memory snapshot.

A piece I wrote for my English methods class in my teacher prep program, based on a photograph of me in 1997.

"The word is unscented," the superintendent said.

Unscented? I know this one!

Wait - don't go too fast. What if you heard it wrong?

"Can you please repeat the word?" I squeaked excitedly. Mom, Dad, and Miss O beamed at me from the audience. They knew I knew it. Now it was just a matter of getting the letters out without getting tongue-tied.

Unscented. U-n-s...

Time stood still for a minute as I took in my surroundings. Jennie Pham slouched in her chair amongst the 24 empty seats. We had battled it out for six rounds, until she misspelled "calliope." I knew that one. It's the company that made my strappy sandals.

U-n-s-c...

Jennie, an 8th grader, was probably embarrassed that an eight-year-old was about to take home the trophy. Well, not quite yet, not until my mouth formed the words.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the musty junior high auditorium mixed with my Powder Fresh Teen Spirit.

"Unscented," I began. I stuck my tongue out like I always do when I'm concentrating. I played with the flannel skirt of my lucky dress.

You know this one. It's the easiest word you've had all night. You've got this in the bag.

"Unscented," I began again, this time more confident. "U-n-s-c-e-n-t-e-d."

I waited for that ominous bell to ring, to tell me I was wrong. But I knew I wasn't.

Joyous applause broke out, and I became the youngest student to win the Corona-Norco District Spelling Bee.

a change in my life.

I’ve recently undergone an identity shift. Not an identity crisis, per se, but a redefinition. I have once again become a student. After taking a year off from school, I’ve decided to pursue a master of arts in teaching, as well as my teaching credential in English.

The first week, I heard my inner dialogue resisting the change. “Class? How are you going to fit that into your 30-hour work week? Homework? Can you do any of it during your regular TV programming?” I soon realized that I needed to make school a priority again, like it was for nearly seventeen years of my life.

It got me thinking about how many times in this past year I’ve had to reform my identity, and how it would soon be changing again.

Identity shift from lifetime student since kindergarten to UCLA graduate: check.

Identity shift from UCLA graduate to server/bartender at a local restaurant: check (but not without some friction deep in my soul. Try explaining that you’re well-educated to the often-demeaning businessman lunch crowd. “Bring me some more fries and another Diet Coke, miss. Make it quick.” “Certainly, sir, and by the way, did you know I graduated with honors from a prestigious university?” More to come on this in future postings.)

Identity shift from non-student server/bartender to graduate student: check.

Identity shift from graduate student to student teacher: coming in January.

Identity shift from student teacher with a master’s degree to unemployed, credentialed teacher: stay tuned for next summer.

2 possible outcomes after this point:

A) Identity shift from unemployed, credentialed teacher to full-time junior high or high school English teacher: September 2011.

B) Identity shift from unemployed, credentialed teacher to full-time server/bartender at a local restaurant: September 2011.

I’m going to do everything in my power to make Option A happen. The job market for teachers looks bleak right now (Morale is low in my program. Learning how to be an excellent professional in a career with few to no jobs available is somewhat paradoxical. More on that in future postings, as well.), but I am convinced it has to improve. But whatever happens, life goes on, and I will continue to grow and develop.

Humans, as a species, adapt well to change. I will still be living and breathing and functioning a year from now, after undergoing all of these identity changes. But what happens to my identity, to my core, to my soul? Is it strengthened or squashed? I like to think of these identity shifts as steps in a metamorphosis, a caterpillar-to-butterfly story. I’m gradually becoming the person I was created to be.

let the clichés commence.

The speech I gave as the surprise alumni keynote speaker @ my sister's baccalaureate ceremony:

I feel truly honored to return to El Toro, five years after I graduated, to speak to the class of 2010 on this special day!

When I started thinking about a speech topic, I found myself googling graduation speech guidelines – I wanted to dazzle you all with my intelligence, wit, eloquence, and maybe a few jokes, and all in the hopes that you would think I brilliantly came up with everything on my own. What I found was an overwhelming number of commencement clichés – sayings we hear over and over in graduation speeches. So I made it my goal to avoid these at all costs.

This is the week you’ve been looking forward to for years – your high school graduation week. You’ve picked up your cap and gown, took your senior finals, and sent out your graduation announcements. Maybe you’ve even received some responses to those announcements: a nice, Hallmark graduation card from Aunt Gertie (a bird soaring into a bright, sunny sky – “spread your wings, class of 2010!”) or one from Cousin Al (a path forging up a tree-lined mountain – with the caption, “take the road less traveled, congratulations on your graduation!”). Don’t these cards and clichés all start to look and sound the same?

Here’s an idea – what if these tried and true statements, these clichés, could still inspire us? I decided to change the approach to my speech - what if instead of avoiding commencement clichés, I constructed my speech today entirely out of them?

Ironically, if you were to follow the advice of all these graduation clichés, you would completely be yourself, have the entire world at your fingertips, and be the change you want to see. And really, you would be a unique voice, seeking a better world. Since we hear these clichés so often, most people don’t take the advice of these well-worn sayings to heart.

At one time, the very first instance someone uttered those words, they were well-meaning, not well-used. And while your English teachers may cringe if they see them in your essays, you have to give clichés some credit – they are founded in truth. They’ve just become so common that they’ve lost their punch.

I’m warning you now – you’re going to hear more of these graduation “clichés” over the next week or so. So when you hear them, really take time to consider how they can speak to you. “Spread your wings.” “Take the road less traveled.” “This is the beginning of a new chapter.” I mean, is this the most novel, most personal advice someone can give you, to encourage you to “shoot for the stars?”

Well, I think it is.

Stay with me here – I’m about to get real inspirational.

If you really, truly strive to find the things in life you are passionate about, that are uniquely you, oh, the places you’ll go! Why settle for a run-of-the-mill life when the world is your oyster? Don’t settle for just being average – this is your time to shine, so go find that spotlight. Be extraordinary. Don’t conform, but dare to be different. Seek things that bring you joy. Reach for the stars, make a few mistakes, and live life to its fullest.

You see, my speech was doomed to be a giant cliché, but your life doesn’t have the same fate. Don’t let your life be a cliché.

Be yourself. Pursue your dreams. Follow your heart. And if you do all these things, El Toro High School Class of 2010, you’ll truly have the time of your life.

losing our sense of touch.

Tonight one topic of dinner conversation was Blockbuster's dwindling sales. I remember how my family was late getting on the DVD train - we'd go to Blockbuster and complain about how they only carried VHS tapes in one-third of the store. That was years ago. Now, with Netflix and on-demand movies, the video store is losing its purpose.

My dad was shocked when I googled "2010 tax forms" and navigated to the IRS webpage. It was natural to me: Where to get tax forms? The internet, of course. So I asked him, "Well, where do you get them?" He said the library. The library? How would I have known that? His amusement continued as I downloaded the forms as PDFs and filled in the fields on my computer. "Don't you want to print the instruction guide?" he inquired. "Thanks, Dad," as I control-F-ed to find "dividends" in the instruction manual, "but that just seems like a waste of paper to me."

We're out of touch, literally. Technology provides us with everything we need in digital format, and the physical, hard copies are becoming obsolete. I predict land lines (though useful for safety) will be old news in a few years - who wants to deal with cables when they can connect by cell tower?

Newspapers are getting smaller and smaller because readership is down. Where's the first place I go to find news? Google, most likely. Or CNN.com. Now and again I'll read the newspaper when I eat breakfast, but only because my parents subscribe. Will I have my own subscription when I move out? There's a good chance I won't.

I purchased a course catalog when I started at UCLA so I could browse the pages. There's a digital PDF version online, and I bet they'll stop publication of the hard copy at some point in the future.

For a few hundred dollars you can buy a device that tries to digitally recreate the experience of reading a book. While a Kindle can conveniently load millions of pages into a compact, portable format, doesn't it still feel like a blaringly white computer screen with digital text?

To me, nothing can replace the physical experience of reading a book. Handling it, feeling the roughness of a bestselling, cheap paperback, the crisp and delicate onionskin of a Bible, or the heavyweight, smooth paper of a just-published hardback book. Hearing how these different papers sound when you flip through the book. Turning pages and simultaneously uncovering the plot. Carting it along to the beach, in the bath, on an airplane. Smelling the fresh ink of a new acquisition, or basking in the mustiness of an old favorite. I had an English professor say that reading is a very sensual experience - it's not just about the words on a page, but the feeling, the sounds, the smells. Heaven forbid books will ever disappear (and if they do, I'll be the one hoarding them all).

We're exchanging our sense of touch for convenience's sake. I think we're losing a lot of the integrity of the information when we only receive it in digital format.

So go read a book.

Will books disappear completely? Some appear to think so: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129251016

welcome to my life.

After years of expensive education
A car full of books and anticipation
I'm an expert on Shakespeare and that's a hell of a lot
But the world don't need scholars as much as I thought
Maybe I'll go traveling for a year
Finding myself, or start a career
Could work for the poor, though I'm hungry for fame
We all seem so different but we're just the same
Maybe I'll go to the gym, so I don't get fat
Aren't things more easy, with a tight six pack
Who knows the answers, who do you trust
I can't even separate love from lust
Maybe I'll move back home and pay off my loans
Working nine to five, answering phones
But don't make me live for Friday nights
Drinking eight pints and getting in fights
Maybe I'll just fall in love
That could solve it all
Philosophers say that that's enough
There surely must be more
Love ain't the answer, nor is work
The truth eludes me so much it hurts
But I'm still having fun and I guess that's the key
I'm a twentysomething and I'll keep being me

"Twentysomething," Jamie Cullum

The last few days, I've been feeling contemplative. Reflective. Pensive, even. So I tossed around the idea of blogging, of buying into this whole social-networking-so-that-everyone-knows-everything-about-me deal.

What is it in us twenty-first-century twentysomethings that craves attention, seemingly more so than the previous generations? Certainly we have avenues to broadcast ourselves that weren't available even a few years ago. But why do we find fulfillment in updating our Facebook statuses (for some people, multiple times a day), in tweeting our 160-character thoughts (btw: I still haven't bought into Twitter), in blogging, even?

Might it have something to do with our eagerness to avoid personal contact? Let's face it: few of us feel comfortable calling someone when we could just text them, let alone having a face-to-face conversation.

It just makes me wonder - how will social networking and this total, global connectedness shape us as we become full-blown adults?

Truth be told, I'm a total hypocrite by sparking this conversation online and not in person.