Relationship Inertia

I'm not saying it should be easy. I'm not saying it doesn't take effort.

But I am saying that all relationships, including friendships, have their own inertia. So sure, each one needs an initial push to get moving, but there comes a point where relationships (the ones worth having) should keep "rolling" under their own momentum. This way, when you put in that work and effort to keep your relationship going, you have that momentum to help, and you won't have to feel like you're doing it on your own.

Isn't that a beautiful thing? I mean, once it's going, you and your relationship work together and give energy to each other. And you get so far...

So when I spend all that energy pushing, on my own, and nothing gets "rolling", I take it as a sign that I've probably been trying to push uphill. And that is not worth the effort.

I'm better off climbing the hill alone...

Storms, a Reminder of Hope

The rain is falling, and as is my personal tradition, I'd like to share with you, once again, this small bit of inspiration:

"Storms" by Margie DeMerell

There will be storms, child
There will be storms
And with each tempest
You will seem to stand alone
Against cruel winds

But with time, the rage and fury
Shall subside
And when the sky clears
You will find yourself
Clinging to someone
You would have never known
But for storms.

This poem usually reminds me that times of despair actually help us fully appreciate joy and happiness. This, of course, is the optimistic perspective. This time, though, I'd like to offer something a slightly less warm. This time, let's take a colder, more realistic approach (than my previous posts I just provided links to).

There will always be storms...we cannot escape them. And yes, it's hard to be appreciative and optimistic when storms can make us feel plain nasty.

But just as there will always be storms, the skies will always clear. No matter how nasty you feel, it doesn't take an optimist to admit that no storm lasts forever. That, my friends, in one of its more obscure forms, is what you call HOPE.

And that's the type of Hope you can't lose. It's undeniable.

So don't let being lost in a storm make you believe that you've lost all Hope. Storms remind us that Hope exists.

Metaphor #7

I think love must be kinda like...
 
I've been singing in the UC Berkeley Gospel Chorus for just over 2 years now. Someone recently asked me, what keeps me coming back?

When we learn a new song, it's a kinda frustrating (sometimes painful) process. One by one, each section has to learn their part...and some parts are less intuitive than you might think. So we spend a lot of time repeating phrases over and over, seeing how it all fits together, making mistakes, correcting mistakes...all the while thinking about the song.

But there comes a point when it all clicks, and we really know the song. We've learned it not just in our minds, but we've also internalized it, dare I say, in our hearts. We no longer have to think about the song because the words and harmonies just flow out...it feels like "learning" the song was really just uncovering what was always a part of us.

When that happens, when it clicks, I lose myself. I'm still aware of everything else in the world...but it just doesn't matter. I feel like whatever happens to me after this, I will always have this moment.

And so there's nothing left for me to do but close my eyes and keep singing as if the song will never end...

This past Monday, I moved out of my home of four years, 2330 Blake St. (aka "LPG"). There is no way any reflection of mine can encompass all of my experiences there.

So instead, let me share with you a letter that one of our neighbors actually distributed throughout the neighborhood a few years ago, regarding our Sunday nite rooftop concert series.

Although he is speaking about music, I believe this letter can be further generalized to be an accurate expression of this chapter of my life.

September 24, 2007

Dear Neighbor,

I own 2324 Blake Street just up the street from you. My wife and I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves and speak with you regarding the young people singing in the neighborhood.

I have been a resident of Berkeley, on and off, for more than 50 years. And, among other things, I have been an instructor at UC Berkeley.

We think adults have both an ethical and moral responsibility to support and encourage younger people, particularly, in our neighborhoods, who make the effort to engage in song and the creation of music that, in a neighborhood context, is not excessive in volume.

Though it might be considered a little noisy at times, it is a happy noise. They are not drunk or disorderly. They are expressing joy and love of life, something we tend to forget as we get older. As mature thinking adults, we appreciate and value them for reminding us of this. They are never singing or playing music on the streets for very long, and we have never heard them on the streets at an unreasonable hour.

We trust to your intelligence and maturity to agree with us that culture - in this case, musical expression - is a key to the health of society and community. Cultural expression enriches and gives vitality to a neighborhood.

The young people who have been singing and making music up the street from you and next door to us have brought people out into the street, gathering, meeting each other, discoursing, and enjoying being "serenaded". Let us join together, when and where we can, to give praise and encouragement to these young people who have the courage to get out in the street and create music and vitalize our street. We have even noticed that their singing and musicianship is improving.

Cordially,

Joushua Reichek

Elizabeth Baker

Graduation (II)

I just found the page I used to scribble down my 45-second-speech at last year's Pil-Grad:
Here it is again, typed up, in case you can't decipher my penmanship:

To Mom and Dad, thank you for all your love and support even though I only called on the 1st of the month and came to the house to do laundry. Thank you for coming to see me in Cal Band, PCN, and gospel choir; it meant the world to me. I love you.

To Grandma Connie, thank you for always letting me visit, bringing me to Crazy Buffet, and giving me pants. Because of you, I had a full stomach and plenty of clothes. I love you.

To Grandma Nellie, thank you for your support from even though you're thousands of miles away in the Philippines. I always felt your love despite the distance. I love you.

To Grandpa Selmo, I know you're proud of me from heaven. I love you.

To Grandpa Sequiel, I took your name in your honor. This degree belongs to you. I love you.

To Nate, Carla, and Casey, thank you for letting me watch Jeopardy! and pass out on your couch. You're my family here. I love you.

To my Ading, April, we're perfect for each other in every way. Same cheesey smile. What more can I ask for? Being your kuya has been the most rewarding relationship I've had. I love you.

To everyone else I've never told, I love you!

Graduation

One year ago today, I graduated from UC Berkeley. I repeat this but I don't believe it.

Tomorrow, I will attend Pilipino Graduation and see that newborn Class of 2010. Perhaps then I will realize that now there are alumni younger than me - perhaps that will be my closure...

But before I close the loop, I think today is an appropriate time to share with you all, once again, last year's Pil-Grad speech.

You very well may not remember what I said, but don't worry...I won't hold it against you, haha. In fact, if you have forgotten, it might be a good exercise to read through some of the points I tried to make and see how it it speaks to you right now, a year later.

I don't claim that this is the best speech ever, but still, I would like it to be remembered. Remembered not for my sake, but for us...our community. Our voice.

Family, friends, and distinguished faculty:

I am here to inspire you with some words of wisdom as we graduate today, the Pilipino Class of 2009. But in trying to find the words to inspire you, I can’t help but recall the words that have inspired me during my time here.

At every commencement I have attended, I have seen scattered individuals wearing this Pilipino stole, and I have received compliments on the beauty of its design. Today, all of these scattered individuals have creeped out of the corners of their departments to come together, and let me tell you, nothing is more beautiful than that achievement. What am I talking about? It might’ve been difficult for us to appreciate while taking those 3-hour finals or writing 20+ page papers and reports…but just the fact that we are here today and we are together is an achievement in itself.

We have studied with some of the best researchers and teachers in their fields, and it is their job to push the limits of knowledge every day and bring us along for the ride in their classes. However, as I’m sure we all know, the ride to graduation also comes with many bumps, twists, and turns. But it is because of the support of this community that we are able to pick ourselves up when we fall or find our way when we get lost.

The ride is rough because our professors do not make a living by merely accepting what they’ve been told or what they’ve read…and this is the mentality that they have instilled on us. Let me share a scenario: The professor asks a question, and several bright students spit out the answer right away. Then the professor responds with, “Yes…but why?”

The class is silent while everyone ponders the new riddle…until some brave soul volunteers to try to hack together some explanation.

You see, I like to think that our professors did this not to frustrate us but rather to get us used to questioning if the first answer we get is really sufficient—to train us to push the boundaries and think like we need to think to be successful in whatever we do after today.

This brings me to my first “words of wisdom”. Being here at UC Berkeley, everyone loves throwing around the term “#1”—for example, “#1 public university” or in my case, “#1 department of chemistry”. But how did we get to be #1? Well, Alex Saragosa from the Chicano Studies department answers that in the form of a negative as he says, “You don’t become #1 by just going along with the status quo. You don’t become #1 by just accepting what everyone else says is right.”

As members of the Pilipino Community on the UC Berkeley campus, we can understand the power of these words because it is only our nature to analyze, question, and even be critical of what we have been told, both in our academics and the solutions that have been presented to us to solve the issues this community faces—issues such as representation in the student body, affordability, and a curriculum relevant to our history. Being #1, then, is not just something that we can brag about but really a responsibility, a sort of continuing duty to one another.

To graduate in the year 2009 means we are being released into a different world than even just one year ago. This is a landmark year for all underrepresented communities and people facing inequality in this country. “Change” is now a fundamental word in the country’s vocabulary, but graduating today means that we are the first class to be the change that everyone else is talking about.

So all we have to do to be this change, then, is simply do what we’ve been trained to do—question the answers we get, push the boundaries, and continue being #1. Easy enough, right?

Ok, so maybe solving all our nation’s problems or the problems we face as a Pilipino community won’t come just that easily…but we must still maintain our commitment to improve the quality of life for all people. Earlier, I mentioned being at the “#1 public university” and talked being “#1”…but what about being public?

UC Berkeley being a “public” institution means that it inherently belongs to the people, to ALL people, not just the populations who are more privileged than others. Now, as some of you might know, I worked with CalSO, our orientation program here, for three years. Being the face of the university while being part of this Pilipino community, I had to find that middle ground between celebrating the “diversity” of UC Berkeley and the struggle to increase Pilipino representation in the student body. And I think that the discussion between the two has been an important part of my experience here.

But working for the university, I learned a notable statistic, my second “words of wisdom”. We have more students from low-income families here on this campus than all of the Ivy League schools combined and one-third of the student body are first-generation college students. The Chancellor brings this up almost every time he speaks, just like he did at General Commencement yesterday, but he has a good reason. When we compete with those other institutions—with Harvard, Yale, and yes Dad, Stanford—we represent the people who, otherwise, would remain unrepresented.

To say that this school is the perfect public university of all people is quite the exaggeration, but what is certain is that no other school’s student body looks like ours and our experiences have supplemented our education in ways that can only occur here at UC Berkeley.

Through learning from one another and supporting one another, we have become each other’s voices. When we graduate today and go off to change the world, we must remember that we represent not just ourselves, not just the Pilipino community, but now we represent every person who has influenced us. We are the voice for our parents, our grandparents, our friends, and the communities all of us have come from, especially those communities who do not have the luxury of having a voice.

And what gets me most excited is knowing that we are going to go take this voice and gain positions of influence and power. When we do, we will be advocates for the communities brought us there. My last words of wisdom is a phrase that I know the Pilipino community has passed down for years, and the first time I heard it was at Pil-Grad a couple years ago. The phrase is, “Lift as you climb.”

So when I say to be an “advocate”, that doesn’t mean that we all have to dedicate our entire lives to political activism, although I’m sure some of you will and will be wonderfully effective. But to be an advocate and to lift as you climb simply means being aware of who you are, what you represent, and where you have come from so that our voice is present in whatever position you hold—be it doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, project manager, teacher, or graduate student. This is probably the last time we will all physically be together, but it is our voice that will always keep us connected.

So now when we say that we graduated from the #1 public university, we’re not just bragging; we’re stating an awareness of our social responsibility to one another and our ability to improve the quality of life for the Pilipino community and for all people in need of a voice. When we graduate today, we graduate not just as individuals but as one beautiful community, sharing all our achievements.

These are the words that have inspired me throughout my time here, and I hope I’ve inspired you in one way or another to go out and, in turn, be the inspiration for everyone else. Just like when our professors asked us, “Why?” we encounter a new riddle in our lives by graduating today. But this time, let us not be silent. Let our voice be heard. Congratulations Pilipino Class of 2009! Thank you and GO BEARS!

Optimism

My first post in a series I call:
Why The Heck Did I Say That?
In this series, I will revisit some of my cryptic (more-or-less) Tweets and/or Facebook Status Updates and try to flesh them out, try to find a more concrete meaning in them. And perhaps in so doing, meaning will find you too.

Appropriately for this first post, I went back to my very first Tweet and went forward in time until I found something worth an explanation. I found two which go together quite well...

/\/\/\

Gonna go to bed now...before I get too emo and put something online that I'll regret tomorrow, haha. 3:44 AM Jun 2nd, 2009

"You have to anticipate the positive." -A practical meaning of "optimism" from Giants' commentator Mike Krukow. 8:33 PM Jul 3rd, 2009

/\/\/\

For better or worse, I care a lot about how I appear. The most superficial example is how I choose my outfits. Every day before work, I go through a routine which involves creating some sort of plan, discerning the best color scheme, and assembling an outfit out of what I happen to have in my closet.

I put a lot of effort into this process and take pride in the final result. You see, my clothes are not just something I slap on to look nice. To me, my clothes are an expression of who I am, and I believe that being proud of my outfit helps bring out the best in me.

Now let's expand this example more generally...not just how I look but let's also include what I say, how I interact with other people, and my overall demeanor. Although I don't necessarily have the same routines or formulas in place, I still make a conscious effort to appear somewhat polished, confident, and optimistic.

But I'm not perfect. Sometimes, I have a rough day or week. Sometimes, I stay up late, reflecting and thinking until I drive myself a little crazy. Sometimes, my efforts slip and I lose my level-head, usually resulting in some sort of unnecessarily emotional or personal Tweet or status update, or in person, I will be standoffish or passive-aggressive. Yes, no doubt you've seen me like that.

But I believe that these slip-ups are the exception...not the norm. For every one of my "emo" updates, I have a multitude of updates that try to provide hope, inspire, or at least share a happy moment. I'm pretty sure one of the most common words I use on my Twitter is "haha".

So when someone tells me that I'm being a downer and that I should quit being so depressing and mopey, I get really upset. All of a sudden, my efforts to keep my appearance generally happy are irrelevant. All of a sudden, I am being judged by the moments in my life when I was weakest. And that hurts.

I hope for the best...it's not always easy for me, but I still do it. And for someone to focus on my exceptions and label me as "emo" or "negative" is plain not fair. The part of myself that I am proud of is being ignored.

The end result of this judgment is not recognizing that, above it all, I genuinely always hope for and expect the best. Some of you still may not believe me when I say that, and rightfully so, since it's hard for me to believe it myself sometimes.

But then I think about how I function in this world, and I really do expect the best out of each situation. I'm not talking about a cheery disposition and wearing a smile and all that outwardly happy stuff. I'm talking about how my expectations are fundamental to who I am and the decisions I make.

Every step I take has its footing on anticipating the positive. I set my future based on uncertain successes:

I always remained relaxed about school because I anticipated that I would pass all my classes and graduate. I am staying with my job because I anticipate that more doors will open to me and I will find my true career calling. I invested all my strength into certain relationships with certain people because I anticipated that my feelings would be reciprocated. I get myself out of bed in the morning because I anticipate that the day will be worth it.

If I were truly a negative person, I would never get anywhere.

So you see, optimism is not even a choice for me. On some level, optimism is me, the reason I continue to exist; it's the reason I can still have things like faith, hope...love.

It's the force that drives me forward even when I feel like the world pushes me back.

So please don't say I don't have it. Please don't ignore me.

Inspired

During my commute on BART this morning, I was listening to To The Best Of Our Knowledge, and I would like to share with you an excerpt from this episode. It's been a while since my last post, and well, these are actually the words that inspired me to begin writing here again:

"The greatest healing is to give yourself away, to use yourself up before you die. And really, if you can get yourself on the page so clean and clear that it communicates, you give yourself up. It's over. You've given your life to the page and to other people...which is really wonderful."

--Natalie Goldberg, author of Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, episode titled "From Suburbia to Surreal: Writer's Lives"