A Coming of Age Story

It was the year 2000 and I was starting my college years. My high school years ended with some highs and lows.

After graduating as one of my class' Salutatorian, with a speech I wrote on the fly while wild-girl camping in Canada with my best friends. Things felt easy and smooth. Excitement was gentle and not surprising. My senior year was so fun, and near the end I had met H. I think that's the year I hosted crazy blowout parties at my parents' home. I think I became somewhat of a legend that year.

Small, shy Asian girl does good.

Then I took a year off to reflect, take life at a slower pace, and yet go full-force with my figure skating. I think that's the year C abandoned me as a coach, especially since I wasn't being as committed with my morning practices as before. I had a boyfriend I was secretly seeing and doing some wild-child things. But then B became my coach. With her gentle and affirming approach, I was able to pass the senior freeskate test. I had made it to the highest level as competitive figure skater. I had done it.

That year, I also went to Seattle for a few months to be with my sister. She was pregnant with her first child and we hung out a lot. I also brought my skates and skated out there. Plus, my brother-in-law's family hired me a front desk receptionist at their motel. I saw some shady shit there and that led to a crackdown. It was dope.

I'm not sure what epiphanies I had while taking a year off school. I just knew that I didn't want to work at a dry cleaners all my life, and wanted a career I was passionate about. At that time, I thought it was becoming a doctor. So after that gap year, I went all in with my studies as a first year at Umich. My first year was tough, the classes were so rigorous, but I getting like a 3.6. But then I realized I was study so much, and maybe there was a way to study less. Not sure why I thought that but I think it was partially true. I just didn't know exactly how to go about studying smarter, not harder.

There is so much that happened during those 4 years a Umich. I went from being pre-med, to pre-law, to becoming somewhat of a budding creative writer. I had my Asian American History and Asian American Lit class to be thankful for for that re-birth. A passion I had never felt, as I had always been a science nerd since my freshman year in high school.

But Asian American Studies opened me up, and in a bright and vibrant way. There were lessons on writing, literature, and identity that I felt so excited about. It was more about learning from life, than learning through textbooks. I read poetry, fiction, graphic novels--all of these somewhat new, but also familiar, and also so mind blowing.

That carried me through my experience living in Seoul, South Korea for 2 years. There, I wrote for myself more consistently. Though, I was going through some mental stuff, it was still a time that was imperative to my start of becoming a creative writer.