To Go

I backpacked from Ho Chi Minh City up to Huế, free and alone. It was during winter break, after my first quarter of college. I needed this time to forget, to be an unknown in a foreign state, to be unattached to anything, and to be whoever I wanted to be, or whoever I felt like being in that moment. Each new person I met was a new challenge for me to invent a new identity. I was addicted to this drug, travel. I lived in the illusion of infinite possibilities and exploration.

Resurrection Mix Tape

Sounds for the changing, to the soul that is on the move. For something new, into the distance, always forwards nose-first. Life is malleable. We can begin and re-begin whenever and however often necessary. Fresh. We are free to rise from the past as a better self, and save ourselves from the sins inside of us. We are our own heroes. 

1. The Funeral / Band of Horses

2. If You Want to Sing Out / Cat Stevens

3. Stay Alive / José González

4. You Only Live Once / The Strokes

5. One Headlight / The Wallflowers

6. Lake Michigan / Rogue Wave

7. Rock City / Kings of Leon

8. Sodom, South Georgia / Iron & Wine

9. Open Season / High Highs

10. 40 Day Dream / Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

11. The Breach / Dustin Tebbutt

Transience

Once we are done with the standing sequence, my bikram yoga instructor tells us to rest on our backs before we proceed to the ground sequence. She tells us to open our eyes, but have them glancing in the distance, soft, while our bodies in surrender, breathing and sweating. As I stood facing the jellyfish, from a very different time and place, my eyes were the same, soft, distant. I was still, but I was elsewhere.

A Little Update

Finally a moment to myself. It's been a busy past couple of months. Certain wonderful things and challenging things that change you. I recently got a new roll of film developed. This picture was taken during my leave for the U.S. We stopped in Shanghai, China for a couple of hours before flying straight for Los Angeles. Thinking about all that's happened between the time of this picture and the time of the present. I looked so young. 

Instagram

I was recently gifted a smart phone this past holiday, a final invitation to the twenty-first century and my first acceptance. I have been uploading my phone photographs onto Instagram. Been having some fun.

A great song. 

Now

Every morning I write myself a to-do list for the day. Revise Unit 1-4 ANTH03. Complete Draft #1 CLEI80A. Though, I never look at my weekly planner. That is too overwhelming. I take things day by day, and it's nice this way. It is nice to be doing something you enjoy, and to take it in slowly. Today, I had my first mid-term exam. I think I did well. When I handed in my paper, and then walked out of the lecture building I felt a real peace inside of me, a sense of accomplishment and purpose. I am here. Now. 

Respite

Between school work there is a space for respite. I fill it with music. I sing this song to my roommates. It is a nice thing to let loose. 

*Photograph taken with my Samsung flip phone

Wild

One of my homework readings includes a chapter about Belzoni and Kidder, great discoverers, idealists. People I have never met, but know. And I can't help but feel kind of great myself, exploring this new place. I recently enrolled in an Indian dance class and I just took up running. I am trying out vegetarianism and started listening to hip hop and I am kind of actually really happy. The wild one wanders.

*Photograph taken with my Samsung flip phone

School

I write an essay about the environment and society, while one of my roommates solves her chemistry problems. This is school. We learn about the world and about each other and about ourselves, and we learn about the mysteries that life may bring to us. Listen to this.

*Photograph taken with my Samsung flip phone