Am I a writer?

Four months ago, my co-worker pointed to an ad indicating a job opening for The Korea Herald, and suggested that I apply as a journalist.  She felt that I had a significant edge since the job required gathering information in Korean and writing in English.

I contemplated about the job.  I honestly felt insecure because I never considered writing as my forte but a hobby in which I had no talent.  Growing up, not only was English my second language but I had to compete against all the Honors/AP students, which squandered my self-esteem.  I learned to dislike writing because I thought I was incompetent and all the teachers seemed to agree.  But in retrospect, it wasn't that I was talentless.  It was just that I started the race a bit later.  8 years later, to be exact, which is a significant disadvantage for a 14 year old starting high school.  What I didn't realize was, if you added my knowledge of Korean into the equation, I wasn't "linguistically" challenged, as I identified myself.  In fact, I would've been above average in my opinion.
 
It wasn't until college that people began to compliment my writing and speech.  I especially enjoyed writing and planning for presentations because it felt so free.  I didn't have to worry about the number of paragraphs and whether each of them had enough CD's and CM's, and all this allowed me to be creative with a purpose.  In addition, the vast amount of reading as a history major significantly improved my English.  I slowly began to enjoy writing, despite still feeling a bit insecure.  In fact, after graduation, I worked as a part time writing tutor at a community college and eventually ended up as an English teacher in Korea.  It seemed as my fear of the English language was resolved.

But the job ad made me wonder quite a bit.  Do I really like writing?  Do I like English?  Enough for it to be a career?

The answer was no.

Even though I thought I had grown to like writing, I realized that I didn't like writing itself.

This should've became apparent when I was working as a translator.  Translating is a job where you try to limit your own opinion and concentrate only on the languages themselves.  Inevitably, there is  always decision making and opinions involved, but they are limited.  What I realized was that I was an artist with a need to express myself.  I thought I liked writing but I realized that writing was merely a medium of expression, just like photography and music - what I love are expressions and the ideas that are in my head - not the medium itself. 

Take for example, John Steinbeck's East of Eden, where he uses beautiful poetry to describe the Salinas Valley.  Without doubt, I appreciate the writing but I am not drawn to the language itself.  Poetic language to me is like a ballet.  I respect the time and effort, I recognize it as an art form, but personally, I have no interest in it whatsoever. 

Then what kind of writing am I interested in?  Writing similar to Orwell's Animal Farm.  The book, hardly 150 pages, spends very little time being descriptive and beautiful.  It is terse, witty, and clever.  The only element of style I'm concerned with is pace and succinctness.  After that, I only care about the content. 

May be you can argue that pace and succinctness is exactly what a reporter needs.  That may be true, but keep in mind that I used to hate assigned writing in high school due to its immense restrictions.  I may succeed as a columnist someday, but never as a reporter.  Their job is incredibly important, but it seems dull writing about facts while showing least amount of opinion possible. I need the freedom to express myself.

So am I a writer?  Hardly.  And it's ironic how I emphasized pace and succinctness yet the entry itself is so slow and verbose.  But despite my ineptitude, I do enjoy expressing myself through writing; it's just that I'm not concerned with pampering it.  I would hate to be in an English class, analyzing every line of a poem.

People say that long distances relationships usually don't work out, but what they fail to mention is that most relationships don't work out.  I mean, what is the definition of "working out?"  Is it marriage?  then the statement about long distance virtually means nothing because according to this definition, most relationships don't work out period.  How many relationships have you had that ended up "working out?"  Yeah, I thought so.  And if you add divorce to the equation, then the percentage of "working out" would be drastically small.  So long distance, short distance, you miniscule chance either way.

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When I was in Mongolia last time, someone asked, "where are you from?"

I said, I don't know.  Was he asking for my birthplace?  Korea.  Was he asking where I grew up?  America.  Was he asking for my current permanent address?  Korea.  Was he asking for my "true" permanent address?  America.  Was he asking for my heritage?  Korea.  Was he asking for my nationality?  America.  Was he asking where my heart truly lies?  Mongolia.  Was he asking me where I just came from?  13th district, Mongolia. 

I'm not criticizing him for asking me the question.  After all, I ask the same question all the time.  But what I realized was, asking where they're eventually registers as a partial (as in biased) information in my brain.  I must admit that I can't help but to ask because it's such a tempting question, but may be I should refrain from it because I'm afraid that their answer will make me biased. 

But besides all the political correctness aside, and that what I'm about to say might bite me later if I want to be a presidential candidate, I don't think it's possible to be completely free of prejudice. 

I mean, how many people do you meet everyday?  At coffee shops, restaurants, etc.  I mean, do you really have time to conduct a psychoanalysis of everyone that you meet every single day?  Of course not.  So we depend on quick clues to form an opinion.  And honestly, I don't think it's possible NOT to form a quick opinion, for I think this instantaneous opinion occurs in your subconscious.  To analyze another human is a natural tendency, a trait passed on from prehistoric times as a defensive mechanism.  Will that person try to steal my food?  Will he be my ally?




So my solution is, ironically, not to care about small prejudices, but be aware of them if they come into my head.  My reaction to a man wearing rags would be to assume that he is poor, but hopefully my awareness will help me treat him the same way as I would with a man in a suit.  I initial reaction to a teenager with gazillion piercings would be that he's a weirdo, but hopefully my awareness will help me treat him the same way as I would with a... well, man in a suit. 


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excuse me for pointlessly rambling.  I sometimes regurgitate whatever is in my head, and refuse to organize it later.

Remind me not to post my first drafts next time.

Food Wishes Recipes

OMG this is so great. 




Not exactly a good idea to watch "Food Wishes Recipes" at 12'o clock.  I was just trying to make crispy french fries (have you ever tried making french fries?  It's really difficult to make them crispy) when I ran into this guy and I just had to watch his onion rings and other videos. 

Anyways, I never understood why so many women had a thing for chefs but I think I get it now, especially after living alone for such a long time.  If I were gay, I would probably be in love with this guy.  Actually, I think I'm in love with him already, just not in a gay way.  Inside out grilled cheese, what a genius.  What a genius.

*"check the ingredient label, you wanna make sure there's no fiber."  haha, I don't know why I get a kick out of that. I guess it just makes sense because if you're eating grilled cheese at 12, you're screwed anyways.  Might as well enjoy the damn thing. 

"I love to watch movies, but I am not interested in the actor or actress`s names or trying to know more about them.  I just enjoy movies themselves."

By golly you are perfect.  I'd give you a hug right now if you weren't so far away.