flossing my teeth

most of my childhood was w.out health/ dental insurance (i think it's something like 33% of Korean Americans in CA are uninsured compared to 15% of all Californians). perhaps only because of Highlights Magazine and those cheap flat green/ lime lollipops do I have vague memories of going to the dentist in 1st grade. after then, the next time i went to the dentist was sophomore year of high school. i got a root canal. on the drive home my dad kept saying, "be careful not to chew the inside of your cheek". i had no idea what that meant but it sounded soooooo intriguing. being the crazy person that i am, i went a head and did it anyway. 2 hours later, i was in lots of unnecessary pain.

but i digress.

3 weeks ago, for the first time in my 27 years, i started flossing my teeth. 3 weeks ago I went to the dentist after 3 years of avoiding the dentist. turns out my teeth are super healthy (actually, i think i have super teeth even though i chew on ice, bite plastic pen caps in half, and chew on things i'm not supposed to chew on: "no braces? reallly? so straight" "upper and lower jaws are per0fectly aligned." "nice arch" "wow, you can open your jaw really wide. if anyone ever hits you in the face with a baseball bat, you'll still have good range of motion in your jaws! yup, no worries about jaw problems for you!" yes, my dentist really said that). anyhoo, my gums are not so great due to the absence of flossing.

i like my new dentist so much, i decided that i would finally floss. for 3 weeks, i flossed every single night. but in the last 2 nights have been so tired i just went straight to bed. fast forward to 10 minutes ago when i flossed for the first time in 2 days. SERIOUSLY DISGUSTING. b/c i started flossing right after i got my teeth cleaned, i only saw build up w/in a 24 hour period. 72 hours of build up is nasty. i can't believe I have gone so long w/out flossing. NEVER AGAIN.

that is all.

Rest in Peace Loni Ding

I just heard that Asian American filmmaker Loni Ding passed away. Loni Ding* was an multiple Emmy award winning filmmaker, producer, activist, artist and teacher. She joins the list of distinguished Asian American sheroes and heroes who have passed on in the past year. My condolences to her family and those who love her.

My junior year at Cal, I had the honor of taking Loni Ding's Ethnic Studies class called Documentary Film in Communities of Color. We spent a quarter of the semester in a traditional film studies class and spent the rest of the semester working on our own documentary.

That was a crazy semester with a lot of long nights and weekends filming and editing. It took us forever to figure out how to smuggle our mini dv camera into the Media Resources Center in Moffit Library so we could copy clips from films/ docs to use as b-roll.

Anyway, the first time I met Loni Ding (and pretty much every time I saw her after then), I thought, "Loni Ding is genius and crazy!" Crazy in the best way of course! She embodied life. Loni Ding had so much vibrant spunkiness to her. She knew what she wanted and got it. She knew what she wanted from us as well and had no problem letting us know. Her outlook, her art, and her way of being complexified for me what it could mean to be Asian American.

At the time I took Loni Ding's class, I think was in her early 70s, but you would never know it. We only had 3 clues to her age 1) She always yelled at us to "Stop muttering! I can't hear you! Why do you all mutter?!" But it was really her hearing. I used to wonder, how has she not figured it out yet? 2) She always yelled somewhat because of her hearing and 3) Once my group went to her house for a meeting. It was totally something you would see in the movies. Long shot from the street: Three Asian American college students approach an old house. Trees and plants are growing everywhere. Birds eye angle of the students and house: Students gaze up, look around and wonder, Where is the entrance? Extreme close up: Hand knocking on a door. Medium shot: students look at each other nervously. We hear creaking, squeaky door hinges and a voice off to the right that yells, "What are you doing over there! Come here!" Pan far right to the other side of the house, up some stairs: enter Loni Ding shaking her head at the silly college students.

Thank you Loni Ding for these memories. RIP

Loni Ding on developing her identity as Chinese American and as artist:


"Before I went to Mexico, my whole sense of myself and my esthetic sense of what I liked in shapes and colors in clothing, furniture, sculpture, buildings, anything, was really into WASP culture. I liked gray colors, linear, Gothic shapes and hollow-cheeked people. I wanted to be a hollow-cheeked person, a wispy, tubercular type. Instead I was sturdy, chunky, mesomorphic.

Then I hit Mexico. I just went for the work camp but ended up seeing the murals of Diego Rivera, Orozco, and a lot of countryside of Mexico—the colors of the earth and people. I started to see that all the good people in the Rivera murals were the round, brown people: I saw the orange and the reds, the deep greens and the purples of the culture, and the round bodies painted by Rivera. When they sat down on the little chairs, part of their buttocks would hang over the edge! Very real and tender. The lean, gaunt faces were of Henry Ford, Rockefeller, the Conquistadors—the evil people.

When I came back my tastes had completely turned around. I looked in the mirror and I rather liked this round person that I saw! Everything turned into reds, oranges and brilliant colors. I also looked differently at someone like Eric Sevareid, the news commentator who was a classic WASP type. I used to think that he was the absolute last word. And when Sir Kenneth Clark, in a PBS series, would talk about "Civilization," by which he meant only western European culture—I used to think that this was wonderful.

Well, when I got back I suddenly looked at both of these men with a totally distant eye. I had a skeptical attitude, and they no longer had any power over me. I thought they were quite ordinary."



On why she does her work
"For the problem of absence, the main work is to create presence. My preferred approach is to displace stereotypes by creating vital images of Asian Americans as real human beings, with individual faces, voices, and personal histories that we come to know and care about.

They would not be the Americans whose differences are dissolved in the "melting pot," but people speaking with the distinctive accents and rhythms of their real individual and family histories; neither looking nor sounding like the "typical American."

Authentic images of minorities do not abound. For ourselves too, we have a need for the objectifying record. We think we know what we look and sound like, until we’re surprised or shocked by hearing our actual voices on a tape recorder, or seeing our physical selves in moving images".


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*For some reason, I never feel comfortable calling her "Loni", she is always Loni Ding to me!

Korean Parents (blurry iPhone pix)

Parents are here for a few days!

1) First meal Umma makes is crab chigae with kimbop!


2) Appah trying to fix my Crocodile Dentist



3) Umma and Appah at Ovo

I hate train tracks

Last night I made plans for a long (for me) bike ride this weekend. I'm a little rusty in my biking skills and nervous about biking so far so I decided to ready myself by pedaling to work this morning. This helps me get used to riding in traffic and gets my bum used to the saddle again. I also was worried about falling on the long weekend ride and being to scared to finish the ride. I figured if I fell on a short ride, I could get my nerves together better and just generally be used to falling. Yes, I am that uncoordinated that I anticipate falling all the time.

I pumped up my tires at midnight, fixed my fenders and filled up my water bottle, ready to go. This morning I hoped on and pedaled over the bridge, under the highway, and on the Embarcadero. Vroom vroom vroom or whatever the noise is that bikes make. Three-quarters of the way there I fell. Hard.

My bike flipped over as I was crossing a set of train tracks. I fell off and bruised my legs up really bad. Thank goodness I was wearing jeans and gloves as that saved my knees and hands. A cop stopped and started to ask me questions about how I fell, even though he obviously saw the whole thing/ I was too disoriented to answer, super flustered, embarrassed, scared (that for some reason I was going to get a ticket for falling off my bike) and in a lot of pain. I jumped up off the ground, put my shit back in my basket (which was really bent from the fall) and said incoherently, "the tracks... train.. crossing...". The cop just shook his head and sped off. I as relieved that I didn't get a ticket (why would I worry about that tho?) and then was sad b/c I realized I was too scared to get back on my bike and could have hitched a ride w/ the cop.

I made it to work but was wobbly all day long. My bike basket was crushed; my legs ached; my pinky was bleeding; and my wrists were really sore. To top it off, a piece of my pedal even broke off! So scary.

At the end of the day, I had to gather up all of my energy and courage to bike home and cross those same tracks. My bike commute requires me to cross train tracks 8 times one way; 16 times round trip. Very, very scary. On the way back, I rode over tracks 1,2, and 3 just fine. When I got to 4 though-- the set I originally fell on-- I couldn't do it. I had to fully dismount my bike and walk it across the tracks. Yes, I was that shaken up. Yes, I am happy I fell today so that if I fall again on the weekend bike ride, I will already be an expert.

I am also happy cuz my bike was so messed up I had to take my bike to Alameda Bike to get it adjusted. There I learned some new tips on how to avoid falling on those damn tracks. yay bikes! boo train tracks!

how we sit in class: part deux

White Female
White Male
White Male
White Male
White Male
White Male
White Female
Black Female
Korean Female
Latino
Latina
Pinay
Pinay
White Female
Latina
Latino

bad student!

in high school i was a slacker. yes i had pretty good grades, but honestly, i just knew how to work the system. when i think back on it, i'm amazed that people didn't call me out on my bullshit. i'm even more amazed that I, a child of korean immigrants who have very little cultural captial, was able to move through and manipulate the white and economically privileged world of my school. how did i pull off that shit? incredible.

in undergrad and in my masters program, i was totally different student. i readily consumed everything that was assigned to me and found almost everything intellectually stimulating. i was very torri torri-- almost running around finding more to read, think about, and do. no more bullshitting.

today, as i push through my third semester of my doctoral program i realize i am de-evolving into the unmotivated student i was in high school. i am not engaged at all this semester. i can't even get my shit together to fake it. must be one of the most undisciplined people i know. BOO!! :(

How We Sat In Class- U Shape

White Female
Asian Female
Latina
White Female
Asian Female
Latina

Latino
Asian Female
Black Female
Latino

White Male
White Male
White Male
White Male
White Female
White Male
White Male (Instructor)
White Male (Guest Lecturer)