Promod

October 2nd, Saturday night. First day on the job at the ever so hip and preppy clothing retailer, Promod, and I was already thrust onto the busy sales floor with nothing more than a key to the fitting rooms and a flat transparent board to aid me in folding graphic t-shirts into a perfect square, as though a lifesaver were supposed to keep me safe in an ocean infested by sharks. Customers needed fitting rooms, customers needed different colors, customers needed larger sizes, customers needed to be greeted with the sales pitch of the day (“Welcome to Pro-Mawwd! Just to let you know, all of our jeans are twenty bucks or less today”—being the trendy retailer of a clothing store that I worked at, it was important to use “bucks” instead of “dollars” to convey our hipness).

In one of my very first lessons, I discovered that while it took me twenty minutes to recover an entire table of tackily branded t-shirts (“recover” is the retail term for refolding all the clothes), it only took one short minute for one single customer to transform the entire table into a morbid scene out of a nuclear holocaust.

Caught up with cleaning the messes left in the wake of the tornadoes that stormed through the store, I did not even sense the presence of my rather gay manager looming over my shoulder, who silently scrutinized every wrinkle I failed to straighten as I folded my shirts. I turned around and jumped in surprise, not expecting to come face to face with him. Sporting his blue patterned flannel and dark wash bootcut jeans, he greeted me with a smile so enthusiastic that each tooth glimmered under the light. He offered his hand for a handshake, and I reached to accept, glad that of all the sanity in this teen haven dystopia, this handshake was one thing that was the same, and it was one thing I was good at.

He retracted his hand. Swiftly and sharply before I could even close the gaps between my fingers, as though he thought he spotted an ebola-laced pin protruding from the palm of my hand.

“Your shoes are in violation of our dress code.”

I glanced down at my feet to be greeted by the site of my mid-top Nike SB Dunks, adorned by its maroon suede swoosh and its fat maroon laces.

“Here at Promod, we ask that our employees stick to the classics, such as Converse Chuck Taylors or Vans Slip-ons.”

At the very utterance of “Chuh—,” every hair on my body shot straight up as my face turned cold and pale and my heart sank into my stomach, where I could feel it streaming down every inch of my intestines as he went on to say “slip-ons.” Fuck, my Nikes were too cool for Pro-Mawwd.

“And just so you know, Brian, it’s pronounced ‘Pro-Mode’—the ‘o’ sounds are the same. It’s French. Now there’s a lesson on French pronunciation for you.”

---
“Yummy!”
Written May 18th, 2007 (Excerpted)

I’ve basically had this huge (sexual) fetish for Nike SB dunks or any other Nike shoes similar to those. Like, any average looking person looks plain and boring with their Vans Shit-Ons and Converse Fuck Taylors. But if they slip on Nike SB dunks for a day, they’re suddenly hot. One time, when I was browsing photos on downelink, I stumbled upon a picture of two guys making out with Nike basketball shoes on both of them. I was like, “Dayum look at that!” referring to the shoes, not the kiss. The shoes were hotter than their kiss.

One day I will own my very own pair of sexy Nike SB dunks, and until then, you will never see a pair of Vans Shit-ons or Converse Fuck Taylors clamped onto my feet.
---

Twenty bucks at a thrift store. I created a compromise, one in which I figured I could still buy a “classic” type of shoe without ever having to curse the delicate cells of my fingers with the abomination that is a pair of Chuck Taylors or slip-ons, but still, I would probably only wear this pair of non-self-sexually arousing shoes at Promod, for Promod, and no where else.

Three Points

Dim flickering streetlights lit our way through the park as we trod through wet grass, unsure of where to go but up the gently sloping hill. The end of our path greeted us with steep concrete stairs shrouded in darkness. We stopped and looked at each other.

“Brian, we’re not going any farther.”

“What?! Why not? Trung, we’ve been driving around trying to find this hill for the last hour and now here it possibly is in front of us. We just have to go up these stairs.”

“Unlit stairs with a bunch of dark low-hanging trees tunneling over them. Do you not see the sign, Brian? I’ll read it again for you. ‘You are entering a natural area characterized by certain inherent dangers. These dangers include rattlesnakes, poison oak, BOBCATS, COYOTES, AND MOUNTAIN LIONS.’”

“I think if people have actually gotten eaten climbing up this hill, these stairs wouldn’t be here anymore.”

“No one’s gotten eaten before because no one goes hill-climbing at 1 AM in the morning.”

“Come on, we’re so close. We have to go all the way or else everything leading up to this will have been in vain.”

“Can’t you just appreciate the fact that you made it here? That you made it this far? Now is not the time to continue on, but later, you will be back here, preferably during the day or sunset. And that’s when you can go all the way.”

“No. How about we go all the way now?”

“Alright, but I’m going to make you hold my hand.”

Trung held out his hand, and I grasped it with both of mine. He placed his other hand on top, and step by step, we ascended the stairs. I didn’t want to mention it, but my heart beat as fast as Trung’s, and as much as I tried to suppress it, I couldn’t help but jerk my head toward every little snap of a twig or rustle of a bush that I thought I heard.

“So...”

“So what?”

“What were we talking about earlier?” Trung asked.

“Changing.”

“Oh yeah. So, if you don’t like the way your life is going, why can’t you change it?”

I shrugged. “I can’t just decide to change.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just can’t. Change has to happen subconsciously. If I’m consciously forcing myself to change, I’m not going to change. A huge part of me won’t allow it.”

“Knowing this though, can’t you prevent yourself from not allowing it?”

“No, it doesn’t work like that.”

“But a part of fixing a problem is acknowledging the problem, and you’re already acknowledging it.”

“Acknowledging the problem and trying to change it from there won’t work. That kind of change is artificial change. Deep down inside, I will still be the same person that I’ve always been. Something unplanned has to instigate the change.”

“Well, Brian, you have to do something eventually. You just can’t sit around all your life waiting for an epiphany, or to get hit by a truck.”

At the top of the stair case, our hands parted and we fell silent after realizing that we had to continue excavating the hill by climbing on rocks. Trung wasn’t happy, and I wished that I had dressed a little more appropriately. Nikes, skinny jeans and a white tank from The Hundreds didn’t make suitable outdoor adventure gear. We could see people roaming around the top of the hill, but from where we stood, they looked as tiny as the stars in the sky. Trung, once again, refused to continue on, but he finally gave in after I persisted. Trung fumed as we silently worked our way up the steep rocks.

“All right, we made it. We’re on top and we can see all of Orange County. Can you remind me why we did this Brian?”

I didn’t have to glance around for more than a few seconds to realize, “We’re not on the right hill.”

“What?”

“The one I wanted has a little bench on top. This one doesn’t have it. We need to go find it.”

“Wait, Brian! Look! Look all over there at the lights. We already have a nice view, so why do you need a fucking bench to sit down?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Oh, I know why,” Trung said. “The one with the bench, the one you saw in those photos, that was the mountain you wanted to take Ranier to, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And why didn’t you take him?”

“Well, I was going to take him. When he first told me two months ago he was going to come to Irvine, I tried to find out where the hill was, but then he said he wasn’t going to come anymore and just stay in San Diego, so I gave up on finding the hill. Then, last weekend, the very night before he left for San Diego, he told me there was a change of plans and he wanted to come to Irvine again. I didn’t have time to go find the hill, and since I had to worry about Team Millenia auditions last weekend, I didn’t have time to go exploring with him. I wanted to take him to the hill, but when I was practicing with my groupmates in Fullerton, Ranier stayed in Irvine and hung out with another friend who beat me to it.”

“Well, since someone already beat you to it, and Ranier left like last Sunday night, why are we even here now a week later?”

“I wanted to find it so I could go on top of it and convince myself it was nothing more than a giant pile of dirt that happened to be higher than the rest of the city.”

“Oh. I see. You wanted to rationalize away every bit of emotion associated with it. Brian, I’m sure you didn’t even need me to tell you that and how unhealthy it is, so why are you still trying to do it?”

“Because it’s what I do.”

“Ok Brian, can you at least look out at the city and admit, it’s a nice view?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, great. Let’s enjoy it for a few more minutes and then head back to your place, and I’ll stick around there for like half an hour and drive back up to UCLA. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And I’d suggest watching season six of The X-Files, but...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll get it back.”

Semper Eadem

Fuck, I feel like shit. I think I’m lying on my bed—no, no I’m not. Open your eyes. There’s the ceiling. The light’s on. Oh, I’m lying on a sofa, and I’m still wearing my jeans, and I can kinda hear the victory result screen from Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Yeah, that track’s been going on loop for a while now.

I played forward in high school. Now I’m point guard.

You playin’ for a league now?

Voices. They’ve been chatting for a while now. Their voices have been soft, almost kinda jazzy and soothing. Or am I just saying jazzy because one of them is black?

Okay, there we go. I forgot for a second; I’m in Fullerton, at a friend’s apartment. Thursday night. Walden called me and invited me over to come drink and chill, and well, fuck, I can still taste that god awful burning Brandy in my throat. Man I can taste it every time I swallow my own saliva, as if Brandy is all my glands are producing right now. Shit, I’m going to vomit if I keep on thinking about it. Think—cold crisp Crystal Geyser water, or chocolate protein shakes. Yum. Ugh, well, not the latter. Just think about the former.

Shit, did I forget to take out my contacts? Sit up. Whoa, I got up too fast. Nausea’s hitting me pretty bad. I can feel something brewing in my chest, or esophagus, or diaphragm—shit I don’t know my human anatomy, and I don’t need to be thinking about it. Just needa calm down and focus. The contacts—taking them out was the last thing I managed to do before I passed out. From all that Brandy. From the whole two god damn shots.

Fuck okay, think about the Crystal Geyser water now. Sparkling, delicious water.

I gotta burp. Fuck. Just let it be a burp. Fuck. This can be one crazy big burp, or I’m just going to explode with vomit, but I hope it’s just a burp because fuck I haven’t vomited in forever and I really hate the feeling and shit I’m in front of other people right now—better dancers than I am, way better and I am not going to fucking vomit in front of them. It’s just a burp.

Esophagus. Definitely brewing in the esophagus. Definitely not going to be a burp. POWER WALK TO THE BATHROOM LIKE EVERYTHING’S COOL. Close the door behind yourself, lift toilet seat, take a deep breath aaaaand—What the fuck that’s the spinach I had for dinner. And some more of it. And some more of it. Now I can’t breathe, and fuck why is my vomit reddish orange—oh, that’s probably the spaghetti sauce. Okay and there goes most of my vomit. I have the option of trying to force out the last of it and suffocate some more, or try to swallow it down and breathe a little more easily. Swallow. Breathe. Kinda tastes like the Brandy, or just simply alcohol because it all tastes the same to me. Head back out and plant your ass on the sofa.

I vomited, I announce. I’m not really talking to anyone but to myself, but the two guys discussing basketball are around to hear.

Dang, how many shots did you have?

Just two. Yeah, I know, I’m a one shot wonder but our friend Walden, who looks great passed out on the couch over there, made me take a second one.

I think they’re going back into their discussion about basketball now, so I’m just going to lie down and close my eyes again. I still feel like shit, but I just wanna sleep it off. Shut your eyes. Now fall asleep, damn it. Alright, that’s not going to work. I’m just too miserable. Instead I’ll try to piece together everything that happened this week that led up to this.

I remember a conversation I had with Walden, about a week ago. Sunday, past midnight. Earlier that night I auditioned for Team Millennia in Fullerton, and as always, I had doubts leading up to and after the audition. Auditions always got emotionally stressful, but what won this particular audition the award for the most emotionally overwhelming one ever by far was an impromptu visit from Ranier over the weekend.

And now Ranier had left, and auditions had finished, and I was back at home in Irvine. Walden called me because he also happened to be in Irvine practicing for a performance he was going to dance in with a project team. I met with him at the parking structure where he was practicing, and we found a corner where we could chat. I had told him that I had a lot that I wanted to get off my mind. We talked about ex’s, both mine and his, and we talked about dancing, and some more about ex’s, and some more about dancing.

Walden, I know I’ve improved, but sometimes, I watch recent videos of my own dancing and I feel like the dancing I do now hasn’t really changed from the dancing I did a year ago.

Walden regurgitated the same thing I hear from everyone, about how I really did improve. I felt a little better though, because sometimes I just needed someone to remind me of that, but my dancing wasn’t even really the main issue. My feeling like I hadn’t changed went a lot deeper than dancing.

Walden, remember the night at the kickback when I ended up taking a hit from the bong? You know why I did it? It wasn’t because you or because anyone else at that kickback convinced me. It was because I was, and still am, tired of being the person that would choose calling special ed kids stupid over keeping a relationship with his boyfriend. I’m tried of being the person who has such a strong grip on reality and logic that it’s more like a desperate grasp for dear life, and I drop emotion and anything weighing me down in order to keep holding on. Trust me when I say that I am over my last ex, and trust me when I say that I no longer believe it’s ok to call special ed kids stupid, but despite these little things, I am still the same person. What if I get into a similar situation in the future, where I find that I have to choose between my own convoluted idea of logic and reality, versus an emotion I feel, like love, or regret, or plain happiness? I know I’m going to choose the former.

Something had to change, I concluded. If I can’t change my dancing, or the choices I make, I figured I should drink.

I wanna get fucked up, I told Walden. I think if I work at it, I can really start enjoying myself, so hit me up next time you’re partying.

Brandy.

No, fuck that. Crystal Geyser water. So purifying and refreshing. Open wide for...Brandy. Fuck.

I need to burp again. It’s just a burp. There’s no way that I’ll need to vomit again. Open your eyes, sit up. Get ready to push yourself from the sofa. No, I don’t need to do this because all I really need to do is just lie back down and close my eyes and it will all go away. Then I will wake up the next morning feeling great, and then I’ll go to class and then I’ll go to my friend’s birthday party later at night and drink some more there because drinking has to be the one thing I can change, so... I. Can’t. Fucking. Vomit. Now.

Now POWERWALK TO THE BATHROOM LIKE A BOSS.

Okay, looks like I still had some spinach sitting in my stomach. I’m sure at this point it’s like I never even had dinner at all.

How to Beast an Interview

I got called back for a third interview on September 8th. Seriously, for a preppy teen clothing store, the second interview, the one in which I was supposedly hired, already amounted to one too many interviews.

The new, recently hired manager wanted to check me out too. I felt more nervous for this third one because the new manager was a guy, and all my previous interviews for this store were with girls. I knew I always had pretty bad experiences when it came to interviews with guys.

The day of the interview, I stood there in the store nervously thumbing through distastefully stitched graphic tees that I would never wear, waiting for the new manager to appear from the backroom, and I prayed in my head that he would be gay. A male manager for a preppy teen clothing store? He had to enjoy cocks all up in his holes.

The backroom door burst open as he strutted out, tragus piercings and all. He chatted briefly with another worker, and I definitely heard him mention something about celebrities. He flicked his wrists with excitement the entire time.

Yes. Time to get my flirt on.

Well, I didn’t overtly flirt. I just put myself in the flirting mindset, which made me feel more at ease for the interview. But of course, in addition to rerolling my sweater sleeves up occasionally and thereby bringing attention to the popping veins in my forearms, I made sure to slip in the fact that I worked out:

“How do you handle a bad day?”

“Well, you can say that I’m having a bad day right now. I stayed up till 5 this morning studying, then I had two two-hour finals from 11 to 3, and now I’m here at this interview, as energetic as ever! And after this, I’m going to go home and go lift weights because I haven’t been able to all weekend!” I rolled up my sleeve and flexed my forearm as I very casually leaned forward.

“That’s really great. You will definitely hear back from us at the end of next week.”

I smiled and nodded.

Symphony

I was laying down my Pokémon comforter when the doorbell rang. Shit, he was here early; he was just too eager to get here. I adjusted the comforter, making sure that the shoebox hidden underneath it protruded like a pimple, and then I answered the door. I looked down at the wide smile on his face.

“Hi Dino!”

We embraced as I kissed him on the forehead. “Hi Trungy.”

He slipped past under my arms and ran up to the edge of the comforter. “What’s this?” He pointed at the bump in the center.

“It’s your present, duh. Now don’t lift up the comforter because I wanna get this on camer—TRUNG!”

He yanked off the comforter in one fell swoop, revealing an empty shoebox and what it was actually trying to divert attention from: a blanket depicting a giant green dinosaur stomping around in a bed flowers, with brown mountains and a blue sky in the background. Three clouds floated in the sky, each one carrying a checklist item: EAT, POOP, SLEEP. All but SLEEP were checked off.

Trung’s face already began lighting up as he pieced together what it was, but he needed confirmation: “What is this, Brian?”

“It’s a dinoblanket! Since I can’t be around to hold you all the time in your sleep and be your dinoblanket,” I paused to watch the glee overcoming Trung, “I figured I’d make you a more literal one that can be with you when you’re at UCLA and I’m at UCI.”

“DINOBRIAN!” Trung leapt right back into my arms with a giant grin on his face. I caught him, almost losing my balance, and held him back tightly. I ran my hand through his hair and kissed him gently on his head as we rocked back and forth, soaking in each other’s warmth and celebrating to ourselves.

“Happy late one-year anniversary,” I whispered, “or happy early thirteen-month anniversary, and merry late Christmas, Trung. I love you.”

“I love you too Dinobrian.”




Two hours past midnight, I looked at the date just to double check: August 26th, 2010. I smiled and messaged Trung online: “Happy one-year break up anniversary!”

“IN ABOUT SIXTEEN HOURS ONE YEAR AGO,” he joked, “I WILL BE CRYING.” He then proceeded to criticize me on how a ten-day blogging challenge I was doing on Tumblr was dumb, and that each day would be all about him anyway (according to him: ways to win my heart, people who mean a lot, things that cross my mind a lot, things that turn me on, etc, except for things that turn me off, of course).

On August 26th, 2009, some time past 10 PM, I picked up Trung at his house and parked the car around the corner under a lonely street light and some trees. Everything felt ironic; everything felt like it was coming back full circle. Back before we even officially declared our relationship status on December 8th, 2007, this was where Trung and I originally made out and did lewd things before I felt safe enough to bring him inside my house around my parents. Five months later, he forced me to choose between my relationship with him and my friendship with my friend Anh. I brought Trung back here to tell him I was choosing the friendship, but he fought and fought and insisted that I was making the wrong choice. He managed to convince me, and fifteen months later, we found ourselves back here again. We had grown a lot and come a long way since that first almost-breakup incident (and Trung even befriended Anh during times of turmoil in our relationship).

To this day, whenever my friends asked about why I broke up with Trung, I’d always give a very vague answer, because frankly, I couldn’t remember why. But what I was trying to remember was the reasons I gave Trung at the moment of the breakup, the reasons I listed in my breakup letter that I read to him. They were some pretty bullshit reasons, which was why I could never remember them, and both Trung and I knew they were all bullshit as I read them aloud. I knew the real reasons in my heart, and of course I could never forget those.

The contents of the letter never really mattered, because what Trung and I discussed after I read it was far more significant.



“So, in conclusion, uhh,” I folded the letter and set it in my lap, “ever since that one incident, our almost-breakup five months into our relationship, it was never meant to be.” I prepped myself for all the reasons Trung was going to list off to try to get me to stay again, but he remained silent. No yelling, and even more surprising, no tears. I looked at him. “Aren’t you going to try to convince me that I’m making the wrong choice again?”

Trung’s expression was cold and blank as he stared out through the front window. “Last night,” he began, “after I got back home from your place, I talked to Anh. I told him about how you wanted last night to yourself to write a letter about what was bothering you, and even though you said you probably weren’t going to break up with me, we concluded that that letter was going to be a breakup letter. After talking about it to Anh, it was right then and there that I accepted it. So no, Brian, I’m not going to try to convince you to stay.”

The whole time, I had felt a knot in my throat, but as Trung said those last words, I’m not going to try to convince you to stay, I thought I was going to burst into tears. A part of me had hoped that he could somehow save us. He’d always be the one to save our relationship when we had problems, but I understood that he could no longer play that role anymore.

“It’s funny,” Trung chuckled feebly. “Last night, Anh pointed out a bunch of the ironic things about this. We’re back here again, yeah, but you know how our friendship started in the first place, Brian? You read my blog and then messaged me on myspace. Essentially, our friendship started when you wrote to me, and now our relationship is ending the same way, your letter.”

I swallowed my tears and tried to appreciate Trung’s attempt at lightening the mood. “Ha, yeah, it’s true.”

“Brian,” Trung turned to face me, his voice more stern. “As much as I still want to be friends—you still want to be friends, right?”

I nodded.

“As much as I still want to be friends, I know we’re still going to have some problems at first. But can you just promise me one thing?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Can you keep Mop, please? Keep her with Op so that he doesn’t get lonely? Don’t burn her or shred her.”

I nodded. “Of course, I promise. I actually wanted to ask you the same thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Dinoblanket—you don’t have to sleep with it anymore, but, just keep it, yeah?”

He nodded. “Of course, I’ll keep it. I promise.”

We both looked away and stared out through the front window again. Silence fell. The window fogged up until there wasn’t anything to look at anymore, leaving us to do nothing but soak in each other’s warmth for what could’ve been the very last time.

That’s Just the Way It Is: Redux

(Continued from “That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 1” and “Part 2”)

Even though I didn’t like the fact that Breakthrough took place this year at a fancy private rich school in the equally rich and white and white-collar neighborhoods of Los Gatos this summer, I had to admit it was nice that, for once, the students had access to multiple microphones for celebration night.

Back in 2008, during evaluations after celebration night, I suggested getting more than one microphone because hardly anyone could hear the students who didn’t have one. Cesar retorted, “Great idea Brian. Feel free to buy us more microphones.” No one at that point in time ever thought that within another two years, Breakthrough would (unnecessarily) spend exorbitant amounts of money just so that they could ship their low-income students on buses every morning to a white, rich school—and I do say “white” and “rich” with some resent (looks like my students’ internalized racism has rubbed off on me, in combination with the things I’ve learned about white privilege and other stuff in college ethnic studies classes). But at least this summer, sitting in the very back on the bleachers in the gym I could hear every word that the students spoke on stage.

7 PM. The gymnasium thundered with applause as Breakthrough’s summer 2010 celebration night came to a close. Families shot from their seats to find their kids, while the kids scrambled to find their teachers for last-minute photos. As I sorted my way through the crowds, I found Timmy.

I was hoping that maybe we could pause to just chat a little bit more. Crack some jokes, discuss his summer, show off tutting combos, but he seemed to be in a hurry. Our conversation was limited to my request for a photo with him, our pose, and then his farewell as he disappeared back into the crowd.

I didn’t think too much of this until ten minutes later when Ross, one of this summer’s new teachers, emerged from the commotion with a New Era fitted cap in his hand. It was Timmy’s hat. A gift from him, Ross confirmed.

I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and slid it open. The picture that greeted me on the screen was a photo of me and several students at the first Super Saturday, including Timmy. He was wearing a hat, the same one that now rested on Ross’s head.



“Hey,” I sat down on a concrete ledge next to one of the new seventh graders. I already knew pretty much all the eighth graders because I worked with them the previous summer, so, now during the second week into my second summer at Breakthrough, I had decided it was time to get to know some of the new seventh graders. “I was standing over there when I noticed what you were doing,” I said.

“Oh yeah? What was I doing?” he asked.

I held out my left arm and bent my wrist at a right angle, and then I bent my elbow at another right angle and rotated my forearm up. “You were tutting. Well, finger tutting. I can kinda do tuts, but they’re not too clean.”

“Oh tight! You tut?”

I nodded.

“I know a finger tutting combo. Wanna learn it?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He’d later introduce himself as Timmy, and he would never get the chance to finish teaching me his tutting combo.



The crowd started to die as more families left for home with their kids. I was mostly standing around at this point instead of actively searching, but I still got requests for photos and hugs from students. That was nice. What really made me happy though was seeing the formerly shy Rosalina running up to me with a grin. I held out my right arm for a side hug, but she stopped when she got close. She asked me if I had seen Maymay anywhere. I pointed her toward the right direction. My shoulders slumped as she turned to run off, but I guess she noticed. She turned back around and approached me with open arms and a timid smile, one that I was more familiar with. We hugged, and then I let her go find Maymay.



“Breakthrooough twoo thousaaand and eeiight.”

I turned around to face a student who was trying to read some graffiti that my seven grade writing students drew on the whiteboard the other day. Rosalina, Cil, and a few more of my students from my dance class wandered through my door and sat on top of the desks. One quickly located my rolly chair and started to slide over the carpet. Students often liked to drop by my class in the morning before first period to hang out and get away from the cold.

“Brian,” Cil said, “when are you going to start teaching dance again?”

“I’m not sure. Since dance class is a supposed to be a ‘dance around the world in thirty days’ class, I probably won’t get another chance to teach breakdancing. Augusto will probably teach for the rest of the summer since he knows a bunch of different kinds of dances, enough to teach one a week. I only knew breakdancing.”

“Aw man!”

“What, you don’t like cumbia?”

“I don’t like Augusto,” a student interjected. Rosalina nodded solemnly.

“Yeah, you made dancing a lot funner,” Cil added.

“Really?”

They all nodded and agreed.

I turned my back to them and continued to write the agenda on the whiteboard, but I was really trying to cover a huge smirk.



There was actually one more student that I had to say goodbye to: Matty. I realized that I hadn’t seen him all night long except for a brief “hey” before the celebration began. All the families had filtered out of the gym at this point, leaving the teachers and a few students still inside. Matty wasn’t among them, so I headed outside, where there wasn’t much to see. Tarps getting taken down, tables getting folded together, bees buzzing around trash bags, families and kids taking off in their cars.

I spotted a small group of students chilling and headed toward them, but when I got close they all turned to look at me. None of them was Matty. I smiled, and feeling a little awkward, I bent down to pick up a paper plate, trying to play myself off as having clean-up duty.

I teetered my way back into the gym and planted myself on the bleachers, but I quickly jumped up when I spotted the elusive Fernando with his family and a few teachers in front of the stage. None of the other ninth graders nor I could find him earlier, so I had thought that he simply didn’t show up. But he was here. He and his family started to make their way toward the exit, so I got up to intercept. I was ready to run toward him, ready to shout his name and to wave my camera around in the air. But my feet didn’t take more than two steps before I slowed to a stop. I didn’t have anymore energy to lift my legs.

My eyes followed Fernando as he and his family walked out the door. Once their silhouettes disappeared, orange sunrays shined through the open door. I shielded my eyes until the door swiveled its way back into the doorway, slamming shut and locking out the sun. No more students. Clangs rang through the gym as teachers began folding up chairs.



9:30 AM. The students were coming, but one last thing remained. I scrawled today’s date on the top left corner of the white board in my best cursive: June 23rd, 2008. I turned around to see students already walking in and finding their seats.

A short boy took his seat. His hair was slicked and neatly combed to the side. He put down his backpack, pulled out his binder, placed it on his desk, and cupped his hands in his lap. He’d later introduce himself as Fernando, and he’d later be one of my only two seventh grade writing students to finish all three summers that the Breakthrough program had to offer.

A skinny girl took her seat. She had pale, barely brown skin and long straight dark hair. Her backpack remained strapped to her back. As she leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands, she shook her bangs aside, but they lazily fell back down across her face, obscuring her long, bored gaze. She’d later introduce herself as Leandra, and she’d later teach me how frustrating it was to work with and to control her, but also how rewarding it was to see her shine in her best moments.

A chubby, perhaps overweight boy took his seat. He wore pants and a white polo, which had some visible stains; this was probably his school uniform, although Breakthrough never enforced a dress code for the summer. He dropped his backpack by his side and reclined in his chair. His head turned toward the window, and he looked like his mind had already drifted somewhere beyond the classroom. He’d later introduce himself as Paulo, and I’d later learn about his processing disorder and be one of his first and only few friends at Breakthrough.

A few more students straggled through the door and found their seats. Once I counted ten students, I prepped myself and began. “Hello everyone,” I said, “and welcome to Breakthrough. My name is Brian, and this is my first summer teaching at Breakthrough, just as this is your first summer attending it. I just recently graduated from high school, and this fall I’m heading down to SoCal—that’s Southern California—for college at UC Irvine. I’m majoring in French, and I hope to become a French teacher. If all goes well, I should be graduating in four years in 2012. Some things I like to do include—”

“Hey!”

I turned my head toward a student standing at the door.

“Is this Mark’s seventh grade writing class?” he asked.

“Well, this is seventh grade writing,” I answered, “but Mark’s class is down the hall.”

“K, thanks!” He rushed off. I’d later learn that that kid was Mickey. When he saw my face and I saw his, neither of us had ever suspected the kind of crazy bullying that he would have to put up with and the kind that I would fail to prevent in my classroom a year later.

I poked my head out the door to see if there were anymore students lost in the hallways. Everyone had found their way to their classrooms, so I returned to the front of the whiteboard.

“Well,” I said, “it looks like everyone’s here...” I glanced over my students and took turns locking eyes with each and everyone of them, and they’d timidly smile back as I smiled at them, all of us unaware of the kinds of relations we’d form, the struggles we’d go through, and the breakthroughs we’d make together.

I clasped my hands. “Alright!” I cheered. “Let’s get started.”

That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 2

At 4:30 on a hot sunny Saturday, parents and kids came together to congregate outside a school gymnasium. As they lined up for the potluck table, they fought for shade under the tarps so that they wouldn’t sweat in their Sunday outfits. Families sat at picnic tables, on concrete ledges, and in the grass underneath the trees. The kids introduced their parents to their new best friends they made over the summer, and different families sat together to get to know one another. Smiles and laughter set the day’s mood, the right kind of mood for a prideful celebration of success, friendships, and education. Tonight, the night of July 31st, was Breakthrough’s summer 2010 celebration night.

Trung and I were busy standing at a sign-in table and handing out programs to arriving parents.

“Are you my daughter’s teachers?” a mom asked us.

“Oh yes, your daughter was in my French class,” Trung answered. She smiled and then turned to me.

“Oh, I’m not a teacher this year,” I said as I pointed to the last line on my name tag. It read BTSJ Summers ‘08 & ‘09. “However, I knew your daughter last year!” She smiled again, though not as big, and then she left quickly to get in line for the potluck.

My smile turned crooked. “Alright,” I said, “I’m going to go catch up with the students.”

I spotted Patty lingering around the side of a building by herself. I sighed and chuckled to myself; Patty was still Patty, sweet and smart with a slight sting of self-importance. Time to go rescue her from loneliness.

As I headed toward her, she looked up at me and started walking toward me. I waved my hand and smiled, but to my surprise, she kept on walking and stared right past me. It wasn’t until we were a yard apart when she noticed and stopped. “Oh hi Brian! You actually came all the way from Irvine?”

“Yeah, of course I—”

“Pattyyy!!!” A student came up from behind me and hugged her. It was Lylith, a student who shared one of my eighth grade classes with Patty last year. “Did you bring the present?” she asked her.

“Yeah, it’s in my car right now. I wasn’t too sure if I should’ve brought it out. Are we are going to give it to her now?” Patty said.

“Yeah, of course!”

Gift? “Wait.” I tried to cut into the conversation. “Gift for who?”

“For Maymay!” Patty answered.

Maymay. She was the language arts teacher for the ninth graders—all seven of them.

Two more of the ninth graders gathered around to discuss the secret gift. One of the two was Rosalina, who took my (and another teacher’s) dance class as a seventh grader, a very shy seventh grader. Now she was taking a very active part in the discussion. Lan and Jake couldn’t make it to celebration night tonight, and no one could find Fernando, the seventh ninth grader. The four ninth graders present decided that it’d be just them who’d give the gift to Maymay.

“Alright,” Patty said, “I’ll go to my car and grab the present.” She turned around started running, but I called out her name.

“Patty!” I caught up to her. “Need someone to accompany you to your parents’ car? Y’know, just in case the forest monsters come out of the tree and try to grab you.”

Patty smiled, humoring me. “Sure Brian, protect me from the forest monsters.”

“Alright,” I said. She took off running, and I followed close behind her to the parking lot.



“Brian! Slow down!” Patty caught up to me as I rushed through the hallway to the staff room to get my lunch. I knew what she wanted to talked about, so I spoke before she could.

“Patty, it’s the last day of Breakthrough. Spend time with your crew, say goodbye to them at the very least.”

“They can wait,” she said. “I was never really one for crew time. I’ll have to see them all again anyway next summer.”

“Not a lot of students come back for the ninth grade program.”

“Are you coming back next year for the ninth grade program?” she asked.

“I, uh...” I stuttered. “Alright Patty, what did you really want to talk about?”

“Oh you know what I wanted to talk about,” she laughed. “I just can’t believe you all had us a fooled.”

I shrugged. “Well, you guys kept on guessing girl teachers.” My students knew that I was dating another teacher on staff, and they had been trying to figure out who all summer long. Only very few knew because they managed to find holes in my privacy settings for MySpace and FaceBook before I readjusted them, but they respected my request to not let the secret out. On the last day of Breakthrough, I had given them permission to tell anyone who asked. Pretty much all of my students who didn’t know went straight to them.

“You and Trung,” Patty said. “It makes so much sense now.”

“Definitely makes a lot more sense than me and Olga, right?”

“Yeah, definitely. You and Trung are adorable; I hope you two last.”

I nodded. “Let’s hope so too. You should probably go line up with your crew now so they’re not waiting on you.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll talk to you later!”



We all gathered behind a building. I leaned against a tree watching as Lylith brought Maymay over to Patty, the two ninth graders, and the really big, wrapped shoulder-to-shoulder length box, which was topped off with a nice and neat bowtie. Maymay saw the box and covered her mouth.

“This is from all of us ninth graders,” Patty said. “Lan and Jake couldn’t be here today, and no one knows where Fernando is right now, but they pitched in. We all did.”

Maymay stood in place, speechless.

“What are you waiting for?” Lylith said. “Go ahead and open it!”

Maymay carefully kneeled down in front of the box and undid the bow. She lifted the lid and pulled out the tissue paper, gently laying them all to the side. Then she reached inside with both hands and pulled out a thick fleece hoodie.

“Oh my gosh!” she cried. “Is this because...it’s always...” she paused to fight back tears. “It was always freezing in our classroom and how I...”

“...and you never had a sweater,” Patty finished for her.

Maymay fanned herself profusely, overcome with surprise and joy. “My gosh, I told myself I wasn’t going to cry tonight.” She took a deep breath and suddenly turned to me. I was taken aback by her teary pink eyes. “Were you in on this too, Brian?”

“Nah, I didn’t find out about the plan until fifteen minutes ago. I just helped transport the gift from the car to here. It was in a pretty big heavy box, y’know. It was all these four here, and the rest of the ninth graders.”

She turned back toward them, beaming. All four of them surrounded her in a giant group hug, as I, now feeling awkward leaning there against a tree, glanced away, but I couldn’t help but sneak peeks every now and then to see if they were still swaying in their huddle. Yep, still hugging.

The Breakthrough summer class of 2010. They started out in seventh grade in 2008, and I started with them. We originally started with over sixty, but when they came back as eighth graders in 2009, a good handful had dropped out, leaving us with fifty. Throughout Breakthrough’s history, only few students ever come back for the ninth grade and final summer, however, and so for this year, the Breakthrough class of 2010 only came back as six students.

I had grown with my students, being the seventh grade writing teacher when they were seventh graders, and being the eighth grade writing teacher the following summer when they were eighth graders. I wasn’t there for the few ninth graders that came back. (Hell, I wasn’t too sure if they would’ve given me ninth grade language arts if I had come back for a third summer.)

After looking at the ninth graders give Maymay the gift though, and after hearing all the great things about her from my students during my first visit four weeks ago, them today at celebration night, and Trung throughout the last six weeks, I couldn’t be any happier that the students who I raised the past two summers ended with a strong and great teacher, one that was a far better teacher than I had ever been. Clearly.

6 PM. The doors to the gymnasium opened. It was time to head inside and commence Breakthrough’s summer 2010 celebration night. I didn’t want to break up the giant group hug, so I quietly left the scene to head inside.

That’s Just the Way It Is: Part 1

I made it.

I really made it. I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to scream, jump, and cry, all at once because I knew that this was the start of something new in my life. Out of the hundred people that tried to get it, only very few actually got it. My last few years of dedication and wanting something like this finally paid off.

I sat on the toilet again to listen to the voice message on my phone one last time before heading back out to work: Hello Brian, this is Cesar Mendez calling to inform you that after looking over your application again and carefully considering your interview, we would like to offer you a position as a teacher this summer for Breakthrough 2008.



The bus finally departed from the parking lot. I sat next to the window, staring out at the sky and trying to avoid any conversation with the crazy Vietnamese lady sitting next to me. I planned on sleeping through the entire seven-hour bus ride because I didn’t get any after I came back from the summer intensive kick back at 4:30 AM, which was five hours ago.

My brain filled with thoughts, however. I was on my way back up to NorCal for Breakthrough’s Celebration night. My main concern was whether or not this trip was worth it, because I was starting to doubt. Would my being at Celebration Night have any real impact for the students? I know when I visited my Breakthrough students at the end of their second week, they were excited and missed me very much. But that was only the second week, the second out of six weeks. Four weeks had passed since then, giving my students enough time to adjust and finally make friends with the new teachers. Four weeks also gave them time to forget about me, to find their replacements.

Hell, I felt like sometimes I wasn’t even that memorable. Last year at celebration night, the students roared like crazy when the first picture of me came up in the slide show, but it was, I figured, because I was a fun guy. Fun—something that only lied on the surface level. There were other teachers, including Trung, who had students that confided deep dark secrets to them. Trust and respect—that was what I thought made a teacher memorable. Anyone could be fun. I made a lot of jokes with students, but I hardly ever had anyone confide in me their secrets.

But this kind of shit happens, I tried to convince myself. It’s part of being a teacher. Every beginning of the school year, students get new teachers, and teachers get new students. Everyone is able to move on and forget about each other. So why did I still hang onto the students I had last summer, and hell, the students I had two summers ago?

When I taught at Breakthrough, I had convinced myself that the students needed me, and in turn, I needed them.

Somewhere along my line of thinking, I finally fell asleep.



“Oh my gaaaaaaawd it’s so hot in here,” a teacher groaned.

All twenty-six teachers retreated into the classroom, sat at our seats, and planted our faces on our desks, groaning and tired after having returned from a “team-building” day at a laser tag arena.

Theo, who was always bursting with limitless energy, paraded through the door carrying his boom box. Having been a veteran Breakthrough teacher, this summer he came back as the Dean of Students, a role that he very much deserved because of his insight into who these students we’d be teaching really were.

The second he opened his mouth to talk, all groans and murmurs ceased. “Alright everyone!” he began. “The first day of teaching starts in three days on Monday. Y’all made it through a very long and hard week of training. I know y’all are tired so I’m going to let you guys relax some more, but I’m going to play a song and I want y’all to really pay attention to the lyrics behind it. I didn’t just randomly choose a song for y’all to knock out to. I think this song really represents some of the struggles of our Breakthrough students, and when you guys listen to it, I want you to think about things like, how can I help my students? How can I be a teacher, role model, and friend to my students? What kind of impact am I making on their lives? Remember, these students—they need you.”

He finished his speech on that note—the students needed us. Us. The room remained silent as we tried to comprehend the meaning of this.

Theo, glad to see us reawakened, set down his boom box and hit play.

A nostalgic-sounding string of piano notes filled the room. I thought it sounded nice, nothing else, but nearly everyone else applauded in approval. The bassline kicked in, followed by the lyrics. It was rap.

Come on come on—
I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask myself,
is life worth living, should I blast myself?
I’m tired of bein’ poor and even worse I’m black.
My stomach hurts so I’m lookin’ for a purse to snatch.
Cops give a damn about a negro:
Pull the trigger kill a nigga—he’s a hero.
Give the crack to the kids—Who the hell cares?
One less hungry mouth on the welfare.

I looked around shifty-eyed and then decided that I should nod my head, pretending that I recognized this apparently old-school song that everyone had heard.

We gotta start makin’ changes.
Learn to see me as a brother instead of two distant strangers,
and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
How can the Devil take a brother if he’s close to me?
I’d love to go back to when we played as kids,
but things changed, and that’s the way it is

Come on come on...
That’s just the way it is.
Things’ll never be the same.
That’s just the way it is.
Aww yeah.

Weeds

I slouched back on a couch and watch an inebriated Alfonso play Marvel vs. Capcom against another inebriated guy. It was 3:30 AM, just an hour and a half after we all got some Mexican food and celebrated the end of our dance camp’s July session. The impromptu kickback at an apartment of a dancer we hardly ever talked to already started to die. At least, it was dying until a few others came through the door with a fresh bag of greens.

No one wasted any time. In less than a minute, people were already lighting up a bong.

After taking a few hits, one particular dancer named Walden planted himself next to me on the couch. “Since you refused to drink,” he said to me, “you have to get high.”

I rolled my eyes. “No,” I told him.

“Com’n, just one hit!”

I folded my arms. “No, and don’t bother trying. You’re not going to convince me.”

“Look, I don’t want to convince anyone to try anything that they haven’t ever done before, which is why I’m leaving your friend Kelvin alone over there, but you said you’ve tried it once before. Why not do it again?”

“Because I didn’t like it my first time.”

“Why didn’t you like it?”

“It’s complicated and it’ll take forever to explain. So just know, I didn’t like it before, and I’m not going to like it now.”

“Maybe you didn’t smoke with the right people. Maybe you need to smoke it with uuuh-uh-uh-us.” He motioned at some people standing in the kitchen chatting amongst themselves. I looked at Jacob, who was sitting on another couch taking a hit. He looked up at me and shook his head, cautioning me not to give in.

“It’s not about the people,” I said. “It’s about smoking itself. It’s the effects that I don’t like.”

“What’s wrong with the effects?”

“Look, my full reason is long and convoluted, so I’ll just tell you this: I like reality the way it already is, and I hold my perception of it really dearly to me. I don’t let anything or anyone come and change my reality and the way I perceive it. Okay?”

“So you won’t even take just one hit?” Walden asked.

“No, I won’t.”

Walden dropped his shoulders and sighed. “Ok, fine.” He lifted himself off the couch and left somewhere outside.

I sat there quiet, still slumped in my seat and twiddling my thumbs. With Walden out of my face, I buried myself deep into my thoughts, deep enough to seriously consider whether or not I wanted to do this.



“Realize what?” Trung asked.

My eyes followed a bright green sign until it disappeared over the roof of my car. Two miles until the Bay Bridge, a four-mile menace that hung some several hundred feet over a deep dark boundless body of treacherous waters. I took several deep breaths and grasped my steering wheel with both hands.

“Maybe I was wrong,” I paused to take a breath and noticed that my emotions were starting to overwhelm me. “And maybe I’ve been wrong the last entire two years.”

“Well hell yeah you’ve been wrong!” Trung chastised me. “Rainy was pretty much all you could ask for in a guy. Dancer, singer, Filipino, not a douchebag, yet you broke up with him! And for what, Brian. For what?”

“Well it was because—”

“It was so you could continue calling special ed kids stupid! So that you could make fun of students with mental disabilities for not being as smart as other kids their age.”

I kept my hands glued to the steering wheel. The last exit before the Bay Bridge was approaching in less than half a mile. Should I use this chance to escape? “It’s more than that,” I tried to rationalize. “It was about the way I think, the way I see things, which was what Ranier tried to change. And you know that I can’t let go of the way I see things. It makes me who I am, and who I’ve been for a really long time. I made a sacrifice and...”

“And what?”

There was no use rationalizing, especially since I already admitted the truth to myself. “Like I said, I—I’m wrong. I...I made the wrong choice.” My throat throbbed.

“Look Brian, I know this whole thing with you calling special ed kids stupid and your rationale for doing it—I know that this is you, that this is something you can’t and won’t change for a really long time, but...” Trung looked at me and noticed my lips quivering. “...Are you okay?” he asked.

I barely uttered the “f” in “I’m fine” when I felt every little bit of anguish pent inside of me come bursting out in an embarrassingly high-pitched wail. Tears immediately streamed down my face.

“Brian!” Trung lifted both his hands as if to do something, but his seatbelt restrained him.

“I’m...” A pant accompanied each syllable, and each syllable came out distorted by my struggle to fight back more sobbing. “I’m. Fucking. Fine. God fucking damn it!” I pried one hand off the steering wheel so I could wipe off my tears, and shielding my face from Trung, I wept under my breath and panted through my nose.

“Brian...” Trung sighed. He placed his hand on the back of my head and rubbed it gently. “It’s okay, Brian. Let it all out...and maybe you should get off the freeway before we get onto the Bay Bridge.”

I looked through the rearview mirror to see the last exit disappear behind me. It was too late to get off. But that didn’t matter. I opened my mouth and breathed out, letting the cries stagger out.



I leaned forward on the couch and scratched my head. “Alfonso,” I said. “I wanna take a hit.”

Alfonso, bong in hand, exchanged a glance with Kelvin. “Wait, what?” Kelvin said. “Did Walden change your mind?”

“No, he didn’t. Just pass me the bong.” Alfonso sat down next to me with the bong, and Jacob came over to ask me if I really wanted to do this. “Yeah,” I told him. “Don’t question my reasons. Just light it up.”

The Gummy Octopus

Our teacher sat in her big red comfy chair, and we sat on the floor. We looked up at her. She held something in her hand. A clear tub with a bunch of colors inside.

She said, in Vietnamese, “Do you know what this is?” she lifted the tub up.

I tried to see more inside of it, but there was a really big fat sticker covering the front part of it.

A student raised his hand, and the teacher called on him. He said, “I think the label says... gummy...oc-to-...”

“Gummy octopuses!” she smiled. “It’s the second week of first grade, and we just had our first English spelling test last Friday. Every week, I’m going to award each student who gets an eighty percent or better on his test with a gummy octopus.”

Gummy octopus! Eighty percent or better! I scooted up to the front and smiled really big. She smiled back and read a list of names. They got the gummy octopuses. I listened for my name.

She read: “Tuan, Alexis, Ly, Qui, Ben, Bao, Joanna, Trang, Phuc, and Daisy.” They all got up to get their gummy octopuses. I waited for my teacher to say more names.

They all sat down, and I still waited. She put the lid back on the tub and put it away, and she told us to go back to our seats. No more gummy octopuses for today.

I stopped smiling and felt sad. I wanted to say something but I didn’t know what to say. I must of got a seventy-nine percent. But I thought I did really good! One of the spelling words was ‘turkey,’ and I put ‘red’ instead because I thought that was a more better word. Maybe next week, I’ll get a gummy octopus.



The clock ticked 1 AM when I sat down on the floor in the middle among twenty other dancers. Tired, sweaty, and hungry, we had just danced our way through an intense four and a half hours, and now we all wanted to leave, go eat, and go back home. But now we all waited anxiously as our captains reviewed all their notes and made their final decisions about who they would cast in which of our set’s seven pieces.

I had been taking dance classes five days a week all throughout June. I drove to Covina for classes at Stylz Studio Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, and on Tuesday and Thursday I drove to La Habra for a one-month long session of dance camp from Team Millenia. The classes at Stylz were no more than classes, but the choreography that I learned with Team Millenia would actually be put together in a performance for a big showcase of all the TM dance camp sessions at the end of the summer, like the Funksters Summer Intensive dance camp I took (and whined about a lot) last summer. Throughout the month we had been auditioning for each piece, and tonight, we auditioned for our last two. The captains had waited until the very end of the session to tell us which pieces we were chosen for, and now, they were going to reveal who got into what piece.

My friend Angela sat down next to me. “What pieces do you think you’ll get into?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. We’ll see. I don’t wanna get my hopes up.” Secretly though, I knew I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get into like at least two because then I would feel like I didn’t improve at all since last summer.

Then I learned that by default, each dancer got into at least three pieces. So I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get four or more.

Our two captains stood up in the front with their lists, ready to read us names. “Alright, so we’re going to go through each piece and read the ones who got casted in them. Ready? We’re starting with TL’s piece, so listen for your name.”

They went through the names in alphabetical order, so when they read “Brent” followed by “Cameron,” I sighed and dropped my shoulders a little. Then they went through the list for the next piece. Again, they skipped from “Binh” to “Carly.”

“...and Randy. That’s it for CJ’s piece. Now we’re going to read names for Will’s contemporary piece. We only chose thirteen dancers for this one. Congratulations to Adriana...”

When I auditioned for this the previous week, the judges told me that I really, really surprised them in a great way. I wasn’t too sure if I could believe them, because my body was made too awkwardly and too inflexibly for contemporary. So, I didn’t get my hopes up for this one.

“...Ben, Brian—”

My eyes widened.

“OOOOOH SHIT!” my friends all turned toward me with their high-five hands already raised.

“Congrats dude,” Alfonso patted me on the back. I shrugged. I had yet to get my default number of pieces, so I didn’t want to think much of getting into this one piece, yet.

Then I got into the next piece. Alright, I was in two.

The captains started on the list for a piece that we auditioned just today and only had two days to practice. Maybe no one else practiced it really thoroughly, because I got into that one too.

There were two more pieces left that I might’ve been casted in. I wondered if I was in at least one of them. That one more would mean a lot. If I didn’t get it, then I’d have trouble convincing myself that I didn’t just get relegated to my three current pieces by sympathetic default. But if I did get that fourth piece, then I could turn my interpretations completely around and think that it was not the captains, but me who put in the time and effort to place myself in the pieces.

I didn’t get the second to the last one. Instead, I got the outro, my fourth piece. I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Once the captains finished reading their lists, all the dancers around me erupted into chatter about what pieces they got into. My friends were still congratulating me about managing to get into the contemporary piece, but now, at this point I just wanted to go eat and then sleep.

My friends and I did eat, but then we all got invited to party/have a kickback with the other TM dance camp dancers, but what ensued was a totally different story.