yes, isn't it pretty to think so?

notes from being at home

2010-08-28T03:34:00.003-04:00

isn't it pretty to think . . that we could pretend like we all lived at home again as if were 10 years ago?

my grandfather passed away last monday so we're all at home. and when i say we're all . . i don't just mean all the thammarath's in one home. but all my cousins, aunts, and uncles that i grew up in san diego but have since moved to denver, phoenix, etc. with are all here too . . which is great. i feel like we should pretend like it's thanksgiving or super bowl just so we can reenact those times we all spent with one another growing up.

1. i can't wait to be an aunt. my brother is getting married next year (yes, apparently, one thammarath will embark on the whole life time partnership thing) and he'll probably be the first to have a child (malisa is no where close to getting married and she wouldn't have to give my dad a heart attack . . and well, i'm still a child and i don't plan on having a child while i am still one myself). earlier today, kim, my brother's fiance randomly wondered out loud how their kids would look like. would they be spot on like james the way my brother is spot on like my dad? will they have a smash up between the two of them? how will that look? will they be like me and have fine strands of hair like my mom but the thickness and amount of hair like my dad?

2. while driving up to temecula, my sister randomly said, "i think i should just move back to san diego and open up a restaurant." i told her if she did that, i would wait tables for her. she asked, "you're gonna quit ur job in dc and move back to san diego to wait tables at my restaurant?" i told her, no. but it would be perfect if i was in grad school in san diego and i waited tables on the side. PhD student by day and server by night. i like the sound of that.

3. i love that my grandma doesn't get embarrassed when i act like a 5 year old and hug and shake her in front of all my relatives.

4. i love that i could spend hours downloading music and reorganizing my itunes. i don't love that i'm running out of space on my phone and i can't just sync all my music on it.

immobile

2010-05-09T21:26:00.002-04:00

isn't it pretty to think . . that i could just do what i used to do and pick up and move across the country or move across the world?

why does it get so much harder to do things like that when you get older?

thank goodness for . . taking things back?

2010-05-03T14:31:00.003-04:00

isn't it pretty to think . . that when someone appears to have made up their mind . . they wouldn't change it again?

Just when you thought the next few months were going to be amazing . . here's to getting a huge fucking slap-in-the-face-reality-check and having the rug pulled out from underneath you.

WOO HOO.

thank goodness for some clarity

2010-05-01T11:00:00.002-04:00

isn't it pretty to think that all the world's vague, uncertain, complicated situations could be clarified, reaffirmed, and resolved in one simple conversation?

yeah, well, thank goodness some situations can!

Home: West to East

2010-04-23T00:05:00.004-04:00

Isn't it pretty to think that transitioning from one home to the other and then back could be an easy process?

I just remembered why I avoid going home often: withdraws for weeks when I get back to DC.

After being in San Diego or the Bay Area . . it usually takes me a few weeks to get used to (and be happy) in DC.

While this is a feeling that I've generally come to expect, I feel like it's never been this bad before.

things to love about the spring

2010-04-08T00:15:00.005-04:00

isn't it pretty to think that life can automatically start looking up with the changing of the seasons?

I think it's officially springtime in the district. here's a short list of things i love during the spring (aka: not the winter):

warm mornings so waking up early for the gym is easier.

not having to carry and wear 3+ layers.

eating lunch outside in the sunshine.

warm nights.

gardening.

the revival of my houseplants.

being able to wear all sorts of shoes.

more space in my closet because the coats are put away.

sleeping naked.

signals for transitions

2010-03-26T23:21:00.008-04:00

isn't it pretty to think . . all transitions could have clear cut signals for the end of something old . . or at least the beginning of something new.

. . kind of like daffodils.

i've always loved daffodils, ever since watching the old version of charlie and the the chocolate factory. the scene where they're in the garden and willy sits down on some mushroom or something, picks a daffodil, drinks from it like a tea cup, and then bites off a piece of it.

ever since then, i was in love with those gorgeous yellow flowers.

however, my appreciation of them has deepened even more since moving to the east coast. not only have i discovered that they come in multiple shades of whites, yellows, and oranges . . but they also come in all sorts of sizes.

while the various types of daffodils has definitely been a plus, there's a far greater reason why i've gotten even more fond of them. a few days ago, the daffodils in the district bloomed . . signaling the end of winter and the beginning of spring. this means, i could put some of my coats away, i could start bringing out my skirts and tank tops, and soon i will be able to run outside, sit out at the mall, read on my porch . . and all the wonderful things i haven't been able to do since the fall.

i wish every end and beginning could have a signal so simple and so sweet.

like relationships. i wish relationships could have a signal for an end or at least as signal for a beginning like the blooming of a daffodil.

a few months ago, i was talking to a friend about vagueness when it comes to relationships. she couldn't stand them. she said that she needed to immediately DTR -- determine the relationship. she needed to sit down and talk to the person. ask them if this was casual. ask them if there was a future. ask them if they liked her. ask them if they were sleeping with other people. ask them this and ask them that.

i told her i was the complete opposite. i enjoyed vagueness . . it let me enjoy things as they went without all the complications of over thinking and over analyzing. it let me dream up the best case scenarios. it let me imagine that this wasn't casual. that there might be a future. that they did like me. that we were being monogamous . . all the great things that could come from new and exciting relationships.

she mentioned that she wasn't surprised. she thought i was a relatively optimistic person . . i always carried myself in a way where i COULD make things the best case scenario . . and even in the worst case scenarios, i got myself to find something good about it. then i would go and focus just on that one piece of "good" and ignore all the other not so good parts.

of course thats what i did; it's my defense mechanism.

of course i would dream up the best case scenarios; it's what keeps me going.

unlike me, my friend wasn't like that. instead, she would conjure up the worst case scenario. in her mind, she would think . . this was just casual. there was no future. he didn't like her. he was sleeping with other people . . and the list would go on.

maybe she's right. maybe DTR is the way to go. maybe worst case scenarios are the way to go.

but then again, even the most simple and sweet signals could be wrong. even clear communication, even DTR, even good life choices . . could be wrong.

a few days ago the daffodils bloomed to signal the end of winter and beginning of spring.

today, i woke up to some hard rain outside my window, cold, alone, and wondering if i really even fell asleep. the low was 30 degrees and i wished i didn't start putting my coats away. in fact, i wished i wore one when i finally stepped outside of my house.

mental health day

2010-02-25T22:03:00.002-05:00

isn't it pretty to think . . the simple things in life could help ease the bigger things that plague the world (& your mind)?

sometimes it can.

tomorrow, i'm taking a mental health day. another thing i love about my job . . an extremely understanding and supportive staff and management.

work has been rough lately. i need to be inspired again. maybe it's because i haven't traveled and haven't spent much time with local communities. maybe it's because it's been cold with nothing but my fleece throw to keep me warm. maybe it's because i've been realizing that the only person here to take care of me is myself. maybe it's because i'm tired of always being the youngest person in the room. maybe it's because i'm tired of always being the only asian american in the room. maybe . . maybe i'm just tired.

while i will probably end up doing some work . . it's going to be fun. got a few check-in calls with my local partners in sacramento, providence, and philadelphia. gotta finish up some budget recommendations . . and that's it!

here's a list of some stuff i do to clear my head . . that i definitely plan on doing tomorrow.

work out: unfortunately, it's too cold to run outside . . but i'm hoping that the lazies aren't going to be taking up all the thread mills at the gym . . and i'll get some weights in too.

cook: something yummy . . like my favorite noodles that i used to buy at the temple in san diego for just a dollar.

clean: my kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom has seen better days. i used to keep my bedroom pretty clean (maybe it helped that i was barely in it), but lately, it's fallen apart.

read: still trucking through one of my favorite books, The Sun Also Rises. if you haven't read it, u're missing out. i have a beautiful vintage copy my friend pamela bought me when i turned 18.

laundry: i guess along the same lines as cleaning. it's quite literary catharic.

emails: read and write long emails. fun.

shop: the ultimate therapy session.

snow-pocalypse. snow-magedon. snow-gams. snOVERKILL.

2010-02-10T11:32:00.004-05:00

Isn’t it pretty to think . . that blood always ran thicker than water?

As someone who really enjoys the outdoors, all this snow isn’t as fun anymore. While I haven't really been cooped up inside at all... even the thought of being forced to stay inside today because of the wind, heavy, snow, and lack of plowing is making me go nuts. I figured, maybe I should try to think happier snow thoughts to fight off cabin fever.

. . Like that REACH! Retreat to Tahoe.

. . Or that snowboarding trip with my sister, Scott, and Ralph.

Okay, maybe I don’t want to think about that trip.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I went on the big snow trip with my brother, sister, their partners, and the 25+ other “cousins” and family friends that I grew up.

It’s become an annual thing. The San Diego Lue kids (whether we still live in San Diego or not) and the Denver Lue kids (which, actually mostly still live in and around Denver) get together once a year for a big snow trip. Last year, they all made a big trip to Park City, Utah… this year, we were making the trip up to Breckenridge, Colorado.

Yes, folks. That was the house we stayed in... and almost nothing about it was refugee-style. Look at how we packed for the weekend.

So, when I say kids and cousins… I guess it’s a bit misleading. We’re not really kids anymore – I mean, some of us HAVE kids. Our ages range from about 35 to 22. My Uncle Dopey is about 35 and my “cousins” Tom and George are 22. And then, I realized, by San Diego and Denver Lue kids, I was really referring to the cohort of 1.5 to 2.0 generation Lue kids that grew up and/or were born here in the United States. I mean, the 30 of us on the trip were definitely NOT all of the 1.5 and 2.0 generation. We’re just a small portion of the larger group that have gotten close to one another through being resettled in the same city or neighborhood, going to the same high schools, having the first same jobs, etc.

Also, when I say “cousins”… I guess that’s also a little misleading. Most of us, are cousins… like 4th cousins or something where the family tree would be too complicated to figure out… and to be honest, the branches might cross over one too many times for it to be a pleasant experience to figure out. We’ve just become closer to one another than our “real” cousins because we saw each other at least every weekend instead of just once a year and we spent time together doing nothing instead of only seeing each other during big things like weddings, funerals, etc.

Our bond is through experiences and not necessarily through blood. I guess that’s what happens in a disapora community that has fled several borders and resettled in a way to purposefully disempower you. You cling to those near and count on each other as family because your real family might be spread across several states or several other countries.

I guess Professor Um would call us apart of that special generation that are the “cultural brokers” of our people – the people who create that bridge between the old and the new… the migration and the resettlement… the homeland that will never be the same and the new home that will never live up to its expectations – and maybe the fact that we’re descendants of not only refugees but also the descendants of some awkward ethnic minority that no one talks about within the context of wars of Southeast Asia makes our stories and experiences particularly one of kind.

I mean, I don’t think many people can say their family members consist of people who go by Uncle Dopey, Brother Bear, Six, Lil Man, Funny, and Shane (while his real name is Steve)?

Or, many people can say that most of their older guy cousins have some homemade tatoos of “Lue” on their shoulder – maybe to remind themselves that they aren’t Lao?

Or, many people are closer to the “cousins” they grew up with – who they have years and years of shared experiences with but probably have no blood relation with them – then their actual cousins – who they share grandparents, aunts, and uncles with but probably see only once of twice a year?

While I make an extra effort to avoid going all ethnic studies on my family, maybe I don’t really ever have to because we are apart of it.

Maybe, we’ve all kind of realized that our stories and experiences are pretty one of a kind – yet very much from the same thread. Maybe that’s why we do these trips – to combat the policy of dispersal that spread our families, while all from the same villages, out across this huge ass country. Maybe that’s why we all prioritize making the time to spend with one another – to combat the alienation that we feel and experience as Lue Americans – no, not Lao American or Thai Americans – but Lue Americans.

Maybe we realize that there’s a reason why our parents get together for hours to drink beer, eat good home cooked food, and reminisce… about their childhood (before the war), their childhood and adolescent years (during the war), their early adulthood years sneaking out of the refugee camps to party in Thailand, and their adulthood years of first coming to the United States, figuring out how to drive, ditching adult school, their first jobs cleaning random office buildings, their kids, their kids kids, etc.

It’s like how we get together to drink beer, eat good home cooked food, and reminisce… about our childhood and living a few blocks away from each other, our adolescent years and taking the bus and trolley to the mall and the beach, our early adulthood years and going to high school, ditching high schools, and/or dropping out of high school, and our current adulthood years… which we’re still living and making the memories for stories of, “hey, remember that time at Jenny and Six’s wedding and you were so f-ed up?” or “hey, remember that year at City Park where you sang karaoke till 4am and then we woke up at 9am to go boarding?” or “hey, remember that time at Copper Mountain where Monica did a superman right before she got to the bottom and we were all watching her?”

Our stories of adulthood are going to be great… and we’re going to keep making the time for some good material and we’re definitely going to tell them over and over and over again for generations to come – blood related or not... because sometimes water can and does run thicker or as thick as blood.

And yes, that's another failed Thammarath siblings picture.

Failed Attempt to Fall Out of Love with U.S. History, Government, and Politics.

2010-01-25T23:02:00.003-05:00

Isn’t it pretty to think . . that everything was either black and white? You either love it or you hate it. You either dread it or desired it? No combinations of both and nothing in between?

Well, this black or white, love or hate, and dread or desire issue is exactly what I face before, during, and after each of the training sessions in the WeLEAD program that I’m in.

WeLEAD is a program hosted by American University’s Women & Politics Institute. The tag line is, “Women Bringing Women to the Power Center.” It’s basically a year-long program for young women interested in politics under the age of 25. We have sessions once a month on Saturdays and sample topics have been professional development, fundraising, government, elections & campaigns, international development, etc. It’s a way to get more young women into politics, whether it be working in politics or running for office.

I was really hesitant to apply.

I mean, the images I got from picturing a room full of young political junkies sounded worst than getting a bunch of pre-law undergraduates together in one room. But a last, I am/was one of them. Both of them.

You see, I grew up loving U.S. history, government, and politics . . and I’m not saying that as an understatement.

I loved memorizing the dates of the major battles of the civil war, reciting the preamble of the Constitution, drawing charts of our federal government’s checks and balances, reading re-reading, and sometimes even re-re-reading chapters upon chapters of textbooks . . you get the idea.

I’m not sure what it was.

Maybe it was my dad constantly reminding me how lucky I was to grow up and go to school in the U.S. instead of fleeing communism and raising water buffalo in Laos . .
Or maybe it Mr. Hughes – my really amazing social studies teacher in the 7th and 8th grade – who made my class simulate a make up scenario of putting Harry S. Truman on stand for dropping the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima (for which, I got to be the actual judge of the case) . .
Or maybe it was Mr. Giardina – my even more amazing government and U.S. history teacher in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades – who did wonderful things like give our class a pass or fail test on the U.S. presidents on the second day of school . .
Or maybe I really just was a nerdy kid that liked reading, writing about, and daydreaming of being alive and apart of the making of this country’s foundation.

I often wish that I came to Washington, DC during this part of my life.

When I was younger, I wanted to be many things in life. However, no matter what the occupation, I was always really, really, determined and committed. .

The first thing I wanted to be was a fashion designer. This was during my younger years of playing with my Barbie dolls and making their own clothes from my grandma’s scrap material (already made Barbie clothing was just ridiculously expensive). While this phase ended when I went to school, this might be why I never have enough storage space for all my clothes, shoes, and accessories.

The next thing I wanted to be was a teacher. However, this too somewhat faded once I entered a school without a Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) and realized not all students were that excited about being in school and didn’t all admire/love their teachers. I was basically scared away from being a teacher because I didn’t want to get locked in my closet by her students like what happened to my dance teacher in the 7th grade and I didn’t want to find graffiti in my classroom saying, “Ms. Thammarath is a [insert expletive here].“

The last and final thing I wanted to be before I entered college and this current “I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-my-life” phase was a lawyer. However, I didn’t want to be a lawyer because I particularly I wanted to be in a courtroom or anything like that . . I just knew that being a lawyer might help me become a Senator one day.

Please try to subside your laughter because, yes, that’s right . . at one point in my life, my dream was to be an elected official . . and a U.S. Senator seemed to be the most appealing to be at the time.

I mean, it wasn’t exactly out of pocket: 1) I loved U.S. history, government, and politics and 2) I was school/class president in elementary school, middle school, AND high school.

I don’t think my interest in being a lawyer and an elected official was ever really about wanting to have all that power and control (but I’m sure knowing my type-A personality, that had something to do with it too). I think it was more about wanting to help other people get the most out of this country . . but looking back, I’m not exactly sure what possessed me to think that was something I could do as a Senator.

Anyway, to my parent’s delight, I kinda threw the whole lawyer and elected official thing out the window (yes, against the model minority thing, they always wanted me to be a teacher or professor) once I heard my first ethnic studies inspired workshop at the Southeast Asian Student Coalition’s Summer Institute in the summer of 2003.

Instead of being that bright-eyed-fill-me-up-with-your-western-perspective-and-propaganda-of-history-and-government, I began to (re)question everything.

I no longer only saw the civil war as the symbol of this country’s endurance . . but began to see the continued racism that they failed to end during reconstruction.
I no longer marveled in the words of justice, tranquility, welfare, and liberty . . but see the document as institutionalizing not just the overall government but also institutionalizing disparities, limited access, the haves and have nots, the people who matter and the people who only matter 5/8s of the time, racism, and . . so many other things that don’t seem related to any of the stuff in the preamble.
I no longer thought our three branches of government was a flawless structure to guide checks and balances . . but began to see the problems of congress members constantly campaigning, Supreme Court Justices that were out of touch and way too old, and career bureaucrats in the various departments that made things extremely difficult to change despite who was President at the time.

And with that, I began trying to fall out of love with U.S. history, government, and politics.

Unfortunately, I never really did.

Hence, the whole picking up and moving across the country thing . . the bubbly feeling I get every time I see the Capitol, especially at night time when all the lights are on . . why I love sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial thinking about how much my dad would love that view . . and why I have a picture of one of the quotes at Jefferson’s Memorial on my phone’s wallpaper . .

Like with most things that I care about really deeply, I really just continued to have this love and hate relationship with U.S. history, government, and politics. However, more importantly I just started to have this love and hate relationship with myself for never being able to fall out of love with it.

So despite the horrific images of overly ambitious, probably privileged and not very diverse, probably pretty intense young women all in one room . . I applied for WeLEAD. When I turned in my application, I didn’t think I’d hear back . . or at least I was preparing myself for a rejection letter.

The part of me that loved government and politics wanted to apply, put my best foot forward, and get accepted (accepted, meant a whole lot more than just accepted into the program).

The part of me that hated government and politics wanted to apply, put all my qualms about politics and people interested in politics on paper, and make sure they only accepted me for me and all my off the wall political opinions . . or be rejected so I could rejoice in not being “one of them.”

The questions on the application were generic. Stuff like: 1) What do you want to gain from taking part in the program? 2) What do you think you could contribute?

I really didn’t think I was going to get into the program because my essays weren’t exactly . . diplomatic . . (not sure if that’s the right word . . but it could work)? I wrote some essays on the importance of recognizing not only gender but also the intersections with sexuality, race, class, etc. I basically kinda just laid out the “I’m-an-angry-womxn-of-color-and-you-probably-don’t-get-many-applicants-like-me-so-you-should-accept-me-but-if-you-don't-I-don't-care-because-I-don't-need-you-anyway” message into two pages.

To my surprise, I received an email notifying me that out of hundreds of applicants, I was one of the oh-so-lucky 50 or so women who was accepted to the program.

So here again, the love part of me was really excited; I felt like I made it into the “club.” However, the other part of me was really ashamed; I felt like it just confirmed that I was “one of them.”

So, naturally, as the only Asian American woman in the program (surprise, surprise) . . and the maybe handful of women of color in the program, whenever I go to the sessions, I always cling onto the same 3 black women and 1 latina in the program.

The last time everyone met . . I ditched the program to go to North Carolina with the dream team. This time, I really had to go or else I was going to get kicked out of the program.

The topic was Elections and Campaigns . . and I got to tell you, by the end of the session, I was thinking of ways to rearrange my life to be able to work on the 2012 election. What I enjoy most about every session is that the facilitators and panelists are so outwardly partisan and opinionated. WeLEAD sessions are never lacking in political jokes and playful poking of the other side. Oh, but they are also never lacking in the how-to-balance-your-ambitious-career-and-your-biological-clock thing either.

What made this session different was that they actually split the participants into OUR political affiliations. The moderator literary said,

“Okay, Democrats to the left, Republicans to the right, and if you think you’re independent, pick a fucking side.”

It was refreshing to hear.

Just like how sometimes, it’s refreshing to just admit . . That government and politics excites me. That I have a love and hate relationship with it because sometimes, I love that I hate it . . but also, I always hate that I love it. That sometimes, I can’t help but think that the civil war is a symbol of this country’s resilience and commitment to fundamental values, the Constitution is an amazing document that has created a whole lot of opportunities, and the three branches of the government is a genius way to organize a government.

Really, it is refreshing . . especially when I also get to admit that almost everything is some combination of black/white, love/hate, dread/desire . . and if not, it’s usually a combination of either of the polar sides.

trying to re-live a bit of the past

2010-01-20T22:56:00.001-05:00

isn't it pretty to think . . that rallying up your old group of friends to do something that used to be so easy for you to do as 17 and 18 year olds could be as easy to do when you're 23 and 24 years old too?

2003

In high school, my closest friends and I used to call each other the Huntington Crew: Darlene, Felix, Mikhael, Pamela, and me. This name sprung from the fact that during the junior year of high school, we all took AP Art History with Ms. Graham.

In fact, Pamela loved the class so much that she later went on to college to study Art History and aspired to be Ms. Graham . . while that dream was never reached because of other BIGGER aspirations (which I will mention later), this just illustrates how seriously we took that class . . as we did many of our classes because we were a bunch of nerds and didn't care if people thought that being nerds was a bad thing.

Anyway, one of the things that we had to do as apart of the extra requirements for the class was a to visit an art museum. Many students went to the San Diego Museum of Art, in beautiful and scenic (and romantic) Balboa Park. Other students went to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, tucked in the hills of (bougie ass) La Jolla. But us, we were the ~~overachievers~~ the true connoisseurs of art (or at least, crap we thought was kinda artsy).

Looking back, we were a bit arrogant . . probably to mask our nerdiness.

So one day, it just so happened that the five of us were sitting around (I would say we were eating lunch, but I almost always ate lunch in the ASB room) and realized that none of us had completed this extra requirement for the class. I don't remember who's brilliant idea it was . . but someone suggested to drive up to Huntington Library for the day to fulfill the requirement.

Like a bunch of dorks, we were all really excited.

Mikhael picked us up one by one in his mom's camry, without telling his mother that he was actually not just going to hang out at Felix's house . . but was actually driving up to Los Angeles. Darlene's mom packed us some snacks, which included cheez its, pudding cups, and many other scrumptious things. Pam's mom bid us farewell . . and then we were off.

After a day of being swept to sea by Hooper's The Long Leg, admiring the calligraphy of the Gutenberg Bible on vellum, joyfully reciting the prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (as we were forced to memorize by our Advanced American Literature teacher . . in old English) as we looked over the original, and running around the Botanical Gardens . . the five of us had made a special bond.

On the drive back home, the bond from the day was only strengthened by Mikhael being pulled over by a "chip" on a sneaky motorbike (thank goodness he only got a warning for speeding), conversations about stolen first kisses (and ex boyfriends/girlfriends that, already at our tender age, we knew we just didn't need around anymore), and taking shots of wax bottle candy to the day and our youth.

[side note: while doing research for this blog post, I found a huntington post blog entry with the wax bottle candy as one of the 9 Grossest Kinds Of Candy No Adult Should Give Out On Halloween. I think we'd highly disagree with your choice . . but only because of the sentimental value of the candy. Not necessarily because of taste.]

That day resulted in not only annual trips to Huntington (until our schedules were so tough, mostly because of me and my constant summer school and summer organizing) but also some fun outings like this really fun Hot Hot Heat concert at the scene -- one of the best concert venues in San Diego . . until it closed down because of the opening of (bigger and more "mainstream") SOMA San Diego.

The last time we took a Huntington Trip was during the summer of our first year of college. I admit, this was probably my fault. Second year of college, I directed SASC-SI. Third year of college, I was taking like 12 units during the summer before going to Thailand for a year. Right after graduation, I moved to DC for an internship.

The last time all five of us were together . . I don't even remember.

It's a little harder now. While Mikhael is back in San Diego . . Felix is now in Chicago for school . . I'm in Washington, DC for work . . Darlene's in New York City for school . . and Pam, well Pam's back in the convent in Nashville.

That's right. The five of us live in five completely different states (and a district).

Last time, the four of us (that were allowed to make contact with both genders) couldn't even get together during the holidays for brunch.

We've been trying to get together for another trip for years . . so naturally, when I saw Coachella, I sent it out to the group.

Unfortunately, it's looking like:
. . Mikhael might not have the vacation time to go all three days.
. . Felix might be returning to Chicago from taking the quarter off.
. . It would only work for Darlene if she has spring break during that week.
. . And Pam . .

Well, I don't know much about Catholicism . . but I don't think nuns are allowed to like indie rock, much less go to and camp out at a three day festival . . even if Pam used to be the one girl I could count on to start a circle pit with me or the one girl I always crowd surfed with.

Maybe I'm romanticizing my high school years and the Huntington Crew a bit.

Maybe I'm not.

Maybe being 17 and 18 years old, weathered and jaded by some pretty bad relationships yet set with some pretty bright futures was pretty fucking amazing.

Maybe as 23 and 24 year olds, despite being weathered and jaded by even worst relationships and needing a "Huntington Crew" trip more than ever . . we've also racked up some bigger responsibilities and have physically made it less possible.

So how do we remind ourselves: Slow down. We're still young. Take a break. There's no rush. Reflect with friends. MAKE time.

How?

How do we make what used to be so easy to do when we were 17 and 18 years old . . something that is POSSIBLE even when we're 23 and 24?

disney movies

2009-12-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

isn't it pretty to think . . that after growing up, getting politicized, and getting a job in the progressive movement . . that you can just take off your "political conscious hat" and enjoy a disney movie?

I have to admit that growing up, I did really love disney movies. My favorite was Aladdin . .

Maybe it was because Jasmine was a lot tanner than the other princesses.
Maybe it was because Jasmine was a little rebellious.
Maybe it was because Aladdin was this witty, goofy, but sincere guy.
Maybe it was because of the soundtrack.

Nah, it's gotta be because she had a pet tiger. Who wouldn't want a pet tiiiigerrrr?? My affinity for Aladdin as a child was not necessarily normal. My favorite set of sheets growing up were my Jasmine flannel sheets. Last winter when I went home, I saw them in my dad's bed. He says he uses the flat sheet sometimes because they're warm . . or maybe he uses them sometimes when he misses his youngest daughter who decided to move across the country to help other Southeast Asian families instead of moving back home to help her own. Okay, okay. So that's a different topic.

Anyway, I just got back from watching The Princess and the Frog. I was pretty excited. Not just because this was going to be the first disney movie with a strong african american "princess" . . or because of the buzz around the interracial couple . . or because the movie was going to be taking place in New Orleans . . but really, it was because, I miss being 10 years old living what I thought was the American dream and watching disney's princess movies in my mom's room . . and dreaming just a little bit while doing it.

There were many funny parts in the movie. Like when the firefly gets upset because he thinks the prince was proposing to his love interest . . the star. Or the blind voodoo lady. Or like when the crocodile (or alligator) falls into the bush and the firefly had to pluck out every single weed one by one. Or like when the two frogs get tangled up in each others' tongues. Or like when the spoiled girl calls her father "big daddy" . .

But I couldn't help but wince with a bit of pain at a few parts as well. Like every time Tiana spoke of all her hard work in a pretty bootstraps kinda way. Or like when her mom tells her to throw her dreams away to find a man so she could have grandchildren. Or the fact that the the evil guy was this light skinned black man. Or the machismo prince that still managed to get the girl . .

Maybe Disney movies are just becoming more complicated? I didn't automatically fall in love with the prince because of his chauvinistic attitude . . and I didn't completely love the princess with her almost haughty bootstraps pride. I didn't automatically think everything was funny and politically correct . . and I didn't completely love the romance between the two because I didn't think he really deserved her and she shouldn't give up her dreams for some man. I didn't automatically love the way folks for New Orleans were depicted, especially the emphasis on black and white and not much in between . . and I didn't completely like all the songs because of the lyrics and context . .

Or maybe, I've just become more complicated? Maybe I'm just starting to think too much about things? Maybe I'm just starting to think too deeply into things?

I guess sometimes life is way too serious to not be able to laugh a little bit . . especially during a Disney movie. If we don't learn to throw some politics out the window once in a while and just enjoy things for what they are . . we'll never survive.

But then I had another, "damn, you've been in dc too long" moment when I couldn't help but think that the little rich girl in the movie kind depicted how I imagine the real life of Louisiana's Democratic Senator Landrieu to be.

(un)happiest states in the united states

2009-12-18T10:44:00.000-05:00

isn't it pretty to think . . you could just move somewhere and automatically be happy?

I thought this article on the Happiest U.S. States Pinned Down was really interesting. While this isn't exactly the first time folks have tried to do something like this, is the first time I've been a bit surprised by the results.

Number 1: Louisiana is #1? This must have have been pre-Katrina . . and even then, I'm sure the folks they surveyed probably weren't really the communities of color from places like New Orleans East or the Vietnamese community in Versailles . . but maybe resembled a certain type of Louisiana-er (or whatever they call themselves down there).

Top 3: Looks like the top states are just there because of the weather. For Florida, I mean, if you like muggy super humid weather, I guess that could work for you. Or maybe the folks that were surveyed in Florida were all those retired folks . . which isn't a surprise that they're happy. They're just chillin' at the beach all day. For Hawaii, they don't really have to deal with the rest of the country, so maybe that's a plus. But then again, I hear discrimination is relatively rampant there . . so again, who exactly did they survey?

States in the Middle: These states just look like the sparsely populated states with one or two big cities that they can claim.

States in the Bottom: The bigger, more densely populated, urban, and hussle and bussle states.

This makes me wonder, are people happier when they can feel like they're not connected to a lot of people? Are people happier when they can feel like they've successfully physically or mentally escaped? Are people happier in smaller, less populated, and less "busy" places?

Are people happier alone?

Looks like Americans are subscribing to the ignorance is bliss model. If you don't live in it, hear about it, or have to deal with it . . it doesn't exist . . and you can just be happy in your little state . . little city . . or little town.

It's kind of funny though. Almost all the states I've ever lived in or would consider living in are at the bottom of the list. Maybe this is because I enjoy big, densely populated, urban, hussle and bussle places.

Maybe this is because I like to live in a state of constant crisis.

Maybe this is because I'm a masochist and enjoy making my life complicated . . so I can say that at least, I can control this madness.

But who knows, maybe I'll just move to Hawaii and call it a day.

Careers and Marriage

2009-12-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

"So, guys, if you're game for an exciting life, go ahead and marry a professional gal."

My co-worker steered me to the article above about about careers and marriage. she struggles. she struggles with loving this work, but barely making enough money to support herself and barely having time for a personal life.

~~In some ways, I suppose the struggle with that too.~~ Scratch that. I don't struggle with it. I've come to terms with it. I admit, I enjoy working a lot, being tired, getting frustrated, being angry, getting really excited, etc.

But then again, I'm young. Let's see how many years of these 12 hour work days and weekends in the office I could handle.

However, sidebar: I think the quote above could be changed in a variety of different ways:

Careers v. Marriage: for the unbalanced types

Careers v. Relationships: for the non-marrying types

Community v. Relationships: for the progressive social activists types

I think the Careers and Marriage thing already lays the foundation that it could exist together. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I feel like the real question is, Careers versus Marriage?

Also, for the domestic partner types like myself, I'm not sure how I feel about the marriage part. I think trying to have a relationship (much less marriage) along side a demanding, fast paced, and jet setting "career" is already something of an art I have yet to master (please see Monica's dating history).

And also, for the non-career driven but community driven types, I'm not sure how I feel about the career part. I think it's easy to have a job, especially those 9-5 types where you don't have to take anything home, where deadlines and actions translate into real people, where deadlines and actions translate into real people like you, your family, your friends . . people you love and love you.

A good friend of mine just wrote a blog about love vs. independence. Does career v relationships also mean independence v love? Maybe if you consider your career part of independence.

I guess independence encompasses many other aspects, but careers, job, community -- whatever you want to call it -- has always been a big part of it for me and I definitely don't see that changing anytime soon.

Maybe I've been approaching this all wrong. Maybe the game plan should be to look for someone else who is also a community v. relationships type of person so we can both ~~deprioritize one another~~ be really busy but still have a great time when we are together.

district sleeps alone tonight . .

2009-12-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

. . almost every night.

one of the albums that we listened to a lot while driving on our little road trip was the postal service. ironically, i've been living in DC for over a year and haven't reacquainted myself with the first track of the album.

while in berkeley, i thought the song "so described my situation" . . but now it's not even funny anymore.

from falling asleep with full make up on (smeared black ink) . .
to barely listening to statements (i'm staring at the asphalt) . .
to the scenes of all those silhouettes of people sleeping in the bed with her (romantic and not) . .
to the random house parties (i thought the house party phase was over after i turned 21?) . .
to the chanting of "i was the one worth leaving" and "DC sleeps alone tonight" . .

dc really is this funky place where 20 something year olds come to do "serious" work during the day and realize they also need to do some serious NON work during the night and weekends.

. . it also is this funky place where you're not sure if people are really listening to you or if they're already devising a witty comeback or strategically thinking who else to talk to next.

. . it also is place where it seems normal to share beds with people who you might not be romantically involved in, especially if they're the 92034803 friends visiting from "back home." Sometimes your home feels like a hotel and you keep spare beds lying around like normal people keep spare towels in their cupboards.

. . it also is a place where 20 and 30 something year olds have house parties . . kegs and all.

lastly, it also is a place where people come because something before was worth leaving (or not worth staying for) to realize that when you get here, you'll just meet a lot of other lonely people who actually like being alone.

some folks love it . . some folks hate it . . but most folks just hate to admit that they love it.

i'm committed . .

2009-11-30T23:31:00.000-05:00

. . to not being committed.

first real commitment: actually blog.

second real commitment: don't be committed.

i realized how boring i've gotten being here in the states. so, i'm committed to:
1) not being boring
2) trying new things, and
3) not being overly committed

i mean, i work way too much be a square in this district of squares.

this might mean, jumping into the ocean at 42 degrees in late november:

or, driving through a few states to get some good fast food:

or, going to random furniture stores:

or almost get pawned off by your friends . . or remembering only certain parts of the night . . or loosing ATM cards by not pressing the "return card" button . . or having really great ideas that don't sound that great in the morning . . or making up stories, only to realize NO story could cover THAT up. no, not even stories with dragons. OR . . coming to the conclusion that maybe my friends are lying because i definitely did NOT do that.

oh, i want to be in my early twenties . . forever.

Promoting LGBT Dating Violence

2009-05-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

Are you f-ing serious??

Thank you South Carolina.

No wonder you were the first state to secede from the union.

UC's Fees Increase 9.3%

2009-05-15T10:54:00.000-04:00

So when my older brother and sister went to college, my parents paid for their tuition without applying for financial aid.

Granted they could only apply to/attend local schools (UCSD and SDSU) and were required to live at home . . that was a big chunk of change. When my brother started going to college, my parents had to resort to paying Malisa's tuition in multiple payments rather than just putting down the $4,000 (or so) in one payment.

When I went to college, seeing that I was the rebellious and said: f-you-i'm-applying-to-5-UCs-and-hauling-my-ass-500-miles-away-to-Berkeley . . all these payments were on me. Also, by my senior year in high school . . my parents were both unemployed due to some layoffs and I knew even if I stayed in San Diego . . I wouldn't even want to ask for the same sweet deal as my siblings anyway.

So BOO HOO. I left college with $20K in loans. Ironically, this is MORE than what my private school educated friends in DC left school with. Which brings to mind, if I left a public school with that much debt, how much debt would future UC alums be leaving with?

Cuts to Abstinence Only Education!

2009-05-15T10:36:00.000-04:00

So while our favorite almost first daughter parades around America promoting teenage sexual abstinence, the Obama administration is finally having some sense and cutting the budget of the stupid abstinence only education.

The only budget cuts to any education program.

YAY!

So going back to Bristol, I wonder how her child is going to feel to grow up knowing that her mom went on a national campaign to talk about how he/she was a big mistake.

It makes me sad to think that instead of shaming young mothers (aka: herself), scaring young women in general, and sentencing her child to growing up unwanted . . she could have used her experience to empower young mothers.

Reminds me of other conservative folks I know.

Community Service, Service, and Activism

2009-05-11T14:02:00.001-04:00

from an email.

I think often times . . activists try to stay away from "service" or "community service" because we emphasize the fact that we work in and WITH the community.

I admit, I do this also. No, what I do is NOT community service. It's activism. Community service is what I did to rack up hours and put on my college application . . not what I did in college or what I do now. What I did in college and what I do now . . I do with a purpose. Community service also has a purpose, just not rooted in the same social justice purpose that I've developed over the years...

However, I think shifting our perspective might help. While most forms of service is not considered activism (ie: a bunch of bougie kids going into a low income community and picking up trash and painting some of the buildings), it can be argued that most forms of activism is a form of service (ie: organizing a low income community to pick up trash and paint their OWN buildings).

Only an incredibly (dare I say) arrogant "activist" will go and say, NO, I'm an ACTIVIST . . I don't do SERVICE. We are community organizers not community SERVICE people.

Now, if we look at it this way . . not all organizing is service either right? While I know a lot of folks may say they organize the community, what are the outcomes?

The outcomes are the service.

You can organize a community . . but if there are no actions or results, what is the service?

While most forms of service could be done by a bunch of bougie white people who don't come from the community, the reason why we consider it activism is because we come FROM the community and we work WITH the community to make these things happen.

On the other hand, we can definitely have activism without service as well. If we just sat around and talked about stupid admissions policies, talked about SI being inaccessible to students in the central valley, talked about how high school students should apply to scholarships, or just talked to middle school students about taking the right courses in high school . . then that's just activism without service.

Therefore, it's important for "activists" to not just sit around and think critically about issues . . or talk the talk about social justice . . we gotta make sure we walk the walk and actually act on some of these issues and figure out some solutions.

Where Did I REALLY Come From?

2009-05-06T14:58:00.001-04:00

Yet another reason why my parents should have thought about resettling in Australia instead of the United States.

Now this is what I call being a multi-ethnic nation-state!

The Goonies

2009-05-04T13:13:00.001-04:00

On Friday after the May day rally, Doua convinced me to go up to Rosslyn to meet up with her, Minh, Helly, and Yimeen for a movie in the park.

Apparently, every Friday during the summer time, Rosslyn screens movies in this really cute park.

Anyway, the movie that they were playing was The Goonies. Doua was shocked that Minh and I both have never seen it . . I suppose a testament to our age.

While I have never seen it, I did tell Doua, "umm . . but I've heard a lot of punk rock songs about it . . "

Which is true.

After watching the movie, so many song make so much more sense to me now.

Passport DC

2009-05-03T22:24:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I went out to Passport DC with Josh, Ann, his friend Kevin, and Sarah Jo.

I've heard great things about it . . but wasn't exactly planning on going because the whole "cultural tourism" thing sounds a little weird to me. Anyway, I went mainly to be able to hang out with Ann, the wife of my DVRP language partner.

While I was a little hesitant, I'm really glad I went both because I got to hang out with some really cool people AND the events weren't as anthropological as they could have been.

I really enjoyed the Embassies of Malaysia, Serbia, Iraq, and Nepal.

It was weird to feel like a speed traveler, trying to hit up as many "countries" and collect as many different passport stamps as possible again.

It made me miss REAL traveling. I guess it also didn't help that I was hanging out with a bunch of peace corp folks . . which BTW made me really rethink doing peace corp one day again.

Because the Thai Embassy was open the latest (till 8pm while all the others closed at 4pm), we went there last.

While all the other embassies gave away free food, the Thai Embasy was selling things like no other. They were even selling these paintings. I managed to snap a picture of this one titled "Tai Leu," which I think is supposed to be of a Lue woman.

It would be accurate . . except I don't remember my relatives ever wearing shirts that emphasized our boobs that much before in my life.

Cost of Trying to be Healthy

2009-05-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

I've just recently started my free one week trial at Washington Sports Club and I think I've fallen in love.

So I've noticed that while some of my friends, (aka Van and Danny) have lost weight after moving to the east coast, I on the other hand have definitely not.

Well, maybe I have . . but it definitely has to do with the eroding of my muscle that I built up during high school and was never really kept up when I went to college.

Anyway, so I knew I needed to "get back in shape" -- whatever that means anyway.

So I went around search for gyms in DC. We don't have a 24 hour fitness or a Ballys or whatever so I was pretty much just asking folks around. Results gym near my work is $80 a month. YMCA near my work is $70 a month. Washington Sports Club near my house is $60 a month. Fitness First near Downtown and Arlington is $30 a month.

great. GREAT.

Seriously?! It was like $10 a SEMESTER for the gym at Cal and then free my last year in college.

AHH, I hate not being a student anymore.

Anyway, I've fallen in love with the bougie WSC and might just shelve out the $60 a month. I guess I feel it's worth it because I've become somewhat of an addict again though.

Miss California

2009-04-21T16:53:00.001-04:00

Dear Carrie Prejean (aka Miss California),

I just wanted to thank you for so eloquently representing my hometown of San Diego, CA last night on Miss Teen USA.

I especially liked the fact that you were strong enough to give your personal opinion on gay marriage even though the question really just asked your opinion on state versus federal policies and that you coined a new term, "opposite marriage."

It is great people like you that makes me want to move back home to San Diego.

hugs&kisses from dc,
Monica

PS: I'd love to see you do a video blog response to Perez Hilton . . I'm looking forward to hearing more new terms from you.

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Reception

2009-03-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I went with Doua to the Capitol Vistors Center for the CAPAC (Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus) Reception.

It was interesting to see the entire room filled with all the APA "must knows" . .

Elected Officials -- Honda, Mineta, Cao, Scott (who I found out was 1/4 Filipino), Lee, Woolsey, etc. etc.
EDs of all the APA alphabet soup organizations -- JACL, OCA, APAICS, CAPAC, NAPAWF, NaFFAA, etc. etc.

. . and last but not least, folks like me!

It was a reception to welcome the two new CAPAC members who have just been elected into Congress and who have just recently joined CAPAC. I forget who the person was from one of our territories . . but when Honda introduct Cao . . he repeatly pointed out that as a Republican, Cao makes CAPAC bipartisan.

I think at this point . . Cao probably needs as many friends as he can get. Seeing that he won the election because of some pretty special circumstances AND is facing a recall petition.

snow snow and more snow in DC

2009-03-02T10:02:00.000-05:00

In what folks are saying this "Could be the Largest Winter Storm in Three Years" (and by folks, I mean the Washington Post), I found saw some pretty interesting stuff while walking to the bus stop and walking to work.

First, there was a young mother, her son (probably around 3) and their big fuzzy dog making snow angels on the corner of Kenyon and Sherman. Just smack dab on the side walk flapping their arms like excited Californians in Tahoe or at Big Bear. Also, according to our local wine store, since most of the people in my neighborhood are from California (as he observed from checking IDs when people purchase alcohol), it's a good chance the family was from California.

Second, also while walking to the bus stop from my house, I saw a man "shoveling" the snow from the side walk in front of his house. I say, "shoveling" because the man really wasn't shoveling. He was more like sweeping. He was sweeping the snow. You know, it barely snows in DC . . I suppose Sarah Jo and I aren't the only ones who don't think it's worth it to invest in a snow shovel. This man obviously didn't think it was necessary either. However, I do commend his resourcefulness and commitment to being a good neightbor in Columbia Heights. Shovel or no shovel, I know I will very much appreciate his efforts in a few days when all this beautiful white powdery-ness turns to ugly gross dark ice and slush.

Lastly, while walking to Whole Foods to buy my lunch, I saw an older woman (probably in her 50s) walking her dog. This is normal in DC. What is not normal in DC (or I might even so much as say . . the rest of the country/world), the dog had on some really cute red snow shoes on. Okay, okay. So I guess they weren't snow shoes, they were more like little booties for babies.

Anyway, I'm trying to enjoy this while it lasts . . it's hard to though because I know it's going to melt and make walking around a life and death situation.

Gang Rape Pervasive in Cambodia

2009-02-27T10:05:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across this on angry asian man and thought it might be a good idea to put it up on the Green Papaya.

Apparently, (as the title suggests), gang rape is pervasive in Cambodia.

While I think this kind of violence is uncalled for, reading the story reminded me a lot of how I felt while sitting in Anthro 3AC, while Professor Brandes talked about young girls in Micronesia as if they were pandas in a zoo or something.

The reporter, Rachel Snyder, even goes as far as framing/suggesting that it's "socially acceptable."

Thank you Rachel Snyder and David Wilkinson for making that observation about Khmer folks.

Now, maybe you can interview and quote a Khmer person who isn't a victim or who isn't the corrupt government so your NPR audience could finally see the beauty AND complexity of Cambodia.

OR, maybe we just need to start getting NPR ourselves and start telling our own stories.

YEEEEE!

i think . .

2009-02-11T14:54:00.001-05:00

I should write and reflect more often.

investing in houses

2008-12-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

I had a really interesting conversation with someone yesterday about investing in houses.

We were walking down the streets in Columbia Heights, where there are dozens of for sale signs, and were talking about the old group house I used to live in.

The man that owned the house owned several houses in Washington, DC's Northwest quadrant. From 1810, he used to make well over 3 grand a month from the rent. Sheer profit because the homes were paid for. Sheer profit because he inherited the houses and didn't even have to shell out the money to buy them in the first place. I guess his family started buying and investing in homes all over Mt. Pleasant back in the days . . and this guy just inherited them. He probably makes over 10 grand just from renting them out.

When I think about this, it makes me feel a little sick. Maybe it's because I am a bit naive (or that I have too much faith in humanity) . . but I assumed that this kind of profit making on the backs of working class people who can't afford to buy a home themselves and must rent . . would also make others feel sick.

I was little taken aback when my friend told me that it was genius. She felt investing in home is such a smart tactic . . and that she had been thinking about doing it herself. She said that while she would probably never have a job that would allow her to come up with a down payment for a home where she would want to live . . she could probably come up with a down payment for a home in a neighborhood that she could rent out. She would rent out the home in the other neighborhood . . and then when the market goes up, she would sell it and use the profit for the down payment on a home where she would actually want to live.

While I guess she thought this makes absolute sense (and hey, maybe it does), I was taken aback. I think I was taken aback for two reasons.

First, amid the housing crisis . . I wondered by ANYONE would do that. I shared stories of my relatives who purchased a home, then rented it out, then purchased a larger home . . and just lived for free because the rent from one home used to cover the mortage of both homes. She said that was really smart. I said that they were being greedy . . and while they were my family, housing foreclosures were apart of karma.

Second, I was also taken aback because my friend who I was walking with identifies as being liberal and progressive. She even goes as far as to call her self a hippie. How could someone who identifies with being progressive even think about make profit on the backs of working class people who (whether it is because of preference or not) have to rent.

Maybe I'm just making assumptions that most people, if given the opportunity, would buy a house to make their home rather than rent it. Maybe I'm just being naive again or maybe I just don't really understand what this is really about.

After her logic on how to invest in houses, I said, "I don't know if I agree with that," and went on to bring up my perspective. "So, you're saying that you want to make money by renting out a house to people who can't afford houses? Probably a young family that if given the opportunity to buy a house at a good deal . . would probably buy it . . except investors come in first to grab the hot deals and they are forced to just rent because investors want to make a buck?"

Maybe it's just very Buddhist of me . . but I think that if you're not going to live in a house and actually make it your home . . you should probably let someone who does intend to live there and make it their home buy the house themselves. Maybe it's just very Southeast Asian of me because back in Laos and China, you can't just claim land without occupying it and renting it to someone else. If you claim land and leave it vacant, you lose the land to someone who does have some use to it. Maybe it's very indigenous of me to think that land can't be bought, sold, and rented unless you need it or unless you want to cultivate it . . because everyone needs a land . . everyone needs a home and who are you to come in and try to rent land or a home to someone else when you already have adequate space for yourself? Maybe it's very refugee-like or working class of me to think too seriously of homes because my parents bought our five bedroom house in san diego for $110,000 in 1986 . . when they were making $3.25 an hour. Maybe it just freaks me out to think that if people in the mid-80s were going around investing in affordable homes in new and not so nice areas . . my life growing up would have been completely different and my family probably would have been thrown on my streets in highschool.

I've seen entire neighborhoods of newly developed and affordable houses be bought by investors. Temecula, California. My relatives were guilty of such doing. When people who actually want to live there come in, the price has already skyrocketed because of these investors . . and they're forced to rent from the investors who already took the good deals.

My friend went on to talk about her mother. Maybe she sensed that I was feeling really offended and wanted to remind me of her modest upbringing. She talked about how her mother has no savings and is actually in a lot of debt. Investing in a house would not only help her save enough money to buy a home for herself . . but it would also help her help her mom get out of debt.

This comment made me think. How dare she try to bring up the hardships her mom has gone through (and is currently going through) to justify such actions? Maybe her mom is stuggling . . but how does that justify taking advantage of other people who are also probably struggling?

To preface this . . I guess I should share that over my friendship with this person . . she's shared with me a lot of stories about her mother. How she was definitely an unconventional mother who didn't cook and moved around a lot and never really had a stable job. With that in mind, I think this conversation also brought up a lot of personal questions I've had over the years regarding people who are struggling because of institutional injustices . . and people who (dare I say) are struggling because of an inability to get their shit together.

I guess that makes me sound very conservative. Or at least it sounds like something my brother or sister would say about those on unemployment, youth who are at risk, or folks who need help through governmental assistance programs.

Maybe it's my own pull your self up by your bootstraps mentality after seeing my parents, who barely speak english and have never made more than $10 an hour -- raise three children who went to college.

Maybe I am moderate in some ways. Or maybe I am conservative in other ways. However, how could someone who claims to be progressive and wants to study urban planning feel good about making a profit in this manner?

How can someone who says she values "community" think it's a good idea to invest in houses by buying them then renting them out?

When we got to our destination, I guess it was obvious I was a little sick and I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I guess this was somewhat of a reality check. Welcome to Washington, DC . . the land of single issues and where progressive in one issue . . doesn't necessarily mean progressive on all issues.

washington dc's quadrants

2008-12-10T22:11:00.001-05:00

today i went on a wild adventure to seek my reproductive rights.

ha. okay, i'm being dramatic. i just went on a mission to washington dc's planned parenthood in northeast.

so i guess this story starts off before today. it starts off two weeks ago when i made my women's annual appointment. she had a 6 to 8 week waiting period . . which meant i wouldn't be able to get my new prescription for birth control until then. that poses a problem . . seeing that i dont just take the little suckers for "fun."

i called planned parenthood in northeast (which is like a few blocks from work) but of course, they wouldn't be able to see me until the end of december. that would be too late.

so i called planned parenthood in northeast. i thought, hey can't be that bad. i've been to northeast to grab furniture. it's metro/bus accessible. worst comes to worst, i get to see more of the district.

&& seeing the district is what i did.

my adventure today not only helped me claim my reproductive rights as a womyn . . but it also confirmed my thoughts on dc's deep segregation issues.

as i rode the 68 bus from my house south towards downtown . . most of my fellow passengers were blacks and latinos. as i got closer to the "newly revitalized" u street corridor . . most of my fellow passengers got lighter. all of these passengers got off somewhere between dupont and gallery place. very typical.

then i hopped onto bus to head east. next thing you know, i was the only non-african american on the bus. i felt like i was on a bus heading to work at banteay srei again . . and that really comforted me.

maybe it's because sarah jo keeps makign comments about how many abandoned houses are in our neighborhood. or that women keep talking about not walking around late at night . . but i've been feeling TOO comfortable in dc lately. or that i've come to live amongst people who just really LIKE being TOO comfortable. maybe too comfortable is good. too comfortable could also be too safe. could also be too happy.

i guess i should recognize my privilege in being able to ride buses all around town, feel safe in my own home, etc . . but i dont know if i want to wake up one day feeling overly sensitive about my surroundings . . or feeling less grounded in the "real" world.

"Progress"

2008-12-09T23:44:00.000-05:00

"I hope that one day the minority will be in power and not do what they were taught to do."

today i was waiting for the bus with one of my new friends and we had an interesting conversation.

we were talking about progress in the southeast asian community.

the conversation started because she's cambodian and she grew up in minnesota. i asked how it was like growing up there and how the cambodian community was out there. she mentioned that it got dramatically larger and i asked where were most folks coming from.

she said california.

as someone who grew up in california and experienced many people who were forced to leave because of dwindling opportunities, i said, yeah. that does happen. especially after companies close and folks realize california is just so expensive.

however, she expressed that while that may be the case, she thought it was better. she felt that it was good that people could actually move and that when they did move, it allowed they to progress.

she thought that while having big communities in one place was good in some ways . . she thought that sometimes communities also hold people down or back. she cited lowell . . where cambodian folks stayed even though staying meant they stayed poor.

i responded that i guess it depended on what you meant by progress.

she defined progress as job opportunities, educational attainment, independence from social welfare programs . .

at that point, i realized that we looked at progress and community development from different perspectives. all the things she listed . . i felt were things that her american teachers taught her meant progress. all the things that she mentioned was progress . . were all western definitions of progress.

maybe i'm a bit biased . . but to me . . progress is the low-income communities i grew up in. where we used to be able to fill up an entire temple with just tai lue folks. where our samakom threw huge new years parties. where my mother used to dress up for new years and dance with dozens of other mothers. where my dad had friends and family to watch football with on sunday afternoons. where i had a cousin living on every block within a ten block radius . .

thats how i remember growing up poor was like.

now, according to her standards . . i guess we've progressed. my parents own a home. malisa, james, and i all graduated from universities. i make probably twice as much money an hour than my mom and dad would ever make. my rent is more than the mortgage my parents paid for our entire house. i shop for groceries at whole foods.

but then again . . my grandma goes to temple with about a handful of other older women. san diego's lue samakom doesn't have new years parties anymore . . heck, we barely have a board of directors. my mom no longer has girlfriends to dance with . . much less stay on her feet for longer than 30 minutes at a time. my dad eats all his meals alone. and the kids i grew up are spread out into 4 other states.

i guess we're progressed.

but heck, if this is "progress" . . it sure is lonely.

back in washington, dc

2008-11-11T12:52:00.000-05:00

(i've been really bad at this whole blogging thing . . i used to blame that on the whole no internet thing . . but now i guess i can't blame anything but myself).

i arrive in dc on saturday, again. packed, again. 5 hour plane ride, again.

however, the day and half before i left san diego was absolutely wonderful wonderful.

allen, cammille and i went to Morse High School's homecoming game. The first Morse night time game I've ever been to. Mrs. B says they've been having one a season. You see, in the early 90s, there used to be a lot of drive bys at our football games and the neighborhood used to complain about the lights . . so we used to only have day time games.

the game was fun. it was almost like i was at some la jolla or torrey pines football game. it was at night, there was a band (we didn't have that either back then), the seats were packed.

Also, it was really nice to see that our cheer squad was still completely women of color.

after the game, allen, pam, and darlene came over for spring rolls, beer, strawberry shortcake, and politically incorrect champagne. we got stuffed and drunk all at the same time. it was good times . .

next day went to the temple with mama. saw my grandparents. grandpa wished me luck and while he was typing my wrists . . i cried like a baby.

it breaks my heart to think that he won't be with us for very long . . and here i go to the other side of the country again.

elections

2008-10-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

i got into what almost seemed like a full blown argument with my sister today about the campaign.

it all started when the Obama campaign from Colorado called me to check in with me about my travel and housing plans. Since I was staying with my sister, they asked if I would have access to a car. In turn, I asked my sister if she would let me borrow her car to get around the city.

she went on to tell me how she didn't support my endeavors and that she wouldn't let me borrow her car and reaffirmed that she wasn't going to house any strange liberal obama supporter either.

hmm. i guess this was a wake up call in many ways.

In regards to politics, my sister was a lot more conservative than I thought she was. Because she is not a citizen, she's never really had to decide who and what to vote for. We've always agreed on womyn's issues and always disagreed on immigration issues . . but she's never blatantly told me that she will not support me and endeavors.
In regards to lifestyle, my sister is relatively close-minded. Since my siblings lived at home through out college, the idea of housing strangers, sleeping wherever it's free, etc. is weird for them. Even though her housemate is queer, she works for a non-profit, and she attempts to be green . . i think this is more about convenience than about preference.

i guess it's a good thing i'm moving. my siblings has proven to continuously scapegoat me, ridicule my politics and lifestyle, and discount my accomplishments and reasoning.

what a shame. they seem to think that their college degrees and higher incomes make them any less the children of refugees than i am.

maybe my parents should have just stayed in laos. i wonder how well my siblings would have been at raising water buffalo and growing rice.

family and community

2008-10-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

i've been feeling sick this past weekend . . so i finished Dreams From My Father in just a few days.

it made me think about a lot of things.

. . it made me regret not keeping a journal while i was in china and laos.

. . it made me scared at the idea of moving back to dc.

. . it made me excited to go to colorado to work on the campaign.

other than finishing the book, i would say i had a really good week with my parents and family in general. in all honestly, it's been a while.

i guess the good week all started on tuesday when i went to temple with my mom and my grandma. i hadn't been to the temple for something like this for over four years (since I went to college), which is sad seeing that i was raised by probably the most religious man in san diego's tai lue community and probably learned how to make paper flowers and candles for the temple before i properly learned how to talk.

it was nice. we got there at around 8am and waited for everyone else to trickle in; except that never happened. you see, san diego's tai lue community has dissipated into just a few homes. some of our relatives from temecula came down . . which helped, but before we used to pack the vihan. things didn't get crowded until about 11am when the lao community started to arrive.

while the morning was nice, it was also sad to see that the community i wanted to come home to was practically all gone.

regardless, it was still nice. my grandma made fun of the way my skirt kept falling apart everytime i sat down (i still have not mastered the whole fold over skirt thing -- when i was a kid, my mom used to just sew in buttons so it would stay put). my other grandmas kept giving me food and candy because they were scared i was hungry. the hussle and bussle of trying to tuk-baht. seeing my poor grandpa falling asleep in the corner on the other side of the room. trying to massage my grandma's legs . . which at the age of 74 can't just sit for hours without stretching anymore.

this week was what i imagined being home would be like. unfortunately, this wasn't the same i've been having the past month and a half . . and unfortunately, i may be leaving again relatively soon.

jobs

2008-09-26T21:03:00.001-04:00

I was searching for jobs today and I found this Advocates position that had a really interesting Skills and Requirements.

"Recovering ex-offender preferred."

There are so few opportunities for recovering ex-offenders. This kind of gives me hope that there is room for change and progress for people in our society.

bedtime stories.

2008-09-22T15:42:00.001-04:00

one thing i really love about my partner is that he tells me bedtime stories at night before i go to sleep.

this one was really cute because he texted it to me.

Once upon a time there was this squirrel that took a nap cause he waited for someone to get back to him because he sent some nuts but never heard back from the other person. So he wakes up from his nap and sends some more nuts out just to see if his partner got to them, but still no answer. So finally, he sends out the last set of nuts along with a note saying, "i miss you and i hope you feel comfortable and are able to get some rest till you reach your destination. I hope to hear from you again someday. -love, mr. lonely squirrel."

Glimpse back into my past life.

2008-09-11T19:30:00.000-04:00

i wrote a blog about my last day in dc and my first day back in san diego . . but it was saved on razzy and she has since gone crazy on me.

anyway. today something really beautiful happened.

i've been back at home for over a week now and this week it has finally started to sink in that i was in fact, here. in san diego. sleeping in the same pepto bismol room. with all my high school photos on the wall. with my father dropping me off and picking me where i wanted to go.

For some reason, I was sent a facebook message about the immigration rally in sacramento. Finally, a glimpse back into my past life. I assumed it was from CHIRLA, since they work with RWG. But I was all sad when my attempts to try to connect my high school friends to this great opportunity to meet organizers and be apart of social change were shot down.

Because of time.

Because of money.

Because of apathy.

I gave up on the idea.

However, while I was trying to set up a coffee to catch up with a friend who i met at the students of color conference, i found out that he was also planning on going to the immigration rally. I told him about the money issue.

Him: Oh, it's all free. All you have to pay for is food. Unless you want to freegan.
Me: wtf is freegan?
Him: You know, dig through the trash for food people throw away . .
Me: you mean . . DUMPSTER DIVE?
Him: Yeah, that.

MUAH-HAHAHA.

That was great. I need to hang out with the people he hangs out with.

(re)grouping to (re)leave.

2008-08-27T23:52:00.006-04:00

since my last blog, a lot has happened.
mainly, i relearned what it meant to have a clashing of cultures.

ever since i got back from being abroad, i tried really hard to be good to my family.

understanding.
considerate.
cognizant of my parents struggles.

i went through my last year of college working with youth who didn't quite understand the rice farming villages or the sewage filled cities that there was a reason why their parents acted the way they did.

that they weren't crazy.
that they've been through a lot.
that as their children, we needed to try to understand where they were coming from.

i thought i had already worked through the riff between san diego and sipsonpana.

between 1st generation and 2nd generation.
between daughter and father.
between lue and lue-american.

however, i guess sometimes the too good to be true riff that i have somehow believed i'd built and looked forward to nurturing in san diego was just that. too good to be true.

my dad always told me that his kids were like birds. when their wings get strong, they fly away. but me, the youngest daughter was a little different. even though my wings were as strong, i always remembered to fly home because i lived abroad.

i knew the most about what it was like for them to flee three different countries and two different conflicts. i read it in books. i listened to stories; both in the states and in china, laos, and thailand. i asked questions. i asked too many questions. i asked all the questions no one else wanted to ask.

i validated their stories.
i asked about it.
i jotted it down in my little notebooks.
i wrote papers about it.
i got their stories published.
i validated their stories.

but instead of being proud of my little bridge, they smashed it. they wanted to bring it down. they wanted me to be american by going to an elite university.
they wanted me to be american by going back to see family left in Southeast Asian and telling them that, yes, we all assimilated and did "well."
they wanted me to be american by studying to go to law school.

but, they wanted me to be lue by coming home. they wanted me to come home so they can watch and monitor that i wasn't TOO american. that i wasn't galloping around the world or the country embarssing them.

my mom told me that yes, coming home meant that everything was free. free food. free rent. free utilities. but what does all that free stuff mean if i would not have freedom?

coming "home"

2008-08-18T10:30:00.002-04:00

re-reading some of my old blog posts has really reaffirmed my decision to move back home this fall.

i know someday (probably when my student loans start to mail in their bills) I will look back and be like, "damn, you gave up that salary to move back to san diego?"

i'm excited though.

i'm excited to move back to san diego and develop some real hobbies. not just reading where i would only read the things i needed to for class . . because there really wasn't anytime for anything else. not just jogging . . because i know i haven't done that seriously since first year of college. not just swimming . . because thats what i did in thailand . . and there aren't exactly any nice natural bodies of water around the berkeley area.

i'm excited to learn how to cook and sew with my grandma; to garden on the weekends with my grandparents; to play with my big fat puppy thats over ten years old now and has no front teeth . . and most importantly, to re-learn how to live and give back to the community that i grew up in.

YEE!

reinspired

2008-05-15T23:37:00.001-04:00

i've been feeling really drained and horrible about work lately . . but today. today was different.

honors reception

2008-04-22T01:07:00.002-04:00

today in my honors class . . we were talking about our honors reception.

we all concluded that it was going to be a hella awkward night with all of our parents just standing around not really knowing what to say to each other.

my parents are coming.

it's going to be great. i can't wait to introduce them to all my classmate's bougie parents and show them . . yes. my mama and papa were refugees, barely speak english, and probably work two times as much to make half the amount of money . . but they raised me and made it possible for me to go to college and write a 60 page paper about their journey and our struggle.

school.

2008-04-13T00:17:00.002-04:00

i think i need to withdraw from school.

but i can't.
i have like five weeks left.
i'm on the degree list.
my parents have their plane tickets to come up.
my financial aid told me they won't pay for my college anymore.

home and pick me ups.

2008-04-04T04:30:00.003-04:00

I've been feeling really shitty for the past few months so I decided that I'm going home next weekend. I just bought my flight. It's perfect. I'll be home for new years. Can't wait to go to temple with my grandparents and parents then go to the park for some good ass papaya salad and sticky rice.

On another note. Our check in question at SASComm was:

"When you're feeling really down or sad, what do you think of to cheer you up?"

The sad thing was that I couldn't think of anything that automatically cheers me up. The normal things people think of . . just make me feel even sadder. When I think of my family . . it makes me sad because I don't get to spend time with them. When I think school . . it makes me sad because I'm doing so poorly in it. When I think about organizing in the Southeast Asian community . . it makes me sad because, well, I don't know.

I answered by saying that instead of thinking of something, I do things that make me happy. Like call my grandma or call my sister. Go somewhere. etc. While I guess that came off as relatively proactive . . which is good. It also means that I'm incredibly dependent on other people to make me happy. This is great, except sometimes those people who really cheer me up or make me happy aren't always there. Everyone's got their own stuff to do . .

love & marriage

2008-04-03T01:51:00.003-04:00

Knowing that receiving countries considered families a better bet than single men, he planned to marry one of the young Vietnamese women in the camp. Although there was no romantic interest between them, it seemed a fair arrangement to both the propective bride as well as her groom. By marrying Ngoc, the young woman would take him out of the 'single male' category, the one immigration officers like least. In return, while sharing her bunk, Ngoc would protect his bride from abuse and possible rape, constant threats to unattached women.

From: Beiser, Morton. 1999. Strangers at the Gate: The ‘Boat People’s’ First Ten Years in Canada. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. 29.

I wonder if the reason why I've never been fully committed in a relationship is the result of having parents who got married not out of love but out of necessity. Just like how we often talk about being activists by circumstance, my parents became life partners by circumstance.

I grew up in a home that did no emphasize love or compassion in a selfish "I love you and can't live without you because I would feel empty" kind of way. I grew up in a home that emphasized love and compassion in a "I love you and how you contribute to my life as well as the lives of others around you" kind of way.

I grew up not seeing my parents express any kind of passionate love for one another . . and perhaps that is why I don't necessarily express (or maybe even believe) in any kind of passionate "I can't live without you" love for anyone else.

Just like how my parents did not necessarily marry one another out of own individual passionate love but out of a need to keep the small Lue community together, I wonder if the partner I choose to spend the rest of my life with will also be for something bigger, greater, and more important than my own passionate love for the person as an individual . . but for the passionate love I have for my people and my community and my love for who that person is in the greater scheme of things.

or maybe. Maybe I'm just hella self-centered and not willing to give my self up to anyone in that kind of way. Maybe I'm not optimistic enough and too realistic to believe in love at first sight and believing that loving someone is something you learn to do by enjoying their best qualities and learning to live and love their not so great qualities.

the slump of things.

2008-03-16T16:39:00.003-04:00

after coming back from UCLA.. i hella just knocked out for like 12 hours.

although i found law fellows really helpful and was really empowered and inspired . . almost immediately after i got back to berkeley, i fell back into my slump of things.

i don't really know whats going on really. i think sometimes i feel unsupported. and then other times i feel like people don't know where i'm coming from or don't understand what i'm going through. and then further more, sometimes i'm feeling all of that at once.

it's pretty selfish of me to be so ME centered. i know people got hella shit going on and that it's unfair for me to hope that folks would step in and really help me out. i don't even know what i need help on. i'm just really ready to be done with all of this.

thesis

2008-03-14T14:31:00.002-04:00

so i've just figured.

it should be hard for me to write this stupid thesis . .
because i've already written 9 other papers on SEA refugees.

identity & shame

2008-03-12T03:24:00.003-04:00

the formation of my identity didn't really occur until i attended SASC-SI.

before then, i was ashamed that my parents had to work 12 hours a day - 7 days a week. i was ashamed my mom and dad didn't speak english. i was ashamed of being buddhist. i was ashamed that i couldn't have friends over at my house. i was ashamed i always had to wear hand me downs.

i was ashamed my parents were refugees from laos.

since the summer of 2003, i have been on a continuous journey to convert all the shame of the first 17 years of my life into pride and into hope.

however, conversations that i've heard recently have somewhat overturned this by telling me that this is invalid. that this is exclusive. that this is wrong.

who am i to say who belongs to a community and who doesn't.

well, when you grew up feeling constantly inadequate, inferior, and never belonging to any community . . i think this is the one time i want to comfortably say, "no, my family and i earned this. This is OUR time to shine." or it was supposed to be.

This was supposed to be the first and only time that my grandmother will look around and not feel crappy for working in a sweatshop in her fifties and sixties. this was supposed to be the first time my parents could say, "yes, we worked in an electronics factory for $3.25/hour and barely speak english . . but put all three of our children through college." this was supposed to be the first time i could show my brother and sister that i grew up to be a mentor to other students just the say they mentored me while growing up.

this was supposed to be.

but it's not going to be.

community

2008-03-10T04:15:00.003-04:00

what does the word "community" mean?

what does it mean to be apart of a community?

what does it mean to work, sweat, and sacrifice for a community?

. . only to feel completely excluded from this community six years later.

"Counseling & Psychological Services"

2008-03-08T01:22:00.003-05:00

Ever wonder why the mental health sections of clinics or hospitals are always so detached from the rest of building?

I do, all the time.

Seriously. It's like in the tang center, the "Counseling & Psychological Services" department is on the THIRD floor on the way south side; the farthest place possible from the entrance of the aesthetically beautiful teal and brown building. Putting such a sensitive department in such a remote place is problematic in so many ways.

For example, for people with appointments at Counseling and Psychological Services, they have the chance to walk past the other clinics and think about how "normal" they are and how NOT normal you are. To me, this just seems counterproductive.

Also, maybe this is a wacked out assumption, but most people who have appointments in that clinic may not even want to be there much less understand why they're there. Putting the clinic in the farthest place just further reinforces their notion to not go at all.

However, I guess it could be worst. I mean, at least there isn't a completely separate building like an asylum.

twLF & Mental Health

2008-03-07T00:08:00.002-05:00

The rally today was really amazing. Often times I feel as if people of color movements are seen as a black, brown, and red struggle.

It was nice to see the inclusion of yellow. particularly, southeast asians.

On a side note. Do you think it's possible that mental health issues like anxiety and depression amongst students of color could be partially caused by the hostile campus environment?

It's gotta be depressing to grow up with a bunch of people of color only to come to campus and realize you're different from all these privileged ass people.

a link between academia and our community?

2008-03-04T03:14:00.002-05:00

while i sit here and read articles upon articles about the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees in different parts of the world . . i can't help but wonder . . how will reading all these articles make anything better for our people?

how is this relevant to making actual change in our communities?

southeast asian intercollegiate summit

2008-01-15T14:01:00.000-05:00

i'm still recuperating from a weekend of making my vision into reality and haven't really been able to jump back into the "real" reality as of yet both because i'm ridiculously sick and also because i feel i should reflect.

while the hope of the summit was to highlight the similarities of programing or projects that students were doing at each of their campuses, i guess the summit also helped to bring to the surface the differences in types of student organizing. i only hope that being exposed to a very political, progressive, and action oriented type of organizing, some of the students and organizations will go back to share this type of organizing.

however, all in all, i would call the event a success. not because of our differences in organizations. not because of our differences in our ethnicities. not because of our differences in the type of institution we attend. because regardless of whether the participant attended a private school, research institution, or professional institution . . everyone had love for their people and ultimately, OUR people and OUR struggle.

that all on its own is a success.

the fear that i have is that one day, southeast asian youth will replace the pride for the struggles of our parents and grandparents with shame. when that happens, i don't know who is going to ever be able to advocate for my mom who barely speaks english, my grandma who doesn't understand the concept of inflation, and my grandfather who still thinks he needs to work and make money at the age of 75.

because essentially, "if not you, then who?"

Cambodian Deportees Suicide

2007-12-10T20:33:00.000-05:00

Many sent me this email earlier today while I was working on my paper for AAS 126:

Hey… One of my staff killed himself. Chan, he was 33, from Long Beach, California.

I was training for an AUSAID workshop in Kompong Som last Wednesday – Saturday and got the call Friday night around 1am. Smiley, Trip, Van and Saw found him hanging in his room. He'd been dead for over a day. Saw cut him down.

He was depressed and suicidal for a long time, he'd been here a year and had worked at Korsang for about 11 months. I kept him around because I knew how fucked up he was and that he needed support. In the states he had major depression with psychotic features and was on medication that basically kept him stable. Since his deportation out here he could never get the proper medications in Cambodia, so he went on a huge decline into some really deep dark place. And then he started smoking yama and that escalated his demise. I got him meds from the clinic, but they didn't work, I got him a counselor from the Australian Embassy, but he couldn't keep appointments.

Needless to say the staff is messed up, again. And I came back from the workshop to a critical debriefing with the staff who found him.

Chan was a very sweet, sad, gentle, fragile, quite guy. This has to stop.

I want to use Chan's death to stop the deportation of Cambodian's with a diagnosed mental health disorder. It's a death sentence. Can we try to do something?

Thanx, Holly

It made me question really, what am I doing sitting here in my living room writing some paper on Southeast Asian second generation youth when there are Southeast Asian second generation youth shoot each other and themselves somewhere in the world. How will my paper help the community? Or how will this degree help me help myself and my community?

Sometimes I wonder what my priorities are. Why do I sit here with my 23 units when I could be doing something down the street in Oakland or Richmond.

I suppose one can only be an effective advocate for the community if they are educated about the community. Otherwise, I guess I would just be another uninformed charity person who is doing work as a result of sympathy or pity as opposed to a true advocate.

Looking at the greater picture, this paper is probably very important. It's just emails like these that make me want to hop on a plane and head back to Southeast Asia.

why smoking weed is illegal

2007-06-28T15:39:00.000-04:00

today in my social welfare policy class, my professor went into this tangent about why marijuana is illegal in the United States.

First he made the claim that the conservatives today are just pissed off at the liberals who were smoking, getting high, and fun in the 60s and now they're trying to get back at them.

Then he pointed out that before the hippies, the artists and jazz musicians were the ones that were smoking marijuana. That kind of lifestyle went againist out whole puritan work ethic thing because essentially, our country was built by people who wanted to form a country that didn't have fun.

That was great. He has a PhD.

sometimes, i love berkeley.

. . would you rather be poor in a poor country or poor in a rich country?

2007-05-03T03:48:00.000-04:00

Reading an article by Morrison Wong about post-1965 Asian immigrants to the United States brought about this question.

It outlined the normal highlights of higher education and higher income of Asian's in the United States. However, unlike most articles that only give Southeast Asians an honorary mention in a paragraph or so, Wong mentioned Southeast Asians in every one of his highlights and even explained these constrasts in an extensive conclusion.

Asians are usually more educated than average Americans.
Not Southeast Asians.

Asians generally make more money than the average Americans.
Not Southeast Asians.

Asians have tight ethnic enclaves to support them, unlike the Average Americans.
Not Southeast Asians.

Asians have lower fertility rates than the average Americans.
Not Southeast Asians.

More than half of Asians own houses.
Not Southeast Asians.

These past ten months here in Thailand has made me almost feel as if working internationally in developing countries is where I want to be. Now I'm not so sure.

Whats worst. Would you rather be in a developing country with no real hope of first rate opportunities or be in a developed country with no real chance of first rate opportunities? In a developing country, sometimes it's okay to be poor because everyone else is also. However, in a developed country and you're poor, you get to sit on the sidewalk in some metropolitan city and watch all the hotshots walking to work in their suits carrying their briefcases. What hits you more. Being apart of the developing world or being apart of the developed world but sitting on the side as only a second class citizen? Someone without access to the healthcare. Someone without access to the education. Someone without access to the labor rights. Someone without access to the high standard of living.

Whats worst? Not having the opportunity or seeing the opportunity just within your grasp?

I dont know.

International Relations / Humanitarian Rights? Public Interests?

Racializing of the Virginia Tech Shootings

2007-05-03T03:47:00.000-04:00

Racializing of the Virginia Tech Shootings

Today, my co-worker, Maliwan, mentioned to me how it must be so hard to be an Asian student in the states now – post Virginia Tech… which got me into this talk about Asians and Asian Americans in higher education and blah blah blah…

The following discussion does not in anyway mean that I agree with or support the actions that were taken by Cho Seung-Hui on the Virginia Tech campus on 17 April 2007. As a college student and as a person, my heart goes out to the students, friends, and families of the victims who have had to suffer as a result of this massacre.

What do I do not agree with, however, is the way in which the media is presenting and spinning the coverage of this incident both during and especially after the massacre.

I was sitting in the Behavioral Medicine reception office of Bumrungrad International Hospital (the most “high-so” or bougie private hospital in Bangkok) when I first heard about the incident.

I’ve come to the conclusion that anything with “international” on it in Thailand means that not only is it catered to rich foreigners, but is one instance in which illustrates very clearly the wealth disparity that exists here in Bangkok.

The waiting room had a flat screen television that was turned to CNN and on it was a man who was on the scene of the massacre. The reporter caught my attention with his zealous tone of voice speaking of the worst school shooting in history.

Great, I thought. As if people around the world didn’t already think Americans were overly violent and America as already extremely unsafe.

Then my attention was drawn when the reporter started talking about the shooter. An Asian student from South Korea.

Even better. Now it’ll be even harder to for foreign exchange students who are trying to enjoy the pleasures of living, learning, and experiencing another culture and environment.

But later I found that, yes, the shooter was from South Korea. But his family lived in Virginia. His sister a graduate from Princeton. Him, an English major at Virginia Tech.

Great. He’s practically Asian American. Well, he’s as Asian American as my sister and believe me, Malisa is pretty American.

One of the biggest issues I’ve encountered living and traveling through Asia is that I’m never seen as western. Never seen as a “Genuine” American. Always catch people by surprise by my “wonderful English.”

While the media emphasizes that Cho Seung-Hui is a non-American born college student in the United States… it wasn’t his non-American-ness or Korean-ness that drove him to do what he did. It was growing up and living in America… as an American.

While the media emphasizes that Cho Seung-Hui is Asian and NOT American (in the sense that he was NOT born here)… it only reinforces the problems of being a perpetual foreigner that hangs over people of color in the states. Whether we were born in the U.S. or not, there will always be the assumption that we are not really American. We don’t belong. And maybe we’re just Cho Seung-Hui… another Asian kid in the states trying so hard to fit in by using academic excellence that we’re really just some ticking time bomb.

In any case. I really wouldn’t know how difficult it is to be an Asian college student in the states right now. But looking through facebook and the wave of groups that have sprung up denouncing Cho Seung-Hui as not representative of Asians… not representative of Koreans… etc. It looks like there is yet another issue to divide us in the already too fractured APA or API community.

when i'm feeling depressed . . .

2007-04-18T23:51:00.000-04:00

i dont eat massive amounts of food like most people.
instead, i forget to eat and indulge in . . shopping.

a few things i'm going to miss about bangkok:

7 story shopping malls
places where there are 4 malls literally next door to eachother
5% off everything just for being a "tourist"
true cafe
how kinokuniya wraps your books in plastic for you
bus number 511

sometimes i ask myself: how can a place with so many beggars and almost no social welfare system have such beautiful shopping malls?

okay so. it's not sometimes. i ask myself that everyday. when i ride my bus from pinklao bridge through prathunam shopping center. turning left at where gaysorn and central world shopping malls are with their prada, versace, etc stores. going straight onto sukhumvit road, where some of the property costs more than homes in san francisco. and finally making it to where UNESCO is located, thonglor . . . aka: Beverly Hills of Bangkok.

on a different subject. since i've been feeling a little down in the dumps. i've been sitting on my ass watching dvds of tv shows. i'm done with greys anatomy and nip tuck. i've gone back to rewatching sex and the city . . for like the 8324 time. but hey. today was actually nice, which is why i was motivated enough to get off my ass and get out of this damn apartment.

i talked to some of my favorites and it made me happy. my mommy and daddy are funny. i had an interesting conversation with him about highly educated men and highly educated women. aparently, he believes that highly educated men dont have to be with highly educated women. in fact, he says they shouldn't. because if the woman is highly educated, they have a chance of falling below the women and highly educated men should never let that happen to them. it was funny.

i always thought my parents were relatively "modern" in thinking. and i think my dad is just upset with my brother and is pinpointing it to his girlfriend . . who has her BA in electrical engineering from ucla, her masters degree in electrical engineering from sdsu, and is currently in law school. i asked him about what he thought my prospects of getting married were. and it dawned on me. "hey daddy. no wonder you wanted me to go to sdsu and not berkeley. you just wanted to make sure i wouldn't intimidate the boys and i could get married huh??"

at that, my dad changed his mind and supported me on going to washington dc and new york this summer to go to my SEARAC conference AND check out colleges for grad school / law school.

so with that. here's to another night alone in my stupid apartment.

updates

2007-04-12T00:52:00.000-04:00

i was having some trouble logging into my blog a few weeks ago and i just gave up. anyway.

utube was blocked in thailand. i was trying to look at danielle's election video and it wouldn't work. then i found out form diego that thailands government blocked.

yet another readon why a military junta ruling a country isn't a good idea.

on a different subject. songkran weekend. no school friday, monday, and tuesday. i'm heading back down to krabi. alone. umm. i think its time for me to go back to the states. i seem to have exhausted all my friends here in thailand because all they want to do is stay in bangkok.

on the subject of going back home. i'm still trying to fight the fight to take my exam early but it doesn't look like its gonna happen. its shit. yet another reason why i dont like the business program. or business people. they aren't nice to me the way they are to thai students. and they dont kiss my ass like they do the westerns. its bullshit because i pay a shit ton more tuition to come to thammasat. blah blah blah. bba sucks. especially when a final is set on 19 may while i would be done with school 4 may. a whole damn two weeks.

BUT on a brighter note. i like having connections with bus companies. yesterday i called my bus company to reserve a ticket for krabi and this was the conversation:

me: hi, i'd like to reserve a ticket for krabi for tomorrow night
him: sure, but the price is 550 not 350
me: REALLY? why?
him: well, it's songkran weekend so the price is higher.
me: now i dont know. i come and get my tickets here all the time but thats almost twice the regular price.
him: i'm sorry. all the companies are doing this . . but wait. what is your name??
me: oh, well this is monica.
him: (in thai) MONICA! why didn't you say something? of course. you get special price. we'll charge you the 350.
me: GREAT!

so. i guess the universe is yet again balanced. cons of being asian but american in bba. pros of being asian but american in traveling. funny thing is that it usually doesn't work this way.

well. happy new years. the real new years!

Myanmar: India collides with Southeast Asia

2007-04-12T00:51:00.001-04:00

The country formerly known as Burma was like nothing I’ve ever experience and yet freakishly similar to everything I’ve experienced here in Southeast Asia… all at once.

I’ve never been to a country in the tourist trail is so completely laid out. It wasn’t until I successfully bypassed a part of it, skipped having to buy a plane ticket, and went out on my own that I had fun.

I felt a bit like an anthropologists by noticing the physical differences between the different types of people in Myanmar.

Yangon to Bagan to Mandalay to Hsipaw to Inle Lake and back to Yagon.

It was good and worth it.

smuggling

2007-03-02T02:09:00.000-05:00

So with UNESCO, what I do is sift through all these google news alerts that are sent our trafficking email. We have alerts for certain keywords like prostitution, migration+asia, beggars, smuggling, etc.

Anyway, under the smuggling alerts, I always find it interesting what people smuggle into different countries.

For example, today’s news articles included cigarettes being smuggled into Singapore, heroine into the United States, precious minerals like gold into China, arms into Lebanon, and humans into Bulgaria.

Some other articles from the past that have stuck in my memory are articles about endangered owls into Europe, diet pills into Malaysia, exotic flowers into the states…

I don’t know. I wonder how many of these smuggling cases result in the characteristics we attribute to certain countries or if it’s the already established characteristics of the countries that result in these smuggling cases.

Do smuggling cases of heroine into the United States result because Americans are a bunch of heroine addicts or are we heroine addicts because it’s illegal and it has to be smuggled in?

Eh.

soi dogs

2007-02-27T13:03:00.000-05:00

While walking back to the apartment after seeing Jimmy off, I saw the saddest soi dog. He had a really saggy ball sac. Like seriously. It was like wagging while he was walking ahead of me. It was like a second tail. I wonder how that happened.

However, in general, Thailand has really interesting dogs.

I’ve seen many dogs who are incredibly metropolitan. They’ve adapted to city life in Bangkok. One time, I saw a dog open a zip lock bag of food with his food and muzzle. Another time, I saw a dog successfully take a ferry across the river from Phra Pinklao to Tha Prachan.

Maybe the doggy needed to go to class too.

I wonder if he had to pay 3 baht to cross the river or if he had a coupon book of tickets like me.

king naresuan, part II.

2007-02-26T01:26:00.000-05:00

Last night we went to Major Cineplex Pinklao and watched the second of the King Naresuan trilogy. I was actually kind of excited because I’m a geek that likes history and political upheavals.

So as usual, after 30 minutes of previews, the king’s song came on and we had to stand up and watch the ultra patriotic video of all the good things the king has done. As corny as it sounds, I guess it makes me feel kinda happy and proud that I’m in Thailand. Which is really strange I guess because Thailand wasn’t exactly a wonderful place my parents lived in.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie and was happy that Jimmy did too. Something I found really interesting was how Bunthing’s love interest was portrayed. Bunthing was the beggar boy that Prince Naresuna saved when he was kid and ended up growing up with him. Anyway. Apparently, Bunthing fell in love with the Princess of the Khang Kingdom. A kingdom from the north where women like the princess wore outfits that looked like a “hill tribe”… from the head wraps down to the leggings. There were pros and cons with how the princess was portrayed.

Pro: she was a kick ass fighter that killed a shit ton of people with her bow and arrow.
Con: she was sometimes in more revealing clothing AND she kept making out with Bunthing…

AKA: portraying people from the northern hill tribes as more promiscuous than the women from central thai… because OF COURSE central Thai people are more “proper” or “civilized” and ethnic minorities aren’t as good. BLAH BLAH.

Or maybe I’m just looking too into it. It reminds me of how every time Kevin and I go watch some musical, we’ll walk out and bitch about how the Asian person was portrayed. Like when we saw the Nut Cracker, it was interesting to see the “Siamese” dressed in Chinese clothing and have the actor be white. Eh.

care package from sister

2007-02-18T09:03:00.000-05:00

i was having a really shitty day on friday.

my buddy is getting a little too clingly. i agreed to help her with her research in the morning and all of a sudden, she came with a bunch of bags and said we were spending the whole day together. also, she convinced me to go to nakhon pathom with her for the weekend. i thought i decided to not go to chiang rai to study but all of a sudden, i was swept away from bangkok once again. i should have been thrilled to travel, but i wasn't. i dont know.

but then i received the care package my sister sent me and it made me super super happy. it's funny how when she asked me what i needed, i didn't think i missed much. however, she cleverly hid away a bunch of good pills for me so i could deal with all my crap-o stuff. also, i had some hot cheetos which were oh so good. OH and i finally shaved my legs. it's been ages. HA.

living abroad has made me forget some little luxuries of the states and it was nice of sister to send some. YAY for:

deordorant: the real kind . . not the fake stuff made for thai people who don't really sweat
gillette divine razors: since i'm poor and can't afford to go waxing all the time, this is a better alternative than being hairy.
hot cheetos: they have corn flavored cheetos here but no hot cheetos
sour patch kids: i thought they were american but apparently, they're canadian
welbutrin: happy happy happy pills.
ambien: sleepy sleepy pills
emergen - C: will be useful for myanmar!
toothbrushes: i dont really understand why she sends them to me because we have toothbrushes here . . but the ones she sends me are a helluva better than the cheap ones i buy for myself.
persi - gel: cause they know how disgusting my face is these days.
luna bars: AHHHH the ultimate emergency food for backpacking. now i don't have to carry around a jar of peanut butter hoping i'll find bread when i'm in the middle of nowhere.

thailand v. hong kong

2007-02-14T04:30:00.000-05:00

jimmy says that blogging is like having your own magazine. i really need to start blogging. i'm not very creative though.

anyway. mattea came for the weekend. sunday consisted of: fuji, babel, weza.

we walked for thirty minutes sipping our whiskey and coke in 7/11 cups trying to find this club. once our drinks ran out, we hopped into a cab instead.

i love love love it.

questions in thai

2007-01-30T02:54:00.000-05:00

today i was walking to class and this thai girl came up to me and asked me for directions to the english learning building. in thai. AND i answered in THAI!

whoo hoo.

i guess uniform makes all the difference here.

i might be coming home.

2007-01-24T13:48:00.001-05:00

Dear Antonette Escarsega,

Hi, my name is Monica and I am a undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley who is currently studying at Thammasat University here in Thailand.

I was originally staying only for the fall semester but decided to extend for an additional semester. At the time that I extended, I was unaware that my financial aid package for the second semester would be drastically lower than my first semester’s financial aid package (almost half).

I was confused about this and have contacted the EAP financial aid advisor at the Berkeley campus, Michael Mathews, and he explained to me what had happened. To my understanding, since I was planning to study in Thailand for just the fall semester, I received more than half of my funds available funds in the fall semester. Then when it came time for the spring, I did not have the same funds left in my year budget in Thailand and was only award what was left (which was much less than what I received the first semester).

Mr. Mathews said that he did not have the ability to increase my budget and he was bound to only grant as much as the budget is outline online. However, he did say that you might be able to help me if I contacted you.

I understand that it is my fault for assuming that I would be receiving the same amount of funds in the spring as I had received in the fall but was wondering if anything can be done to increase my spring budget. I was offered only $4,601.50 (not including my unsubsidized loans) and after the Tuition fees and medical fees, I will only be left with $957.50 for living expenses for the entire semester. Although Thailand is relatively cheaper than the United States (and many places in the world), it will be nearly impossible for me to survive on that amount of money. If I do not receive the needed amount of funds to get me through the semester here in Thailand, I will be forced to fly back to the United States and take the semester off completely.

Any kind of help and advice would be greatly appreciated and I’m hoping to hear from you soon.

- Monica

12 / Jan - 15 / Jan: Singapore

2007-01-23T22:01:00.000-05:00

If any city could have characterized me pre-Bangkok or maybe even pre-college, it would probably be Singapore.

From it’s no curfews, expensive booze, gross photos on all the cigarette cases, cleanliness, hundreds of signs everywhere, Singapore (not considering the ending) was great.

It was wonderful change to Bangkok. Actually I guess it was kind of like being in the states but better.

I like how Lonely Planet put it. Anyone from the west will come to Singapore, look at the wonderful-ness of it all and think, “wow, maybe political freedom is just a small price for all of this.

holding hands.

2007-01-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

I was rushing to my Rural Development class today and all of a sudden, I ran into something. I looked down and found there was a tote bag obstructing my way. These two Thai girls were helping each other hold it by each taking one handle.

I don’t understand.

Was the tote bag that heavy? Was it necessary to have two people carry the maybe two books in that one tote bag? Why couldn’t one person just carry it. Or if it was too heavy, why couldn’t they take the books out and each take one.

I guess it’s kind of like how Thai girls always walk around holding hands too. Or how each girl carries two bags: a cute purse and a tote bag that they carry their books in. What the heck. Why don’t they just carry one bag with everything in it?

OH YEAH. Big bags aren’t “cute.”

Some things in Thailand I will never understand. Maybe it’s because I’m American. Sometimes I wonder, is this what my mom wants me to be like? She always complains that I’m not feminine enough or whatever. Wait until she sees my legs. HA. Two huge motorbike burns and a infinite amount of scars from mosquito bites.

an update email

2007-01-15T21:32:00.000-05:00

Dear Amorette,

It's been way too long. I apologize for not replying earlier. You were the first person to reply back to me and your email really really helped me. I'm actually just starting my second week of the second semester here at Thammasat and it's been a little crazy. Kevin Lee came up to Thailand for two weeks and spent the holidays with me and when we came back from New Years down south on Koh Phangan, we were greeted with all this news about the pre-New Years Eve bombings. We were extremely glad that we weren't here in Bangkok for New Years.

I landed an internship at UNESCO's Human Trafficking Division right before I left for China after finals but when I got back, there were some complications with my application and all that. The person I'm supposed to be working with is on leave in the states and his secretary isn't the friendliest person in the world. I almost want to just saw screw UNESCO and just do my informal volunteering at the Foundation for Women, which is much smaller and has much more of a friendly community feel to it.

Anyway, when you were here, where did you travel to? Did you happen to make it up to see any family? I've gone up to Laos to visit my mother's older brother twice and right after finals I went up to China to visit a bunch of family. It was really eye opening. The Thai people call my ethnic group Tai Lue and the Chinese simply call us the Dai (which is the same as Tai) and we occupy the autonomous region in Xishuangbanna in the Yunnan Province in China. It was crazy. I was actually a majority there. In the main cities, everything is labeled in English, Chinese, and our own Dai script. I didn't even know we had a written language and I was seeing it all over the place.

While I've always been a bit obsessed with the Second Indochina War / Viet Nam War aspect of my family history, seeing a bunch of my relatives in China also introduced a part of my family history that I guess I've been neglecting: the Cultural Revolution.

Also, I was extremely surprised by how "Chinese" my cousins were. They're older than me so of course they already have children and stuff but I would almost say they're as Chinese as my siblings and I are "American." Like for example, when they're talking to each other, they speak Mandarin and when they speak to their parents they speak our own dialect of Tai Lue. It was weird. But extremely beautiful, nonetheless.

I encountered something interesting on the way out of Xishuangbanna though. I had to catch a flight back to Bangkok from Macau and spent a few days in "real" China. I met these Chinese women on a train back home to Shanghai or something and there were passing around pictures from their holiday. They also spent a week in Xishuangbanna in the ethnic minority villages. Watching them look through their pictures and talk about the wonderful things they experienced reminded me of how foreigners loved the "Hill Tribe Trekking" in Chiang Mai. Xishuangbanna is like Chiang Mai, a place of ethnic minorities, and the Tai Lue are like the Hmong, Mien, Akha, etc., extremely exotified. I guess it disgusts me because it's like the west is obsessed with going to Zoos to see different creatures and how they live. Except here in Asia, the Zoos are villages and the creatures are people.

ANYWAY. About your summer abroad program... I DEFINITELY recommend Bangkok. It's like the NGO-Heaven of Southeast Asia. All I did was search on google for Human Trafficking organizations in Bangkok and there was a bunch. The intern that I'm supposed to be taking over was a Human Rights Lawyer who went back to get her Masters degree after she already had her Law degree. I think theres something for everyone here. There's the big international UN thing. The American organizations with offices in Thailand. I think the most rewarding might be the NGOs run by the Thai people though and since you can understand some Thai, that could work.

It sounds like your experience at Columbia is great. Man. That would be my dream school. If only if only. The diversity is great, aye? It's kind of like that here in Thailand too. You're not only learning about Thai culture, but you're learning from all the other exchange students from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Australia, etc.

I become extremely race conscious when I'm traveling though. It seems the only mobile people in the world lack color and sometime I'm a bit self-conscious and wonder if any of them look at me while I'm diving in Koh Tao or wandering around Angkor Wat and think that I don’t belong there. I just got back from Singapore, which was all but great except that I lost my wallet at the airport. Luckily I had my passport on me but now I have no credit cards, ATM cards, or cash. But I guess that’s okay. Financial Aid still hasn't sent me any money. The whole loosing wallet thing made me incredibly homesick though. Bleh. Anyway, please let me know if you're coming here! I'd love to play tour guide again. I haven't booked my flight back yet but it will be sometime in early June. Please keep in touch and I promise it wont take me this long to reply again =) Take Care.

Love,

Monica

-----Original Message-----

From: Amorette

Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 10:11 AM

To: Monica

Subject: Re: [GREETINGS FROM THAILAND]

Monica, darling!

I'm SOOO glad to hear from you. And you emailed me at such a great

time too when I can actually email people back! :) (I just finished

a midterm so my brain is in total chill-out mode for the rest of the

night...)

In any case, I absolutely SUPPORT your intuition of staying in

Thailand for one more semester. I totally feel like I was in your

shoes 3 years ago, except you're having WAAAY more fun than me. :) I

went through a lot of the same exact things, except you're actually

living out things that I wish I would've done like work at an NGO and

travel more! I also went through the whole thing about not really

being accepted as an American (I always got Japanese or Hong Kongnese,

especially when I got this fobby haircut there) and yet I was never

accepted as someone from the "homeland." Maybe that's why my time

there was kind of hard for me too - I thought I was going back to the

homeland, but it sort of just forsaked me. And at that time, the Thai

government was treating the Hmong refugees living at Wat Tham Krabok

like crap. Legislators in Thailand called us "social garbage" and

refused to allow the community to move into their districts... so

there was a lot going on emotionally and psychologically for me at

that time.

If I only had been as focused, energetic, and strong as you are, I

would've probably made more out of my trip there. I think that you

should TOTALLY take advantage of your opportunity to work at this

awesome NGO. No doubt. I totally know what you mean by feeling guilty

about not coming back, but to be honest... those organizations will

still be there and will still turn its wheels when you get back. This

experience in Thailand may never be the same again because you're not

bounded by ties (ie: commitments and major financial debt) and because

you have this thriving curiosity and energy right now. You also have

all these great resources at hand as a student protected by the UCs

and with health insurance (in case anything happens), etc. It's a

great time to be having the time of your life in another country! :)

It's never the same again in the future unless you move to Thailand

and work there.

Anyways, I'm just a big proponent of you staying another semester

because I think it will be a great all-around experience for you. If

the only thing holding you back is guilt about organizations awaiting

your leadership - don't let that stop you. Like I said, they'll be

fine. That's how it was when I got back from Thailand! They were

doing great things and SASC's membership had actually grown!

Thanks for the update though. I've been meaning to email you to find

out how you are! it's great to hear your'e having an awesome time. I

think about Thailand so much these days!

I am actually seriously considering spending my summer out there next

summer for my summer internship that's required in my program. In a

way, it's to make up for all that I missed out on 3 years ago and to

really develop some great work experience out there. I will forever

be in the states, so why not take advantage of a summer abroad while I

can in grad school? Also, I really want to brush up on my Thai. My

boyfriend is currently in his first year of law school, and he's also

really interested in going out to Asia somewhere (maybe and hopefully!

Bangkok) for some international or human rights law work. It would be

great to spend a summer in Bangkok together!

Maybe you can give me some ideas on internships in Bangkok - your NGOs

sounds so awesome too. How did you find such cool places to work? I'm

open. I'm currently looking at American non-profits based in Bangkok,

like the Rockefeller Foundation.

As for what's happening here in New York, I am currently in the middle

of midterms and it's CRAZY like no other midterms I've faced before in

my life! It's midterm hell for sure. It's busier now than it will be

around finals... and it's just a TON of work - nothing like at

Berkeley. i've got 6 classes total and they are keeping me busy busy

busy! it's sometimes a bunch of bullshit busy work... which we think

is lame.

On the upside, I LOVE it here in NYC and I really love my classmates.

We're having a lot of fun outside of classes! Everyone comes from such

amazing backgrounds and experiences and from all over the world. It's

totally normal here to hear multiple languages being spoken at the

same, even in discussion sections and stuff. Only in my program here

at SIPA am I immediately seen as American right away instead of Asian.

I'm referred to as "American" more so than "Asian American" because

there are so many Asian international students here and they can tell

right away that I'm American. But in general it's pretty diverse here

and everyone is so into learning about each other and having a good

time together. I love it!

Anyways, have a WONDERFUL time on your travels in Southeast Asia and

do be safe! I'm SOOO envious. :) Maybe we'll be in Southeast Asia

together at some point! Keep the updates coming and please tell Dr.

Thanet that I said HELLO! He's such a great adviser! :)

Love, Amorette

09 / January / 2007 -- 21 Years Old... in Bangkok

2007-01-10T21:32:00.000-05:00

I was expecting my 21^st birthday here in Thailand to be pretty depressing. In addition to the increasing contact from people I’d rather forget about and the lack of the close friends I always spend my birthday with… everything I should be celebrating, I've been doing for the past 5 months here in Thailand. I was ready to forget the day existed and go to my four classes without mention of it.

Stupid me, I forgot to take it off my facebook.

Monday night I moved into my new apartment (which is, by the way, extremely SWEEET… so you should all come visit me) and after forgetting my backpack (that had my glasses in it) and Michael left, I was feeling a bit lonely. Chiho isn’t moving in until the 19^th-20^th so I’m roommate-less. I sat there eating cup of noodle and watching Sex in the City.

Luckily for me, Diego called and asked if I wanted to join Carolina and Aerin for dinner at the barbeque/grill buffet place.

Coline was the first to wish me Happy Birthday. She texted me when she boarded her plane back to Paris.

“Happy Birthday Monica! I just got in the plane and miss Thailand already… See you soon!”

I like how she said, “See you soon!” As if she wasn’t going back to Paris to graduate and apply to graduate school while I’m back here in Bangkok. No more May Kaidees for vegetarian food every Wednesday. No more catching up and bitching about classes and planning trips for the weekends while sipping on mango shakes, as I pick at her tofu pieces, and we both laugh at how she STILL does not know how to use chopsticks.

I love the French and I love Coline. We’re going to meet up in New York City. Maybe she won’t go to grad school in Paris… maybe we’ll both end up in NYC. It’s half way.

Anyway, we finished dinner right at midnight and they wished me a happy birthday… Before going back home, we bought some huge beers and went to Diego’s to watch Borat. We felt incredibly “ghetto.” The four of us, each drinking our 40s of cheap Thai beer while watching an incredibly politically incorrect film.

Already, the birthday was off to a good start.

Class was great. I like. I think I’m only going to have class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. WHOO HOO! And I’ve realized, I’m better off taking classes taught by Thai professors. They’re the cream of the crop as opposed to the American/British professors who are mostly just expaths who teach here because they don’t want to be in the states. For example, my Cold War professor, who was a conservative American, from last semester was still working on his PhD dissertation while my Economy and Society professor, who is a Thai woman, has two Bachelor’s Degrees from USC, three Masters Degrees, and one PhD.

For dinner, I made reservations for 15 people at Cabbages and Condoms. The most politically correct birthday dinner I’ve ever had. Cabbages and Condoms is a restaurant that is part of a non-profit who promotes family planning and HIV/AIDs awareness. It was really good and I had to up the reservation from 15 to 25 because all of a sudden, I realized all the international students heard about it and came. After that we went to Bed Supper Club… my favorite.

All in all, it was good. It’s definitely not spending it with Angela in Vegas or the usual dinner I had with Felix… but I think that’s a good thing. Especially because I’m running out of anti-depressants and I don’t want to ask Malisa to send me some more. Maybe it’s time I REALLY try to ween myself off of them.

Long Live the King

2007-01-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

As the new semester winds up to full swing, meeting all the new exchange students, taking them around, and sharing all their “firsts” makes me really excited and a bit nostalgic.

The other day, Michael and I watched a movie with Diego. His first movie in Thailand and, yes, we had to stand up for the King’s song.

I remember the first time I watched a movie in Thailand. Standing up for the King’s song was the first time I really felt like I was in Thailand. Its lame but I still get kind teary. HA. I guess I’m turning more Thai.

The overall massive love for the King is something I still have yet to get used to though. Yellow shirts on Mondays. Stopping everything you’re doing to stand at 8am and 6pm during the National Anthem. Standing up in silence before every movie for the King’s song and little slideshow. Yellow flags EVERYWHERE.

I don’t know.

[December 18, 2007 @ Twin Peaks Cafe in Yangshuo, China] reflections on Xishuabanna

2007-01-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

"I fantacize about how it would feel to return to where I belong.
A place where everyone speaks my language, looks like me,
and shraes the same history."

I’m sitting here with a stuffy nose cipping on ginger tea.

I just finished reading First They Killed my Father. I can’t help but draw parallels with the stories I’ve heard from mom and dad. Not only that but it makes me wonder how much more similar their stories coincides with her story. This trip and the book has raised even more questions I have for my parents. It makes me want to ask and talk to my grandmother and more to my mom.

I wonder if how Luong had to leave Chou was how my mom felt when she left her twin brother, Na Tham. I wonder how it felt for her to leave him when she was 16 and not see him again until she turned 35… nineteen years without seeing your twin brother, whom you shared an entire womb with for 9 months.

I wonder if I would have been able to survive if I was bron through the war times. If I could live off rats and bugs. If I could stop being a vegetarian. If I could live with lice in my hair.

It makes me actually want to have children just so I could stay up with them and tell them stories about our family, our wondrous, glorious family of fighters and survivors… just the way my dad did with me.

It makes mw want to write things down, hurry up finish school, come back to Xishuanbanna to learn how to write and read in Tai Lue. Bring mom and dad so I could listen to them talk and reminisce with the family about old times. Its great how my great aunts talk about my dad when he was two years old… but I wonder how it would be to listen to them talk to HIM about when he was two years old…

I want mom to come. I want her to sit next to Na Tham. I want to compare their faces. The way their eyes both wrinkle up when they smile. I want to line all mom’s siblings up together and take a picture of them. My mom and my uncle in the United States. The one uncle in Laos. And the two uncles in China.

I want to come here with grandma. I want her to take me to where she was born. Where both her parents passed away when she was eleven. Where she has to raise her younger siblings alone. Where at the age of eleven, she became a mother up until now where she still is a mother and grandmother.

I want to bring Malisa and James. I want to show them the way to all these wonderful places. I want our relatives to see all of us all together. Malisa, born in some refugee camp in Thailand. James, born in some city in Minnesota where my parents were first sponsored to. Me, born in San Diego where my parents ended up settling in.

I want our relatives to laugh at how American we are like how we’d laught at how Chinese our other cousins are. I want them to come and see what mom and dad went through so I wouldn’t look like the only crazy child obsessed with the family history that mom never wants to talk about… grandma cries when thinking about… and dad is so proud of.

Yesterday Nir asked me if I could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be. For the past twenty (almost twenty-one) years, that one place has been Xishuanbanna. And last week I did it and it was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

"Thai People Are Sexy"

2007-01-03T22:11:00.000-05:00

I was on my computer this morning watching more Sex and the City and doing my usual rounds. You know, gmail, Microsoft outlook, myspace, facebook, yada yada.

I went on facebook and stumbled across the “Thai People Are Sexy” group. The description was this wonderfully long description about how great the country is and how you don’t meet so many Thai people because they only leave their country because of education. Of course, this implies that they are so happy with their country that they love to stay there. In reality, they just seem like sneaky people who have avoided any kind of conflict by giving away other people’s homes, who are weaker than them and trying to befriend everyone and their mama’s who is more powerful.

But that’s another blog entry… or one of the many rants I’ve gone through.

Anyway, what I thought was amazing was this little paragraph at the end of the description. It was kind of a message to the group or to the public:

W E L C O M E |||| ยินดีต้อนรับ
~~~ We've hit the 300 mark ~~~
Sawasdee Krub you sexy Thais. A big thank you goes to my Sexy Recruiters. This group just went from 0-150+ members in 3 days. Due to the volume of non-Thai (and therefore, non-sexy) people joining this group, it will now be closed. Membership will be given through invitation and membership request only. Sorry that it has to be this way but I belive in quality and not quantity :) Keep sexy everyone. Kob Khun mak mak for your cooperation.

I found it to be perfectly Thai. To have closed membership. To be exclusive in order to survive. I don’t know. There are a few things that I don’t understand that pertains to this facebook group.

First, the world’s fascination with the appearances of Thai people, which has led to many good and bad things… like making Thailand one of the biggest tourism spots in the world AND the biggest sex tourism spot in the world.

But maybe more importantly, second, who in the world decided to tell Thai people that this was how they felt. I think this message to the public by the facebook group might be a product of this second phenomenon.

... and besides. SHIT. If Thai people were so damn sexy, why have I not checked out a single Thai male (or Asian male for that matter) in the past five months. fuuuuck. Have I turned into one of those stereotypical Asian women who will end up dating only western men. AHH. maybe being Thailand has made me increasingly like Thai women here in Thailand. Great.

western food & western restaurants

2007-01-03T13:52:00.000-05:00

I could successfully (or sadly) say that I’ve had western food all day today, which I know is extremely horrible seeing that I live in Thailand and Thai food is, well, amazing.

For breakfast, I had muesli with fruit and yogurt. For lunch, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And for dinner, I had a grilled cheese and ham sandwich (without the ham) and french fries.

While most people still view Bangkok as this exotic place with a rich culture that is very different from the west, in many ways its not. Just my day’s of food alone is proof that it is extremely easy to say very western in this Southeast Asian country.

This leads me to think that maybe that’s why there are so many foreigners who love Thailand so much. They come here with the initial intentions of experiencing something new and they do. Then they start to miss home. Then they start to just make Thailand like what they were trying to escape in the first place.

It’s really a vicious cycle, as is everything else in this world.

I guess that’s how Thailand began to have such large western pockets in Bangkok with all the great restaurants, movie theatres, shopping centers, etc… and what’s best is that it’s cheaper. It becomes like living in the west, but cheaper.

I was talking to Kevin about how living in Bangkok has actually probably raised my standard of living. Not in the economical sense, but in all the comforts. I guess it all balances out with all the other experiences that I’ve encountered traveling to other places like China, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia where I had to “rough it out” a little more.

But all in all. It’s going to suck to go back to states and spend way too much money on clothes that isn’t hand sewn, fresh and organic fruit, homemade yogurt, etc. etc.

"do you have any rooms?"

2007-01-02T13:45:00.000-05:00

i totally just remembered this happening in Koh Phangan on New Years Eve morning.

so kevin and i were sitting in some restaurant/guesthouse having breakfast and waiting for our snorkel trip to take off and there were hell backpackers just arriving in Koh Phangan just for the day/night to party for new years eve.

then all of a sudden these two western men came in and started talking in slow english and also using their hands to communicate, "do you have any rooms available?"

i snapped back at them, "uhh, i dont work here."

it reminds me of that time that stupid american interrupted mine and samanthas conversation at the pier to ask us why we were speaking to each other in english. first, he assumed we were thai. second, he assumed thai people HAD to talk to each other in thai. third, he would have never assumed we were americans.

being here in thailand, i've come to the conclusion that although, most of the time i resent that i'm american . . most of the time, i end up becoming very defensive about it. i guess to most people around the world, american is american. there is no such thing as asian-american.

kind of related, in laos . . after kevin told someone he was american, they asked him if he was part african. because OF COURSE . . if you're not white american, the only other immigrants are african-americans.

homeless in bangkok

2007-01-02T13:13:00.000-05:00

i used to be really good at this blogging shizz . . back in the days i would blog more than once a day. i blame it on my current housing situation. or non-housing situation. since i've had a whole month off from school, i decided to move out of my apartment and not move into my new apartment until school starts again. since my ass has been moving around so much and only staying in bangkok a total of about three or four days . . i could save hella money instead of paying almost double rent -- rent in bangkok & paying for guest houses.

i've come to the conclusion that living out of guest houses in other countries has actually been cheaper than having an apartment here in bangkok which is totally a trip. i mean, in Laos or Cambodia . . i spent about 2 to 3 dollars a night. Here in Bangkok, i will be paying over 300 USD a month . . which is like ten bucks a month. so basically, its completely possible to travel for years and years like those damn europeans and australians.

when kevin and i went down to koh phangan for new years it just reconfirmed what i've experienced throughout my travels . . europeans and australians have some cool mindset where they could just take a year or two off and travel their brains out. whats wrong with americans? why do we stay in our homes and never leave the comforts of the familiar? is it just the way we've been raised? are we just too "focused" on being productive?

even looking at the study abroad patterns, it's obvious that most american college students go to western europe to study abroad. WHY? you pay more than twice as much as southeast asia AND you can't even travel anywhere else. i dont get it. but who knows. i guess it takes some weird characteristic for you to throw yourself in a place like thailand for a semester. someone not scared of squat toilets, malaria, pollution, traffic, cold showers, clothes that way too small for you, being mistaken as a prostitute, and island with barely enough running water to support the local population much less the tourists during high season.

backtracking my parents journey to the united states

2006-12-14T03:36:00.000-05:00

eversince before i could remember, i know i grew up on stories about ban xon and xishuangbanna. i've successfully done the opposite journey my parents did and i have so many things to say and write but can't keep hogging this computer for that long.

chiang khong, thailand across the mekong river to huay xai, laos.
huay xai, laos to muang sing, laos.
muang sing laos, across the border to muang mang, china (where mom was born)
muang mang, china to ban xon, china (where dad was born)

"you're slowly becoming increasingly useless."

2006-12-05T23:09:00.000-05:00

i just had a horrible conversation with my brother today while i was trying to study for my last exam.

he told me i was becoming increasingly useless.

he gave me a hard time about studying abroad. not having direction in life. taking a long time to graduate. etc. etc.

it's stupid because (1) studying abroad has brought me an opportunity to intern for UNESCO, which would give me some amazing experience AND look amazing on my CV, (2) i've been wanting to be a lawyer since i was in the 8th grade and have not deterred from that since, (3) i'm going to finish in four years double majoring and minoring . . which is more than he can say since he took five years with his one major.

he also gave me shit about how shane has a house and i'm wandering around thailand. man. so am i such a failure? just because i went to college after high school and haven't finished? would he rather me go straight into the workforce after high school, save some money, move to some state where the cost of living is 1/4 of california's. buy a house. get married. get pregnant. yada yada. thats so stupid and so not the way mom and dad raised me.

it's like i understand james really cares about me and worries about me . . thats why he gives me a hard time. but i swear, sometimes he's worst than mom and dad. mom and dad have issues with "encouragement" also. and in the long run, i know it's made me a stronger person. negative reineforcement. they always worry that over complimenting us will make us stop working so hard. and it's good, i know.

but sometimes it's really hard to always have to prove someone wrong. or feel like the people who you think should be the most proud of you are just waiting for you to fail.

i guess i haven't felt like this since high school when mom and dad were convinced that a month before graduation i would get pregnant and drop out of school. instead, i hosted the graduation ceremony infront of a stadium of people.

i dont know. i haven't been feeling so great because yesterday a ghost from the past attempted to contact me. so i guess i've been more sensitive and touchy. i hate that.

Temporary Friends?

2006-12-05T21:55:00.000-05:00

december 6th

I just got back from Koh Tao last night at 1am. I spent the night packing and talking to my brother and sister. I’m really excited because Malisa is almost certain she’ll be visiting in May and James and Kimi still wanna come too. it makes me excited because I miss my family. Especially my brother and sister. I guess we have one of those weird families where the kids get along. More than get along. We actually like each other.

Anyway. Besides that, I went to bed really late but luckily Coline called me to ask if I wanted to study. It was nice to hear Coline’s voice. I was hoping she’d be staying with me next semester but her school informed her during the weekend if she didn’t take some class (that wont be offered here in Thailand), she wouldn’t graduate. So she’s heading back to Paris in January. And it makes me really sad because we were gonna live in the same building with each other and even made all these wonderful plans for next year. Ha. last Thursday, she said:

“monica, if I stay here next semester, we need to find boyfriends. If I go a whole year without a boyfriend, I might die.”

Ha. I love it.

This morning Harper came over and invited me to brunch with everyone at Ricky’s. Brunch turned into Lunch because I had to go buy tickets to Laos and China for tomorrow. When I got to Ricky’s, I was greeted a huge table of my friends with huge smiles on their faces sitting around sipping on their cappuccinos and fruit shakes with plates of half eaten grilled cheese, muesli and yogurt, etc. etc.

It was a sight that I don’t ever want to forget.

I’ve made such wonderful friends during this semester abroad. Wonderfully amazing. Who would have known that I would be able to connect with so many different people from so many different places. Who would have known that I could have been such close friends with

- A girl from Paris who I would eat vegetarian food with every Wednesday night to discuss life, goals, careers, and re-meeting up in New York in two years.

- A guy from Nesbraksa who I would share invite to visit my family in Laos and spend a 22 hours bus ride with

- Fall in love with a girl who grew up in Piedmont but goes to UCLA

- Find someone I could completely connect with on so many levels in Thailand… only to realize I could have spent my last two years in Berkeley hanging out with her (if only she dropped some of those econ classes for some Ethnic Studies or Sociology classes).

- A Jewish girl from Denver who likes to run as much as me and would keep good luck strings from my uncle on her wrists for a month

- A French-Canadian whom I would have a fling with then travel through out Vietnam AND get certified for scuba diving with.

- A girl from vegetarian from Nashville who is probably my favorite southerner in the world.

- A Mexican who has become my favorite person to share a bucket with and could convince me to do anything just by calling me, “Moni-Cake”

- A great roommate from Sacramento turned Los Angeles who I could bitch about the world for hours instead of studying in our room.

… and so many many more.

The sad thing is that in the beginning, I thought maybe these would be “temporary” friends. Who would have known, I would come to Thailand to make friends with people whom I’ve become closer to in the past five months than friends I have back at home that I’ve known for years.

Maybe its because we all came to Thailand with nothing. Maybe its because we all learned to live in Thailand together. Maybe its because in Thailand, we lived a surreal life. A surreal life that no one would ever be able to even imagine.

Only us.

01/Dec - 04/Dec: Koh Tao & Scuba Diving

2006-12-05T21:54:00.001-05:00

to be continued

the joys (and pain) of being a womyn

2006-11-29T16:22:00.000-05:00

tomorrow, i go scuba diving in koh tao with charles. we're going to get our PADI licenses. so like many farang girls in bangkok, i went to go get a wax.

it's only been my second time but i stuck to the place erin took me to the first time. i always try to lessen the uncomfortable situation by conversating with the person. they're always really nice. very attractive thai girls from the north and northeast. umm. i wonder why, right?

it gets me thinking. most prostitutes in bangkok are trafficked from the north and northeast. i wonder, what is better (or worst): being a prostitute in bangkok and servicing men OR working in a waxing salon and servicing women.

then i got to thinking again. are those stories about bangkok true? can you walk into a massage place to get a massage then 30 minutes later have the option of "getting something a little more"? i'm always scared to walk into certain bars, resturants, and massage parlors because of that. then, it made me wonder if my really nice and clean waxing salon does that also..

"Reagan is rightfully seen nowadays as one of the best American Presidents"

2006-11-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

sometimes, i think professors are idiots.

[to be continued]

the above quote is from my professor in my cold war class. after an entire semester, i've learned to tolerate his stupid opinionated lectures. he'll stand there and compliment reagan and bush senior while at the same time pointing out carter's inexperience with foreign policy, roosevelt's affair with another woman, etc etc.

the sad thing is that the thai students who take his class will probably only ever be taught american government and politics from this man. as if thai people weren't extremely conservative already. now, they're being taught what "most americans" believe in . . but not really.

i always become puzzled when professors are conservative. ive always had the notion that the more education you undergo, the more progressive you will be. i guess its a nice change. my cold war professor is getting his phd in economics and my cool ass british government professor is a sociologist by training and marxist by life.

vaios and macs in siam square

2006-11-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

today i went to go look for more apartments. i found one i like. and it's three bts stations away from siam square. which is wonderful. i love it. i'm going to live five minutes away from the victory monument bts station. whoopty whoop!

anyway. after my errands, i wandered into the bunch of shops and boutiques across the street form siam square in search of a true cafe to study and read at. i found it and it was great. i loved it. i could see myself spending many hours and drinking many lattes there.

so to the point. it was strange. the students there were not thammasat students (since its so far). they were chulalongkorn students. and during my four hours in the cafe, i think i saw more thai people with laptops than i have at the entire semester at thammasat. and not only did they have laptops. they had vaios and macs. powerbooks. ibooks. macbooks. etc. etc.

it makes me wonderful how things are at chulalongkorn university. i wonder if it's as bad-ass as they say it is. everyone is reguired to wear uniform everyday. and the girls have a hangbag uniform. it has to be some brandname thing. thats just insane.

Buddhism from the Farang's Perspective

2006-11-26T11:32:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is my Buddhist Institutions final exam.

I feel like a failure because out of all my classes, this is the one I'm doing the shittiest in. I guess I am the typical "cradle" Buddhist that just follows rituals and traditions while my classmates are like those convert Buddhist that know so much more than me . . and hence, are doing better in the class than me.

Aside from my frustrations from being really sucky at Buddhist Institutions, while I am the only Buddhist in the class . . I've also been really frustrated with people who have expressed their "disapointment" in Thai Buddhism.

Apparently, a lot of students came to Thailand with these perfect images of Buddhism as the purest and most wonderful religion in the world. Therefore, they were expecting to find wonderfully faithful Buddhists citizens and amazingly holy monks in Thailand.

However, when they got to Bangkok, they found (among other things) crazy drunk teenagers partying it up in clubs on weekdays and weekends, prostitutes galore, Thai girls with really right and short uniform skirts, monks smoking and talking on cellular phones . .

Apparently, Bangkok hasn't lived up to their expectations as a Buddhist society which has led them to think that Buddhism is as corrupt and "just another religion" like all the other western religions in the states.

I'm not really quite sure how to respond to this. Part of me wants to justify all these failings and say, "Well, Bangkok isn't exactly the best representation of a 'good' Buddhist society." Then I would go on and on about how Bangkok is different because it's so consumer driven with their "High-So" population and most people like my relatives that live up north in the villages are deeply and much more purely Buddhist.

However, the other part of me doesn't even want to address the matter of purity of Buddhism in Thailand. Part of me looks and sees a bunch of western people, coming over from their countries, and placing their assumptions and standards on an entire society that they cannot possibily understand. It is so like us westerners (I say "us" because, yes, my experience here in Thailand has made me so much more conscious of how western I actually am) to look at other cultures and societies through our own lenses.

We are so Euro/American centric.

It disgusts me because it seems so anthropological. With the superiority implications of: this is us, that is you, and you are definitely not like us.

But then again, what do I know? I'm just another American farang born Buddhist that has probably gotten better grades on past exams on Christianity then on the present exams on Buddhism . .

farang food and high - so

2006-11-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

I had a really good breakfast today. I finally made it to Ricky's Coffee Shop, which is really like five minutes away from campus. Harper told me they had the best yogurt and she was right. I had two things. Yogurt with Muesli and Fruit. A tofu and cheese sandwich.

it was great.

so "american" or "farang" of me, right? i'm in thailand and i'm sitting here looking for good yogurt. I think I could speak for the rest of the exchange students when I say that now that it's November, we're a bit tired of "trying to fit in" or "being like the locals." On Wednesdays, we have vegetarian nights at May Kaidee's and on Thursdays it's girls night out at Ranee's.. which we go to because they have really good greek salad and fresh bread.

Malisa would be upset at me. I'm in Thailand, I should be eating all the great and CHEAP thai food. The crappy thing is that Kevie is coming in about three weeks and he's going to want to do all that "thai" stuff . . and i'm already at the point where all I really want to do is sit at a cafe, drink a latte, and read newspapers.

Maybe thats why I also want to move closer to BTS. Maybe I'm just tired of living in "Old Bangkok." I mean, it's great that I'm right across the river from the Grand Palace, school, Banglumphu . . but I don't know. I want to be closer to Siam Paragon, the Gourmet Market, Sukhumvit, etc etc. too. And it reminds me of the end of my freshmen year in college. You know how when you're a freshmen in college, you want to do all the fun stuff and socialize and make friends and yadayadayada. Well, after this semester, all my friends are leaving and there will be a new group of exchange students. They'll be all excited about their first night partying at RCA. They'll be making plans to go visit Angkor Wat. Some people will be figuring out the best way to get to Laos. They'll be complaining about the library dress code, etc etc.

& me, I'll be over it.

I dont know how social I'm going to be next semester. I dont know how excited I am about it. I dont know. I kind of just want to move near BTS. Intern at UNESCO on Sukhumvit. Travel on my own. Go to school. & live near the other Ex-Pats. sounds kinda high - so but hey.

speaking of high - so. we went to sky bar tonight. the view was great. the drinks were over priced. and we all felt a bit awkward and out of place. I like getting all dolled up but I could see how some of the other students felt out of place. It wasn't exactly the best place to go to with a group of 20 of your friends either. Eh. Oh well. it just amazes me how one city could have so many different things in it. They have places like sky bar that sells a glass of wine for 1000 baht and then in the same city, they have places on the street that sell noodles for 10 baht. interesting the diversity AND disparity of Thailand...

Welcome

2006-11-23T23:32:00.000-05:00

so, i was talking to jimmy tran today and he asked me if i kept a blog.

thats when i realized, i should just give in and create one.

since i started this trip writing emails to certain individuals about what i've been doing, i'm going to post these emails (editted) in place of my four months of non-blogged adventures in southeast asia.