Drive

There’s something about driving alone late at night, something so relaxing and so illuminating. It’s the only time when I can (and have to) force myself to stay awake while doing nothing for a really long time, nothing except, of course, resting my foot on the gas, keeping my left hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, and staring out into a road. No distractions.

Even though I know my destination, I feel like I’m driving nowhere because I’m not getting there in half an hour, in the next hour, or the next five hours, and the only thing I can see before me is more road heading into a black abyss. This is when I find the time to think and to reflect deeply, real deeply, far more deeply than the amount of reflection I do when I write.

I left my home in NorCal for UCI on the evening of July 4th, of all days. I figured, y’know, traffic would be a bitch the day before when everyone traveled to visit their families, and a bitch the day after when everyone drove back home—with hangovers. But it wouldn’t take much for anyone to figure that this was some lame excuse, some kind of ulterior motive because really, why the hell would I leave friends and family on an iconic American holiday?

While driving through the deserts of Central Valley, I glanced into my rearview mirror every now and then to soak up the last few moments of the sun as it set over the horizon behind me. I mused about the symbolism of my situation: I was driving farther and farther away from the light as I headed down an endless shadowy road. The dark sky through my front window stood in stark contrast to the image in my mirrors.

I tried to keep myself somewhat active by sipping on two pearl milk tea drinks, one of which was Trung’s. Just before I left, Trung and I got drinks from Tapioca Express. We actually did this the day before, too, and in fact, I had originally planned on leaving the day before, July 3rd. We went to Tapioca Express, and as we wandered around the plaza with our drinks, Trung urged me to stay an extra night and hang out with Peter and black John. I was supposed to hang out with them on Friday for an early July 4th barbeque, but after I got home from Breakthrough, I passed out on my bed for five hours. Trung convinced me, so the two of us chilled at Peter’s house with him and John. We played Super Smash Bros Brawl and I learned how to play beer pong, but knowing how destructive a single beer was to me, we used water so that I wouldn’t wake up the next day feeling too shitty for my solo drive back down to Irvine.

10 PM. The sun had been long gone now. Black skies through my front window, black skies in my mirrors, black skies everywhere. Trying to hold onto any glimmer of light, I found myself staring into a circuit of city lights far away in the east. Maybe it was Fresno, or Visalia. I doubled back between watching the road and watching the cities, but eventually, something completely stole my attention: a burst of red, white, and blue sparkles over the island of yellow lights. I had an entire firework show in the left corner of my eye.

I turned to the passenger seat with my mouth already halfway open and words ready to come out, foolishly thinking that for a second, I had someone to tell, “Oh my god, did you see that?” But no, there was no one, no one but my stuff animal whale, Op, and his mate, Mop. So, I resolved to enjoying the fireworks with only these two and the quiet company that they kept.

The fireworks, they made me think about a lot of things. Like the time my family and I took a vacation to Hawaii and watched fireworks from the shores of Honolulu, and my old brother and I skipped rocks over the warm ocean water—that was 1998. I thought about the time my high school friends and I watched fireworks from the hillside of a rich country club neighborhood, and I tried to flirt with a friend’s friend from her taekwondo class—that was nearly ten years later, in 2007. And the following year, Doug, a fellow Breakthrough teacher, Trung, and I drove around Cupertino tracking down a decent place to park and watch fireworks. We gave up and tried to catch glimpses of fireworks from a school parking lot, but we could only see so much shrouded by the dark silhouettes of redwood trees. We had better luck in 2009, fortunately. Doug directed us atop a mountain in a small town where street lights were a scarce luxury. We stood in the outskirts of the entire Silicon Valley where we spectated the firework shows of several cities across the south bay. I held Trung close in my arms, and occasionally we both reached and grasped the air, pretending to catch the fireworks in our hands as if they were confetti strewn about the night sky.

After seeing a third city’s firework show, I realized the reason I left on July 4th: I didn’t have anyone to enjoy it with. I stopped talking to almost all of my high school friends right after graduation, I broke up with Trung, I broke up with Ranier, I didn’t come back to Breakthrough, I left my family for college three hundred miles away from home, and I just sorta popped back into Peter and Black John’s lives after inexcusably missing out on scheduled hangouts over the last ten months.

But maybe there was more to my reason; the more I reflected on the people I abandoned, the more I realized that maybe I left because, well, I didn’t think that I deserved to enjoy it with anyone. This lonely six-hour trip on the night of July 4th was my punishment.

I got my last firework show around 11 PM, and, trying to keep the last images of light ingrained in my brain, I drove my trip’s last two hours in darkness back to Irvine.

Beautiful Sinners

Quiet and as still as the woods around us, we made no sound but the dirt and leaves rustling underneath our feet as we moved across the ground. We tried to be quiet anyway, but occasionally we couldn’t help but let escape from our mouths that suckling, sloppy smack sound as a head bobbed up down, back and forth and all around. We were cautious, turning our heads to every blow of the wind or every crackle of a leaf; out here in nature we couldn’t be too careful of what we had dared to do.

Now having arrived at the end, we felt shivers run down our spines and lift every hair on our cold, bare skin, but it was a feeling as strong and as pleasurable as the feelings of guilt that immediately followed. It was finished, our sin, and now silently the clothes came back on—underwear and wifebeater, shorts and shirts. Feeling hollow, I found no words to speak, nothing more than a nod, a shy smile, a shrug of the shoulders, all meant to say one thing: Thanks stranger.



I couldn’t quite tell the difference—the paneled stained glass windows depicted ocean waves under purple and white skies that were either apocalyptic or heaven. These smaller windows were spread out across the walls, while a bigger stained glass window over the altar depicted white birds flying over green rolling fields, across a deep blue sky, and toward a fiery ball of orange and red flames, presumably the sun. The walls themselves were simply plastered, beige walls. The ceiling hung low, with wooden support beans running across it. It was as if someone turned a daycare center to a church...Church.

First time here.

I wanted to be able to call out or turn to Ranier because I couldn’t keep up with everyone saying in near-perfect unison “Amen” or “Praise the lord” or some really long sentence, but I refrained from moving too much in my seat. Following everyone, I sat back down, and I tried to maintain my posture and kept my hands in my lap. I listened attentively as the priest, who dawned a vibrant green robe, began to speak.



No one would want to buy these jeans if they knew what the two of us accidentally got on them. I poked my head outside my dressing room and peered around the corner. “All Clear,” I whispered. He tipped-toed our from behind me, carrying the pair of jeans to put back in the rack.

As I drove him back to our place, the car was filled with an awkward silence that we occasionally tried to mask with a question. “What are you doing after this?” he asked.

“I got a paper to write for English class, and some studying for a psychology final. You?” I answered.

“Studying, homework.”

“Yeah, same here!” I said. Silence. Finally, we arrived at his place and I dropped him off.

As I drove home, I thought briefly to myself, what the fuck was I doing? I let go of someone I really cared about. I couldn’t have him back, so now, this was me, hooking up like a skank.



The songs were festive and uplifting, and I found myself clapping along to assurances that the Lord loved me no matter what and that all sins, past, present, and future, could be atoned for. I actually liked this priest too. He was eccentric. The green robe probably already said it. Everyone laughed, including me, at his subtle jokes, and his sermons had a relatable, universal message, even underneath all the God talk.

“We can’t blame others for our misfortunes,” the priest said as he began to conclude one of his sermons. “We can’t blame the weather, we can’t blame the frikkin’ traffic that always seems to be there at 7 AM every morning. Take responsibility...Responsibility goes to the bone! God gave us minds so we could think, evaluate our past and present and plan our future, and God gave us limbs so we could take action!”

At the end, he pulled out the wine and the communion bread. I was hungry. But no, Ranier said no, I never went through communion. I didn’t even practice in any shape or form. But I continued to stare at that flat disk of bread that the priest waved in the air underneath the feet of a hanging crucifix. It’s like he was taunting me with it.



This time, we sat on a log overlooking the creek. He zipped his jeans back up and I did the same with mine. As we walked back to my car, I felt something different this time, something so much worse. I could hardly look at him, and most of all I could not look at myself. I felt shame, something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Once I dropped him off, once he was gone, I knew, there’d be no more of this.

I had been going through a few rough months, but this was no excuse to hook up with random guys. I am never doing this again, I declared to myself. I was done, and now it was time to take some responsibility. I let go of someone I really cared about, and now it was time to get him back.

I went home, logged onto Myspace, and sent this message to him: “This is probably old news, but did you get into UC Davis yet? If so, CONGRATULAAAASHUNS.”

I got this reply: “What happened? Almost 6 months ago at the end of 2006 you were avoiding my calls and trying as hard as you could to avoid contact with me. I was completely willing to talk to you and find out what the problem was. Unfortunately you didn’t want to talk to me at all so I just gave up and stopped caring. I found it hella random that you commented me the other day. I am still completely willing to rebuild the friendship so call me sometime and let’s talk or whatever.

Black John wasn’t as oblivious as I thought he was. I messaged him back, saying no more than a location and time: “Wednesday, 3:00 PM. Oakridge.”

John would be graduating from the high school in less than three weeks, leaving me behind next year to finish my senior year in high school without the support I had from him, Peter, and Miranda, the latter two having already gone off to college. I had to make my last few moments with John last.



“God loves us all, so even if you have not gone through communion,” the priest said, “or if you share different beliefs or don’t even practice anything at all, I invite you to come up here anyway and take a piece of our brea—”

I was sold. Time to get me a taste of that communion bread.

I got up, stood in line, got my tiny paper-thin wafer of communion bread, and skipped on the wine—everyone was drinking from the same cup, but maybe God had some kind of anti-mono force field over the church. I didn’t wanna check. As I walked back to my seat, I let the little chip of bread soak around in my mouth. It tasted kinda like an unsweetened ice cream cone; this was something I could see myself snacking on if I was really, really hungry.

When I was back in my seat, I noticed in the corner of my eye someone shuffling down my row. She was coming toward me. I turned and looked at her, and I was surprised to see a familiar face.

“Oh wow, Brandy, it’s good to see you again!” I said. Brandy was a black girl in my French class back in high school. She used to have a crush on me when I was a freshman and she was a sophomore.

“It’s good to see you too, Brian! How are you doing? What are you doing here? What school are you going to now?”

“I’m going to UC Irvine. I just finished my second year, so I’m back up here in San Jose for the summer.”

“Did you come alone?”

“Yeah, I did.” I shrugged, because I still didn’t fully understand why I came. Brandy and I continued to catch up, but the question of why I came lingered in my mind all throughout our conversation and all throughout my drive home. I came up with a partial answer:

I wanted to take responsibility, but I couldn’t find within me the strength that I needed.

XY Attraction

I stared. A built, athletic thirty-year-old in-shape man, one of experience, unloaded his baby batter all over a young straight twink’s begging wet lips. And then they made out. That was when Cameron’s instant message window appeared over their faces. He asked me what I was doing. Sunday night of Memorial Day Weekend—“Nothing,” I typed with one hand.

“Wanna come to my place? I’m having a small kickback.”

Obviously I had some better, more fun plans, but I agreed to come over anyway. I told him I’d leave in forty minutes.

---
“Funky Relationship”
Written April 22nd, 2004 (Excerpted)
Yesterday, I held hands with Emma. My friends kept on bothering me about holding hands, so I did it. But it’ll be the last time I’ll do it randomly. I’m waiting for the special moment to hold hands and even kiss. Why should I hold hands with her out of the blue? Or maybe I’m not good with girls, and I’m really supposed to always hold their hands for no good reason, no reason except that I’m the boyfriend and she’s my girlfriend. It didn’t feel right because it was not the “magical” moment, so I was constantly letting go and holding back on, remembering all the advice from all my friends. Emma says she doesn’t care about holding hands yet, but then others tell me that she is waiting for me to make the first move. However, since when did I let believe such crap? Hopefully never. …But what is the crap? Emma telling me she doesn’t really care, or that she wants me to make the first move?
---

Besides Cameron and me, there were only five other guys at his kickback. As expected, Cameron delved into a discussion of queer issues (“gay shit”) after a few shots, but unlike last time, I didn’t have any where to escape to unless I wanted to sit outside in the cold alone. The discussion involved him shoving his massive cock of queer logorrhea down everyone’s throats, and it ultimately came down to his one question: “If the person is attractive, good-looking, and has a great personality, why does it matter what’s in between their legs?” (Cameron being on the side of “IT DOESN’T MATTER AND IT SHOULDN’T TO EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD.”)

---
“Standing Somewhere Lost”
Written May 6th, 2004 (Excerpted)
Me and Emma have been kissing on the lips. Great. I’m not in a relationship I should be in; someone else should be in it. But my biggest problem is trying to tell her. I can’t stand to hurt the girl’s feelings, but by letting all this time pass by, I know I’m just making it worst. However, each time I’m ‘bout ready to break it out, we share a moment of glee. Damn it.
---

I sat in the corner as Trent and Cameron argued, trying to not pay attention when Ranier texted me. I was a little surprised. He and the rest of his teammates were back at the hotel in San Diego, and they were celebratin’ it up. It was a little too much for Ranier so he went outside to text me. I still felt bitter about the Sockhop ticket, but this was at least better than having to listen to Cameron. Funksters didn’t place, but they made good friends with the other teams from SoCal and had fun at the beaches down here. Overall a great experience, he said.

I started to think about what it would’ve been like if we were still together and I went to see Ranier at his competition, and the best I came up was that I wouldn’t be sitting here in the room with Cameron, who then suddenly directed his question to me: “Why does it matter what’s between their legs, huh Brian?!” Even though I was sitting on the other side of the room, I swear I could feel his spit splatter all over my face.

---
“As a Friend”
Written May 7th, 2004 (Excerpted)
Tomorrow I’m going to the mall to see a movie with my friend Vanessa and her friends for her birthday party. We were all planning to see Van Helsing, until Emma got invited. She wants to see Mean Girls. Emma is pretty stubborn, and she’s determined to go see that movie, despite all six other people, including me, are planning to see Van Helsing. Well, I hate when I get stuck with a decision like this. I’m her boyfriend, but I don’t wanna see Mean Girls. But I can’t stand thinking of her sitting alone in the dark movie theatre; then I think of her with tears slowly streaming down her face, all alone. So I think I’m going to watch it with her. It won’t be that bad. I’m easily absorbed into movies. Plus, Mean Girls won’t be a big waste of my life; it’s only an hour and a half. [[I would end up watching Van Helsing with my guy friends while Olivia watched Mean Girls with Vanessa. WIN.]]
---

I thought about Cameron’s question for thirty seconds. And that was when I realized that there was a difference between being gay and being queer. Being gay was, as I had always known it to be, nothing more than some social implications and history all based around a dictionary definition: “Being attracted to members of the same sex.” Sex, not gender. Same sex meant to me other people with the X and Y chromosome. On the other hand, the definition of being queer, as I understood it, meant absolute bullshit.



Peter, black John, Miranda, and I sat down at a lunch table to take a break from playing DDR and ITG. It was the middle of the summer before the start of my sophomore year in high school. We were at the Golf Land in Milpitas for their Thursday arcade special: unlimited free arcade game play all day for ten bucks. I dug out a bottle of Gatorade and a box of Ritz crackers from my backpack and devoured my crackers and drink.

“Hey Brian,” Peter said.

“Mhm?” My mouth was full.

“Miranda, John, and I have all been talking, and we agree that you’re gay.”

I looked up from my food. “What?”

“You’re gay, aren’t you?”

“What the hell? No I’m not!”

“Are you sure Brian?” Miranda asked. “We’re totally fine with it.”

“I’m not gay! I had a girlfriend in the eighth grade.”

“Yeah,” John said. “‘Had’—past tense. In the eighth grade.”

Peter held a stack of Ritz crackers to my face. “Does this turn you on?”

“Look,” I snapped, “I am not gay. I have never been gay. And I never will be gay. Got it?”

They all nodded, but they didn’t believe me, or at least Peter didn’t.



As much as this queer discussion with Cameron made me wanna cut my dick off, it benefited me. To stay sane, I had to reaffirm something about my identity that had been tearing away at my sanity for a while: I’m gay. I like men. With dicks. I’m gay I’m gay I’m gay. I was not Cameron, I assured myself. He was...something else. Not gay. Not bi. Probably one of those other letters in LGBTABCDEQQQ. A question that probably would require a little more thinking on my part probably would’ve been, “If the person has a dick, why does their personality/ looks/ other shit matter so much?” (The answer being I’m a proud shallow motherfucker.)

Thanks Cameron.

I shrugged off Cameron’s question, and Chris and I watched Are You Afraid of the Dark on Youtube with Cameron’s laptop as he and Trent continued to argue.

20

This is a two week late entry about my birthday. I turned 20 on May 12th, but nothing too special happened that day since it fell on an otherwise normal Wednesday in the middle of the week.

In the afternoon, Sang, Lawrence, and I got some sushi at Sushilicious. I didn’t even like sushi that much, but this place had a special for birthdays, a free $20 gift card for the birthday diner. Twenty bucks is a fucking lot.

At lunch, we discovered that I had no manners, but else was new?

We discussed our housing situation for next year, but we reached the same conclusion that we had reached many times before: “Let’s figure it out later.” It was going to be the three of us, plus Leland (who I auditioned with for MCIA auditions) living in the same place. I was pretty damn excited. I’d be doubling up with Sang, and Lawrence with Leland—Vietnamese vs. Filipinos! I thought wouldn’t it be awesome if each of us represented a different team? Sang would have CADC, Leland would have BBoys Anonymous (or possibly MCIA?), and Lawrence and I would have something else. Rivalries? Freestyle sessions in the living room Monday nights? We weren’t going to need furniture; that’d only take up space.

After getting sushi, Lawrence, Sang, and I drove down to Tapioca Express to get some Boba Tea, something that I only recently started to enjoy. I tried ordering a grass jelly milk tea with boba, and to my surprise, the drink had actual chunks of grass jelly in addition to the Boba.

“I thought it would be flavored by some grass jelly extract or whatever. I didn’t think there’d be actual chunks of grass jelly in the drink.”

Sang sighed. “HAHA, you’re a dumbass.”

Later in the evening, I drove up to UCLA to do homework with Trung. I had a really huge paper due the next day that I was no where close to finishing, and I knew that if I tried to work on it at UCI, I would’ve been too distracted because I had wireless Internet at UCI. So the most logical option was to drive 50 miles up north to escape the reach of UCI’s wifi. But I guess you could say I mainly went up so I could get some free food off of Trung and annoy him all night long.

I got there around 8, Trung and I had dinner and some ice cream, and I started my paper at 11. I wouldn’t get back to Irvine until 6 AM, where I would continue finishing up my paper until it was time to go to the class that it was due in. The hard work paid off though, because I got a B+, which was my goal. What sucked though was that I had to spend my birthday working on this paper, and the all nighter made a cold I had even worse.

My persistent cold didn’t stop me from going back up to Norcal on the 20th though! On the following Friday night, Trung and I went clubbing at Fuz. It was established (again) that I could not club (freak) dance (or in general). This one gay guy thought my dancing so “SO ADORABLE!!!” Adorable, not sexy. Ugh.

On Saturday, I went out to a family dinner, and then we had some cake afterwards. No relatives this time because they were “busy,” as in they were too cheap (or poor) to feed my greedy ass their money this year, and probably for the rest of my life. Oh well.

Ok, that’s my overview of all the things I did for my birthday. Time for some reflection! Cue the swoosh sound from Lost! SWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH.

---
“A Dramatic Post about Turning 16”
Written May 23rd, 2006 (Excerpted)

I started this LiveJournal when I was 13, and back then, when I was 13, I was straight... Well, mostly, but besides that, I looked at life rather simply because to me, life just seemed like keeping up my A’s in junior high. On the side of school, I had DDR, which I played all day every day at home and then went out to the arcade once a month to tone up my DDR skills. All that mattered to me was that AA, and I remained shy and aloof to the other DDR players. And getting with girls (or getting into a relationship) was one of the things that I least thought about, and I was that kind of guy (weirdass) that was like, “Virgin until marriage!” The future seemed simple, probably because it was the future that my parents had planned for me: Go to a University of California, get a good job, raise a family, and live happily ever after.

Now here I am, three years later, at age 16... School is still important to me, but now I have started to juggle other things in my life that have become as equally as important in my life, such as dealing with my parents, dealing with boys, dealing with friends, and dealing with living a life that is fulfilling enough. (Though I guess some would say that I tend to drop the balls when I “juggle.”)

And now, with DDR/ITG, the only thing that is stopping me from quitting is the awesome community. It sounds pretty pathetic, but I’ve changed and have become more sociable and friendly because of a four-paneled stomping video game. Making out with another ITG player in front of a bunch of other ITG players at a busy arcade also says a lot about how I’m not as shy as I was three years ago.

And yeah, all that crap about staying a virgin until marriage...? I’ve slept with a guy on a first “date.” I’m still a virgin now, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be by the time I’m age 17. Don’t get the wrong impression though, because I’m not trying to lose it as quickly as possible, unlike a lot of people who seem to be in a hurry to mindlessly lose their virginities, probably influenced by brainwashing media and movies like “Friends” or “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” (but I loved watching both of these). I’m saving it for someone “special,” even if that means I die a virgin, but with the way that I tend to rush into things so quickly, yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if I lost my virginity by the time I turn 17. I’d hate to regret losing it.

And gah, the future. It’s still all the same stuff that my parents have hoped for from me, but while they make everything seem easy, I’m realizing, “Wow, this shit is hard.” Because, well, getting into a UC? That means keeping up good grades at school; fuck, that’s hard. Getting a good job? That means spending more of my life at school to get a better education, learning to do taxes, spending endless days going through newspaper ads, going through job interviews... fuck, that’s all hard. And god, raising a family? That means finding a lover (preferably), going through adoption agencies, waiting, dealing with bitchy bigots, and actually raising the kids right so that they grow up to be happy; that’s all very hard and will even be heart-wrecking at times. And living happily ever after? Well, I have the basic outline of my future planned out, but now that I’m older and I actually have my own desires, I’m going to need to fit a lot more stuff into my life to live happily ever.

But now I’m just playing with the boundaries of age limits again and concerning with myself with things too far off in the future. This is one the reasons why I still have to remind myself, “I’m 16.”

I’m 16, bitches.

This Wednesday, my Dad’s finally going to let me get behind the wheel and drive around the block, and all this week, I’m anxiously waiting by my phone for American Eagle Outfitters to contact me to set up a date for a job interview.
---

Get into a UC? Check.
Get a job? Check. (Not at American Eagle, thank god.)
Lose virginity? Check.
To someone special? Blank.
Only having sex with someone special? Blank.
Fulfilling life? Blank.

Phoenix

Dear Pippin Management:
This letter is to inform you that, as of 8 PM on Thursday, November 19th, 2009, I am resigning. Thank you for granting me this opportunity to work at Pippin, and it was a good experience working here.
- Brian Dinh

I told ya I wouldn’t get fired.

Ever since my mom emailed me and confessed to me our family’s money problems, I knew I had to up my hours. But I also knew that if I had to work day and night at Pippin, my school’s dining hall, I’d snap and take a shit in the rocky road ice cream. So I actively started looking for a new job, and instead of trying to get one at a retail store like Urban Outfitters or Active or anywhere I could get big discounts on looking good, I figured that I’d return to what I had cared about above all, that I’d rediscover what I used to love so passionately: teaching.

Google vomited a bunch of off-campus tutoring or teaching jobs before my feet, but all of them required bachelor’s or credentials. Except for one: the Education Academy. It didn’t have a fun name like SCORE!, which always had to be written in all caps and with that exclamation point, but it hired college students to teach kids in grades Pre-K all the way up through high school. I sent in my application to centers in Irvine and Laguna Hill, and on Thursday, the Irvine location sent me an email informing me that they had an interview scheduled for me the very following day, 6:15 PM.

I was late for that interview, and it was the most terrifying experience ever. I had left forty minutes early to go to a place that was only twenty minutes away, but what fucking google maps didn’t tell me was that the route it gave me went through a private residential community, one that I couldn’t drive through. So I had to improvise, and obviously, I wasn’t not good at that.

However, the center managers were very forgiving. We went on to have a thirty-minute interview that had one very general question, “Tell me about yourself,” and one or two specific questions, one strangely and frighteningly being, “So how do you discipline troublemakers?” Before offering me the job, the managers wanted me to observe the way the employees used this “Rotational Technique” to tutor the kids so that I could see whether or not this method was right for me. I knew without a doubt that I would take the job because it already had what I cared about: kids, and teaching kids, but I humored the managers anyway. They asked me to come in Saturday at 12 for the observation.

I was late for that observation. This time because of my usual lack of punctuality, but, again, the managers were forgiving. And yeah, once I saw the kids, I knew. There was this particular tiny little Asian girl who was quiet, but praise made her smile in a shy adorable way. In my head, I called her Amanda. And then I found out her real name was in fact Amanda, and that blew me away.

---
“Spring in November, Part 2”
Written November 29th, 2007

I’ve counted 12 so far. 12 of my favorite kids at SCORE! are either quitting or transferring to Cupertino when SCORE! Almaden closes. Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to miss them.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I headed over to Oakridge at 6 after work. I had only wanted to play one or two games of ITG, but then Chris and Taka showed up, followed by Peter, and then later John. That was all very surprising.

While we were all enjoying several games of ITG, a family that included three little Asian girls wandered into the arcade. I recognized one of the little girls; it was Amanda, one of my kids from work. (Not sure about her age, but she’s stands up to my waist.)

Amanda was very shy with me at first. She didn’t really use much effort to talk to me, but it was through interaction with my managers Ben and Adria that she finally started to like me. I believed she first asked Ben, “Is Brian Asian?” When she got that answer, she later asked Adria, “Is Brian Vietnamese?” So, apparently, Asian and Vietnamese added together formed the necessary traits to have good rapport (does the commutative property of addition work here?).

So, fast-forward back to that Wednesday, Amanda came up to me and waved hi. I was very excited to see her; it was the first time I had seen any of my kids outside of work (albeit, at first, I had trouble telling if it was Amanda or a similar-looking Asian girl). I tried getting her to play ITG; I even coaxed her with SCORE! cards, but she didn’t budge. I played for her (to impress her), and I’m pretty sure she was delighted by my dazzling quick feet. Amanda was going to be talking about me during her next trip to work, whether or not I be there, and then all my co-workers will know about how I’m such a “DDR maniac.” (I quit a long time ago, I swear.) I asked her if she wanted to play my last song, but she only gave me this weird look that I noticed she had been giving me since shortly after she showed up at the arcade. Whatever, I was disappointed.

After my game, Amanda had to leave with her family, so I waved her off and continued to ramble on to John and Peter about how much I love my kiddies at work. After my temporary glee had finally died down, I sighed and dropped my head, only to notice that my fly was unzipped.
---

I should’ve been teaching earlier. I was going to apply for on-campus teaching jobs at the beginning of the quarter, but I distinctly remember looking at an application, seeing that its due date was the following day, and putting it away thinking, “Nah, I’m going to go dance.” And soon before I knew it, there were no more openings. Way to burn myself, but I didn’t regret the decision too much because I was happy that dance had become a part of my life. And once the managers at the Education Academy offered me the job, I took it with open arms, warmly welcoming back a part of myself.

Don’t Stop Believin’

Soooooo, auditions for MCIA are tomorrow. They’re a non-competitive dance group, but nonetheless they’re still dope and they’re a great opportunity for growth and making friends.

I don’t know how I feel about the three audition pieces and my group performances, but I’m not panicking. After this blog I’ll be practicing for sure though until late and some more tomorrow before the auditions.

Really though, I just want...I just want it...to be...yes, over. I want it to be over. I’ve said that phrase probably like a million times the last four weeks regarding auditions for Common Ground, CADC, and MCIA. And another million times the week leading up to the Funksters Summer Intensive Showcase.

I’ve said it so many times that I don’t even really know what I mean by it because, in reality, it’s never over. It never ends and I know it. If I don’t get into MCIA, I know dance is still going to fucking rule my life and I’m going to continue emptying my wallet and sacrificing school for it (but hopefully to a less degree because I need to not get on academic probation). And if it’s not dance that will be bugging me all the time, it’ll be something else. I don’t give myself breaks, and even if I try to, the world will just throw something else at me.

---
“What the Hell Can I do?”
Written December 26th, 2004 (Excerpted)

[Should I call] 911? Slim’s in fact planning on doing illegal things (breaking and entering... planning to destroy [a lot of shit]) and terrorizing people. But it’s just getting involved a police case that already sounds hard. And then ~I’m afraid~ that Slim may so stupidly and absentmindedly think I betrayed him for the worst and start trying to mess up by [fucking with] me the same way he did with Miranda.

I’m basically stuck with the burden of this knowledge, all this knowledge on my shoulders, and I want a dump it somewhere, like on the police. But I’m not to sure how I can without too much complications. Maybe I can’t get out of this with too many complications. There’s no easy way out anymore.

---
“Just some small news...”
Written December 27th, 2004 (Excerpted)

I’ll be lacking some transportation to places (such as the mall) for a few weeks.

A thing I didn’t mention was that on Sunday [the day of “What the Hell Can I do”], when my brother was on the way to the mall to pick me up, he got in a car accident. >.> It was around 5:45, and it was pretty dark and rainy and wet. I shouldn’t go into much detail, but the accident happened because another person just had to run a red light on Leen when my brother was already going through an intersection (Leen and Santa Teresa), which was already green on Santa Teresa.

Bam. The car was totally totaled, especially the right passenger side and the back too. Good thing the only person in the car was my brother, and no one else got hurt/exploded.

---
“That Silly Santa”
Written December 28th, 2004 (Excerpted)

[During dinner at home with my family,] when my attention was turned to the TV, I heard some plates shattering, and I thought my stupid ol’ dad dropped some plates, but before I could fully turn around to see what was happening, I heard more shatters. I turned around to face absolute shock. The dishwasher rack was apparently slightly stuck or something, but my dad took out all his anger and completely forced the rack back in with all his puny weak Asian might and caused some massive dish damage. Then with a few more cups in his hand he just hurled it with all his fury into the dishwasher, causing more glass breaking. At this point, my mom and my brother and I were just like, “WTF?!” and my dad reached for the glass of orange juice (which he freshly squeezed just for us before dinner) and was about to add it to the shattered glass collection but my brother yanked it out in time.

Then my mom and dad started bitching, and it was mainly a blur from there. Vietnamese words I never heard before were thrown in with some “Stop it!”’s But the craziest part was when my brother joined in. Never before had he done anything, and neither had I. Usually we just sat there eating our dinner tuning it all at, but today, my brother took off. He yelled “Stop it! Both of you shut up!” and other stuff like that at the top of his lungs. His efforts were vain, as they kept on going off. Finally, my dad went upstairs to his and my mom’s room, and my brother followed. Up there I heard stuff from my dad like, “SHUT UP YOU BITCH!” and, “I can throw you out of your house right now!” (Though I believe American law says that you can’t truly ban a child from the house until he or she is 18. Maybe it’s different in fucking shitty Vietnam.)

After things went quiet upstairs, my brother came back down, and he went on about how annoying it is when my mom and my dad fought. Everytime it’s so annoying. That left my mom in silence, and he finished his dinner and went upstairs. Then I finished my dinner and went upstairs. At that point, my dad was in his room, all the lights turned off, bedroom doors wide open, and the TV on with the highest possible volume setting. Probably so my dad could pay attention to something else, and also to piss of my mom because he knows she gets horribly bad migraines from loud noise.

Then my mom went shopping, and I started typing this entry.
---

Yeah. Don’t even get me started on the Decembers of 2005 and 2006 and the winters that followed.

All in all, I don’t let myself get comfortable. (Though I’m glad to say that the things that are keeping me from getting comfortable presently are rather positive as opposed to all the shit in December 2004.)

What It All Comes Down To

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.]]

My Life

I’ve always wanted to be the French teacher—the one with kickass lesson plans and students who only wanted to speak French in class. This was my dream. I had spent my high school years shaping and obsessing over this dream that I had convinced myself that this was my destiny. But French has all gone to hell now, hasn’t it?

I still want to be a teacher; I just don’t know what subject.

About three weeks ago, I sent an email to one of my Breakthrough students. She still hasn’t responded. I’m not too surprised. I feel like I’ve let my students down; promises of continued contact and updates on my life through blogging have all failed.

What if I can’t even be the teacher I want to be? The classroom, the students, the knowledge to impart—I want that all because all that comes with being a teacher by default. Beyond the default, I hope to be the teacher that students look up to, get advice from, and laugh with, and the teacher whose class they look forward to every day. But what if I can’t do that? What if I suck at teaching? What if I come off as arrogant, as that teacher who tries too hard to be everyone’s friend?

Shaping my own destiny is hard enough when fate long ago decided to make me one of the fucking lucky 4% of the population that is gay. There are so many aspects of my life that I wish could be predetermined, but the sole thing that is predetermined, ironically, is the last thing that I would ever want to be predetermined: the fact that I am gay and will continue to be gay for the rest of my life. Gotta love fate.

Fuck fate.

I am my own fucking god, and there is no greater deity than my mind. My future and aspirations—I may give them the fancy name of “destiny,” and the coincidences that happen to have big effects—“fate.” But life is so ridiculously random that I can barely give any meaning to it sometimes. It feels nice to think of my hopes for the future as destiny and to attribute everything else to fate, to say that some force has this idea for where my life is going because I certainly don’t. That’s more comforting than saying that my life is aimlessly tumbling along as I live it.

But fuck comfort too. I don’t let myself get comfortable.

Maybe I could become the best French teacher in the world and maybe all my dreams could come true. Maybe I’ll become one sad pathetic shell of a person who never grows up. There’s the best outcome, and then there’s the worst outcome; I hope for something in between, but it’s hard to not expect the worst, especially when it’s what I see less hazily in the horizon right now.

---

3:10. The sound of the bell’s loud droning cut me off mid-sentence, and my students didn’t waste any time to reach for their backpacks and shoot to their feet.

“Hold up!” I shouted over the shuffling.

Their blank expressions gazed back at me.

“I’m not done yet,” I said, rather meekly. I glanced over at all of their long, bored faces, clear indicators that they wanted to be out of here. It had been a long class. A long day. “Alright,” I sighed, “we’ll continue tomorrow. You guys can head out. Don’t forget about your essays.”

I watched over my thirty-four students as they scuffled out the door. When the last one was gone, I sat back down at my desk, from where I tossed down my tie and surveyed my empty classroom.

An occasional motivational poster or a few crinkled essays from past years blotted the pale white walls. A ceiling light in the corner flickered until it finally died.

I brought my attention back to my desk when I noticed a folded post-it note staring at me from atop a pile of one-month old ungraded essays. Picking it up, I unfolded it and read the message scribbled inside: do you ever check ratemyteachers.com mr dinh? your not really the shit as much as you think you are.

I knew the handwriting.

I knew what ratemyteachers.com said about me.

I didn’t give a shit.



Around 4, I headed over to the school’s dance studio to choreograph for my weekly night class. I had to come up with something really amazing because my boss was coming in to observe my class this week. He had informed me that my work needed “validation,” based on some bullshit complaints that I had been using extremely similar choreo only set to different songs for the last three weeks.

5 o’clock came, and I had only accomplished getting my dress shirt soaked with sweat. I had wasted an hour figuring out how to move to music—as in, I was only moving parts of my body while music played in the background. I wasn’t actually dancing, so I gave up and took the bus home.

On the bus, I questioned myself. Why was I still doing this? Still dancing? My inspiration had run dry a long time ago. Maybe it was time to move on. This was a dream that I chased way too far, literally, and I had gotten nothing out of it. I only got losses. I had to stop wasting my life away; I wasn’t going to become any famous celebrity’s backup dancer anytime soon. It was time to grow up.



Around 5:30, I got back to my apartment, mail in hand. I trudged through the hypebeast graveyard that was my one-and-a-half bedroom apartment. LRG, Stussy, Johnny Cupcakes, Kid Robot, Upper Playground, Freshjive, Insight, New Era, Nike SB, Supra—they all lay on the carpet faded and dead, only to be brought back to life as zombies when I would shed my business attire and went out at night.

I let a voice message play from my message recorder as I sat down at the kitchen counter and sorted through the mail. The shrillness of my mom’s voice raided my apartment, but I promptly zone it out. We hadn’t talked since the day I left, but ever since my dad’s funeral, which I did not attend, she had been trying to reach me. If only I knew how to block her number on my home phone too.

I flipped through the mail some more, finding nothing but Penny Saver coupons, credit card ads, clothing newsletters—I froze. My mail slipped through my fingers and onto the floor, leaving one envelope behind.

This was the letter.

I clasped it with my hands at its edges. I stared at it so intensely that the envelope might’ve burst into flames right there. My heart was racing. I had to calm down.

I cautiously laid the envelope down on the counter, went to my fridge, and came back with vodka and expired orange juice. Took a shot and chased it.

I gently scooped up the envelope and held it before me. As though I was caressing it, I ran my fingertips down its side, careful not to bend it, not to bruise it, and gradually, I brought it up to my face and kissed it lightly. I let the smell of it linger under my nose, and then I lowered it back down and pressed it firmly against my heart. I slowly closed my eyes and began moving my lips. I prayed.



6:30. I had downed another shot, peed, taken a dump, organized all my dunks into their respective shoeboxes, wandered around my apartment a dozen times, and now here I was sitting by the window, vodka and orange juice on the lamp table next to me, and the envelope in my lap, unopened. I couldn’t open it. I figured that maybe I should just burn the envelope, but no, there was one thing left that I hadn’t tried yet.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I hit speed dial, and I immediately got his voicemail.

“Hey, don’t delete this message—” I hesitated. “Please...just listen to what I have to say first. Um, I know we’re not on talking terms right now, I don’t blame you, but...it’s here.”

I held up the letter in front of me to make sure, for the hundredth time, that it really was here. “It’s here, the letter from the adoption agency, about whether or not I’ve been approved. Whether or not I can get my kid. And I uh,” I paused to swallow my tears. I couldn’t let him know that I was and had been a mess.

“I-I can’t open it. This is too hard. I need you with me, just for this. I can’t open it without you.”

I said the words. The hard part was over. I breathed a small sigh of relief, and then I continued. “I’ll meet you at Oakridge, in our secret spot. I’m going to leave now, and if traffic isn’t too terrible on 101-South, I should be there in about an hour and a half.”

I hung up and sighed again. After pouring myself another shot of vodka, I gazed out the window. As I squinted, my eyes locked in on a glimmer far off into the distance. The night sky was settling in, and just beyond the horizon, the noble red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge fought resiliently to shine through the blue evening fog.

Orpheus

“I really really think that this year will be the most FUCKING AMAZING year, EVER!” Cameron so vehemently declared.

Last night, the two of us met up at a quaint little Asian café up in Fremont to catch up and get ourselves excited for Irvine.

It hasn’t really quite hit me that I’m going back to college this Saturday. It’s going to be difficult leaving home. Again.

Cameron invited me to a party at his apartment Saturday night. I understood this perfectly: A Party. Saturday. Cameron’s place.

But I have some kind of mental block that’s not letting me wrap my brain around the fact that all that will be taking place down south.

I question myself. Why do I get attached? And what is it that I get attached to that makes leaving hard? Am I attached to Funksters? I really only had like three or four friends from Funksters, and I had only known them for less than eight weeks. There should no big deal.

Am I attached to San Francisco? Am I attached to that dance studio, with its gray mats, bigass mirrors, loud fan, high ceilings, and the sound of the BART whooshing by?

I had thought this was going to be easier the second time around, but it actually feels harder.

Magnificent view.

Last summer, about two or three days before moving down south, Trung and I headed over to Oakridge late at night and met up with Black John. We decided to head to the top level of the parking garage where we could take in the magnificent breathtaking view of the In-N-Out and Kohl’s across the street. (The garage was three stories, so we didn’t have much of a view.)

This was probably our third or fourth time here on top of the parking garage. We’d always just live dangerously and sit on the edge, our legs dangling over three stories above the ground. We’d chat and reminisce about old times.

John lit a cigarette, and I think the topic of that night was old TV shows, or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I think I aimlessly ran around in the parking lot too and attempted to bboy.

Me and John.

This was my last night with Oakridge, the mall that I had grown up in all my high school years. It was going to be hard to let go. I didn’t know what it’d be like in SoCal if I wasn’t going to this mall every god damn week.

After an hour, we took the elevator back down to the first floor. As we got out, there were two cops, a female and a male one, there at the elevator door. We thought they were getting on, but they actually detained us. Uh oh.

Apparently, there were cameras on the roof. And we seemed shady.

The female officer took our drivers’ licenses and ran background checks. While waiting for the background checks, the male one searched and questioned us.

Were we terrorists? Nope.
Were we carrying rocket launchers? Nope.
Were we contemplating mass suicide? Nope.
Were we in possession of marijuana? Fortunately, John wasn’t that night.

I feel that if their cameras were any bit decent, they could’ve at least figured that we weren’t carrying rocket launchers.

I don’t remember how long we were there for with the cops. Thirty minutes? It was long enough to get uncomfortable, with all the shoppers walking by and turning their heads to watch the teenage delinquents possibly getting arrested. I seriously thought that they still could’ve nailed us for something, like loitering.

Fortunately, they let us go, but I couldn’t help but feel bitter about the entire incident.

That was when moving on became easier. Four years at Oakridge: I had outgrown this place. It didn’t want me anymore.



(*Trung came up with the title.)

Soul in the Hole

“I think Vance was right.”
Written February 1st, 2006 (Excerpted)

I got angry with Vance over the phone on Sunday. I was telling him how well everything was when I told my parents, but he kept on telling me how it is only well at first, and that eventually they will become paranoid, bitter, and try to control everything that I will do. At first, I told him, "Fuck, my parents won't do that. They're not like your parents." However, he eventually brought me down to, "Fuck, I don't know anymore, we'll see what happens I guess."

So it's been four days since I've told them, and things are not looking good.

I went to the mall today to play some ITG and hang out with Peter and John. That was all fun. Then I called my mom to come pick me up and drive me to Mervyn's so that I could buy some formal shoes for SCV. Before getting out of the car, she parked her car in front of Mervyn's and for half an hour, we argued back and forth about my gayness...She believes every fucking myth that there is about being homosexual, like gay = unhappiness, gay = fixable, gay = unnatural, gay = AIDS ONOZ! No matter what I say and how much I reassure of her of everything, it all just goes back to her sobbing into her hands and, "Brian, I just want you to have a normal life; you have to be in a parent's shoe to see how hard this is." And then she goes on about how she cries every night and doesn't wanna be alive anymore (and now I'm afraid of getting rides from her). She wants me to be willing to follow through with whatever "treatment" there is to "cure" my gayness, and I just told her, "fine". god, just call a doctor already so you guys can be embarrassed when he/she tells you that your son can't be "fixed".

She then sets me a new curfew: I can only go out once a week and must be home by 10 o'clock.

Fuck that. Oakridge is indeed my second home, and right now, my current first home doesn't even feel like home anymore. Any chance I get, I'm going to Oakridge. I'll take the light rail and spend over one thousand dollars on light rail tickets if I have to. Oakridge Mall is like the only place I really wanna be now, as corny as that may sound.

My parents can't accept me, but they reassure me that they will still always love me no matter what. What total fucking bullshit.
---

The Funksters summer intensive performance was yesterday. I don’t have much to say. I messed up pretty badly going into a part of a piece because I could barely hear anything but the bass on stage, so I ended up missing my cue in the music. When I realized I had to already be up there, I ran but tripped getting there. Oops. It’s pretty noticeable in the video. Among many other things that I really need to fix. I take comfort in looking for other dancers who messed up. There are a lot:


I’m in the bright yellow shirt with the black sleeveless jacket. Here are the songs:
1. Usher - Make It Rain
2. Mariah Carey - Obsessed (I’m on the front right in the beginning. I’m really sloppy in this one. How embarrassing.)
3. Ne-Yo - Angel (On the left at the end. You can see me trip. More embarrassing.) (I got recasted for this one and Obsessed, by the way. Last weekend, the uncasted were given a second chance to get into some pieces, and so we got these small parts. I thought it was just more sympathy.)
4. Musiq Soulchild - Solong
5. 2NE1 - Fire (Close to the right in the first part. I’m actually good in this one. But ironically, this is the song that makes me want to shoot myself.)
6. Mary J. Blige - The One (You can barely see me in this one. I’m in the back.)

That was it, the last performance. Summer intensive is over. There are great people that I won’t see anymore. Mimi and I were discussing this on the way home in the car Sunday night, and she was very sad. I felt like I should’ve been, but I didn’t feel anything. Last weekend, I felt sad, anxious, and excited about the ending, but this past weekend, I didn’t know how to feel anymore.

SI has ended, but dancing hasn’t. When I got home last night, I immediately thrust myself into preparation for the next somewhat big upcoming thing: Auditions for UC Berkeley’s Mainstacks.

Don’t ask me how I got involved in this. Because I’ll tell how anyway.

On Saturday morning, before practice, Mimi and I took the BART up to Berkeley to check out the Mainstacks audition workshops. Mimi kinda wanted to audition, and another girl from SI named Allison really wanted to audition. They needed a team of at least three, and I volunteered.

I don’t expect to get into Mainstacks, but I am going to take this audition really seriously. The audition process is similar for the teams down at UCI, so I’m doing this for the experience. Another motivation comes from the fact that I don’t want to let Allison down, because she actually goes to Berkeley unlike me and Mimi, who is still in high school, and Allison really really wants to get into Mainstacks. And shit, I have a lot to live up to, because Jin, the SI guy who she tried hard to convince to join, didn’t want to do it. I was like the back-up, a nowhere-near-as-good backup. That’s not the most positive thing to say about myself, but it motivates me.

The set that we’re auditioning to has three songs, two of which we learned choreo for. The other one, we need to choreograph ourselves, and we need to figure out formations and things to modify for the entire set. The audition is this Friday. We already met up once today in Berkeley, and I’m driving myself and Mimi back up to Berkeley again tomorrow, Thursday, and of course, Friday. Wednesday doesn’t work for both Mimi and Allison, but fortunately, I found a nearby two-dollar, two-hour long hip hop class Wednesday night from 10:30 to 12:30 AM to keep myself busy that day. I stumbled upon it while browsing random downelink profiles. This is probably the only good thing that has ever come out of me being jee-aay-why.

Plenty to occupy myself with this week. Next week and for my last week in NorCal, I hope I can find some kind of class to occupy me every day of the week.

---
“I’m okay.”
Written February 4th, 2006

Played some ITG today. Improved most of my 11's and 12's by about 7-10 percent (96 on Bloodrush, 85 on Vertex^2)... I played like three games consecutively and they were all 11's and 12's with the only breaks being the time I took to choose the song and options (either x3 or C450). I had a huge chest cramp for like the last set of 11's and 12's and ten minutes afterwards and had to sit down in the theatre lobby. Shouldn't have had that Jones Soda and quart of chocolate ice cream (basically my dinner) right before playing. Left the arcade [Oakridge] at 11:30ish. I've been staying late because the arcade empties out, it's all quiet, and I get to be alone.

I'm also bleaching my hair, by the way. And ATTN Miranda: I'll buy that black emo hat off of you for 13 dollars.

And my stomach hurts a fucking lot right now so I think I'm going to go throw up.

Alone

Thursday, August 27th.

Alarm clock rang. 11 AM. Time to go jog. Fuck that. Not today. I turned off the alarm and went back to bed.

Woke up at 2. I dragged myself downstairs to eat a bowl of cereal. Then I booted up my laptop and pretty much sat in front of it all day, neglecting showering and eventually (within one hour), more hunger.

Decided to head upstairs and sit down in front of the TV in the computer room around 7. I booted up the old PS2 and played some DDR on the PS controller. The mesmerizing graphics and upbeat, nostalgic music kept my mind mesmerized and my fingers pushing buttons for another two hours. I fucking hate this game.

Went back downstairs. I decided that I should maybe practice dancing. Ipod in pocket and earphones in my ears, I started moving. But I felt like I was only moving, with some music playing in my head. I wasn’t dancing. No inspiration. I found myself in front of my laptop again, browsing the depthless realms of the internet.

I need someone to talk to. I browsed my list of friends on facebook. No, he wouldn’t understand. No, I’ve never talked about serious stuff like this with her before. No, I just met him. No, haven’t talked to her since high school. Didn’t want to talk to her since high school. And him. And her. And him.

I exhausted the list quickly.

Frustrated with myself, I decided that I needed to do something with however many little hours there were left in the night, so I worked out.

Two hours later, I ate. And then I went to bed.

I don’t remember what I dreamed about.

Friday, August 28th.

My alarm clock went off at 11 AM. I am going to fucking do shit today. I dragged myself out of bed, ate some peanut butter, got into some light comfortable clothing, stretched out my legs, put on my shoes, and at 12, I headed out the door—holy fuck it was fucking burning. I pushed myself and ran anyway. I needed it. I needed sunlight. Air. No walls around me.

But then the run kinda killed my energy. I ate a bowl of cereal, took a shower, and found myself mindlessly pushing buttons to loud and annoying DDR music again. After an hour, I managed to pry myself away and heeded the growling of my stomach.

After eating, I listened to the summer intensive mix and realized that I still need high black socks.

Really though, I just had a tiny little urge to go to Oakridge mall.

But then as I was driving past it, I ignored the urged and continued to drive on. Kohls, which was across the street, had stuff for cheaper, and I found my black socks there. Sorry Oakridge.

Gunderson High School, where I taught with Breakthrough this summer, was in the area, so I dropped by there.

It was strange seeing the school. I think they had been back for two weeks already, and now they had something going on this evening. It was odd to see high school students. Tall, Hollister outfits, dressed like jocks, dressed like skanks. They were spread out all over the school, in the front, by the office, in the parking lot, in the grassy fields. They were everywhere that Breakthrough students weren’t allowed to hang around. Seeing these high school students occupy those spots, I just wanted to go up to them and tell them, “Sorry, you need to head over by the lunch tables where we teachers can see you.”

But I resisted. And it was good that all these older kids were spread out, because there was no one crowding around the lunch table area, where I normally taught my dance class. Where, today, I was going to practice.

I stared at my faint reflection through the window. I missed seeing them, the tiny little middle school students behind me, trying to keep up. I still had the Breakthrough mix on my iPod, so I selected it and ran through the set, for old time’s sake. I made this mix. I made this choreo. As much as I sucked, I missed being the teacher, the leader, the one in control.

After the run through, I practiced the summer intensive set. Our show is this Sunday.

I was there for about two hours, and then I went over to Trung’s place to drop off some X-Files that he wanted to see. We had a little walk, a little talk, and he handed me a folded note.

I left him after fifteen minutes, and as I was driving home, I glanced at the folded note, repeatedly. Distracted. The summer intensive showcase is this Sunday. I need to focus. On dancing. Dancing is all I have right now.

I tossed the note in the glove compartment. I decided that I would read it later.

When I got home, I sent an email to one of my students to check up on her and school.

I’m more alone then I really like to admit. During junior and senior year, I did a good job of slowly fazing myself out from my group of high school friends, both accidentally and intentionally. I often opted to hang out with my Oakridge friends (John, Peter, Miranda, etc.), and I acted very arrogant about it, like I was too mature for my high school friends. (And sometimes, I was. Which is probably why I didn’t regret isolating myself too much.) I’m sure they got sick of it and helped me speed up the process of my isolation.

I had always had a knack for dropping friendships like boiling shit. I could wake up the next day, feel fine and refreshed, go about doing my thing, and not be weighed down by any remorse. (I might’ve had some remorse, but it didn’t weigh me down.) I went to the arcade, bought some American Eagle junk, did whatever I loved doing back then.

Now, I’m here, back home during the summer. My UCI friends are far away; John, Peter, and Miranda are busy with their own lives; and I have no one to catch up with. I don’t regret the loss of friendship, but my need to confide in someone burns more than ever.

---
“Reflect: 8th Grade Year”
Written June 9th, 2004

[[I had one best friend from the second to the eighth grade, Seth, but I grew to hate him. This entry talks about how I managed to finally escape him. He wasn’t aware of all my deep-seated hatred though, at least, until he read this entry. Because it was public. Oh snap internet drama.]]

I think Seth loves to see me make an embarrassment out of myself, especially when in front of others. But when I actually have to show him that I’m hurt by the embarrassment is when Seth starts to be… even more ignorant. Let’s get to the incident now…

Me, Seth, and his new, third girlfriend Brittany and her friend are walking home… There’s some kid in the distance and Seth jokingly asks me, “Hey, why don’t you run to him and yell ‘HI!’” and so I jokingly begin do so. However, right as I lift my foot off a ground, Seth sticks his foot out, and I trip over his gay shoes [[“gay” oh burn]]. I fall flat on my face, but LUCKILY my knees hit the ground ([but] bleed of course), lessening the impact of my face on the ground. Embarrassment. Big time. Not in front of just Seth, but his girlfriend and her friend, and they’re all concentrating on me. BUT OF COURSE, since Seth has to be the big guy in front of his girlfriend, he saves his ~ALTRUISTIC~ pity for when just me and him are alone at his house. And so of course I’m trying to stifle my tears behind the three of them, as Seth and Brittany enjoy their ~nice~ walk home. When I got to his house, his sympathy was too pathetic and I actually felt embarrassed receiving it, so I escaped his hell house when he went in another room to answer the phone. [[I had no sense of verb tense consistency back then, sorry.]]

Second reason...Great America. Seth’s bullshitted lie. Yeah, in the beginning I blamed myself ‘cause I didn’t call to confirm when we’d go… However, when I heard his excuse for not calling me the night of that day, everything fell into place or fell out of place… “Well you see, my sister’s friend wanted to go and she was..and. blah…so..was family…and asdfghjkl so okay? That’s [my] excuse.” Again and again each time I asked him, Seth would begin with his sister’s friend wanting to go and then gradual drift on into vague muttering… He was hiding something from me… He didn’t want me to go? Maybe… Maybe if he invited me, he would’ve felt ever so bad about making me wait beside a ride because I WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST TO SCARED TO GO ON ONE boo fuckin hoo.

Just near the end of the school year, Seth went vacationing at Portugal during two school weeks. I took this time to bond with Randy and meet his friends establish better friendships with all of them. As you know, we’ve become good friends. I slowly drifted away from Seth. When Seth got back from Portugal, I hope the first thing he noticed was I didn’t follow him around at break or lunch or go to his house to endure his harassment ever again.

It was just the final two months of school when I wanted the year to last just a lil’ bit longer. Other acquaintance, who were friends of Randy, became my friends too. Each day was full of unexpected surprises and fun.

Tomorrow, I’m graduating from junior high as a Valedictorian. By moving on to high school, I’m leaving a whole year of mixed feelings and emotions behind to face the new challenges of freshmen year at high school.
---

In December 2006, I “settled issues” with Seth. Those issues actually had nothing to do with resolving our friendship. It was just me telling him that he was a bitch to his face. I wanted to do it because it was less cowardly than telling him through an online blog.

And Randy and his friends? Yeah, they were the friends I slowly phased out from my high school years.

Amor Fati

“Why did we just go hella out of our way?”

“To avoid someone.”

Saturday night at 7:30, San Francisco, Union Square Park, Sixty miles away from where both of us are from—of all things my first crush, “Vance,” could have been doing (eating, drinking, fucking), he had to be here, with another guy at a corner that SF Andrew and I were heading toward.

Well, it’s not super mind-blowing crazy. It is San Francisco, and Vance is gay. And no one is getting drunk at 7:30 in the evening.

But still, out of all places in San Francisco that he could’ve been at, he had to be there at Union Square Park and at the right time too. We were at the right place and right time. If I was five minutes earlier or later, I might’ve missed him.

I know it’s stupid that I’m making a big deal out of this. It’s not like I even talked to him or tripped and fell face first into his crotch. I just tend to get carried away when I think about how seemingly unrelated occurrences can lead to something significant but way even more unrelated than the occurrence that started the entire chain of events.

Last week, Andrew messaged me asking to hang out in SF. I agreed and figured that Saturday evening after dance rehearsal would be the best time because I was planning on attending a company class Sunday night. The day of, we decided to go on a vain search for the last bit of sun in the evening. We stopped by Forever 21 to browse for a bit. We then proceeded to Union Square Park. I spotted Vance.

I could go further back and start with me meeting Andrew or even way way further back and start with me starting to hang out with Cameron. Either way, one small difference could’ve completely changed the outcome. Andrew could’ve never decided to message me out of the blue. If I wasn’t taking a summer dance intensive in SF, I could’ve visited him on any day of the week at any time. We could’ve decided to not go outside into the cold. We could’ve not stopped at Forever 21 or could’ve stayed there longer. The point is that, based on all the preceding events, I would not and never have expected to spot my first crush at a corner of an intersection. But I did anyway.

This kind of sequence of events is so delicate and easily malleable that it forces my more non-rational (my “emotional”) side to come out and wonder, “These coincidences are too coincidental. Someone or something had to have set this up.”



The reason I came out at the time I did is very convoluted, at least when I explain it. I never planned on coming out on New Years Eve, an hour and a half left before 2006, at an arcade, to Peter.

My story of how it happened starts in 2002 or 2003 with black John, far back when we haven’t even met yet. John was attending a private middle school where one of his friends happened to be Vance. Vance had a birthday party with DDR set-up, and that was how John got into DDR. Middle school eventually ended, and John ended up going to Leland, a public school, while Vance went to Bellarmine, a private school.

One year later in 2004, I just finished middle school. I had a very bad ending to my friendship with Seth, my best friend since the second grade. I told him (and the world) via a blog entry that the last few years of our friendship were shit and he meant nothing to me, especially now that he was heading off to Bellarmine and I was off to Santa Teresa High School (yeah, pretty cowardly, public, and overdramatic). Never talked to him since the last day of the eighth grade.

Some time later that year, I met John through playing DDR at the arcades. We, along with Peter, Miranda, and many more, all became good friends.

December 2005 came, and feeling some kind of mushy Christmas spirit, I decided that I wanted to talk to Seth again to settle some issues. And I had to be very dramatic about it (again), so I wanted to do it through a messenger. I asked John if he knew anyone that went to Bellarmine, and he did. He knew only one person: Vance.

“Oh, by the way, he’s gay,” John randomly pointed out. He’s gay. That stuck out to me, just a little bit. I was still a closet homo.

I got in contact with Vance through myspace, and eventually, the whole issue with Seth was settled toward the end of December. Done with that mess.

During the whole ordeal, however, I got to know Vance and his personality somewhat. He was very bold and out there, and he comfortably joked about his own gayness. He was the first gay guy that I had ever met, and I considered his openness admirable. I couldn’t help but develop my first true crush.

These were emotions that I had never felt before, and I didn’t know how to handle them. I needed someone to confide in, but I didn’t know who I could really go to.

Late at night on New Years Eve, John, Peter, and I decided to drop by Oakridge to play a few games of ITG. We were the only ones in the arcade, and the only sound came from the ITG machine. Peter and I were sitting in some driving games watching John play (the song he was playing, I remember very distinctly, was Soapy Bubble), and out of no where, or as though fate had commanded him, Peter turned to me with a wide smile and asked, “Are you gay?!”

I was caught off guard. I used to be able to lie about this whenever it would come up, but that night, with my need to confide in someone about these new emotions building up inside of me, I couldn’t lie anymore.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

John immediately stopped playing and shouted “WHAT?!” as he jumped off the machine.

And so began some of the best and some of the worst adventures/months/years of my life. New emotions, new drama, new ways of thinking, basically a new era in my life. And of the million things from my past I can now attribute all that to, I can attribute them to 2003, when John and Vance, two people I didn’t know at that time, played some DDR. What’s even crazier about this case is that, in a way, I wouldn’t have met Vance if it weren’t for Vance (him introducing John to DDR).

Gotta love fate.

Five Years Ago

Last Wednesday, Miranda, Peter, and I all chilled together. (Black John didn’t come because he was in Santa Cruz.) We first met up at my house and discussed making spinach turnovers, which, at that point, was still only a memory from the past. And it remained a memory, because we decided, “Screw this, too complicated,” and got dinner at Chevy’s instead. Over dinner, we caught up.



I look at today’s date. I look at the date of old journal entries about the Oakridge crew. And then I subtract the years. I can’t believe it’s been five years.

I first met Peter in early 2004 when I used to go to San Jose Golfland and Oakridge mall alone to play DDR all morning and afternoon long. Peter always wore a baseball cap, but his curly hair would always leak out. At that point, we had not yet established a solid friendship. We only knew each other’s DDR scores.

When summer came that year, I was on the verge of quitting DDR. I felt like I had reached the best that I could ever get and there wasn’t really any aspect of DDR left for me to explore. I went to San Jose Golfland in the morning for one last session, but then I ran into Peter and met Miranda and her boyfriend at the time, DJ. The three of them were all friends, and they all met through playing DDR at the arcades. Miranda’s hair was tied tightly down into two pigtails, Peter was now sporting a Hamtaro backpack. And they all wore beaded bracelets. A hell lot of them. I ended up hanging out with them that day, and I continued to hang out with them. Because of them, I didn’t quit playing DDR yet.

A week later, Peter gave me my first beaded bracelet. Each bead alternated between sky blue and royal blue. And that was when I considered myself to finally be a part of their crew. We didn’t really have a name for our crew during that time, but to me now, we were the Oakridge crew, or quite simply, Oakridge.

Eventually, black John, who was one year older than me, joined the crew. Miranda, Peter, John, and I were the core for a while, and throughout all the years, different people joined us and left us: siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, high school friends, more DDR players, other arcade goers, etc. (And even at one point in early 2007, I was gone from the core group.)

In my old blog, I wrote over 150 entries about Oakridge and the Oakridge crew. Peter, John, and Miranda all became very well established people (characters) in my blog, and I don’t think anyone else, even Trung, had ever carried as much presence as they did in my writing.

At first, we were all about DDR. Passing this song, getting these scores, whatever. Throughout 2004 to most of 2006, it seemed like all that really mattered in the world, besides our friendship, was DDR. But we slowly expanded as our interest in DDR diminished slowly. Here we are in 2009 now, the game and Oakridge mall long forgotten.

Miranda, now 22 years old, works for a car company; she files invoices and does other paperwork stuff. Peter, 21, works a summer internship at IBM and makes $400 a week. (Too ridiculous.) His girlfriend is surveying owls in Tahoe as part of another internship. A few weeks ago, I finished up a teaching internship for the second summer in a row, and, probably somehow inspired by all the years of DDR, I’m currently pursuing real dancing.

Peter’s been with his girlfriend I think for a year and a half now I think. Miranda’s having an interesting relationship with another guy who’s currently in Japan (or was) for a fighting game tournament. And I’m in first place for longest running relationship, which still probably surprises them based off of all my past guy drama that I used to drag them through for years.

Miranda’s hair is very wavy, red, and pretty now, and it has been for a while. Peter’s is still looking good, a lot better than it did five years ago at least. Mine went from gelled and spiky, to failed Korean popstar wannabe, and down to buzzed.



After dinner at Chevy’s, we went back to my house to chill for a bit longer. Miranda told us the millionth horror story about her feet. (Her horror stories have always been parables about why doing things barefoot is bad, especially in arcades.) Eventually, Trung showed up, and shortly after, Miranda and Peter left. Trung and I watched some X-Files, and I practiced some dancing.

---
“Tournament Part 2”
Written July 21st, 2004 (Excerpted)

When I first arrived at the mall, I knew to not bother checking the arcades for friends; I went straight to Gamester [a kiosk that specialized in selling all things DDR-related]. Peter, Matt [Peter’s younger brother]—those two—and now never featured before, Melissa. She was the random girl in the “perfect attack” tourney on Monday, but today I learned her name.

[From left to right: Matt’s knee, Melissa, Peter, and DJ.]

We played a few games…before we got a call saying the famous DJ was on his way. And then we marched all the way to Metropolis just to meet him? Wow. We went back to Gamester to transfer all our needed DDR equipment to the back of the theatre in Metropolis, but found that the door to the back was locked. So in the mean time… we sat down inside the dark theatre making bead bracelets, which I was a newbie to.

Our DDR gang is like… beadful. I luckily had a few that Peter gave me, so I wasn’t left out. After attempting to make a bracelet, I ended up with a beaded pinky ring, which I didn’t use.

Finally, about an hour before the [freestyle] tournament, we got the Ps2 and DDRMax2 game set up and watched DJ practice his routine…After quickly getting bored of Max2 (and my hump-rave routine to Secret Rendezvous), we abandoned Metropolis, just leaving the DDR setup, to go back to the cart, where we played a few games.

We were well distracted for over an hour, and we returned to Metropolis a few minutes late. There we [met up with] Miranda. And so here was where I realized there was no real freestyle tournament. First of all, there were no judges; next, no prizes; also, we had no list of participants or anything that attempts organization; and lastly, DJ was the only real good one. DJ just picked few several random songs and freestyled. I have no idea what happen to this picture; the camera messed it up.

[That’s Miranda on the left and Peter’s Hamtaro backpack behind her.]

We soon got kicked out of the metropolis at 3 and went back to the cart, where we played some more~. Then me, Miranda, DJ and Melissa decided to drive over to Golfland…Our stay was short, and we soon went back to rejoin Peter and Matt at the Gamester cart, where we put down all DDR and instead…made bead bracelets! Ah fun! And where’d we make them? Sitting on the DDR pads in the middle of the mall, ‘cause we all “work” there, and there was no one else really to stop us.

But, after fun and merriment, mall police came by and broke up our beading group. D: Well, we were “loitering” in a way, and that for some reason is always against a rule. But what one officer said was just priceless~. “The mall is not a place to hang out.” wtf?

When they left and we got back to playing DDR, but then decided to go the food court, where, we MADE BEADS~ And DJ got his funk on with Miranda, We...then got hungry, and moved around buying some food, while DJ continued to get his funk on with Miranda. Then we all randomly decided to go to Metropolis, where I spent most of the last hour of my day…My brother called me around 6 and said he was on his way. :/

Damn great day, but since I can’t really go to the mall a lot (I only could go these two days ‘cause of the tournament), I’ll really be missing a lot of fun. :/

Resolute

Saturday’s dance rehearsal sucked so much ass for me. I had never left practice feeling so bummed. I had worked all week on this song, Secret Rendezvous. (Songs are supposed to be a secret until the premiere performance (not that anyone who really cares reads this blog), so I’ll just substitute song titles with—yes—DDR song titles.) I really wanted this piece, both because I liked it and because I needed it. I was still not casted in any pieces and I was really worried that I wasn’t going to be in any of them.

I didn’t get Secret Rendezvous. I admit, I didn’t perform it my best during the casting; I was nervous doing it up there with only four other people and the remaining thirty(ish) dancers and the director watching us. And then there was (and always is) the even worse nerve-wracking anticipation about what was to come for sure: After performing the piece, the director would glance carefully at each person, maybe say a few general comments, point to one person, say “You’re in,” and wave the rest of the uncasted to the side. I know it was never meant to be like this, but that short walk to the side with the uncasted had always felt like a walk of shame. It was my third time doing it yesterday.

After losing the spot for Secret Rendezvous, I rationalized that I still had a pretty good chance because there were three songs left to be casted. But then over the weekend, we learned one of those three songs, Air, and casted it immediately today. I could hardly follow the piece, and I had thought we would cast it the following week so I would say, “Fuck this part, I’ll just work on this later on in the week.”

When it was announced that we were casting for it fifteen minutes after finishing it up, I knew I wasn’t getting it. And I didn’t. I wasn’t too despaired; I was only sad that I didn’t have more time to work with it. I didn’t pour hours and nights into this piece, so not a lot was wasted.

But now there were only two songs left to be casted, Love <3 Shine and Long Train Runnin’. And then I learned that the directors were going to automatically put everybody into Long Train Runnin’. Great, I knew I was going to be in at least one, but as much as I love the choreo for that song, I didn’t want to be in the final performance for one piece and by default alone. I had to earn a spot in there. And there was only one spot left to earn. The pressure was fucking on.

The last hour of today’s rehearsal was dedicated to casting Love <3 Shine, the piece that I talked about last week. Y’know, the one with the video where you can see how irked and unenthusiastic I look in the background. The super gay one. I admit though, I liked it a lot better after I started dissecting it and understanding it this past week.

The casting process for Love <3 Shine was, for the most part, a lot more nerve-wracking than the other casting processes. Everyone performed together, so not having to do it in a small group with everybody else watching was the only less nerve-wracking aspect. But after each performance, the director would walk around the room and tap certain dancers on the shoulder. Those people were pretty much out. Eliminated. He would often walk right by me, in front of me, behind me, toward me, and each moment just added more anticipation. Anticipation of the walk of shame. Anticipation of staying in. I survived the first round of eliminations, and we ran the piece again. Each time, the group got smaller and smaller, and more anxiety built up.

I survived to the third round. There were only six guys left, including me, and about fourteen girls. He had a wild card round and had all the eliminated people come up and perform, and he would only pick one from the twenty(ish) of them.

At that point, I was kinda confused as to what was going on until Isaiah, another dancer who didn’t get eliminated, came up to me, patted me on the back, and said, “Congratulations dude. You’re in.”

What? Eyes widened. “REALLY?”

“Yeah.”

At that point, I really had two ways I could react: I could’ve started jumping for joy and hugging everyone that also made it, despite not really even knowing half of them, or I could’ve burst into tears. I really felt something pushing behind my eyes. All that build-up from not just the first three rounds, but all the disappointments through the past two weeks and all the effort I had been putting in all summer and ever since I started dancing—I could now breathe a slight sigh of relief.

Of course, I didn’t really do either of the options. I was shocked, and happy. I didn’t really know what else to say or how else to celebrate, so the most I could manage was, “Yay, finally.”

When I tried to get into breakdancing back in 2006, the one big thing holding me back was the fact that I wasn’t and couldn’t get good at it immediately. I was at a point in my life where I didn’t want to learn anything new and wanted to be good at everything I was already doing. That small breakdancing phase lasted like three months, but then I eventually got back into it for college. I still didn’t go very far with it until I finally got into choreography and general hip hop dance at the beginning of 2009.

Getting casted probably wasn’t as big of a deal for people who had been casted before, whether it was this summer, last summer, sometime during the competition season, or people who have actually been on dance teams. But it was a huge deal for me because this was my very first form of validation. I now knew that I was actually heading somewhere. I wasn’t the same dancer that I was when I started at the beginning of 2009 or when I went through my breakdancing phase in 2006. I conquered severe lack-of-motivations issues and found the strength to pursue something new.

---
“Reirresolution”
Written October 5th, 2006 (Excerpted)

I didn’t really practice breakdancing for a week and a half, and when I tried a few moves again just a few days ago, I got hella better out of no where. I’m not really surprised though because I followed this same pattern when I was getting better at ITG.

Tomorrow I’ll be trying to pass Air on Oakridge’s hacked ITG2 dedicab. Come watch me pass out and get the arcade temporarily closed down again for the second time within a month (the first time being when Dave passed out).

And yeah, the above two things are like the most exciting things going on in my life right now, which is pretty sad because the second one involves ITG, and the first one has me making comparisons to ITG.

I’m trying to rediscover my motivation, whether it is in the form of ITG, break-dancing, food, picking up a sport, guys, new friends, or going somewhere else besides Oakridge. Whatever motivation I had a long time ago has completely drained. Every night as I climb into bed, I feel shitty and ashamed that I did nothing all day. However, I can’t help being lazy, so the next day just ends up being a repeat of all the other days. When I’m in the computer lab to do Psychology work, I mess around on the Internet instead. When I go home, I sleep from 2:30 til 5 PM and then eat lunch. When I eat, I just leave my left hand dead in my lap and don’t care if I accidentally tilt my bowl on its side with my chopsticks. Don’t care enough to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Too lazy to fix my boxers when they float up three inches over my bellybutton. Don’t change out of my jeans when I sleep. Got a huge booger in my nose that’s making it hard for me to breathe in my sleep? Whatever, I don’t feel like turning on the lights and getting up to pick it. And Junior year is NOT a good year to be lazy.
---

I am long overdue for a good cry.

(But I’m just too manly for that shit.)