Passion. Project.

I read an article in the Times today about the whole concept of "following your passion." The secret formula to success in the States has always appeared to be as simple as pursuing one's passion - and "the money/the rest will follow."

To be perfectly honest, I've long subscribed to this mentality - I mean, quite possibly every other entry in my journals has been about trying to find and embrace my passions with the hope of actually carving out a viable, fulfilling career path from them.

Simple, no?

What the article argued, however, is that sometimes (read: most times) the formula is not so easy. And not in a practical, logical kind of way either, as in making the decision to leave a full-time job to free fall into the uncertain abyss of "entrepreneurship," "freelancing," or that catch-all Generation Y phrase, "discovering myself."

No, the kind of difficulty many people encounter with this kind of mentality is more basic than that. They simply don't know what their passions are.

Because truth be told, not everyone springs from the womb knowing what they've been put on God's Green Earth to do.

Most people struggle to figure out what they truly want, and that's okay. It felt oddly relieving to read the piece, knowing that my uncertainties as of late haven't had anything (well, not as much anyway) to do with being able to recognize the next steps.

They've come from realizing that those steps aren't even yet formed because, well, how can you select building blocks if you don't have a rough sketch of what you're building? We're talking the difference between constructing a bridge and a skyscraper, really.

I've always thought that I've led such a blessed live. And I do. A loving family, great friends, and the relative freedom to live on my own terms. I'm working as an editor in New York City, getting paid to write, the thing I love.

The thing I love.

It sounds like living the dream - when in reality I sometimes wonder if maybe I'm just snoozing.

The author's argument was that for those who don't have a defined passion in life and feel frustrated that they're somehow missing something by not having an established goal, sometimes the best thing is to build skills and grow passion that way, the same way you might coax an avocado seed to sprout.

Sure, I'm passionate about writing, but it's always been more about storytelling, the unsolicited thoughts that turn into words, phrases, sentences, stories as they travel from my noggin down to my fingertips.

It's always been about the quality of thought, the satisfaction of learning and doing and being a part of the process while maintaining enough of a distance to be objective. Be a perpetual observer, eavesdropper, dreamer.

Romanticized, maybe, but this is what writing has always been to me, and what - by extension - journalism has always been to me.

Being able to construct sentences and transfer my emotions to another human being without having ever met them, know how they look or think or feel - that is powerful. That has been what I pride myself in being able to do as a writer.

So now the real question is this: how/where can I develop my skill set to become the kind of writer that can claim writing as my passion? I believe it's a talent that can (and will) be learned and I'm more sure now more than ever (just after writing this, oddly enough) that I know what I need to do to take that next step.

Then, maybe, the rest will follow.

Day, shift

How do you describe what it feels like to rejoin society, to reconstruct what was formerly habit into routine into lifestyle? At times I feel like I haven't left the conventional daytime work hours at all, but at the same time - so much has happened in this past year that it's impossible to discount the memories.

It's kinda like this. Wandering through unfamiliar terrain in the pitch dark is terrifying when you can't identify what's around you. Your brain panics and it feels as though your imagination will run wild for miles into a million different directions. And you're literally just stuck.

It's hard to even tentatively move any which way because you don't know what the rules of this place that you occupy are - what if living in that space defies some law of physics? What do you reach toward when you're without direction?

Having an odd schedule, I often felt a mild variation of that. Working on a different timetable from the rest of the world was like being in the dark, with barely recognizable figures, reaching out into pitch black spaces. It's difficult to gauge where you are relative to everything, get a sense of rank or placement, when you are bound to one spot.

A starting point.

From there on, however, wherever you move to, it'd still be uncertain. But at least you'd know that it was okay to move. It didn't matter which way, but you could...MOVE.

This past year, whether of my own volition or because it really was the case, I've felt caught. Stuck. Immobile. And frustrated because I questioned whether I was the one who was creating and contributing to my own mental block without realizing it.

The thing is, if you can define the root of a problem as either internal or external, you can do something about it. But if you balance on the precipice of "it's you, not me," then you don't know the rules. And then you don't know how to react.

People say to react to how you feel. I say it's more important to feel how you act.

Really feel it.

Absorb all the consequences of what it means and why you did it and what will propel you to do it again.

This past year has truly been unlike anything I have ever been through before. I was at times lonely, frustrated, self-conscious, prideful, stubborn, jealous, possessive. I think I saw myself at some pretty low points, but I also think that forced me to venture out and feel my way back toward a semblance of a self-created path.

And though I'm treading lightly, at least I'm moving.

How bout them directions?

Just last year, a few weeks into my new schedule at the time, I wrote about how it felt to be living in opposition to the mainstream, to have my own bubble of New York life. And rereading it now, the sentences still ring true.

Solitude will be my best learning tool.

It's easy to get lost in New York City. But last night/this morning, as I glanced over my shoulder at bedroom lights flickering on in high rises as I crossed the bridge, people starting the day just as I was about to end it, I felt found. Their dawn is my dusk. My reality is only, really, in my head. And I was very much aware that I was coming home -- on my own terms.

Here's to personal realities, and redefining them over and over again.

Sepiatone loving

I've been spending a good part of my three-month work hiatus at home in LA with family, and more recently, in Taiwan with the extended family. Even through college, getting to spend this much time with fam was such a rarity, and what I was mostly able to salvage through those years were only bits and pieces of a larger picture. So I've considered these last few weeks a real treat in terms of quality down-time with the people who know me best.

Admittedly, being out in New York and away from my immediate family hasn't always been the easiest thing. On the surface, I embrace the independence and freedom that the city has to offer -- but it's both a blessing and a curse to be so easily accessible to everyone and everything in the vicinity. I'm lucky to even be able to experience life on a different coast, I know, to pursue my passions at a time when practicality might seem the better path.

But realistically, the pace of life can be pretty dang draining. I put myself on a two-week communication silence while I was in Taiwan, and I feel like I learned so much more and used my time so much more efficiently not being bound to the tether of technology. No email, no Internet, no Facebook, no phone. I spent more time living in the real "now" than in the demands of a contrived "now" made up of updates and Tweets and email counters. I wasn't running to catch up all the time; I could set my own pace.

Rather than living vicariously through other people in other time zones, I was actually taking part in my own life and really getting to see beyond the distraction of the Crackberry screen.

It was refreshing.

I've always said that health and family are the only two things that anybody needs. Everything else is extraneous and will fall into place somehow. My entire family made this trip back to Taiwan because my grandfather recently passed away, and in those two weeks, nothing else really mattered. I knew the job hunt would still be here when I got back. The emails, they would pile up. But nobody needed to get to me so urgently that it couldn't wait two weeks while I spent time with family.

My grandfather was 100 years old when he passed. He'd gone from living in the countryside to training to be a physician to being a surgeon to being a husband, father and grandfather. That's a lot of years of life. That's a lot of life in his years. But I don't think he ever would have (nor would anyone in his life) defined himself by just any one of those labels. He was human, and therefore multifaceted, and I think being there at the funeral really caused me to think a lot about mortality and death and, truth be told, life.

I titled this blog "quarter-life musings of a life in transition," and taken literally, that means I'm already (almost) a quarter of the way through with this thing called life. It's pretty terrifying, really. It's not that this means I have the sudden urge to grow up, necessarily, only that I'm more conscious of my thoughts and actions now, and how it'll all make for a projected "later."

The crazy thing is that the people that I've surrounded myself with now are the ones who'll be able to help piece together the bits of my life later on down the line. They're the ones I'll be reminiscing with and sharing memories with and the ones who'll become characters and names in the story I call my life. And these things I'm doing now, they're all leading to a big unexpected place called "the future," and as unpredictable as that place might be, I've got to pay better attention to the now in order to trace back my deliberate steps to wherever I end up.

Hearing so many stories about my grandfather, learning about the intricacies of the family -- politics and history and all that -- is inspiring. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I want to live a life worth telling about. And so I begin. Now.

Finding Flow

"To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social envinronment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances. This challenge is both easier and more difficult than it sounds: easier because the ability to do so is entirely within each person's hands; difficult because it requires a discipline and perseverance that are relatively rare in any era, and perhaps especially in the present. And before all else, achieving control over experience requires a drastic change in attitude about what is important and what is not."

- "Flow," by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl

True words.

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” —Bill Cosby

Excerpted: An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life

From Joyce Maynard's 1972 piece for the New York Times magazine:

"When my friends and I were little, we had big plans. I would be a famous actress and singer, dancing on the side. I would paint my own sets and compose my own music, writing the script and the lyrics and reviewing the performance for The New York Times. I would marry and have three children (they don't allow us dreams like that any more) and we would live, rich and famous (donating lots to charity, of course, and periodically adopting orphans), in a house we designed ourselves. When I was older I had visions of good works. I saw myself in South American rain forests and African deserts, feeding the hungry and healing the sick, with an obsessive selflessness, I see now, as selfish, in the end, as my original plans for stardom.

Now my goal is simpler. I want to be happy. And I want comfort -- nice clothes, a nice house, good music and good food, and hte feeling that I'm doing some little thing that matters. I'll vote and I'll give to charity, but I won't give myself. I feel a sudden desire to buy land -- not a lot, not as a business investment, but just a small plot of earth so that whatever they do to the country I'll have a place where I can go -- a kind of fallout shelter, I guess. As some people prepare for their old age, so I prepare for my 20's. A little house, a comfortable chair, peace and quiet -- retirement sounds tempting."

Time for some reflection and reassessing, no?

Lessons from New Haven

If there's one thing to be said about journalism and New York and settling into your 20s, it's that every day is a test of your comfort zone. Be it venturing into a different part of town or approaching new faces, your role as a West Coast transplant in an East Coast environment consists of always toe-ing the line between the familiar and the unfamiliar, pushing boundaries all the while. This is the time and the place to learn by trial and error, after all.

This I figured out quickly in New Haven.

When I left the city to report this past weekend (already a week ago!), I knew that I would have to bring my A-game. Working on my own (save for the two other reporters who were equally busy on their own wild goose chases) meant channeling any and all of my past experiences as a student journalist and, well, as a human being, into trying to interview reluctant sources.

I thought that 22 years of life would bring with them a certain amount of intuition, but after spending three and a half days trying to get hesitant students to speak with me, I realized that intuition or not, I'm still in an industry wherein my livelihood depends upon the whims of others.

My livelihood. Depends. Upon the whims. Of others.

Whether or not I get a story doesn't come down to an algorithm or a certain number of hours put into a given project. Whether or not I'm able to deliver a final, quality product to my editor depends upon how good I am at convincing sources that what they know is worthy of public knowledge.

I have to not only get other people to talk, I have to know just how to speak myself.

And it's a dangerous balance to find, isn't it? Journalists have that reputation of backstabbing and manipulating for the sake of a juicy story, and it's one that, though an exaggeration, is definitely based on a certain amount of truth.

With an editor at your back urging you to file your latest findings, it's often hard to admit that you've turned up nothing. That you've spent days gently talking to sources and trying to cultivate a relationship so that they will trust you enough to talk - all for naught. When push comes to shove, I can see now how easy it is to just grasp at a few small leads and blow them out of proportion, sensationalize what little bit of news there is to be had.

Reporting in New Haven last weekend was a learning experience. The frustration I felt in trying to convince sources to speak to me, knocking on doors and making phone calls, visiting organizations and juggling emails, was nothing compared to the fear and uneasiness felt by an entire community following the brutal on-campus murder. In speaking with members of the neighboring areas, I became absorbed in their concerns, their wary attitudes, their adamant stance against imposing journalists.

I was hooked.

I trolled news sites and watched the news from my hotel room into the late hours of the night, trying to find some way to understand the crime, the people, the story that was unraveling nervously for the public to see.

And what I found in all my research, and through days of speaking with community members, was that autonomy and respect are the two things that every person demands. Deprive people of either and they don't want to open up.

I never used to be good at talking to people, and I still work on it constantly. I grew up ultra quiet, always fading into backgrounds and opting to observe rather than partake. That phrase, "think before you speak"? I think I just never progressed from one stage to the next.

So I can understand the comfort it must be to stay silent. Many of the people I spoke with didn't want to go into details because they were afraid they might be wrong. Others thought it best to steer clear of the story altogether. They were all still processing the horrific events in their head, and to have the media show up and try to pry open their mouths to speak was - abrasive, to say the least.

When I fell into journalism during freshman year of college, I was pushed quite rudely out of my comfort zone. One part of the trade is listening and watching. The other part, the part I needed so badly to learn, was to speak, to initiate, to project. And goodness knows that once I started, I just couldn't stop - now I can rattle on for hours, and sometimes I talk to strangers just to test myself (not heeding those childhood warnings, I suppose), to see if I can still talk to and relate to people at random.

A part of me went into New Haven a little too confident that I would be able to speak to the people that no one else could get to, because I assumed that I had honed speaking to strangers to a tee.

What I hadn't counted on was that training and intuition aside, what I didn't have was experience - crucial on all counts. While nothing previous could have fully prepared me for the tiring nature of the 24-hour reporting, a few more life experiences definitely would have shown me just where I could push and where I should back off.

This is the stuff they just can't teach you in the classroom, and the reason I can't wait to keep learning. Each time I expand my comfort zone it means I have to push that much harder to break free of it.

Stranger advice

The beauty of being able to talk to random strangers for a living is that you get a heck of a lot of unsolicited advice from sources you wouldn't otherwise peg as purveyors of truth. And because you're constantly asking questions, you start to adopt a "talk to me" expression on your face that invites even the most seemingly unfriendly faces to spill their secrets and tell you the story of their lives.

I wonder if this is a phenomenon that happens often to writers or journalists in the City. It's been happening on a pretty regular basis throughout the past few months, and I think it's kind of a fantastic thing, but sometimes it's more than that. Just last night, as I was sitting on the subway on my way home to Astoria, a man in a three-piece suit sat down next to me.

Two guys hopped onto the train just as the doors were about to close, looking pretty flustered. One of them asked me for directions to Penn station, but with my headphones in I didn't hear him the first, second or third time he asked. And then when I did hear him, I didn't understand what he was saying in his flustered state.

So the three-piece man (hereafter known as the TPM) got him to calm down and gave very detailed directions not once, not twice, but three times to make sure that he understood where to go. After the two men got off at the next stop to switch stations, thanking them, the TPM turned to me and said:

"Those can be dangerous, you know."

"I'm sorry, what can be?"

"The headphones. There's been a series of robberies from passengers either sleeping or zoning out with headphones this past month. Especially on the F train. So make sure you watch your things."

"Right, thanks," I said, smiling at the nicety of a man giving helpful, unsolicited advice on the subway.

"I think those guys were trying to take your things, actually. They were just checking to make sure you couldn't hear them."

Thank you, TPM. Thank you. That could have been bad. HA.

Forget regret

The worst kind of frustration is the knowledge that you didn't do something that you should have done. Nay, the worst kind of frustration is the kind that stems from the fear that you might have missed out on something great because you chose to go a different route. You know you should do differently, but you don't.

You're to meet an old friend for dinner, but you're tired and even though you know it's a horrible thing to do, you bail on the reunion.

You have every intention to respond to emails as soon as you receive them but instead let them back up for months at a time.

You cram pet projects onto the back burner because you don't have the time for them, though you optimistically believe that the results will somehow magically appear.

Very little of long-term, lingering regret comes from things that you did do - it's what you didn't do that sticks with you long after the deed has been done. And down the line, a buildup of these regrets make you feel like a pretty crappy human being.

This past weekend, I spent a good chunk of time reorganizing and prioritizing all the bits and pieces of my life thus far in the City. I answered emails dating back through June (guilty), sent apologetic messages to important people I've neglected (guilty), and began to revamp my plans for pet projects that have been buried under an influx of everyday busy "stuff" (guilty guilty guilty). I hadn't realized how horrible of a to-do pack rat I had become, shoving everything into a "to-do in the future" pile that was slowly overwhelming my life.

It was like a toxic spill of past "didn't dos" had begun to permeate my day-to-day living.

In being able to clear out my clutter from these past few months, however, I finally began to feel like I was able to start anew with the opportunities I have set before me. Forget living life with no regrets. I want to live life with no excuses. Trying to live with no regrets is only half of the equation. Having no excuses means being able to gauge a situation and acting on gut instinct or careful calculation or both - for the sake of no regrets in the future.

It's retrospective and projective all at once.

Part of this newly cleansed agenda and style of living means I need to clear my conscience on both ends and just focus on the present. Without focus (which is what I think I lost along the way), this transitionary period can mean a lot of pulling too much in one direction or the other, and ultimately, a lose-lose situation.

You get caught up in the past, and it's hard to move into the next phase of life. You worry too much about the future and you miss out on the present.

I get nostalgic about a lot of things, but the best memories are the ones that I've left alone, not the ones I dabble in and wish I could change. In looking toward my future, then, maybe it's best to apply the same approach: stop making excuses now for things I can't predict will or won't happen down the line, and just do what I feel is the "right" decision at the moment. The understanding being, of course, that everything happens for a reason and will pan out okay in the end.

Being more direct now means saving grief down the line, and more than that, it means being able to live without excuses to justify my regrets, or any regret about my excuses.

Live life daily. Rinse. Repeat.

Lesson learned

Don't make someone a priority if they only make you an option.

...because really, there isn't enough time in the day to waste on people like that.

Walk the line

Exploring the city with mother in company is at once exhausting and reassuring. It's been a long few days, both physically and mentally. The thing is, on any other trip, with just the two of us traveling, I imagine that we would be at each others' throats by now - but this trip is different. Chalk it up to maturity, to circumstances, to knowing that this is the last trip of its kind for a while. Who knows?

For whatever reason, I can't help just appreciating my mom's company this time around. We've seen a Broadway musical (Billy Elliot), strolled through Central Park, taken a day at the Met, chowed down at Serendipity and Otto and even learned to swing dance. Really, a big part of exploring New York City for this week is just spending time with her. I'm realizing what a big deal this transition is for her as well, letting me come out all the way to the East Coast to do what I love, love what I do.

It's a big gamble, to be sure. Whereas I'm concerned about the job hunt and establishing a solid life here on another coast, she's worried after my safety, my sanity, my ability to work in an upward surge against the NYC population and downturned economy and stay healthy while I'm at it. I can only begin to imagine how difficult it must be to raise a child to a certain point and then just have blind faith in your own parenting skills. Trust that you've done well and instilled a strong sense of morality and social grace within him or her. Trust that he or she will know right from wrong. All the great make-or-break stuff of which parenting is made.

Seeing this move through the eyes of my mom helps me put things into perspective. It's a renewed vigor to succeed - not just to try, but to get somewhere - because this experience really isn't all about me, it's about all my family and friends and support back home. About what it means to have a purpose bigger than yourself and a legitimate reason not to cave in when times get tough.

Mom found out that one of her close college friends is dying today. She's in a coma after three bouts (that's 16 years) with cancer after a butchered surgery. She's a fighter, but still, the news was devastating - and how do you go about comforting a woman who you've always turned to for support? The only thing I can think to do is just listen. Sometimes that's all a person needs.

The news has jolted us both.

Do what you love, love what you do.

When it comes to quality of life, my mom and I have always had different opinions. I love risks, because I know that, after having to go under the knife back in freshman year, nothing is certain. The one thing I'd always depended on - health - became so fragile, and having it put in jeopardy under any circumstance really put everything into perspective. Or more accurately, it minimized the purported "importance" of everything else. Mom has always defined quality of life as being cautious, preparing ahead and thinking for the future. You never know what tomorrow will bring, she's always said.

At least on that point, we agree. Her answer to this uncertainty has been, always, to prepare for the worst and live a safe, by-the-books existence. And there's nothing wrong with this mentality if that's the conclusion that she's come to at this point in her life. But for me, I've always reasoned that this uncertainty means that you have to take chances - find what makes you come alive, and pursue that. Life is short, unexpected twists make it shorter, and there's no way to live a truly satisfying life without acknowledging this.

Having my mom here with me in NYC makes me feel like I've aged a few years. The tables have turned and all of a sudden, I find myself sharing my philosophies with the woman who has always given me such sage advice. And when she tells me stories of her past, of how she's come to this point in her life and her own realizations, I listen.

I think we're understanding each other a lot better now, knowing that the permanence of what we're sharing if fleeting. This transition is trying for us both as we're trying to hold onto the past and grasp the future simultaneously.

So what do you do?

Enjoy it.

New rainy day rule

After the ridiculously long week that was, I have come up with a new rule:

COMPASSION OR BUST.

People who do not fall into the former category should go the latter, har har. No, seriously.

My friend was working on a broadcast project this past week that required him to go downtown to Skid Row and shoot footage of the homeless individuals dotting the streets, huddled under awnings and pushing carts covered with stained tarps. I tagged along not just because I was helping with interviews, but because I was genuinely curious about the types of conditions that still exist in this taboo community, even in the face of gentrification.

Though it might seem like the rain made the situation all the more dramatic, the truth of the matter is that, rain or shine, conditions don't really get much "better" depending on the weather for homeless individuals. It's just that it becomes all the more obvious just how much need these souls have for shelter from - pardon the expression - the rain.

I met a man named Bill at Midnight Missions, the homelessness rehabilitation center, who had been volunteering at the center for the past three years. He had had a severe alcohol problem, he told me, prior to seeking help at the shelter, and he told me that the organization completely changed his life for the better. He now volunteers at the center at least three times a week and helps other homeless individuals find their way back into functional societal lives.

It really put my life into perspective, talking to Bill. The money, time and energy I spend on trivial matters means zilch if I don't remember the bigger picture - success is a relative term, and, in my opinion, doesn't mean a thing if it doesn't positively impact or benefit others.

This week really has me thinking about that term.

Success.

And I can only conclude that true success stems from compassion, because without the understanding that success is not a selfish thing (you can WIN something for yourself, but SUCCESS implies that more parties are affected), I really can't consider something an accomplishment.

Bill, in my opinion, is more of a success story than the next celebrity, designer, media mogul, who has established a name for himself or herself but has done little else to further contribute to society. In working on this behind-the-scenes story on Kollaboration, I just can't get over the amount of passion and dedication that has gone into the project to solidify its - yes - success.

Kollaboration is about "empowerment through entertainment," and I think the message is such an amazing one. Knowing that such a show exists gives me hope that any pipe dreams that I, or anyone of our generation, might have, is completely viable.

Rainy days make me think, and I love them all the more for it.

Small wonder

I've been seeing journalism through several sets of eyes this past week. Being in the Daily Trojan office day in and day out has not only affected my lifestyle, but also the way I view so much of my work as a student, editor, journalist, writer. It baffles me to think that the words and ideas that start in my office every day at 5 p.m. (budget meeting time!) can actually impact so much of the campus, and further than that, the community at large.

When the L.A. Times is picking up some of our exclusive stories and my editors and I spend hour upon hour making sure that word phrases and quotes convey the message we want without creating cases for libel - that's when I really feel the weight of the paper and of the job. This isn't just a small publication to be read by students curious about changes to the dining halls - this is a full-fledged newspaper with depth and weight and pull in how the university is portrayed and how its students are treated.

I found out last week (on Inauguration Day, to be exact), that I didn't get an offer from Teach For America. And in all honesty, seeing that decision on the site and via email and then on the site again (I quadruple checked just to be sure I hadn't misread) really did sting. I wasn't so much taken aback about not getting the offer - I know the applicant pool was enormously competitive this year - it was more that I felt as though I had just plunged headfirst into a pool of icy cold water.

Reality check.

Something I had put some effort (but not my full effort) into hadn't panned out. And I didn't know how I should feel about that. I think all throughout the process, I had been more taken with the message of the organization than the actual work itself. In other words, I've always wanted to teach. To impart knowledge and, in turn, learn a few things myself. And I've always felt that a necessary part of graduating and entering the "real world" is giving back to the community - via service, donations, or conscientiousness. I just didn't know what my "method of payment" would be.

Therefore, Teach For America seemed like the natural fit.

What the rejection told me, however, was that this was not the case. Everything happens for a reason, and I'm taking this decision as a sign that I should seriously pursue journalism - that just might be the best way for me to make the difference and spread the message that I want to. Seeing how much feedback we get with the DT and how effective our stories can be has done two things for me:

1. terrified me, for fear of retribution after publication
2. inspired me, for knowledge that I can impact positive change doing what I love

I like to lean more toward the latter whenever possible. Naturally.

Last weekend, I spoke with my brother about my possible career in publishing and journalism. Based on his opinion, chasing after passions is a lot more rewarding than finding stability and forfeiting ambitions in the long run. In a time when the economy is so shaky and jobs so hard to come by, he said, carving your own path will probably lead you to more happiness than trudging along the road behind other similar-minded individuals.

Break free.

Yesterday, I taught my first class for community journalism, a course I'm taking this semester that brings USC journalists into the neighboring schools to produce a class "newspaper," complete with news, opinion, features, sports and entertainment desks. I was amazed at how much these sixth graders knew, and just how aware they were of themselves and each other. Each student talked about what he or she was interested writing, and the labels were clearly set: I like video games. I like American Idol. I like the Dodgers.

My little writers rattled off their favorite movies, games and celebrities, and asked honest questions, like "What will Obama do to keep his promises for the next four years?"; "Is the train line running by the school a villain or a hero?"; "What kind of relationship does Obama have with his family?"

These are all the same questions that we as journalists always ask, in less unnecessarily wordy, pretentious prose. It was interesting to see the dynamic of the students and really gauge their genuine curiosity about the things happening around them. That they really wanted to know the answer to those questions, while many college students don't care to ask them, was striking to me.

When did we start caring and stop asking?

And why?

The task falls to journalism nowadays, and so anyone who argues that journalism is a dying profession has obviously stopped desiring to learn, to be informed, to grow as a person.

After this past week, I'm seeing that my definition of journalism has become so limited. It's not about puting stories on paper and meeting deadlines. It's about childlike curiosity and the kind of assertiveness that sets off an entire chain reaction of events.

It's about action and reaction.

Live and learn.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Things haven’t been the same ever since my car was broken into nearly three weeks ago. It took someone breaking in for me to break down and slowly build myself back up. In the last few weeks, I’ve gone from desperation to reflection to hope to pure bliss. It’s been a roller-coaster of events and emotions, but I’m so grateful for having circumstances be what they have been – in a weird way, losing so much really made me open my eyes to see not only what I already had, but also what I had already been lacking even before my material things were stolen.

And there was so much I hadn’t even noticed.

So much of this semester has been a test – of my patience, of my time-management abilities, of my own solid sense of self in the midst of so many moving, shifting pieces. If the Nike 10K was any indication, I jumped into this semester with all the hope and ambition in the world – I thought myself prepared for the long road ahead of me; stretched, prepped and charged. I had trained vigorously over the summer for what I saw as a warm-up for the main event: the LA Marathon in March (now moved to May!), and approached the night run as just another practice, an extended version of a familiar route.

“Don’t keel over, please,” I remember saying to my friend as we jumped up and down in the crowd prior to the official start of the race. He gave me a look, a silent “Child, please” before continuing to jump to keep warm. We joked about who would finish first, and how, if one of us did end up collapsing, it would selfishly cost the other his or her final time on account of having to step over the fallen runner.

Ominous words.

I was going into the race with hardly any sleep in the last week, having been on deadline for both my newsmagazine publication and my internship, moving out of my brother’s apartment and into my own, and acting as host to a friend from out of state. Looking back, a marathon – even a 6-mile marathon – was probably the last thing I should’ve been doing given my situation.

But still, I fought on.

Even when, during the middle of the race, I felt myself growing tired and my vision beginning to blur, I pushed on because I was convinced my fatigue was just a momentary phase for me to power through. My only real goal for the race was to never stop running – it became clear, though, that if I continued on at the rate I was going, I wouldn’t even get to the finish line.

So I walked.

But the power and the surge of the people around me motivated me to keep on – so after several steps of power walking, I would increase my pace to a trot and then a jog. There was conviction in my gait, or so I’d like to think. Then, as I rounded the corner for the final stretch down Figueroa toward the entrance of the Coliseum, I felt something click within me. I sprinted. The finish line was so close I could see the ribbon stretched taut across the street, the crowds of volunteers leaning from the sidewalk to congratulate runners, the lights from beyond the gate glaring into the faces of exhausted participants. I could feel the beat of the music from the Coliseum, moving in and out of sync with the rapid thumping in my chest. I felt a burst of energy.

And then everything went black.

Waking up sprawled on the ground with paramedics surrounding you is a pretty dang horrifying feeling. I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation for the longest time, and the words that kept spewing from my mouth weren’t mine. I couldn’t control the way my hands kept gesturing, or how I would wince and twist away from human touch. I didn’t know how to get the paramedics to understand that, and I didn’t have any feeling in my legs. Those moments – and I had no real idea how long I had been drifting in and out of consciousness – were some of the most terrifying of my life.

I was convinced I was going to die.

My logic was shot to pieces and I felt what can most closely be described as an out-of-body experience. It was as though I were already drifting away from the physical world and I was helpless to do anything to stop my mind from escaping from the situation completely. I just remember wishing I could wake up from the horrendous dream, and I squeezed my eyes tightly to make sure my wish came true. My mind began to drift.

But then something grounded me.

One of the paramedics began to ask me questions. Who are you? What’s your name? Where are you from? What did you eat today? What are you studying? Anything and everything to keep me awake, to keep my mind functioning as they lifted me onto a gurney and then into the ambulance. I caught blips of his questions and began to respond in half-hearted jest, trying to make light of the situation.

The sirens only registered half the time.

After spending the night at the hospital and seeing my parents wander timidly through the curtains into the room (separately, only one visitor at a time), I felt myself grow impatient. Not with the situation, the fact that I had to be bed-ridden for another 24 hours and constantly drink fluids (they claimed I had collapsed from extreme dehydration and exhaustion), but with myself, at having let myself get into such a situation as to make my parents worry after my health and well-being. In the dark, I lay awake and chided myself for putting myself in a position of helplessness and causing others worry. This isn’t how I had expected to start off my senior year.

Flash forward to three weeks ago, when I first opened my drivers’ side door to discover what I first assumed to be hail strewn across my seat, and it makes more sense why that break-in led to a mental breakdown later on that week. My first reaction when I glanced up to see my entire passenger-side window smashed in wasn’t panic, but a slowly creeping feeling of déjà vu. It was around 5 p.m., just after the awards ceremony for the dragon boat tournament at Lake Merced up in San Francisco. I had put the speeding ticket I got on the drive up out of my mind, and this just minimized the incident that much more.

In the moment, I felt helpless. It was as though a string of rather unpleasant (to put it lightly) events were following me. Throughout the course of the semester, I felt as though I had been working hard but had lost sight of the reasons why.

I had been focusing so much on establishing something with Bamboo Offshoot, but felt as though I were the only one putting in any effort. Apathy was eating away at my staff, and production had been going poorly despite my efforts to save it.

I hadn’t been able to maintain relationships and keep up with those near and dear to me because I’d been so busy with extracurriculars and school.

I was stuck in the middle of family drama that involved a close cousin being disowned from the family.

I hadn’t been starting up the blogs or freelancing I had aimed to do at the beginning of the semester.

I didn’t have a job secured.

I was behind in all of my class work, and was literally failing a course.

I’d let my parents down by getting myself into this situation and would have to find a way to pay them back for these damages. They would worry.

I had been lacking the purpose I initially began the semester with, and as much as I wanted to trivialize the fact that my window had been smashed and my things stolen, I just couldn’t. It was the last straw in a string of unfortunate events, and I wanted to just curl up in a ball and give up. All I saw were the negatives and the lack-ofs. It was hard to see the situation any other way.

But then I saw how everyone else was responding to the situation, and I knew I could only let myself be down and out for those few brief minutes. A friend’s wallet, phone, purse, ID, credit cards – had all been stolen from my backseat. I felt guilty, whether or not I had reason to feel that way, and I shifted my attention to that rather than focus on my own issues. What I had stolen was replaceable. Take a step back. No one was hurt, no reason to stress. Everything would work itself out. It might not seem like it in the moment, but the situation really wasn’t as bad as it seemed, in the grand scheme of things. I decided not to let myself get to emotionally invested. Everything would be okay.

Everything will be okay.

And everything was fine for those first few days after driving back from San Francisco. I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of concern from my teammates, friends and family, and I truly felt like I had needed something like this to happen to help ground me and put me back on the right track. I had been looking too much at the negatives to see their counterpart positives. The only problem was, I hadn’t let myself get all those emotions out of my head. There hadn’t been any catharsis, and my frustrations had simply been compartmentalized.

The Tuesday night following the Sunday break-in marked my first real emotional breakdown in a long time. In talking to a friend about the incident, I began to tear up, and my emotions and fears began to pour forth. I don’t think I ever expelled all those pent-up feelings, a whole semester’s worth, and it felt like such a huge relief to say everything that had been on my mind for far too long. I’ve always credited myself as being capable of taking on situations and being the comforter in times of distress – I shy away from being vulnerable, and that has translated into a lack of outward emotional reaction to anything big that had happened in the past semester, good or bad. It took a lot for me to admit that I wasn’t okay.

Everything’s a big deal, he said. Everything is a huge freaking deal.

Someone breaking into your car? Huge deal. React to it.

Getting accepted into Teach For America? Huge deal. React to it.

People not meeting deadlines and not respecting the publication? Huge deal. React to it.

Worried about how you’re failing one of your classes? Huge deal. React to it.

Having your parents tell you that your actions are selfish? Huge deal. React to it.

Too much of the semester had been spent convincing myself that things were fine, when really they probably could have been better. I had been running on empty for so long but had had too much pride or had been too buried under layers of denial to see it. I don’t cry enough. Or get angry enough. I downplay successes and gloss over disappointments. It’s not a healthy way to live.

But now, post-reflection and post-breakdown, things have started looking up in a very big way. I’ve taken on the editor-in-chief position for the Daily Trojan next semester, and I’m at once terrified and excited about the opportunity. It took a lot of thinking and reassessing to finally conclude that this was and is the right choice, but now that I’ve committed, there’s no turning back.

I heard back from Teach For America. My final interview is in just two weeks’ time and I’m anxiously preparing for the day-long process.

I met and spoke with Jeannie Kim, the executive editor over at Time Inc. just last Friday. I think I may have an internship for the summer.

So many things, so many circumstances. It’s been quite a trip and this is just the tip of the iceberg, really. I’ve never felt so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life – were it not for them, I doubt these past three weeks would have turned out quite the way they have.

Sometimes, you need to see the pieces of your life for what they are before you can fit a new window in their place. Break in, break down. Fill out, fill up.

It’s looking a lot clearer today.

Circle of Life

It's amazing how so many things have really come full circle in these first few weeks of senior year. I just got back from a Jason Mraz concert out in Cabazon, and as I was standing there in the crowd, swaying and sifting to the addictive rhythm and flow of the Dynamo of Volition, I thought back to my first Mraz concert at the beginning of senior year in high school, and how much things and life and circumstances have changed since then.

More than that, though, I thought about what hasn't changed, what parts of me are still intact after four grueling, eye-opening years of college.

Four years ago, I was sprinting through my last leg of high school, nervous about college applications and the prospect of leaving the bubble of comfort I had grown up in. I remember having a whole jumble of emotions as I started the year - excited about being top-dog (assuming power over yearbook and Chinese Club seemed to be such a big deal back then), hesitant about figuring out my plans post-graduation, reflective about friendships made within the cardboard walls of Whitney. There was a sense of urgency to the whole year, trying to cram in as much as possible before ending that ever-so-significant phase of life.

It took a lot of introspection and reevaluation to strike a happy balance between work and play, holding on and letting go, and I had to flounder a bit at the beginning of the year before I could upright myself and structure my life in such a way that I wasn’t burning out or always running to catch up.

Now, four years later, I find myself in the same situation. These past three weeks have been hellishly busy, but I really have no one but myself to blame for making it so. I was overextending myself and living from day to day, doing everything just in the nick of time, not really planning ahead or really even taking the time to breathe. Even after my stint in the hospital following the marathon, my mind refused to rest, racing forward to what I had to do the next day following my release. I told everyone that physically collapsing was a wake-up call for me to really slow down in life, but in my head I told myself that I just needed to make myself stronger and even scolded myself for letting myself falter.

I’ve grown up with a need to be busy, to make every moment of my day count. As a consequence, I’ve been filling any empty spaces in my schedule with lunch dates, office hours, catch-up coffees, dinners, meetings…saying “yes” to everyone because I’d rather spend my time focused on them and their problems than on my own. Only problem is that in these past few weeks, I’ve found myself burning out because I’m making myself so available to everything and convincing myself that I can make time for things that I really can’t.

One of the many good things that came out of all those coffees and lunches and dinners and meetings, though, is that I got a better sense of my own skewed sense of priorities. Even though I “knew” that I should slow down and stop attracting unnecessary stress, it took hearing it from multiple people to really set in.

There are only 24 hours in a day.

I am not superwoman.

If I don’t take care of myself, I can’t fully take care of anyone or anything else.

Slow down.

Enjoy it.

Breathe.

There are a million things that still need to be done this weekend, but after really taking the time to stop and take my own advice, I’m realizing that I’m not only happier, but a whole lot more functional. I’m making lists and prioritizing, cutting out the fluff and getting down to what really matters to me.

Putting myself first feels a bit strange, but I’m telling myself that I need to get used to it. Help myself before I can completely help others, and learn to say “no” to commitments.

I won’t worry my life away.

There’s a rhyme and reason to why I love Mr. Mraz’s music so much. True, there’s something soothing about his voice, the way he makes it an art to sing and scat, but beyond that, his music reminds me of senior year and anticipating the next step. Of new beginnings and turnarounds and reassessing. Hearing his songs is a reminder of what has been and what is to come. It sounds dramatic, I know, but music is my life, and each clip of sound is a segment of my soul, pieced together into the person I am now.

Going to the concert really brought home the reality that I’m now in my senior year of college. No more adjustment period. I’ve found my groove and I intend to ride this out till I can’t ride no more. This is it and I’m going to make it the best year yet. I’ve decided.

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.”

Up and Out

I'm going to really miss eating alone. The loneliness that I felt at the beginning of summer in the my first few days of moving to Westwood have come around full circle, and now I find myself really longing for more of the solitude and familiar routine that has reigned over these past few months.

One of my worst, more irrational, fears when I was younger was of eating alone. There are too many negative stereotypes about people who dine in public alone - either they are social outcasts or they are somehow incapable of carrying out normal tableside conversation. Or they have some sort of gross deformity that repels even the most understanding of dining buddies.

None of these are really true, though, because people who are able to venture out and eat on their own in public have to be pretty dang comfortable in their own skin to do so.

Either that, or they have to quickly become comfortable.

Over the summer, every lunch break would be a mental and physical break from hours upon hours of talking, listening, writing, planning – exercising my journalistic prowess, if you will. I’d grab a pen and paper and just write – freeform, stream-of-conscience poems, blurbs, thoughts, stories, as I munched on a wrap or stabbed at some salad.

The first day I did this as a form of security, because I didn’t want to attract sympathy for my dining alone even if I had done it by choice. I wanted to get over this irrational fear of mine. But over the weeks, turning down lunch invitations didn’t feel so bad anymore – I rather looked forward to having a meal by myself and being able to gather my thoughts in an hour away from work, home, or obligations. I felt at ease in my solitude.

Friday was my last day at the Daily News, and I'm really going to miss working there. The features department has become my journalism family, and they've adopted me as one of their own, which is flattering. I'll miss Sandra's advice, Rob's sarcastic quips, Sharyn's blunt observations, even Simone's long, drawn-out stories about interviewing John Cusack and Dave Matthews.

I think that it was honestly very rare and lucky for me to stumble into such a nurturing work environment. My editors came off as cold and calculated in the beginning, but I've since learned that just because they aren't overly, fakely happy to see me all the time doesn't mean that they dislike me. In fact, I really appreciate the way they treat me like a real human being, as opposed to a golden intern spouting hope and naivety. They’re realistic and down-to-earth and so much what I needed to get my head back in the journalistic game.

Their quiet approval and support throughout the summer really helped me to move out of my comfort zone and learn to be more proactive in my quest for the story. If I wanted to cover an event or issue, I had to speak up. If I was unsure of what to do in a given situation, I had to speak up. Nothing came easy, and they intended it to be that way. You get what you give, and sometimes more if you’re lucky.

I got lucky.

I learned as I wrote, and really discovered what I was capable of doing as a journalist and as a writer. Simply being genuinely interested in a person and having good follow-through opened doors in ways that being pushy and condescending probably could not. Understanding and empathy made reporting a joy rather than a burden. Telling stories in intricate new ways was a challenge I loved to meet.

This is what I’m meant to do with the rest of my life, I’m pretty certain.

Well, maybe.

Don’t know how long this certainty will last, though, but I can say this: even in the face of a dying journalism industry, I think there’s still a place at the table for me. I hope there is.

Even if it means dining alone out in the real world, because at least I’ll have my thoughts to keep me company.