Currently on a gap year.
Chronically on an endless marathon for my dreams and goals in life.
Registered nurse. Writer. Aspiring cardiothoracic surgeon. Bibliophile. Music geek+snob. I write to save myself, read and collect books, make art on my spare time, hope that I can achieve intimacy versus isolation and believe, in the grandest scheme of all things, that a balance between the heart and the mind is possible and that hot air balloons, yellow submarines, rainbow-bred unicorns, post-apocalyptic romances, my faith in God and the idea of you and I will always, always, always prevail.
These are the stories I write and this is my story. Someday, I will travel and change the world. Teal is (now) my favorite color.
I don’t know why I’m positive. I just am. Maybe I was born that way or maybe it’s a result of a chronicling of events in my past. Maybe a combination of both and then some. I don’t know.
All I know is that sometimes it’s exhausting. What most people don’t realize is that being optimistic takes courage and strength and all those other crap we’re not even supposed to understand. To be hopeful and bright and sunshine-y means you put yourself in the path of destruction, across the national highway where a truck of disappointment and sorrow could hit you anytime soon in 5 4 3 2…
Sometimes, I surprise myself. Because I’d fall and fall and get hurt and get worse and I’d cry a load of mermaid tears that would turn to pearls (OK, NO) and then I’d get up. And smile. Just like that. Maybe, not like that. But I always see the brighter side of things. All the freaking time.
Maybe, it’s inevitably a good thing. Even if it’s the most tiring thing in the world. Even if it means that most people won’t see through me when I’m at my weakest. Even when it means that I can’t even verbally tell people I’m sad because I don’t know how.
At the end of the day, optimism is exhausting and dangerous but it’s who I am and I’ll just have to accept and embrace that.
Pocket play: Candy Crush Saga
Most frequented online: 8tracks
Music on loop: One Republic
Make-up essential: Revlon lipstick in nude
Last book read: Ready Or Not by Meg Cabot
Summer drink: Avocado shake
Foolproof happy pill: Catching Ryzza on television
Music on loop: Marina & The Diamonds
Bath essential: Dove Winter Care bath soap
Next read: The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The shelf is waiting for: The Elite by Kiera Cass
Foolproof accessory: wristwatch
There’s always something to learn from history.
are series of introductions for make-believe people that I make-believe meet in make-believe places. These are random things about me and I end it with random wishes for a random world.
Hi, I’m Lean. Not a lot of people can correctly pronounce my name. I’m in the middle of a massively life-changing decision right now and it is driving me crazy. I like cotton candy. Salespeople from Booksale branches around the city are first name basis with me as I am with them. I can be a hypocrite on a few of the things I stand for. The deepest fear I can think of right now is realizing that I am indeed the spineless creature I am currently suspecting myself to be. I am hungry and there is a refrigerator about five steps away from the door of my room. I leave you with this: that you will find the love of your life and at the same time, learn the true essence of letting go and holding on.
Hi, I’m Lean and I’m twenty-one. I didn’t have a good day today. I love my friends more now than last night or the nights before tonight. I am unemployed but I feel more confident with my career path right now. I plan to be employed, don’t worry. I like oatmeal cookies and I don’t smoke or drink. But I do have two empty bottles of vodka on the corner of my room somewhere. I am particular about grammar and I know there is something wrong with my last sentence. I believe that tomorrow will be a better day. I part with you with this: that’s what you get when you let your heart win.
Sometimes, I get so appalled by my own stupidity.
I should say up front that I am never an artist. I’m just a pseudo-typographist with bibliophilic dreams.
Still an hour away from an episode of Gossip Girl, I decided to (finally) place a marker in my planner since I am always scrambling to find which week it is. It was all going so well in our dinner table (since the light is brightest there and the table is the biggest in the house) until the superglue eventually backfired.
For some effed up reason, the superglue went through the ribbon and I had to air dry it. While dabbing in some more superglue to the planner and the ribbon, large amounts of it started oozing out of its blue Made-in-China-esque container. I started panicking and spreading the unnecessary superglue into the receipt lying on the table.
After a sigh of relief and a you’re-so-pathetic look from my brother, I waited, once again, for it to air dry. I started to fix the table when I realized I superglued the receipt to our dinner table (glass, antique, and special in all other ways in which my parents will eventually give me hell in the event of its ruination.)
This awful discovery is more mortifying than the tremors I feel every now and then due to the aftershocks.
With some art first aid, I rushed to the kitchen (a few steps, but whatever) and spilled vinegar all over the table. I started scratching out all the dried-out-sticking-into-glass-this-is-the-end paper of whatever is left of the receipt.
I eventually cleaned out the table but now, my hands smell like vinegar.
There is no actual intellectual advantage to the story (except for the fact that vinegar “heals” superglue fiascos) nor is this relevant to the more important universal decrees which we must all know.
What I learned is that, sometimes, we make our own problems.
The moral of the story, however, is that we should never do art projects in the middle of the night while waiting for Gossip Girl to finish downloading.
The art project, on the grander scheme of all things, is an enormous success. As I said before, I am never an artist. I just like to pretend that I am. After all, we are who we pretend to be,
How does one describe two decades of their life? How does one go forward after being 20 years in the making? how do you multiply 365 by 20 when you realize the days are just but a number?
My name is Lean, most people mispronounce it at first glance. I am turning twenty tomorrow and I’m trying to be a better person. I have a weakness for several mundane things including florals, coffee, paper cups where baristas pour in hot coffee, windows, the architecture of windows, learning basic French, James Blunt, un-James-Blunt-like indie music, desserts, eating desserts first, vests, telephone booths, infinity pools, vintage cars, vintage photographs, those that come in line with anything-vintage-really, and most of all, disco balls.
I hate people, which is weird because I will spend my life, as a future nurse-lawyer, dedicating my life for people and to people. (And against people—something, I’m sure, excites me to a high point.) I’m not a crazy fanatic of food but I have this certain addiction to these certain cooking reality shows called Top Chef and Iron Chef. No, I do not want to be a chef. Yes, I want to be an artist and a wedding planner. For collaborations, call me. JK.
I like oversized shirts and brogues. I want to hide from the OR after I complete my OR scrubs because staying in the OR makes me, inspires me, and pushes me to be a cardiothoracic surgeon but I’m not sure I can handle that— not after I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer since I was 13-years-old when I studied women’s rights which would later on become my thesis. House and Grey’s Anatomy does the same thing to me. But, I can’t help it, Gregory and Meredith have changed my life in a way that I can’t turn my back on them.
I was a copyreader in high school and I am very particular about grammer. And yes, I know that I have commited the big sin called run-on sentences. And no, I am not mean about it when people slip up and mix up their verbs.
Sarcasm comes off as funny to me and I am well-trained in that field. I own a planner/diary/dailyscrapbook/ventingmachine where I write to everyday. Ever since I started having a planner in 2005, my life became more organized, more thrilling, and more hilarious among other things. Someday, I will let you read them.
The stage has been very good to me growing up. I was dressed in gowns. I became the princess, the mother, and the teenage girl who fell in love with a gay Korean boy, among others. However, I miss it only in miniscule proportions if not for the light and the adrenaline rush. Writing is different to me. If I miss out writing for a few days, I become a cranky scary version of myself that everyone would try to avoid.
Writing frees me. Growing up, a continuous process even at my old age of 20, I will be many things and I will be, a certain permanent occupation both inevitable and legendary, a writer.
I am patient/impatient. I can never decide. Someday, I will get on a plane and go to New York, Paris, and around the world. I will take an actual yoga class and not just rely on Yoga for Beginners Volume 1. I will fall in love (this time, not so ungracious like the last.) I will hold your hand and take a leap of faith.
I am turning 20 tomorrow and I swear by all the teenage things I am leaving behind that i will make my 20s an epic whirlwind. Of what? I have no idea yet but I am on my way. I want to make my parents proud. I want to make God proud.
So, after two decades, this is the person i have become.
Occasionally, it’s just a bout of energy. It’s that sudden gasp of air at the exact moment epiphany strikes. Welcome to Love+Anti-Love. In the idea of actually achieving something this summer, the first actual summer since the beginning of college, I revamp a blog that I could use for the next year ahead: senior year.
Three years down and one more to go is quite a feat to believe for that kid who surfed the lost and found station throughout college. It’s not that I hate school (I have to love it in the hopes of becoming America’s Next Top Model—- I mean, in the hopes of becoming a lawyer.) but in one of the top nursing schools in the country? Now, that’s another story.
Well, this is it. I am determined to make this work out like relationships, basketball games, and the invention of pop rocks and air balloons. Hello there, angels from my nightmare.
