Fragments: Random Musings 2

I think I am beginning to realize that, if I am to move forward, I must do so without "a room of my own."  Io sono cercando per un posto che non esiste.  I keep trying to claim for myself a tiny nook in time and space, whether it be the desire for intimacy, proficiency in a video game, or achievement in academics.  I am to be in this world, but not of it, an alien in a country not my own.
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I honestly hope you are disturbed by my words.  I spit a truth that does not become any less true when it rocks your world and robs you of security.
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I was eating Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds, and one of the almond bits stabbed me in the throat from within while I was swallowing.
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Because my abilities are not being utilized to serve the LORD, it is only fitting that they are disappearing.

Fragments: Random Musings 1

The price to be paid for any truly great flavor (in food) is your breath.  There are few exceptions, if any, to this rule.

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The moment I make it my goal to spend less money, situations arise that necessitate spending more.  Much of this involves spending time with friends and people I would like to develop friendship with.  As with food, there is a price, and as with anything, nothing free is truly worth having.

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If I, myself, were the government, I would abolish marriage.  There should be no benefit provided by the government for those married; the benefits of marriage should in themselves be enough for the married.  That way, gay marriage wouldn't be such an issue.

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If you're to pick just one character at random out of any movie, let's say The Bourne Ultimatum, the chances of actually picking the main character, Jason Bourne, is very slim.  More often we're the civilians that witness just a part of the street chase he has with Paz; at best we're Pam Landy, or at worst Noah Vosen.  The human struggle is to make some sort of significance of our own lives, as peripheral as they may be to the main attraction.

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Oh!  How I hate that I want to be God! I look within and see the desire to be your first and best friend and lover. At its root is an almost incomprehensibly inflated view of myself.

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Il mondo va.  Non vado.

Fragments: What I'd Like In A Spouse

I think the best metaphor I can give to describe women is pants. Women are like pants. Some pants fit closely but treat you like you don't have a penis. Other pants are so loose as to treat all of you like you're not there, tending toward sagging to the floor. This is where the metaphor falls apart: the baggy pants give your penis the proper treatment, but you need to tie them to you with the belt of marriage.


The best kind of pants are sweatpants... they are baggy, yet the elastic waistband makes it "fit." Sweatpants are also the most "homey"-feeling. I want a spouse like sweatpants.

Sports Superstitions

I've had my own sports superstitions over the years. One of the most recent was that I had to cheer for teams I wanted to lose, because God was always out to strike down my idols. Thus, I cheered for all teams playing against the Bulls. I've particularly cheered for the Lakers, Celtics, Heat, and Mavs. Most recently, I've cheered for the Pacers. Yes, I'm well aware that God knows my heart's true desires, but I'm silly like that.

Recently, me and a friend of mine came up with a theory that declares we cannot watch sports games together for which we are cheering for the same team. Of course, this is because we've watched sports together decently often enough to record many losses.

Unmentioned are the wins. We were definitely watching together when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. The losses just stick out, because we care so much. And that's why tonight, as the Blackhawks are playing either to go on or go home, and the Bulls try to finish out the series, my friend and I were not planning to watch them at an event hosted by another brother of ours for members of our fellowship.

Our superstitions essentially consist of little practices that we have which we think will somehow make the powers that be allow our team to win. Essentially, it means we aren't at peace with whatever God might bring about, and idolize our desires (team victory). For those that claim, "It's not for me, it's for the team/city/people!" To them I say that you have place some measure of self-worth in those identifications. Perhaps, God has His designs within even athletic competition, including the times when we lose. When prioritized over Christian fellowship, the sin of superstition becomes even more grave. We must not give up meeting together and we must give up the self-idolatrous practices of superstition.

I decided, finally, to throw off the yoke of superstition. I am going to Justin's house.

Fragments: Old Wounds 1

Sometimes, I feel like I've dropped into this world from the sky, or maybe like the paralytic, down through the roof. And this world is middle-class, Chinese Christian evangelical church. But unlike Jesus' reaction to the paralytic, his church has not welcomed me and healed my wounds. Instead, they would like me to knock and be ushered in from the front door.

Fragments: Self-Analysis 1

I wish I was even more ready to move on. I am half-way there, at the moment. I see my parents' life, and it is that future I fear. I want no part of it, but fear as well the uncertainty of finding my own way. I find myself stuck here in the middle, as always. As usual, I am consigned to the fringes, the in-between places, the margins. I just can't seem to write between the lines. I once said that I was the page that spit back the ink printed on it. But now I realize that my true position is that of the words that fail to make it to the page. I am the unpublished novel, the unperformed concerto, the unrevealed painting. I am the unspoken "I love you," "I do," and "Goodbye," all rolled into one. I am a Christ still unresurrected on the fourth day.

Fragments: Confession to a Beloved

God forbid your heart be given to me. My hands, too indelicate in grasping your heart, will break it so. I cannot catch a heart thrown thus... it will slip bleeding from my grasp.

You are lovely, lovelier than I can stand. I hold you close to hear your heartbeat sing my praises. You are an ornament on my arm, an accessory that accentuates my aura. My vanity, assuaged, will drown us all in unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Nonsensical Rambling: Wierd Dream 1 (From a while back)

starcraft-based dream

earthquake owned the nation

everybody who had been north of the fault line turned into zombies

jerry chen and alan were in the dream

alan was on a praise team

religion had become meaningless

we were trying to get to the northwest

good amount of still-healthy people

people turned to pleasure in that grim time

we pondered the meaninglessness of pleasure

Bible was very heavy; handles attached to covers, weighed me down

one obstacle was a very long, narrow house

it was a creepy, decrepit maze

we saw through the lie, and i used superhuman strength to just charge through the walls

military were mutant zealots (zombies)

their friendliness was fickle

Final Rant About The Girl I Love

She is: smart, funny, capable, independent, cute, hot, hard-working, and fun-loving.  She takes her faith seriously.  She is not a sister to me.  She is my ideal woman.  She makes me smile when I look at her, but frown because she's not mine.  For what has literally been years, I have been content to have her happy, even if that happiness is not with or because of me.  But I feel my star rising again.  The time will soon come when I will see myself as worthy-- her best possible option.  Given all this, I fear that I admire her wrongly.

Those qualities I listed about her are not bad; they are indeed admirable.  Rather, my attraction to her is suspect precisely because I like her for fulfilling my ideal.  If I'm honest, I have to admit that I don't know her.  I don't.  I really don't.  I don't know most of her likes and dislikes.  I don't know most of her tendencies and preferences.  I don't know exactly her life's calling or even her tentative plans.  I don't know at all what day her period comes.

Suddenly, her place in my memory becomes clear, and all I really know of her is from moments in the past.  Our relationship is most accurately described as people that are acquaintances but, for whatever reason, interact like old friends.  Suddenly, I am afraid that our shared upbringing counts for nothing, and even more that we are truly strangers and fated to remain so.

I absolutely hate unrequited love-- I believe it foolish.  I remain open to any other possibility, but I find myself comparing every other girl to her.  This situation is so unjust to those individuals; I find myself unable to ignore the fact that, no matter what other exceptional qualities they may exhibit, not one of them is her.

This is the image that prompted a 20-ish post thread on Google Buzz amongst my connections on there.  We started with frown emoticons, moping (somewhat in jest) about the matter.  At some point, a friend of mine posted, "I think the lesson here is that we're all doomed."  I responded to her statement with, "Better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all?  Thank God for singular intersections!  You can't say you're doomed to lovelessness until you're single and literally at the end of the line... What are we again?  23?"  The original poster, an acquaintance of mine, responded with: "Wait... we were talking about relationships?"  To which I replied, "That's what I contextualized it to, as all my other relationships have been (relatively) ossum."

To that statement, there are several likely responses. A: "Well, we know what's on Ezra's mind."  B: "Well, lucky you."  C: "Why do you say that?"  I will answer the person that asks Option C.

Romance has been the only context  in which I've experienced relationships as once or never, and not as forever.  Not in friendship have I lost people through such finality as the burned bridges between me and my old flames.  That's why my friendships are so much better-- I've never perceived them as straight lines that precluded rekindling.  The lines have always been intertwined along jagged, looped, and twisted paths.

Even so, reconciliation is not out of the question, even for those painful people from my past.  By God's grace, we'll be good again.

Asians Have the Darndest Surnames

I have a friend named Tiffany Sun. If she married a guy with the last name "Moon," she would be Tiffany Sun Moon, under Western conventions. If a girl existed named Annie Ching and she married a boy with the surname "Chong"...? In this post, I seek an examination of our multi-cultural identities through the treatment of our surnames as (imperfect) signifiers of what goes on within and around us.

I feel ambivalently about the Romanization of our surnames. It simultaneously represents the subjugation of Asian identities to Western conventions, but also the transformation of Asian identities into something else, an Asian-whatever (Korean-American, Vietnamese-Canadian, Japanese-British, Chinese-Australian, etc) identity that straddles oceans. Already, we are not completely what our forebears were. What are our parents, if not unreal, for insisting on an impossible cultural purity? However, neither are we yet completely assimilated.

There are several questions to answer. What does it mean to stay true to our heritage? Is it sufficient that we have retained our surnames, but Romanized? Other groups, to avoid persecution, changed their surnames altogether, some by translation. If my surname were translated from "Chang /Cheung /Zhang /Chiong," it would be "Chapter." I would be "Ezra Chapter." Should we campaign for the right to change our legal surnames to Chinese characters? That course of action doesn't seem prudent. Even if imperfectly, the Westerners are able to attempt to utter our sacred surnames through their Romanizations. Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves a more important question: Is it even necessary or important enough of a matter, to remain true to our heritage?

There are more issues to consider, if language use is to be considered a representation of cultural imperialism or hegemony. The use of Chinese characters was once part and parcel of Chinese domination in all spheres of life in much of East Asia. The Vietnamese, Japanese, and Koreans all used Chinese characters in the past. The Japanese altered their script. The Koreans created an alphabetic script. The Viets threw off one master only to receive another, and their entire language was standardized to a Romanization. Fittingly, when Chinese people go by their Romanized surnames, they get a taste of their own medicine.

Perhaps, language-- as a tool of power-- is only effective if there is something of value to demolish. If we hold our cultural heritage loosely, it won't hurt when we inevitably lose it through generations of living in the West. It only matters that we hold ethnic culture so tightly if we believe it to be superior to others' and integral to living, yes? Perhaps what really matters is living a meaningful life in view of God, which may not necessitate clinging tightly to heritage. Could it be, that culture is not more important than life itself?

This post really has no conclusions, but merely presents the shortcomings of particular, more traditional perspectives. I have no illusions as to my ability to convince everybody to rediscover their respective heritages, or to let go of them. Neither are those the only options. You can have both the old and the new, or neither! Truly, as Asian-Americans, there is no right way to deal with heritage; I only hope that each of us has peace with it.

I just hope not to see people walking around with names like Jon, Jeff, Peter, or Joy Yellow.

No, I'm not interested in talking to your father.

Mimetic Desire is the millstone that sinks many. The most tempting thing to a 22-29 year olds? Domesticity. Really... is that your highest aspiration? I am disappointed in you.