Posts from the “Uncategorized” Category

The Zoo

Posted on August 19th, 2012

Only a dollar thirty, that’s it. That should tell you a lot before you even get inside. Buy your ticket, drop it into a plastic see-through container, give a bow to the attendant as she waves you inside, then all you can see are the trees and the gray-brick road. The map is clear with pictures of lions, tigers, and bears divvied out around the park. My friends, close behind, are wanting to see the zebras. Cause you know how every person has their animal. And their animal will be the one they can’t afford. The whole zoo is a giant round-about. The bird cages are the largest. The cat and dog cages are the smallest. Imagine a hamster and imagine that hamster growing…

The Heat Index

Posted on August 7th, 2012

The heat has become unbearable. The classrooms in the building, the Engineering building, have air conditioning. So they say. As you step into the classroom, you can smell it, the stench of 20 or 30 future engineers, waving their fans in their faces as if that will strike the heat away. Their faces are moist. Drops of sweat are buried in their brows for moments, then swimming towards the base of their necks. I have already imagined their bodies transforming into pure salt and water, changing the classroom into the sea, me talking to bodies of water, giving directions to waves. Some of them have large canisters of just water, which are refilled every fifty minutes during the breaks, then drunk quickly while class…

To the Redeeming

Posted on May 21st, 2011

What is it about the changing of the seasons that is frightening? Is it the dryness of conversation? The new events that lie ahead? Perhaps a new wardrobe that you’re too insecure to give a go? No, no, no, that’s not it at all. They say the world will end tomorrow. The skies will be unlatched. The ground will unfold. The whole earth will tear itself in two just to show mankind that they are not living up to our deity’s pipe dream. So what is it that alarms you? The mis-closing of a lover, a friend, a mother. The lover doesn’t realize, doesn’t care to know, doesn’t care to change. The friend is enduring a modeled future. The mother, well, the mother is…

The Less-Lighter Things

Posted on October 27th, 2010

The world begins and ends with love. In a womb, the child begs to be loved, to be adored, and our ignorance of the importance of love comes in time. We are raised to be distant, we are pushed to do so because those that love us do not want us to be disappointed. They do not want to hear the weeping. Some grow cold, some lukewarm, and the others are perilously burning up inside. I do not know my category, but I do know that my distance can not be blamed entirely on others. I will grow old and either more loving or less. I do hope to be relentless, but who is there to be relentless to? I feel myself unable to…

Half a Calendar

Posted on February 6th, 2010

Time is there, those six months, there on my calendar, crossed out days, large Xs in bold and the pages dripping from the walls from the dry weather. And though time is moving swiftly, I know how long I must spend here. I know there will be happy times, less happier times, and then those dreadful days where I miss the place I called home. Then again, that home is definitely indefinite and non-existent. It is merely a symbol and I remember once asking a friend, “Have you ever told yourself, ‘I want to go home’ only to realize that you actually were home, in that physical sense anyways. I’ve always had this idea where the concept of home is not that of a structure, but…

Repetitive, Redundant, Automatic

Posted on September 21st, 2009

Now that I’m here telling the young to pronounce correctly and write in a particular fashion, I tell myself that I’m only slightly closer to that finish line. I need mountains in the west with a history that only I admire because that’s just the kind of person I am – a subjective-priority-focused-sort-of-girl. Eventually, I will get that feeling once more — that sense of direction and misdirection, the comprehensive skills to say a fucking hello, and a Sanctuary. Even the filling of an empty museum is on my list of things to do. Here things feel temporary, but comfortable like a goddamn bed of nails. I remember being at that upturned house with you and my parents (we’ll both say that you were never a…

Tears are…(silly) Lilly?

Posted on August 24th, 2009

I say to the group, “Tears, tears, teeeeeeeeaaaars. What are tears? Someone tell me?” Eight kids stare plainly back at me. I know this look. They don’t have a clue. I start to pretend to cry and I say, “Crying, crrrrying. Understand?” I wipe my eyes and the kids start laughing and nodding, finally understanding their new word. I think of Lilly. The girl in 3H who sits to my right. In their Cinderella workbook, the kids mark away at their sheets, answering pointless questions about what they would like to dress up as. The group is much younger, full of seven year olds, so their attention span is wavering. I constantly eye each child, making sure they’re focusing on their work instead of…

Tell Me, what about our Seoul?

Posted on August 16th, 2009

The bus drove through, he pointed to the sky, which was crimson through my prescription sunglasses, and he said, “The pollution is so thick today, usually you can see more skyscrapers than that.” There was nothing to disappoint me. I know it’s the second largest city in the world. I know it has Starbucks and Outback Steakhouse, even a 7/11 and Subway. Tell me though, what else? We drink. We borough ourselves into old tales, except I  haven’t heard them before, and sometimes they’ll stop to think, Oh she’s new here, she hasn’t got a clue. Then they’ll stop and ask how long I’ve been here, how long I plan on being here, where I’ve come from, and I realize that if it wasn’t for…

Welcome to the Academy, Teacher

Posted on August 11th, 2009

The crosswalk takes two minutes to turn green, but I’m still afraid of getting pummeled by the taxi drivers, who ignore the road signs like sicknesses. It took three flights of stairs to arrive, but everything is in a circle and the walls are painted with the story of the tree and the boy, where the boy spent every season climbing the tree, picking the leaves from the tree, when finally the tree’s time had come, but they made sure not to paint that on the walls. At first I walked around, rooms are labeled by letter and go from A to H. I’ll be in the G class, my domain, my table with eight chairs, a chalkboard, a CD player for listening to…

The City

Posted on August 9th, 2009

As I listen to Alanis Morissette singing about those events that aren’t really ironic, I am reminded of the 90′s and the Spice Girls, and how Natalie Imbruglia had such enviable hair in Torn. I’ve stuffed my home into three large suitcases, which is comprised of films, books, clothes, and a digital camera which casts an odd red aura over a majority of its pictures. As my boss, Eddie Kim, dragged my bags into my new apartment, he took off his slippers at my door and crammed my suitcase in the corner, telling me that a dresser would be delivered tomorrow, that he was sorry for the delay. He was so particularly sincere about the “inconvenience” though I couldn’t imagine being any less hassled.…