Day One:
Why Must We Wait?
What if there was a exchange program out there where two people from different countries, with different ethnicity exchange places in two households? Both living with the opposite family, meeting up with each other’s friends, be involved in the activities with each other’s family and so on. Wouldn’t that be interesting? For instance, a person from Thailand switches position with a person from Brazil. Each side of the family would have to treat the Exchangers as if they were their own. This could possibly go in a horrible direction or it could help diminish racism by altering the Exchangers’ as well as the household’s mindset! People could have a better understanding of multiple cultures, just by being involved! They could learn and understand customs other than their own and steer away from the universal stereotypes!
Could this be the beginning, the foundation, to end racial discrimination? Who knows? Possibly! Who said that two people with different skin color can’t be friends? Who said that two people speaking different languages can’t interact with each other? Who said? Of course, the root to this very problem dates back all the way to the times when travelling across the ocean was first available and trading ports were first built. However, we have so many opportunities to change our mindset: we need to change how we treat each other, change the insecurity that a colored woman may have when she enters a room filled with whites, change the attitude of people when they see a colored man or woman. Belonging is vital. We all have a need to fit into a group, a place where we feel comfortable, a place where we can express who we are made to be. When has humanity become so cruel to the point where we exclude others just because they look different from ourselves? One day, this will change, and maybe it all started with this exchange program.
Day Two:
Just The Ordinary
The sound of sirens takes over the city, periodically piercing the ears of all pedestrians. The noise shoots from all over, intertwining with each other. There are no ways to tell where the resonating sounds are coming from as the sound waves bounce from building to building, confusing and messing up all binaural hearing. Along with the auditory rage of impatient drivers, causing sudden slight heart attacks every now and then, he rumbling of trains underneath vibrates the ground as hot, steaming air gradually rises from the sidewalk grates as if the underworld is right beneath us. The sidewalks aren’t meant for walking. Half of them are taken up by bulky trash bags and cardboard. Another quarter belongs to the random candy wrappers, empty salad bowls, coffee cups and dogs’ wastes. The sidewalks have become obstacle courses. Pedestrians are forced to train to avoid revolting substances, like mucus and aged gum. Making it harder to walk up and down on streets and left and right on avenues.
The city houses millions of people. Every day, everyone experiences intimacy at least once a day in the trains, on the streets and on the elevators. Awkward eye contacts, breathing on one another and accidental “harassment” make an ordinary day. People in suits, people in branded clothing, people in second hand clothing makes up the city’s population. Every one in the city has an obligation. Nothing to them gets in their way: not even the excess amount of nicotine lingering in the air, not even the muddy brown snow on the sidewalks, not even the harsh attitudes, treatment of another. The sensory overstimulation, the intimacy are all part of the experience. New York is the place to be.
Day Three:
Envy, Envied
The aroma of cinnamon buns fills the air as siblings in footsie pajamas joyfully chased each other by the fireplace. At the same time a well fed poultry stuffed with fragrant herbs is being prepared in the 350 degree heat. The house is covered with festive decor from head to toe: a Christmas tree rested in the corner by the windows, multiple stockings hung below picture frames and string lights draped along all walls. Children curled up on the sofa covering themselves in warm throws watching classic family movies with their parents. Gently holding a warm mug filled with creamy hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows and a wafer straw. But that is not how it really goes, at least not in my house.
The aroma of bitter herbal soup seeps through under the kitchen door and vents. Siblings in hoodies and sweatpants hides in the bedrooms playing video games and streaming tv shows. The oven is kept at room temperature and the cocoa powder and milk carton are untouched. The house is barely any different from halloween or an ordinary day: a lonely floral wreath surrounds the peephole of the entrance door, a dusty tinsel rests on two nails on one side of the wall, a near to bare tree sits on a plastic plate. Later in the night, children and parents clean themselves up and stuff themselves with food in a Christmas buffet and return home with a stocking by their beds filled with candies and chocolates.
I used to envy other families who celebrates Christmas with aromatic food; I used to envy other families who decorates their houses with beautiful ornaments; I used to envy other families who cooks and watches a movie together by the fireplace. I have always wished my parents would care about Christmas as much as other parents do, but one thought never occurred to me: they were raised in a traditional Chinese family, where stuffed turkeys, hot chocolates and cinnamon buns weren’t existent.
Day Four:
Somethings We Just Cannot See
Everyone has been through difficult times, fluctuating between peaks and troughs. When we are at our lowest, we complain, we nag, we suffer; when we are at our highest, we feel confident, we feel happy, we feel relieved. But what makes reaching the high point satisfying? filling us with ecstasy? Our tough times! What else can we compare it to if God wouldn’t allow suffering? We would be living in monotone, where everything is like a flatline, no pulse, no movement, nothing.
People are always asking me why would you believe in God if you can’t see him, if there are no physical proof that he exists? Honestly even as a believer, I would say it is hard to wrap our minds around religion that’s because we have all been trained to believe what we can only sense. Remember the years when we believed Santa was real? That was before we reached to an intellectual point where we were taught to believe hypotheses to be real just by looking at the facts. How would you prove love then? Most would say from the actions of people. But couldn’t we prove that God is real through our actions?
Looking back centuries ago, there was one point in time where Christianity was huge, where churches had the authority to overrule most laws. Why would so many people start believing in something they cannot prove? Why would so many people become believers? Why would so many people risk their lives to spread the gospel? Was it just because they were over their heads by believing in some sort of figure that would grant them their wishes? Then why do so many people want to execute Christians then and now? These questions can’t be answered easily, not because faith is just mumbo jumbo, but because we are looking at faith through the physical aspect. Christianity is in the spiritual aspect, we shouldn’t be trying to prove whether or not God exists the way we prove and study scientific phenomenons. Above all, having faith is not something to force upon, it takes time, it takes effort.
Day Five:
Dysfunctional Amygdala
My heart pounds like a mallet against the surface of a bass drum. I breathe in and out in shorter intervals. Blood rushes towards the head dilating every single blood vessel in my body. Moments later, my body temperature shoots up and I find myself with a flushed face. There is no weapon pointing at my head, there is no blade resting against my neck arteries, but there is 20 pair of eyes looking straight at me.
I am not capable of speaking in public without having to go through that. My mind says one thing but my body says another. The number of times I tell myself to calm down, the more I begin to panic. Even answering a question or reading part of a passage out loud in class make me sweat in place. The number of eyes intimidate me, but also the minds in the room. There is always a fear of judgements, fear of embarrassments, fear of saying the wrong things. I have always carried this thought, this false thought that other people are better than me, more intellectual than me and everything that comes out of my mouth are nothing but elementary talk. Is it true? When I ask people this question, they do not agree with my answer. Are they just being nice? Even if they were honest, my mind refuses to trust, to believe in what they say.
The Meyers-Brigg Type Indicator says that I am an introvert, some of my friends says otherwise. Evidently, just by observing my pulse in social situations, it is true. Or maybe the amygdala in my head is just dysfunctional, who knows? Having confidence in talking to people, at least not having to flush every now and then is what I hope to achieve.
Day Six:
What Do We Have Here
“Yolo.” “Kill me now.” “I hate my life.”
I hear these words every single day: on the streets, subway, in classrooms, on the elevators, everywhere. I can’t help myself but to feel frustrated, frustrated by the fact that they have so much hate filled up in them. Whether or not they are being literal or saying it due to daily habits, it breaks me to see that they think its alright for them to think that way, especially for something that negative. Cursing is one thing but saying you hate your life, yourself is a different thing.
Everyone has a contribution to the world. Those who have found their calling are considered to be the lucky ones and those who have yet to find theirs are on their way. Most of us are still wandering like a headless chicken and that is totally fine. Discovering our passion and purpose is difficult as it may be agitating and tedious. We discover our calling at our own pac. sometimes the longer the search, the better it is since you would have had experimented with your skills and know what you like and what you don’t like.
There are strengths and there are weaknesses. The strengths being the qualities you acquire, skills that you are good at and your passions; weaknesses are the qualities skills that you need to improve on or are lacking. But the society now has forced a false thought upon us: we see weaknesses as flaws and failures and we tend to hide them from sight. Some of the things we categorize as flaws, imperfections, are the little things that makes us unique, they makes us who we are. We are given so many gifts! Our strengths, our passions, our families and friends. We have been given an opportunity to seek and to accomplish what we love to do! Life is a wonderful, precious gift, and we shouldn’t be taking it for granted.
Day Seven:
“We are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.”
Every class has that one student that scribbles “words” on an exam paper. The professor squints his or her eyes and guesses each word that the student has written down on a thousand word essay in order to give the student a grade.
Every class has that one student that uses an immense amount and complicated metaphors that weaves an idea back and forth, confusing readers, in his or her short story.
Every class has that one student that writes the first thing that pops up in the head.
Everyone’s writing is different, but most of all, how one thinks and perceives things are different from another. If you have five people reading the exact same short story, they all may perceive the storyline differently, each may have taken out a different moral out of the story and each have their own opinion on it. Each of us have our own way of thinking, we each have our own language. When the reader reads a story, she or he is translating it, filtering it through their own perception. It is almost impossible to read a story exactly the way the writer intended, the same way that it is impossible to use the same solution to solve a similar problem two people may have. There are many components to factor in into each situation. It may work for me but it won’t work for you.
