42 E Lane Ave

PART. 11 42 E Lane Ave

The beginning of sophomore year, I decided to not have roommates and live alone. I moved into a studio on lane ave, across from the Student Union. The same year, I started working at Wexner Medical Center to basically just hang out with Jisoo more. I started barely seeing her after we moved out of our dorm rooms. Our classes were always across the campus from each other, getting dinner was starting to get difficult too. I decided to just live in the apartment next door to her, and work at the same place she works at. I guess I’m quite consistent with how I am when I like someone. I just want to be around them all the time. 

Jisoo was always so insecure about her face, she thinks it’s not good looking enough. She always spent a long time drawing thick eyeliner to make her eyes look sharp and observant, when in reality she’s sort of clueless and overly self-conscious. To me, she’s beautiful. She’s edgy, decisive, hard-headed, and bold. But she’s also shy, insecure, and self-sabotages too much. She has a strong Korean identity only to return to Seoul to realize that for how much it's changed, she’s more American now. She’d always talk about how her mom tells her she should get “her face fixed”, which was insane to me, because why would you ever say that to your child? She would want to try creative things, but still ended up doing dental to be safe. She eventually gave in to her mom and got plastic surgery. I was disappointed. I stopped talking to her. 

Around the same time, she was starting to be around people I no longer knew. She cut off everyone she met from freshman year, and wanted to scratch everything, start fresh with her new face. If our connections with people could be scratched like that it wouldn’t be real connections. Whatever she seemed to believe, everyone continued to wonder where she went and what she’s doing. I stopped caring at one point, and stopped bringing it up. I was like, fuck it. I guess I will just do something else. Something new, something I’ve never done before, that's way better, way more fun, and meeting people I like more. It’s college. I don’t need this melodrama.

PART. 12 Student Clubs

I wanted to be exposed to the student organization scene on campus. I wasn’t sure what these people did, but every year, I’d always walk into all these booths on the oval, promoting their clubs. At first I joined Hosteling International, to get a discount when I travel. I went to a few meetings of all the east asian student associations on campus, and soon decided that I’d much rather just drink or party with them than hosting activities with them.

Every birthday seemed to be a big deal, more or less just an excuse for people to get together and get wasted. On my 20th birthday, we had a huge party at a bar across from high street, I believe it’s still called Gateway. We had the top floor crammed with over a hundred people. There were themes, too. I believe something to do with a sash. Daiga had participated in some silly pageant and won Mr. Asia. They thought it’d be funny if they all wore an Mr/Miss something sash. I was always bad at these theme parties. If you are going to peer pressure me into wearing a pair of boxers, I’d rather not go. But for some reason, I did agree to that one time (iirc). 

For a lot of these kids, they had grown up being around very few kids that looked like them, so being around people of the same heritage was very exciting. I could imagine, except I had spent my entire life with my own people up until that point. I’d tag along to some conferences with them that gathered all the kids of the same heritage from all the big schools in the midwest. I’d be the only one there who’s not Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese or whatever they were. I couldn’t care less, I was there for the party. 

Some of these parties were intimidating to me. I didn’t like being peer pressured into being intimate with people I just met, but that seemed to be all some of them wanted to do. It’s college, I get it. It’s fun, I get it. But not me, I’m good. I respect it though. It always goes how you expect a room packed of very sexually active drunk college kids, and I always leave when it gets too awkward, only to hear all about it when I wake up the next morning anyway. After a while, that got old too.

PART. 13. What is Creativity?

I somehow stumbled upon a dance practice somewhere in the basement of Ohio Union. I was trying everything, so I gave that a try too. I got into this performance they are doing, for a small cultural event. They wanted to do this Kpop song. I was like, Kpop, I know, my friends in Tahoe used to tell me all about Miss A. No problem, I did all the research, got heels, and I danced on a stage with them, with people watching, and taking videos of me. I was a bit dumbfounded through the entire experience. 

I’m a shy person. I am just as shy as I’ve always been, but I've now learned to embrace it, and be honest instead of uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to manage back then. I still wanted to try it. To my surprise, I liked it. Music, dance, language, tempo, color, sound, and emotions are the most primal human things anyone could enjoy. There doesn’t need to be a stage, it doesn’t have to be a performance, as long as we are together, relaxed, enjoying ourselves. 

I did like the attention aspect of it as well. I learned that I’d otherwise want absolutely no attention, unless it has something to do with my creative expression, then I want all attention on me. Please listen to me, talk to me, let me know what you think, how does this make you feel, what do you see in it about me? How can we make this better? Will people like it? Can I do it this way, will it make you feel that way? Do you see what I’m saying? Do you see what I’m trying to do? Isn’t this so new and experimental?