I love unexpected someones

When I would think ”mentor,” homemade bread, lasagna, salad, beer, and homemade apple pie topped with icecream were just not words that came to mind. But now those words define “mentor” for me. I was matched with an attorney mentor through a program at school, and I hoped that at the very most, I would have someone I could  go to for professional advice when the time came to need it. Instead, this someone has shown me in the short time I’ve known her, that is she not into labels and boundaries. We lunch together, and chat on the phone, and randomly email. She reminds me that all will be well–just keep breathing (she started law school with a two-year old). She shares how she juggled being a wife, a mother to three girls, two dogs, and three cats, making partner at her firm and still finding time to bake homemade bread almost every week. She knows I don’t have a car here in Hartford, so she drives over to me. And a few days ago, while emailing with her, she spontaneously invited me over for dinner at her home, and offered to pick me up. As we pulled into the driveway of the most average home you can imagine, she tells me she’s lived there since 1986. I have lived in places where people take what little they have and channel it towards maintaining a certain image and lifestyle they simply cannot afford to be maintaining. And then I see my mentor and her husband, who have the means to show off, and that’s simply not a priority. It’s such a disappointment when I realize that someone is fronting the glitz and the flashes the sparklies, and behind it, there’s not much else. Then there’s the other end and the glee that’s triggered when it dawns on me that behind the plain and simple, there’s so much depth and warmth weaved into a fascinatingly intricate mind.  My mentor is an ex-English Lit major and grad student (kindred spirit, I know!) turned ligitator, and after decades of practice, she still gets nervous arguing a case in court. This is how she dispels her anxiety: knowing it’s not about her. If there was anyone I could learn from and that could really mentor this mess, I believe it’s her—and she is. Not only is she showing me what it’s like to live the life of a professional with a career, but staying human while doing it  After one of the best evenings by a gangster fire place and the best wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, eating and drinking and talking around the table, she wrapped up a loaf of fresh homemade bread for me to take home. As helpful as all the law school advice I got that night was, it wasn’t about networking and making professional connections and taking notes. It was about enjoying the company and the developing friendship of an unexpected someone who invited me into her home and was willing to share her life with me.

I love unexpected someones. They’re my fave.

I think I found a theme! (in my usual roundabout way)

When I have too much time on my hands, my mind tends to wander. That is, when it’s not unnecessarily fixated on my newest guilty pleasure, Law & Order SVU–which, by the way, only required a week of indulgence to successfully pulverize my brain into dog food. Whatever intellectual workouts I received these past months have been effectively undone in a few days. It’s so sad. Anyway, since academic life restarts Monday in the form of moot court, I decided to try beafing up what little brain muscle I have left by re-reading the Fountainhead (yay!)

So, on one end, for all the love I have for Rand, the core of her Objectivist message is so selfish and egocentric. But then she presents selfishnessness as a neutral force, contrary to the stigma its usually given. To entirely reject the need to be selfish, and even the beauty of being so at times, is to reject the essence of what it means to experience life and value as an individual. And while I personally don’t subscribe to Rand at her most extreme in believing that the transcendent purpose of life is to pursue only what can rationally be justified as pure self-interest and personal happiness at any cost, there’s a part of me that gets the inspirational message.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own visions,” she says.

I have never had the great fortune of meeting such a man, nor can I say that I’ve ever possessed a vision so clear and so convicting that I felt “armed.” Motivated by some general sense of direction, yes. Armed, no. I’m not talking about losing the little things, the seemingly trivial affairs and pleasures that make life wonderful in exchange for a some grand vision. But I am talking about what it means to have a vision, and how that vision reflects upon me as a person—to be inspired so much that the intangible becomes visible in the mind and moves a person to invest whatever it takes to see it realized. Remember Savage Garden? Truly, madly, deeply? “I think I dreamed you into life”? Bam. Vision, right there. I’m going to say that’s probably not what they were going for, but using nonetheless because it works, although, it’s not totally in line with Rand’s Objectivism either. But this is Chung’s blog, and therefore Chung’s thoughts reign supreme here. We will not debate the logical soundness of that statement (or my thoughts for that matter).  Intellectual workout to beaf up mind for school again…not…happening.

Vision…not just to have a vision, but to be armed with it…

But another thought is occurring to me while being distracted by the sound of really strong winds outside right now. Reminds me of the Sana Ana winds back home, and you know what they say when those winds blow…anything can happen. Control is good, but sometimes, just sometimes, it’s better being open to ”wherever the wind blows.” I still distinctly remember dubbing 2005 as the year to “make it happen.” Take control and make it happen. Five years later and questionably wiser, maybe it’s time to try letting go a little.

2010 – let it happen.

Maybe it’s not about forcing a vision for the sake of having a vision, but being open to assuming it if and when it arises in the course of the daily happenings and little victories. Okay, I’m going to have to sleep on this, but it feels promising.

2009

I’m taking back more than I came with and finding excuses to put off packing up everything that I feel like I just unpacked yesterday. Time flies when you’re gloriously unconscious for most of the days and nights and oblivious to its passing.

I’m opting to indulge in another excuse to put off packing, and present to you a quick recap and reflection of 2009. Every new year, I find myself thinking “what an eventful year!” and I’ve never really seen that as a blessing until now. I was talking to my sister on the phone the other night because I suddenly felt really blue that 2010 is the year I turn 27. I’m was fine with 26, but for some reason, 27 looked and sounded so formidable to someone who’s used to being called “little thing” and never really outgrew her teens. But of course, it was the youngest Chungsta bugga that gave me my daily dose of reality and ordered me to take a good look at myself and where I am in my life—places I’ve been taken from and taken to. I reflected for a serious 10 seconds, which is all it took, and realized her point. I’m 26 and look 15. BUT that is besides the point! Because the real point is that regardless of my age, I am where I want to be and doing what I’m supposed to be doing and having a helluva lot of fun in between.

Rummaging a bit more through my brain…

The first third of 2009 was spent on a train (literally), while the next third was spent in vegas (literally), and the last third spent in the castle-not-a-prison library (literally). And within each third, I had so much unexpected fun. I found a kindred spirit in the person who hired me, found out I got into law school, realized Celine Dion may be on to something when she claims the heart does go on, frolicked the streets of Oxford, London, and Paris, stood by my best friend while she got married to a bona fide gigabyte, had a summer fling with vegas, moved to the hartland, met an incredible collection of smarties and besties, carved my first pumpkin, gave up on sleep and o.d’d on caffeine, ran my first half marathon, moved in with an amazing roommate, clawed my way to the cusp of a new year, and found my family and friends still next to me as my biggest cheerleaders.

2010 may or may not be the year of stellar academic performance (heck, I’ll take just “performance”), or the year of truly luscious locks (knock on wood, regardless), or the year I travel to far off lands, or even the year I meet a partner in crime who will inspire me to change my name to bonnie (an inexplicable desire to find a clyde as opposed to a mr. darcy–and definitely not a mr. rochester, God forbid on so many levels). For now, though, what may or may not happen is besides the point. The real point in Silvia’s scattered musings is that I am blessed to be who and where I am now because of what has (or hasn’t) happened. Stemming from my addictive personality is the need to read, watch, eat, and/or listen to things I like repeatedly…for years in some cases…like peanut butter jelly sandwiches for breakfast since the 4th grade. Or Friends everyday since freshman year of college ages ago. Anyway, my most recent mantra is inspired by my current addiction to the upbeat message of One Republic: “And we’re young enough to say, oh, this has gotta be the good life…tell me what’s there to complain about”

Happy New Year!!!

One down, and it was fun…in a twisted way

The last time I blogged was about 4 months before my first semester of law school started, and now it’s over. Unwind, unstress, relearn to relax, and trying to reflect on what just happened. I seriously wondered during orientation how I was going to remember which names went with which faces. But somewhere between the caffeine overdosed late nights at the library and $2 beer nights and nervous breakdowns and dive bars came the realization that we were all in this miserable self torture together, and those nameless faces and faceless names became good friends. And after the chaos that were final exams, it’s interesting to see that what I remember most about this semester is not so much the stress, but who I was with while stressed. 

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been temporally removed enough from the whole experience that its effects have even begun to fade in the least, and the feelings of anxiety and overwhelming stress are still a little too re-livable for my taste. But people make or break a place, whether it’s a single event, a town, a school, or a place in life–and people definitely made it for me. It’s also what you make of it. And this past semester my travel notions have been reconfirmed. Wherever I am, I need to be all there. There are always going to be people who have life stories so different from mine, making them wiser than me in a different way, and if I can try to learn just a little of their world, it adds so much to mine.

I have to be honest, though. Looking back at this semester, I can’t help but feel a little sad that in order to further my life, I had to put it on hold. Some people will tell me to get used to it because work will become my life, I’m opting to stubbornly stick to my dad’s life lesson: don’t make work your life. Work so you can have a life. So, once that last exam was over, I started cramming in all the things I’ve been wanting to do. (Besides taking shots of Jameson and chasing it with champagne in the parking lot:P) 

I did not move for about 12 glorious hours. I watched back to back chic flicks while inhaling Chinese food. I played board games with friends and sat around wearing Santa hats, watching stand up comedy and Friends (which I’m doing right this second btw). I had conversations that didn’t involve consoling, reassuring, or commiserating.  For once, there was no pressure or need to talk about cases and law, so Life, Love, and Literature made their long overdue and awaited cameo into discussions. On my flight to the OC, I went outside my comfort zone and bought a non-Victorian novel. At Irene’s suggestion, I decided to give Faulkner’s morbidity a fair redeeming chance. Still making up my mind as I type. I splurged on one too many fashion magazines and dog-eared every page that had stuff I liked on it because I had $10,000 fantasy dollars to spend. I watched “The Elf” and had a margarita and while it was no tropical libation (and totally overpriced), it was so relaxing. Which was good because the turbulence that went down about 2 hours into the flight was the most unnerving experience I’ve had in all my years of flying. We were flying over the Rockies and the plane must have dropped for the longest 2 seconds of my life. I combed through the Hemisphere travel magazine for future vacation ideas, and tried to find each place on the world map provided at the back of the magazine. I treated myself to a hit of runner’s high (outdoors wearing a tshirt and shorts, btw. muahahha) followed by a session of retail therapy (teehee). And oh, how I’ve missed home cooking and the quality of Korean food available here! 

Also, I just realize I went from ”deep meaning reflection” to cataloguing the last few days. I may as well have written “Yesterday, I coughed, and at night my contacts got dry so I started blinking funny, and today I had coffee and it tasted great.” Man…so much for deep and meaningful. Ok, back to Friends!

It’s Friday!!!

So, I’m sitting at work with some down time before lunch (free sushi today!), and started doing what I usually do whenever I have free time: flip through pictures I’ve seen like a million times and psych myself out. And yes, i realize i’m killing this topic by beating it and talking about it every chance i get. Anyway, someone posted these pictures of the law school on a law school discussion site that I obsessively visit and wanted to share because it still feels so surreal.

Look how pretty~

Oh, for shame.

I’ve been flipping through old xanga entries, and I totally have a crush on my old self. Why did I have SO many things to say and write about in college and now NOTHING? Even the stuff about nothing was funny, HENCE the writer, ME, could be called FUNNY. (”Yeah! HENCE!”)Yes, yes. For all the smart asses out there, the operative word is “was.” I get it. One of my old entries talks about how my greatest fear is that my kids won’t think I’m funny. Forget worrying about what my future kids think, I don’t even find my own writing in the present remotely close to reflecting funny anymore. Now, to a lot of people, this isn’t a big deal. I’m overreacting in your opinion. We must not really be friends then, because, you would know that as someone who identifies too closely with Josie Gellar, “words are my life.” Someone once said he was bringing sexy back. Well, Shortysilvs is bringing funny back. 2009 has just been modified from “The Year of Luscious Locks” to “The Year of Bringing Funny Back in addition to Luscious Locks.” Okay, but not for this blog because I already know what I want to write about and it’s not funny. This disclaimer is for the aforementioned smart asses.

So, I’m getting ridiculously nervous about moving across the country. Drastic moves have been a bi-annual activity for me the last 8 years, and one would think the routine of it all would dispell any and all queasiness. But alas, such is not the case. And I have no effing idea why. Eff.

Maybe because for the first time in my life I feel like I have direction and I don’t want to blow it.

Maybe because, contrary to personal belief of everlasting nomadic spirit that I broadcast at every opportunity, I really am an old fart and I want to stay near my family in one place for all the live long days.

Maybe because i like my job despite the God-forsaken commute and being able to walk outside into the middle of Old Town Pasadena whenever I want and be minutes from Forever21, BR, Guess, H&M, Bebe, A|X, Gossip, Macy’s…the list of Shortysilvs’ sacred places of homage goes on…

Maybe because it’s that time of the year again, and I find myself seduced by the SoCal summer, as I’ve always been since I left to chase glorious piles and piles of…snow.

Maybe maybe maybe.

Sure, with English Lit I still felt I had direction, but for some reason, my love for the study of it never really translated to a concrete grasp of making a career out of it. I guess it’s not that surprising…abstractions have never translated well with me…which is totally paradoxical to my brooding romantic nature…HAHHAH! No, but really. Anyway, it’s just starting to hit me that all my investment in literature boils down to “it-was-nice-while-it-lasted-and-i’ll-always-have-the-experience” and that I’m not going to be professor after all. Relieved, but oddly wistful over the change of plans. Oh, and walking around Oxford didn’t help. I would love love love to go back. One way would be to go to the University of London through UConn’s study abroad program but do most of my homework at Oxford. Much like how I’m going to attend UConn Law, but plan on reading at Yale.

Anyway, I’ve started looking for an apartment walking distance of the law school and it totally creeps me out that so many freaks of nature live so close to the school and have the means of owning property. Craigslist may not be the best way to find a place, but it sure as hell is the best way to find the freaks leasing out the places so I know what areas  not to play around. 

This is all crap but I’ve written so much I don’t want to erase it. How I pine for the days of yore when my disarming humor got me tens of eProps per post. The good news is, it’s 5PM on a FRIDAY.

I Am Four-Eyes

I had the best sleep on the train today. I’ve discovered that my oversized bag makes a delightfully plush and all-head-engulfing pillow, and my “Property of Delta Silvia” blanket not only preserves heat, but I swear generates it. But more than these, I decided to wear my glasses to work for the first time today. Every morning, as I try to go to sleep on the train, my contacts feel extremely dry and a lot of times, this discomfort messes with my ability to fall asleep and I feel precious minutes of sleep just slipping away and then I get sad about the loss. On top of that, once I do fall asleep, I wake up to find that I can barely open my eyes because the contacts have dried out. And I hurt. So today, I thought, “I’m going to opt for comfort and wear my glasses.”

 

Poor judgment call. Wrong executive decision. Winning The Best Sleep award came at a price because unbeknownst to me, I looked (and I quote): Whoa. (nervous giggle) you don’t….do you normally, I mean, have you worn glasses to work before? If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of the type of “whoa” to which I’m referring, you will want to hug me. Right this second. And whisper sweet nothings to reassure me that I make a beautiful ethereal four-eyed creature and if I had wings I could definitely pass for a fairy.

 

I realize that while glasses shed a sexy light on many, I am not included in that club. My appearance is not illuminated by what is an accessory to others. To me, it’s Debbie Downer; a burden. And I don’t mean emotionally to my self-confidence. So I look like crap. Whatever. I mean Debbie Downer and burdensome literally—burdensome to the small ears and big cheeks that must pick up the slack of a hardly present nose bridge. A Debbie Downer because my lenses are thick and heavy, causing the glasses to slowly but surely slip down the said hardly present nose bridge, thereby dragging down with its weight my little ears and crushing the cheeks on which they so burdensomely perch. Confound it all!

 

Anyway, the sides of my head feel awfully pinched, my hardly there nose bridge feels compressed, and my ears are super sore. I am ready to go home!

WWII Veteran Freezes To Death In Own Home

http://www.wnem.com/news/18566890/detail.html

I could not believe it when I saw this headline. Of all the appalling and shock worthy things that surface as news around the world, this story severely knots my stomach. Perhaps it’s the lack of violent context that highlights the gravity of this veteran’s death. Perhaps neglect of this kind by a city of someone who braved a war for his country is more unsettling than I expected. I do not understand how someone is left to die of hypothermia not out in the wild, not out in the streets, but in the “comfort” of his own home.

Yes, this gentleman was informed via mail and door postings that his bills were overdue, and paying your bills on time is an issue in itself, but to me, that a company would even consider opting to utilize a limiter that automatically shuts off heat and electricity in the middle of winter is a moral issue with which I can’t bring myself to reconcile or stomach. Has our society reached a point where people running companies can’t distinguish the difference in gravity of context and go about shutting off someone’s heat in the dead of winter with the same ease and automaticity as shutting down someone’s plans to go on a shopping spree???

It’s said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, and for some reason, with all the dehumanizing acts of intential and deliberate hate, ones of indifference frighten me most.  At that point, what is being dealt with does not feel, it simply puts in place a device that flips a switch when the numbers don’t add up.

Cheers!

2009 started with a week-long visit from my annual migraines. I should name it, as its presence is just as regular and all-pervading as Helga. I’m open to suggestions. Helga might be more visible and attract cringeful stares, but the migraines are debilitating and far more miserable. I hadn’t realized that my stash of Relpax was depleted and I hadn’t renewed my prescription since moving to California. So, I resorted to the next best thing at 1 a.m: a CVS run for Excedrin Migraine pills marked the start of the excessive pill popping.

As the old familiar feeling of dependency grew stronger with every pill I popped over the recommended dosage, I was reminded of how much good health is a blessing–to face the morning sun without aversion–to listen to my favorite songs without wanting to gouge out my eyes–to eat, drink, and be merry without nausea–to close my eyes and be able to sleep without wanting to scrape out my brains from the depths of my skull. It’s crazy how a single burning streak of pain can incapacitate my entire being. I know all this may seem like I’m being overdramatic, but I’m not. Believe you me. The seemingly insignificant things make such a difference once they malfunction; sometimes only when they do.

So, I feel the need to toast the often underappreciated value of health. Weeks can be so damn long, but finally at the end of each one, in the company of deliciously free-spirited people, good food, a few cold Guinnesses and counting, beautiful socal weather and scenic views, no one needs to twist my arm to say “Yep. This is the life.” It’s all very glorious if you ask me. With that said, here’s to appreciating good health in one of the most gorgeous places to live. Cheers!

Still I notice You

As 2008 comes to a close, I realize that this year has been one marked by many closures and is itself one big closure to yet another “chapter.” Closures of the heart, broken and stapled back together, of plans, of changes both unforeseen and self-induced.  

It’s been a tumultuous, albeit interesting, year. From finishing my thesis while making plans to leave academia and pursue law, to experiencing first hand the very exhilirations and despairs that inspire great literature, 2008 has been the best of times and the worst of times.

I saw how twisted pride can be even in despair. I saw that I believed my despair to be so great and so deep that it should have the power to cripple me forever and if it didn’t, then it somehow it detracted from the genuineness of what was causing the despair. But as in the words of Robert Frost: “Everything I’ve learned about life can be summed up in three words: It goes on.”

The other day, I found an unexpected confidant and as I recounted openly for the first time in a long while of where I’ve been, I was able to fully realize that after almost 365 begrudging days to the tee, the soul does not die from losing a soulmate. As much as I want to twistedly immortalize the despair of losing what I had found and thought was mine to keep, I learned to my dismay that Time runs its course and in the process, buries the crippling despair. In the end, the soul does not die. The loss runs deep, but it is not fatal. Do I have the audacity to really say with conviction that I am doing just fine? Yes. An audacious, exhilirating “yes.”

It took me twenty five years to figure out that I can analyze the hell out of existence without knowing the hells and heavens of existence. But those times come a-knocking, both the good and the bad whether you’re ready or not, and you learn what you’re made of and that it’s okay to face yourself, to hate and love what you see because when all is said and done, the only eyes that matter look at you and say they see beauty.

Nothing can separate me from my Beloved, and nothing is worth separating myself from Him. He takes notice of me and through the seasons, I notice Him in the little things; the little victories evidenced by the smiles I notice are returning in greater frequency. 2008 was a year of recovery and I hope 2009 is a year where I celebrate that restoration.

Happy New Year!