The second one slid down my throat more smoothly than the first. I was getting better at it. But that didn’t change the fact that I hated what I was doing.
I gulped down the can of Sprite that I had ready in my other hand. When I finished, I looked at Sang and Lawrence and realized that I was already a little nauseated.
“So much for getting anything done,” laughed Lawrence.
Lawrence, Sang, and I were at Sang’s dorm room earlier tending to each of our own business. Lawrence was studying for a midterm, I was choreographing for the upcoming MCIA auditions on Monday, and Sang was making his costume for a CADC Halloween Party. When we all got bored of everything, Sang led us downstairs to a little get-together in one of his friend’s dorm room.
I got myself comfortable, made some new friends, got myself comfortable some more, danced even more sloppily than usual, and basked in all the fun and all the attention. I especially enjoyed lifting up my shorts to show and laugh at how I matched, from my scalp to my legs, the color of the bed sheets.
The fun was short-lived, however. I didn’t take long to start feeling tired and as though I would vomit if I had to do one more rond de jambe. At 4, I asked Sang to take me back to his dorm room to crash, and after an exchange that had me screaming with my last bit of energy, “OH MY GOD YOU BETTER COME VISIT ME AT MY WORK TOMORROW!” and the girls going, “OKAY WE WILL [BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A HOTTIE]!” (which, by the way, they didn’t, Sang), the two of us and Lawrence went back up.
Once we were back at Sang’s place, I could finally express how I was really feeling: shitty. Like I had to go Daemonicus right there all over Sang (from that one really terrible X-Files episode from Season 9). Well, not that much, as I managed not to vomit at all that night by instantly collapsing on Sang’s bed and knocking out.
I didn’t know how much time passed, but I woke up again in a dark, quiet room. Sang had startled me awake by sitting down next to me on the bed to use his laptop. Lying there silently and trying to further repress the vomit feelings, I wondered what you were doing, and I wondered what I was doing.
I woke up in the morning with a massive headache. I rolled out of bed and tried not to step on Sang, who was sleeping on the floor, and I stumbled to the bathroom. To pee, not vomit. I got back into bed and my headache kept me awake for another hour, and I would continue to feel it while dreaming. I knew this headache would become the third one that I would never forget, the second one being the random one I got in December 2006, and the first one being the first time I ever got drunk (accidentally) earlier that same year in February. I woke up again about two hours later feeling slightly better (only after taking some Tylenol), and I got breakfast with Sang. The day that ensued was very, very long.
You could say I did it because of peer pressure again, but, aside from one other additional reason, I also thought of it as of a contest against you. Did I win this contest?
---
October 31st, 2009, 6:52 AM
Written by Trung P. Nguyen
well shit
i woke up in a pool of my own vomit.
but im alive.
---
Nope.
---
“The Final Entry”
Written May 24th, 2009 (Excerpted)
[[This excerpt is the first half of an entry that was slated to be my old blog’s final entry, but at the last minute, I decided not to publish it and write another nine entries before eventually moving to this current blog. The entry has been collecting dust for a while, and now I’ve brought back and slightly revised the first half. I still, however, can’t find the strength to even lay my eyes on the second half, so it’s not included.]]
The last time I got drunk to the point of vomiting was three years ago during my sophomore year [in high school]. I took a drink (a full Starbucks cup of jungle juice) because Vance, the guy I was trying to get over, offered it to me. It wasn’t until after I got trashed that I finally forced myself to move on. Since then, I’ve only had small drinks on two different occasions; I never got drunk again.
Until one Thursday night three weeks ago at a get-together at the apartment of Charles, one of Cameron’s friends. Trung was not present.
I later told Trung about the get-together, and as expected, he was angry. We fought. At the beginning of the year, I had expressly forbade him to do any form of drug abuse, and likewise, I had vowed the same. Trung demanded to know why I broke my vow and made a hypocrite of myself; he wanted to know why I finally succumbed to peer pressure. Peer pressure. He automatically assumed it was peer pressure.
“It was one just one shot!” I insisted. “Just one, and I didn’t vomit.”
He continued to shove the words “peer pressure” down my throat, throwing out question after question, all revolving around peer pressure.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP TRUNG. You’re not the all-knowing smart person you think you are. This has nothing to do with peer pressure, so again, shut the fuck up. You don’t know shit.”
That silenced Trung for a few minutes, but then, he began prying again.
I wasn’t in the mood to dive into the reason. “Things have changed,” I stated. Trung further tried to get me to elaborate, but no, I left it at that.
Promises Are Just Restraints
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tags:
dancing,
fall 2009,
flashback,
guestwriter,
relationships,
repost,
sang,
socal,
trung
Through the Looking-Glass
Friday, October 30, 2009
“George Mead—all about me—he came up with the concept of self! And self is used to like, describe your personality, based on your own self-awareness and self-image...”
Damn, Sarah’s going to set the curve on this midterm.
“...we try to like, see ourselves from another person’s point of view so we don’t like, make ourselves like, look dumb. Cooley coined the phrase ‘looking-glass self’ for a self-image based on how we think other people see us...”
I glanced around the room. Posters containing overwhelming amounts of brainwashing rhetoric lined the walls top to bottom, fighting for my attention. The few that managed to catch my eye, I read silently to myself, all while scrutinizing the pictures of people that accompanied them. “I’m glad I FAILED...at suicide, because my life is so amazing right now.” But your face isn’t. “I’m straight, but NOT narrow!” Yeah, because you’re fat. “Please let my mommy marry my mommy!” Stop whining, spoiled bitch. “Can you tell which of these children have gay parents?”
“...we initiate action, which is like the subjective side of the self, and then we evaluate the action based on how other people respond to us, which is like the objective side of the self...Brian?”
“Uh, huh?” I snapped out of my daze to see Sarah and Cameron staring at me from their sofa. “I’m listening,” I reassured them.
“Do you need help understanding anything in particular?” Sarah asked, sounding ever so concerned like a teacher or mother.
It was 11 AM, still too early to me. Running on four hours of sleep, I had woken up at 9 to go to my 9:30 natural disasters class for a midterm. It wasn’t that bad at all. I finished at 10 and went to the library to study for my sociology midterm coming up at 12:30. There, sitting in the library’s comfortable chairs, I was falling asleep when I got a text from Camerom asking me to study with him and Sarah at the Lesbian/ Gay/ Bisexual/ Transgender/ Queer/ Pansexual/ Intersex Resource Center (LGBTABCDEFG RC). When I got there, I was dismayed to find that the resource center’s chairs—couches—were far more comfortable and relaxing than the library’s.
“I’m tired. I think I’ll function better after a nap. Can you wake me up in 15 minutes, Sarah?”
“Sure.” Sarah surprised me by being unusually okay with my request to slack off. If this was last year back in the dorms when we were all first year students, she’d lecture me about how I hadn’t done any of the reading for the last four weeks, and with the midterm coming up in less than two hours, I couldn’t have any time to be lazy. Maybe she had given up on me.
Oh well, Sarah granted me nap time, so I couldn’t resist taking advantage of that. As I stretched out in my couch, I noticed the big window looking out into the hallway and realized that anyone could walk by and see me sitting inside among a bunch of rainbows and gay empowerment magazines, so I pulled my cap over my face. After adjusting my wedgie, I leaned back and rested my eyes.
As a gay guy, I’m often criticized for trying too hard to put up a masculine façade. When you see me, you see a guy with a New Era 59fifty cap slapped on over some buzzed hair, a pair of black basketball shorts that matches with whatever T-shirt I’m wearing, and Nikes to complete the baller-dancer hybrid look. When I’m not dressed like your typical Irvine Asian guy, I’m in a tank at the ARC lifting weights, trying to get that nice physique—something I’d rather be doing than expressing my emotions.
I don’t want people to look at me and think, “Oh my god, with gay guys like that, why would I ever want one to raise kids?” Yes, I do try too hard, and I even get carried away sometimes. Kevin and Alfonso expressed far more emotion than I did when CADC rejected them, while I, not wanting to do anything that “the gays” would do, sat silently and took it like a man. A robot, more like it.
But it was also that same night when I got the CADC rejection email that I realized that under this “masculine façade,” I am nothing. There are no layers in my character to peel back. The masculine façade has become my personality. The accusation that I’m trying to butch things up is preceded by the assumption (or expectation) that, as a gay guy, I have some kind of more emotional and expressive side. That assumption in itself is a gay stereotype. And for me, it’s one that is not true. Not anymore, at least. I’m the way I am because that’s just how I am.
However, I still can’t deny the fact that my character is flawed, that something is wrong. And the problem is more deeply rooted than just refusing/not being able to feel any sad emotions. The main question is, what is the problem? I don’t know.
I’ve never fully come to terms with being gay. I never thought I’d be able to, and I never thought that I’d need to. But maybe the problem is that I really do need to.
The total amount of time I’ve spent hanging out with straight guys (Kevin, Alfonso, and other dancers) is probably more than my senior year in high school and first year in college combined. It’s been ridiculously fun, but I still feel a sense of loneliness. I’m wondering if I need a strong group of gay friends too to fulfill that hole. Maybe this is the problem. I used to be able to go to Cameron for gay friends, but I don’t hang out with his gay friends unless I’m hanging out with him, and Cameron is too busy with his internship and gay frat nowadays. If I go out into the gay world looking for friends, I need to go on my own. And then somehow, I’ll finally fully accept myself.
I dunno. This is getting convoluted. I’m looking for some kind of answer, but I don’t even have the question fully formed in my mind. Being the anxious person I am, however, I can’t wait for that question to form. My urge is too strong, so I’m going to form the question over time while I search. Fortunately, I already know where to start looking.
---
“My DowneLife”
Written March 5th, 2006 (Excerpted)
Among all the private messaging and stuff, I've only actually talked to [a few] from DowneLink on AIM so far.
The first guy was rather interesting... He's black, he's a senior at Independence High, he's... interesting. And by interesting, I mean he kept on talking about jacking off and penises. He said his was... 8 inches long. oh god.. =/ And then he asked me if I had a digital camera. I said yes [[how did it not strike me that I should’ve lied?]], and then he started bothering me about showing him pictures of my penis. I tried to be as nice about it as possible, saying stuff like, "Taking pictures of my penis makes me feel really weird, sorry! =)" I'm just glad he didn't show me pictures of his 8-inch black cobra.
The second guy, I only talked to for five minutes. He asked me my age, to which I responded 15. He was disappointed and told me, "Oh, I can't talk to you. You're too young." My DowneLink profile says I'm 18 because that's the required minimum age; I hate having to lie about my age and misleading people like that... And... Apparently I'm "too young"... was this guy looking to have sex with me or what? =/
---
And no, the answer/question doesn’t involve sex or relationships.
Damn, Sarah’s going to set the curve on this midterm.
“...we try to like, see ourselves from another person’s point of view so we don’t like, make ourselves like, look dumb. Cooley coined the phrase ‘looking-glass self’ for a self-image based on how we think other people see us...”
I glanced around the room. Posters containing overwhelming amounts of brainwashing rhetoric lined the walls top to bottom, fighting for my attention. The few that managed to catch my eye, I read silently to myself, all while scrutinizing the pictures of people that accompanied them. “I’m glad I FAILED...at suicide, because my life is so amazing right now.” But your face isn’t. “I’m straight, but NOT narrow!” Yeah, because you’re fat. “Please let my mommy marry my mommy!” Stop whining, spoiled bitch. “Can you tell which of these children have gay parents?”
“...we initiate action, which is like the subjective side of the self, and then we evaluate the action based on how other people respond to us, which is like the objective side of the self...Brian?”
“Uh, huh?” I snapped out of my daze to see Sarah and Cameron staring at me from their sofa. “I’m listening,” I reassured them.
“Do you need help understanding anything in particular?” Sarah asked, sounding ever so concerned like a teacher or mother.
It was 11 AM, still too early to me. Running on four hours of sleep, I had woken up at 9 to go to my 9:30 natural disasters class for a midterm. It wasn’t that bad at all. I finished at 10 and went to the library to study for my sociology midterm coming up at 12:30. There, sitting in the library’s comfortable chairs, I was falling asleep when I got a text from Camerom asking me to study with him and Sarah at the Lesbian/ Gay/ Bisexual/ Transgender/ Queer/ Pansexual/ Intersex Resource Center (LGBTABCDEFG RC). When I got there, I was dismayed to find that the resource center’s chairs—couches—were far more comfortable and relaxing than the library’s.
“I’m tired. I think I’ll function better after a nap. Can you wake me up in 15 minutes, Sarah?”
“Sure.” Sarah surprised me by being unusually okay with my request to slack off. If this was last year back in the dorms when we were all first year students, she’d lecture me about how I hadn’t done any of the reading for the last four weeks, and with the midterm coming up in less than two hours, I couldn’t have any time to be lazy. Maybe she had given up on me.
Oh well, Sarah granted me nap time, so I couldn’t resist taking advantage of that. As I stretched out in my couch, I noticed the big window looking out into the hallway and realized that anyone could walk by and see me sitting inside among a bunch of rainbows and gay empowerment magazines, so I pulled my cap over my face. After adjusting my wedgie, I leaned back and rested my eyes.
As a gay guy, I’m often criticized for trying too hard to put up a masculine façade. When you see me, you see a guy with a New Era 59fifty cap slapped on over some buzzed hair, a pair of black basketball shorts that matches with whatever T-shirt I’m wearing, and Nikes to complete the baller-dancer hybrid look. When I’m not dressed like your typical Irvine Asian guy, I’m in a tank at the ARC lifting weights, trying to get that nice physique—something I’d rather be doing than expressing my emotions.
I don’t want people to look at me and think, “Oh my god, with gay guys like that, why would I ever want one to raise kids?” Yes, I do try too hard, and I even get carried away sometimes. Kevin and Alfonso expressed far more emotion than I did when CADC rejected them, while I, not wanting to do anything that “the gays” would do, sat silently and took it like a man. A robot, more like it.
But it was also that same night when I got the CADC rejection email that I realized that under this “masculine façade,” I am nothing. There are no layers in my character to peel back. The masculine façade has become my personality. The accusation that I’m trying to butch things up is preceded by the assumption (or expectation) that, as a gay guy, I have some kind of more emotional and expressive side. That assumption in itself is a gay stereotype. And for me, it’s one that is not true. Not anymore, at least. I’m the way I am because that’s just how I am.
However, I still can’t deny the fact that my character is flawed, that something is wrong. And the problem is more deeply rooted than just refusing/not being able to feel any sad emotions. The main question is, what is the problem? I don’t know.
I’ve never fully come to terms with being gay. I never thought I’d be able to, and I never thought that I’d need to. But maybe the problem is that I really do need to.
The total amount of time I’ve spent hanging out with straight guys (Kevin, Alfonso, and other dancers) is probably more than my senior year in high school and first year in college combined. It’s been ridiculously fun, but I still feel a sense of loneliness. I’m wondering if I need a strong group of gay friends too to fulfill that hole. Maybe this is the problem. I used to be able to go to Cameron for gay friends, but I don’t hang out with his gay friends unless I’m hanging out with him, and Cameron is too busy with his internship and gay frat nowadays. If I go out into the gay world looking for friends, I need to go on my own. And then somehow, I’ll finally fully accept myself.
I dunno. This is getting convoluted. I’m looking for some kind of answer, but I don’t even have the question fully formed in my mind. Being the anxious person I am, however, I can’t wait for that question to form. My urge is too strong, so I’m going to form the question over time while I search. Fortunately, I already know where to start looking.
---
“My DowneLife”
Written March 5th, 2006 (Excerpted)
Among all the private messaging and stuff, I've only actually talked to [a few] from DowneLink on AIM so far.
The first guy was rather interesting... He's black, he's a senior at Independence High, he's... interesting. And by interesting, I mean he kept on talking about jacking off and penises. He said his was... 8 inches long. oh god.. =/ And then he asked me if I had a digital camera. I said yes [[how did it not strike me that I should’ve lied?]], and then he started bothering me about showing him pictures of my penis. I tried to be as nice about it as possible, saying stuff like, "Taking pictures of my penis makes me feel really weird, sorry! =)" I'm just glad he didn't show me pictures of his 8-inch black cobra.
The second guy, I only talked to for five minutes. He asked me my age, to which I responded 15. He was disappointed and told me, "Oh, I can't talk to you. You're too young." My DowneLink profile says I'm 18 because that's the required minimum age; I hate having to lie about my age and misleading people like that... And... Apparently I'm "too young"... was this guy looking to have sex with me or what? =/
---
And no, the answer/question doesn’t involve sex or relationships.
Super Saturday
Sunday, October 25, 2009
And now last but not least, the follow is a retelling of the same CADC rejection story, told from Kevin’s perspective this time.
Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website.
...Ok, just kidding.
I drove back up to NorCal with Trung Thursday night for Breakthrough’s first Super Saturday of the year. On Super Saturdays, Breakthrough students and teachers reunite for a day of workshops and simply chilling. The one this past weekend was open only to the seventh graders, and the theme was “The Road to College Starts Now.”
The morning before everything started, I was a little bit nervous. I felt that I had probably let a lot of students down because I never kept my promises of continued contact or updating my Breakthrough blog. I wasn’t too sure if it’d be awkward between me and some of the students.
Fortunately, it seemed that some of the students were just happy enough to see me. I got to catch up with a lot of students that I missed, including Timmy.
While I was out playing with the kids (more like, running around aimlessly trying to stop the kids from kicking basketballs and throwing frisbees at each other’s faces), the other teachers were gathered around some steps chatting (as how I’m sure they weren’t supposed to be). Trung told me that they all agreed that I looked like a bigger version of a Breakthrough student.
Of course, that brought me back to questioning whether or not I’d be a mature enough teacher for Breakthrough. Earlier during the Super Saturday, a girl named Belinda was grappling tightly onto my arm, and I only tried to shake her off playfully. A good teacher would’ve set his foot down and sternly declared, “No.” During a tour of the college campus we were at, Timmy and I were in the back making Asian FOB jokes (“THEE SHOE COT FIVE DOLLAH!”). A good teacher would’ve, well, obviously not done that.
Of course, it was all that that the kids love. It was why they demanded that I come back next summer. I’m all fun, but the truth is when my class is nothing but fun, kids don’t learn. And that, in the end, is the ultimate way of letting them down.
I told the seventh graders, “I’m still thinking about whether or not to come back next summer!” but, after having carefully deliberated for the last three months, I had already known the real answer.
You were an all-star student, but I still need to apologize. I know I failed you a few times this summer.
In one of my writing classes, I had a student named Mickey. When it came to writing essays and completing homework fully and correctly, he was my best student. But despite his academics, everyone fucking hated him.
I didn’t blame them. He would often shout out his answers and interject a bunch of comments that would steer the discussion a totally different direction. And he definitely didn’t refrain from saying anything sexual either.
The thing is though is that pretty much EVERYBODY in this class misbehaved as much as he did. The only difference is that all my students were against him. I had this other student named Ngo who was even more socially awkward than Mickey, but whenever Ngo shouted something out, such as his annoying attention-whoring catchphrase, “WHAT THE FBLBLBLPH!” the students would laugh it off. Whenever Mickey shouted something out, even when it was actually an insightful and correct answer to a question that no one else knew, the students, including Ngo, would jump down his throat. “SHUT THE HELL UP MICKEY!” “NO ONE LIKES YOU MICKEY!” One time, it escalated so much that this one girl (who also happened to be one of my worst students) got up in his face and raised her fist. I had to physically intervene for that one.
I tried several different ways to discipline my class. I threatened that I would kick out the very next person who tried to start any kind of trouble and that I would also kick anyone who reacted and fed the flame. It’d work for like two minutes until Mickey would say something inappropriate and then all eight other students would yell out. I couldn’t kick out all of my students, so I only kicked out Mickey. To which, of course, my students cheered. And when I did kick any other student out, that student or other students would protest, saying, “This ain’t fair! You’re just being nice to Mickey!”
I should’ve brought the directors in, but I didn’t. I had a sense of pride that prevented me from doing what I should’ve done—my job, but, beside the pride, I knew what it all came down to: I just wanted to be everyone’s friend.
I heard from another teacher who heard from Mickey’s grandma that at home, he always yelled at his mom. He cursed her, ignored her, and simply refused to be nice to her in any form, to the point that she would break down sobbing her eyes out. I couldn’t ignore the fact that there was probably some correlation. I blamed myself.
Nine months of working at SCORE! Educational centers and two summers at Breakthrough; I’m still not mature enough to be a teacher. I need to grow. I’ve known for a long time now that when summer 2010 comes, I won’t be there at Breakthrough anymore.
Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website.
...Ok, just kidding.
I drove back up to NorCal with Trung Thursday night for Breakthrough’s first Super Saturday of the year. On Super Saturdays, Breakthrough students and teachers reunite for a day of workshops and simply chilling. The one this past weekend was open only to the seventh graders, and the theme was “The Road to College Starts Now.”
The morning before everything started, I was a little bit nervous. I felt that I had probably let a lot of students down because I never kept my promises of continued contact or updating my Breakthrough blog. I wasn’t too sure if it’d be awkward between me and some of the students.
Fortunately, it seemed that some of the students were just happy enough to see me. I got to catch up with a lot of students that I missed, including Timmy.
While I was out playing with the kids (more like, running around aimlessly trying to stop the kids from kicking basketballs and throwing frisbees at each other’s faces), the other teachers were gathered around some steps chatting (as how I’m sure they weren’t supposed to be). Trung told me that they all agreed that I looked like a bigger version of a Breakthrough student.
Of course, that brought me back to questioning whether or not I’d be a mature enough teacher for Breakthrough. Earlier during the Super Saturday, a girl named Belinda was grappling tightly onto my arm, and I only tried to shake her off playfully. A good teacher would’ve set his foot down and sternly declared, “No.” During a tour of the college campus we were at, Timmy and I were in the back making Asian FOB jokes (“THEE SHOE COT FIVE DOLLAH!”). A good teacher would’ve, well, obviously not done that.
Of course, it was all that that the kids love. It was why they demanded that I come back next summer. I’m all fun, but the truth is when my class is nothing but fun, kids don’t learn. And that, in the end, is the ultimate way of letting them down.
I told the seventh graders, “I’m still thinking about whether or not to come back next summer!” but, after having carefully deliberated for the last three months, I had already known the real answer.
You were an all-star student, but I still need to apologize. I know I failed you a few times this summer.
In one of my writing classes, I had a student named Mickey. When it came to writing essays and completing homework fully and correctly, he was my best student. But despite his academics, everyone fucking hated him.
I didn’t blame them. He would often shout out his answers and interject a bunch of comments that would steer the discussion a totally different direction. And he definitely didn’t refrain from saying anything sexual either.
The thing is though is that pretty much EVERYBODY in this class misbehaved as much as he did. The only difference is that all my students were against him. I had this other student named Ngo who was even more socially awkward than Mickey, but whenever Ngo shouted something out, such as his annoying attention-whoring catchphrase, “WHAT THE FBLBLBLPH!” the students would laugh it off. Whenever Mickey shouted something out, even when it was actually an insightful and correct answer to a question that no one else knew, the students, including Ngo, would jump down his throat. “SHUT THE HELL UP MICKEY!” “NO ONE LIKES YOU MICKEY!” One time, it escalated so much that this one girl (who also happened to be one of my worst students) got up in his face and raised her fist. I had to physically intervene for that one.
I tried several different ways to discipline my class. I threatened that I would kick out the very next person who tried to start any kind of trouble and that I would also kick anyone who reacted and fed the flame. It’d work for like two minutes until Mickey would say something inappropriate and then all eight other students would yell out. I couldn’t kick out all of my students, so I only kicked out Mickey. To which, of course, my students cheered. And when I did kick any other student out, that student or other students would protest, saying, “This ain’t fair! You’re just being nice to Mickey!”
I should’ve brought the directors in, but I didn’t. I had a sense of pride that prevented me from doing what I should’ve done—my job, but, beside the pride, I knew what it all came down to: I just wanted to be everyone’s friend.
I heard from another teacher who heard from Mickey’s grandma that at home, he always yelled at his mom. He cursed her, ignored her, and simply refused to be nice to her in any form, to the point that she would break down sobbing her eyes out. I couldn’t ignore the fact that there was probably some correlation. I blamed myself.
Nine months of working at SCORE! Educational centers and two summers at Breakthrough; I’m still not mature enough to be a teacher. I need to grow. I’ve known for a long time now that when summer 2010 comes, I won’t be there at Breakthrough anymore.
Stoic
Friday, October 23, 2009
“The Ides of March”
Written March 16th, 2008 (Excerpted)
I parked in Trung’s driveway and shot out of my car. Trung greeted me at his door, but we didn’t waste any time for anything else. I rushed up the stairs to Trung’s computer and found that the Internet was still logged onto Trung’s UCSD application account. There was a huge “Congratulations!” plastered on the page.
I sat down in the chair, logged out of Trung’s account, and logged onto mine, being extra careful to not make any typos that would further delay when I would find out the results.
While the page was loading, I turned to Trung, who was beside me now, and pulled him in closely. Ivan stood silently in the doorway, watching.
The page loaded. Trung and I immediately glued our eyes to the screen and began reading.
I didn’t have to spend a lot of time reading. The key words were already jumping out at me. I fell back into the chair. Trung was still reading the page.
“Trung,” I began, “You can stop reading. I didn’t get in. We’re not going to the same college.”
---
Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website. I still hadn’t received a call, and it was driving me crazy. I didn’t want to do anything all day; fortunately I didn’t have to really until I had my only class of the day from 6 to 7:20, social dance. I was thinking of telling the teacher that I was sick and highly contagious (which I really was) and sitting out, but I decided that it would be better to try to get my mind off the auditions at the cost of several other girls’ health.
When my turn came to dance with Hillary, one of the CADC captains, I knew that CADC wasn’t the subject to bring up. We chatted and bantered as we normally would, but there was still that sense of awkwardness that came from something that both of us tried to not bring up even though it was at the top of our minds.
I thought maybe, since three CADC auditionees shared the same class with one of the captains, if any one of us made it then maybe after class, that captain and the rest of the cabinet would come and congratulate us in person. But that didn’t happen. No one popped out from around the corner and Kevin, Alfonso, and I walked out of that class solemnly, still waiting for our calls.
At 7:30, we sat down at dinner and ate in silence. The anticipation was killing us; I could see it in Kevin and Alfonso’s faces and I could feel it in mine. Alfonso explained to us that he heard Hillary telling Jojo in class that she felt “bad for them,” and we debated what that possibly could have meant. Alfonso convinced that she was referring to us, and that she felt bad because the judges had chosen none of us.
“Fuck!” he yelled out. “What did we do wrong? The next time I see Hillary, I just want to ask her what we did wrong.”
Alfonso was normally a chill guy, and I really hated seeing him like this. I had always been really terrible at cheering people up, but I tried something. ““CADC likes to screw around with the people they accept,” I said. “Maybe Hillary wanted you to hear to mess with your mind. Or maybe you heard her wrong.”
Alfonso didn’t respond.
“Plus, you know David Lee? The really really good short Asian guy with the mohawk who’s definitely going to get in?” I asked. “I’ve been regularly checking his Facebook—stalkerish, I know, but whatever—he still hasn’t gotten a call yet either. So CADC is still in the process of making their calls. Don’t lose hope.”
Don’t lose hope. That sounded weird coming from me. I knew that out of the three of us, I was the least likely to get in, but at the same time, I needed as much comfort as Kevin and Alfonso did.
After dinner, Kevin left us to go study, and Alfonso and I met up with Asian John to attend the MCIA workshop at the Mesa Parking Garage. I also called up Sang to come join us. At the workshops, however, I could barely concentrate or put in any energy. Every five minutes or so I’d pull out my cell phone to make sure that I had reception and that I didn’t miss any calls. It was like I could only put my energy into that. I looked over at Alfonso and he looked back, and we both shared an understanding that this was not the night to learn a piece. He went over to the corner by the staircase, and I joined him. Asian John and Sang followed.
After the workshop finished around 9:30, we stood around outside in front of the garage discussing what to do. Alfonso was going to meet up with Kevin and some others at Panyia’s place at CV since our apartments at VDC and VDC Norte were going through a schedule power outage. Earlier during the day I had asked Sang to come wait with all of us and other CADC people for our phone calls, and he sounded excited about that. However, when I later met up with Kevin and Alfonso for class, Kevin expressed that he would rather not see any of the newly accepted dancers. I understood, but I didn’t want to abandon Sang, especially after dragging him out to the MCIA workshops. And plus, for the sake of my sanity, I had to be around someone happy and someone who wasn’t freaking the fuck out about CADC. Maybe it would make time pass by less slowly and less agonizingly.
Once the plans were settled, Alfonso and I shook hands and nodded at each other.
“Good luck, Alfonso.” I still had hope for Alfonso, so I thought of this moment as shaking hands and saying goodbye to the old, non-CADC Alfonso. Tomorrow when I would see him, he’d already be a new person.
Asian John followed Alfonso, and Sang and I went back to his dorm to chill. I sat on his bed as he checked his email at his desk. Being the curious hound I was, I tried to milk out every little detail about Sang’s acceptance phone call from CADC. I wanted to understand it enough so that I could live the experience like he did, but Sang fed me scraps. He only shrugged and smiled modestly.
“Fuck Sang! You made it into FUCKING CADC! You’re all going to have a formal dinner Thursday tomorrow and meet your family for the rest of the entire school year and possibly your entire college life! Why aren’t you more excited?” I demanded.
“I got a midterm Friday morning,” he responded coolly.
I sighed and shook my head. If I were him, I’d still be jumping off the walls and shitting in the showers like I was the shit. But instead, here I was. And here Sang was.
Around 10:15, I asked to use his computer to check David Lee’s facebook, and my heart raced as I read posts on his walls. There were congratulatory posts from his friends. Recent. Within the last fifteen minutes. I immediately texted Alfonso to tell him that David Lee just got in, and then I waited. If there was a call coming for me, it’d be coming within an hour.
11:15 came, and I was losing hope. Sang had gone from telling me, “Don’t worry, there’s still time. You’ll get a call!” to “Auditions for MCIA are coming up!”
I lied across his bed and he handed me a TV remote. I flipped through some channels and was temporarily excited to see Scully in big circular lens glasses and holding one of those big bulky 1990 cordless phones. It was the episode with the cockroaches. I watched as Sang recounted details about the drama that Funksters had last year. I don’t know how that came up; maybe he was telling me all that as a way cheering me up. I wouldn’t have to deal with the drama associated with dance crews. Big woohoo.
Around 11:40, I checked my email once again, not expecting much. But a certain email caught my eye. I read the title out loud to Sang: “To CADC Auditionee.”
That was it. I knew I wasn’t in. It definitely wasn’t an acceptance email, because they would only accept dancers by phone. And plus, there was something about the sound of “auditionee.” That eeeeeee sound. It sounded to calm and unexciting. I didn’t hesitate to open the email and read it, as I already knew what was inside. Yep, one fat paragraph of a rejection masked by apologies and cheap comfort words.
Sang waited for my response, but I only shrugged and forced a meek smile.
Examining the email again, I noticed that I could see a list of all of the people who received the email. I skimmed through looking for Kevin and Alfonso’s emails, and I was dismayed to see both of them in the list. I called Alfonso to tell him the news, and I kept it short because I didn’t know how to comfort him. The truth was the truth, and I had always been bad at masking it.
After I hung up, I leaned back and continued watching X-Files.
“Brian, how are you feeling?”
I thought about Sang’s question for a bit. Then I thought about it hard. I looked deep inside myself for an answer, for some soul. In my mind I flashed through three separate times that I should have cried this summer but refused to. That was when I made a stunning revelation that struck me harder than the actual rejection from CADC.
I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head.
“I don’t feel sad,” I began. “I don’t feel anything at all. Nothing.” I scoffed in disbelief. Nothing.
I had stifled my emotions for so long that I couldn’t even recognize them anymore. Something was wrong with me.
Written March 16th, 2008 (Excerpted)
I parked in Trung’s driveway and shot out of my car. Trung greeted me at his door, but we didn’t waste any time for anything else. I rushed up the stairs to Trung’s computer and found that the Internet was still logged onto Trung’s UCSD application account. There was a huge “Congratulations!” plastered on the page.
I sat down in the chair, logged out of Trung’s account, and logged onto mine, being extra careful to not make any typos that would further delay when I would find out the results.
While the page was loading, I turned to Trung, who was beside me now, and pulled him in closely. Ivan stood silently in the doorway, watching.
The page loaded. Trung and I immediately glued our eyes to the screen and began reading.
I didn’t have to spend a lot of time reading. The key words were already jumping out at me. I fell back into the chair. Trung was still reading the page.
“Trung,” I began, “You can stop reading. I didn’t get in. We’re not going to the same college.”
---
Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website. I still hadn’t received a call, and it was driving me crazy. I didn’t want to do anything all day; fortunately I didn’t have to really until I had my only class of the day from 6 to 7:20, social dance. I was thinking of telling the teacher that I was sick and highly contagious (which I really was) and sitting out, but I decided that it would be better to try to get my mind off the auditions at the cost of several other girls’ health.
When my turn came to dance with Hillary, one of the CADC captains, I knew that CADC wasn’t the subject to bring up. We chatted and bantered as we normally would, but there was still that sense of awkwardness that came from something that both of us tried to not bring up even though it was at the top of our minds.
I thought maybe, since three CADC auditionees shared the same class with one of the captains, if any one of us made it then maybe after class, that captain and the rest of the cabinet would come and congratulate us in person. But that didn’t happen. No one popped out from around the corner and Kevin, Alfonso, and I walked out of that class solemnly, still waiting for our calls.
At 7:30, we sat down at dinner and ate in silence. The anticipation was killing us; I could see it in Kevin and Alfonso’s faces and I could feel it in mine. Alfonso explained to us that he heard Hillary telling Jojo in class that she felt “bad for them,” and we debated what that possibly could have meant. Alfonso convinced that she was referring to us, and that she felt bad because the judges had chosen none of us.
“Fuck!” he yelled out. “What did we do wrong? The next time I see Hillary, I just want to ask her what we did wrong.”
Alfonso was normally a chill guy, and I really hated seeing him like this. I had always been really terrible at cheering people up, but I tried something. ““CADC likes to screw around with the people they accept,” I said. “Maybe Hillary wanted you to hear to mess with your mind. Or maybe you heard her wrong.”
Alfonso didn’t respond.
“Plus, you know David Lee? The really really good short Asian guy with the mohawk who’s definitely going to get in?” I asked. “I’ve been regularly checking his Facebook—stalkerish, I know, but whatever—he still hasn’t gotten a call yet either. So CADC is still in the process of making their calls. Don’t lose hope.”
Don’t lose hope. That sounded weird coming from me. I knew that out of the three of us, I was the least likely to get in, but at the same time, I needed as much comfort as Kevin and Alfonso did.
After dinner, Kevin left us to go study, and Alfonso and I met up with Asian John to attend the MCIA workshop at the Mesa Parking Garage. I also called up Sang to come join us. At the workshops, however, I could barely concentrate or put in any energy. Every five minutes or so I’d pull out my cell phone to make sure that I had reception and that I didn’t miss any calls. It was like I could only put my energy into that. I looked over at Alfonso and he looked back, and we both shared an understanding that this was not the night to learn a piece. He went over to the corner by the staircase, and I joined him. Asian John and Sang followed.
After the workshop finished around 9:30, we stood around outside in front of the garage discussing what to do. Alfonso was going to meet up with Kevin and some others at Panyia’s place at CV since our apartments at VDC and VDC Norte were going through a schedule power outage. Earlier during the day I had asked Sang to come wait with all of us and other CADC people for our phone calls, and he sounded excited about that. However, when I later met up with Kevin and Alfonso for class, Kevin expressed that he would rather not see any of the newly accepted dancers. I understood, but I didn’t want to abandon Sang, especially after dragging him out to the MCIA workshops. And plus, for the sake of my sanity, I had to be around someone happy and someone who wasn’t freaking the fuck out about CADC. Maybe it would make time pass by less slowly and less agonizingly.
Once the plans were settled, Alfonso and I shook hands and nodded at each other.
“Good luck, Alfonso.” I still had hope for Alfonso, so I thought of this moment as shaking hands and saying goodbye to the old, non-CADC Alfonso. Tomorrow when I would see him, he’d already be a new person.
Asian John followed Alfonso, and Sang and I went back to his dorm to chill. I sat on his bed as he checked his email at his desk. Being the curious hound I was, I tried to milk out every little detail about Sang’s acceptance phone call from CADC. I wanted to understand it enough so that I could live the experience like he did, but Sang fed me scraps. He only shrugged and smiled modestly.
“Fuck Sang! You made it into FUCKING CADC! You’re all going to have a formal dinner Thursday tomorrow and meet your family for the rest of the entire school year and possibly your entire college life! Why aren’t you more excited?” I demanded.
“I got a midterm Friday morning,” he responded coolly.
I sighed and shook my head. If I were him, I’d still be jumping off the walls and shitting in the showers like I was the shit. But instead, here I was. And here Sang was.
Around 10:15, I asked to use his computer to check David Lee’s facebook, and my heart raced as I read posts on his walls. There were congratulatory posts from his friends. Recent. Within the last fifteen minutes. I immediately texted Alfonso to tell him that David Lee just got in, and then I waited. If there was a call coming for me, it’d be coming within an hour.
11:15 came, and I was losing hope. Sang had gone from telling me, “Don’t worry, there’s still time. You’ll get a call!” to “Auditions for MCIA are coming up!”
I lied across his bed and he handed me a TV remote. I flipped through some channels and was temporarily excited to see Scully in big circular lens glasses and holding one of those big bulky 1990 cordless phones. It was the episode with the cockroaches. I watched as Sang recounted details about the drama that Funksters had last year. I don’t know how that came up; maybe he was telling me all that as a way cheering me up. I wouldn’t have to deal with the drama associated with dance crews. Big woohoo.
Around 11:40, I checked my email once again, not expecting much. But a certain email caught my eye. I read the title out loud to Sang: “To CADC Auditionee.”
That was it. I knew I wasn’t in. It definitely wasn’t an acceptance email, because they would only accept dancers by phone. And plus, there was something about the sound of “auditionee.” That eeeeeee sound. It sounded to calm and unexciting. I didn’t hesitate to open the email and read it, as I already knew what was inside. Yep, one fat paragraph of a rejection masked by apologies and cheap comfort words.
Sang waited for my response, but I only shrugged and forced a meek smile.
Examining the email again, I noticed that I could see a list of all of the people who received the email. I skimmed through looking for Kevin and Alfonso’s emails, and I was dismayed to see both of them in the list. I called Alfonso to tell him the news, and I kept it short because I didn’t know how to comfort him. The truth was the truth, and I had always been bad at masking it.
After I hung up, I leaned back and continued watching X-Files.
“Brian, how are you feeling?”
I thought about Sang’s question for a bit. Then I thought about it hard. I looked deep inside myself for an answer, for some soul. In my mind I flashed through three separate times that I should have cried this summer but refused to. That was when I made a stunning revelation that struck me harder than the actual rejection from CADC.
I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head.
“I don’t feel sad,” I began. “I don’t feel anything at all. Nothing.” I scoffed in disbelief. Nothing.
I had stifled my emotions for so long that I couldn’t even recognize them anymore. Something was wrong with me.
Empathy
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website. He still hadn’t received a call, and it was driving him crazy. All he wanted to do was to sit down and wait for it, but now here he was in his Social Dance class, a class that he shared with his Kevin, me, Jojo, a girl who was already in CADC, and Hillary, one of CADC’s team captains.
As he stood next to Hillary waiting for instructions from the teacher, he tried so hard to get into Hillary’s mind and probe it with questions. Is the cabinet still deciding on who to choose? Do you already know the roster? Am I on the roster?
Standing next to her, he instead thought that he might’ve accidentally overheard her telling Jojo how she felt “bad for them.”
His heart sank, and he felt his head run hot as it filled with more questions. Did I hear her right? Who’s she referring to? Kevin, Brian, and me?
The teacher introduced a few news spins, and so, trying to concentrate, he shoved the questions as far back into his mind as he could.
Some time during that class though, he came to accept that the possibility of not getting into CADC was very, very real. As he, Kevin, and I ate in the dining commons after class around 7:30, he explained what he thought he overheard and yelled out, “Fuck! What did we do wrong? The next time I see Hillary, I just want to ask her what we did wrong.”
He waited on us for an answer. There was silence, and then a meek proposition. “CADC likes to screw around with the people they accept,” I said. “Maybe Hillary wanted you to hear to mess with your mind. Or maybe you heard her wrong.”
No, he knew he heard her right.
“Plus, you know David Lee? The really really good short Asian guy with the mohawk who’s definitely going to get in? I’ve been regularly checking his Facebook—stalkerish, I know, but whatever—he still hasn’t gotten a call yet either. So CADC is still in the process of making their calls. Don’t lose hope.”
He looked at me like it was one of the very few things I had ever said that made sense. How strange it was, he thought, to hear “don’t lose hope” from me when that was what he was telling me two weeks ago. So maybe there was still a reason to believe.
After dinner, he and I left Kevin and met up with Asian John to attend a free dance workshop from MCIA, another one of UCI’s dance teams. The main goal was to distract himself, to pass another hour feeling as little pain as possible.
But he couldn’t get into the choreo. It required too much energy and swagger, something that he didn’t have this night. He looked over at me, and we caught each other’s stares. Seeing my empty face and lack of energy, he could tell that I wasn’t in the mood either. He went to the corner and sat down by the staircase, and Asian John and I followed. My friend Sang came over to joined us.
He looked up at Sang and wasn’t too sure what to feel about him. Sang already got a call from CADC while he didn’t. Should he be envious of Sang? Jealous? Angry? Happy? At the very least, he shook Sang’s hand and told him, “Congratulations, man.”
When the workshop finished around 9:30, he, Asian John, Sang, and I stood around outside in the cold discussing what to do. There was a scheduled blackout from 9 to 6 AM at VDC and VDC Norte, the apartments. He had planned on going to Panyia’s place, where there was power and where he was going to meet back up with Kevin and several other friends waiting for their calls from CADC. I, however, seemed intent on going back to Sang’s dorm, so he extended his hand out to me, ready to bid farewell. As I reached out and shook his hand, he nodded at me, and I nodded back.
“Good luck, Alfonso,” I told him.
He and Asian John turned away from Sang and me, and we walked our separate ways.
Shortly after getting to Panyia’s place, he got a text from me saying that David Lee just got an acceptance phone call from CADC. This gave him and Kevin yet more reason to hope, to get excited, and to get nervous. Any one of them could be getting a phone call too in the next few minutes. He prayed for it.
When more minutes passed without hearing his phone ring, he further tried to rationalize why he hadn’t gotten a phone call yet. It could be one of CADC’s pranks: to make two or three more calls five minutes right before putting up the roster. But as the hour hand crawled closer toward 12, the prayers and the rationalizations grew weaker, making more room now for heartacheand self-criticism.
Around 11:45, he had already nearly finished the process of mourning and reached acceptance when his phone rang. With one last shred of hope remaining, he leaped up and reached for his phone, his heart racing. However, it wasn’t the phone call he was hoping for, and it wasn’t the phone call that he would want to hear. As he picked up his phone, he was disappointed to see that the phone call wasn’t coming from anyone on CADC.
“Hey Brian, what’s up?”
“Did you check your email?” I asked him.
“No, why?”
“I got the email,” I sighed. “The rejection email.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“And, well, you know how when the sender sends out a mass email and you can see a list of all the emails he sent it to?”
Fuck, fuck no. He wish he didn’t know what I was talking about, but he saw where this was going. “Yeah,” he answered.
“Your email is on that list. And so is Kevin’s.”
I said it like I was saying something as typical as, “I bought some milk from Albertsons.” I delivered the information so nonchalantly that he didn’t know how to react with anything more than just, “Oh, alright. Thanks for telling me.”
“Sorry man, so I’ll see ya tomorrow or at the next dance workshop?”
“Yeah, sure,” he answered. I hung up, and Alfonso knew that was it. No CADC this year.
At the beginning of the last school year, Alfonso heard that KASA, the Korean American Student Association, was in search of freshmen to join their club and compete in a freshmen dance-off of several Korean clubs from different schools around SoCal. KASA had to put together a dance team comprised only of first-years, and they had to perform a six-minute set. This was just like any other dance competition, except anyone could dance in the team as long as they auditioned for their part and got casted. Alfonso was just getting into breakdancing, but he thought he might give choreo a try. And he was glad he did.
Through KASA, Alfonso got a sense of what being on an actual dance team was like. He met new friends, he learned and cleaned pieces, and he auditioned and got casted for them. As the competition came closer, the directors scheduled “hell week” practices, and that was when he really bonded with his KASA teammates. They practically lived in a parking garage as they practiced through the night until the sun came up. They barely got any sleep, and together they shared their pains and miseries and questioned why the hell they were putting themselves through all this. But in the end, it was worth it when their team won second place.
That sense of family. Seeing all your effort go somewhere. That feeling of performing on stage. The sense of victory (and slight disappointment) when hearing his team name called out. That only came in small doses with KASA, as the KASA dance team existed solely for this once-a-year dance-off competition. Alfonso knew he wanted more. And he was going to do whatever it took to get it.
“I always thought that those who succeeded were the ones who worked hard...I guess it’s still not my turn to shine.”
“The beginning of a whole new year to improve...now where do I start?”
As he stood next to Hillary waiting for instructions from the teacher, he tried so hard to get into Hillary’s mind and probe it with questions. Is the cabinet still deciding on who to choose? Do you already know the roster? Am I on the roster?
Standing next to her, he instead thought that he might’ve accidentally overheard her telling Jojo how she felt “bad for them.”
His heart sank, and he felt his head run hot as it filled with more questions. Did I hear her right? Who’s she referring to? Kevin, Brian, and me?
The teacher introduced a few news spins, and so, trying to concentrate, he shoved the questions as far back into his mind as he could.
Some time during that class though, he came to accept that the possibility of not getting into CADC was very, very real. As he, Kevin, and I ate in the dining commons after class around 7:30, he explained what he thought he overheard and yelled out, “Fuck! What did we do wrong? The next time I see Hillary, I just want to ask her what we did wrong.”
He waited on us for an answer. There was silence, and then a meek proposition. “CADC likes to screw around with the people they accept,” I said. “Maybe Hillary wanted you to hear to mess with your mind. Or maybe you heard her wrong.”
No, he knew he heard her right.
“Plus, you know David Lee? The really really good short Asian guy with the mohawk who’s definitely going to get in? I’ve been regularly checking his Facebook—stalkerish, I know, but whatever—he still hasn’t gotten a call yet either. So CADC is still in the process of making their calls. Don’t lose hope.”
He looked at me like it was one of the very few things I had ever said that made sense. How strange it was, he thought, to hear “don’t lose hope” from me when that was what he was telling me two weeks ago. So maybe there was still a reason to believe.
After dinner, he and I left Kevin and met up with Asian John to attend a free dance workshop from MCIA, another one of UCI’s dance teams. The main goal was to distract himself, to pass another hour feeling as little pain as possible.
But he couldn’t get into the choreo. It required too much energy and swagger, something that he didn’t have this night. He looked over at me, and we caught each other’s stares. Seeing my empty face and lack of energy, he could tell that I wasn’t in the mood either. He went to the corner and sat down by the staircase, and Asian John and I followed. My friend Sang came over to joined us.
He looked up at Sang and wasn’t too sure what to feel about him. Sang already got a call from CADC while he didn’t. Should he be envious of Sang? Jealous? Angry? Happy? At the very least, he shook Sang’s hand and told him, “Congratulations, man.”
When the workshop finished around 9:30, he, Asian John, Sang, and I stood around outside in the cold discussing what to do. There was a scheduled blackout from 9 to 6 AM at VDC and VDC Norte, the apartments. He had planned on going to Panyia’s place, where there was power and where he was going to meet back up with Kevin and several other friends waiting for their calls from CADC. I, however, seemed intent on going back to Sang’s dorm, so he extended his hand out to me, ready to bid farewell. As I reached out and shook his hand, he nodded at me, and I nodded back.
“Good luck, Alfonso,” I told him.
He and Asian John turned away from Sang and me, and we walked our separate ways.
Shortly after getting to Panyia’s place, he got a text from me saying that David Lee just got an acceptance phone call from CADC. This gave him and Kevin yet more reason to hope, to get excited, and to get nervous. Any one of them could be getting a phone call too in the next few minutes. He prayed for it.
When more minutes passed without hearing his phone ring, he further tried to rationalize why he hadn’t gotten a phone call yet. It could be one of CADC’s pranks: to make two or three more calls five minutes right before putting up the roster. But as the hour hand crawled closer toward 12, the prayers and the rationalizations grew weaker, making more room now for heartacheand self-criticism.
Around 11:45, he had already nearly finished the process of mourning and reached acceptance when his phone rang. With one last shred of hope remaining, he leaped up and reached for his phone, his heart racing. However, it wasn’t the phone call he was hoping for, and it wasn’t the phone call that he would want to hear. As he picked up his phone, he was disappointed to see that the phone call wasn’t coming from anyone on CADC.
“Hey Brian, what’s up?”
“Did you check your email?” I asked him.
“No, why?”
“I got the email,” I sighed. “The rejection email.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“And, well, you know how when the sender sends out a mass email and you can see a list of all the emails he sent it to?”
Fuck, fuck no. He wish he didn’t know what I was talking about, but he saw where this was going. “Yeah,” he answered.
“Your email is on that list. And so is Kevin’s.”
I said it like I was saying something as typical as, “I bought some milk from Albertsons.” I delivered the information so nonchalantly that he didn’t know how to react with anything more than just, “Oh, alright. Thanks for telling me.”
“Sorry man, so I’ll see ya tomorrow or at the next dance workshop?”
“Yeah, sure,” he answered. I hung up, and Alfonso knew that was it. No CADC this year.
At the beginning of the last school year, Alfonso heard that KASA, the Korean American Student Association, was in search of freshmen to join their club and compete in a freshmen dance-off of several Korean clubs from different schools around SoCal. KASA had to put together a dance team comprised only of first-years, and they had to perform a six-minute set. This was just like any other dance competition, except anyone could dance in the team as long as they auditioned for their part and got casted. Alfonso was just getting into breakdancing, but he thought he might give choreo a try. And he was glad he did.
Through KASA, Alfonso got a sense of what being on an actual dance team was like. He met new friends, he learned and cleaned pieces, and he auditioned and got casted for them. As the competition came closer, the directors scheduled “hell week” practices, and that was when he really bonded with his KASA teammates. They practically lived in a parking garage as they practiced through the night until the sun came up. They barely got any sleep, and together they shared their pains and miseries and questioned why the hell they were putting themselves through all this. But in the end, it was worth it when their team won second place.
That sense of family. Seeing all your effort go somewhere. That feeling of performing on stage. The sense of victory (and slight disappointment) when hearing his team name called out. That only came in small doses with KASA, as the KASA dance team existed solely for this once-a-year dance-off competition. Alfonso knew he wanted more. And he was going to do whatever it took to get it.
“I always thought that those who succeeded were the ones who worked hard...I guess it’s still not my turn to shine.”
“The beginning of a whole new year to improve...now where do I start?”
What It All Comes Down To
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
CADC was supposed to have already posted up the roster, but they decided to postpone it to Wednesday night, 11:59 PM. However, some dancers have already gotten calls and know that they’re on the team.
Neither Alfonso, Kevin, nor I have gotten any calls. We’re trying to rationalize: there’s another 24 hours of waiting, so that gives them another 24 hours to call one of us.
Although, honestly, I just want it to be over. I just want that roster to be up, whether or not my name’s in it. With the roster up, I can prepare myself for what’s coming, because as of right now, I honestly have no idea how my life’s going to look starting Thursday.
My friend Sang, who I met through Funksters, was one of the very few that already got a call. He’s officially in CADC, and I’m fucking happy for him. But I immediately felt my heart sink a little. I felt a sense of loss.
I want CADC badly. I want to dance. I want to perform. I want to grow. I want to meet new people.
But, in my heart, I know what this all really comes down to: I don’t want to be alone.
If Kevin and Alfonso make it and I don’t, I might start finding myself alone in my apartment room in front of the laptop every day while they’re off at practicing or hanging out with Sang and the rest of CADC.
---
“I’m Losing Oakridge”
Written December 3rd, 2006 (Excerpted)
Things have really changed lately among me, Peter, Miranda and John.
Normally, Peter comes back from Davis to San Jose every weekend so he could visit his girlfriend, but now with them no longer together, no one forces Peter to come visit anymore. So Peter is pretty much going to be missing in action from now on.
Miranda, she just kinda faded out. Every time me and John decide to go hang out, she has work or classes. We’ve been all talking about hanging out together for a while now, but nothing has ever happened.
It’s strange. The way it used to be was that I would go to Oakridge and expect to find Peter, John, or Miranda upstairs in the arcade, and then we would go chill downstairs or go driving off to somewhere else: Taco Bell, The Gate, BillyJr’s Apartment, MGL, SVGL, our houses, Valley Fair, Eastridge, etc.
Now it’s just me and John. I admit that I’ve been slightly expecting something to also knock John out of the picture, leaving me alone. Or, something would knock me out of the picture. I was more worried about the latter because things already seemed like John was moving on with a new cast of friends.
And now, since I wanna sleep early so I can wake up early to do homework, I’ll post up the conversation that I had with Kaleb where I decribed what happened Friday night, which I already made a few references to in the previous entry.
[The following is a condensed and grammatically corrected version of what I told Kaleb on AIM.]
Things have been moving quickly indeed, and I thought I’ve been moving along with them. John got into breakdancing and joined hip hop club at Leland, and so I got into breakdancing. Sometimes John drives me along to hip hop club practice and I became familiar with all his breakdancing friends. Weekends, we hang out, go to Oakridge, drive around, stay out late at night. Everybody has been getting their ears pierced, so I decided that would like to get mine pierced too.
So John and I were hanging out at Oakridge. After some DDR, we met up with his friends Yang and Pat. Now, I’ve noticed in the past that when John’s other friends are present, I get slightly different treatment from John. Like, when it’s just the two of us, I’d be his Top 1 on myspace, when John’s other friends show up, I’m suddenly like #20.
I told John that I had to be home and into bed pretty early because I’m waking up early Saturday to run a discussion panel on sexual orientation at my school and I had to prepare speeches and shit. We and his friends all went to Valley Fair, and I asked to be home by 11ish. However, we visited John’s friend’s friend at their apartment in Santana Row. At this point, I was starting to get a super crazy headache that almost topped the one I had the first time I got drunk.
But we still end up at that guy’s apartment in Santana Row and we all decide to play some game on their Xbox360. Incidentally, video games don't make headaches better, and so I finally decided to sit out. But then John was like, “Dude, just play. At least move your character so that we can move along.” Ignoring him, I leaned back into the couch and rubbed my head.
Then while playing the game, Pat says, “Ow, my ears are starting to sting a bit.” (He just got his ears pierced that day.) To which John responds urgently, “Do you have the rubbing alcohol? How bad is it?” etc. It was a small little ear ache compared to my huge headache.
After an hour, they were done with the video games, it was 11. Then they John and his friends decided to practice breakdancing shit on the floors of the apartment. They pranced around for another hour. I finally ended up back home at 12:30. [This ends the excerpt of the conversation with Kaleb.]
All I could think about during the car ride home was the drunken vomiting incident at MGL 9 months ago and how things have changed since then. It was finally okay for John to ask my how I was feeling once he dropped of Yosuke and Pat.
I didn’t say anything to John until we finally arrived at my house. As I was getting out, I told John, “This headache was the same one from when I was drunk at Milpitas Golfland. Same one. Same symptoms. Same almost-wanna-vomit feelings, but you’re lucky that I didn’t [vomit]. But this time, the main concern was over somebody’s ear. Tell your Leland friend that I’m sorry that his ear slightly stings.” I could tell that John didn’t really know what to say because for the first time ever, I was taking things absolutely seriously with him. No joking, no “classic” dumb me.
“Good night, Yohannes.” [Yohannes is John’s real name, which all of his Leland friends address him as.]
Normally, an angry person would slam the car door, but I was smart and clever enough to leave it slightly ajar so that John would have to handle the hassle of getting out of the drivers seat to close it himself.
And yeah, I now feel like shit because I don’t actually want things to end that way between us. Don’t bother giving me advice because Kaleb already gave me the only good advice there is. [[I was kinda at a flirty stage with Kaleb at this time.]]
Neither Alfonso, Kevin, nor I have gotten any calls. We’re trying to rationalize: there’s another 24 hours of waiting, so that gives them another 24 hours to call one of us.
Although, honestly, I just want it to be over. I just want that roster to be up, whether or not my name’s in it. With the roster up, I can prepare myself for what’s coming, because as of right now, I honestly have no idea how my life’s going to look starting Thursday.
My friend Sang, who I met through Funksters, was one of the very few that already got a call. He’s officially in CADC, and I’m fucking happy for him. But I immediately felt my heart sink a little. I felt a sense of loss.
I want CADC badly. I want to dance. I want to perform. I want to grow. I want to meet new people.
But, in my heart, I know what this all really comes down to: I don’t want to be alone.
If Kevin and Alfonso make it and I don’t, I might start finding myself alone in my apartment room in front of the laptop every day while they’re off at practicing or hanging out with Sang and the rest of CADC.
---
“I’m Losing Oakridge”
Written December 3rd, 2006 (Excerpted)
Things have really changed lately among me, Peter, Miranda and John.
Normally, Peter comes back from Davis to San Jose every weekend so he could visit his girlfriend, but now with them no longer together, no one forces Peter to come visit anymore. So Peter is pretty much going to be missing in action from now on.
Miranda, she just kinda faded out. Every time me and John decide to go hang out, she has work or classes. We’ve been all talking about hanging out together for a while now, but nothing has ever happened.
It’s strange. The way it used to be was that I would go to Oakridge and expect to find Peter, John, or Miranda upstairs in the arcade, and then we would go chill downstairs or go driving off to somewhere else: Taco Bell, The Gate, BillyJr’s Apartment, MGL, SVGL, our houses, Valley Fair, Eastridge, etc.
Now it’s just me and John. I admit that I’ve been slightly expecting something to also knock John out of the picture, leaving me alone. Or, something would knock me out of the picture. I was more worried about the latter because things already seemed like John was moving on with a new cast of friends.
And now, since I wanna sleep early so I can wake up early to do homework, I’ll post up the conversation that I had with Kaleb where I decribed what happened Friday night, which I already made a few references to in the previous entry.
[The following is a condensed and grammatically corrected version of what I told Kaleb on AIM.]
Things have been moving quickly indeed, and I thought I’ve been moving along with them. John got into breakdancing and joined hip hop club at Leland, and so I got into breakdancing. Sometimes John drives me along to hip hop club practice and I became familiar with all his breakdancing friends. Weekends, we hang out, go to Oakridge, drive around, stay out late at night. Everybody has been getting their ears pierced, so I decided that would like to get mine pierced too.
So John and I were hanging out at Oakridge. After some DDR, we met up with his friends Yang and Pat. Now, I’ve noticed in the past that when John’s other friends are present, I get slightly different treatment from John. Like, when it’s just the two of us, I’d be his Top 1 on myspace, when John’s other friends show up, I’m suddenly like #20.
I told John that I had to be home and into bed pretty early because I’m waking up early Saturday to run a discussion panel on sexual orientation at my school and I had to prepare speeches and shit. We and his friends all went to Valley Fair, and I asked to be home by 11ish. However, we visited John’s friend’s friend at their apartment in Santana Row. At this point, I was starting to get a super crazy headache that almost topped the one I had the first time I got drunk.
But we still end up at that guy’s apartment in Santana Row and we all decide to play some game on their Xbox360. Incidentally, video games don't make headaches better, and so I finally decided to sit out. But then John was like, “Dude, just play. At least move your character so that we can move along.” Ignoring him, I leaned back into the couch and rubbed my head.
Then while playing the game, Pat says, “Ow, my ears are starting to sting a bit.” (He just got his ears pierced that day.) To which John responds urgently, “Do you have the rubbing alcohol? How bad is it?” etc. It was a small little ear ache compared to my huge headache.
After an hour, they were done with the video games, it was 11. Then they John and his friends decided to practice breakdancing shit on the floors of the apartment. They pranced around for another hour. I finally ended up back home at 12:30. [This ends the excerpt of the conversation with Kaleb.]
All I could think about during the car ride home was the drunken vomiting incident at MGL 9 months ago and how things have changed since then. It was finally okay for John to ask my how I was feeling once he dropped of Yosuke and Pat.
I didn’t say anything to John until we finally arrived at my house. As I was getting out, I told John, “This headache was the same one from when I was drunk at Milpitas Golfland. Same one. Same symptoms. Same almost-wanna-vomit feelings, but you’re lucky that I didn’t [vomit]. But this time, the main concern was over somebody’s ear. Tell your Leland friend that I’m sorry that his ear slightly stings.” I could tell that John didn’t really know what to say because for the first time ever, I was taking things absolutely seriously with him. No joking, no “classic” dumb me.
“Good night, Yohannes.” [Yohannes is John’s real name, which all of his Leland friends address him as.]
Normally, an angry person would slam the car door, but I was smart and clever enough to leave it slightly ajar so that John would have to handle the hassle of getting out of the drivers seat to close it himself.
And yeah, I now feel like shit because I don’t actually want things to end that way between us. Don’t bother giving me advice because Kaleb already gave me the only good advice there is. [[I was kinda at a flirty stage with Kaleb at this time.]]
Memoria Technica
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Around 9 PM, we (me, Alfonso, Kevin, and our other friends Khoa, Tina, and Erica) decided to take a little break from practicing to get some food at Subway. I bought myself a foot long meatball marinara, sat down with my friends, and eagerly unwrapped my dinner. Ignoring the laughter and chatter around me, I feasted my eyes on this twelve-inch marvel before cautiously wrapping my hands around it. Planning each move thoughtfully, I picked it up and brought my face down to it so I could get a closer look at it. The meatballs, looking ready to pop out, stared back at me, and the creamy white cheese seeped down the sides slowly. Where do I start going down on this thing?
I opened my mouth—no—I needed to go wider. I stretched open my jaw. Inching ever so more closely to the meaty monolith, I closed my eyes and soon felt a rough texture brush between my lips and then my tongue.
I savored it. I savored the taste in my mouth. I savored it before I clamped my teeth together and jerked my head and ripped the sandwich away. Chew chew chew, chomp chomp chomp. Once I felt that it was nothing more than some mush in my mouth, I swallowed. Then I took another inch off the sandwich and continued to viciously take off inch after inch.
Bite after bite, I kept on going, barely pausing to talk or rest. But once I realized I could barely breathe anymore, I relaxed. And then I rested my eyes back on the sandwich. I froze. Not from shock, but a sudden wave of emotions. I had realized something.
I was holding the sandwich upside-down.
I gaped at what I was holding in my hands. And then I looked up and opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t making anything come out. Everybody was having fun and I didn’t want to bring down anyone’s spirit. And they definitely would’ve heard my voice start to crack if I spoke. I closed my mouth and I turned back to my dinner. It was just a sandwich. Just fucking eat it. I brought it up to my mouth and began to open my mouth, but then I realized that that very motion could now push a tear out from under my eye. I backed my head away from the sandwich and hesitated, trying to recollect myself.
You used to try to feed me my cheeseburgers upside-down, and I would always get annoyed. Remember that? I didn’t really get angry; I’d just kinda playfully whine. “Why can’t you hold the damn burger right?” And then you’d hold it at some other weird angle.
After another minute, I finally swallowed my emotions and continued eating the meatball marinara. But as I ate it, I found myself deep in thought.
What really bothered me was I couldn’t remember when and where you would feed me cheeseburgers. I just know you did a few time at some points, but we almost always ate right there at In-N-Out, right? Did you feed me in the car sometimes? I couldn’t think of any reason why we would be so much in a rush that we’d have to order some to go and eat it as I drove. Or was it even cheeseburgers that you fed me? Maybe it was some other kind of sandwich? I didn’t know. Why did this even matter?
I just really hated that I couldn’t remember, that there were already holes in my memory.
I’m so stressed right now. How many more hours left? Auditions are Monday, and I find out the results Tuesday. Around sixty-five more hours until it’s all over. I can keep myself together.
I opened my mouth—no—I needed to go wider. I stretched open my jaw. Inching ever so more closely to the meaty monolith, I closed my eyes and soon felt a rough texture brush between my lips and then my tongue.
I savored it. I savored the taste in my mouth. I savored it before I clamped my teeth together and jerked my head and ripped the sandwich away. Chew chew chew, chomp chomp chomp. Once I felt that it was nothing more than some mush in my mouth, I swallowed. Then I took another inch off the sandwich and continued to viciously take off inch after inch.
Bite after bite, I kept on going, barely pausing to talk or rest. But once I realized I could barely breathe anymore, I relaxed. And then I rested my eyes back on the sandwich. I froze. Not from shock, but a sudden wave of emotions. I had realized something.
I was holding the sandwich upside-down.
I gaped at what I was holding in my hands. And then I looked up and opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t making anything come out. Everybody was having fun and I didn’t want to bring down anyone’s spirit. And they definitely would’ve heard my voice start to crack if I spoke. I closed my mouth and I turned back to my dinner. It was just a sandwich. Just fucking eat it. I brought it up to my mouth and began to open my mouth, but then I realized that that very motion could now push a tear out from under my eye. I backed my head away from the sandwich and hesitated, trying to recollect myself.
You used to try to feed me my cheeseburgers upside-down, and I would always get annoyed. Remember that? I didn’t really get angry; I’d just kinda playfully whine. “Why can’t you hold the damn burger right?” And then you’d hold it at some other weird angle.
After another minute, I finally swallowed my emotions and continued eating the meatball marinara. But as I ate it, I found myself deep in thought.
What really bothered me was I couldn’t remember when and where you would feed me cheeseburgers. I just know you did a few time at some points, but we almost always ate right there at In-N-Out, right? Did you feed me in the car sometimes? I couldn’t think of any reason why we would be so much in a rush that we’d have to order some to go and eat it as I drove. Or was it even cheeseburgers that you fed me? Maybe it was some other kind of sandwich? I didn’t know. Why did this even matter?
I just really hated that I couldn’t remember, that there were already holes in my memory.
I’m so stressed right now. How many more hours left? Auditions are Monday, and I find out the results Tuesday. Around sixty-five more hours until it’s all over. I can keep myself together.
Not Me
Thursday, October 15, 2009
In my French Grammar class, there was a guy named Marc who sat on the other side of the room. When the teacher would call his name during role, I would always instinctively look up with the word “présent” already on the tip of my tongue.
“No wait—that’s not me.” I always managed to stop myself each time until finally, I no longer responded to the name “Marc.” I no longer turned my head toward the sound of it. No longer shook myself awake from my snooze to meet the teacher’s stern face.
I know it’s only been three and a half weeks, but I already knew after the first week that I was just kidding myself by thinking that there was still a chance to respark my interest in French.
---
“Dénouement”
Written June 1st, 2009 (Excerpted)
I was very worried that I had lost interest in French, as trivial as it may sound. French is my major, and for two to three years I’ve said it’d be what I’d do. I had already envisioned the way my French class would work, the lesson plans I would create, and the things I would have my students do. So the loss of French to me would mean the loss of a chunk of my future that I had already planned out.
I sulked over this conflict for a while, but a few weeks into Spring Quarter, I got over it after having a good talk with my friend Cameron during a late night walk around campus. He suggested that maybe my interest in French got pushed back because I more recently got into hip hop dancing. I have more interest in dancing right now because it’s so new and exciting to me that I want to devote more time to it to explore all that it has to offer me. Once I get to the level that I want to be at, I can tone down my focus on dance and split my attention evenly among all my other interests.
Still, I’m still itching for an immediate solution that says either I AM or am NOT interested in French, but probably no such solution exists. I’ll have to wait it out, and I’m fine with that, for now anyway.
---
After four months, I finally got my answer, but I can’t say whether or not it was the answer I had wanted.
“No wait—that’s not me.” I always managed to stop myself each time until finally, I no longer responded to the name “Marc.” I no longer turned my head toward the sound of it. No longer shook myself awake from my snooze to meet the teacher’s stern face.
I know it’s only been three and a half weeks, but I already knew after the first week that I was just kidding myself by thinking that there was still a chance to respark my interest in French.
---
“Dénouement”
Written June 1st, 2009 (Excerpted)
I was very worried that I had lost interest in French, as trivial as it may sound. French is my major, and for two to three years I’ve said it’d be what I’d do. I had already envisioned the way my French class would work, the lesson plans I would create, and the things I would have my students do. So the loss of French to me would mean the loss of a chunk of my future that I had already planned out.
I sulked over this conflict for a while, but a few weeks into Spring Quarter, I got over it after having a good talk with my friend Cameron during a late night walk around campus. He suggested that maybe my interest in French got pushed back because I more recently got into hip hop dancing. I have more interest in dancing right now because it’s so new and exciting to me that I want to devote more time to it to explore all that it has to offer me. Once I get to the level that I want to be at, I can tone down my focus on dance and split my attention evenly among all my other interests.
Still, I’m still itching for an immediate solution that says either I AM or am NOT interested in French, but probably no such solution exists. I’ll have to wait it out, and I’m fine with that, for now anyway.
---
After four months, I finally got my answer, but I can’t say whether or not it was the answer I had wanted.
Paradox
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
I should be doing homework right now, and if I didn’t have homework, I should be dancing. But fuck, there’s so much going through my head right now that I just had to get some of it out.
Common Ground auditions started last week. I didn’t get in, but that was pretty much the plan. The main goal was to get over stage fright so that I wouldn’t blank out for CADC auditions.
The CADC audition process started yesterday, and I’m already feeling overwhelmed. Alfonso was helping me clean up the piece we learned yesterday, and he pointed out so many problems in my performance that I had to take notes. They made sense when I was writing them, but reading them now, they make no sense: “Straight leg, brush past face, left shoulder up. Make hard part bigger. Push off right foot for the van. Blades!” Etfc. (That stands for et fucking cetera.)
I’ve been a bad student, fuck. I already missed two homework assignments, one in my natural disasters class and the other in my sociology class. I have done zero reading for natural disasters and probably at this point, 3% of the reading for sociology. I admit, it’s been harder to get schoolwork done myself because you’ve been keeping me in check since the beginning of senior year in high school. That’s one of the reasons why my parents loved you so much.
Shit, since the beginning of senior year in high school. I can’t believe it’s been two years.
Oops, this entry wasn’t supposed to suddenly become about you.
Alfonso has been trying to keep me in check. He asks me have I done my homework yet, how much reading I need to get caught up on, etfc, but I always skirt around an actual answer.
I don’t want to blame it on dance, but I will say I have made a lot of sacrifices for dance. Money, time, money, friends, money, and emotions. Yes, emotions.
I don’t want to admit to myself how badly I want CADC, because if I do but then end up not getting it, I’ll be crushed and I’ll probably hate life for a day or two. Don’t get me wrong; I can accept defeat perfectly fine. But the only thing I can’t accept is how I react to defeat. In case I fail, I put up these mental blocks that help cushion the impact. I refuse to let myself react with anything more dramatic than a simple “oh” and shrug. No tears, no desire to confide in another person. That’s all for the weak. For the gays.
The main goal of the Common Ground audition was to see my performance on video so that I could cite that as evidence to myself that I was getting better enough for CADC auditions. But the evidence is lacking in quantity, and I need to start drawing from outside of my rationalizations.
The same mental blocks soften my emotions, my esteem, and my will, and so I refuse to feel like anything bigger than “good.” To do well for CADC, however, I think I might have to make myself susceptible to emotions at both end of the spectrum. Only when I really admit how much I fucking want CADC will I do one hundred times better. And confidence: I need it. In my dancing and in general I need to give off a vibe that says, “Fuck you bitch, I’m taking your spot in CADC.” I need to draw from confidence that I never had and from a burning will that I never allowed myself to feel. I need to ride high off my desires and confidence, so high that when it comes to Monday, the CADC audition day, there will only be two directions to go: further up (if I get in), or straight fucking down (if I don’t get in).
Normally, I’d only take the middle, in-between direction because that’s the direction I’ve always been going in. But not this time. I need to accept to expect the unacceptable and proceed—as in, I need to be willing to be crushed if I don’t get into CADC so that I will gain enough confidence to assure myself that I will get in. Confidence is ultimately anticipating failure.
---
“salut.”
From: Brian Dinner (on myspace)
Date: Sep 15, 2007 3:36 AM
hi Trung.
I found your xanga and started leafing through it the last few days. thought i'd leave you a myspace message since unidentified footprints scare you. :P
alors, comment-vas tu?
From: trung n.
Date: Sep 15, 2007 12:41 PM
hey brian!
i'm glad another reader has contacted me! it always makes me feel good when they do that. it's good to know that somebody likes my stuff. i've just checked out my footprints and LEAFING YOU HAVE CERTAINLY DONE. haha. thanks though, im very flattered.
eh, ça va, tu sais. c'est samedi. je devrais avoir quelque chose à faire, mais jsuis fatigué. j'avais une semaine longe, mais en pensant au reste de l'année, je meurs un peu. je n'ai rien m' éxciter SAUF la fin de lycée.
j'espère que tu aies plus pour t'éxciter. et toi, ça va?
[several messages later]
From: trung n.
Date: Sep 16, 2007 12:51 AM
im going to major in int'l relations, to which w.history is like essential. intl relations:world history::algebra:calculus. i ultimately want to become a diplomat/ambassador/foreign service officer/CIA agent. that or working with an NGO in a third world country. i've told some of my friends that and they call me depressing because i'm never going to live a settled life. i'm never going to meet anyone and ill be lonely for the rest of my life. lmao. it is kinda sad, but im okay with that thought. i think. i just have to live it up while i can.
anyway, you're free to im me if msging is too slow.
Common Ground auditions started last week. I didn’t get in, but that was pretty much the plan. The main goal was to get over stage fright so that I wouldn’t blank out for CADC auditions.
The CADC audition process started yesterday, and I’m already feeling overwhelmed. Alfonso was helping me clean up the piece we learned yesterday, and he pointed out so many problems in my performance that I had to take notes. They made sense when I was writing them, but reading them now, they make no sense: “Straight leg, brush past face, left shoulder up. Make hard part bigger. Push off right foot for the van. Blades!” Etfc. (That stands for et fucking cetera.)
I’ve been a bad student, fuck. I already missed two homework assignments, one in my natural disasters class and the other in my sociology class. I have done zero reading for natural disasters and probably at this point, 3% of the reading for sociology. I admit, it’s been harder to get schoolwork done myself because you’ve been keeping me in check since the beginning of senior year in high school. That’s one of the reasons why my parents loved you so much.
Shit, since the beginning of senior year in high school. I can’t believe it’s been two years.
Oops, this entry wasn’t supposed to suddenly become about you.
Alfonso has been trying to keep me in check. He asks me have I done my homework yet, how much reading I need to get caught up on, etfc, but I always skirt around an actual answer.
I don’t want to blame it on dance, but I will say I have made a lot of sacrifices for dance. Money, time, money, friends, money, and emotions. Yes, emotions.
I don’t want to admit to myself how badly I want CADC, because if I do but then end up not getting it, I’ll be crushed and I’ll probably hate life for a day or two. Don’t get me wrong; I can accept defeat perfectly fine. But the only thing I can’t accept is how I react to defeat. In case I fail, I put up these mental blocks that help cushion the impact. I refuse to let myself react with anything more dramatic than a simple “oh” and shrug. No tears, no desire to confide in another person. That’s all for the weak. For the gays.
The main goal of the Common Ground audition was to see my performance on video so that I could cite that as evidence to myself that I was getting better enough for CADC auditions. But the evidence is lacking in quantity, and I need to start drawing from outside of my rationalizations.
The same mental blocks soften my emotions, my esteem, and my will, and so I refuse to feel like anything bigger than “good.” To do well for CADC, however, I think I might have to make myself susceptible to emotions at both end of the spectrum. Only when I really admit how much I fucking want CADC will I do one hundred times better. And confidence: I need it. In my dancing and in general I need to give off a vibe that says, “Fuck you bitch, I’m taking your spot in CADC.” I need to draw from confidence that I never had and from a burning will that I never allowed myself to feel. I need to ride high off my desires and confidence, so high that when it comes to Monday, the CADC audition day, there will only be two directions to go: further up (if I get in), or straight fucking down (if I don’t get in).
Normally, I’d only take the middle, in-between direction because that’s the direction I’ve always been going in. But not this time. I need to accept to expect the unacceptable and proceed—as in, I need to be willing to be crushed if I don’t get into CADC so that I will gain enough confidence to assure myself that I will get in. Confidence is ultimately anticipating failure.
---
“salut.”
From: Brian Dinner (on myspace)
Date: Sep 15, 2007 3:36 AM
hi Trung.
I found your xanga and started leafing through it the last few days. thought i'd leave you a myspace message since unidentified footprints scare you. :P
alors, comment-vas tu?
From: trung n.
Date: Sep 15, 2007 12:41 PM
hey brian!
i'm glad another reader has contacted me! it always makes me feel good when they do that. it's good to know that somebody likes my stuff. i've just checked out my footprints and LEAFING YOU HAVE CERTAINLY DONE. haha. thanks though, im very flattered.
eh, ça va, tu sais. c'est samedi. je devrais avoir quelque chose à faire, mais jsuis fatigué. j'avais une semaine longe, mais en pensant au reste de l'année, je meurs un peu. je n'ai rien m' éxciter SAUF la fin de lycée.
j'espère que tu aies plus pour t'éxciter. et toi, ça va?
[several messages later]
From: trung n.
Date: Sep 16, 2007 12:51 AM
im going to major in int'l relations, to which w.history is like essential. intl relations:world history::algebra:calculus. i ultimately want to become a diplomat/ambassador/foreign service officer/CIA agent. that or working with an NGO in a third world country. i've told some of my friends that and they call me depressing because i'm never going to live a settled life. i'm never going to meet anyone and ill be lonely for the rest of my life. lmao. it is kinda sad, but im okay with that thought. i think. i just have to live it up while i can.
anyway, you're free to im me if msging is too slow.
All Flashbacks
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Click here to continue reading all the entries with flashbacks.
For an explanation of what all this is, click here.
All Flashbacks:
04/30/75 - [Trại Học Tập Cải Tạo] flashback into my dad’s life (Tháng Tư Đen: Part 1, Tháng Tư Đen: Part 2)
12/??/91 - [Christmas in the Park] three old photos (Photo Album)
??/??/93 - [The Orange Visor] (No Reason)
??/??/96 - [Can’t Win All the Time] (The Gummy Octopus)
??/??/98 - [We Made It] (Happiness, The Key to Happiness)
12/09/99 - [How I Got Op] from my 4th grade journal (Call Me Ishmael)
12/13/99 - [Christmas Wishlist] from my 4th grade journal (Call Me Ishmael)
??/??/00 - a flashback dream (Memores Acti Prudentes Futuri)
02/??/04 - [Reparative Therapy] (Slave to the Machine)
02/13/04 - “Faithful Forever, Dear Cherished Op” (Call Me Ishmael)
03/??/04 - [Baseball Superstar] (Right Field)
04/22/04 - “Funky Relationship” (XY Attraction)
05/06/04 - “Standing Somewhere Lost” (XY Attraction)
05/07/04 - “As a Friend” (XY Attraction)
06/09/04 - “Reflect: 8th Grade Year” (Alone)
07/21/04 - “Tournament Part 2” (Five Years Ago)
08/09/04 - “Birthday Fun” (Those Fucking Persimmons)
12/26/04 - “What the Hell Can I do?” (Don’t Stop Believin’)
12/27/04 - “Just some small news...” (Don’t Stop Believin’)
12/28/04 - “That Silly Santa” (Don’t Stop Believin’)
07/??/05 - [Never Have Been, Never Will Be] (XY Attraction)
11/02/05 - “One Week Late with that 3-Week Progress Report” (This Stud)
11/30/05 - [The Last Step] (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
12/23/05 - “Brian and Seth” (Brian and Trung)
12/31/05 - [Coming Out] (Amor Fati)
01/02/06 - “At the Kitchen Table” (Meaning)
01/29/06 - “Lunar New Year” (Empty Nest, The Family Disappointment)
02/01/06 - “I think Vance was right.” (Soul in the Hole)
02/04/06 - “I’m okay.” (Soul in the Hole)
02/18/06 - “Owned by a Homo” (Owned by a Bunch of Homos)
03/02/06 - “WAKE UP!” (Just Smile and Nod)
03/05/06 - “My DowneLife” (Through the Looking-Glass)
03/28/06 - “Ironically, I think none of this would’ve happened if...” (White People)
03/28/06 - [Bad Person] (The Best and Worst of Liars and Cheaters)
04/02/06 - “Key Club Crap” (Sunshine Days)
05/23/06 - “A Dramatic Post about Turning 16” (20)
06/03/06 - “Confessions of One Sad and Pathetic Stalker” (Sunshine Days)
10/05/06 - “Reirresolution” (Resolute)
11/05/06 - “Bile in a Bowl” (Home-cooked)
12/03/06 - “I’m Losing Oakridge” (What It All Comes Down To)
2006 in a nutshell, thus far: I come out and all hell breaks loose.
01/10/07 - “Tennis Ace” (Photo Album)
03/01/07 - “This story gave my dad a few good laughs.” (Camera Adds Ten Pounds)
03/10/07 - “‘Fags!’ - Oh No” (Things Left Unsaid)
03/12/07 - “Id & Ego” (What Matters)
03/16/07 - “For My Parents” (Not to Dance)
03/18/07 - “A Dance in Berkeley” (What Matters)
04/23/07 - “Not Good Enough” (Photo Album)
05/14/07 - “The Computer-Engineer-to-Bagel-Shop-Owner Complex” (Luh Moar Jwayuh)
05/18/07 - “Yummy!” (Promod)
05/21/07 - [You Know Where] (Beautiful Sinners)
06/03/07 - “Happy Gay Pride Month, FAGGOTS” (Things Left Unsaid)
09/07/07 - “I rock.” (Retrogradation)
09/08/07 - “Mentally, I guess I was okay.” (Falling Star)
09/14/07 - “The First GSA Meeting” (The Activist)
09/15/07 - “salut,” a series of myspace messages (Paradox)
09/15/07 - “Qui Je Suis” (Embers)
09/24/07 - “One of those Days at Work” (The Dramaturgical Theory)
10/??/07 - [The Game Continues] (The Best and Worst of Liars and Cheaters)
11/15/07 - “Ashes” (Kick My Ass)
11/18/07 - “This is the Game” (Relapse)
11/29/07 - “Spring in November, Part 2” (Phoenix)
12/01/07 - “Christmas Carol” (Almond Cake)
12/09/07 - “Rollercoasters and Ferris Wheels” (Reciprocals and Rewrites)
2007 in a nutshell, thus far: The relationship with my parents fluctuates ridiculously. Trung comes into my life toward the end of the year. I like French. In Septembmer I start a tutoring job at SCORE! Educational Centers for students in grades Pre-K through 10.
??/??/08 - [In-N-Out] (Memoria Technica)
02/20/08 - “He’s still alive to me.” (In Our Hearts’ Honeymoon)
03/15/08 - [Reality Check] (Fire, Bad Person)
03/16/08 - “The Ideas of March” (Stoic)
04/08/08 - [The Voice Message] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 1)
04/23/08 - “DCON ’08, Part 1” (Bits and Pieces)
04/25/08 - “Lawrence King: Dumbass A-Z” (Things Left Unsaid)
05/12/08 - “I came out to my parents today, my 18th birthday.” (Photo Album 2000, Blessings: Part 1)
05/20/08 - “Souvenir” (Never-Ending Story)
05/30/08 - “Five Minutes” (Mais le Sort a Voulu)
06/20/08 - [What They Need] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 1)
06/23/08 - [The First Day] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux)
07/09/08 - “flightbirds,” written by Trung (Alighting)
07/11/08 - [Paulo Alvarez] (By All Standards)
07/??/08 - [Rosalina and Cil] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux)
09/18/08 - [Outgrown] (Orpheus)
09/21/08 - [That One Gay Guy] (Back in Irvine)
09/29/08 - [That One White Guy] (Concourse)
11/??/08 - [Dinosaur Act] flashback into Trung’s life (I’m Fucking Awesome)
11/??/08 - [Caught] (The Liar)
11/17/08 - [KASA Dance-Off] flashback into Alfonso’s life (Empathy)
2008 in a nutshell, thus far: I gave up my battle against my parents so that we could finally be on good, steady terms. My relationship with Trung continues to deepen even though we learn that we’re heading to different colleges. The start of college brings changes and new friends.
01/02/09 - [Dinoblanket] (Symphony)
02/??/09 - [Awkward Interview] (Barricading those Doors)
02/??/09 - [That One Popper] (Back in Irvine)
05/??/09 - [No Room for Niceness] (Antiphony)
05/??/09 - [Dreams Come True] (Dinosaur Dreams)
05/24/09 - “The Final Entry,” never published on my old blog (Promises Are Just Restraints, Runaway: Part 1)
05/30/09 - “all things” (Paramasturbatory Illusions)
06/01/09 - “Dénouement” (Not Me)
06/04/09 - “God Loves You” (My Testimony: Part 1, My Testimony: Part 2)
06/09/09 - “Life Savers” (A Friend’s Bonfire, A Friend’s Birthday)
06/13/09 - “A Return to Normalcy” (Middle School Rumors, Driven)
06/29/09 - [Too Advanced] (By All Standards)
07/??/09 - [Timmy] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux)
07/20/09 - [The Classroom Farce] (Super Saturday)
07/30/09 - [Matty Mendoza] (You Are My Best Friend)
07/31/09 - [The Last Day] (Breakthrough, That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 2)
08/25/09 - [One Last Time] (Runaway: Part 2)
08/26/09 - [Our Only Unbroken Promises] (Symphony, Runaway: Part 3)
08/30/09 - [That One UCI Guy] flashback told from Sang’s perspective (Crossfire)
09/18/09 - [Different People] (Transcendence)
09/20/09 - "my lie," written by Trung (The Truth)
10/07/09 - [Kiss and Tell] (What All Guys Want)
12/06/09 - [As Fate Would Have Dance] (Right Field)
01/02/10 - [Did You Cheat?] (Runaway: Part 4)
01/22/10 - [Ranye’s B-Day Wish] (Look Back, Let Go, and Move On)
02/07/10 - [INSA Dance] (The Right Stuff)
02/12/10 - [Unsuited] (Right Field)
02/13/10 - [Meet Trung] (Never Alone)
02/14/10 - [Special Delivery] (Two Sons)
02/20/10 - [Money Trip] (Money Doesn’t Matter)
03/09/10 - [Repeat After Me] an instant messaging conversation (Gay Shit)
03/17/10 - [Narrow-minded My Ass] (Deficit)
03/22/10 - [It Never Ends] (Every Game has a Sequel)
03/28/10 - [Palm Sunday] (Our Souvenirs, Look Back, Let Go, and Move On)
04/24/10 - [The Bridge] (Weeds)
06/12/10 - [The Irvine 11] (Made in America)
09/23/10 - [Only Thing I can Change] (Semper Eadem)
??/??/2? - [Everything is the way it should be.] (My Lie)
??/??/2? - [The Cosmological Horizon] (My Life)
The future in a nutshell, thus far: The future is uncertain.
For an explanation of what all this is, click here.
All Flashbacks:
04/30/75 - [Trại Học Tập Cải Tạo] flashback into my dad’s life (Tháng Tư Đen: Part 1, Tháng Tư Đen: Part 2)
12/??/91 - [Christmas in the Park] three old photos (Photo Album)
??/??/93 - [The Orange Visor] (No Reason)
??/??/96 - [Can’t Win All the Time] (The Gummy Octopus)
??/??/98 - [We Made It] (Happiness, The Key to Happiness)
12/09/99 - [How I Got Op] from my 4th grade journal (Call Me Ishmael)
12/13/99 - [Christmas Wishlist] from my 4th grade journal (Call Me Ishmael)
??/??/00 - a flashback dream (Memores Acti Prudentes Futuri)
02/??/04 - [Reparative Therapy] (Slave to the Machine)
02/13/04 - “Faithful Forever, Dear Cherished Op” (Call Me Ishmael)
03/??/04 - [Baseball Superstar] (Right Field)
04/22/04 - “Funky Relationship” (XY Attraction)
05/06/04 - “Standing Somewhere Lost” (XY Attraction)
05/07/04 - “As a Friend” (XY Attraction)
06/09/04 - “Reflect: 8th Grade Year” (Alone)
07/21/04 - “Tournament Part 2” (Five Years Ago)
08/09/04 - “Birthday Fun” (Those Fucking Persimmons)
12/26/04 - “What the Hell Can I do?” (Don’t Stop Believin’)
12/27/04 - “Just some small news...” (Don’t Stop Believin’)
12/28/04 - “That Silly Santa” (Don’t Stop Believin’)
07/??/05 - [Never Have Been, Never Will Be] (XY Attraction)
11/02/05 - “One Week Late with that 3-Week Progress Report” (This Stud)
11/30/05 - [The Last Step] (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
12/23/05 - “Brian and Seth” (Brian and Trung)
12/31/05 - [Coming Out] (Amor Fati)
01/02/06 - “At the Kitchen Table” (Meaning)
01/29/06 - “Lunar New Year” (Empty Nest, The Family Disappointment)
02/01/06 - “I think Vance was right.” (Soul in the Hole)
02/04/06 - “I’m okay.” (Soul in the Hole)
02/18/06 - “Owned by a Homo” (Owned by a Bunch of Homos)
03/02/06 - “WAKE UP!” (Just Smile and Nod)
03/05/06 - “My DowneLife” (Through the Looking-Glass)
03/28/06 - “Ironically, I think none of this would’ve happened if...” (White People)
03/28/06 - [Bad Person] (The Best and Worst of Liars and Cheaters)
04/02/06 - “Key Club Crap” (Sunshine Days)
05/23/06 - “A Dramatic Post about Turning 16” (20)
06/03/06 - “Confessions of One Sad and Pathetic Stalker” (Sunshine Days)
10/05/06 - “Reirresolution” (Resolute)
11/05/06 - “Bile in a Bowl” (Home-cooked)
12/03/06 - “I’m Losing Oakridge” (What It All Comes Down To)
2006 in a nutshell, thus far: I come out and all hell breaks loose.
01/10/07 - “Tennis Ace” (Photo Album)
03/01/07 - “This story gave my dad a few good laughs.” (Camera Adds Ten Pounds)
03/10/07 - “‘Fags!’ - Oh No” (Things Left Unsaid)
03/12/07 - “Id & Ego” (What Matters)
03/16/07 - “For My Parents” (Not to Dance)
03/18/07 - “A Dance in Berkeley” (What Matters)
04/23/07 - “Not Good Enough” (Photo Album)
05/14/07 - “The Computer-Engineer-to-Bagel-Shop-Owner Complex” (Luh Moar Jwayuh)
05/18/07 - “Yummy!” (Promod)
05/21/07 - [You Know Where] (Beautiful Sinners)
06/03/07 - “Happy Gay Pride Month, FAGGOTS” (Things Left Unsaid)
09/07/07 - “I rock.” (Retrogradation)
09/08/07 - “Mentally, I guess I was okay.” (Falling Star)
09/14/07 - “The First GSA Meeting” (The Activist)
09/15/07 - “salut,” a series of myspace messages (Paradox)
09/15/07 - “Qui Je Suis” (Embers)
09/24/07 - “One of those Days at Work” (The Dramaturgical Theory)
10/??/07 - [The Game Continues] (The Best and Worst of Liars and Cheaters)
11/15/07 - “Ashes” (Kick My Ass)
11/18/07 - “This is the Game” (Relapse)
11/29/07 - “Spring in November, Part 2” (Phoenix)
12/01/07 - “Christmas Carol” (Almond Cake)
12/09/07 - “Rollercoasters and Ferris Wheels” (Reciprocals and Rewrites)
2007 in a nutshell, thus far: The relationship with my parents fluctuates ridiculously. Trung comes into my life toward the end of the year. I like French. In Septembmer I start a tutoring job at SCORE! Educational Centers for students in grades Pre-K through 10.
??/??/08 - [In-N-Out] (Memoria Technica)
02/20/08 - “He’s still alive to me.” (In Our Hearts’ Honeymoon)
03/15/08 - [Reality Check] (Fire, Bad Person)
03/16/08 - “The Ideas of March” (Stoic)
04/08/08 - [The Voice Message] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 1)
04/23/08 - “DCON ’08, Part 1” (Bits and Pieces)
04/25/08 - “Lawrence King: Dumbass A-Z” (Things Left Unsaid)
05/12/08 - “I came out to my parents today, my 18th birthday.” (Photo Album 2000, Blessings: Part 1)
05/20/08 - “Souvenir” (Never-Ending Story)
05/30/08 - “Five Minutes” (Mais le Sort a Voulu)
06/20/08 - [What They Need] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 1)
06/23/08 - [The First Day] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux)
07/09/08 - “flightbirds,” written by Trung (Alighting)
07/11/08 - [Paulo Alvarez] (By All Standards)
07/??/08 - [Rosalina and Cil] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux)
09/18/08 - [Outgrown] (Orpheus)
09/21/08 - [That One Gay Guy] (Back in Irvine)
09/29/08 - [That One White Guy] (Concourse)
11/??/08 - [Dinosaur Act] flashback into Trung’s life (I’m Fucking Awesome)
11/??/08 - [Caught] (The Liar)
11/17/08 - [KASA Dance-Off] flashback into Alfonso’s life (Empathy)
2008 in a nutshell, thus far: I gave up my battle against my parents so that we could finally be on good, steady terms. My relationship with Trung continues to deepen even though we learn that we’re heading to different colleges. The start of college brings changes and new friends.
01/02/09 - [Dinoblanket] (Symphony)
02/??/09 - [Awkward Interview] (Barricading those Doors)
02/??/09 - [That One Popper] (Back in Irvine)
05/??/09 - [No Room for Niceness] (Antiphony)
05/??/09 - [Dreams Come True] (Dinosaur Dreams)
05/24/09 - “The Final Entry,” never published on my old blog (Promises Are Just Restraints, Runaway: Part 1)
05/30/09 - “all things” (Paramasturbatory Illusions)
06/01/09 - “Dénouement” (Not Me)
06/04/09 - “God Loves You” (My Testimony: Part 1, My Testimony: Part 2)
06/09/09 - “Life Savers” (A Friend’s Bonfire, A Friend’s Birthday)
06/13/09 - “A Return to Normalcy” (Middle School Rumors, Driven)
06/29/09 - [Too Advanced] (By All Standards)
07/??/09 - [Timmy] (That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux)
07/20/09 - [The Classroom Farce] (Super Saturday)
07/30/09 - [Matty Mendoza] (You Are My Best Friend)
07/31/09 - [The Last Day] (Breakthrough, That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 2)
08/25/09 - [One Last Time] (Runaway: Part 2)
08/26/09 - [Our Only Unbroken Promises] (Symphony, Runaway: Part 3)
08/30/09 - [That One UCI Guy] flashback told from Sang’s perspective (Crossfire)
09/18/09 - [Different People] (Transcendence)
09/20/09 - "my lie," written by Trung (The Truth)
10/07/09 - [Kiss and Tell] (What All Guys Want)
12/06/09 - [As Fate Would Have Dance] (Right Field)
01/02/10 - [Did You Cheat?] (Runaway: Part 4)
01/22/10 - [Ranye’s B-Day Wish] (Look Back, Let Go, and Move On)
02/07/10 - [INSA Dance] (The Right Stuff)
02/12/10 - [Unsuited] (Right Field)
02/13/10 - [Meet Trung] (Never Alone)
02/14/10 - [Special Delivery] (Two Sons)
02/20/10 - [Money Trip] (Money Doesn’t Matter)
03/09/10 - [Repeat After Me] an instant messaging conversation (Gay Shit)
03/17/10 - [Narrow-minded My Ass] (Deficit)
03/22/10 - [It Never Ends] (Every Game has a Sequel)
03/28/10 - [Palm Sunday] (Our Souvenirs, Look Back, Let Go, and Move On)
04/24/10 - [The Bridge] (Weeds)
06/12/10 - [The Irvine 11] (Made in America)
09/23/10 - [Only Thing I can Change] (Semper Eadem)
??/??/2? - [Everything is the way it should be.] (My Lie)
??/??/2? - [The Cosmological Horizon] (My Life)
The future in a nutshell, thus far: The future is uncertain.
Tags:
non-canon
Around the Kitchen Counter
Saturday, October 3, 2009
I didn’t have time to cook salmon, so I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon) when I opened my eyes, my first thought would be, “Where the hell am I—oh, yeah.” This on-campus apartment that I sleep in. That’s where I was. I didn’t consider it home; I didn’t think of myself as living there. Even my dorm last year, the one that I tried hard to always be away from, felt more like a home.
Life had been weird here back at school these past two weeks. Each day followed the same routine:
Roll under my 200-thread count sheets and out of extra-long twin-sized bed, sit at my metal-framed wooden desk with a wooden finish, check my messages on Facebook and emails on Gmail, pick off the ants that find their way onto my arm, slam my fist on the ants crawling on my desk, try to pretend that tingling sensation going up my ass hole is NOT another fucking ant, eat a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with 2% lactaid milk, brush my teeth with Crest Extra Whitening tooth paste (which clearly does not work), shit out dead ants, shower shampoo soap towel-dry moisturize, grab my backpack stuffed with two Five-Star notebooks, and head out.
The UCI bus shuttle stopped right outside my apartment. I’d sit down on the bench, pull out my iPod, find a good song, put it on repeat, and let it play. In the morning, the air would be cool and crisp, but no matter what hour of the day it is, the sun would always be there to beat down on my face with scorching heat. I baked while waiting for the bus, which would always be crowded with students heading to class. I’d seek out an empty seat next to someone who also plugged their ears with earphones—guaranteed no interaction for the entire ride. Just the way I wanted it.
Go to class, lecture, discussion, whatever depending on the day. I had been having trouble wrapping my brain around anything. Lecture hall so-and-so, room number whatever—I was there only because that was where my schedule told me I had to be.
The only time during the day I had really been living was when I was dancing. That, unfortunately, is not the focus of this entry, because this entry is only supposed to bring your spirits down.
After leaving some dance workshops, or a parking garage where I was learning some dance sets, or the gym where I was practicing some dancing, I would walk back to my apartment. It’d be dark and late out, but at least I could enjoy the cool air without baking. The song on my iPod would be the same song I set on repeat earlier in the morning; the only change to what I was hearing would be the sound of my stomach growling.
You know how light floods into a dark room? Well, I felt like when I stood in the lit up hallway right outside my apartment, struggled with my key in the god damn lock, and finally got the door to open, dark shadows would instead flood from inside my apartment and out into the hallway. That might’ve just been my imagination though.
Anyway, once I walked inside and turned on the lights, I rummaged the fridge and cupboards for dinner. Nothing but just a bunch of spices, sauces, dressings—a bunch of flavoring ingredients all contributed by my other three apartment mates—but nothing to actually put them on and eat.
Once again, it came to this.
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...
Fuck.
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...
I bought some Hamburger Helper today! Let’s make some.
Way too fucking salty. Doesn’t even look like the picture on the box.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...
I hated this.
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
I don’t know what possessed me, but eventually I worked up the courage to break out of daily routine. Thursday night, I made a homecooked meal. In the freezer, I kept some salmon that I had marinated with stuff I scrounged from the kitchen (minced garlic, that Asian red chili sauce, pepper, and some kind of olive oil vinaigrette). I had also had some spinach and pasta lying around, and I figured they would all go great with each other. There was no recipe to follow; I just went with what felt right, and Kevin and Alfonso were there to help out. What a bromance.
Jumping out of the way of the oil splashes as the salmon drops onto the frying pan. Dumping the spinach all over the salmon and wondering how I was going to stir with all that puffy leafy green overflowing. Subsequently being amazed at how much the spinach shrinks. The crackling sounds of frying fish and smothering smell of garlic were all sensations that my kitchen had never experienced prior to this.
The end result was fucking amazing. I plated a lot for myself and ate it like I had eaten nothing for days—or more literally—nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner for the past week.
The rest of the night was overall just chill and blissful. Kevin, Alfonso, and I enjoyed our (my) homecooked meal quietly sitting on stools at the kitchen counter. Quietly at least until Kevin went off on yet another really long rave about dancing. His topic of the night was the three different types of dancers: the blahblah, the whatever, and the blahblahblah. Alfonso and I exchanged glances as I brought my bowl of pasta to my mouth and shoveled more in. (Really though, I actually like listening to all of Kevin’s rants and raves as they’re pretty insightful.)
About forty minutes passed, and I swallowed the last speck of salmon. Finally, I felt like I was living. After Kevin and Alfonso left and after setting the dishwasher, I climbed into my bed and rested peacefully under the covers that night.
We need more nights like this.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon) when I opened my eyes, my first thought would be, “Where the hell am I—oh, yeah.” This on-campus apartment that I sleep in. That’s where I was. I didn’t consider it home; I didn’t think of myself as living there. Even my dorm last year, the one that I tried hard to always be away from, felt more like a home.
Life had been weird here back at school these past two weeks. Each day followed the same routine:
Roll under my 200-thread count sheets and out of extra-long twin-sized bed, sit at my metal-framed wooden desk with a wooden finish, check my messages on Facebook and emails on Gmail, pick off the ants that find their way onto my arm, slam my fist on the ants crawling on my desk, try to pretend that tingling sensation going up my ass hole is NOT another fucking ant, eat a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with 2% lactaid milk, brush my teeth with Crest Extra Whitening tooth paste (which clearly does not work), shit out dead ants, shower shampoo soap towel-dry moisturize, grab my backpack stuffed with two Five-Star notebooks, and head out.
The UCI bus shuttle stopped right outside my apartment. I’d sit down on the bench, pull out my iPod, find a good song, put it on repeat, and let it play. In the morning, the air would be cool and crisp, but no matter what hour of the day it is, the sun would always be there to beat down on my face with scorching heat. I baked while waiting for the bus, which would always be crowded with students heading to class. I’d seek out an empty seat next to someone who also plugged their ears with earphones—guaranteed no interaction for the entire ride. Just the way I wanted it.
Go to class, lecture, discussion, whatever depending on the day. I had been having trouble wrapping my brain around anything. Lecture hall so-and-so, room number whatever—I was there only because that was where my schedule told me I had to be.
The only time during the day I had really been living was when I was dancing. That, unfortunately, is not the focus of this entry, because this entry is only supposed to bring your spirits down.
After leaving some dance workshops, or a parking garage where I was learning some dance sets, or the gym where I was practicing some dancing, I would walk back to my apartment. It’d be dark and late out, but at least I could enjoy the cool air without baking. The song on my iPod would be the same song I set on repeat earlier in the morning; the only change to what I was hearing would be the sound of my stomach growling.
You know how light floods into a dark room? Well, I felt like when I stood in the lit up hallway right outside my apartment, struggled with my key in the god damn lock, and finally got the door to open, dark shadows would instead flood from inside my apartment and out into the hallway. That might’ve just been my imagination though.
Anyway, once I walked inside and turned on the lights, I rummaged the fridge and cupboards for dinner. Nothing but just a bunch of spices, sauces, dressings—a bunch of flavoring ingredients all contributed by my other three apartment mates—but nothing to actually put them on and eat.
Once again, it came to this.
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...
Fuck.
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...
I bought some Hamburger Helper today! Let’s make some.
Way too fucking salty. Doesn’t even look like the picture on the box.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...
I hated this.
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
I don’t know what possessed me, but eventually I worked up the courage to break out of daily routine. Thursday night, I made a homecooked meal. In the freezer, I kept some salmon that I had marinated with stuff I scrounged from the kitchen (minced garlic, that Asian red chili sauce, pepper, and some kind of olive oil vinaigrette). I had also had some spinach and pasta lying around, and I figured they would all go great with each other. There was no recipe to follow; I just went with what felt right, and Kevin and Alfonso were there to help out. What a bromance.
 After frying the salmon and throwing on the spinach, Alfonso tossed on the lid, and I was amazed as the pan filled with water and as what I thought was more than enough spinach shrunk to barely enough for the three of us. |
The end result was fucking amazing. I plated a lot for myself and ate it like I had eaten nothing for days—or more literally—nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner for the past week.
The rest of the night was overall just chill and blissful. Kevin, Alfonso, and I enjoyed our (my) homecooked meal quietly sitting on stools at the kitchen counter. Quietly at least until Kevin went off on yet another really long rave about dancing. His topic of the night was the three different types of dancers: the blahblah, the whatever, and the blahblahblah. Alfonso and I exchanged glances as I brought my bowl of pasta to my mouth and shoveled more in. (Really though, I actually like listening to all of Kevin’s rants and raves as they’re pretty insightful.)
About forty minutes passed, and I swallowed the last speck of salmon. Finally, I felt like I was living. After Kevin and Alfonso left and after setting the dishwasher, I climbed into my bed and rested peacefully under the covers that night.
We need more nights like this.
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