Archive for November 2008
The Devil Wants You Dead – 1
One of us got killed tonight.
I don’t know who did it. All I know is that I was doing some checking on the spreadsheets then suddenly the phone rang. A voice pierced in through the dull disinfected air of my cubicle –hoarse, out of breath —
“He’s coming for us, John.”
“Slow down, Ben. Who—“
“He’s after me. There’s no stopping him. Oh my god! Fuck!”
Then he was gone. The line went dead.
I told Susie this after work. She was washing the dishes, a thoughtful look in her eyes.
“Who could it be?”
“I’ve got a theory.” I lit a cigarette.
She waited.
“I think it’s one of us.”
She whirled around, her right eye flashing into a fiery amber liquid gold then quickly it subsided to its normal hue of earthy brown. She clutched the plate so hard it burst into tiny bits, piercing her skin. Droplets of crimson blood now dotted our immaculate kitchen floor.
“Don’t be so mad, babe.” I inhaled deeply, allowing that intoxicating air to enter my system. The stick’s glow matched the earlier color of her eye.
“How could you say that?” she hissed.
“We’ve been in hiding all these years. Nobody but those on the inside knows where we live.”
Suddenly, I tensed. In one fluid movement, I took out a gun from the drawer.
“Someone’s coming.”
–to be continued?
© Kate Yu 2008. Not to be reproduced without permission of the author.
Photo by Encamcito
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Open the Box!- Unleashing the Writer Within You
Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is from Matthew Dryden. He knows how to think out of the box. The entries in his blog are gripping, passionate and at times get an R-rating for extreme violence (think blood, blood and blood). He’s one of the true followers of the sacrosanct art of writing and I’ve never seen someone who pursues it so relentlessly. He has conquered his own fear and self-doubt, pounded it into a bloody pulp to the point that it can never resurrect again – a vital achievement for any writer who’s often tormented by his own demons. Just be careful not to slit your wrists after reading his work. 
It is there, inside the box.
You might be thinking that it’s the novel that I was writing a year ago – and for the last 4 years before that – that novel that became so much that I couldn’t handle it. Or you might be thinking that it’s the body parts that I was claiming I was cutting up last week because they were easier to hide.
It is there, pulsing in the box.
I’m not going to be opening it, not yet. I’m going to sit here and stare at it – I know what is inside of it. I’m going to dance around the living room and eat food with it. I’m going to carry it on the bus with me to work because I know that I can’t leave home without it.
It is there, quivering in the box.
I’m out here, shivering. I believe that it fucking deserves to be in the box because it didn’t do me any damned good to let it out last time – besides, there is this email that I have to write, this floor that I need to sweep, and that damned bathroom that needs to be cleaned.
I’m not ready for this to be a 100% thing because I lack the motivation. I’m not opening this damned box because I don’t need to deal with the supposed blood that would be getting everywhere, leaving smears on the wall and the sink – and I only just got rid of the stench that it left from the last time I decided it might be a good idea to see what the fuss was about.
I’m not opening that box.
I’d rather be writing something else, I’d rather be sitting my cafe, sipping coffee, staring out the window, listening to Iron and Wine, I’d rather be making friends, I’d rather be living life in the fast lane. I want to party on my free nights, work full-time, buy a new house by myself, I’d rather never get on a stage or have to stand behind my collective creative work.
Then I start thinking about it and suddenly I want to rip off the wrapping paper like it’s Christmas Eve and I was allowed to open only one gift! And at the same time, I want to undress it slowly and properly, savoring each moment – raising my expectations inch by inch. I want to hold it in my arms and revel in the passionate embrace.
This gift that I was given is something that I know I should open. I have always made excuses, given up on it. I’ve hid from it. This gift is something that I feel I must face fully and completely. I must do this now, or it’ll never happen.
No more waiting. No more complaining, whining, disbelieving. It’s there, inside the box. My talent, my gift, my calling, my mantra, my vocation, my passion. This time I embrace my purpose. It will not be complete immediate gratification, there will be storms to push back against, fear to rise above, and almost every other part of my life to need to be readjusted to make room for it.
I am ready, I am ready, this is my time.
Photo by: rubbernun
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Why China?
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Why Real Life Stops You From Going After Your Dreams
I wake up this morning amidst the chilly air of China. I think of how I might start my day. Take a walk, write a blog entry, answer some emails and work on my short story. Ah, that would be paradise.
Then I remembered one ugly fact. I groaned and buried myself further underneath the covers.
I’ve got to go to school today.
I hated myself this week for allowing real life to get in the way. I allowed myself to get swept away by this tide of marking papers, student consultations, midterm exams and extracurricular activities like performing my first ever rap song in front of colleagues (though it went surprisingly well). But stuff like this happen and I had to bind myself for a while and plough my way through. There were so many times I wanted to pick up my pen once again and blog but bills must be paid. We all have these times. The trouble is we stay in this way for far too long.
What stops us? Is it fear of looking at the spare coins clinking at a musician’s cap singing his heart out? Or the image of a painter selling his wares for pennies? I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll immediately rush to our comfortable apartments, happy that we’re secure in our monthly salaries and daily food on the table. We’ll be assuring ourselves, “I’m glad that’s not me.” yet inside our hearts stir with envy. We see Freddie going around places with just his guitar. There’s Larry, tutoring art on the side while he hones his comic drawing skills. We smash our fists on the table because that could’ve been us. Sure, it looks like a romantic lifestyle but in fact it’s not. Freddie goes into debt and Larry’s students often pay for his lunch because they knew he couldn’t afford to eat. That’s why people often say ’starving artist’ not ‘well-fed artist’.
To us, that’s not the ‘real life’ we seek. The real life we want is an awesome apartment, a sleek sports car and plenty of money so that when we retire we can do what we want because that’s what the manual of the Safe Practical Guide To Survive In Society says. The manual that says there’s a big chance that if we let go of everything we have and follow our hearts, we’d go broke, miserable and alone in the gutter and not even get an ounce of recognition. That’s shit scary. We have to start from scratch and we’d be doing plenty of failing on our first try. Many people around you say there’s no market value or any real money in doing what we love. And that’s the magnum truth cemented in their minds. Because we listened to them, we shut ourselves in our little cubicle, beating ourselves up constantly doing what we hate while our dreams languished. Every penny we earn we blow out just buying more stuff to take away the pain of not following our hearts.
Real life means setting aside the novel inside you to make way for the more practical stuff that pays the bills or impractical ones that provide you instant gratification like watching T.V. or youtube. “I’ll do it later” because you’ve got your boss and clients waiting, students wondering where their marked papers are and an audience ready and hungry for your next words in your blog. Why do we often procrastinate on the things we want to do the most that doesn’t give us money but offers us the one thing that money can’t buy –happiness? The sad reality is that you’re setting that story or song aside because nobody cares about it but you. Only you know it’s going to be great. The rest? They simply don’t care. They’ve got their own troubles to worry about and their own achievements which they think are so awesome but in reality suck crap as hell only you don’t have the heart to tell them because they might say the same thing to you.
Yet, you deserve to do what you want the most and to hell with the rest of world –you’re going to march to your own damned tune!
This is why we often feel empty inside because we’re clipping our own wings and following fail proof practical advice. Perhaps that’s why we love reading those personal development blogs so much. We look at people living our dream and strive to find a life full of meaning and purpose because frankly, we’re just not living it.
We seek to distract ourselves from this feeling of emptiness. We numb ourselves with T.V., computers, drugs, alcohol, painkillers and sex. Anything to take away the pain. For a year, I was “numb”. Everyday was a torture to live because I was never true to myself. Because I was living the ‘real life’. One day I took out my pen and notebook and bled myself dry all over the pages, shedding bitter tears, pouring all my pain and frustrations at not being able to write for a living, not being able to do what I do best, too much of a coward to go after what I want and not live with the music singing in my heart.
And I bet you and I share these moments when we just looked up and asked, “God, why?”
It took me a year up to that moment to take a deep breath and plunge towards that dream. Now I’ve had a few small accomplishments under my belt. Although real life still intervenes, I won’t let it silence my voice for too long. I’ve learned from that mistake. I still go to school to teach but now everyday whenever I take that pen and let the words dance under my fingertips, I feel truly happy. Truly happy because I finally get to do what I love even if it’s just for 2 hours a day. But in those 2 hours, I felt I have truly lived and was able to touch heaven even for just a moment.
Photo: Eli Mattson, runner up of America’s Got Talent, an artist who paid his dues from NBC site. Now he’s living the dream stirring the passion within us with his voice and his piano.
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Just Let Them Go and F— Themselves – A Rant On Being A Teacher
This is my first long rant. I’m sorry to offend some readers but I have to get this off my chest.This is for all the under-appreciated teachers out there.
I got pissed off at my students today.
During class, we did an improv game called Lines game where players read a line they’ve never seen before and incorporate it into their scene. My students having never done this before, I gave them time to practice among their groups for 5 minutes. Then I went around facilitating and checking up on their progress.
Unlike my other classes who were always on task, this group apparently felt it was a total waste of their time. Some slept. Some decided to engage in a conversation involving the latest episode of a Korean soap. The others fooled around.
“Why aren’t you practicing?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What’re you doing?”
“We’ll get right to it.”
I felt I was the butt of a joke, a pathetic loser, a discarded doll dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the road. All my efforts were in vain. I had spent 3 hours coming up with 92 lines for this activity that had to be funny, easy and at the same time flexible enough to make into a dialogue (which even for me was a stretch) and another hour cutting them and folding them into separate sheets. I sacrificed a weekend and my writing goals for these kids because I wanted them to learn and enjoy themselves in class. If I wanted to be a lazy ass, I would’ve either let them read and answer the textbook or watch a movie. To hell with the learning strategies and student interaction!
So I exploded and they definitely noticed it. They shut up and proceeded to work only because I was already hurling rapid fire insults at them which I’ve never ever done before.
This is one of the ultimate downers of being a teacher. Your heart is in the right place. You work hard for these kids because you want to help them. You give them your blood, sweat and tears and what do you get in return? A jeering laugh. Loud snoring. Handouts you’ve painstakingly researched, compiled and designed to be easy to read crumbled and slam dunked into the wastebasket. A chorus of sighs and complaints that they were up all night playing computer games and getting drunk greeted you the minute you opened your mouth to start the three hour lesson you’ve spent 6 hours brainstorming and researching for, honing and streamlining it into a thematic flow, that complemented one of the language theories and at the same time was still based on the lessons of their textbooks. A lesson you spent another 6-8 hours making your own instructional materials, exercises suited to their level and a powerpoint presentation that’s both informative yet entertaining. Then they echoed mocking remarks when you pointed out some mistakes they made in their essays –essays you’ve meticulously marked for another 6 hours, all 127 of them and make corrections and even left some personal comments for them on which areas they need to improve on. Essays that gave you this massive headache because of their incoherent sentence structures, incessant ramblings that absolutely made no sense, chockfull of god-awful grammar and spelling mistakes that after you’re through with them, you have no idea what’s good English anymore, instructions that weren’t followed even though you repeated it hundreds of times and even wrote them in bold letters on the whiteboard but because they were too busy sleeping, talking or even touching up on their lipstick the “vital information” somehow slipped past them and now they’re complaining of a big fat ZERO they received on their 100 words single spaced work that’s full of typos and grammar errors that it showed it was clearly done in the last minute. And at the end of it all, those essays you’ve marked your ass off will still end up as tight little round balls in the trash.
Worse, there are organizations that back up these kinds of students. They don’t absolutely look after the welfare and quality of work these students are producing because they’re too concerned for the 5 figure paycheck they will receive from the parents’ pockets at the end of the year. Forget about becoming a shining beacon to guide the lost youth. Education has become nothing but a business.
Through all of these, I sometimes stop and ask myself, “What the hell am I here for?”
So don’t be surprised your teachers just skim over your reports now. Why they just merely open a book and drone on and on. The truth is they’ve been so hurt and rejected in the past by so many students that why even bother? You tried to warn Mary not to skip class and see that asshole Jimmy yet she did it anyway. Six months later Mary is showing a swelling belly and has dropped out of school. The next year you tell Johnny to quit hanging out with those shady bunch of kids from the other school. The next thing you know Johnny is in jail for drugs. You know you tried your best. You really went out on a limb for them and the same shit still happens year after year. Let them go. Let them go. Nothing you’ll do or say will make a difference anyway. Let them go and fuck themselves up and the world.
And you know, if you’ve got a teacher who’s unbelievably awesome, smart and really cares for your well-being, consider yourself blessed. He/she hasn’t been touched by disillusionment and hasn’t turned rotten to the core yet. Appreciate him/her for all the efforts he/she has given or I will personally go and hit you on the head for not doing so. Remember he/she is doing this for you. And if I were you, I’d go up to his/her desk and say the two simple words that would make a world of difference.
“Thank you.”
I’m not saying you should share this but if you’re suffering a massive guilt trip right now at having that hangover then I suggest you do the same to some other poor soul:
