Some old essays and articles.

"What I seek for in life is an 'always.'" (2007)

"Words are like power, we can create the world with them, we can even create absolutely nothing." (2008)

"Moving around everywhere has made me at ease with change, but volatile." (Written for an application essay, 2007)

"Life isn’t fair. Strategy is fair to those who have it, and unfair to those who don’t. Taking advantage of hidden mechanisms behind the words people say is, again, strategy. Honesty is not the best policy. Circumvention is the best policy. If honesty were delivered through circumvention and roundabout talking, everyone wins." (About honesty, 2007)

"The water my mom gave him to swallow medication with spilled back out to soak lips that looked hurt in every way. I lay next to him to help him sleep better, but left shortly because I couldn’t stop myself from spitting tears.

Don’t make him sad. Mom whispered." (An essay about hatred, 2009)

"The Invisible Man treads through the story harmed." (Essay titled Absorption, 2008)

"These bombs hadn’t felt so close to their lives because their teenage years were full of indirect responsibility. It was okay to fail then—there was plenty of time, plenty of room for compromise, and parents always there to back us up. Even though the bombs may have been close by, they didn’t feel its explosions as much when they were seventeen. However, with a family, stocks, a car, and a home to look after, one is much vulnerable to tears. There is so much more that we want to keep safe once we become older." (I feel small under time's power, 2008)

"Brian, on the other hand, was exceptionally cranky. I could see the angry teenage hormones creeping out of his pores and permeating the entire house.

(fragmented)

The ongoing movie seemed to be taunting me by its undisturbed excitement. I stood alone in the living room, abandoned by my brother and his teenage-ness. Then, mom came into the living room and sat me down. She was very glad that I was improving my English, but she said that there were some things I just had to understand and not inquire about Brian. She said that I needed to be understanding. But I was nine. I didn't understand. What was that?" (An essay about Disney movies, 2009)

"Mersault is the quintessence of nonchalance. He is not indifferent at all. One should not misunderstand his motives—he just dislikes excess. He enjoys but does not indulge. He likes but does not love. He is responsible but will not commit. Marie is frustrated by her increasing interest and his stubborn lack of love for her. His ability to lust is overwhelming, but does not yearn for her specific presence." (2008)

"Color is very fickle in definition. There lies a thin line between red and orange, pink, purple, and magenta. We do not know when exactly orange becomes red, or when red stops being red altogether. Red is a general term dubbed on a spectrum of colors—which, consequently, conjures a weak visual guideline." (Red, 2007)

"We need to be worried about how people cope with new things, we must be careful, we cannot move too quickly. We cannot let people become too infatuated or else no one will take it seriously. We need to watch carefully to see we don’t make any rash, irreversible mistakes." (A piece for an essay contest, 2007)

"That got me thinking about relationships. Relationships with people you know well, to be exact. Are they not meant to be? Are relationships supposed to be a little blind—is ignorance of a partner’s faults and tendencies and shortcomings, really bliss? The whole time I found myself predicting what he was thinking, and often finding myself right. It sucked. I wanted to go home." (2010)

"My phone is one of those phones that you have to ponder about when you try to open them. In fact, one person out of three always tries to pull the head off its abdomen. And when that happens I panic, because to pull would be to break—for every phone has specific and precise procedures to follow. “You’re supposed to turn it,” I say, and a shy smile creeps up a friend’s face as she listens to my advice. As phones function only when the right levers are pulled, so do we." (An article on the Korean government, 2008)

"I doubt half of this will come true. A big part of me actually wishes against these things from happening, because what I really want from life is an unforgettable experience. I want to experience poverty, I want to experience working odd jobs, I want to experience being elected to political power, I want to experience knowledge. I want to hold a three-hour-long conversation with an old man I’d just met in the streets, I want to swim across a terrible-smelling river, I want to write a book full of nonsensical contradictions and get critiqued by millions of people. I want to have a dirty fistfight with someone, I want to invent something I’ve always thought the world should have, I want to butt my car into as many garages as possible and get away with it, laughing. I want looseness. I want freedom. I want to be completely satisfied when I die, smiling to myself. Simmered in fragility." (Myself in twenty years, 2006)

"Perhaps there are always an unfortunate few who stumble more than others. When given even a slight overdose of anything, they collapse, overwhelmed with their lack of poise, wrecking everything in their path with ineffable grace." (An article about people who choose not to run for presidency, 2008)

"Be is universal. Be is addictive. Be is a mystery, a word without meaning, yet a word with so much meaning. We are probably incapable of defining the word without restating it in the definition. Because it means something different every time it is used, because it is something we rely on, because it is a word that can’t be narrowed down no matter how hard we try, we cannot define it. The dictionary is wrong." (Define the word "be", 2007)

"We tend to feel that the way we do things, say things, and think about things is only logical. The level of aggression that seems appropriate, and ways of expressing agreement or disagreement, come to seem natural. However, people growing up in different cultures have very different ideas about what is natural and very different assumptions about human nature. Observing how people in other cultures deal with conflict, disagreement, and aggression can give new perspectives in our attempts to manage conflict and use opposition in positive rather than negative ways. Such a newly-acquired view suggests possibilities—for example, of how similar ends can be achieved with different means." (2009)

"The bus door reopened. Someone walked out. We had left Grandpa—the world had left Grandpa—far behind. In the cathedral I moved on from one room to the next, gaining distance, further with each step. And as I admired the high ceilings and Jesus figures I heard a familiar silk ruffle behind me—Grandpa had come, his values and all, to observe the vulgar Western culture that he hated." (Main college applications essay, 2010)

Guichanaso.