permission to speak freely

However, most people at this particular church had been members for life. Nobody had ever asked them to step out of their pews before. To them, you went to church three times a week, and that was how you found Jesus and built your mansion up in heaven. My dad was the one getting paid to care for people. Why in the world would he ask them to do the same without getting paid for it?
His challenging the status quo did not sit well with some of the congregation. After a few months of tension and secret meetings, my dad was asked to resign his position at one of the church’s monthly business meetings.
And they didn’t ask kindly either. An avalanche of insults and lies tumbled down on my family and on another pastor in the church who supported my dad.
Things got ugly.
My mom started to cry.
People started yelling.
Filled with teenage impulsivity, I stood up. I was done not saying things in church.

Being a teenage girl and trying to preach (sorry, teach) unity to a Very Traditional Southern Baptist Church as they’re in the middle of splitting isn’t the best way to have a message received. The rage the church members were projecting on me floated across the sanctuary to the second row and burned up my face. I turned a Bloody-Mary mix red, a combination of anger and embarrassment.
Nobody said a word, but it was crystal clear I needed to leave. After regaining the feeling in my legs, I stormed out, slamming the heavy wooden door behind me. That night, I felt like not only had people abandoned us, but we had been abandoned by God. I wrote a letter to Him, addressing Him as “Nobody,” about the faith I was about to leave behind.
http://amzn.to/9xwIJ9

I sooooooooooooo want to read this. So much in fact that I've stuck it onto my 2010 reading list in place of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings because although I'm sure the latter is a very complicated and sentimental first memoir of six, I just couldn't get past the first page. And this book.. sounds so much more interesting.

Sometimes, I secretly wish I didn't like books. At least not enough for them to seep like spilled juice through the seams of my life.

make & believe: fall 2010

So much adding and dropping and last-minute tearing apart and gluing back together but this is it. I think.
Thank you Jess and my parents for encouraging me to go forward with Political Science, despite my having no background whatsoever in the field. Thank you Chester for exuberantly letting me know that Biology 101 is "easy," and for then telling me about it--it actually sounds interesting (anything about the environment, I'm down). Thank you Brent for signing up for Political Science and Statistics with me, then backing out of both, then showing me a better Statistics lecture you added instead, for which there was exactly one seat available, which I got (and shrieked and jumped and spazzed over). Thank you English, although you sound like you're about to kill me (again) this time with your poetic meters, just because you have become the anchor to all my indecisiveness.
I won't mind getting killed by what's in store this semester, as long as I try my best to nearly kill myself first. It's merely just the beginning, anyhow.

warheads & a teaser

Do you remember the nights we'd stay up just laughing, smiling for hours at anything?
-We The Kings

Today, I had Warheads for the first time in over ten years.

The last time I remember having them was when we still lived in Farmington Hills, my little kid neighbors and I biking around, pretending to be the Spice Girls (I was always Posh), and running down to the river to see who can fit the most lemon warheads into their mouths. Red nail polish and tingly tongues later, we'd skitter back home in fits of giggles.

I hadn't seen them since (and I've looked and looked), so it was crazy when I read that you can find them at Walgreens (where I rarely go), and they were actually there. Same five flavors, same rarity of blue raspberry, same red wrapper for the black cherry. I didn't remember how sour they could get though, or how quickly it passed, but I'm still saving the wrappers although I don't remember why I used to do that. Something about wishes or prizes maybe.

My sister didn't have the fortune of growing up with them, so I gave her one today and recorded it. For the first, initial second, she had the look of oh-this-isn't-so-bad on her face--then shrieking and stiffening and crying entailed. But I told her it would get sweet so it miraculously stayed in her mouth, although she told me she will never dare to eat another one again. Oh well, can't blame her.

Anyway, I've been working on a novelette with my advisor so here's the teaser!
“You Christians are so stiff-necked,” he muttered, bending down to pick up some crushed cups on the floor. “Don’t do nothin’ but sit around like a bunch of prudes.”
“It’s not like that,” I said, annoyed.
“Pretty intolerant bunch.”
“We reach out to as many people as we can.”
“Bet your church is all-Asian though.”
I stared at him. “It isn’t intentional, it just happens—”
“Yeah, well, nothing questionable you do is intentional, eh?” He glanced into a bottle of orange juice and tossed it away; it was still half full. “You know there’s a church in Brooklyn that serves prostitutes and drug dealers. You should try going there.”
“Grandpa! What are you trying to say?”
He pulled in his lower lip and stared up into the ceiling. “Exactly what I mean. Intolerant.” He motioned at the overturned table, the empty bowls, the stained carpet. “Clean that up.” And with a final grunt, he made his way down the hallway, kicking abandoned cups aside before he disappeared completely out of sight.
(PS Things get better.)

make & believe: the moon

Tonight I played Wii Tennis with a 7-year-old (more or less my sister's ex-boyfriend/arranged marriage prospect), and it was one of the best Wii matches I've ever had. He was SO good.

Asian parties are the reason why my parents go to Ann Arbor so often; I think maybe 90% of their Michigan friends live there. Which is fine with me, because I get to practice driving on these 50-minute trips. Sliding into the driver's seat for the drive home with every window and mirror initially fogged up, yet with the highway lights so bright and beautiful, I think it's absolutely tragic, beyond lives lost, when I hear about people falling asleep at the wheel late at night. But maybe that's just the amateur driver in me, eying the speedometer and every car around me like a hawk, still unused to the perils of merging and changing lanes.

I love doing a lot of thinking when I'm on the road (although sometimes it makes me miss signs and react late to traffic lights heh heh), and tonight I was thinking about what one of my friends recently asked me. It was a weird question; she asked, "Why did you wear that moon necklace for so long if your name has a sun in it?" (Just so you know, Cecilia means "blind" but my Chinese name means "sunrise.") I don't think she meant that necklaces were supposed to represent names; it just seemed ironic to her.

For the longest time, I had an unexplainable obsession with the moon. If I ever do get a tattoo, the first I'd get would be of the outline of a crescent moon. It's hard to find pretty crescent necklaces, and when I finally did find one in Shanghai, I wore it all the time as a constant reminder of how much I love where I'm from, as well as the powerful presence of the moon in my past. Little kids wished on the first star they see every night; I accidentally wished on Venus (it looks like a star ok), and then I wished on the moon when I couldn't find a star. Sometimes when it was too cloudy at night, I got anxious. Sometimes when it's only four or five in the evening, you can already spot the moon, and I got so giddy I couldn't keep it to myself.

"Where's the moon now? Is it hiding?" I looked up above the highway lights and, sure enough, there it was. You can't stare into a pitch black night and not search desperately for that well-known spot of white, especially if you know that it should be there. Over the years, it's become my guidance and my reassurance, the North Star to my own goals and dreams. For a brief period of time, my moon was replaced by a cross, and then by nothing when I realized I no longer needed physical representation of things already so deeply etched into my heart. When I was in the Bahamas, I saw the perfect sun necklace but I was terrible at bargaining. Then again the sun isn't the same though; it shines in a sea of its own light. I thought getting a sun could maybe represent the beginning of a new era, but if you hold onto it forever, there's going to be a heck long of a beginning with no middle or end.

Just like how my name means sunrise, I'm constantly getting excited about starting things and choosing the initial steps, but that enthusiasm often drains out and I'll need pushes and shoves to get through to the process, and then to the result. I need guidance and supervision probably much more than the average person, or I'll wander off into the pitch black unknown. And ironically for what it means to me, I need the moon to keep me grounded.

a world of chances

I've got a world of chances for you. I've got a world of chances, chances that you're burning through.
-Demi Lovato & John Mayer

I was at the library in my hometown, for the first time in seven years.
It felt strange not gliding through the Dewey Decimal system, searching for the cleanest copy of an often over-read textbook. That's how most of them were--marked to the brim with little notes and highlights, as if past medical students before me could not afford to waste a minute or even a second to take their noses out of the book and search for a piece of paper to write things down. I was probably the only one who did take the time, neatly scribbling down on a clean sheet anything necessary or that seemed to stand out in particular. And perhaps those extra minutes I put in to do so piled up enough to explain why I was near failing.

Classic - Fiction, was where I stood now, glancing at the hundreds of red-marked novels each trying to stand out on its own. It had been so long since I read a book for leisure, and I knew what I needed to find but I couldn't even remember if these books were alphabetized by title or author. Or number? I shook my head, smiling at the last idea. A librarian wheeled by, and I smiled at her.

"Looking for something, my dear?" she asked, her red hair in streaks of gray and her fingers running over the smooth cold metal of the book cart she was pushing.
"Oh no--oh, well, I'm looking for a Maya Angelou book?"
She came over, glancing at the shelves. "That's on the other side. It's alphabetized by author's last name."
Just what I needed to know. "Thanks, that helps a lot."
The librarian walked me to the other side, mouthing names on book spines and making sure I was following, when she randomly stopped and held up a crooked finger.
"Hold on," she said, pausing and looking me up and down. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"No, I don't think so."
"You look awfully familiar. Perhaps you go to a church nearby?"
"A church?" I repeated, staring up at one of the high shelves, a home for the Little Women series. "No, I don't go to church."
"Oh--but you did?"
"No. Well only a very long time ago."
"And--oh! You had at least a few stories published in the town newspaper."

I smiled at her, a confused smile, while she handed me Maya Angelou's first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The last time I ever got involved in any community activity was when I was sixteen, volunteering enthusiastically for the local newspaper that had published my childish stories from when I was twelve to fourteen. But writing had been a hobby then, something my parents believed was never important enough and would always come second to any life milestone or career path. Every time I mentioned another friend who said he would buy my book if I ever were to publish one, they simply smiled and asked me to pass the potatoes.
"It's an unstable job market for writers," was my mother's attempt to comfort me when I had to leave my volunteer job at the newspaper to focus on college applications and senior exams.
"No one reads for fun anymore," my dad supplied before they sent me off to college, handing over brand-new biology textbooks still wrapped in plastic from Amazon. "If you want to publish something, try a textbook."

My parents were both scientists, escaping into the realms of subatomic matter and evolution and not giving a second chance to unanswered religious prayers, even less of a first chance to dreams. I flipped open the worn copy of the memoir-novel, knowing my life and circumstances were nothing like Maya's; if anything, they were only the faded version of a struggle for identity. And identity I had found, in the bottom 50% of my med school class with textbooks for friends. It wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't so terrible either.
"It was a long time ago," I said again to the librarian, already giving a small wave to leave. She might have remembered me because of my hair; it's always been the same odd shade of brown loosely poofing behind my ears and falling in my face, which was covered in half by big glasses. The very hair that took up school pictures for the yearbook and headshots next to my published newspaper stories. Or she might have remembered because of my flowery dress, similar to the dozens I had worn to the big local church in the early years of my childhood and the late of my parents' faith. I did not usually go out like this now but I was feeling particularly insecure on this day, hiding behind my hair. I was almost embarrassed to look like a med student for fear of others questioning my unscientific reading choices.
The librarian nodded. "If you ever publish a novel, I'll be sure to buy one," she told me kindly, her words almost an echo of my old friends'. And then she left, her cart making a squeaking noise as it disappeared completely into mountains of books on rusty shelves.

I thumbed through the memoir, then closed it to glance again at the front cover. It was a picture of a crow, or a black bird of some kind, with a background of red and a deep yellow sun at the bottom left corner. It looked mysterious and symbolic enough, but as time passed on, I was already beginning to feel that world slipping away from me, a world with hidden meanings behind literary language and characters full of promise and dreams.

In the same way, I slipped the book out of my hands and back onto the shelf. It would be safer there, unread and unspoken of until I find it again next time, on my own. I ran my fingers through my hair until all the loose strands were tied together in one, tight knot, and then, past glances staring and unstaring, I let myself go.

make & believe: the turning point

"Could you open the Coke bottles for me?" I asked, and while the man walked back toward the kitchen, I dropped the Red Rose snuff in my bag and zipped it up.
I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how guilt had dominated every moment of my life, when I found myself looking at a picture of the black Mary. I do not mean a picture of just any black Mary. I mean the identical, very same, exact one as my mother's. She stared at me from the labels of a dozen jars of honey. Black Madonna Honey, they said.
I looked at the honey jars, at the amber lights swimming inside them, and made myself breathe slowly.
I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.
I thought about the bees that had come to my room at night, how they'd been part of it all. And the voice I'd heard the day before, saying, Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open, speaking as plain and clear as the woman in navy speaking to her daughter.
"Here's your Coca-Cola," the bow-tied man was saying.
I pointed to the honey jars. "Where did you get those?"
-Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

This is the turning point in the book, and I would explain the context and summary behind it, but it would just take too long, almost as long as the Wikipedia summary. Although if you care, the Amazon review does quite a good job: http://amzn.to/buWtZ2.

In my senior year of high school, I got to do beekeeping with some of my friends for an elaborate science project. Literally covered in an unappealing white suit from head to toe with a screen in front of your face for sight, I wouldn't say it was the coolest of experiences. But we got to work with hundreds, thousands of honeybees kept in bee hives that looked much like filing cabinets.

And at the end of the day, the man in charge would take us to the parking lot, ask us to remove our astronaut spacesuits, and reveal a tray of pieces of honeycomb with pure, non-processed, bee-made honey on them. There lasted an initial, few seconds while I pondered whether or not it was safe to put a piece of honeycomb in my mouth as its cleanliness and disinfected-of-wild-animals-ness was questionable, but then I would pop one in anyway. It was waxy and so sweet it almost made me wince and although I (guiltily) couldn't tell the difference from this honey to the processed, manufactured kind in a bear bottle, I never gained a more glorious respect for honeybees that day. It was like I'd been so consumed in my industrial, GMO-lathered world that I had forgotten there were other species out there, not wanting to attack you or be cuddled, but actually working to produce staple food and take care of one another in peace. Miraculously, without having to plant factories and destroy the ozone layer as they do so.

I wonder how many turning points there are going to be before a heavy one actually throws itself onto your back and can't get seizured off until you do something for it. How many until you get sick of your routine, scheduled-to-the-minute, philosophical how-how-why-why ass and finally hear the world screaming at you, in the same tone it yells at Gulf Oil spills and McDonald's double cheeseburgers.

You probably won't figure it out if you try too hard to listen. The world is just weird that way. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

All I Need (a song)

This is a song I wrote recently, the first I've written in a while. It wasn't meant to be so emo. But the tune is coming along, measure by measure. Happiness.

You're still alive
Well what a surprise
Years of dreaming just came back in tides

This time it's harder
We'll start from the end
And walk in reverse until it begins

You had the world
I had a dime
You gave me strength
And as much as I tried
Every effort fell through at my feet
Goodbye, hello, goodbye

How long's it been
Where do we start
To collect our thoughts before we fall apart

But there's too much to say
Nothing comes out
When it's just you and me
I'm humbled easily

You had the world
I had a dime
You gave me strength
And as much as I tried
Every effort fell through at my feet
Goodbye, hello, goodbye

Well my oh my
This just won't do
Swallow your smile and tell me the truth

Show me what I couldn't see
Pick up my pride and have faith in me
That's all I ask for, that's all I need
But with you, I'm too scared to concede

You had the world
I had a dime
You gave me strength
And as much as I tried
Every effort fell through at my feet
Hello, goodbye, goodbye.

the blender (she grew up)

She grew up on a side of the road
Keeping a comfortable distance
Free as a weed
Said sometimes love slips away.
Don't you know we're all alone now?
I'm content with loneliness.
PARAMORE, CARRIE UNDERWOOD, LADY ANTEBELLUM

We grow where there is room for us
Inelegantly and without my consent
A terrible mistake.
But nothing really matters
Life is just this way, broken
And it's okay to be unsure.
MIRANDA JULY

make & believe: used books

I ordered my first used book on Amazon a few days ago. Just like having never ordered before from Subway, I see ordering used books the same way I see having to choose every ingredient on your sub: more complicated and messy than it (probably) actually is.

But I decided to go ahead and get a used book because if it were newly bought it would be around $130 and I had found one for less than $20 (excuse the grammar). Ah-mazing, right?

Then an issue came up. Yesterday I got a package in the mail from the seller and it was the wrong book. Instead of Comparative Politics Today, it was Let's Weigh the Evidence. A book about which version of the Bible was the best or something. WOW. Of all the wrong genres of books to send me. Not only did I get hindsight bias, I thought God was punishing me for being an anti-religious, unforgiving brat these past months, even though "which Bible is the most accurate?" had nothing to do with "are you going to end up in hell?" The seller had awesome ratings, so I couldn't believe my bad luck.

Now an ordinary religious person would perhaps at this point pray and pray and hope and pray, please please that they would not have to send the book back or demand a refund, or that their actual book is still coming. Of course an ordinary person like me did none of these things, so I just emailed the dude and went to sleep.

Today I got the right book in the mail, and it was in better condition than I hoped for. I guess the seller did deserve a decent rating after all for that. The ordinary religious person would now be running around shouting, "Hallelujah! My prayer was answered! PTL!" at this point. But because nothing encouraged me to pray to begin with, I feel that if anything, this event only further chucked my faith into oblivion and irrelevance. What a world, really.

Be careful buying used books.

make & believe: mornings

After some soul-searching, which involves staying up late and waking up early to write things and chug vitamin water I find in the fridge, I've only achieved one newfound discovery about myself and that is that I am turning into a morning person.

Not really, but I definitely wish I were. Lack of internal assessments and indie films to edit,screw up,repeat means that I can no longer function late at night too well. Well that's all right. Caffeine is for the mornings anyway (which is irrelevant, because I am staying away from caffeine indefinitely).

Never understood why people wake up at 6 in the morning.. just to jog. Why not save your energy for work? If unemployed, why not jog later? No one is really around at 8. No one is even really around at 6 in the evening (okay, more cars are but why does it matter?). I've asked myself to try this at least once this summer--to not wake up at 8 but rather at 6 to soul-search around my neighborhood instead of, heaven forbid, in my bedroom scribbling away in a notebook. I haven't succeeded yet, because I can't sleep until at least 1, and I need my hours.

So for the first half of today, I wake up, cook, and write while listening to my sister's blasting of Hannah Montana's newest single. Quite plain, but the rest of the day will be unusual. And it's not bad, really. The single.


(Maybe the lyrics are.)

One more week until the Bahamas. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ