A fictionalized version of events

source

1) I look at the back of the grey bus seat, empty and non-seeing.

2) The flower petals fall into the garbage can, one by one. 

White

              Brown

                            Dead

3) The shredder continues whirring. His puns continue disappearing.

4) The flames reach higher and higher, and those brown eyes soon disappear from my life.

5) I blink back tears, repeating to myself that he was not worth crying over.

6) The buildings, the leaves, the birds, and the clouds taunt me. Telling me to look up and up. To be

free. But it’s hard to trust them when it told the same thing to him.

7) I move on with my life. He’s not worth thinking about.

8) On the first day of classes, I wanted to barf. I was terrified of seeing him again. I didn’t eat

much that day or the days after that.

9) We see each other, we pass each other. Strangers again.

10) Life continues. Graduation happens. Orientation, first day of college, I start to forget about

him.

11) We saw each other again, nothing was said, we continue with our lives.

12) I finally look up again, free. 

And now the weather: Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde

~ Stacy N.

Read More

A video about mass shootings & voting

Note: This was written during the time the Orlando Shooting occurred. I wasn't comfortable enough to post it then, however, I'm ready to post it now after doing a lot of thinking (and trying to clean up my drafts folder.)

Content warning: death, mass shootings, guns

When I heard about the Orlando shooting I was scared, sad, and angry. Scared because it affects me on a personal level as a queer person of color. Sad that the shooter thought that this was even okay in the first place. And angry that the society we live in is still for LGBTQIA+ discrimination, from bills that dictate where a trans* person could go to the bathroom to the fact that people could be fired all because of their sexual orientation. As the video says, we're not going to help anything if all we do is change our fucking profile picture on Facebook for a day or two. Yes, that shows "support", but what use is that support if you continually practice LGBTQIA+ discrimination yourself. Whether it's intentionally misgendering someone; refusing to see someone's relationship as valid because you only believe in heterosexuality; believing that a person could only be straight or gay and can't be anything in between; intentionally harass someone because they don't fit your view of what a "normal" male or female is supposed to be; complain about why isn't there straight pride and then using the excuse, "sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I know people who are gay/part of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum." when people confront you about it; and more.
Actual support consists of really learning about the discrimination LGBTQIA+ people face; actually try to not discriminate against people because of their sexuality and gender expression; sincerely apologizing if you do make a mistake, learn why it's a mistake, and then try to not repeat said mistake in the future; signing petitions that attempt to stop discrimination on a bigger systematic level; telling your local representatives to take action on behalf of the people to stop the discrimination; going to vigils; donating and/or helping out groups that actively try to stop the discrimination, and more.
When I saw the Dalai Lama speak live on my college campus, one of the important messages he gave was that if we wanted to see a more peaceful, happy society, then we need to actively take action, not passively pray about it or to talk about it on social media or in real life with no intention of actually doing something about it. And one of the best ways to do that is to register to vote and to actually vote on November 8, 2016. Sure, we may have a small voice when it comes to the federal government but our voice is big when it comes to local, state government.
Vote for people who you want to best represent your district and state. After all, the people in congress are supposed to represent the American people, and that's hard to do if some of them aren't willing to be more open-minded. Also, vote for people who genuinely care about the people they're representing, and who aren't going to turn on the people just to get more power, money, or because their party told them to. So VOTE. And don't forget to tell others to vote.

Some links to help you get more involved with the social justice movement:
The Human Rights campaign 
DoSomething.org

Voting info:
Voting registration dates (the whole site is pretty useful in general because it has other kinds of voting info like state requirements, voting methods, who to contact if you need help with voting, etc.)
Registering to vote

Read More

College so far

source

ACCTG 2600: Survey of Accounting
It's not a bad class, it made me realize that there is a lot more to accounting than ledgers, debits, and credits.

ENGL 370: 1 Introduction to Literary History 1 (works before 1800)
I like the readings because most of them are translated into Modern English. However, the online class is a bit disorganized.

ENGL 5550: Young Adult Novel
It's a fun class, taught by the lovely young adult author, Sara Zarr. Also, it's the only creative writing class that really made me write more often, plus it made me think about novel writing in a different (more manageable) way.

FCS 3370: Parenting &; Cultures
This is a pretty cool class because it made me think about parenting differently, and how we shouldn't make the white, middle-class American model the right way to parent. Also, I found myself doing another volunteer project for this class. This time I'm helping tutor refugee teenagers from Africa. I'm trying to not develop white savior complex and really learn about them because they're fun people.

VIET 2010: Intermediate Vietnamese 1
The class tripled in size in both the intermediate and the beginning courses. Which is amazing because it means that more people want to connect to their roots. It's also a fun class , we have interesting conversations and try to help each other survive. Reading Vietnamese is still hard but writing it is a bit easier now.

I've also found myself involved in several clubs this year: Vietnamese American Student Association (VASA), Asian American Student Association (AASA), Students for Choice (a pro-choice, intersectional feminist group), the Canticle (the undergraduate literary magazine), and Write Club (which I need to go to more meetings). The first two, I ended up joining again is because I want to connect to my Asian side more, and to learn a bit more about the Vietnamese culture (I've realized that I'm pretty whitewashed after living in Utah for my whole life). I'm also on the Canticle staff, and it's fun because we host workshops to try to get other writers to edit their piece to send to the magazine. The Write Club, as far as I know, is mainly about workshopping creative writing pieces. And Students for Choice has helped me realize more about reproductive health than any health class that I took in the past (oh, Utah and its abstinence-only teaching, though I do have to applaud my eleventh-grade health teacher for actually bringing in someone to talk about contraceptions.)

I could talk more about how productive I was in the beginning before slightly procrastinating again. And how I'm actually enjoying myself more. Or I could also talk about how my favorite moment so far was when I was in a dress, wearing my big coat and it was pouring out. It was cold, and it was around nine at night. My car was all the way across campus at one of the engineering buildings, and I was at the library. Thankfully, I had an umbrella and not wearing heels. It was pretty exciting walking across campus in the rain (though, kind of scary considering the dangers out there). And it was the first time in a while when I truly felt happy and free and light. I miss that part of me, the one not bogged down by college, adult responsibilities, work, and depression.

And now the weather:
Secrets by OneRepublic cover by Bryson Andres

~ Stacy N.

Read More