Entry #1
In addition to working towards being happier, I will also be documenting my fitness developments at the end of each month.
why I am sad, how I can be less sad, and what I am doing with my life
why I am sad
Though sometimes I might tell myself that my experience in the workplace has gotten easier (and no doubt, under great fortune it has), I know that the unpleasantries are all still intact. It is my heightened tolerance for unhappiness that should be thanked for the numbness through which I have experienced my life since spring 2011.
When I first joined Teach For America, I thought that two years is not a significant amount of time. Two years? I couldn’t finish microwaving a frozen burrito in two years. High school was 4, college was nearly 4, and both seemed to vanish instantly. I was ignorant of the sensitivities of time. Time spent in happiness does not linger. It is brief in weight and feeling. Time spent diminishing your soul is quagmire. It is painful, scarring, and damaging.
The top 6 things that make me most sad:
1.) When I go home, old friends tell me that my voice has changed, “like I’ve been through hell.”
2.) Looking at facebook and seeing the ongoing lives and activities of people I used to know creates within me a sense of isolation, longing, and jealousy.
3.) Parents who are unable to correctly write their child’s name, or are unable to assist their children with first grade homework. I recently had a parent ask me if 10 out of 10 was a good score on her daughter’s spelling quiz.
4.) A workplace in which I am threatened, screamed at, and repeatedly blamed/held accountable for the egregious failures of a society.
5.) The incredible width between my reality, and the realities of people that I used to partake in and commensurate with.
6.) A lacking Asian American/Queer community.
how I can be less sad
I have tried many solutions. In the short-term, working out consistently has benefitted me tremendously. Also, painting makes me feel better because I am able to create something with a process reminiscent of greater moments of happiness in my life, and simply because I am able to accomplish something that I know I am good at (due to study and practice), and that I am naturally inclined to do. As a side note, yes, I believe that teaching is a learned skill, but some people want to/naturally enjoy it more than others. Asian food is happiness as well, because it is culturally familiar. On the weekend, I will drive the 40 minutes round-trip without hesitation for a bowl of pho that would prevent me from crying.
what I am doing with my life
One month ago, I applied to UC Irvine for a masters in teaching, single subject credential in art education. However, seeing as the teaching market in California is fawful, I don’t know if I want to invest 30 grand into a job that I might not even be able to obtain, and that might not even make me happy. In a recent trip back home, one of my good life-friends told me about her job as an artist for an iphone gaming company. It’s in a city that I want to raise kids in, provides a pay that I should be able to work with, doing something that I love, for a job that you don’t take home with you.
So now, I’m building a game art portfolio (childhood dream unreached), mostly self-teaching myself how to use a computer illustration program that many 21 years olds spent $80,000 to be taught, and praying that I am able to compete. For those of you who may know me, my degree was in Studio Art (painting, drawing, photography and sculpture), not illustration/design. And UC Irvine’s art school was highly conceptual. To do this job, I am learning a medium that I have no experience in.
Anyway, now I’m making shit like this:
and this
and this
Wish me luck.
(via Ryan Sarah Murphy : Collage : Cardboard)
I’m loving these cardboard collages by Ryan Sarah Murphy
OH MY GAHHHHDDPFFFFFFFFFT! UGH! THIS ISN’T VODKA!
OH GOD IT’S SO SALTY!
THIS IS BULLSHIT!
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and in his honor, the Black students’ union sent out an email summing up MLK’s life, politics and legacy, along with a reminder of what we students can do. The email was sent to the Black students’…
Double, by artist and photographer Katsuhiro Saiki. The subtle white line that divides the photo is a vapor trail from an aircraft.Via Iain, who runs one of the best blogs around.
We are not going to develop an impartial, universal love overnight. These days we often expect things to happen immediately. We want instant transformation and instant enlightenment—hence the popularity of those television makeover shows that create a new garden, a new room, or a new face in a matter of days. But it takes longer to reorient our minds and hearts; this type of transformation is slow, undramatic, and incremental.Karen Armstrong (via steve-kim)
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU DON’T THINK THERE’S ENOUGH SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CLIMATE CHANGE?
BASICALLY, YES. I THINK THERE ARE TOO MANY CONFLICTING OPINIONS WITHIN THE GENERAL ‘CONSENSUS’ AND THAT IT’S FOOLISH TO TRY TO FORCE EVERYONE TO ACCEPT SOMETHING THAT EVEN ‘THE EXPERTS’ CAN’T AGREE ON, LET ALONE CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE, JUST BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE TRUE. YOU CAN’T ASK EVERYONE TO BASE THEIR ENTIRE LIVES AROUND A HUNCH. IF YOU BELIEVE IT’S HAPPENING, FINE. DO WHAT YOU FEEL IS NECESSARY TO HELP, BUT DON’T START PREACHING TO ME ABOUT IT UNTIL YOU’VE GOT SOME COLD, HARD, IRREFUTABLE FACTS.
THAT’S INCREDIBLE. YOU JUST SUMMED UP MY ENTIRE OUTLOOK ON RELIGION IN TWELVE SECONDS.
