On Vacation
August 4, 2009 § 1 Comment
We’ve never driven to Canada through the Vermont before, where the curving mountains touch the underbelly of the grey sky and tendrils of clouds cling to the trees.
As we pass the lush landscape, I muse about all those who explored these lands before we built these highways. What was it like to carve a path through these forests without the protection of a car and the knowledge that food could be obtained at the nearest exit?
//
I’m always waiting for my brother to show signs of maturity, but so far the only indications I’ve noticed are a deepening of the voice and hair growth on his legs. The petulant teenager has been nothing short of a little demon on this trip, and there are times when I have literally thought about strangling him to death, mostly while dealing with his exasperating antics in the backseat.
His sinful nature is at work, but I also blame my parents. The older I get, the more I can see the flaws in their parenting — I was an easy child to raise, but they messed up on Larry. My mother, who spends the most time with him [while I am at school and my father travels], spoils him incessantly, which I have already detailed rather exhaustively.
Larry was not in a good mood when he found out that we were visiting the Newport mansions in Rhode Island, and he truly did his best to make everybody in the family hate him for the few hours that we were there, lashing out both verbally and physically.
H8
July 22, 2009 § 2 Comments
As I took a walk around my neighborhood this afternoon while talking on the phone with AT, I passed a group of teenage boys riding their bikes on the street going in the opposite direction [on the wrong side of the street, might I add]. There were more then ten of them, and they looked to be around 16 or 17. I ignored them and continued my phone conversation, but through my dialogue I heard those infamous words of mockery.
“Ching chong ching chong!” and a couple of chuckles.
“Fuck off,” I breathed into the phone as my eyes widened in disbelief.
[“Are you driving?” AT asked me.]
A sort of shocked fury rose within me as my mind searched for a proper reaction. I looked back at the group of guys, and the one closest to me, the only African-American one, was the only one looking back.
Really? I thought. I was reminded of one time when I was walking in downtown Chicago. As I passed a black boy [probably around 12 years old] he said those same words to me. I had raised my eyebrow at him and kept walking. It also brought to mind this incident, posted on Facebook by a Chinese-American friend of mine:
Of course, black people are not the only ones who provoke. I have heard stories about my friends getting into altercations with white girls, although those usually involve straight-up racial slurs instead of sidelong insults.
In the end, I responded only by venting to AT. What was I supposed to do? [“Go back to Africa, jackass!”?] I wanted to beat the shit out of him. Seriously, it’s 2009. We’re in a thriving suburb of Chicago, not some ignorant backwoods town still stuck in the 50s. My high school had at least 100 Asian-American students, which is to say that there is no reason for anybody to think that this kind of behavior is appropriate.
So I am not sure how to deal with this situation. Last week at small group we learned about forgiveness. We didn’t get much deeper than talking about road rage, and I didn’t imagine that I would have to apply the lesson to something like this. But as I walked home, I knew that I had to forgive that person for his ignorance. I suppose I can console myself with Romans 12:19.
This Is The Life
July 11, 2009 § 2 Comments
HA HA. While I am enjoying the single life by hanging out with guy friends every day of the week [mostly because my girlfriends are all gone this summer], my mom is trying to set me up with some guy who just got a job working for a major corporation in Hong Kong. Bring it on, mother; let’s see the best you got.
For The Love Of Fat
July 6, 2009 § Leave a comment
“America’s Unhealthiest Meals,” my mother read off her laptop screen. Ever since our cable broke, she has resorted to perusing the ABC News website for her daily dinnertime news fix. Engrossed, she read parts of the article to me and Larry.
“Deep-fried macaroni and cheese, quesadilla burger, and mega-sized deep dish sundae,” she said, skewering the pronunciation of quesadilla. “Is macaroni and cheese normally deep-fried?” she asked.
“No,” I responded. “Stupid Americans just love to deep-fry anything.”
“Hey, deep-fried stuff is delicious,” Larry interjected.
“Like I said…”
I rolled my eyes as mother continued reading aloud. Really, ABC News? What health magazine has not already covered the country’s most fattening meals, when you’re just now jumping on that bandwagon? OMG AMERICANS EAT LOTS OF CALORIES WHAT A SHOCKER!!111! This is no longer news; it’s a fact of life that can no longer be reported on creatively. Subjecting yourself to a 6,000 calorie meal for the sake of journalism? You really didn’t need researchers from the University of Maryland to tell you that it will corrupt your diet and arteries [also, wtf is a quesadilla burger?].
“The article says that ‘the USDA recommends that adults our age eat roughly 2,000 calories per day,’ but your friend XZ told us that for our size, we should be eating around 1,500 calories,” mother told me.
I absolutely hate being told information that I already know as if I don’t already know it. This is one of the things that annoyed me the most when XZ went on a food-deprivation-and-hyper-exercise diet a month ago. As she became deeply entrenched in her new obsession, her enthusiasm for calorie counting could not be contained, and she lectured anybody who came within hearing distance, from me to my mother to anybody who would listen, really.
I gave her my attention the first time just to hear out what she had planned for herself, but it was all information that I knew already. I mean, I took advanced health class in high school because I’ve always had a keen interest in nutrition [I even chose dietitian for my career project in 8th grade], and I only stopped reading nutrition & exercise blogs because I felt like I already knew all the practical information I needed.
When XZ came at my mother with her “a pound of fat is 3500 calories and 2000 a day is too much” knowledge, my mother saw fit to recite it back to me whenever she thought it relevant. Not only did I despise the attitude of self-loathing and incessant caloric calculations that XZ was inspiring and aspiring to, I really did not appreciate my mother treating me as if I didn’t know anything. Really, the interactions we usually have leave me feeling unhappy enough; I will not be made out to be a blundering idiot in this area as well.
auradis 