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| it's 3 hours till midnight and i am alone in the apartment. umma is in the hospital, eunsol is out with her friends and abba is probably around the city in transit.
in manila, roads would be closed to allow on the streets huge celebrations with megaphones and fireworks. my family, however, would be inside. the TV would always be on to not miss out on the countdown. the cable channels never showed new year's celebrations of manila, though. it would always show some big downtown crossing in singapore, where many sparkling lights and throngs of people were present. i would stick close to the window in order to catch glimpses of the fireworks that happened right outside our village. what i saw were truly glimpses because all our windows faced south but all the lights were shooting up towards the north. i would hear the popping sound and see dying red and orange sparks which obviously were remnants of an enormous display. sometimes, the house across from ours would play around with some sparklers of their own. my sister and i would usually stare at their firecrackers as they lit them right outside our room window. on random years when the house did not play with them, we would be disappointed. i had wanted to go out with friends for new year's but my parents would never allow it. 'it's dangerous on new year's. it's too late in the evening. people are drunk. cars don't obey the signs. there are shootings. it's a lawless night.'
my dad just came back home and popped into my room to say hi. i asked, how's mom? she's fine, but she'll be in the hospital for a few days. do you want to go see her tomorrow? yeah. are you going to sleep soon, abba? uh huh. i see. why? it's new year's but it doesn't feel like it. ah. oh well.
every year, my family would be at home for new year's. it was always a low-key night for all of us. and it seems like this year's midnight strike will be even less celebratory. i am slightly saddened by the lack of cheer in the house - no tv, no cracking lights and no family. in the living room, the christmas tree still firmly stands in the corner, trying to warm up its unlighted surrounding. and i am surprised at myself rather enjoying this melancholy as i silently count down until the annual digit-changing moment. | | |
| currently addicted to:
* buying cds
* fruity gum
* tea
* planning out
* jet-set
* gchat
* praise songs
* making lists | | |
| "how does it feel to be 21?"
the two answers that i gave out on yesterday were one of the following two: "not very different" or "old"
for now, i don't think i have any specific age that i'm looking forward to (although, for some reason, i feel like i might fancy my 30th birthday) anymore. from today on, i'm just growing old, although i like to believe that my heart always resembles that of a girl who just celebrated her sweet sixteen. youthful, energetic and even frivolous. so no one should define me by my age - i am not your typical 21-year-old, whatever that typicality might be.
if age cannot define me, what can?
my name?
it's only been very recent since i found my english name to sound alien to myself. never have i responded with uncertainty when someone called out "michelle!" but that one day, i wasn't sure if that person was calling out for me. after that happened, i repeated to myself my own name a few times. michelle, michelle, michelle. in my mind ran across some blurry figure of a girl, long-haired and wearing a pink and lacey dress. that was not me. since then, that strange and foreign feeling around my name still lingers. let's not even get started with the various (mis)spellings of my korean name.
as a freshmen in princeton, the two most common questions i received was "what's your name?" and "where are you from?" my theory goes that one asks another these two questions because they are good basic information to start one's construction of the other's identity. name individualizes the fleshy figure in front of my eyes and the hometown provides me, to some extent, with the person's background. when i was asked the first question, i answered, "michelle." when i was asked the second one, i answered, "um... korea? well, i was born in korea but i grew up in the philippines. i was there for a while."
i never had to face this question - this dilemma - before. in the philippines, because i went to an international school, everyone had lived in at least two different countries so moving around and having multiple backgrounds/homes were standard. in korea, people simply found the fact that i lived in the philippines cool. i might have been strange in some respect (behavior, thought or language) but my friends weren't confused - i'm korean so i came back to the motherland after living in a foreign country. and then, i came to the united states. and my freshmen hallmates asked me, "so where is home for you?"
i've been thinking about it since and i still cannot give a definite answer. or rather, i cannot pinpoint a specific geographic location. internally, at the very least, i think i always thought of home as wherever my family is - this seems to be the logical answer since we've been moving around every so often. in the first precept for AMS201, my preceptor (whose name happens to be michelle) told us to write a response to Wim Wender's "a sense of place," where he argues how every place has a site-specific story. in that response, i wrote about my concept of a home - seoul and makati city are without doubt two very different places. the factor that makes the place a home, however, is not the place itself but me. when i step into a certain place, my identity configures the way i understand that environment. in other words, i shape the place into a space. it's all about my identity.
a post-birthday entry has somehow spiraled out into some ramble about myself. but birthdays always seem to make me introspect, and here are some thoughts about me, by me.
what am i sure about at this point?
my name is dahae. this one i'm positive. i am 21 years old. (in korea, i am supposed turn 23 in a few days but i don't believe in their age system.) my family currently resides in seoul, korea. i, however, go to school in princeton, new jersey. and i love God.
we'll see how these change by the next december 1st :) | | |
| fasting for the first time in my life.
Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. | | |
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