Make It Happen

So as I'm trying to maintain my motivation to study for the DAT and my reasons for applying to dental school, I remembered a certain scene from an episode of the TV show Scurbs. After a bit of research (read: 3 minutes of googling) it's episode 16 from season 8, "My Cuz," and Turk is considering applying for the Chief of Surgery position.

TURK: I'd be great at that job. 

CARLA: Then go for it

TURK: Chief of surgery?

CARLA: Baby, one of the most amazing things about you is that when you want something bad enough, you always make it happen. Remember when you first started working here and I had no interest in dating you, what did you do?

TURK: I made it happen. 

CARLA: And what about when I had no interest in marrying you?

TURK: I made it happen!

CARLA: Go make this happen.

TURK: I'm doing it.


It makes sense, really. If you want something badly enough, you will find a way to make it happen. I wanted to be one of the best damn dancers that's ever gone through BPG, and though my time in the group was short, I put in the hours and danced at events outside of regular practice, and I've definitely made this happen. I wanted to date a certain gal, and with enough patience, perseverance, and maybe charm on my part, I've...almost made it happen. I think. And now if I really want to kick the DAT's ass and make myself look like the best thing that's ever happened to dental school/dentistry since the freaking toothbrush, well.

I'm gonna make it happen. 

Happy Birf'daye.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE SISTER. Except I guess you're not so little anymore now that you've officially moved out of the -'teens and are now a big 2-0. Yowzas. Whatever. You're still little to me. Now, just think, only one more birthday to look forward to that actually means something! Or at least that's what they say. The cynics, don't mind them, they're just jelly that their 21st birthdays have come and gone. Life is what you make it. And now I'm running out of interesting/semi-clever things to write.

Apparently you have the same Birthday as George Harrison! Or, from another perspective, George Harrison has the same Birthday as you! How fitting. I guess. Right? 

"The difference is that...Lin overturns [stereotypes], yet the response remains the same."

So, okay, apparently everyone who's anyone who follows sports knows all about Jeremy Lin, and even if you don't follow sports, you're bound to have heard his name pop up at some point in some context. Like me. I don't follow sports at all (read: hardly ever) but I've done enough internet-ing to know who he is and why he's just the bees' knees right now. I think it has something to do with basketball. And the fact that he did extremely well one game, and now he's on some kind of hot streak and everyone's just gone crazy over him, aka "Linsanity." Seriously, google that shit, people are using that term.

Of course the thing that makes him stand out is that he's Asian-American, but unlike, say, Yao Ming, Lin is a first-generation son of Taiwanese immigrants. Technically he's American through and through, but it just feels like everyone can't get past his appearance and he's just "Asian" to the nation/world.

However, Lin's success also reveals a certain unspoken racism against Asian-Americans, as pointed out in this article.  I recall browsing Reddit a couple days ago and came across this gem, ESPN's crude headline, "Chink in the Armor," referencing a game the Knick's lost which I guess Lin is somehow responsible for (like I said, I don't follow sports, I just semi-keep up with what's on the internet.)

I do believe this racism against Asian-Americans exists. It's not so agressive and physically malicious as compared to the discrimination faced by Blacks, pre-Civil Rights movement, but it exists nonetheless. It's an unspoken notion, an ideal, that Asian-Americans are crazy intelligent and hard workers but still socially awkward on some scale. They're stereotypes, really, but the problem is there's relatively minor to no backlash from people when things like this get out, which makes it seem like this stereotyping is okay. And it's not. Any respectable media source wouldn't dare use the N-word in a headline, a slur against Blacks, but someone has the gall to use "Chink?" It's disgusting. Granted I'm really just paraphrasing the first article I've linked, but it rings true with a lot of things I feel. It also references a favorite article/essay of mine that I read in New York Magazine last year that addresses a similar issue. 

And honestly sometimes I wonder if I do nothing to help the problem. What if I'm just facilitating this ignorance? I'll sometimes crack jokes about my race in jest with close friends, but what if that only adds to the desensitization, that people think it's okay to openly express these stereotypes about Asian-Americans?

It's just, Asian-Americans aren't represented enough in media and the public, so when someone like Jeremy Lin makes a splash, he causes a goddamn tidal wave, and suddenly everyone is all "OHMYGOD LOOK AT THIS ASIAN GUY BEING AWESOME AT SPORTS, OF ALL THINGS!" Hell, I'm sure you see plenty of athletes being incredible at their game, so why's it such a big deal that this one man is suddenly thrust underneath the spotlight? Yes, I'm glad that Lin's success aids the presence of Asian-Americans in the American public eye, but I suppose it's a process that'll take time.



On a somewhat related vein, WongFu productions just released their last episode in an online mini series titled "Home is Where the Hans Are." The premise is that Derek, twenty-something caucasian male, is coming home after being away for two+ years, only to find that his mother's remarried to a Chinese man, and now has a Chinese step brother and step sister. It's a tickling synopsis and rather fresh in a way to see Asian actors and actresses portrayed in non-stereotypical roles, even if it's just an online mini series. Also, they've got Ellen Wong (Knives Chau from Scott Pilgrim vs The World). 

Check it out.

Sail.

Yeahhhhh.



Also, it's been about a year since I officially started learning ballroom! It's been a great year and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Coming Full Circle

I've discussed or referenced a certain play on multiple occasions on this blog, the play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal. The play is basically about the Peanuts comic strip characters grown up and in high school and dealing with a shitstorm of relatively intense adult themes and issues. You see Charlie Brown, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Pigpen, Linus, Lucy, and Schroeder, but the playwright's given them different names (while still heavily alluding to their original ones) and different relationships. I was first exposed to this play my sophomore year as an undergrad when I was trying to look for a monologue to work on for my Acting I class, and I settled on a monologue spoken by Beethoven(Schroeder.) Of course I had to read the play, and since then, it has become one of my top five favorite plays of all time. I don't even know if I have three or four other plays that can make up the rest of the list, but if I did, Dog Sees God would hold its own place. 

This play strikes so many chords within me that I can't help but feel emotional when I read it. It covers a plethora of themes, notably: friendships, bullying, homosexuality, and suicide. I've come back to this play multiple times over the past two years or so, sometimes when I want to reuse the monologue for an audition, sometimes to reference a certain line that is particularly endearing to me because it deals with suicide. It's a truly mesmerizing play that I will always treasure. Oftentimes I have to stop and remember the play is a dark comedy, because it's so easy to get caught up in the characters' conflicts; I have to constantly remind myself to suspend my disbelief, heh. 

Anyways, one of the student organizations in the theatre department here at my school is putting on a production of Dog Sees God. Needless to say, I auditioned. 

AND I GOT CAST AS MOTHERFUCKIN' BEETHOVEN, BITCHES. 

I am SO excited. Words cannot even begin to describe how happy I am right now. Beethoven is easily my favorite character in the play (a fact that may or may not have to do with my doing his monologue and analyzing his character for class two years ago). But, he's Schroeder, and I've always had a kindred spirit with him. I think it has something to do with his being a piano geek, heh. 

But during my senior year in high school, the drama club did a production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a musical based on the Peanuts characters (but in their respective, original ages, hah). In that show, I was cast as Schroeder, and it's since easily been my favorite memory of high school. 

And now, it just feels...right. Like deja vu, in a sense. I've come full circle; four years later after my part as Schroeder in my high school musical, in my senior year as an undergrad, I'm Schroeder/Beethoven once more. 

It's like fate, I tell ya. And I am so thrilled that this strange yet welcome series of events is happening to me right now. 

However, upon further examination I find there are other aspects of my undergrad senior year that aptly resemble/mirror my high school senior year. I have a semi-solid friend group, even if it's taken me nearly four years to branch out and find these people. This has to do with the fact that I feel I've broken through another layer of my shell and am growing more comfortable with who I am and how I interact with people. There's this play, and the role I've wanted and have been cast in. And finally a certain romantic interest. It's so eerie how it feels that I'm in this cycle, and I'm now just completing one turn of whatever this system is. 

It's a bit alarming in some aspects, but it doesn't worry me much. Some time ago I mentioned how I feel like college is supposed to be a time of molding; you'll feel yourself shift and morph and adjust your beliefs, your morals, and what you value in terms of friendships and relationships. Looking back now, as I'm slowly approaching the end of my time as an undergrad, I'll firmly say I've definitely gone through that reshaping process -- who knows, maybe I'm still going. 

But I am not one bit ashamed of how things are turning out and right now, I am pretty damn proud of myself. 

The thing about white chocolate

Note: when trying to melt white chocolate, read the ingredients and make sure you're actually melting white chocolate made with actual cocoa butter/is capable of being melted smoothly, and is not, instead, made with just sugar and milk product. The result of using the latter results in the "white chocolate" simply chunking/dehydrating out, hardly melting at all. I learned this the hard way earlier today when I was trying to melt white chocolate to dip strawberries into and I first tried melting white chocolate "morsels" which, to my later dismay, gave me the result described above. It's okay though, nothing a quick run to the grocery store to buy the correct, melt-able white chocolate couldn't fix.

Time

Time is a funny thing. It seems to drag on forever but can pass you by as soon as you blink. Time can't speed up fast enough when you're in the middle of hurt and all you want to do is heal and get better but before you know it, it's been more than enough time and you've almost forgotten what made you feel a certain way to begin with.

I'd nearly forgotten about what today is, to me. Actually, in all honesty, I really did forget what today was until I saw a photo link on facebook. I really did pause and think, "Oh yeah...but, why is this being posted now?" Silly, silly me.

In my pitiful defense, I was very excited about teaching a massive group West Coast Swing lesson at the Friday Night Dance, and my second piece I've choreographed was to be performed as well (my first number I've choreographed hasn't been performed. Yet). So, I was very much looking forward to today, for dance-y reasons.

But last night, that all took a backseat to my shock. I'd forgotten. It has truly escaped my memory and I'd forgotten. Not Ashleigh, of course, but the date. It's...I don't know whether I should be ashamed of myself or not.

And then, goodness, I feel like this is more than a coincidence. The play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal is going in student-run production this semester, and I'd just found out this past week. I love this play, because I first discovered it my sophomore year, spring semester, during my acting class.

A line towards the end of the play goes, "Also, bear no malice for the ones that leave you. The only regret they feel now is the regret of not being able to tell you how they really feel." And when I read those lines for the first time, I got the strangest chills. I think it was around this time, too, that I must have discovered that play, and those lines, and now it seems like it's coming full circle with this play being produced. It's just too uncanny to be a coincidence.

If I'm going to be honest with myself, I'm sure one day, I will completely forget this date, and I will most likely be upset with myself that I'd done so.


But I believe I will never forget Ashleigh and the impact she's had.





Ashleigh Danielle Webster
Always Remembered, Always Loved.
4/22/88 - 2/3/06