Happy Love Day

I won't say Happy V Day, since I know there are a lot of single people out there who hate this holiday. And even non-single people who hate it.

Anyhow, I just take it as an excuse to tell all the people I love that I love them, even though I'm significant-other-less. It's a great day, why waste it? No need to be angry or bitter or sad.

Just enjoy it.

So I wish all of you a great February 14, whether you're with friends, family, or a special someone today!

Drink wine, eat chocolates, and gormandize on great foods!

Tough times at K-muki High

From yesterday:

Had one of my roughest days today.

Was really looking forward to class at Kaimuki, thinking I was more prepared to handle a large class full of girls (and one boy). I even took an hour and a half to prep materials today, which usually never happens because, well, it never takes that long. I thought I had it down.

But instead, I was in over my head. At least, today. I was so stressed after two of my students decided they would like to fist fight after school. They were both girls. Just some catty, meaningless shit went down and they threwdown. I was just so, I dunno. Caught off guard would probably explain it best.

I know this has nothing to do with me, but today's incident just stressed the hell out of me. It sounds lame, but I just care so much about the kids, and have a pretty good idea of how I want us to learn, to relate, to cooperate and coexist. But when two of your students decide fighting is more important, it's just frustrating. I also care a lot about how I should handle the situation, in a way that doesn't put down any of the kids, but rather, empowers them. Empowers them to make better decisions, to think differently, to challenge themselves and others.

But if they decide fighting is more important, what can you do?

I especially hate to see young women do this kind of thing to each other.

I think I was most overwhelmed because I felt so unprepared and a little helpless. I'm sure I've made the situation much more than it really is, i.e. this will probably be forgotten in a week, but I get anxious over how I should handle the aftermath in our next class, a week from now.

Maybe I just need to stop caring so much. I even lost naptime sleep over this because my mind was racing over what I could have, should have, will have to, do.

Thank goodness for Aya.

I know it'll be on my mind until next class, but hopefully the frustration and hint of dread at confronting and solving the problem will lessen each day. It always does, after all. It's kind of like, really looking forward to something, working super hard for it, and then having it all thrown back in your face. Real talk though, at this point, the prison dealio is WAY more rewarding. Infinitely more so at the moment.

And then fast forward to today.
It's all in the past, at least for now. I was able to talk it out with a few people, and I am not too stressed about it anymore.

The further bad news came about 8 am this morning, when the school counselor, who I had alerted about the incident, called me to let me know the fight had continued elsewhere and it ended up in one my students getting ganged up on.

I was being hard on myself for not being able to deal with a situation in a way that would have avoided the confrontation in the first place, but I guess it's out of my hands. And just my fucking luck, this is the first time the school has had to deal with an incident like this - at least, according to admin.

Anyhow, I'll just worry about how to deal with the situation next Wednesday, I guess. I'm kind of relieved Monday is a holiday, so as to give me ample time to think it through. One thing's for sure - the rest of the class is to be commended in stopping the fight when it first started outside the classroom.

Otherwise, can't complain about much else. My roommate, Maki Ino (no relation to Aya as far as we all know) is amazing. She cooks great, hearty meals for the both of us every night, and it's smooth sailing after practice. How lucky. Hooked up our new HD tv last night, rearranged the place - it's like a whole new living situation. Love it.

Here's to hoping next week runs a little more smoothly.

Much Ado About Nothing

A poster I made for the kids, last semester, in my attempt to explain to them how the electoral process works. It was interesting to try and break something down for them in a way they could grasp, and it's always fun to draw these things.

Kaimuki starts up again next week, and I am excited. The curriculum last semester covered 3 main topics: Megacities (and their environmental issues), the Presidential Election, and then Aquaculture (fisheries etc).

But this semester, get this - the three topics: 1) Sustainability, 2) CHILD LABOR and 3) REFUGEES. It's like, stuff right up my alley, and there's so much I want to do it blows my mind. These topics are always of course in the context of Asia as it relates to Hawaii, so I'm really hyped about being able to do this with the kids. That combined with the trial and error results I was able to take from last semester, makes for a sum of, well, Candice is looking forward to this.

From talking to folks and working with some of the kids whenever I can get volunteer time at or around the prison, I'm just kind of baffled at the whole prison system in Hawaii. I'm not too educated about the PIC as it relates specifically to Cali, but out here it's, I dunno. There aren't even words.

And the system works for some kids, but mostly, these kids are so in and out - doing time and trying to finish their sentences when they've already done some time earlier for whatever. The thing is, some of these kids are good kids, they're just in tough situations and don't have the resources or the guidance to stop the cycle. I guess that's a no-brainer, but it's one of few observations I've been trying to take away from all this.

Of course taiko has been keeping me busy so it's been hard to do as much as I'd like, but I can't complain about taiko either. It'll be exciting to tell my kids and my grandkids about my days in Hawaii, studying taiko and pursuing the passion, at least for a little while. It was a revelation that crossed my mind, mid-odaiko lesson.

Been keeping up on a book Dawn gave me as a Christmas gift, a book of poetry by Nikki Giovanni. Not usually big on poetry, but this is really cool. All on an African-American woman's perspective, circa Civil Rights and on. About everything from love to loss to community to politics.

I grew up too spoiled to have to cook for myself most nights because I can't afford to eat out. I think I will either need to fix that, or come into some money once I've finally settled down. haha like that will happen.

Okay this post is going nowhere really, but it's always fun to ramble, blog-style. If you haven't listened to Sweet's Ballroom Blitz lately, do it. It's just too good to pass up.

A time for expression

This - just something that comes to mind when I have a day all to myself, and no urgent errands or matters to tend to. It is a revelation that was brought on by a dream I had last night, and one that surprises me in so many ways.

Even after 4 years everything you’ve done for me resonates each day of my life. I dreamt about you, too, last night. It still happens, every so often, more or less catches me by surprise. Just when I think I’ve forgotten, I wake up with new memories, only to realize it was a creation of my subconscious.

In so many ways, your having been there, my having met you – has changed and affected me to an extent I could have never imagined. When I think of my goals, my aspirations, my dreams in life, I always think about what your opinions would be of them. Would you approve? Would you frown upon them?

Oftentimes, I make decisions based on how I think you would view them. Or what you would think of them.

I always wonder what my life would have been like without that kind of a lingering influence. Better? Worse? Of course I will never know, or maybe I will, sometime in the near and new future.

And even without the unexpected dreams, I still have the memories of what you used to be like, of all the great, as well as tough, times we shared together. Just like best friends would. A ramen place, a day at Disneyland, community work – insignificant, everyday reminders that shape themselves into my image of you. Even when I try to create my own memories, there is always something that brings me back to a link with you that already exists.

It’s interesting, to think that the person I am today might be attributed so much to the role you played in my life. It has undeniably helped make me a stronger person, in so many ways, and for that I of course have you to thank. It also makes me wonder how much of me is really, well, ME. And not you. Or at least, not because of you.

While that question has yet to be answered, ultimately, I have made it, and I am happy. In spite of you.

After a Long Hiatus

Back in Honolulu, and chillin like a villain. Kinda.

Off to the Big Island tomorrow for a few days, to play some taiko and perform and possibly earn some money. That should be exciting, especially since it'll be a (supposedly) chill three days.

Everything has been different here now, with the roommates gone, more free time, and a little less money. But mo' money, mo' problems, right?

First, the house. Kind of lonely, since I'm by myself until new roommate (a taiko girl) moves in next month. Lots of cleaning up, and a few traumatizing cockroach incidents. Or, well, one. A real physical run-in with a large sized cockroach scampering around my room. Clear out more furniture to refresh the look of the place, and you can add a few more cockroach bodies and a gecko skeleton to the equation. (The roaches are gone but the skeleton is still here. I am way too freaked out to touch it.)

Yeah, it's freakishly dirty up in here because a lot of the furniture and things around the house haven't been moved/cleaned in way too long. Strictly speaking room and board-wise, I can't wait to get back to LA. But I make do, and this IS home, for now. My room is clean, at least, once the cockroach was subtracted.

Second, a new volunteering gig teaching at-risk and incarcerated youth. Definitely the experience of my life right now, working with youth who have had it rough and either dropped out of school or ended up in youth prison for whatever reason (read: drug dealing, robberies, even shootings). I basically am helping out this nonprofit with providing job readiness trainings for these kids, most from 15-18, so that they can get out of a detrimental routine and earn a living for themselves.

Kind of a reality check in life, once again - about my own privilege. Also an unfortunate reminder of the pretty f-ed up nature of the system, Island-style.

It's almost like a new life for me here now, different than what I was experiencing and living from August to December. Not different bad or better, just - different, I guess.

But things have been good - met a great group of people outside of taiko, and it's always thrilling to widen my social circle out here. I'm grateful for them.

Taiko itself is great, kind of feel like I'm more on my own since Kels and Dave are gone and I don't have them to go to, but all in all I can't complain. Just trying to get in the groove of teaching taiko classes on my own this time, and then of course trying to, well, get GOOD at taiko itself. Like, really good.

The high school teaching gig starts again in a week, so that'll be fun, I hope. After last semester, via trial and error I definitely have a better idea of how I should run the class, so that's nice to have. It'll also help pay the bills so I can stop living off of canned food for lack of money! (Okay, well, it's not THAT bad. But - kinda.)

Also trying to work off that holiday grubbiness, haven't been able to drag my lazy ass on a run yet (shame) but the ab workouts have been productive, and I try to choose active alternatives to travel and transportation (i.e. walk that shit).

Listening to my brand new pink iPod shufflies helps too.

The mosquitoes have already gotten me. 7 or 8 leg bites and counting.

Thanks for the welcome home, Honolulu.

(PS Happy MLK Jr Day, and Happy Obama Day tomorrow.)

A New Year, a new life

Well, kind of. I was just trying to make the title catchy.

LA's been a blast, and it was so nice seeing everyone, being home with family and the cat, going to DISNEYLAND and having the time of my life, going bowling, purikura-taking, eating Chinese food, having drinks with old friends, going on random drives....

The list goes on.

Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for reading! I fly back to Honolulu on Saturday the 3rd...and I won't be back in LA most likely until August.

Much love!

From the plane, 11/30 (brace yourself)

Sitting on the plane back to Honolulu, I read my magazines – the ones I spent nearly $15 on – to keep myself company, since my money was stored away in the overhead cabin 2 or 3 rows away, way out of reach without inconveniencing the other passengers, and I couldn't buy a pair of 2 dollar headphones. (I’m sure the kindly gentleman in seat 23D didn’t appreciate my torso in his face when I put my bag up there to begin with.)

I read about Michelle Rhee, the chancellor or superintendent of public education in DC, and about MIA as an artist and revolutionary. Both with very different stories, doing completely different things, but sharing the goal of subversion. Rhee, with her attack on the school system in ways that both alienated and excited education proponents, and MIA, with her family activist background, unusual sound, and determined character that led to her success as a South Asian female rapper.

I thought back to my conversation with Viet about this – “subversion.” It’s the age- old question of, do we keep fighting the system, or do we just learn to work within it?

And then it led me to my own life, and my own passions about my community, about my politics and my own convictions. Different people take action in different ways – Michelle Rhee by just doing, without caring about what anyone else says, and MIA through her music. They both though, are working within the system to try and break it down.

What is my own way of breaking down the system? My own way of taking action? And why the hell do I care so much?

I definitely consider myself significantly privileged, in my everyday life – in education, materialistically, financially, even at home. I’ve had a good education thus far and have the resources to continue onto law school like I plan (knock on wood), just got a new macbook, can make just enough money to get by with parental backup as an option if not, and my family is the shit. I appreciated them before while I was in college, but I love them all the more now that I’m away in Hawaii.

The two women I just read about came from intense immigrant backgrounds and lived through some degree of intense hardship and struggle.

But then again, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I was born and raised in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, on a street called Breed right by First and Soto streets. My parents are 14 years apart in age, my father my mother’s senior, and I only vaguely remember growing up in that house as a baby, with the vomit-green carpet and matching curtains. From watching home videos of myself and my sister growing up, I remember that I was pretty jealous of my sister when she was born, getting all the attention as a baby and all that. My mother had doted on me like crazy, being the first-born daughter that could read Dr. Seuss smoothly by the age of 2. But of course things change when a newer, cuter baby is born into the family.

Still, my parents did a good job of raising us without all that potential emotional baggage that can seep into a family’s history and subconscious.

Boyle Heights was an unforgivingly impoverished neighborhood, and it deprived our family of days out at the park, learning how to ride our bikes or run around and play ball with the neighborhood kids. Instead, my sister and I never learned how to ride bikes, and walking a block away was dangerous. We lived in something like fear, of the neighborhood gangs and drug dealing, and the occasional gunshots that would ring out in the middle of the night. Homeless folk would wander into our backyard and camp out there until my dad would scare them off with the katana (samurai swords) he owned. We were burglared a few times, but escaped any bodily harm, those 19 years we lived there. We even hated our neighbors.

In kindergarten I also attended the local school, Breed Street School, only a 2 minute walk from home. I have fond memories of that school, as the only Asian American kid (though of course I had no clue at the time) who unknowingly picked up the Spanish-accented English the other children spoke. I still made good friends, had fun, read books and stories to my classmates as the only kid who could read. It was thanks to my mom’s dedication to education that I moved on, later, in second grade, to a better-equipped magnet school.

Although an elementary school kid could never know it at the time, growing up we were in the lower middle class bracket. We had some nice things, but mostly not; with my dad working as a cook and my mom staying home, there wasn’t a whole lot that we could afford, especially in the way of luxuries. My mom started work, while I was in elementary school, actually, as a legal secretary for a family law firm. That helped out with income a bit.

I was of course, never the popular kid in school, though I rarely had self-esteem issues. Looking back I would describe myself as a confident, semi-awkwardly dressed, sometimes awkward-acting, outgoing glasses-wearing kid who was never liked by boys in THAT way, but I never had a shortage of good friends. Save the glasses part, I would say I haven’t changed much, though I am much more picky about my fashionable appearance these days.

But then, somewhere in the middle school-high school years, my mom made the decision to start going to law school. As a motivated, former straight-A student who had graduated from UCLA with a BS in Microbiology, she decided she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life as a dead-end legal secretary. She wanted to pursue success on the next level, and with so many years at that firm under her belt, law school seemed like the best answer. My dad, knowing it would take a toll on our family life, not having Mom around, and even worse, strain our financial situation significantly, still backed her 110%. If only we could all find supportive and loving men like that.

So law school began, and so did mom’s time away from home. She was rarely around anymore, and this was tough, since she was the one who raised my sister and myself. Helped us with our homework, all of that kind of thing. Amazingly, she still found time to do most of it. Dad is more of the silent parent type, and I admit, sis and I had a bit of an awkward time getting to know him better during that time, but it was good for us, as our relationship is happy and much stronger now.

To add to the emotional stress of not having mom around much anymore, we had to deal with the reality of not being able to afford all of the everyday luxuries we take for granted now. We had to eat at home all the time, couldn’t afford a night out at the movie theatres, had to cut out a lot of the comforts of life. I just remember being stressed out and angry at my parents for everything. It was doubly a rough time – not only was the family having a hard time, but I was right at the peak of my adolescent hormonal angst. High school was definitely a rough time, in too many ways to explain.

But the one rough thing about high school that I can look back on now, and the thing I tell people the most when they ask about how I got so involved in community work, is that I swore that I hated Japanese Americans as a people, as my kind. Although I knew perfectly well and would admit that it was a part of my ethnic identity, the JA kids I was around just didn’t do it for me. I thought they were dumb, vapid, and a waste of my time. I also had a complex from being at a high school program called “The Highly Gifted Magnet.” As ridiculous as it may sound, it was rough being labeled the “smart kid” at school by the other kids – in band, other classes, and so on. And triple that from the fact that I was an Asian American girl.

Although, I guess it wasn’t really THAT rough, given that I was to some extent, the overachieving student – more so in earlier years than in high school, since I got a C in AP Calculus my junior year…but then again, I was in AP Calculus to begin with, and it was my first C ever – and did well because in a lot of ways I did fit the stereotype. I was even nice to everyone and glad to avoid any negative confrontations.

So that was high school - anger, bitterness, money problems, good and bad grades, and then here come college admissions. Despite being the top 5% of the entire senior class, I was rejected from all of the colleges I applied to, save UCLA. To add insult to injury, I had applied mostly to schools back East because I was so eager to get away from home and make it on my own – I was so angry at my family for everything (though they did nothing to cause my stress). But here I was, stuck in LA, just a half hour from home, and I was angry at the world.

But as most of you know, college changed my life. Shaped my politics, made me want to flip off the Man, hate white people, all that sort of thing. And during my junior year of college, my mom graduated from law school and was lucky enough to find a six-figure income law firm job.

Everyone told me then, how lucky I was that Mom was such a great woman, working part time while still going to law school part time (yeah, did I forget to mention that? As if law school at almost 40 weren’t amazing enough), and with a family at that! I guess I didn’t really know it then, but it is incredible, what she and my dad did. Held it together, and all for a better future – for our whole family.

Maybe it’s because I’m a compassionate being, or maybe it’s because somewhere, deep down inside – despite not having made an explicit connection – I do identify with these families, communities, people who suffer these kinds of hardships everyday, that I care so much about, well, our society.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with me – maybe it’s just how any normal person would react if they knew the truth about our ridiculous world.

Like taking the red pill, right?

But I do now understand, with more clarity and appreciation than ever, that everything I can do now is all in thanks to my parents – to the ones who came before me. My story isn’t one of first generation immigration, of extreme hardship or financial everyday struggle, like MIA or other went through, but it is one of privilege, of privilege that I now have because of what a young, impoverished naïve girl from Gardena, and an accomplished kendoist who cooks as a career were able to create when they made the decision to start a family. They created a secure, loving, and stable environment – one that, despite lacking large amounts of money, gave birth to me, and my sister – the headed-for-success fashion designer.

It is also true, that this generation has the capacity for something great. And let this be a prophecy that I put down now, on digital paper – that there is something great coming, and we will be a part of it. Never mind the cliché of change, it’s coming, blah blah blah – I know Obama is undeniably a part of it – but it is genuinely a feeling in my gut that I can’t shake off. Despite being somewhat politically stagnant in Hawaii, I feel like it’s the calm before the storm.

Something is coming.

I didn’t mean for this to become some sort of common Asian American activist piece – I must admit, although I’m glad we can all have moments of clarity about our ancestral accomplishments, identity, and all that sort of thing, it is getting kind of tired – but you know, sometimes the thoughts just flood my brain and I need to write it down, in case some rhetoric gem is wasted by my failure to grab some paper and record it. It also doesn’t help that I’m stuck on this 5 hour flight with the lights out, and no headphones because I couldn’t get to my wallet to pay 2 bucks for it. I’m also starving so this is a good distraction.

I feel like life is full of so many ridiculous contradictions, questions, and wrongdoings – and not to get all “we are the world” on you, but I think we’re just a misguided people.

Whether its “fuck the system” or “get in it to win it ” – the subversive version - I am adamant about the fact that I will dedicate myself to the work that I love so much now. I will never give up on my people, on my community, on my family and friends. This is an oath, of sorts, and a one, along with my prophecy, that I want to look back on in 10 years and realize I was at least mostly right.

Now, if only I can stop being such an “S”….

But I guess that is a story for another time. America, here we come.