Back in the game

I really enjoy Twitter. I understand the people who think that it's stupid or pointless and that the 140 character messages are a waste of internet space, but I've found it to be a fun way to engage with other users, whether it's actually having a conversation with them or just hearing what they have to say. It's interesting. You never really know what's going to happen when you send out a tweet (or retweet).

For example I recently started following the Twitter account of the Asian American Journalists' Association J Camp program. I was fortunate enough to participate in the program back in 2007 with 40ish other high school students, and I had a great time meeting new people and learning from professional journalists from all over. Over the past couple days they had tweeted at me and other alums asking what some of our favorite J Camp memories were as well as tweeting at incoming J Campers. It was fun tweeting back and forth with old friends, sharing memories as well as to the students about to go to J Camp (perhaps the one time I can tweet at high school girls without feeling creepy) welcoming them to the family. Thinking back on that week brought back a lot of memories. There were a lot of pretty impressive people, from our leaders, advisors, and guest speakers who all had successful careers at various establishments (CNN, ABC, Washington Post) as well as the other students. I haven't kept in touch that much, but I remember a good number of them being pretty smart and driven, and a quick perusal of Facebook (yay stalking) revealed that some of them are indeed in some pretty sweet positions in their journalism career.

Ironically enough, J Camp actually ended up pointing me away from journalism. A lot of the professionals I met mentioned that it wasn't that important to study it in school but that the main focus was just gaining writing experience. That was kind of the first step, but ultimately I think not going down that path was a good decision. I don't think that I have that passion or drive that the best journalists need as they pursue a scoop or tenaciously edit down a piece minutes before deadline.

But back then, I really loved to write. I wasn't (and still am not) the best verbal communicator and putting words on a page gave me an alternative way to communicate my thoughts and opinions. But somewhere along the line, it kind of just fell off. Maybe I got too self-conscious about what I was writing and scared that people would disagree or just flat out not like it. Maybe I got caught up in perfection. A lot of the times when I talk or write I am still thinking of what I want to say as I am saying it. It's actually pretty frustrating and leads to some pretty stupid, confusing things sometimes and maybe I was too afraid that things wouldn't come out just how I wanted to.

As I thought about J Camp, I remembered what made me want to go in the first place. The opportunity to get to know someone through an interview -- and then sharing that with everyone else. The thrill of filling an empty page with informative, entertaining, or just plan fun words. The feeling of accomplishment when you've taken an article that was too long and editing it until it says exactly what you want it to say and no more.

Looking at the tweets of the upcoming J Campers, I can tell they feel the same way. The ALL CAPS and exclamation points make it pretty evident (although maybe they're just excited to meet guest speaker Hoda Kotb? I would be).

So I decided, screw it. I'm just going to write whatever I want when I want to. I'm not going to worry about getting it perfectly right or who might think I'm stupid or wrong (no one reads this anyway...). As I'm preparing to move and essentially start a new life, it makes sense (to me at least) to also re-kickstart this blog. And you know what, it's been a great long while since my last "I haven't written in a while but I'm committing to writing lots more" post, and I'll give myself about a week or two before the posts stop coming again. So here come the posts. Whether it ends up actually being just a week or two or a long term thing, who knows. But it's going to be random and it's going to be awkward and basically, it's going to be me.

For the lols

I was looking through some old documents and I found the graduation speech I submitted four years ago for the speechwriting contest at high school. To be honest, once you get past the obvious pandering to school spirit and the whole high school student trying to sound sophisticated thing, I feel like the overall theme is not half bad.

On a random tangent, I remember I wanted to print the speeches that made the final round of the competition in our special, end of the year edition of our paper. Since it was basically a collection of thoughts and quotes from our senior class (for our senior class), it felt like it would be appropriate. It got shot down. Apparently the committee that was choosing the winner didn't want to whichever speech they picked to get overshadowed or something like that. Don't mind that I suspect very few people actually read our paper or that I would have noted and given special placement to the speech that won, or the fact that ultimately only one speech would have been presented. I'm still a little disappointed that they didn't let me go ahead with that, especially since, as editor in chief at the time, I felt like I should have been the one to make that call. It wasn't like my speech made it to the final round so it's not like I was trying to do any self-promoting or anything. Anyway, whatever. Here's what I rambled about 4 years ago:

When I was a kid, my life was pretty much set for me. I was going to breeze through high school and head off to my dream college. First it was Stanford, and then when I found out how hard it is to get in to, I set my sights a little lower and aimed for Columbia. I came to Woodbridge as a freshman with this plan, but these last four years have been nothing like the quick stop I thought they would be. On a day like today, a proud day for me and every graduating Warrior, it would be easy just to revel in the moment and forget about the future.  But instead of a celebration of the present, this day should be a celebration of things to come and a springboard from which we will set out to achieve these things.

            Of course though we’re leaping off this springboard, that doesn’t mean we know where it’s going to take us. You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, so why am I even bothering to talk about what’s going to happen in the future? Certainly my naïve, idealistic plan didn’t pan out as my 8^th grade self would have expected, as I’m not going to Columbia or Stanford or any other top ranked private university for that matter. But just because we don’t know what’s coming doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reach for our goals, because in doing so, who knows what things we may grab hold of instead.

            Maybe it sounds stupid or cliché, but when we aim high, though we might not always get what we expect, there’s no doubt that our efforts will be rewarded. Coming out of middle school I was a budding volleyball player with an ambition in talk radio who enjoyed some writing on the side. The talk radio thing sputtered as I gave up even listening to it in favor of pretty much anything else. My volleyball “career” (if you could call it that) was stunted in short order. Instead I played 4 years of high school tennis, 3 of which were on the varsity level. But I did get to write for the school paper and even reached an editor position in my senior year. I guess one out of three ain’t bad.

            In these past four years I’ve had experiences that, looking back, I can’t imagine missing out on, yet these are also things I wouldn’t have expected either. Much of what I accomplished in high school wasn’t the result of some great scheme and meticulous planning, but rather hard work and a little luck. If nothing else, I’ve learned that good things happen to people who work at it because you never know who might be watching you, prepared to commend and reward your effort.

            As we, the class of 2008, head off to college, work, the military, or any other endeavor, I encourage every person here to strive after your goals, but also prepare to deal with change. If all of us gave up simply because our initial plan didn’t work, many of us would simply be bums, living off the generosity of others. How many successful businessmen and women are here today? And how many of you wanted to be a veterinarian or an astronaut or a famous singer or rock star when you were young? No matter how lofty our goals are, we can never give up on ourselves simply because things don’t go our way. I realized there was no way I was getting into Stanford, yet here I stand before all of you today, headed to a college where I feel I can thrive. Did I quit because I couldn’t go to a school I once thought was a perfect fit for me? No, and if you believe in fate, maybe, just maybe things worked out so that I would be up here sending you this message today. And if you’re the kind of person who’s more about creating your own luck, here I am, not really anything special, but giving the graduation speech for my high school. Who would have thought?

Happy Easter!

I wish I could do a better job of daily remembering the sacrifice that Christ has made for me by dying on the cross for my sins and the miracle of his resurrection, defeating death and sin for good. For something that has such a large and powerful impact on my life, I sure don't live, act, or think like that's the case a lot of the time. May it be something we can all truly remember, especially today.

The Resurrection

1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. 2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. 5 The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you." 8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Hip-Pop?

I really enjoyed this blog post by DJ Louie XIV at the Huffington Post yesterday. He basically expresses his disappointment at the lack of popular female rappers these days using Nicki Minaj as an example saying that she seems content with releasing more pop-style music (he refers to it as "yet another shaded rendition of 'California Tik Tok on Last Friday Night's Domino') instead of hip-hop.

It's funny because I was listening to Young Money the other day and thinking the same thing. The first time I heard Nicki Minaj was on "Bedrock" and I remember thinking that she more than held on her own that track with guys like Lil Wayne and Drake and wanting to find out who she was. Now that she's seemingly crossed over to the pop side (it seems pretty clear that at this point she has more in common with Katy Perry than Eve), I sometimes forget that she was even on that song.

It's definitely not because a lack of talent. She's exceptional with her rhymes and flows and she's proved it time and time again. DJ Louie mentions "Did It On 'Em" as an example, and I think that's still my favorite Nicki song (actually hearing it for the first time on the radio was the reason I went and got her album).

As much as I hate to do it...I think I'd have to blame Taylor Swift for this. In my mind, "Superbass" was the breaking point where Nicki really started to turn pop, and of course it was Taylor who Nicki credits for introducing that song to a larger audience (of mostly adolescent white girls). Since then, it's been lighthearted stuff like "Starships" and little girls singing her songs on Ellen.

As a sidenote, can you imagine Sophie Grace doing...just about any other Nicki Minaj song? It would go from cutely innocent to wildly inappropriate pretty quickly.

Granted, I have no idea what Nicki's new album is going to sound like. Who knows, maybe "Starships" is as pop as it gets and the rest of the tracks are pure hip-hop. But I doubt it. I think Nicki's smart enough to know she's found a niche where she can be pretty successful. And I'm not saying her songs aren't good, just different. Good for her, but if she continues going in this direction I think it's a pretty significant loss for the hip hop community.

After the Final Rose

I've made it no secret that Courtney was my favorite reality tv character on this season of the Bachelor, and of course, she won the show. And of course, she's been taking a beating from all sides since then.

To be honest, I felt it was unfair that Ben has been acting all shocked and indignant after the show finished. I mean, even if he didn't know the specifics of what she did or said to the other ladies, he had fair warning. Hearing all those things from the other girls SHOULD have been an enormous red flag already. It's weird that he waits until after everything's done to react to that. Something about the timing feels really disingenuous (did I use that right?) to me.

I honestly don't know how much of Courtney is acting or genuine (although I found it really amusing last week when she said, "I'm feeling real emotions right now" or something like that), but really I think most of the criticism is unfair. At this point she really can't apologize any more (and if it's not real now it probably won't be later anyway) and I don't know what her haters want. Ultimately it was Ben's decision, and for some reason people don't seem to be mad at him at all.

For what it's worth, I think she has feelings for Ben and this point and really does have trust issues with guys. And of course, Ben abandoning her did not help matters. It's hard for me to respect someone who does that and then goes on tv and acts like everything's cool. Everything he says just seems so fake and unspecific and, as a college student, I definitely know BS when I see/hear it.

It's been an interesting season overall. I don't have a lot of respect for Ben or most of the other contestants on the show, who find it totally cool to talk crap on each other and Shawntel but act so wronged when Courtney does it. But hey, that's what the Bachelor Pad is for.