly left a mark on me. She once invited me to her birthday party, and I didn’t go. Part of the reason was that I was really busy with whatever schoolwork I wasn’t doing at the time. The main reason, however, was that I feared feeling awkward meeting people that I didn’t know. Ridiculous, right? Not going to her birthday party is one of my great regrets. So-youn taught me by example the value in reaching out to those around you. She loathed at the term “networking” but regardless of that, she was really good at it. Going to that party of hers was her attempt at connecting her friends together; she said so herself. That was another thing she was good at: finding two people and seeing a thread that would connect them. That is why I think *** and me finding each other through seemingly random happenstance is yet another notch in So-youn’s belt. Even from the next life, she is able to connect people together. It boggles my mind. Wherever she is, I know So-youn is smiling.

I have been having a lot of those “what if” moments recently. Not only with all the potential time I could have spent or moments I could have shared with So-youn, but also in regards to a certain one of my friends who hasn’t yet graduated from college after 7 years. We used to be really close. The closest two platonic friends could be. And then the barrier broke, and we found ourselves infatuated with one another at the most wrong of times. Our friendship as it was ended shortly after that. We can’t go back to how things used to be. Because of what she said, what I said, what we didn’t say, or we did or didn’t do. To skip ahead to the now part of the story, she’s been at junior college for 7 years, since graduating high school. That’s a long time. I would understand if she had real hindrances to entering a university, but she doesn’t. The only thing keeping her back is herself. I have wondered if the end of our relationship, as it was 5 years ago, could be the cause of her not being able to extricate herself from community college. She had maybe 3 positive people in her life going to school with her when I was a city college student, and when we all left to four-year universities, she was left with people who could care less about succeeding in the world. I am not intending this to sound like I am high and mighty at the top of my ivory tower, and that the only success one can have is academic and monetary success. If these people showed the slightest bit of talent in any un-academic field, I would take back my statement, but other than the token wannabe musician, her friends are wasting their lives thinking that figuring out what bling to wear to class is more important than what class to actually take. If I had been there for her back then, if I had perhaps dated her like she wanted, could things have been different? Would we have worked out? Obviously no one can say for certain. I know she has dreams and she wants to do something of merit in the world, but she’s taken and dropped the same math class for the last 4 years, and that one math class is what is keeping her from moving on. What if I had been there? Could I have helped her? Would she even have asked me for help? Again, who is to say?

Ending with a haiku.
Like a cat, it stares.
It’s there, wherever you are.
Then now, then later.

Body of Lies

The first thing my father said to me today was ::head nod::. The second thing he said was (in response to me asking if he was going into work today) "yeah." The Third thing he said to me, and his first full sentence of the day, was "you need to not eat."

And thus encapsulates my relationship with my father.

It wasn’t always that way. I was 5 once, and things were good then. High school was when the talk of weight started, when I switched from Shaolin to Aikido. Aikido is slow moving, and emphasizes internal exertion rather than the physical sort. You should be able to throw your opponent across the room with little more than a nudge in that direction. I suddenly switched from a high impact and fast paced martial art to one that requires you to move as little as possible. My body responded in kind, as I continued to eat the same things that my mother cooked.

Through high school, I was a large kid. I never “fit in” in the usual sense of the phrase, partly due to my mixed heritage and partly to do with my physique. Very long story short, I developed an eating disorder in senior year.

Anorexia nervosa.

Since then, I’ve managed to keep Ana in check. There was a stretch back when I was living with Justin that I toyed with the idea of starting up again, and pushed the boundaries of what is safe and sane. Of course being around taekwondo kids all the time hasn’t helped. I always feel worse about my body around cutting time, and everyone else being anorexic encourages me to go there too. I personally have refused to cut weight while competing for Cal, so that I might not jump back into the comfortable routine of starving myself. That is likely why I have been largely (pun intended) unsuccessful in my taekwondo competition career, having only won 1 fight as a black belt. All the other middle weights are so much taller than me! While my taekwondo years were my healthiest ever, I still had trouble every day with eating, and it’s probably a good thing that I’m no longer in that environment anymore.

I attribute the biggest portion of blame for my eating disorder on the media. Easy scapegoat, there. But, and it hurts to admit this, I know that the primary blame rests with my father. Through high school, his comments every day piled on top of one another until it became too much to carry. Just so that he would stop criticizing me, just so that he would look at me with love rather than disgust, I looked for a quick fix. If it weren’t for a couple great friends, I might have stuck with it for longer. I would very much like to say that I had some intervenors back then and it all went away, but once you date Ana, you can’t let her go.

Now that I have this cursed broken foot of mine, cardio is very much out of the question. I’m overweight, and the comments he makes are getting louder in my head. I live at home, and it is harder to tune him out when his room is right next to mine. My own personal body image has always been skewed and warped, and I am never sure if what I am seeing is what other people are seeing. When I was at top fighting condition, I still saw flaws in my body. Picture me then and picture me now and try to tell me that I haven’t changed that much. I don’t need my father’s disgust to wash over me when I have disgust of my own.

I would like to say that it’s not a problem anymore. I love food, and I love to eat, but there is still a twinge of guilt at the back of my neck every time I finish a meal. I’ve been able to ignore the itch for a while, but it’s an ever present reminder of the easy way out.

Last week’s episode of Glee (the one titled simply “Home”) made me cry. Christina Aguilera and Linkin Park got me through high school. My love for my friends keeps me going today.

I need to move out. All the negativity is eating away at me and my defenses. Slowly. Slowly.

Surely.

Real Niggas

I am a success story. I grew up in the ghetto. On my street, there are only two kids from my generation that "made it." I use the term loosely, because I haven't quite done anything in my life by my own standards yet, but I've graduated from high school, so that means I made it. That's how bad it is here. I grew up with gang violence outside my window, drugs and alcohol, gun fire every night, and loud hip hop hurting my eardrums. But I somehow managed to leave it all outside and go off on my own path. I thank my parents for allowing me a chance to rise up out of those dire straits. I thank my parents for sacrificing so much so that I could reach higher than they did.

I saw one of my childhood associates on Sunday. He's three years older than me, lives across the street, and hasn't managed to pull himself out of the ghetto. He is, as his own mother puts it, slime.

Sunday, we spoke for the first time in more years than I can count. I’ve been away at college and making a life for myself while he never left the block.

He didn’t outright say it, but he resents me. He resents me for being successful, and not letting him share in that success.

“You’re successful. I aint successful.”

That was his one admission of weakness. He fancies himself the king of the block and even referred to himself as Jesus more than once.

He wonders why I never went to his house to acknowledge him or let him know that I had graduated from Cal. To that I responded “It’s not a one way street.” He expects my respect, as if he did something to earn it. He expects me to fall in line behind him.

Then:

“Man, I gotta get home. I have work tomorrow.”
“Shit, nigga, I aint keeping you here. If you wanna go, go!”
“Alright, I’ll see ya.”
“Hey, you wanna come over to my house?”

It was half joke and half pleading. I went home.

To think that I could have turned left instead of right one day and ended up where he is now.

White people have moved into the neighborhood. Things aren’t quite the same anymore. But things are still the same.

He added me on facebook. He had as his status “real niggas ring my doorbell.” I guess I’m not a real nigga then.

But I’m okay with that.

Change in flux

It appears that I am always in a constant state of flux. The moment my life manages to settle down for a second, the gears of the world start turning again.

I’ve only been in this current job for 4 months, since December, and I’m already getting laid off. I guess that’s what you get when you work for the state of California. I’m planning to stay working here for free at most until the end of May. What happens after May? I’m moving to Socal.

I’m 25. It’s time to get started on the adult stages of my life. I’ve fooled around for a long time. Time to pick up the ball and drive toward the basket.

I’m currently looking for a new job in Socal. Hopefully something in the energy industry, since that’s the field in which I am currently employed. I’m really hoping for getting a gig at Southern California Edison, the utility for much of Southern California, but the positions currently being offered are not at all what I’m looking for. I’ll keep looking. I’m living at home, so I’m not in a desperate need to find a job. Alhamdulillah. Thank God.

I haven’t had time to write creatively. I saw Joel this weekend, and he asked me if I’d been working on our TV pilot. Flat answer was no. I haven’t had time or energy to invest in such a project. It’s sad, but it is the way of things.

I mentioned in my last post that when anything is written here at work it is “drafted.” My colleagues draft white papers, they draft proposals, they draft presentations, and they draft speeches. I suppose my more literary approach requires me to use the word “compose” for all those tasks. Each time I write a speech, I’m composing it with beauty and substance, far beyond what my fellow interns can do. I’m very happy to be able to use my English degree; not many people can say that they use their degree in the workplace, least of all being English majors. They subtle notes of humor and agile sarcasm are what keep me excited about the next line. I became an English major because I love to write and not because I love to read.

I’m reading Kafka on the Shore. It’s really weird… Very distinctly Asian. Though, I would say, it reads more like a Korean story rather than a Japanese one.


I close with a haiku, yet again.

I haven’t written
In so, so long
The pen creeping close

change

I don't like change. I never have.

This year has been very transitional for me. First came graduating from Cal. That's obviously a good thing in my life, and I'm thankful for my education and the opportunities I have had that have put me where I am now.

Graduating meant looking for work. It took me a while to find something that would last me, first starting with tutoring, then taking the CBEST in order to ub later down the road, and now I'm working at the CPUC in San Francisco as an intern. Last week was my first week, and I'm already a little overwhelmed with everything they're throwing at me. This won't have any explicit effects in helping me become a better educator, but it will provide me another route to travel on if my education track is delayed.

And then Irene left for India. I become attached to my close friends, and I was sad to see her go, and was feeling selfish and abandoned. After becoming friends with her, finally, in the last semester of college, and seeing her nearly every week for this or that, her absence was immediately felt.

Living at home is a big deal. I didn't want to move back home, but I didn't have a job and was running out of money so that was the only viable option for me. My room is no longer my own. I no longer have a space that is all of me and my own creation. Not to say that the apartment was "mine" per se, but it was my own space. And moving away from Daniel was tough too. He was a good roommate, and we got along well.

Then So-Youn died. I had already dealt with the loss of two loved ones earlier this year, and I wasn't expecting this. No one was. A completely random and senseless moment of sadness. I was a mess for a few weeks after hearing of her passing. I didn't want to see anyone and didn't want to talk to anyone. Almost as if me keeping away from the world would cause everything to stand still for just a bit longer. Everyone would stay put and I wouldn't have to bury another friend. I'm still sad, but less so. My grieving process is always a long one.

I don't like change. It's very hard on me, and I don't accept it easily. I get very attached to spaces and people, and when I have to let them go, I feel as if I am physically torn from them, leaving a part of me behind with the missing pieces. It takes me a while to feel whole again, but I eventually do. I don't know if I'm there yet, but I'm working on it. Trying to keep busy. Trying to stay focused.

Kevin told me that change is a part of growing up. More specifically that death is a part of growing up, and that we're going to have to experience the pain of loss again and again in our lives. I understand this. I accept this. I just don't like it.

Moving down to socal will be my next big change. I dread it and yet I am excited for it. I am not afraid. I am just attached. When it comes time to leave socal, if that time ever comes, I'll not want to leave.

Why? Is it because it's too difficult? Is it because that staying put is just easier? I don't want to claim that as the answer, but it certainly sounds like it could be.

--

On another note... Next semester, I'm going to get my black belt. I know why I want it now. And I'll do it at UCMAP. It'll mean more. It took me 3 years to figure it out, but i think I'm ready for it now. Last year, when I was training for it, I kept thinking about what I would say when the panel asked me "why do you want to be a black belt?" The only answer I could come up with at the time was "because you want me to," or "otherwise I won't be allowed back." For me, getting a black belt in a martial art is something more than "just the next thing." It's not just the next thing. It's a big deal, at least to me, and I needed to make sure that my motivations were legitimate and my own. I'm ready. I'm going to begin training again this winter.

Start Spreading the News

I'm in New York. First time on the east coast. First time taking a vacation where my sole responsibility is to have fun and be a tourist, taking lots of pictures and being wide-eyed about all that I see around me.

The flight into JFK was a subtle version of exhilaration as I saw the Manhattan skyline in the distant horizon from my window seat on Virgin America flight VX 22.

On the Airtrain out of JFK, I observed that a city that calls itself "the city" cannot really be called "the city" when this airport is almost just as big, if not bigger.

The dark places of Manhattan are brighter than many of the bright places of the bay area

There is red brick everywhere. All the buildings exude age, and yet the young urban professionals have all moved in.

Everything is flat. I don't quite understand how that works, but it makes walking about quite easy.

Even though it was a Tuesday, there were people abound at all hours of the day everywhere, in all nooks of the city.

I noticed the tall apartment buildings all have mismatched air conditioning units wedged onto windowsills. Not something you see in the bay area.

At night, the buildings take on a theatrical presence in the world. It could be that all I know of New York are the representations as seen on stage and TV and screen, so I am biased when I say that. All the lights are relatively low to the ground, and at night the buildings are all lit up at their bases and not their tops, so it appears robed in shadow. It is almost as if the lighting director of this play decided the action was taking place on the street, and not the bedroom.

Another theatrical observation of the city was that in theater backdrops I have mainly seen depictions of New York as tall buildings pushed together in uncomfortable tangles of brick and wood, while the streets are all wide and open like a stage. This is not far from actuality, as there are no spaces between buildings, but the streets are wide and open. When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way.

Now i'm sitting on Erika's leather love seat, while she's yelling at the New York Times.

Happy.

Actual reflection #2

today was the tip test for tkd. no one who reads this doesn't know what that is, so i'm not going to elaborate further on definitions. lately, ive had quite a few setbacks in my tkd training. i did something to my back last semester towards the end, near winter break, which forced me off the mat until late february. due to a training partner's slowness, i rolled my ankle soon after coming back. and of course there is the issue of my knee, which is getting worse and worse with each class i attend. it didnt use to hurt when i walked normally. now it does. so now im back on the mat. i havent been able to push myself very hard because of the injuries, for doing double kicks would kill my back, kicking with my right foot causes a great deal of pain to explode from my ankle, and doing forms anywhere close to "good" makes my knee want to buckle every time. i am in no shape to be doing taekwondo, but i continue to do it, partly because i love it, and partly because of the people there. well, to say that i love it isnt entirely true. its a contensious relationship that tkd and i have with each other. i have done several martial arts in my life already, and ive been rather good at all of them, but tkd is the one that i have the most difficulty with, and because of this i keep at it to prove to myself that i can do it. its my activity of choice because i cant do it. thats the draw for me. the challenge. but i have come to realize that i will never be as good as the good people. i look at all the students who grew up with me in the program, and they are all surpassing me. part of me wants to blame my knee, but the other part yells at me to stop being a fucking crybaby and work harder. i will choose that for the time being. but today, like i mentioned, was the tip test, and when the masters gave their assessment of us, they called me average. i am just like everyone else. nothing sets me apart. i personally was upset with my performance, but my mentor was just as upset, having a good deal of critiques for me to walk away with; more than i had expected. it upset me to think that after 6 long years of training, i have only progressed so much. phong once told me that it doesnt matter to him what belt i tie, and that he sees me as a black belt already. it means a lot, coming from him, but at the same time, i dont think i will ever make it that far physically. i will never be an eric, or a justin, or kenny, or john. and that kills me. i have always striven to be excellent at everything i do, and with tkd, i am nothing but mediocre, and will be nothing but mediocre.

kelly tells me to suck it up. that i have the mind of the black belt, so who cares if my body isnt there. everyone knows my limitations by now. but thats not good enough for me. i cannot settle for anything but the best. why would i want to?

so what did i learn today? i am average. and that i hate being average.

an actual entry this time

i'm coming to the end of my undergraduate career. after many bumps along the road (most of them self inflicted), i am finally going to graduate. my plans for myself through and after college have changed so much in the last six years that i am hardly the same person that i was when i started. i went from being a very mathy geek who wanted to be an actuary and eventually teach college level math, to being an englishy geek with the unfounded notion that i could write noteworthy fiction. that is quite a change i think. i tell people that going from math to english was no big deal, that the skill set is much the same (those are the exact words that i use), but really it was a huge deal. i had spent so much time doing just math, and then i had to take all my prereqs for english in just one semester in order to be able to graduate "on time." i always had a lingering fascination with literature and writing on the tip of my tongue, but i had always figured that writing plays and short stories was a waste of time for someone who should have been figuring eigenspaces of various vectors in the 6th dimension of R. there was of course the resistance from my parents, specifically my father. even now he doesn't really support this "little hobby" of mine as he puts it. and then there's taekwondo. my taekwondo career has been hardly ideal. though i must say, i have made rather grand strides since the summer of 2003. testing for my black belt this semester will be a perfect ending to my undergraduateness.

but now that i'm nearing the end, i'm realizing that it is far from over. i still have to apply to grad schools and teaching programs. nyctf is still high on my list of course, but denial is forcing me to forget that i already failed to get in through the first round of applications and that i will most likely not get in this time around. i am of course very behind the application process, having not done the necessary tests in order to apply to grad school. so what i'm thinking is that i'll take the following year off, find a job, and bum at home until i can get everything in order that needs to be. i already started getting letters of rec, albeit very late (yesterday), so that is one less thing to worry about. so really it's just the tests, the CSET and CBEST, that i need to take. and then i'm most likely in. my expectations for grad school are pretty low. i'm setting the bar at sf state, since i know i can get in. i'll still apply to a few others, but i won't get my hopes up. the lesson i learned through the last year is this: no, i am not awesome, and no one really thinks you are. because really, everyone else is at least just as if not more awesome than me.

i wonder what i will be doing in 5 years. teaching? writing a play? or blogging in the dark like i am now. half of me is eager to get there, but the other half is afraid to turn the lights on.