My phone always goes off at 10-something in the morning. It’s always my mom, who’s already been at work for about three hours then. “Are you getting up? Did you get ready already?” She’ll ask the same questions that she usually asks. Mm-hm, I’m up, I’m up. And I’m about to get ready. My hair’s wet and I’m somehow half-sleepily smearing foundation on my face. “Did you eat breakfast?” I will. “What classes do you have today?” Just theater and psychology. “Dollar sixty-eight. Yes, yes. thank you.” What? Oh, she’s not talking to me.
Momma. Rainboots.
When I was little, my brother and I would walk to school. Sun, rain, or snow, in Korea, unless a tornado was coming our way, we were to go to school. And probably 99% of the students walked to school. One day, as my brother walked ahead of me with his friend, I skipped along behind them in zig-zag lines.
I saw my peers strolling along with their umbrellas, swinging them side to side. They didn’t really seem to care about the fact that raindrops were hitting their faces. They only carried the umbrellas because their mothers had opened them up and handed them to the little hands that morning to carry. The kids wore yellow rainboots that splashed puddles of rain everywhere they went, and I eyed them. I decided… I wanted rainboots.
I tagged along with my mom to the local marketplace that week, and I saw light blue rainboots at one of the booths where an old lady was selling rainboots and umbrellas along with a few other items that put food on her table. I tapped my mom on the side of her waist a few times, and asked if she would buy them for me. We didn’t have much money at the time (not enough to spend on every, little thing that we wanted), and she didn’t think I would wear them much. My mom thought it was just an impulse thought where I found them pretty at that moment, so she said, “Let’s wait ’til next year.” If I still wanted them next year, she had decided, she would buy them for me.
I never asked again, and before you knew it years had gone by and so much had happened. We moved to the US and everything changed. Rainboots were long forgotten. Then, my mom and I went shopping at the local mall. She saw a pair of rainboots sitting on the windowsill of a store and told me that I had wanted rainboots when I was little. It had stuck with her. The fact that she had never bought them for me. She seemed to ponder for a moment, and turned to ask me with as much, if not more, hesitation as I had when I had tapped my mom on her waist to ask for the rainboots, “Do you still want them?”
Spring Break.
Long entry ahead.
As much as I’ve grown to love this miniscule, white-brick-walled box that my roommate and I like to call “our room”, I love the feeling when we’re getting ready to go home for breaks. We jerk up the blinds, open up the windows, and start organizing and vacuuming like it’s our job. And by the end, our room finally doesn’t smell like food anymore, and we’re actually breathing in cool, fresh air.
I have finally comprehended the meaning of “reasonable packing.” Finally. Took me over half a semester. I actually just packed a week of stuff into my big, red Vera Bradley duffel bag and just my little, black purse. Congrats, me. Woo hoo.
I got home on Friday and had some time to just relax, eat real food, and breathe. It was good to see at least a few people back at home again. Although not many people had the same time period for Spring Break, I saw a few.
On Monday, I headed off to Maryland to see my cousins Caroline & Michelle. Hanging out with my cousins in Maryland is literally the most relaxing, unstressful, fun time ever. Christmas Break, Spring Break, and Summer Break are times to hang out with my cousins, and seriously – it’s a different world for me. And if you know me well, I love different worlds. I love being away from the usual, everyday world. I get bored easily. But never will I get bored with being with my cousins. We don’t go clubbing or you know, like drag race down the highway or anything, but we have so much fun together.
Wednesday afternoon, I drove back home and got repacked to head off to New York City. My mom and I had booked an Amtrak train to NYC for Thursday 8AM. Everything was confusing because I had never been on the train before. Well, at least not in the US – I haven’t. My dad drove like a mad man because of course, I wake up late and run late. I run late for everything. “Punctual” is NOT. ME. I should really fix that…
Disregarding the honking, pissed off lady in her stupid little Saturn stationwagon and what’s that thing called – oh, yes – the speed limit, we got to the train station 5 minutes before the given time on our ticket. My dad dropped my mom and I off and went off to our gas station for work.
After numerous… um, not-so-calm (to say the least) questions, we boarded the right train with nothing forgotten and finally settled. “Where’s northbound and where’s southbound? What’s my train number? Does the train have the number on the side so we can see it? Should we stay inside or wait outside? Why isn’t anyone here? Should I ask that man or will he think I’m a complete dumbass? DID WE MISS IT?”
The food on the train sucked. Don’t ever forget breakfast before boarding a 4-hour long train. I had a cup of frosted flakes with 2% milk and a bag of chips. Ew. Greasy, oily regular Lay’s potato chips. I’m a freak of nature. Whatever. You get used to it, or at least you begin to tolerate it.
When we arrived it was about noon. As soon as we stepped out of Penn Station we saw a homeless man curled up in a little ball sleeping against the wall. I wanted to poke him with a stick to see if he was breathing ’cause he seeemed so stiff and… lifeless. But what person without a home sleeping on the side of the street would be smiley and lively? Unless you’re like… Phoebe Buffay from Friends.
Because I’m an idiot and didn’t check the time of the hotel check-in, we had three hours to spare. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t have a gigantic (I failed to “reasonably pack” that time. What? It’s New York!) luggage. And when I say “gigantic,” I mean, like, “Why would you invent such a large luggage”, “You might as well hand-hold all your clothes” gigantic. So we dragged that around into fancy, designer brand stores and also the cheap, not-so-fancy but still NYC-style stores. We had an overly expensive lunch at a restaurant called Se7en on Seventh Avenue. The tables are so close together at these restaurants that I couldn’t really tell if the conversation going on at the table next to me between two ladies was actually their conversation or mine.
I couldn’t hear myself think; therefore, my mom and I really didn’t talk much. All I heard was the conversation going on next to me. Although the food was overly priced, I had the best pineapple green tea there. I love green tea. After a few hours on the streets, we checked into our hotel. Which was alright. The bathroom was the size of my closet and the wireless internet only worked every once in a while with the lowest, slowest connection ever (Despite their claim: “Complimentary high-speed internet!”), it was an alright place to stay for two nights.
We visited Parson’s and FIT after checking in. My mom is awesome at catching a cab. As bratty as this may sound, I must say I liked the Towncars so much better than the regular, Ford Crown Victoria cabs where the drivers didn’t really care much about “politeness”. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few nice cab drivers, but there were also quite odd ones. This isn’t the first time I went to NYC – in fact, it’s my fifth time – but I hate the yellow cabs. I’m a brat. No more cab talk.
It started raining on Friday, and my mom and I hadn’t prepared ourselves for the massive raindrops so we went around soaking wet, looking for any store that would sell a frickin’ umbrella. We walked a few blocks, but no luck. And finally, a street seller was selling umbrellas. A large umbrella for ten bucks and a small one for five bucks, so we bought one of each (I really actually don’t understand why because we never ended up using the small one, and before we boarded the train to get back home we threw the umbrellas away. Well, we lied them next to a trashcan just in case someone would want them but I doubt it). We opened up the big, black umbrella and as soon as we did, “WOOSH!” the wind came and the umbrella flipped inside out in the middle of the street and my mom and I were laughing so hard that we didn’t even think about being embarrassed. We unflipped the umbrella back to normal and walked two steps and saw a trashcan with the same, exact umbrella chucked on top of it, flipped inside out with a broken handle.
Don’t speak too soon. As soon as we saw that, our handle broke off. And we refused to have rain dripping down our already-streaky make-upped face again. So we shoved the stupid handle back on and kept walking. The damn umbrella cost us more trouble in my opinion because when we were catching the cab back to the hotel after shopping around and taking the subway to Brooklyn (We wanted to check out the neighborhood… which ended up being not-so-bad but my mom still doesn’t like the idea of me living away from Manhattan), my mom hands me the umbrella as she gathers up all our shopping bags to shove into the cab and as soon as she hands the umbrella to me, my arms shoot up and extend into the air and I go flying off with the umbrella. I’m tip-toeing and shuffling my feet with the umbrella pulling the Mary Poppins on me. My mom’s pissed now because she’s soaking wet with all these damn shopping bags and her daughter is flying off into the air, being annoying, “What are you doing? Stand still.”
Really, mom. I just have this desire to fly into the air. Please… let… me. I screamed, “I’m TRYING!” and the cab driver started cracking up, despite his first, second, third, and fourth attempts to keep a straight face. Finally, “wind” stopped being a jerk and let me fold up the umbrella. My mom and I laughed about all this later on: the cheap, ten-dollar umbrella and how we felt bad for the guy who was selling them after seeing the same umbrella thrown at the trashcan only a few feet away from him by an obviously-pissed-off and now probably soaking-wet tourist who had also forgotten that NYC’s weather is not the friendliest.
On Sunday, we woke up and visited Parson’s and FIT once again. We went into the bookstore and the little shops in front of the schools that sold art supplies and fabrics. Places I could see myself going in and out of. I definitely liked Parson’s better but we would need a fountain that just freaking POURS out money if I want to go there without scholarship. So I’ll have to try and get a scholarship.
Checked out of the hotel around noon, and went around shopping again. Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue are my heaven. I bought three pairs of ballet flats for twenty dollars each at DKNY. After about two hours of roaming around we arrived at Penn Station about forty-five minutes before the departure time. We had ice cream at Dunkin Donuts where my mom gave me a hundred-dollar bill to go purchase four scoops of Haagen Daz ice cream. When I handed the bill to the lady, she took it and held it in front of her face like a map and looked at me like, “Um….” Seriously, lady. In this hobo-filled, gun-carrying train station, let’s just stick the bill on a pencil and wave it in the air like a flag. Put. the bill. DOWN. I was like “Okay,” and gave her my credit card instead. For four scoops of ice cream. Gees.
Then the always-so-wise me decided to go purchase a few (Eh-hem, a few) magazines for the train. I bought a 660-page Vogue magazine, and another magazine, and another magazine, and another magazine. Well, the last two were for my mom. Pictures of homes and home decorations. And of course, now I have this bag of like fifty-pounds worth of glossy papers bound together. Smart me. It was hell carrying them around until the train actually arrived.
Arrived home safely at about 8PM. My brother picked us up from the station, and we drove back home where I stayed up for a few hours talking to my brother since he had just gotten home for his break (It’s a week after ours). And it was back to school for me the day after.
I am going home this weekend again though, since my cousin is getting married, and my other cousin who lives is Korea but is studying abroad for a year in Arkansas is coming to visit. So much going on.
I BS’ed my GWRIT journal this morning at like 6:30 AM. Journals are due every Monday at 7AM, and I have turned them in at 6:53AM, 7:20AM, 6:30AM, etc. And yesterday, 7:30AM. Hence, my level of punctuality again.
I got a 9.5 out of 10. Screw punctuality.
P.S.: Seriously, if I see another commercial for the movie Shutter again I’m going to run off screaming and crying. I hate scary.
Imagined.
An away message I wrote today out of… feelings. Depressing, but read it with no sympathy:
The world outside is chaotic – filled with things you’d never know.
Every person owns this world they live in – crazy and frenzied.
But as noisy as everything is, they could drown in their own loneliness.
They could soak their t-shirts with tears if they wanted to
and could live in silence. Could meet someone new each day,
and still feel lonely. Then, they could get out and feel overwhelmed
with some type of a purpose… if you can call it that.
This world moves fast without you… or with you.
You could stand in it and be a part of this quick, passing movement,
or step out for a second to take this long, deep breath.
The type that fills your lungs ’til you feel it in your heart
because you need it… dozens of moments will pass by in one, single blink.
Can you take me to a place much like this one? Where you can feel one way.
Then another. In an instance. And come back… go back…
stand in the middle… stand outside – or wherever I feel like being a part of.
Wherever or whatever suits my feelings today. For now.
A place where you only worry about today – just today
in your loneliness, and in your happiness.
-Catherine K.
Do you know where I want to be?
How to.
First of all…
Tell me how to work this thing. This is my first time on WordPress, and I apparently have no idea what I’m doing because after clicking “Delete”, “Delete” like a 5-year-old on her mom’s computer for the first time, I got lost. Then, it took me about 6.34 minutes to find out how to create a new entry.
Second,
Tell me how to get my sleeping pattern back on schedule, so that I am not actually watching the sunrise… not that that’s even possible in this way too mountain-happy, chicken-turkey-cow-you-name-the-livestock-filled town in which my college is located. No, but seriously. I slept from like 3 PM – 9 PM. What is that? Nap time? Mmkay, no. I consider a nap to be less than three hours. “Random hibernation”, maybe.
Third,
Tell me how to find a better topic to write about, because besides -like – the five measly little sentences I wrote above, I have no other thoughts in my head. Maybe it’s ’cause it’s 8:15 in the morning. Or maybe I really don’t ever have any thoughts in my head… let’s go with the “8:15 in the morning” thing. I’d like to think I’m not constantly brain-dead.
When I have better thoughts in my head (let’s hope that’d be pretty soon), I shall write one new, k?
There. First entry. Bomb-ass. What now.
Sike, I’m just kiddin’.
EDIT.
I just “published” and realized that I’ve created a “Page” and not an “Entry”. What the hell. I’ll fix it later, I’m really lazy. (Yes, lazy is up at 8:15 in the morning). Whatever. I’m pissed now. I swear. #*($).
EDIT.
I figured it out. I’m not brain dead. Slow, maybe. In the process of “brain dead”, maybe. But not there yet, okay?
Yeah, so, what’s a blogroll?
