I reread parts of Nana for the first time in maybe two years last night. A part of it was mainly spurred on by the fact that my roommate and I have a running joke about how she is the air-headed Hachi and I am the cooler-than-thou Nana O. But mainly, I wanted to reread the key scenes with Nana and Ren.
There seems to be so much pressure on me to date now -- every time I talk to my mother on the phone, it seems like the conversation always turns to, "So Sophelia? Find anyone interesting?" In fact, when I talked to her the day after my 20th birthday, she brought it up again -- except this time, she went through a whole spiel about how I was too proud and independent for my own good, and how I need to learn when to pull the "damsel-in-distress" card on a guy. Not only that, it seems to be a frequent topic of conversation among my friends. My friends here at Duke like to hypothesize what type of person I would ever date. Whenever they ask if there's anyone here I'm interested here, I am being entirely honest when I say no. In fact, it's pretty much universally agreed upon that I will be the last amongst my friends to date -- partly because I show hardly any interest in that sort of business in the first place.
Reading Nana yesterday put a lot of things in perspective. For one, it brought me back into my high-school-sophomore-year mindset from four years ago. I saw just how much Nana had influenced the person I have become. The pride and independence that I admired so much in Nana subconsciously took hold in myself.
But that I already discovered earlier last year. What really struck me last night was just how much I idealized the all-consuming relationship between Ren and Nana. In regards to the whole boyfriend issue, I had consciously forgotten what I was looking for -- until rediscovering Ren made me realize I'd still been subconsciously looking for it this whole time.
For those unfamiliar with Ren and Nana, their love is controversial. For the guys out there -- would you be weirded out if your girlfriend locked a chain and padlock around your neck a la Sid and Nancy and kept the key? Or would you think that was really hot/romantic? Their relationship is plagued with possessiveness and pride, but on the other hand, the term "soulmates" seems to fit Ren and Nana more than any other couple in the series.
And that's the thing. I wanted a Ren. I never wanted to be like Hachi, who flitted from Shoji to Yasu to Takumi to Nobu. And to an extent, I still want a Ren even now.
It would make sense, right? The girl who can harbor the same crush for two years does not easily flit from love to love. She becomes consumed in her own addiction. I once wrote a post about the Badass One -- he once said in a magazine interview, "When I fall in love, I will be so into it... to the point of losing my reason." At the time, I questioned the idea. I found it a scary. For the girl obsessed with self-control, to the point that she refuses to get drunk -- the idea of losing yourself in love is terrifying.
But I'm beginning to think the potential lies within me.
The clock has been ticking away, but you don't realize it until you suddenly notice that your toes are curled over the edge, your muscles flexed to make the leap. Do you remember what thoughts you had when you were peering over the other side nearly seven years ago? The seven-year stretch that loomed ahead seemed so promising. You'd seen them in all those books and movies -- those modern-day Cinderellas and Eliza Doolittles, those scrawny girls in itchy school uniforms hunched over with Jansport backpacks who grew up into those young ladies in skin-tight jeans clasping designer handbags.
Sure, maybe that secret wish of yours never happened, but...
Did you think you'd ever come this far?
Sure, my teenage dream turned out to be nothing like that which Katy Perry sang of. No passionate first loves. No motel escapades. No seaside revelry. But I wouldn't trade those seven years for anything.
Here's something rare: a glimpse at Sophelia's bedroom at home
Aiyah, I don't know why I'm putting up so many random posts today. Clearly, I'm trying to put off writing my paper...
When it comes to crying, I'm an angry crier but not a sad crier. That is, I usually end up crying when I'm really mad, but I almost never cry when it comes to sadness. Or to be more precise, I rarely ever cry when it comes to sad/tragic films. I can feel the catharsis in my gut but I don't find myself holding back tears.
The only exception is when it comes to my dog. He's probably my only true weakness. My roommate showed me this picture and I had to will myself not to cry.
As you might have been able to tell from my absence, I've been swamped with stuff in the past month. So what's new? I survived what was probably the most difficult week of my life -- and finally crossed. So yep, Sophelia here is now a member of a sorority. Cue the horrified gasps.
It's funny though, because I can already see how much I've changed. Being involved with the process has already forced me to become a more sociable person. As tedious and pointless as some aspects of the process might have seemed to me at the time, I cannot deny that I have changed as a person -- and I think it's been for the better. Though it might not be the case for a lot of girls who go through the same process, I think I've become even more grounded than I ever was before.
Having said that, I seemed to hit another writing dry spell in the last two weeks. I had been trying to write a short story inspired by the lyrics to the song Cafe by Big Bang. I had the general theme and key scenes all figured out, but I just couldn't put it into words on a screen. In the end, I think it might have been the lack of spark. I think back to when I used to churn out vignette after vignette for weeks -- this blog acted as a conduit for my own emotional turbulence. Now, I actually feel rather empty of emotion. I remember how I used to be constantly plagued by warring emotions of love and hatred, but that kind of struggle doesn't exist within me anymore. Nowadays, I might harbor drifting interests in certain figures who pass into my life, but there isn't that one person who consumes me the way you did all those years ago.
The lack of writing scared me. Before, my absence was a matter of not having enough time and energy to sit down on Blogger. I was sleep deprived and emotionally drained. But the week after I crossed, I was still unable to find any words to say. I would recall my dream and wonder at just how far away I now seemed from it. This became especially clear to me when Kat Zhang, a blogger at Letthewordsflow.com, announced last week that her trilogy, HYBRID, had been sold in a major three-book deal to Harper's Children. What struck me was just how similar Kat and I are -- we are both nearly-twenty-year-old pre-med students working towards an English major. I had always given myself the excuse that as a pre-med at Duke working towards a double major in Biology and English, I had no choice but to defer my dream. Yet here we are -- I find out that somebody in my boat had actually gone ahead and achieved what had always been a pipe dream to me. You have no idea how much respect I have for her -- it's almost unfathomable to me how Kat managed to do it.
Yesterday, I heard the words I needed to hear. I attended TAASCON yesterday, at which Yul Kwon, who has been somewhat of a hometown hero to me, spoke to the attendees at the closing ceremony. I am sure he's given the same speech to countless numbers of college students around the country, but his advice I probably already knew deep down -- I just needed to hear them from somebody who had gotten so far with those same words. You would never have guessed from the way he spoke that as a child, he was terrified of public speaking. At some point, he had made up his mind that whenever there was something he dreaded to do, he would force himself to do it. Little by little, that was how he overcame his problems. It reminded me of myself, and how far I've come since I was like Charlotte -- crippled by self-hate at my own weaknesses.
Yul Kwon told us, if you are serious about making a difference, find your passion and think outside of the box. Don't become a doctor or lawyer or engineer just because it's the path of least resistance. Our community needs more musicians, directors, politicians, public service figures, actors, and writers. We need people who can give our community a voice.
Part of me actually does believe that I can leave a bigger impact on the world as a writer than I can as a doctor. If anything, I think the path to becoming a writer powerful enough to change the landscape of Asian-Americanism (think what Yul Kwon, Wong Fu, Far East Movement, Youtube stars Ryan Higa and Kevin Wu have done) is actually much more difficult than going through the prescribed path of taking MCATs, applying to medical school, and going through medical school and residency to become a doctor. That path is well-worn and paved. To be a trail-blazer quite literally means that you're setting the path for others following behind you. If anything, going to medical school might even be taking the easy way out, as crazy as that sounds.
I really do believe books can change people.
