Calm, Cool, and Wonderful

August 10, 2010

A little past midnight.  Sitting alone in the quiet apartment in front of the dining table with my work laptop out.  Focusing, brainstorming, scribbling notes - working late into the night for my internship meeting tomorrow.  Soft music playing in the background from Pandora.

Pausing to notice the tranquility that completely surrounds the night.  Feeling the cool air coming in from the slightly open window - the fresh, LA, summer breeze.  This year, we've been lucky that the weather hasn't been scorching.  The heat hasn't been unbearable, and the sun is wonderful as always.

Then it hit me: I love this.  I love working like this to the midst of the night.  This is the highlight of my busy Monday that starts 8 in the morning with a headache from the rowdy, puberty-struck middle schoolers that I teach until late into the afternoon.  The headache and exhaustion last such a long time that when I come home, I need at least a couple of hours to recuperate before dinner.  Then again, I work on my other two internships.  Yes, I have overbooked my summer this year.  But I love it.

Tomorrow, I will return home once again exhausted - a different type of exhaustion, since I won't be seeing the kids but will instead be in a meeting for my internship all day.  I won't be able to spare a couple of hours to recuperate before dinnertime tomorrow, however, since I will come home just in time for the last meal of the day.  Then, a different task will await me - piles and piles of things to grade for my lovely but terrible students.

Yes, it's stressful.  Yes, I have to work throughout the weekend to catch up on my third responsibility this summer - my second internship.  But I love and embrace it.

Summer 2010 - this is exactly what I needed.  Isn't it funny how He always knows?

Perspective

July 30, 2010

The last two weeks have been insane.  My internship with GAP is getting exponentially stressful as the entire team is preparing for our fundraising event, scheduled to occur at the end of August.  Today, the three of us hit up LA "Beach Cities" to ask small boutique stores for in-kind donations.  This was the second time that we had gone around together; last week, we hit up the Melrose and Larchmont area.

It was extremely daunting at first to go around random stores asking for donations, but what really surprised me was this: everyone was extremely nice.  And by everyone, I mean literally everyone.  The places that said "we can't donate this year" were even apologetic.  Some gave us donations on the spot.  Even when we walked into a restaurant that was extremely busy, they paused and listened.

Today, a few of the stores told us something that our stressed-out team really needed to hear: "Thank you for doing this.  Somebody needs to do this, and you guys are making a difference."

And I thought that we were going to be shunned for being intrusive.


As I conveyed to the team as we ended the exhausting day, it's really nice to know that people are generally nice and do care for something more than just profit.  Even in such a huge city as LA, where people are thought to be disconnected, people still care.

I found that as I got caught up more and more into the whole planning the fundraising business, the actual cause of my efforts was long forgotten.  Last week, when the LA team went out to canvas for the first time, I came home absolutely exhausted to find this on CNN that put everything back to perspective.  That news story is exactly why GAP was founded, and why I am working hard on this event.  The voice of the mother in the 911 call is disturbingly calm, but I can't imagine how helpless she felt from this condition that penetrates entire families to the core.  We're looking to prevent such incidents that might and do occur around the world with regards to children with autism, to help educate and aid families through raising a child with such a difficult condition.

Again, I am forced to face the realities of autism every Monday and Wednesday when I teach at my parttime job at the Learning Center: one student in my classroom of seventeen has autism, and everyday is a struggle for us.  On good days, I can get him to write me a couple of sentences for Journal in 3.5 hours.  On bad days, he initiates arguments with other students who are still too young to understand.  Everyday, other students complain nonstop, "how come he doesn't have to do anything?!?".  Yet, there is something that sets him apart beautifully from the other kids.  Something pure and genuine.

Perspective.  It's really all about perspective.  Depending on the perspective, my internship can be a huge, stressful event.  Or it can be a tiny, small step - my little contribution to a cause that affects so many individuals all around the globe.

Long Overdue

I'm back.

And as usual, my lifestyle in LA has already begun to sweep away the life I had begun used to at Penn. Apparently, LA cures everything. As soon as I stepped into the sunshine out from the airport and looked outside to see such green grass and the sway of palm trees, I knew that I was not going to be fine, but was already fine.

The disappointment of an academic shortcoming, the frustration of particular friendships, the sadness of the goodbyes - everything seemed so far away. Well, that is partly due to the fact that 3000 miles away is really far away, but I really am starting to think that being home, being in this wonderful city puts a magical shield around me. The soft breeze and the wonderful sun surround me, hugging me - almost like how nature interacts with those dreamy princesses in Disney movies.

Okay, that sounded totally corny.

But seriously. Los Angeles. The city of Angels. I LOVE my city. When I am walking down the street, with huge sunglasses on and feeling the warmth of the sun and the people, I feel as if it is a very small representation of God's love for me. It surrounds me completely - it's in the atmosphere, the air, the aura - it's the sun, the warmth of the Pacific Ocean, the soft breeze, the palm trees, the smile of the stranger on the street, the art of the musicians and producers sitting next to me at Barnes & Noble, the splash of the fountain as I make my way home.

I really needed this after such a busy and crazy semester. I really needed this before heading off to the other side of the world next semester.

God knows what's best.

God knows...

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.

I am really selfish, afterall

Washington Blvd, Los Angeles - Going westward

I don't want to leave. Ever.

What other state boasts such beauty in December?

And yet, a bare one week remains until the day I must leave my beautiful hometown for the dreary city of Philadelphia. When will I be back to enjoy this sunshine, the beach, the beautiful people? - two weeks in the summer, perhaps. Maybe for a longer period, granted that destiny allows me more time before facing my ultimate dread of growing up.

Should I take a research opportunity over the summer, which would involve my staying at Penn for virtually all of vacation but further my chances at Grad School? Or should I take a risk, look for an internship in LA, perhaps go the PR route, perhaps research in the remaining two summers (after this one) while resting at home for this one?

And the question that comes up over and over again in my mind creeps up in my conscience once more: why did I go so far away from home? Berkeley had accepted me with wholeheartedness, granting me the Regents scholarship that would have kept me near home and perhaps have given me more research options.

Oh, the sparkling title of graduating from an Ivy League school had completely tempted me. As if graduating from Penn would stamp my resume in glittering, gold letters: IVY LEAGUE. But now I know that it is really not quite that simple.

Now that I am beginning to stress and worry over my prospects at Graduate School, I wonder if attending Penn would be more detrimental than had I attended a less prestigious school elsewhere.

But no. Speaking with a distant Penn friend today, I realized that my mere three semesters at Penn (oh my I am but only 3/8 done) have taught me so much about surviving in the East Coast, away from the friendly people of Los Angeles and the comforts of home. Not to mention that no matter what bitter feelings I might harbor against Penn, I cannot doubt that thus far, my professors have been absolutely amazing. What such passion they hold! They have taught me so much, and have fired up my goals and love for learning beyond my expectations.

(My professor from last semester has just emailed all of us stating that grades have been delayed due to a system failure in the last couple of days. OH DEVASTATION. I have been anxiously checking for my grades all throughout winter break, on Christmas Eve, on Christmas Day, throughout New Year's celebrations and up until now but yet I am still missing 3/5 grades!)

And in the midst of all these thoughts on my future goals and plans (or the lack thereof), yesterday night I watched a show with my parents where a group of Korean entertainers went to Africa in order to establish a well so that the inhabitants could have clean water. The level of calamity was beyond imagination - all of them, drinking terribly murky and polluted water, feeding it to their children while knowing that the damned water is the source of terrible diseases that took their own parents away at a premature age!

And here I am, moping and complaining about Grad schools, and not being able to be in LA, the fact that my Fall Semester grades are coming out late, blahblahblah. Caught in the "Penn Bubble", I think all of us just forget about the rest of the world. A part of me wants to forget EVERYTHING, let go of all my selfish desires and go to Africa and build some drinking wells.

But I know, life is never simple like that, and neither is humankind. What exactly is stopping me from doing so? Selfishness? But can it be called selfishness when I am just looking after my own good? Perhaps I can justify it by suggesting that after I get my thousand degrees (more like three - BA, MA, PhD) I would be able to help them in a more large-scale way. But does that mean that the lives that I could have - that all of us could have - saved in the meantime should be sacrificed for the greater good?

Mind you, it is 3:47am here on the West coast and I tend to drone on and on during the wee hours of the night. Sigh.

Twenty. 20. 스무살. No longer a teenager.

In exactly one month, I will no longer be a teenager.

When I was younger, I used to think that twenty-year-olds were REALLY adults. Like, adults who knew what they were doing. Adults who, although might not know exactly where they are going in life, have figured out everything there is to know about...well, themselves. But now I know that is not the case. And now I wonder if the elderly who seem so wise to us - the seventy-year-olds...if any of them know exactly what is happening to them, most of the time.

And by the end of all this contemplation, only one thing stands true: clearly, I need to pray more.