I didn't go to sleep last night in order to finish packing for the move. I got started around midnight and couldn't stop myself because I was on such a roll. And since I'm a creepy loner who can't write research papers or pack properly during broad daylight, I actually finished the majority of the packing by 8am and took a shower after it all. I was slick with sweat by the time I finished moseying back and forth from my car.
I guess that's the one thing I will not be missing--80-something degree weather before noon... But I tend to romanticize things that needn't be romanticized, and later, I'll probably drone on about how much I miss the quaint little town of College Station *gag*
I know this, and every Texan knows this: this +100`F weather is not something to miss. It is probably something that I have learned to avoid from now on for the rest of my life as long as I can help it. Texas heat is no fucking joke. Despite this well-known fact, I will find ways to sentimentally look back on how my steering wheel used to scald my palms everyday after school or how I really miss overhearing ignorant hicks talk about how being gay is a choice while my sweat pools down the small of my back while looking for my car in a huge, endless, steaming-hot Wal-Mart lot.
The weird thing is that I have such an exciting next 2 weeks ahead of me--I'll see the Grand Canyon, visit the San Diego Zoo and Monterrey Bay Aquarium, and finally settle in the Bay Area and go 'sploring with A until he leaves me on July 7th for Dallas again. Yet all I can think about is how much I'll miss family and friends, and how much work grad school will be for the next 2, 3 years. I am aware that I am being ungrateful for this wonderful opportunity to travel and not kicking ass at life, but I can't help but keep mourning the end of my life that my parents have made for me in Texas. I sure as shit better get over my weepies before getting to Flagstaff, because I don't want this trip's possibilities get punctured and obliterated by my whiny homesickness. Who knows when I'll get to go on a road trip like this again?
Official map of The Great Road Trip, 2009
SO MUCH DRIVING. Why did I decide against Chicago again?
Just a week ago, it actually hit me: I'm moving away, like, thousands of miles away from my parents.
I cried today with my mom because she gave me 60 bucks "just because," and she also claims (iow IT'S NOT TRUE bc I totally try to give her bone-brittling, lung-collapsing hugs everyday) that I only hug her when she gives me cash monies. I didn't really cry about the random bestowal of money but because she works hard for the money... so hard for the money. So hard for the money, that I better treat her right.
But real talk--my parents work their arms off of their sockets at our donut shop, and I will forever be trippin on my Asian guilt trip since Asian parents provide for their children until they have a career (read: late 20's). I guess those 60 bucks were like a simple trickle of dough they've been feeding me since birth until college and now grad school, and it hurts my pride to know I can't provide anything for them for at least another 3-5 years because of my useless lib. arts degrees.
I guess no matter how confusing my experience has been as a Korean-American, filial piety always sneaks up on me at times like this...
You know that joke in which you stand behind someone and ask him/her to start listing the months of the year? "January, February... MARCH," and then you knee them in their ass? BECAUSE THEY'VE ASKED YOU TO MARCH INTO THEIR ASS.
Well, I just had a flashback to middle school when I used that joke on my mom, because tonight she asked me to massage her shoulders while she slept while standing like a horse, and here was another perfect opportunity to get her. Why and how did I use that joke on a mom who didn't know English 10 years ago (she doesn't know much English now either)?
Hot Springs, AR, 1997:
After my sister got me real good with her knee upstairs minutes ago, my mom and I were both in the kitchen and I went up to her at the stove and said:
me: Hey Mom, start counting the months in English, starting from January. Hehehe.
Mom: Leave me the hell alone; I'm busy. *stirs mystery Korean stew in pot*
me: Okay, okay, I'll just start counting for you: "January, February... MARCH!" *my knee in her ass*
This was before she adopted a sense of humor to get her through the times when my sister moved out TWICE during high school. I should've known better...
During lunch, a friend was wondering what kind of poetry I write, and I didn't have a really good answer. I should be more prepared for questions like that, but I was all, "Urm...I read a lot of women and Asian American poets... so I write about those things too? Or sometimes about nature if I see something interesting outside or something good is on PBS." Seriously, people. I write about nature documentaries on TV. That's cheating, but it's so much easier than travelling to the African savannas myself.
So I wrote something today that reads very autobiographically, except my speaker is not me in any way possible.
I won't be sharing my poem yet, but here is an excellent love poem that's worth reading:
...is the need to feel validated. For me, it's always been about others being able to relate to my work or me being able to realize that I'm not the only crazy person in the world trying to make a living out of writing.
I went to the public library today, and I got the following items:
anthology of Marianne Moore
anthology of Adrienne Rich
anthology of poetry about being pregnant and about being a mother (not really related to me, but one of my future profs is featured in it)
anthology of "contemporary" Asian American poets ("contemporary" in quotation marks bc it is from the 80s)
biography of Lucille Ball (am absolutely obsessed with I Love Lucy)
and Under the Tuscan Sun (by a writer who graduated from SFSU then taught there, and I just saw the movie on TV)
While skimming through books, to see which one I want to read first, and I stuck with the Asian-American poets' anthology, and I so wanted to see one fucking Korean last name in there.
Nope. All are Japanese, Filipino, or Chinese. The closest might be Cathy Song, who I believe had Chinese and Korean parents. Okay, I guess she counts. She's pretty awesome.
But still, while I am not a particularly social human being (ASK MY TWO FRIENDS), I have this nagging desire to want to whine and vent to people who are Korean-American poets. About writing. About poetry. About feeling inadequate... except I don't know of any poets who are Korean-Am. (Plus, even if I found one, even just a person who considers her/himself to be a poet, it's really hard to be "compatible," with them, because I am super fucking critical. And secretively mean.) I have so many questions, but I probably won't feel all that relieved after having a heart-to-heart with a Korean-American poet.. Unless I keep on writing about my experience as an immigrant and a child of immigrants.
[Note: I want to write some more about the term,"Korean-American," but not today. I hate it when bitches be askin why I can't just "pick a side: Korean or American." ASSHOLES.]
Hello friends. The link, http://minkeung.com, does not work anymore, so please go back to typing "http://minkeung.vox.com. I had signed up with GoDaddy.com BEFORE they aired their uncouth commercials (during the Super Bowl, was it?), and I decided to not renew my domain with them. Now I'm not sure if I even want a domain again, but I'll keep you posted.
What made me even more disappointed in the commercial was that I used to defend Danica Patrick when people hated on her. Sucks.
I want to gag every time I hear a girl say, "Ooh, I would totally go lesbo for Angelina Jolie," because it's so played out! Okay, so you would go gay for like the hottest woman on earf! But I had to share who I would totally swing the other way for and my theory behind why I like them so much (on their looks, that is).
Number One: Rachel Maddow. Ever since I heard about Rachel Maddow through Reddit posts, I've been kinda crazy about her, and there is this long running joke between A and me that I would go gay for Rachel, so he should make sure I don't end up wandering around rural Connecticutt to be able to run into her then run off to our little love shack in CT.
Because how can one NOT fall in like with an articulate and witty woman like her?! Look at her--smiling with her boyish charm! Such cute cheeks! That genuine smile! I pored over her Wikipedia page and found out she had a gf, and then I look her up to see what she looks like, and I was like DAMN! I have no chance against this Stevie Nicks doppelganger.
Next up: Jenny Shimizu from Make Me a Supermodel on Bravo (along with like a gazillion modeling jobs for very famous names).
AND THEN I had an epiphany. Of how they both have very androgenous faces. Of how Jenny Shimizu looks like Daniel Henney, a famous half-Korean, half-white actor in Korea (who also appeared in the recent Wolverine movie):
So I guess what I'm saying is that I like androgynous faces on celebrities?? And one can't mention Daniel Henney without mentioning Dennis Oh (another half-Korean superstar in Korea). During casual conversation, my roommates told me to google him when I replied that I had no idea who he was, and then I couldn't turn away from the Google Images search. And that's when A ruined the sudden MK+DO fantasies (that involved frolicking in the pastoral fields, on which he fed me grapes with his mouth) with, HEY--I'M STILL HERE IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED.
I just caught up with G over nangmyun in Dallas, and we talked much smack about the acquaintances we dislike in our small circle of Asians at A&M. One thing we decided that we don't like about them is that some are super-arrogant, like bragging about going to UT-Southwestern for med school EXCEPT YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ACCEPTED YET. Or they think others give a frick about what they look like, so they probably stare at themselves for hours in their mirrors and decide that getting bigger eyelids will cover up their inner ugly. Or talking endlessly about this awesome, cool new city to which they will be moving and how fabulous it will be at their new job/school.
And I was nodding and pshawing, going, "Yah guurrrl, they suck!! They think they shit don't stank!" blah blah blah, except midway during the conversation (a la JD in Scrubs during his inner-monologue narratives), I was like, IS THIS ME?! *cue dramatic, curious guitar chord*
I'm sure even the friends who actually like me for me have moments when they're like, "Dude, we get it--you are moving to San Francisco," because this fact has been on my mind ever since I got an acceptance letter. Even after I got accepted to another school in Chicago, I think I had my heart set on SF because it's California! Chicago's like super cold, and after 10+ years of living in the south, I am not ready for Chicago-grade coldness.
But I'd like to believe that I'm not as sickening as those people that G and I talked about this week. Let me know if you believe otherwise. For real. Just be like, Bitch you ain't all that--not like you got a job or somethin, SHIT!
On the way back from a Galveston weekender for my roomie's birthday, I declared to everyone in the car that I would like to be nominated for What Not to Wear on TLC. The idea sounded good at the time; I had been daydreaming/kinda sleeping during the long ride home, stuck in Houston traffic. While my (stylish) friends totally vetoed that idea later (they said I dress cute already, keke), the idea of "building" a wardrobe still sounded very attractive. And if I did this on my own, I don't have to look like a bumbling idiot on national television (except I don't get $5000). Plus, I've heard what my voice sounds like on tape, and let's just say that I'm not too far away from sounding like Bea Arthur (may she rest in peace).
The reason why I need to start building a wardrobe is because I am tired of wearing grubby, maroon Texas A&M t's with flip flops. There was a time in my life when I thought I was too good for flip flops and never even owned a pair (seriously). And then A and I decided to go on that cruise last summer, and that's when I realized I didn't own any shoes that could stand to be sopping wet and not grow mold on it later. So I bought a pair of Reefs, and that pair of brown cardboard and I have been inseparable ever since.
Another reason is that once I DO buy nice things, NONE OF THOSE NICE THINGS MATCH WITH EACH OTHER. I've never been fond of being matchy-matchy, like wearing a green shirt with the same green for eyeshadows, but COME ON. How the hell am I supposed to work with 3 navy shirts and 3 pairs of dark jeans? And bright, printy tents for shirts and sacks for pants?
To find out where I went wrong, I started thinking back to the time when I didn't care for designer labels and wore whatever my moms bought me from TJ Maxx and Gap. And I am always trying to figure out ways to work Mariah Carey into my entries, so I will timeline this evolution of a wardrobe with MC's singles. You can be the objective judge of when things went bad with my clothes.
NOTE:
This is probably the longest post I've ever written. And sorry all the videos I uploaded from Youtube are crap, because the good ones don't let you embed. Greedy bastards.
Birth-4th grade
I used to wear my cousin's Pierre Cardin hand-me-downs (that brand was the shit in Korea) and Korean clothes with awkward English printed on it (examples: "KIDS-CHILDREN" or "BEARS MAKE ME FEELING NICE"). I was also unfortunate enough to not be exposed to the mega diva just yet. I always felt like there was this hole in my life that needed to be filled by a songbird who sings about luv and uses a thesaurus to rhyme. Little did I know...
4th grade
When I first arrived to America, my uncle and aunt took a picture of me at the Little Rock National Airport, and my sis and I were sporting undershirts with more Konglish gibberish on it. I still didn't really care about what I wore, because I was under the harsh rule of my mom, who would later become The Fashion Dictator of the Kang Sisters. She would later ratify dress codes that outlawed hoochie tops or hot pants. The Kang Sisters fought and cried for the right to wear hooch-wear from 2000-2005, and the Dictator finally gave up in 2007, because she had more important things to do. Like scheming to bring back the younger Kang Sister home after she realized she wanted to wear skanky stuff AND stay out after midnight. Still no sign of MC.
5th grade
My cousin (who gave me her Pierre Cardins) came to live with my family in America to go to school here. I still wore stiff button-downs from Gap, but my pant size grew astronomically with the onslaught of puberty. To hide my tiny bewbs and large hips, I started to wear XL Winnie the Pooh shirts with stretchy pants that let me eat and made room as I pleased. My cousin let me borrow her copy of Daydream from Korea, and my love affair with Mariah began from there.
6th grade
Seriously, finish this video. This is when she used to front and pretend to like dancing:
I started losing the hip fat from puberty, and my boobs were AA's by then. I only had one pair of jeans and thought that was normal until I visited a friend's house for a sleepover and learned that girls usually keep 5 pairs of jeans to choose from. My one pair of jeans from American Eagle seemed even more tattered and stretched out, compared to my friend's Abercrombie jeans that had premade stains on it. I listened to a lot of MC's old songs on her #1's album, and I'd learned to like "Someday" and "Vision of Love."
9th grade-11th grade
Rainbow, Glitter, and Charmbracelet just went over my head. MC continued to live in a land with rainbows, unicorns, and Hello Kitty while I listened to John Mayer and Coldplay to drown out my angsty sobs from arguing with my parents about how often I can go out (once a year, if I was lucky) and how long I can stay out (until 8pm). I also liked to wear tight yoga pants to school, and my dad was not cool with me letting the world know I was wearing an ill-fitting thong under it. I finally moved to Arlington, Texas, during my junior and my hatred for my parents grew, because they told me only a week before the move, just so I could pack in time.
12th grade
Because I lived in a city with more than freaking 50,000 people, I found stores like Wet Seal and Banana Republic. This is when my wardrobe got confused, because my inner fob loved BR but the cheap teen in me wanted to shop at Wet Seal and F21. And THE EMANCIPATION OF MIMI finally proved to the world that MC is hip and happenin' again. She continued to look pretty and sit in front of a wind machine while only showing off the right side of her face.
College, year 1-year 2
Just like any good college student, I stocked up on bright polos and A&M t-shirts to wear with 200-dollar jeans. I also started wearing Hollister (*shudder*), because it seemed like the right thing to do. Little did I know that Hollister shirts fall apart after just one washing, and that everyone knows when you bought that graphic t because everyone and their mom (LITERALLY) wore it last summer. MC was MIA, because she was working on her latest masterpiece, E=MC2. I also stopped arguing with my mother about stupid shit, because I lost interest in tube tops and booty shorts. I also found out in college that my mom is in touch with reality more than I had previously thought.
College, year 3
This is the year I met A, and the summer before that, I got a lot of allowance but stayed at home because I didn't really have anything to do, so I went shopping instead. I experimented with expensive muumuus, weird sandals that weren't flip flops, and chunky jewelry (my Mrs. Roper phase). A still liked me despite my Goddess look, and once we got comfortable, I stole his Mavs shirts and wore his boxers to sleep. MC was still working on her new album.
Now
I don't wear muumuus anymore, but I keep wearing shirts and dresses that hang like sacks. It doesn't help that this kind of crap is "in." Am trying harder to wear more fitted, flattering shirts for a grad student look. A look that says, "Hey, I don't do beer pong anymore." I am still rocking out to this song when I decide to work out once a week:
takes lotsa pictureessss read more
on oh shit