king shit of fuck mountain

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.