I enjoyed participating in WordPress.com’s Bloganuary challenge last year so much that I decided to do it again this year. Like last time, I answered a selection of the prompts and compiled them into this post.
Day 5: “What brings you joy in life?”
These days Korean pop music (K-Pop) makes me the happiest. I know it sounds weird—a Black 30-something woman listening to music in a language that she doesn’t speak, from an industry that often has issues with racism and sexism. But the music is too good to ignore. In fact, my top songs from last year and the year before that were all K-Pop. It never fails to put me in a good mood.
I absolutely love when an artist or group that I stan announces a new album. The whole launch process is crazy fun. There’s the anticipation that builds from the daily concept photos, teaser videos, song previews, and other creative features. There’s the excitement on release day from the new music, the premiere of the title track’s music video, and the fans’ CD unboxing videos. Then there’s the entertainment of the multiple live performances on the Korean music shows. It’s like Christmas morning every day during the promotional period.
The adrenaline rush I get when I hear a new song that I like is equally thrilling, especially when it’s by a new-to-me artist. I get hyped. I start thinking, “Is this the beginning of something special? Am I about to find someone new to stan?” From there, I go through a phase where I try all of their past albums. A lot of time, the artist or group doesn’t work out beyond that first song, but on the occasions when I hit the jackpot, it feels AMAZING.
Day 6: “Why do you write?”
I write because I can’t not write. Excuse my bad grammar, but that’s the truth. The longer I go without writing, the more anxious I become. After I explained the situation to my mom, she suggested that writing is probably my stress buster. So even though writing in itself is stressful for me—to the point where I often don’t feel like doing it for days at a time—not writing is even more stressful. It’s a vicious cycle.
I also write because I like having a record of things. I used to write about what I liked or what I was thinking about in my notebooks, so I know how fascinating it is to be able to look back and see where my head was at a given time. Nowadays, my blog has replaced my notebooks. I can go back in my post archives and see how I felt about every phone we’ve ever had. It’s cool.
I write fiction because I envy people who have created their own unique worlds. I would love to have my own cast of quirky characters that have powers and fall in love and get into tricky situations one day.
Day 8: “How far back in your family tree can you go?”
On my mom’s side, I can go as far as my great-great-grandmother, a Native American woman named Lucy. I don’t know my great-grandfather’s name. I was somewhat close with my great-grandmother, whom I spent time with several times, but I never met my great-grandfather, who died when I was very young.
I don’t know anything about my biological grandfather, not even his name. He was murdered by someone who mistook him for his twin brother in a bar before my mom (who is also a twin) was born. According to my mom, my grandmother never spoke of him, especially not after she married my step-grandfather.
On my dad’s side, I can go as far as my great-grandparents, Lizzy and Barney. My paternal grandfather is a blank spot, as there were apparently several possibilities. Sadly, I’ll probably never know much else about my dad’s family tree because my grandmother, her siblings and their spouses, and all of my dad’s siblings are deceased.
Day 9: “What is the most memorable gift you have received?”
For my high school graduation, one of our family friends gave me a catalog. They pre-paid a certain amount of money to a company, and the company populated the catalog with items that were worth that price. Then I was able to pick one thing that I wanted as my gift. Neat idea, right?
While there were plenty of nice items to choose from, I gravitated towards a Zen water fountain made of this beautiful (fake) mahogany wood. It has two parts, a square base that holds the water and a curved spout with three rock-like protrusions. It came with gemstones that I could arrange around the top of the base too. The water comes out of the spout, cascades over the protrusions, and covers the gemstones when I plug it in.
As much as I loved the fountain, it wasn’t practical to leave it out full time. My room is very dusty (see “Day 12” below). The dust kept building up on the fountain and causing problems. I packed it up in its box and put it in the closet, hoping that one day I could find somewhere less dusty to put it.
Unfortunately, I took it out for the first time in a long time the other day and accidentally dropped it. Two pieces broke off the spout that I couldn’t glue back, and it makes a grinding noise that I don’t remember it having before. I was heartbroken.
Day 11: “How do you define success?”
For me, the biggest sign that I’ve succeeded is financial stability. If I’m able to pay all of my bills on time and still have some extra cash left over for fun stuff and investments every month, I’ll know I’m doing well. I don’t want to be rich, just comfortable.
Career-wise, I will be successful if I have a job that is challenging but not so stressful that it endangers my physical or mental health. I don’t want a job that I dread going to every day either.
Socially, I will be successful if I have a few dependable friends who share my interests and hobbies. Marriage and kids would be nice to have, but I don’t need either to feel accomplished.
Day 12: “What chore do you find the most challenging to do?”
I hate dusting more than anything. It’s impossible to finish. I could dust everything today and the dust would be back in three days. I hate it!
The dust mainly comes from my bedroom’s ceiling fan. I run it intermittently during the day and it stays on all night. Combine that with the insane amount of fur that our cat, Ren, sheds everywhere, and it doesn’t take long for the dust to start raining down on me.
What makes dusting so challenging is that the task involves so many steps. Before I dust, I have to shake out the curtains and vacuum the whole room. Then I have to tackle the bookcase and the tables where my solar figurines and other knick-knacks reside. Not only do I have to dust each shelf and surface, but I have to pick up every single figurine, dust it, and put it back where it goes too. It’s time-consuming and tedious! By the time I finish, I’m totally exhausted.
That’s why I try to ignore the dust as long as humanly possible. I don’t bother with it until I start waking up with stuffy sinuses or headaches.
Day 18: “What’s your favorite meal to cook and/or eat?”
I’m not much of a cook. My mom did all of the cooking when I was growing up, so it never occurred to me to learn how to cook myself until recently. On top of that, I’m cursed with a relatively short attention span, which leads to stuff getting burned. But I’ve been slowly learning how to make things here and there.
The one dish that I’ve perfected is SPAM and rice. It’s a well-known fact in my family that I love SPAM. It’s one of those foods that are cheap and flexible. You can fix it a million ways. My favorite way to eat it is with rice.
Originally, I made the SPAM and the rice separately. I would cut the meat into about ten slices (eight on a bad day, eleven on a good day). Then I would broil both sides of four or five slices in the oven and melt some cheese over them. At the same time, I would boil a bag of Success rice to go with it.
One day, the thought came to me: what if I combined the rice and the SPAM into a stir fry-like dish? I looked up some recipes and eventually settled on my own version. I chop five slices of meat into little cubes, which I brown in butter in the frying pan. When the rice is done, I pour it over the meat and mix them up. Then I add one packet of soy sauce—which I’ve collected from numerous Chinese dinners—and sprinkle shredded cheese over the top. Delicious!
Day 22: “What was your dream job as a child?”
There were several jobs that I wanted to do growing up. The first one was a ballerina. That didn’t work out because I’m clumsy, accident prone, and uncoordinated. On top of that, I’ve always had problems with my knees and ankles. My body simply wasn’t built for any type of sport, let alone something as demanding as ballet. I did get to perform in an elementary school production of The Nutcracker, though.
Then I wanted to be a paleontologist. Between The Land Before Time and Jurassic Park, I was crazy about dinosaurs for a long time. I guess I grew out of that phase.
After that, there was a brief spell where I wanted to be a biomedical engineer, a person who designs prosthetics for people who have lost limbs. I have no idea where such a specific job came from or why I thought I would be remotely qualified to do it.
Lastly, I wanted to be a forensic scientist, specifically a blood splatter expert or a handwriting analyst. I liked how it combines science and technology to solve crimes. I even took a disappointing forensics course in high school. We got to do fingerprinting and DNA stuff, but we didn’t get to visit the morgue or see a building burning demonstration like we’d been promised. I gave up on the career path because I’m bad in chemistry and math, and honestly, it seems like a depressing job. I’m still into true crime shows, though.
Day 25: “What is a song or poem that speaks to you?”
My parents almost exclusively listen to Gospel music, so it’s only natural that some of the songs make their way to me. And I’m glad. Sometimes I need the extra pick-me-up.
One song that I think about a lot is Mary Mary’s “In the Morning.” The chorus is particularly inspiring: “In the morning/You’ll be alright/In the morning/The sun’s gonna shineโฆ” It’s all about how even though things are bad today, tomorrow’s a new day that might be better. You just have to trust that things won’t be bad forever. There are definitely days when I need that reminder.
Another good song is Tamia’s “Because Of You.” I wasn’t expecting this kind of song from Tamia because she’s an R&B singer, not a Gospel one. I guess that was another Beautiful Surprise that she named her album after. She talks about how God is a driving force in her life, helping her get through the bad times. Once again, the chorus is the part that gets to me, especially the line, “If anyone asks me/How did I make it/It’s because of You.” It reminds me to always give thanks for my blessings and to never forget that I’m never alone with Him watching over me.
Day 26: “What language do you wish you could speak?”
To no one’s surprise, I would choose to speak either Japanese or Korean. It would be wonderful to be able to enjoy the media from those countries (anime, manga, J-Pop, K-Dramas, K-Pop, etc.) without needing it to be translated first. A lot of things get lost in fan translations, and some things never get translated at all. My life would be so much easier.
My secret third choice would be French. It sounds like a dumb choice, given that Spanish is the major language spoken in my neck of the woods. Spanish would be far more practical, which is why I took one level of it in college. But French seems to pop up way more often for me than you’d expect.
For example, there are so many cases where I’m reading a book and one of the characters will bust out speaking French. Sometimes I can get the gist of the meaning using Latin, of which I took three levels in high school, but most of the time I have to turn to Google Translate. And don’t get started on the times when Jeopardy! has a category about French words. It drives me crazy every single time!