i've been flagellating a lot lately. stuck somewhere in between nostalgic emo phases and concern for the future of my life (and the US economy) that's not the present. things just kind of happen from a day to day basis with generally no purpose, no drive forward. it's been...disconcerting to say the least. as wonderful as it is, a life free of responsibilities is quickly wearing on me as i beg for something to sink my teeth into, something to throw myself into willingly and with careless abandon. be it a person, a thing, a job, a general purpose, anything to stop my mind from wandering...from idling. i keep finding myself thinking stupid bullshit emo thoughts when really my life is everything i've dreamed of for the past four years and more. relaxation, no course packets, no tests, no class, just nothing in the way of my quest to do...nothing. but all these fucked up thoughts keep ruining my utopia. what if i don't get a job? why can't an asian man find himself a woman? what the fuck am i gonna do tomorrow? when will i move on?
truly i just need to move on with my life. as much as i love all my friends...i just need a new scene. something new, something foreign. i need new people, new scenery, new responsibilities, new distractions and for the love of christ...new datable women.
but most of all i just want to stop treading water, stop moving in place, stop (insert wishful cliche here). fuck this stagnation. i need something to keep me going...anything. any...fucking...thing.
...and no ninjavideo doesn't count. fuckin wilson...always ruining my life with shit like this.
/emo>
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
as we go on...
cap and gown...check.
graduation...check.
diploma...check.
family time...check.
celebratory drinking...check.
one last time at the hundo with everyone...check.
getting creeped out by an engaged friend...check.
tearful goodbyes...check.
shitshow...check.
a game of kings...check.
sunrise on the roof of willard...check.
walker brothers at 6:30 AM...check.
hail to northwestern, class of 2008. we done graduated.
graduation...check.
diploma...check.
family time...check.
celebratory drinking...check.
one last time at the hundo with everyone...check.
getting creeped out by an engaged friend...check.
tearful goodbyes...check.
shitshow...check.
a game of kings...check.
sunrise on the roof of willard...check.
walker brothers at 6:30 AM...check.
hail to northwestern, class of 2008. we done graduated.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
so i was surfing through my docs
...and found some pretty hilarious/random shit.
first up, haikus from jap lit
Jiwon Park
Haiku Assignment
Japanese Literature
Professor Lyons
Dreams
Drowning in my sleep
I wrestle with their meanings
Plagued with doubt and hope
Winter
Bleak cold bites my skin
Wearing away at my soul
Winter drags onward
Frisbee
Perspicacity
Comes as I see the Frisbee
My goal is clear: catch.
then, we have an excerpt from the minority report
Bharatwaj Sowrirajan
Bharatwaj is a charming individual that is a dating enthusiast. He loves sitting with girls in coffeeshops and chatting about Camus and reminiscing about obscure movies and television shows that make him seem cultured and suave. He also owns many leather-bound volumes and loves to maintain and read them on a daily basis. He will take you out to dinner downtown in a quaint little Italian restaurant and will pay for your meal with his bank account from the Cayman’s. Then he’ll take you back to his place put the lights down low, fire up some candles, put on some Barry White and then bend you over a desk and punishfuck you.
B is in actuality a malnourished, alcoholic, sleep-deprived, d-bag, with a dirty whorish mouth, and a giggle like a pre-pubescent girl wearing butterfly clips in her hair…pink ones. His diet usually consists of pasta and French fries, which basically means that he always walks around like he just got reamed up the ass, but in actuality B just needs to stop being a bitch and sink his teeth in a big side of deep-fried cow. His schedule this year consists of Physics, Bio, and Orgo, which basically means this fucker’s gonna be working harder than a Chinese 6-year-old in a Nike sweatshop…sorry…too far? I meant 5-year-old…sorry too far again? I meant fetus. Haha…fetus. I like fetuses. Pretty fetus. Want to touch you. Want to play with you. Tea party?
If you walk past B’s room, you’ll more than likely hear one of the following three things: Foo Fighters, Nirvana, or him jacking off. B needs a bit of release. If by release you mean some poonani. So one of you ladies, please – jump the grenade…for our sanity. Nah, I’m just playin’…B’s really a chill kid – get to know him, maybe take him out for some coffee, or meet him up at some frat party, maybe some chicken, or maybe just throw him over a desk and punishfuck him…or something.
Jiwon “I’m so WASTED” Park
also from the...analyzer?
Top Ten Ways you know you’re a white-washed asian
The words “Chinese fire drill” remind you of cheeky high school memories, instead of running out of a sweatshop in the middle of Beijing as the bosses tell you to keep working.
You aren’t an orchestral prodigy…in fact you can barely scratch out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the violin and Chopsticks is about as Asian as you get on the piano.
When somebody gives you an abacus for arithmetic, you give them a strange look and ask them “Where the fuck is my calculator?”
You know more English words for penis than you do Korean words…total.
Everybody thinks you know kung fu, but if you actually got into a fight, you’d probably hurt yourself more than anyone else.
You hear the phrase “you’re the first Asian guy I’ve ever hooked up with” more than you hear the phrase “A+ in math.”
The description of your car doesn’t involve the words “NOS,” “underglow,” “turbo,” or “church van.”
Your haircuts don’t involve a bowl.
Walking through Plex makes you uncomfortable instead of reminding you of the motherland.
You have a huge penis. HUGE.
and now for the big finish: a graduation essay i wrote...in high school. don't fucking judge me.
Jiwon Park
So Remember
Life really is a series of moments. Significance stretching between peak moments of ultimate weight and moments of inconsequence.
Graduation is a significant moment. One of those rites of passages, one of those moments you’re told never to forget, one of those moments that comes around only once in a lifetime. One of those moments when your family congregates in an army with potential to be downright embarrassing. One of those moments when you see the vulnerability of your parents, those pillars of confidence, of strength. One of those moments when you see your mom get that proud “that’s my baby” look in her eye. One of those moments when your dad does the gruff “this isn’t sentimental…I’m just videotaping.” But most important of all, graduation is one of those moments that ends so much.
Graduation ends the days of borderline dictatorship, ranging from bogus curfews to impossible assignments that teachers infamously “suck” for. Graduation ends the inherent fear of your parents instilled in the back of your mind and the inherent need to rebel against that fear, against that control. Graduation is the end of college talks, the end of “what are you doing with your life” talks, the end of “do your homework or you’ll end up a garbage man” talks.
Graduation ends the Sunday night rush where you have a 5-page paper to write and its 11:30, but you have class at 7:30 in the morning. It ends the sinking feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when you realize 3rd hour you forgot your 100-point project at home on your dining room table. It ends the malaise you feel as you listen to your math teacher drone on about the square root of something or other when you got 4 hours of sleep last night.
But graduation ends all those amazing moments too. Those moments that make all the downs seem like worn away speed bumps instead of rough cobblestones. These are the moments we can look back on and truly be sentimental about, succumb to the sappiness, the sweetness that the survival of these moments seems to depend on. The first time a girl looked at you with that glint in her eye. The first time a teacher told you “great job.” Or even the first time you stuck it to a teacher. The first time you went running around in the rain with your friends and didn’t care how wet you got. The first time you felt apprehensive and thrilled to be behind the wheel. The first time you played in a varsity football game. The first time someone applauded for you when you’ve performed your heart out, gone past your limit, found yourself at the end and somehow with more to give. The first time you wrote an article that someone actually read. The first time you were part of a champion team. The first time something felt like the first time the fortieth time around. The first time you found someone that you could talk to like you had known them your entire life. The first time you looked at the clock and realized your conversation lasted over 4 hours. The first time you really felt loved. The first time you were happy to be where you were. The first time you didn’t even realize how insanely happy you were until you collapsed from exerting so much energy into your joy. These are the moments that you don’t want to end. Some of these moments you don’t even realize are happening. They pass over us as we pass through life caught in a whirlwind of activity. We wrap ourselves into our heavy and high-paced lives, frazzled and anxious to go from one thing to the next and to the next. To truly enjoy life, we must find a balance. A balance between this automatic skipping from one thing to the next and a life of overanalyzing each and every moment. To truly enjoy life, we must let it happen. We must allow those moments to drop into our paths, amazing or horrendous as they may be. We learn to change, we learn to grow as humans through these moments, savoring the highs and learning from the lows. High school is about finding this, finding the center within ourselves, finding our inert ability to enjoy, our ability to understand, to comprehend the moments that so define our lives. Graduation signifies the end of this quest, this journey, this crusade. It signifies our accomplishment. For many of us, graduation signifies the finish of everything we’ve worked for. Not only in our pedantic school life, but in our vivid social lives, full of vitality and confusion. Graduation represents finding our center, finding our balance. For some of us, it took only a few weeks. Others it took years. Others haven’t found it yet. But for all of us, graduation signifies an enormous step towards becoming the people we are destined to become. Without this significance, graduation is a mere bump in the road of mediocrity. This significance makes it a moment. It makes it ok to be sentimental and corny. It makes it ok to cry, to be sad, to be happy, to be bittersweet about leaving. It makes it ok to be bad at goodbyes. It makes it ok to wish for four more years. It makes it ok to be relieved and glad that you’ll never have to hear another refrain of that school song that so few of us really know the words to. It makes it ok to appreciate all that graduation is. It makes it ok to recite quotes and insights in an attempt to capture the lucid beauty of everything you’re feeling right now, because you know and we all know that it’s impossible to find the words, to find the love, to find the beauty that can even come close to nailing down the significance, the unbelievable something that graduation is.
Graduation has an enormous potential to be a trip down nostalgia lane. Steeped in “remember whens” and overflowing with “what ifs” we stumble through the remnants of the four years that Prospect held us captive. We sprinkle memoirs into the rush of our daily life, songs, scents, people, glimpses of something here or there reminding us of that awkward kid that was scared mindless to change in front of all those intimidating guys, or the girl that you thought would never talk to you…but did. You’re reminded of those unbelievable moments, every once in a while finding yourself caught in remembrance. You laugh at the jokes that no one else knows, you smile at the stories that remind you of something special, you feel comfortable with something so familiar. All of us are departing next year. Whether it be to some other life, or a new life in sunny Mount Prospect, we don’t depart alone. As far away from Prospect you may feel in the coming years, you will always be in the company of the four years we shared here. You will always be armed with the successes you celebrated, or the mistakes you kicked yourself for. It’s so easy to forget how much of a blessing we’ve had. It’s easy to highlight those nights when you just wanted high school to end, those nights where you couldn’t stand the wonderful 6:30 wake-up call that faced you in the morning. But that’s not what’s important. Those are the moments that deserve to be glossed over. These are the moments that deserve their own scrapbook in your mind. The moments you can look back on and smile. The moments you find yourself remembering whenever you do something specific. The faces you see, the voices your hear, the memories that plaster the walls of your mind. So many times, we settle for the easy path, for the life that brings us the least strife. Don’t settle for that. You don’t deserve it. It’s so easy to forget. So remember.
So don’t tough it out. Buy into it all. Buy into “don’t cry because its over, smile because its happened.” Buy into “carpe diem.” Buy into that graduation song we’ve all heard way too many times. Buy into the cheesy quotes, the awkward attempts at expressing something that is simply inherently inexpressible. Because this is one of those moments that only comes around once. This is one of those moments that doesn’t deserve to be forgotten because it makes you remember. So remember.
first up, haikus from jap lit
Jiwon Park
Haiku Assignment
Japanese Literature
Professor Lyons
Dreams
Drowning in my sleep
I wrestle with their meanings
Plagued with doubt and hope
Winter
Bleak cold bites my skin
Wearing away at my soul
Winter drags onward
Frisbee
Perspicacity
Comes as I see the Frisbee
My goal is clear: catch.
then, we have an excerpt from the minority report
Bharatwaj Sowrirajan
Bharatwaj is a charming individual that is a dating enthusiast. He loves sitting with girls in coffeeshops and chatting about Camus and reminiscing about obscure movies and television shows that make him seem cultured and suave. He also owns many leather-bound volumes and loves to maintain and read them on a daily basis. He will take you out to dinner downtown in a quaint little Italian restaurant and will pay for your meal with his bank account from the Cayman’s. Then he’ll take you back to his place put the lights down low, fire up some candles, put on some Barry White and then bend you over a desk and punishfuck you.
B is in actuality a malnourished, alcoholic, sleep-deprived, d-bag, with a dirty whorish mouth, and a giggle like a pre-pubescent girl wearing butterfly clips in her hair…pink ones. His diet usually consists of pasta and French fries, which basically means that he always walks around like he just got reamed up the ass, but in actuality B just needs to stop being a bitch and sink his teeth in a big side of deep-fried cow. His schedule this year consists of Physics, Bio, and Orgo, which basically means this fucker’s gonna be working harder than a Chinese 6-year-old in a Nike sweatshop…sorry…too far? I meant 5-year-old…sorry too far again? I meant fetus. Haha…fetus. I like fetuses. Pretty fetus. Want to touch you. Want to play with you. Tea party?
If you walk past B’s room, you’ll more than likely hear one of the following three things: Foo Fighters, Nirvana, or him jacking off. B needs a bit of release. If by release you mean some poonani. So one of you ladies, please – jump the grenade…for our sanity. Nah, I’m just playin’…B’s really a chill kid – get to know him, maybe take him out for some coffee, or meet him up at some frat party, maybe some chicken, or maybe just throw him over a desk and punishfuck him…or something.
Jiwon “I’m so WASTED” Park
also from the...analyzer?
Top Ten Ways you know you’re a white-washed asian
The words “Chinese fire drill” remind you of cheeky high school memories, instead of running out of a sweatshop in the middle of Beijing as the bosses tell you to keep working.
You aren’t an orchestral prodigy…in fact you can barely scratch out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the violin and Chopsticks is about as Asian as you get on the piano.
When somebody gives you an abacus for arithmetic, you give them a strange look and ask them “Where the fuck is my calculator?”
You know more English words for penis than you do Korean words…total.
Everybody thinks you know kung fu, but if you actually got into a fight, you’d probably hurt yourself more than anyone else.
You hear the phrase “you’re the first Asian guy I’ve ever hooked up with” more than you hear the phrase “A+ in math.”
The description of your car doesn’t involve the words “NOS,” “underglow,” “turbo,” or “church van.”
Your haircuts don’t involve a bowl.
Walking through Plex makes you uncomfortable instead of reminding you of the motherland.
You have a huge penis. HUGE.
and now for the big finish: a graduation essay i wrote...in high school. don't fucking judge me.
Jiwon Park
So Remember
Life really is a series of moments. Significance stretching between peak moments of ultimate weight and moments of inconsequence.
Graduation is a significant moment. One of those rites of passages, one of those moments you’re told never to forget, one of those moments that comes around only once in a lifetime. One of those moments when your family congregates in an army with potential to be downright embarrassing. One of those moments when you see the vulnerability of your parents, those pillars of confidence, of strength. One of those moments when you see your mom get that proud “that’s my baby” look in her eye. One of those moments when your dad does the gruff “this isn’t sentimental…I’m just videotaping.” But most important of all, graduation is one of those moments that ends so much.
Graduation ends the days of borderline dictatorship, ranging from bogus curfews to impossible assignments that teachers infamously “suck” for. Graduation ends the inherent fear of your parents instilled in the back of your mind and the inherent need to rebel against that fear, against that control. Graduation is the end of college talks, the end of “what are you doing with your life” talks, the end of “do your homework or you’ll end up a garbage man” talks.
Graduation ends the Sunday night rush where you have a 5-page paper to write and its 11:30, but you have class at 7:30 in the morning. It ends the sinking feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when you realize 3rd hour you forgot your 100-point project at home on your dining room table. It ends the malaise you feel as you listen to your math teacher drone on about the square root of something or other when you got 4 hours of sleep last night.
But graduation ends all those amazing moments too. Those moments that make all the downs seem like worn away speed bumps instead of rough cobblestones. These are the moments we can look back on and truly be sentimental about, succumb to the sappiness, the sweetness that the survival of these moments seems to depend on. The first time a girl looked at you with that glint in her eye. The first time a teacher told you “great job.” Or even the first time you stuck it to a teacher. The first time you went running around in the rain with your friends and didn’t care how wet you got. The first time you felt apprehensive and thrilled to be behind the wheel. The first time you played in a varsity football game. The first time someone applauded for you when you’ve performed your heart out, gone past your limit, found yourself at the end and somehow with more to give. The first time you wrote an article that someone actually read. The first time you were part of a champion team. The first time something felt like the first time the fortieth time around. The first time you found someone that you could talk to like you had known them your entire life. The first time you looked at the clock and realized your conversation lasted over 4 hours. The first time you really felt loved. The first time you were happy to be where you were. The first time you didn’t even realize how insanely happy you were until you collapsed from exerting so much energy into your joy. These are the moments that you don’t want to end. Some of these moments you don’t even realize are happening. They pass over us as we pass through life caught in a whirlwind of activity. We wrap ourselves into our heavy and high-paced lives, frazzled and anxious to go from one thing to the next and to the next. To truly enjoy life, we must find a balance. A balance between this automatic skipping from one thing to the next and a life of overanalyzing each and every moment. To truly enjoy life, we must let it happen. We must allow those moments to drop into our paths, amazing or horrendous as they may be. We learn to change, we learn to grow as humans through these moments, savoring the highs and learning from the lows. High school is about finding this, finding the center within ourselves, finding our inert ability to enjoy, our ability to understand, to comprehend the moments that so define our lives. Graduation signifies the end of this quest, this journey, this crusade. It signifies our accomplishment. For many of us, graduation signifies the finish of everything we’ve worked for. Not only in our pedantic school life, but in our vivid social lives, full of vitality and confusion. Graduation represents finding our center, finding our balance. For some of us, it took only a few weeks. Others it took years. Others haven’t found it yet. But for all of us, graduation signifies an enormous step towards becoming the people we are destined to become. Without this significance, graduation is a mere bump in the road of mediocrity. This significance makes it a moment. It makes it ok to be sentimental and corny. It makes it ok to cry, to be sad, to be happy, to be bittersweet about leaving. It makes it ok to be bad at goodbyes. It makes it ok to wish for four more years. It makes it ok to be relieved and glad that you’ll never have to hear another refrain of that school song that so few of us really know the words to. It makes it ok to appreciate all that graduation is. It makes it ok to recite quotes and insights in an attempt to capture the lucid beauty of everything you’re feeling right now, because you know and we all know that it’s impossible to find the words, to find the love, to find the beauty that can even come close to nailing down the significance, the unbelievable something that graduation is.
Graduation has an enormous potential to be a trip down nostalgia lane. Steeped in “remember whens” and overflowing with “what ifs” we stumble through the remnants of the four years that Prospect held us captive. We sprinkle memoirs into the rush of our daily life, songs, scents, people, glimpses of something here or there reminding us of that awkward kid that was scared mindless to change in front of all those intimidating guys, or the girl that you thought would never talk to you…but did. You’re reminded of those unbelievable moments, every once in a while finding yourself caught in remembrance. You laugh at the jokes that no one else knows, you smile at the stories that remind you of something special, you feel comfortable with something so familiar. All of us are departing next year. Whether it be to some other life, or a new life in sunny Mount Prospect, we don’t depart alone. As far away from Prospect you may feel in the coming years, you will always be in the company of the four years we shared here. You will always be armed with the successes you celebrated, or the mistakes you kicked yourself for. It’s so easy to forget how much of a blessing we’ve had. It’s easy to highlight those nights when you just wanted high school to end, those nights where you couldn’t stand the wonderful 6:30 wake-up call that faced you in the morning. But that’s not what’s important. Those are the moments that deserve to be glossed over. These are the moments that deserve their own scrapbook in your mind. The moments you can look back on and smile. The moments you find yourself remembering whenever you do something specific. The faces you see, the voices your hear, the memories that plaster the walls of your mind. So many times, we settle for the easy path, for the life that brings us the least strife. Don’t settle for that. You don’t deserve it. It’s so easy to forget. So remember.
So don’t tough it out. Buy into it all. Buy into “don’t cry because its over, smile because its happened.” Buy into “carpe diem.” Buy into that graduation song we’ve all heard way too many times. Buy into the cheesy quotes, the awkward attempts at expressing something that is simply inherently inexpressible. Because this is one of those moments that only comes around once. This is one of those moments that doesn’t deserve to be forgotten because it makes you remember. So remember.
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