Another sleeplessness

I have been writing here a lot lately - I am not really sure what this means, but there have been so many cluttered thoughts in my mind lately that I really can't stand it sometimes.

I keep looking for you. Even though I know you're not a part of my life anymore.

It is literally driving me crazy. On the one hand, I want time to go by fast so I can just get over this nonsense and be "whole" again. On the other hand, I really want to just stop time and think. And just...love. I wish I can truly love every moment of my life, knowing that no matter how I feel, a single moment passes by way too quickly - there is really no time to be disappointed, hurt, feeling "down"...

Whattttt is going on here?

Someone once asked me if it gets easier after the first time.

I think my answer remains true: it doesn't really get easier - you still get ridiculously hurt and that uneasy feeling will still prevail, disrupting your entire life for a while - but you learn to cope with it better, you learn to hide it better. And by "hide" I mean not only from others, but from yourself as well.

Ugh. Emotions. It's been seriously way. too. long.

Breathing Again

It's been about two years now since I have first stepped foot in Philadelphia.

My first impressions of the city were disappointing, to say the least - although I was extremely excited as a high school senior to visit Penn, I remember looking out the window as I walked through the Philly airport to see a city that looked very...gray.

This grayness of Philadelphia was a screaming 'uh-oh' sign for me; after all, LA was green 360 days out of 365 days of the year (and during those 5 days when it wasn't green or sunny, people rejoiced at the change in weather - so basically, we were happy all around). The misery of the city wasn't very difficult to feel even at these very first few moments of my encounter with Philadelphia.

I would be completely lying if I said that Philly has grown a soft place in my heart after two years of living here; in fact, everyday I see the city's brokenness more and more.

Yesterday, as I got off the subway with a friend in Center City, we stumbled across a small group of people surrounding something. As we got closer, I saw a policeman and a clearly mentally unstable man. I guess the policeman had continuously told the man to get down on the floor because the last thing I heard was, "I'm not going to ask you again, get down on the floor" - and when the guy still stood there looking dumbfounded, the policeman shot his taser gun which clasped at the blink of an eye onto the guy's chest.

I had never heard someone scream like that in my entire life. The agony that the man was going through was clearly displayed through his terrible voice - the next thing I knew, he stumbled to take two steps backwards and fell down onto the ground, lifeless.

At that moment, my friend and I instinctively reached out for each other's hands and went across the street to avoid the scene.

I don't think the event was as traumatizing as it should have been, especially given the circumstances of my upbringing. But it did get me thinking as to how broken the city really is. The streets are completely filthy, factory smoke creates a smog bubble that surrounds the city, the drivers are angry and impatient. I think Philadelphia drivers are the worst ones I have ever seen - even in comparison to New York City (but perhaps I haven't seen enough of NY drivers to conclude this). People always talk about how bad the traffic and the drivers in LA are; but they are not inherently angry drivers. Most of the time, LA drivers are hesitant in using their honks and virtually no one ever honks if the car in front of them is not turning because people are crossing (which is dangerous and also um, ILLEGAL).

But in Philadelphia, I see it everyday. Cars turn as much as they can get away with when people are crossing the street. Countlessly each day, I hesitate or wait for a car to turn first before crossing even when the light is in my favor. I've also been nearly run over a couple times. As I tell people when I get back home, in Philadelphia the rules of the traffic can be seen as mutual disrespect between pedestrians and drivers. I think the worst thing about this part of the city is that the Police simply do not care to give out traffic tickets. Drivers break all sorts of rules within the vicinity of the police; I myself cross the street illegally ("jaywalk") all the time in front of police (this would never, ever happen in LA, even if there was no policemen in sight).

Sigh.

But despite this all, the friend and I went to a cute little crepe shop tucked away in the middle of center city; there, it seemed, time slowed down. As I enjoyed a good cup of coffee with my sweet crepe and a good conversation followed, I felt like even in such a horrid city, some sense of peace could be found.

I felt like I could breathe again.

Spring

Spring must be coming.

I had noticed the emergence of flowers earlier this week on the road that I always take to go from my room to the Quad, where I work (37th street). But it wasn't until today that I noticed how exactly how many had sprung up - I was greeted by entire rows of white, yellow and pink flowers on my way back to my room today, and it made me smile much more than flowers had ever done before.

I guess this is part of living the East Coast life. Learning to appreciate flowers after such a dreary dark winter. Learning to love the white piles of snow, despite the insane coldness that strikes at your core.

In LA, flowers are everywhere, 365 days of the year, by default. So even though they are there, looking pretty all the time, people don't really pause to appreciate them. Or at least I never did.

Now, "spring" has a really different meaning for me. It means that enduring through the long winter ultimately has a reward, and life does go through these cycles that ultimately lead back to rebirth and growth.

Although it is typically said that the seasonal cycle begins in the spring and ends in the winter, I would like to think that it begins in the summer and that it ends in the spring - just so that the result is happiness, not the other way around. After all, it is a circle, right?

I am really hoping that spring will bring some spring into my own life; beneath it all, there is a hollowness that is waiting to be filled.

Locust at Midnight

In the past few days, I have barely spent any time in my room. Literally, I get back at around 5 or 6am and sleep for a couple of hours, only to trek off around 9am and not to return until 5am the next morning.

Today, right around midnight, as I was making the trip across campus from a friend's room to Meyerson Hall, I noticed something that everyone always did at this hour on Locust Walk: glance through the darkness to see if there is someone you recognize on the other side of the road.

I am not sure if we normally do this all throughout the day, and it is only more noticeable at night, or if it is some strange phenomenon that occurs when Locust Walk isn't so busy, and there is enough space in between people to slow down and look at each face on the other side of the road.

And even as I noticed myself doing it, I could not stop but glance over to occasionally awkwardly meet the other person's eyes, only to quickly turn away and focus on the person behind him. For me at least, I think it is a sort of a relief from the fact that although I am walking at such an odd hour where "normal" people ("normal" defined as not overambitious college kids) are asleep, I am not alone on the long trek back to studying. I think it is also partly in hopes to find a familiar face on the other side, just because at that hour I am often frustrated due to the workload and want to just hear the warmth and comfort of a familiar voice.

It's an interesting road, this college business. As I have expressed to various friends before in reflection, I think I will miss these days - even the ones filled with complete frustration and utter pain of inadequacy. We only get one chance each day to spend it to its best; likewise, we only get one chance to take advantage of the proximity that college provides to build relationships and unforgettable memories.

Above all, I am thankful that I have people that suffer through with me during these ridiculously late study nights (more like, everyday). Time is flying by way too quickly. I hope this semester will go by slowly; "I want to smell the flowers as I make my decline".

Thankful.

There are so many things to be thankful for, even when I'm at my worst.

I am realizing that more and more this semester - more like God is teaching me that more and more.

The past few days - the first few days since Spring Break - have been really odd for some reason. They have been characterized by various panic attacks as I obsessed over a paper and a midterm coming up on the same day; a friendly reminder that I was back at Penn, not at home where I had, for a week, pretended that responsibilities did not exist (on various levels, but academic being a huge part of it).

It's funny to think that it's only Wednesday (err, Thursday), and therefore it has been like, 3.5 days since I had come back - yet, I feel like I went through enough emotional Up's and Down's to last an entire semester.

But I think that things have changed a lot since last semester.

Namely, I found a group that resembles a lot of the high school friends I have back at home; friends I can laugh about stupid things with, stay up all night chatting with, and provide a support mechanism that is so needed in this kind of an environment.

Today, as I fluctuated between my modes, I found myself in friends' arms as much as I had on a typical day in high school.

There's nothing like the warmth that a good hug brings. And I am so, so thankful to have so many good huggers in my life.

Another point of reflection: I really, really need to learn to love people, even at their worst.

정리 - DONE

Coming into Spring Break, there were a couple of things I needed to "정리" in my life - mostly for my own mind's sake. 정리, in Korean, means to organize or figure out - it is very difficult to convey all the connotations that the Korean word has in English, but for now, this will have to do.

It seemed that as wonderful as this Spring semester of 2010 has been, a lot of things in my life were cluttered, or left undone; many things left unsaid that needed to be said, many complications that I just brushed off casually.

Well, all these things are very unlike me - I am usually the type of person that needs to see the end of things (I have a very hard time 'letting go' but once I 'let go' it's over as over can be) - and the fact that I had so many things not figured out was lurking in the back of my mind the entire semester, bothering me on those restless nights after an incredibly busy day.

So I took this week-long break to relax under the beautiful sun in the Pacific (the better coast) and contemplated. A lot.

Everything ranging from what I fail in doing in certain situations to all the unanswered calls and emails were taken care of; I also took a break from Digsby and my phone (for the most part) in order to sort uneasy feelings about friendships and relationships that had emerged in the last few weeks.

I always considered myself to be an open person, open to sharing about my emotions and what-not with friends and family. But I guess everyone has their share of secrets, and I am still largely grappling with trust issues.

I always thought it was because I could not trust people - and that was, in itself, the only issue.

But now I think that there is a bigger issue at hand - the root of this trust issue is not merely a trust issue, but a control thing.

On the surface, I am really not the control freak - and I am very far from being a perfectionist. That is, in group projects and in my own work (whether it be school work or a piano piece or baking), I am definitely not the person who needs 100% perfection to be pleased. But I guess internally, on a different level, I do have major control issues.

In my own mind, everything needs to be clear - whether it be relationships, friends, or the direction my career is going toward. I allocate certain degrees of motivation to each category that I am working on; that's where my "all-or-nothing" mentality takes its root.

Therefore, when things were left cluttered in my mind - with things going out of my control - with relationships emerging that I had not allocated certain levels of my attention and obligations that I half-heartedly engaged in, I was essentially going crazy.

In looking over all these thoughts, however, and realizing that I have this major control issue, I began to see the extent of my lack of trust in God.

Letting things be and "going with the flow" is one thing; realizing that the more I try to retain control of my life, I am actually causing it to slip away from my fingers is another.

Identifying this about myself is probably the best thing that has happened during this short one-week break. Now is the time for some extended reflections and prayer..

Heading Downtown

Downtown LA has always been a curious place for me. It was also a forbidden place; growing up, going East (to the "bad" neighborhoods) from my little gated-community haven was strictly taboo in my family whereas going West (where Beverly Hills and the Beach lay) was not.

My parents, no doubt, preferred me to stay within the gated community or the surrounding areas ("There is a mall across the street from where we live, why do you need to go there to watch a movie?") and thus practically all my childhood friends came to me, to my house, to my neighborhood, and it was a rare occasion if I ever busted out of my bubble to visit friends at their neighborhoods, in "Koreatown" where, according to my parents, was "unsafe" ("Did you hear that a woman got mugged in broad daylight the other day?").

As high school rolled along, my friends consisted of people whose families lived West of here, near my school, and therefore I spent quite a bit of time exploring the greater West LA area, past Beverly Hills and in Culver City.

Then, college came and I was across the United States, completely out of my safe zone and living in West Philadelphia (in Philly, I quickly learned, that East = "good" and West = "bad") - but I never really got to understand or explore Downtown LA.

Until today.

I had a lunch date with a friend at a little cafe located in the Central Library in downtown - and although I barely spent 2-and-a-half hours there, I got a glimpse of Downtown that I never had in the 12 years that I had spent growing up in Los Angeles.

In recent years, Downtown LA, which had been notorious for being the "scum" of the city, has been undergoing incredible transformation. It is becoming more and more of what the downtown of a city stereotypically is; "prestigious" (which equals "expensive" in this case) apartment and condos have been built, inspired by the Renaissance time period (such apartment communities are named "The Orsini", "The Piero" and "The Medici"), the Staples Center area - home of my beloved Lakers - is filled with flashy lights and digital screens, and the Homeless that used to occupy the streets of Downtown LA are being pushed further and further back (ironically) to the suburb cities.

As I was standing in front of the Central Library waiting for my ride to pick me up, I encountered the odd mixture of people that compose today's downtown. Businessmen in extravagant suits were walking around the streets, with PDAs in hand and their briefcase in the other while a group of Homeless was sitting in front of the library, exchanging cigarettes and who-knows-what with one another. And there was me, standing timidly with my $250 hairdo anxiously grasping my pink Blackberry on the lookout for a Kia Sedona.

I looked around and saw how much downtown had been transformed since my childhood. A "modern" look had been imposed on every single street; little cute cafes had popped out everywhere, gorgeous fountains could be found every couple of blocks, a little mall with Johnny Rockets, Starbucks, and Robeks Juice had been built in a building with pretty Silver letters.

Yet, within the Central Library and on its surrounding streets, the Homeless and the Corporate World still met to form some weird representation of the unique history of my beloved city. In an odd way, I wondered if the high-end business men and women who walk on those downtown streets everyday ever stop to think back on the implications of poverty and the costs of democracy. I wonder if I ever would, if I worked in Downtown.