Remember in high school when it was your birthday, and your best friends would bake you cakes and coordinate shirts to spell out your name or something? And your phone would be buzzing with all the texts, and you’d feel the love via, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRLLLL SEE YOU 5TH PERIOD!!! XOXO”. And it kind of sucked if you had a summer birthday or a birthday during a break/weekend because you wouldn’t get to see your friends (aka you wouldn’t get any cake).
**This might be only relevant to my friends from high school cause we went all out for everyone’s birthdays, sigh.**
Anyway, on Sunday, I will be turning 23.
Taylor didn’t prepare me for this age; I don’t quite know what to expect.
It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters
And make fun of our exes, uh uh, uh uh.
It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight.
To fall in love with strangers, uh uh, uh uh.
Taylor, all of that is acceptable when you’re 22 due to your chorus. So what happens at the stroke of midnight?! Am I not allowed to dress hip? Am I not allowed to write blog posts making fun of my ex who literally whispered sweet nothings into my ear? Will the doors of the 24 hour IHOP be locked at midnight? Must I only fall in love with people I know?!!??!
I’m confused as to how my life is supposed to go, but at the same time, 22 was a great year. I remember right before my 22nd birthday, my friend told me that 22 was the worst year ever. Obviously, his words did not have me jumping for joy, and they always loomed in the back of my head throughout the year whenever I was randomly feeling down. However, looking back at this year, 22 was probably the most fun and yolo year ever, as well as the weirdest romantical year…
So this is a post of 22 things that are somewhat memorable from this 22nd year of living on this earth. On Sunday, I’ll be 23, and I’ll buy Mama Kim a cake or something, cause she was in a hospital and was having a human come out of her fucking lady part. She’s the real Most Valuable Parent on February 8th.
22 had a lot of good things, and a lot of shitty things.
From things about my school life,
1. I graduated from UCLA. It is a pretty good school. But I haven’t touched the inverted fountain yet.
2. I auditioned and made it to the final round of Spring Sing’s Company (if you don’t know what that is, you can skip past this). I’ve never memorized and recited a monologue (good thing I’ve watched Mean Girls so many times that I could recite Regina’s monologue about Janis being a lesbian like the pledge of allegiance), made a parody of a song… and sang in front of strangers, and I’ve never played improv games for an hour — aka the worst hour of my life because I felt like I was absotively posolutely the unfunniest person ever.
3. My ass was twerking on the jumbo screen in Pauley Pavilion. Let’s begin at like 2:03.
4. I took a game theory class as my English senior seminar because Joy told me to, and I thought we would be playing board games or something. Instead, we spent a class watching people play “Heavy Rain” and I learned how to write an interactive novel online. Yeah. What.
5. I made friends in my last science lab GE with this guy who was apparently on the basketball team. He was hurt when I told him I never had gone to a game. We talked about finding me a boyfriend. It wasn’t until later that I found out that my new friend Norman Powell was a big deal for UCLA basketball.
to things about my career and future,
6. I applied on a whim to Teach For America. I wasn’t too sure honestly if I would be able to handle the pressure of teaching and teaching.. that quickly and to a certain demographic. To me, you really have to be invested in it whole heartedly; there’s no turning back with Teach For America because if you give up, you can’t just quit and find a new job. Instead, you’re quitting on yourself and your students; you’re supposed to be shaping the new generation. So all of that frightened me. I applied just cause, I wrote my essays on my phone in a parking lot outside a bar at 11:50pm for the 11:59pm deadline. I got past all of the following rounds, until the final round with the teaching lesson and the interview. At the interview, he quoted me from a previous phone interview:
Honestly, I have commitment issues, as well as a fear of failing. What if I fail myself and can’t teach? What if I can’t commit wholeheartedly, and get anxiety from being thrown into this teaching setting so quickly? What if my kids don’t like me/I don’t like them/I don’t know how to do anything and no one will help me? I know that if I’m passionate about something, I’ll give it my 240%, but if I’m not fully there, I… just don’t know if I’ll be able to do this.
He asked me to explain this, and told me this was a concern for his final decision. I told him the truth; it was all correct, and I refused to front about my feelings. I wanted to be completely transparent about how I felt personally and he told me that he respected me so much, and he said this might not be the right time for me to be doing TFA. It wasn’t a condescending type of rejection (the final decisions were to be out a few weeks later), but it was more that he understood exactly how I was feeling, and knew that it just wasn’t what I wanted to be doing just yet. I wasn’t mature enough yet, and it was apparent. Maybe next year though.
7. I’m funemployed kind of and it’s not really that fun. I mean it’s like, ok. I’m technically not funemployed because I have been picked up to write for a few blogs (that I surprisingly don’t advertise on my FB) — they all found me through my online portfolio or LinkedIn and that’s pretty cool to me! But as for a regular 9-5 Monday through Friday corporate kind of thing? I don’t have it. At first, I thought I was lacking it, but I think it’s becoming apparent that that is not what I want in life. But I’m not sure. I just want to make my mom happy. Sigh.
8. I got into USC’s Rossier School of Education for grad school. I didn’t tell anyone I applied, and I barely told my mom like a week later that I got in. I just… feel like it’s something I want and need, but I didn’t really research it that much. Again, I applied on a whim, and when I got in, I was just… mildly pleased.
In my 22 years of living, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always have the same answer:
I don’t want to be something like a doctor or a lawyer, you know? I’m not bunking their calibers, rather it is the statement that one has to make when answering that question. Why do I need to be ONE certain thing? I don’t want to have a destination that I’m working for; I want to have a life journey. I want to write, teach, be on TV, edit a magazine, dance – I don’t know. But I know I don’t see my career path as a straight line, but rather a weird shape with different points. Maybe like a sine or cosine curve thing.
One thing was for sure; I wanted to teach some time in my life, and to teach, you need credentials. So grad school seemed like the right idea.
As of now, I’ve deferred until March. We’ll see though.
to things involving boYzZ,
9. I found a guy that I really liked and clicked with, but we had to stop dating because oh what he had a girlfriend. He promised he would break up with her, and I played the whole “ignorance is bliss” thing for way too long, and trust me, ignorance? Not so blissful! I gave him more than enough time to figure out his shit. Finally, I had to give him an ultimatum and…!!!!
He didn’t choose me. But that’s life.
10. After choosing Countdown over White Wonderland, Michelle and I were planning on my epic New Years Eve photo. We were going to get on shoulders and take a picture of my drinking water when the ball dropped, signifying my thirst among all the happy couples at midnight. However, around 11:30pm, I took a look around and realized that no one was in any state to stage this perfect photo that I waited 364 days to post on Instagram. Sigh. So instead, I (thirstily maybe not really more like I was mildly parched, like I jogged to my car in the parking lot and I wasn’t dying of thirst but water would be nice, nawmean) texted my homie who was there to come find me. Blah blah, started 2015 with a cute ass kiss, blah.
11. I made out with one of my best friends. Let me tell you, sophomore/junior year Yung Christina was mildly infatuated with this kid. After some ups and downs that only existed in my head, we became great friends and I wouldn’t change it for the world, so when post-grad Currentina kissed him, she and Yungstina had a little chat with each other. In conclusion, Yungstina was jumping up and down with joy, ready to request him to be FB official, while Currentina smiled and crossed her arms, mentally checking him off her list of things to do.
12. I went into relapse with this one guy I was seeing. I missed him even though he annoyed the shit out of me with his constant neediness and frequent desires for affirmation. If you don’t know me, you’ll know that I hate neediness and clinginess, and it actually makes me want you exponentially less. With time though, I realized that it wasn’t his fault, but it was mine. I’m cold – I don’t like letting people in, and I don’t like making effort in relationships. So I came to terms that he was annoying to me, but he was good to me, and is probably great to any girl who likes that shit.
I’m just not that girl.
13. I went to DTF for the first time and my best friend’s friend kissed me because he wanted to “know what it would be like.”
14. I found the love of my life on Tinder and I’m pretty sure we’re going to get married. He’s half Filipino and half Jewish and studying for his CPA exams. JULIUS IF YOU’RE READING THIS, JUST KNOW THAT I’M WAITING FOR US TO WORK OUT.
Yikes, that section (for the most part) was pretty depressing. Moving on…
to my social life/miscellaneous,
15. I went to my very first rave with my PLURLYFE group. I had never considered even raving, thinking it looked fun but it just wasn’t for me. Jumping up and down to music I don’t really listen to with sweaty people on drugs did not sound pleasing to me in the slightest. However, it was senior year, and my best friends were going to be there with me sharing this moment, so what did I have to lose? Crush 2014 was one of my favorite life decisions #PLUR.
16. I kind of snuck into Coachella with my friends. There was a lot of waiting around and restlessness, and once we got in, it was hot and dusty. But I will never forget the fact that we met a group of people who were so PLUR and had just candy flipped. A random ginger man put me on his shoulders when Disclosure played “Latch” and I was so happy… until my top fell off, and stupid Chavy was unhelpful in putting it back on, so I flashed a man unintentionally. Sigh.
17. My four years on ACA – basically my whole life – actually ended really terribly, but with time, things healed thankfully.
18. I found Steezy accidentally, and found a way to stay in touch with my love of dance and combine it with my love of writing.
19. Speaking of Steezy, I got to meet a lot of weird people and people who I love and people who I click with (Jerould if you’re reading this, I’m DEFINITELY NOT talking about you).
20. I got a ticket on my way home from Mammoth for driving… a little too fast. What is the speed limit on a freeway? Apparently not 95 mph. It was my first speeding ticket ever. However, I accepted this as my carma because I drive 90-100 almost every time I go to/from LA.
21. I matched with one of my ex’s brothers on Tinder by complete accident and now we’re basically in love. I would have added this into the boyzz section…
but he’s a man.
lol jk I thought it was more miscellaneous srry.
22. During Spring Break, I really wanted to make the most of it and do yolo things every day. This included getting coaxed into going to a boys trip to Vegas with my best friend and his frat bros. We got there late, missed the group I was supposed to go in with, and luckily, a friend of mine had friends that were planning to go to the same day club as us, so I got dropped off at their hotel to go in with them. I thought I knew what ABGs were… until I met them. After an hour of meaningless small talk with some of the scariest girls I’ve ever been with, we got in, and me and Hannah took a picture with NeYo. The rest was a blur.
Woke up around 8pm, showered, ate McDonalds, pregamed, threw up the McDonalds before leaving, and left to go to the club. Somehow, I linked onto a bachelorette party, and these small Asian women were like 40. They were all sorts of drunk, and I was making meaningless small talk until we got into the front with the ID scans. I just wanted to get in. The one girl who was clinging onto me was mildly belligerent, and couldn’t get in. She gets upset and drags me with her. The elevator was so close, I could reach it. Sigh. We then snuck in through another line and ran into the elevator. The doors closed and I let out a sigh of relief when – BOOM. The security guard holds open the door, tells us to be quiet, and asks the girl if she has been drinking. She somehow lets out a cohesive sentence, and we get in.
I have to wait for the guys, and when they come, I end up drinking all of the alcohol at the table because home boys were not pullin’ that night. Was it them or was it the weather or was it the club? I do not know. All I know is that I was dancing with a man and I didn’t have my ID or money and with 2% left on my phone, I get a text from my friend saying they left. Grool. The boy I was dancing with offered to walk me back to my room — what a gentleman!!!!!
Later, I realized he was trying to get lucky. My b.
Later later, I forgave my friend for leaving me because a girl yakked on his shirt at the club.
you were a good time,22.
In conclusion,
underqualified as f_ck 
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