Wake Up.

6:38 a.m.

I felt lightheaded as soon as I lifted my head from my pillow.

I am running on three hours of sleep.

I slept so soundly after facing rocks, freezing water, and breath taking views, why couldn't I sleep the same yesterday...

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I have no reason to stay up so late. Well, I do - kinda? For one, I kinda screwed up, but the difference this time is that I don't feel helpless. I feel ready to tackle the problems face on. Why? Simple. My mind won't let me create negative thoughts. After getting bruises and cuts from climbing boulders, and after getting into ice cold water, I've learned a few things. My mind is as powerful as I make it. My mind is the most powerful thing and perhaps the only thing that prevents me from doing certain things. The fear I created in my mind became a 600 foot river that seemed impossible to cross, while all the while it was only a puddle two-feet in diameter ( applies to a LOT of areas in my life for the past few quarters, including last year.)

Well, I already knew this in a way, but I never actually practiced it so much as this particular day. I felt that I was being tested every time I came across a new path, a new boulder, a new wall, new heights. I figured it would be easier as we moved on, but each boulder we had to climb seemed different, more dangerous than the last - which perhaps wasn't so much true, but in my mind I made is so.

All I know is that I couldn't have quite done it on my own. It doesn't matter how much you deny it, but it's you who helped me change my mindset. I was determined to continue - yes. I don't give up easily, or try not to for the most part. However, I could not have trusted myself on my own. You taught me a beautiful thing, and that is that I can trust myself (as I once did) - I have to trust myself - but also that I can trust too (again as I once did). My fear, which was perhaps more than what is seemed in the surface, was eased with the trust I put in you too.


I get hurt really easily.

Like a bruise that lingers for days with its purple, pink, and black hues. Hurts stay in my heart for a while. So, yeah. They have prevented me from being in certain situations. However right now, my heart is not full of bruises - my knee might be but not my heart. Right now, my heart is brimming with happiness. I have a feeling that it will remain for a while.

Merci :)

Green.

Warning: fragmented thoughts.
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The almost vertical street met up with me, greeting my knees harshly. I threaded the ground slowly hoping it would meet me gently next time. I was hoping it would give my heart more time to respond properly to its harsh climb.


It felt like a light snowstorm, except it wasn’t snow; it was rain, down El Camino Real Ave. If you stared at incoming headlights or a light post, you could see the queer resemblance between the water droplets and millions of tiny snowflakes. I could walk days on end in that weather.

The tiny droplets tinged my skin red. They relieved my tension filled skin, parched from the sweet face of the sun. Greenery peppered the curvy hillsides of B.S.M., a small town where the only exciting news are the $1,300 ambulance rides to the emergency room, or last week’s high profile purse thief. It’s a small town for big town people. The only intruders - a friend told me - are small deer walking about the city, hoping the strangers would one day leave their home in peace.


The stench of the bus emanated from the soul of the bus: the heater. I almost spilled my morning breakfast before we passed the mustard-green hills of San Fernando Valley, but I made it home.

I will miss the green and the gray. I hope to see the rolling concrete hills again, just as much as its verdant friends.

Scooters. Trees.

Swish. Swish. Swish. I tackled the ride down the line, then I made a loop to go back. Back and forth, every night I would do this seemingly repetitive and meaningless act. Despite the perception, this was my way of meditating, my way of thinking.

I used to ride my scooter when I had many thoughts on my mind. I used to ride the scooter when I was depressed, downtrodden, angry, pensive. My neighbors probably thought me an eccentric girl. The girl who would ride the scooter back and forth on a rectangular piece of cement I call my yard. So then I decided to ride at night. Riding around around my neighborhood was unacceptable to my ama.


Sometimes, I would grab a chair, pulling it as close to my tree as possible, and I would lean back in my chair, look up at the sky, and thank God for giving me a yard. I would thank God for giving me a tree. I thanked God for giving me a strong mom. I thanked God for Tweety - my bird. I thanked God for giving me lemons. I thanked God that despite all the trouble brewing inside my head I had relatively peace in me too.

I was sixteen.

It's a bit troubling for me to talk about religion - even just talking about it a little bit. I am not a practicing Christian or Catholic, but I was. I know that ultimately I do believe in God. I have seen that I simply cannot be true to myself if I were to become an atheist and deny God. To me it seems that He is the only person that holds me accountable for all my failures and successes - no one else quite cares the same way. When my mother was lost in her own world, and so was the rest of my family, I had to fend for myself. But I wanted to feel like someone cared for me too. So then, there was God. I don't know how to explain, or if I can, but I know he was there for me, when not even my mom, brother, family, or friends were there, which happened various times growing up.

However, I do not believe that things happen because God made them so, no. I know I have control of what happens to me in life.

I am the driver of my car.

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So the night sinks to darkness, and I want to wake up. But today my eyes are heavy with sleep, and I have to wake early to meet the sunrise face, hoping it was night greeting me to the start of day.

Cat Power.

Welcome to the All-American City!

Placentia, tucked right under the chin of the 57 freeway, carries one of the best ice parlors I know of around town - and yes, I don't really know of many.

I paced myself to the parlor's entrance, taking in everything the so-called All American city could offer. In the distance I could only see a sign for Carne Asada on sale for 2.99, and the freeway jammed with cars all along its line - it was getting dark.

Inside, the fan whirled to a constant beat, and the dim place reminded me of Long Beachesque places. The two guys seemed to be around my age, blasting the music of All-American Rejects and classic rock. Their eyes were a bit familiar, I could tell that they probably did not venture too much out of town.

I handed him a a dollar with thirty five cents and bought myself a massive ice-cream with cone about the length of my arm. The seats were a bit worn of faded blue. The workers there were really nice, and they even turned on the lights for me as I plopped on a seat, taking out Sartre to read - the reading bogged my mind for a bit, since I was helping a student of mine understand it, I had to understand it first.

As i licked the last drops of delicious ice cream from the cone, I stood up to go. I smiled a quick thanks to him and hurried to my car, I had spent more time inside than I had intended. Yet, the only thing waiting for me was more traffic. Some of the ice cream around, reading and relaxing a bit before the drive, helped me prepare to face the monster ahead of me: traffic.

Y Todavia Estoy Aqui ...

Long Beach

I visited memory lane this past week. Just as I passed the local supermarket of my third grade year in Garfield Elementary, I instantly recognized my old neighborhood. The store was still there, even the fish market, which is exactly a minute away from my parent's old apartment. Working in the local fish market, he would always bring those chips home. Always.

It took me a long time to finally dissociate those chips from my past. Haha. But I can't give those chips up. They are just chips after all.

So yea. I loooooooooovvvvvee Prawn Chips. Here's a pic:




I should have bought more :/