The Perfect Time of Day

I write best when I really shouldn't be. At present, I'm mulling over what to write about for the light feature I have due in my journalism feature writing class tomorrow afternoon. With all the things that have been going on in life, you'd think that I'd be able to pull something together to write a semi-decent piece, but I can't focus because of the nagging deadlines inching toward the forefront of my thoughts.

There's the Bamboo Offshoot issue that needs to go to print within the next few hours, but which likely won't be put to bed until later on this week. Procrastination is a bizzle and I find myself really frustrated at my own inability to finish the task at hand. The problem was a breakdown in communication, the failure on my part to keep my writers, photographers and editors in check. I have a problem with delegating work, this much I admit, but this is ridiculous - our first issue of the school year, late to print. The quality of the product might be better, but at the cost of timeliness - eeps.

It's frustrating because I know that the publication has so much potential - the momentum of getting the ball rolling just keeps getting stopped with one road block after another and it worries me that the same issues keep coming up for each...issue. I told myself at the beginning of the year that this would be one of my priorities for the upcoming school year, but as it stands, I think I've put so much effort into this venture that it's affected everything else.

We're in a transitioning phase wherein we're moving out from under the protection of the Asian Pacific American Student Services and into becoming our own student organization. As a result, we need to fund ourselves through ad sales and grants and USG funding. Our funding proposal was rejected about a month ago on the grounds that the board didn't see how Bamboo would "contribute to the betterment of the USC campus."

They didn't see how USC's ONLY Asian Pacific American publication would benefit the campus.

They didn't understand that, with 25% of the campus being APA, it might be necessary to have a sounding board and resource for students who have no voice otherwise.

They didn't feel that issues unique to APAs are worth funding, but parties and concerts that have little real benefit to the campus are.

Seriously?

One of my friends told me to write about passion. What it means to be truly passionate about something and sacrifice sleep, time and money for something that might not initially seem worth it. This just might be it, because - not gonna lie - at this time of day, with deadline encroaching upon my other schoolwork and job applications, it's hard to be focused on that end goal of spreading APA awareness.

Right now, all I want to do is sleep. Is that so much to ask?

...sooooo emo. haha.

Old Peace

Running through my old writings and I came across this, from over a year ago. I miss this, whatever "this" is.

"Pulse.

The water laps at our feet, rushing over and between our toes, retreating slowly. Wistfully. It's night, and save for the glow of the shops behind us, the only glimmer of light flickers several hundred yards away to our right, lampposts lining a winding road. In the darkness, a kind of muted calm envelops us both and we face the roar of the blackened ocean.

The waves beckon, the moon almost apologetic as it edges into the surrounding darkness. On a night like this, even the stars are shy.

I feel the sand beneath my feet, the way the grains sink away from me with each gurgling wave, the way they pour over my toes anew with each onslaught of water. My feet sink deeper into the fine sand. The ground I stand on is giving way. When my feet have finally disappeared underneath layers of rock, I turn in the darkness and stare intently at the vacuous void where I assume his face might be.

"You know, last summer I was on a beach around this time of year. It wasn't at night though. It was during a typhoon."

I wait for him to respond, look at his silhouette for a hint of a nod. I think he turns to look at me.

"What was it like?" he asks, a voice forming from an invisible mouth. Even in the darkness, I know he's keeping himself in check, careful to sound disinterested though he wants to know more. I know this because as he says it, he draws his right foot through the water, allowing the edge of the waves to brush his toes three times before taking a step backward on the sand. He's curious.

"It was amazing, something that's hard to describe. There were just a few of us out there, right against the water, and the waves meshed with the rain. You couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. I wish you could've been there."

I notice that as I recount the adventures of last year, I have to almost shout to be heard above the sound of water. I've never told anyone much about that day nearly one year ago, and how much the sheer power of those crashing waves had meant to me. And yet, in the pitch black night, I say these things aloud.

It's freeing.

I can almost feel him grin in the darkness.

"And this? How does this compare to that day?"

I blink back tears and a choking sensation in my throat as I quickly glance at the faded lights to my right. I turn my head away from where he stands, just a few feet from my left, lest he see me cry.

And I smile.

For an hour we shout to one another, pretending that we are calling out back and forth across a gorge rather than the few feet of sand we have between us. We bring up pointless things, a stream of consciousness conversation. Under the cloak of night, we learn more about one another than we ever could sitting down to dinner under offensive yellow lights, though we've known each other for a lifetime. A small family of three treads softly behind us, their feet sinking down quickly into the cool sand, their voices a background murmur. Time to go.

We stand in the darkness, in the water, ankle deep in memories and understanding.

The water continues to pulse against the sand, reuniting and departing all in one motion.

But we're already gone."

Price Check

I wish I were taller. Not in a literal sense, really, but just in the context of my newfound metaphor for goals and ambitions. And grocery stores.

But let me back up for a moment and explain that last bit, because I realize it’s pretty dang random. It’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking (more like overthinking, as per usual, har har), and it didn’t really hit me until recently why it is that I’ve been so perturbed and unable to focus so much of this year. It’s not because I lack motivation. It’s not that I have too much on my plate. It’s because I just really haven’t sat down and thought about the concrete possibilities of my future until now – avoiding stress has become my new favourite pastime, and as a result, I’ve also put off some serious self-reflection and writing that might just bring me back on track.

I've spent the last four years of my life shopping. Shopping for purpose, direction, inspiration, knowledge. Brain food and stimulating conversations in aisle two. Wasted afternoons, aisle eight. Relationships and hurt feelings, aisle five.

My fellow shoppers peruse row upon row of goods, canned emotions and life-altering bags of fluff. Prepackaged boxes of collegiate life - sororities, fraternities, culture clubs, team sports - line the most popular aisles, and everyone wrestles to get the cleanest, least beat-up of the bunch. Name brands are pretty key here - you get what you pay for, after all.

In the quieter aisles are the ingredients, the put-me-together pieces of the college experience. It’ll take more effort to create a dish from scratch, and though there’s no guarantee that the final concoction will be anything worth devouring, venturing into these aisles at least means that the shopper is taking some form of risk. It takes confidence and a little bit of naivety to believe that what he or she can come up with will be worth the effort.

Cooking is love, and love is cooking.

And to cook without passion is worse than not cooking at all.

We pick up pieces of familiarity and pair it with something daring and new. Pasta and chili. Chicken and homemade pesto. Eggs and vegetables and salsa so hot your mouth will burn. New recipes and spontaneous creations. We hope that one of the strange concoctions we come up with will stick, will be a success that we can recreate and tweak and foster into something greater later on down the line.

But what about those hard-to-reach items at the tops of the shelves? The ingredients and the pieces that just might be what our recipes need for that extra pop of flavor?

What if we just don’t know they’re there?

I wish I were taller because sometimes I feel as though what I’m looking for is hidden in the back of the very top shelf – behind the stale box of donuts and the dust-ridden can of soup. What I’m hoping will make or break my latest venture is tucked away on a wayward shelf, but it’s just not visible to me because I don’t know to look there.

So I settle for less, making the best I know how from what items I see available to me. I can improvise and make something truly unique, a signature dish that’ll stand on its own delicious merit at potlucks. But eventually, even that becomes safe.

It’s just that now, I’m curious.

I want to see what’s at the top and how I can use those forgotten items in my ultimate recipe for success. The reason why these pieces are at the top is because they’ve been there the longest; they’ve had the longest shelf life. How can I tap into those resources and use them to create something better? Bolder?

All my interests from days long gone are starting to reappear the closer I get to graduation, to that checkout line. I want to write. I want to listen. I want to learn. I want to see what I’ve tossed out of my life that just might have been the one thing that makes the entire mixture work.

What am I missing?

Somewhere in my four years of shopping I’ve come up with a grocery list of items that work for me, but now it’s time to try something new.

I’m peering back into my past to see how I can create a better future. I need a ladder.