Home Life.

My drawers at home are full, and the pantry, stocked. At any given point in time, I can slide open the bottom drawer in the upstairs bathroom and see seven bottles of shampoo and conditioner, three toothbrushes, still in its packaging, a stack of Dove original soap, courtesy of Costco, and a container of dental floss, with two missing. My mom likes to double up on coupons and still carries the ratty coupon case I made for Mothers' Day in YMCA day care circa the 2nd grade. I never pack toiletries when I go home, and my room looks just as it did eleven years ago. My home life is full.

My life in San Francisco is thread-bare. My cupboards are scant, save for the soba noodles and baking products. I've been meaning to replenish my jar of cotton balls for Lord knows how long, and the lightbulb in my room blew out three-and-a-half months ago. I've an abundance of CDs and books neatly stacked. I will read them one day. But in the meantime, I think I shall cart home some more. It takes me 3 weeks to unpack my suitcases, and sometimes, I fall asleep face down on a pile of clothes, as if I fell timberrrrrr unto the bed.

Just today, I toted home a paper Walgreens bag - its contents: jumbo cotton balls, a peach eye shadow palette, volumizing shampoo (having forgotten to purchase alongside conditioner during my last Target run), and one Symphony bar, the blue kind. This set me back $24, and I'm quite certain that my mother would have doubled the quantity of haircare products, amassed dental floss to last another seven years, and fed the family four times over with the same amount. I buy on the fly, and can barely even plan for the upcoming weekend, let alone two hours from now. All of that effort goes to work.

My mom is what they call boo-jee-ruhn-heh (that's uber-productive for non-Koreans). I'm nothing of the sort. Around the time I wake up on a typical Saturday morning, er.. afternoon, she has cooked up a storm, watched a Korean drama, gone hiking with my dad, picked lemons from our backyard tree, and visited her own mother - my grandma - in Irvine, one hour away. I, in turn, rub the sleep out of my eyes and happily munch on a Noah's bagel. And three hours later, drag myself to the beach for a leisurely jog, being sure to take the scenic route.

She says that she was the same way at my age, wandering down grocery aisles, contemplating the different soup cans, before sitting at home, sampling each and every one. Rarely cooking until she got married, which she tries to push upon me. I politely decline. I kind of want to fall in love, and I haven't done that yet. But what I don't tell her is, I've grown a little too comfortable being on my own; I find it hard to be convinced otherwise.

I suppose one day I'll learn to cook. And to plan. And to clip coupons. One day. But I'm not there yet.

Truly, Madly, Deeply.

Addiction. It's been years since you've mastered it - attended meetings, found support in a network of friends, resisted and then eventually succumbed to intervention. And somehow, despite the odds, you muster up the will to overcome. You think you're doing well. But how quickly we tumble off the wagon.

I sit here typing away at 3:57am, eyes bloodshot. And I want just one more fix, or that's what I've been telling myself for the past seven hours. One becomes two becomes three becomes eight.

It was never good for me. I saw the damage it did, but I didn't care. I took health sciences. We had D.A.R.E. at our school, and I saw the Rachael Leigh Cook commercial. You know the one:

This is your brain.
This is your brain on drugs.
(Partnership for a drug-free America.)

The drug of choice being Korean dramas.

I have been sober for almost ten years. With the exception of one weekend at home, when I was unwittingly lured by what I thought was my alma mater, UCLA, projected on screen (it was in fact, "Harvard"), I can honestly say I have been clean. I have this theory that Korean dramas do psychological damage, putting to rot the minds of fanciful girls in LA and greater Asia. And I had since made it my personal mission to lobby against said damage before it was too late.

My relapse began with a family visit. As my grandma can no longer remain on her feet for extended periods of time, we had an early dinner at EOS and called it a night, which meant Korean drama marathon. And so, this little family unit of mine took to the couches and bonded, Korean style. Although initially skeptical, the wonderment of the non-linear plot structure soon wore me down. It was better than any trainwreck I had ever seen.

The anatomy of a Korean drama is as follows:
The FORMULA is circulated around the production world. Give or take a few tweaks to the job here and various names for characters there. It doesn't change, but you didn't hear it from me. Mix in two parts crack cocaine, and voila! A miniseries is born.

My brother and I like to play up the drama, with exclamations of: "Ooooh.. He looks piiiiiiiiiissed!" This, of course, results in my mum shooting us a look, which we gleefully ignore. It's too much fun. My grandma, meanwhile, is dozing in and out of consciousness on the couch. Andy likes to break it down: "This is the common scene in Korean dramas - the ub bwoh joh* scene," he explains to me, knowingly. "You see, here, his preconceptions about her are changing." He knows because he has just moved back home, where K-dramas are a nightly fare.

My brother is also surprisingly analytical. "There is a strong foundation for a relationship, Erika. Take notes." He runs an exegesis on the composition of the scene at hand, noting: "Is there supposed to be some hidden innuendo about how they drive a white Hyundai Sonata?" I stare blankly at him and roll my eyes. "Isn't this thing called Winter Sonata or something?" My views of my brother are slowly changing. And I'm supposed to be the English major.

With symbolism like that, how can I resist?

-----
* translates to piggy-back

The Pen Is Mightier.

People underestimate the power of the written word. Take an introductory English course, and you’ll hear every writing-related cliché in the book. Even Sean Connery (or Alex Trebec, rather) of Celebrity Jeopardy fame attests to the power of the pen. What most men forget when gift-shopping for their significant others is that it's not always about the amount swiped away from their CitiBank rewards accounts. If they just realized that a well-written card oft speaks legions more than flowers or dare I say it, chocolate would, maybe there would be more couples in the world. Regrettably, cards have become an afterthought.

My family is guilty of this. On occasion, I'll receive a couple of hastily scribbled lines, usually reiterating the words already printed inside the card. In place of the Happy Holidays already emblazoned on the inside, a relative will write a very enthusiastic "Merry Christmas!! Love, the Kim family," double exclamation point for added emphasis. Or my personal favorite, an entirely blank card not even adorned with a signature - yet another addition to the ongoing Christmas card stash. The art of card writing has become homogenized into two liners, much akin to the HAGS! and K.I.T! of yearbookdom.

And then there are the repeat offenders. While I may over time receive a sprinkling of cards from my parents and certain relatives, my brother has never put pen to paper, at least not for me. Following our childhood years when we would fight tooth and nail (more nail than tooth) and kick each other from the top of the staircase, my brother and I have since abided by an unspoken hands-off policy - possibly a twisted manifestation of the concept of truce. Dating back to as long as I can remember, we have hugged exactly twice. And so, it was a complete shock when in addition to a simple, sophisticated wallet, I saw what suspiciously resembled an envelope. As I ran the paper through my fingers, it occurred to me that this was not a mere slip of receipt paper. I felt cardstock, folded cardstock. And as I gingerly tore open the envelope to examine its contents, inside was.. well, I’ll let the words do the talking:

To Erika,

Happy Birthday! You have officially reached a new milestone: OLD. Time to hit the "she-jeep."*

Your brother,
Andrew

Yes, Mr. Connery, the pen is indeed mightier.


* Translates to 'marry' in Korean.

Spring Fever.

It has begun. In a vast desert of romantic interest, already, two couples have sprung up. Oases that I never saw coming, but a welcome sight at that. I do believe Spring Fever is upon us.

Which brings me to dating.

Fast forward through the "once upon a time" and zip right on through the "land far, far away" - I was always more interested in the happy endings. Maybe I lacked the patience. Maybe, I just wanted my knight to canter right on up to my castle and sweep me away from my ivory tower. My only lament was that my hair wouldn't grow fast enough. I associated happy endings with a perfect man (and chocolates galore), as any Korean drama or Disney movie of the 50's variety or 90's renaissance would have me believe, and I knew, I just knew that my day would come.

Fast forward a little bit more: past the tomboy stage and right on through adolescent angst, and somewhere in that time warp, I went from a little girl lost in a fairytale reverie to a twentysomething embracing independence and life as a singleton, masterfully zoning out during lectures from the parentals.

My parents, like any other Asian parents, are very much invested in my future. They always have been. As I am now out of college and can no longer be subject to discussions on grades and standardized test scores, they have set their sights upon more ambitious matters: marriage. SAT’s? Child’s play. They’ve since entered the major leagues. Ever since I graduated, the sparked interest in who I’m dating, how I’m spending my free time has grown exponentially. My mom likes to provide constructive criticism, noting that it is okay to date, so long as he is (a) Christian, (b) not a lawyer, and (c) comes from a solid family.

My relatives have even joined in on the fun. While my meddlesome aunt lacks the subtlety necessary for adequately addressing such topics, my uncle has taken to referencing his unborn grandchildren in his car-buying decisions. I find it amazing that the yet-to-be-conceived demographic has such purchasing power. It's just unfortunate that at this point, the most eligible bachelorette in the Choung/Kim family is eighteen years old.

But back to my parents. They’re sharp, those two, and they adapt quickly. Upon realization that their tag team efforts of inquiries into my romantic life were leading nowhere, they switched to subtler, more subversive tactics.

“You know, I was married at twenty-three.”
That’s nice umma, I say sweetly with a mischievous smile.
“You know I expect you to be married by twenty-six, right?”
You do realize I’ll be twenty-five in a month..

Normally, I'll have nothing of it. But just this once, I'll indulge. After all, it is Mother's Day, and I love my mum.

The Name Game.

In elementary school, your primary objective is to blend in. Any variations - even in spelling - are considered mutations. You discover life beyond the ways of your family, and what you once thought normal subsequently takes on the form of a quirk. Some embrace these differences at an early age, confident and/or indifferent to the thoughts of those around them while others reconcile these differences by quickly sweeping any vestige of irregularity under the rug. I wish I could say I was the former.

As a first born raised by immigrant parents, I wasn't hip to the cultural happenings of the day. There was no one to tell me how to layer my multi-colored tube socks and no older sibling to turn me on to the NKOTB songs currently in radio rotation. While all the other 5th graders were collectively chanting, "Oh my God, Becky, look.." during recess, I was left wondering who exactly was this Becky, and why didn't I know her? It wasn't until middle school that I learned of the curiously-monikered knight named Mix-A-Lot, and due to circumstance beyond my control, I simply wasn't in the know.

It was at this early age that I discovered the pressures of uniformity, even in name. Growing up, there weren't many others who shared my name, and certainly no one who spelled it with a 'k'. Erica's were rare, and Erika's, non-existent. I hated that 'k'. 'K' represented all that was wrong with the world - from Kryptonite to the Ku Klux Klan. I abhored its obtrusiveness, constantly jutting out and disrupting the otherwise smooth flow of my pen when learning to write my name in cursive. I resented that whenever I would scan the racks of 100+ personalized key chains populated with the likes of Emily’s, Emma’s, and Erin’s, all I could see was one glaring omission: Erika. It's not that I was all that particular. Being the ever tolerant nine-year old, Erica or even Ericka would have made suitable replacements.

To be honest, I’ve grown used to misspelling. With a first and last name like mine, it has become the norm. I am often surprised when people do manage to get one of the two correct, and even some of my closest friends still draft emails addressed to Erica. I don’t bat an eye at c’s, though ck’s may or may not raise an eyebrow. And I don’t mind. Really, I don’t. What I do notice, however, is when someone actually gets it right. And on that occasion when I’m greeted with that 'k', I respond with a smile. With college came self-acceptance - weird became unique, while odd became whimsy. And as for that lifelong battle with 'k', I've come to realize that it's not so bad after all.

This Christmas, I received the best present ever - a gift of truly Jantastic proportions. As I unwrapped the twice-wrapped box and peeled away the double layer of festive tissue paper, there it was. A skate, signed by Michelle Kwan, personally written out to one Erika with a 'k'.