TRUTH AND BEAUTY

I wish my dearest friends all lived around me. They are the ones I can talk to about anything, but they are scattered in the wind. One lives in Colorado. Another is in the country’s capital. Another in New York City. Another in San Francisco. Another in the Philippines. And recently, another one is starting school at Harvard Law and I wish him the best. I recently had a little fantasy about moving to a different city. Since Erik is currently in San Diego, I thought about quitting my job and starting a grad program there. But then I realized that all the dance I’ve built for myself in Los Angeles would disappear and, if I wanted to continue, I’d have to start over and network in San Diego.

Work– I rarely talk about work in this forum for good reason. I volley between being content with my job and wanting to do something else. Recently, I’ve been thinking about that something else more and more, due to the addition of some annoying new co-workers and my need to try to get as much fulfillment in every aspect of my life as possible. My current job just isn’t doing it in that respect. But, then again, am I even trying? At the moment, what I can do is try to learn as much from my job as possible, because there are valuable technical skills that I can use here in the future. Save money for my eventual and increasingly inevitable resignation. Think and feel hard about what I really want to do as my vocation and what I need to do to get there. And search not just internally, but externally. Who knows? Maybe the world has already been screaming the answers at me, and I just haven’t been listening.

Wesley Foundation serving UCLA– Something I do unpaid but is very rewarding is being a treasurer of the board of this organization. We had a vision and mission statement brainstorm meeting on a Saturday afternoon; I think most of us wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. But after two hours of reworking, we got ourselves a solid vision/mission statement: Wesley Foundation serving UCLA, a United Methodist ministry, provides resources, opportunities and invitations for the campus community to seek, experience and serve God and neighbor.  All are welcome to join in community to discover and deepen the connection of faith and reason, informed by scripture, and practiced in daily life. I’m pretty excited about the future of this organization and I’m proud that I can help out. Wesley Foundation provides basic needs for students such as meals, housing, and a place to study and connect as well as supplemental things like leadership experience, scholarships, and resources for people of all faiths, DREAM students, and LGBT students. For more information, go here. We are also looking for individual donors *HINT HINT*

MixMatch Dance Festival- performed at this dance festival in Santa Monica. I think pictures would be more descriptive than words regarding my performance with 3-19.

BBQ- afterwards, I had a little get-together with old roommates from 321 and old friends from Theatre Rice in college. We had carne asada, homemade guacamole, and galbi. We finished a bunch of soju and vodka. I got really drunk and didn’t go to work the next day. Apparently, I was dancing around everybody while they were playing a game of Mafia. Note to self: don’t drink so much on a Monday night.

FYF Fest- For the second year in a row, Erik and I went to this music and arts festival at State Historic Park close to Chinatown. I enjoyed it more than the previous year because I knew more of the musicians who were performing such as Sleigh Bells, M83, and Yeasayer. It was very dusty, though. I think on Monday, I felt my sinuses acting up, probably due to an allergic reaction. Other than the aforementioned three, other performance highlights were Tanlines, Purity Ring, Future Islands, Chromatics, DJ Harvey, Twin Shadow, and Paul Banks (the former lead singer of Interpol).