Michelle Obama’s memoir has been resonating with me on many levels. I’ve already cried three times, and I’m only halfway through. Though we come from different backgrounds (racially, geographically, economically), I am still able to see my own experiences within her experiences. In the part of the book where she discusses her childhood, she writes about her grandpa “Dandy” – the perpetually disgruntled patriarch, whose ill-tempered actions the rest of her family tolerates and condones.  Unlike the rest of her submissive family, young plucky Michelle confronts Dandy about his grumpy attitude. She later finds out from her mom about Dandy’s painful past and his deep-seeded discontent regarding the racial obstructions to his life’s dreams, despite his intellect and abilities.  Dandy was smart enough to be a professor, but later lowered his expectations to be a technician, but even that was infeasible. Michelle later elaborates on this story (in her conversation with Oprah), where she speaks to the unshakable pain that many older generation African-Americans carry with them (especially those who are notably gifted and talented), because of their inability to fulfill their potential.

As I read about Dandy, I couldn’t help but think of my own grandma. She is currently living at a senior center in Koreatown and being her usual feisty self, she is constantly butting heads with other grandmas there. She particularly hates it when other grandmas talk about which universities they graduated from, as she takes it as a personal attack (as someone who didn’t have the means to graduate middle school). From what I hear from my relatives and as I’ve personally witnessed, my grandma is not only smart but one of the most doggedly ambitious people I know – someone who would’ve excelled if she had the opportunities. In her later years at senior centers, she would reconnect herself to this part of her identity as she would take great pride in learning how to read and write in English, finishing piles upon piles of sudokus, and framing her accolades (“High Honor Roll”) on her wall.  It pains me now to think how I would be rather dismissive to her complaints about those other grandmas, thinking she was just making a fuss.

When I think about Dandy and my own grandma’s experiences, I look to my own and see that I have been able to pursue whatever I wanted to pursue despite feeling inadequate and not feeling “fit” for it.  I thought I wanted to be a librarian, so I went for my MLIS degree. I later wanted pursue a career in law, so I enrolled in law school – all the while, also feeling that I was not particularly great in any of these things. What a luxury I have to be able to switch courses and push/challenge myself in positions that seem out of reach (not because of money or societal circumstances, but my own insecurities and shortcomings).  I have realized how lucky I am to have never known the sorrow of living with untapped potential.

I remember in one of my high school (or was it middle school?) English courses, we were assigned to read the poem “Mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath. It instantly became one of my favorite poems; I found it amusing as I imagined these tiny, adorable mushrooms  prancing around mischievously in Fantasia-esque fashion.  Formally, the poem’s even, tiptoed cadence and hushed quality is fitting for its topic. I think I somehow identified with these little fungi as I grew up as a rather meek, timid child with a large imagination, always dreaming up otherworldly dimensions with my childhood friends.

However, revisiting this poem now, I see how it fits within the scheme of my life. I actually do not know exactly what Plath was referring to, but various sources have suggested the poem is a metaphor to the women’s movement, the Cold War, the atom bomb, pregnancy, etc.  I interpret these mushrooms to represent any type of oppressed group whether its women, minorities, immigrants… I especially like the interpretation as immigrants.  Anyway, without further ado:

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

During my 1L year, I feel like I lost a part of myself in the sense that I didn’t partake in the things that normally gave me joy/pleasure, because I was so overwhelmed by all the noise and pressure around me. I could only engage in completely passive, mindless activities that allowed me to stay in a numbed state of escape (e.g. binging on fluffy, lighthearted sitcoms). But now that I’ve survived that dark period of my life, I’m starting to fall back into the forgotten joy of leisure reading.

I’ve picked up the Neapolitan Novels series after a recommendation from a friend, a fellow reader. I have neglected fiction in so long, especially working up to law school, because I felt I had to be a more “serious” reader and stick to non-fiction.

Despite the rather cheesy covers and titles, the series has really resonated with me in a way that I didn’t imagine. The author really strikes the intricacies of female friendships, which is honestly illustrated in the extreme competitiveness yet deep love that best friends, Lenu and Lila, have for each other. And though they spend years apart, envious and somewhat embittered by each others’ lives, they always have a way of springing back to each other in their darkest moments and finding the other in their own actions and thoughts. Though I find myself relating to the level-headed and academically-oriented Lenu, I can’t help but feel empathy for the maddeningly brilliant, yet tragic Lila – especially by then end of Book 2. And though the violence and misogyny in the novels can be rather disturbing, the class and gender dynamics make the novels more contextually enriching. Also, they’re turning it into a show on HBO, which I’m extremely excited about.

I loved this passage below about Michele (the biggest douche that ever graced the stradone) and his unbreakable and unrequited love for Lila:

“At a certain point Michele himself must have realized it, and he became gripped by a kind of melancholy. He had murmured that women for him were all games with a few holes for playing in. All. All except one. Lila was the only woman in the world he loved—love, yes, as in the films—and respected… He had told her that he thought about Lila night and day, but not with normal desire, his desire for her didn’t resemble what he knew. In reality he didn’t want her. That is, he didn’t want her the way he generally wanted women, to feel them under him, to turn them over, turn them again, open them up, break them, step on them, and crush them. He didn’t want her in order to have sex and then forget her. He wanted the subtlety of her mind with all its ideas. He wanted her imagination. And he wanted her without ruining her, to make her last. He wanted her not to screw her—that word applied to Lila disturbed him. He wanted to kiss her and caress her. He wanted to be caressed, helped, guided, commanded. He wanted to see how she changed with the passage of time, how she aged. He wanted to talk with her and be helped to talk. You understand? He spoke of her in way that to me, to me—when we are about to get married—he has never spoken. I swear it’s true. he whispered: my brother, Marcello, and that dickhead Stefano, and Enzo with his cheeky face, what have they understood of Lila? Do they don’t know what they’ve lost, what they might lose? No, they don’t have the intelligence. I alone know what she is, who she is. I recognised her. And I suffer thinking of how she’s wasted. He was raving, just like that, unburdening himself. And I listened to him without saying a word, until he fell asleep”

Elena Ferrante | Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

I’ve never been used to being the ‘anomaly.’ But going back to school pretty late in the game, I had to prepare myself for being surrounded by those who are (practically) a generation younger than me. It’s amazing to me when I mention some pop cultural references (Saved by the Bell, Full House, etc.), and the kids have no idea what I’m talking about. Most of them were born after the LA riots, in diapers during the OJ trial, and were just children during 9/11. The age difference also becomes a bit more pronounced when we’re all supposed to be collectively freaking about certain school-related things such as grades or a job interview, and I can’t help but come off a bit more nonchalant. I guess when I have friends dealing with “real life” issues (e.g. motherhood, in-laws, divorce), I’m not going to be wasting too much of my energy on why I got a B in that class. When my classmates found out how old I was, they were not only shocked, but maybe a bit pleased in knowing they have an “older” friend in her 30s.

I had to go through this whole “age reveal” ordeal with my fellow interns as well, except it was even worse because there were not only law school students, but undergrads & high school students (!!) at my current internship (If I was a teen mom, one of them could’ve been my daughter). This time when I dropped the bomb, one intern was visibly “shook,” exclaiming that not only do I look really young, but that I act really young. I tried to take this as meaning that I come off as spry and youthful – not with the connotation of immaturity.

Though a part of me makes me wonder if I do act and come off too young for my age? I guess I have never been very good at “adulting” (ugh hate that word), and I already have some insecurities with feeling “behind” in life, especially when compared to my peers who have full-fledged careers, families, and homes. I don’t normally voice these insecurities, but when I do, friends try to encourage me by saying that everyone has their own path/timeline. Amal Clooney got married in her mid-30s and had babies at 39! Though I’m no Amal, I think I’ve come to recognize that my path is/will be a bit unconventional.

It’s hard to believe that 1L is finally over. I have awaited this time since what seems like…forever.   I looked forward to the summer as this bright beacon of hope.  I kept telling myself, just hold out & wait… things will only go up from here.  And now that I’m finally here, I can’t help but feel strangely frightened and somewhat lost.

Now it’s time to face the things I’ve put on hold… whether its the doubts/anxieties I have about choosing this career in the first place or the broken relationships I’ve yet to mend or the emotional residue of my reckless actions – all the real-life concerns are rushing back to me now that the miserable, but sheltered & hermetic bubble of 1L year has burst.

The place that has kept me safe, the people that have kept me safe – it’s all gone.  But if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s losing things.

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

During my break, I had this lofty thought that I was going to catch up on all this leisure reading that I’ve been putting off during the semester (I’ve only read 1.5 books during the three weeks so far). Instead, I’ve been successfully binge-watching movies/shows non-stop.

My current obsession: Netflix’s Terrace House (suggested by BuzzFeed).

It’s the Japanese version of Real World, where six housemates rotate in and out throughout the season.  There are also commentators who they cut to throughout the episode, who will dissect (sometimes hilariously, other times annoyingly) all the interactions and characters.  This reality show is completely different from what I’m used to seeing in over-the-top, caricature-like characters from American reality shows.  The housemates are extremely polite, talk extensively about their goals/aspirations, and resolve conflicts in a relatively “adult” manner.  It’s nuanced to the point where things seem to move pretty slowly and might even be considered boring/lackluster to the average American viewer.  No crazy cat-fights or scandalous hook-ups.  But their relationships and interactions seem more meaningful and not surprisingly, the conflicts that they encounter are much more similar and relatable to what I experience with my friends.

The most recent episode, the female housemates were talking about the frustrations of interviewing and having to “sell themselves,” something I’ve been struggling with as I’ve been having to send out applications and cover letters for summer internships.

Having worked in the same company for four years, the last time I had to apply for a job was probably five years ago.  I forgot what it feels like to interview and conduct your elevator pitch, which is a bit worrisome for me considering that’s what I’ll be doing the next few months. I don’t know if its the Asian female thing, but I can totally relate to the Terrace house ladies. We’re taught and conditioned to be humble and modest, but if there’s anything that working and going to school in NYC taught me is that you have to be overly confident, almost brazenly so, in order to “make it.”   Even my brother unexpectedly lectured me (or I guess gave me a pep talk) on the phone that I need to be more confident.  He said you’re just as smart and gifted as any of your classmates, so you should start acting like it.

Reminds me of a shirt that one of my classmates shared:

Please Lord, give me the courage.

As I’ve grown older, I have strangely, but I guess expectedly, started to love getting massages and going to jjim jil bang (korean bathhouses) – activities I loathed even a few years ago. Maybe its the inner ajummah coming out, but the first thing I wanted to do after taking my last final was get a massage.

This past week, I went to the jjim jil bang with my mom and my grandma.  I was pretty excited to go, but to my dismay, my mom signed me up for the bath scrub, something that even I (as a newfound massage enthusiast) was a bit wary of.  Basically, its an hr-long ordeal where an older 60ish y.o. lady lays you out butt-naked on a table and scrubs every unpioneered inch of your body.  Most women have had their private bits poked/prodded in weird ways whether its to get that bikini wax or visiting the gyno, but this takes it to a whole other level of vulnerability.

When I first entered the backside of the spa (where these scrubs were taking place), I felt like I was entering a Hostile-esque horror movie where all the women were separated into rooms and were tortured (again, my wild imagination getting the best of me).  There was something eerie about it as I passed by exposed rooms of naked women on their respective cots and heard hot water angrily splashing about.

As I settled down, my masseuse knew I was pretty nervous and she told me to just relax.  And then the scrubbing commenced.  It kind of hurt at first, but then as I did start to relax, it felt oddly refreshing.  All the grit and grime just being unapologetically scoured off of me, with no mercy.   When I was done with the session, my skin felt flushed, but renewed.   It felt like an entire layer was peeled off of me, and here I was – raw and bare.

A perfect way to top off the year, no?  All the burdens, concerns, heartache, disappointments, and sorrow just scrub-a-dub-dubbed away.  Off with the old, on with the new.

I hate plane rides.  I always get freaked out before each takeoff and once we hit some mild turbulence, I can’t help but imagine wild scenarios in my head of going down (I blame Final Destination for that).  But the only thing I like about plane rides is that I sometimes discover some good shows/movies/etc. while I’m on the flight.  For instance, I started watching “Community” (a show that I gave up on after the pilot episode), because I saw one of their random episodes from the later seasons, when the show actually became really good and thematic (I believe it was the “Dinner with Andre”-inspired episode).

Yesterday, I ended up watching the rest of “Southside with You” – the movie about Barack & Michelle Obama’s first date.  Huge coincidence that they were playing it, because its such a small-scale movie and I actually purchased it on Amazon the night before but my computer kept crashing on me so I couldn’t finish it.  What are the chances?  There’s a part in the movie where Barack is asking Michelle about her true passions and suggesting that her heart isn’t into the corporate law firm life (It’s interesting to hear as someone who is constantly being lured into the “dark side”).

After the movie, I was channel surfing until I stumbled upon ESPN’s 30 for 30 marathon.  I first saw “Survive and Advance,” a documentary about NC State’s cinderella/underdog story about winning the NCAA championship in 1983.  The story centered around the coach, Jim Valvano, who changed the player’s lives.  As a woman who’s pretty unathletic, I think that’s one bond that I will never get to experience but I’ll treasure from afar: the coach-player relationship.  It was so touching to see these grown men being moved to tears as they talked about their coach, who ended up eventually passing away from cancer.

Coach Valvano’s speech at the ESPYs:

Then, right after I watched “Phi Slama Jama,” a documentary of the opposing team (Univ of Houston) and their downfall.  They were the most hyped/favored team who advanced to the final four for three straight years (1982-1984), but never won.  It was interesting to see the documentaries back-to-back, you rarely get to see such a full-fledged depiction of the winners and the losers. The directors were planning on giving a more general overview of the three seasons of near victories, but the documentary evolved into a search for one troublesome, but talented player who disappeared from the scene after their final loss. One pass, one steal, one shot could potentially change a player’s path forever.  But that’s life.

I’m embarrassed to say that I neglected writing in here for the whole first semester, but that’s just an indication of how rough 1L first semester really was.  That’s a lie; I did have time to write in it (especially in the beginning/middle of the semester), but I couldn’t figure out how to log back into the account.

So how was my first semester in law school?

It’s hard to say… when people were trying to prepare/dissuade me from going back to school, they all warned me about how painful that infamous 1L year was. So I did expect the absolute worst.  When I was in the thick of reading/finals period, the struggle felt excruciatingly accurate, but now (not even two days past my last final), it didn’t seem all that bad (but then again, I tend to be really good at blocking out/forgetting painful moments).

To be completely honest, these past six months have been one of the most difficult life chapters(?) I’ve experienced, not solely because of school but a slew of personal issues. Maybe if other areas of my life weren’t hurting, school itself wouldn’t have been too bad. But I’m one of those unfortunate people where compartmentalizing doesn’t work too well, and when one (especially relational) area of my life is affected, it just tends to spread and leak into other areas as well.  Not to be melodramatic, but there were periods of this past semester where I really did feel I was at the lowest of lows, and though I live in a familiar city with a pretty large circle of friends, I felt incredibly alone and isolated.

There were so many moments where I started second-guessing my decision to go back to school, especially when I thought about how relatively cushy and laid-back my life was back when I was working @BuzzFeed.  While in school, my body/brain felt exhausted all the time.  There were days when I would be in bed from 9pm-9am, and this is coming from someone who used to average 5 hours a sleep per night.  In my downtime, I would look at instagram/snapchat/facebook and envy pretty much everyone else’s seemingly carefree and lavish lives.  I even started growing incredibly envious of the lives of my friend’s babies (not a worry in the world…).

So I had to keep drilling in my mind how lucky I was to be here… to be gaining valuable knowledge from renowned professors in the midst of bright, gifted peers.  I feel that I really lucked out this semester with the professors that I had; my Criminal Law professor, who seemed quite intimidating at first, is extremely passionate and somehow manages to balance a powerful, yet also approachable presence. Our Civil Procedure professor is a quirky, little lady (who seriously seems like she can teach at Hogwarts) and actually performed some type of wizardry magic to bring life into the dryest material.

Every professor gave us an inspirational pep talk on the last day of class, telling us what a great profession this is, not to be discouraged by the current political climate, and how each of us have bright futures and a great responsibility ahead of us.

That’s what it is. Need to think big picture. This year is just a hazing period, and all I have to do is survive.  Perseverance!

But for the next three weeks, I’m ready to be come a semi-vegetative blob. Off to La-La-Land!

I’ve recently purchased Notorious RBG as I was casually perusing through the Rizzoli bookstore when I had to kill time.  I figured I needed some new law school inspo, and I’ve known about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that she was somewhat of a badass (an 80+ year old woman serving on the Supreme Court is pretty badass in and of itself).  It was amazing to read the breakthroughs she made as a woman in the legal field (top of her class at both Harvard & Columbia Law,  one of the first women to teach law, the second woman to be on the Supreme Court) as well as what did for women through law (rights for pregnant women, rights for women in the military, etc.).  And it was interesting to see how she wasn’t this highly aggressive, in-your-face type of lawyer either; she was someone who was strong but reserved, and she preferred working slowly but effectively rather than quickly trying to turn things upside down.

But what spoke to me most about her story was her extremely touching relationship with her husband Marty.  RBG & Marty met when they were both college students at Cornell and they connected instantly.  When thinking about their future together, Marty suggested that they work in the same profession so they could speak the same language and have more to bond over; they both decided on law.  As they both studied at Harvard Law, Marty was diagnosed with cancer during his second year. RBG didn’t want him to fall behind so she helped him with his work on top of her heavy courseload.  That’s when she realized she could survive off of one hour of sleep. She made more sacrifices for him & her family throughout her life: she gave up her Harvard Law degree to move to NY with Marty when he got a job at a top-notch NY firm and she put her career on hold to raise their children. However, what’s beautiful about their marriage is that he did the same for her when it became her time to shine; Marty’s the one who encouraged and recommended her for the position on the Supreme Court and he became a house-husband (& an amazing chef) later in their lives so that she could excel in her career.

An excerpt about their relationship from the book:

“I was always in awe of her,” says former clerk Kate Andrias, “but there was something disarming about seeing her with a partner who adores her but also treats her like a human being.” Another clerk, Heather Elliott, wrote about one late night, after an event, when RBG was working in chambers while Marty read quietly. “I started to talk to her about the research I had done, and while I was talking, Marty got up and walked toward us. I started freaking out in my mind—‘Is what I am saying that stupid? What is he coming over here for?!’—only to watch him come up to RBG, fix her collar (which had somehow fallen into disarray), and then go back to his book. The comfortable intimacy of that moment was something I will always remember.” 

RBG told me, “Marty was always my best friend.”

That remarkable intimacy had survived Marty’s bout with cancer in law school, and RBG’s two diagnoses, a decade apart. Cancer had left them alone long enough to be together for the nearly sixty years they had been best friends. But it came back. In 2010, doctors said Marty had metastatic cancer.

“If my first memories are of Daddy cooking,” their daughter, Jane said, “so are my last. Cooking for Mother even when he could not himself eat, nor stand in the kitchen without pain, because for him it was ever a joy to discuss the law over dinner with Mother while ensuring that she ate well and with pleasure.”

My heart. It aches.

Oh, and just to end on a light note, I can’t leave out how she fell asleep during the State of the Union.  She defended herself by saying she wasn’t “100% sober.” I love this woman.