I used to read fanfiction. It’s interesting to see that the word “fanfiction” is still not actually a dictionary word — it still has the red squiggle under it if you type it out — and how there’s some sort of stigma attached to people who write fanfic — like they’re geek nerds who write about Kirk and Spock getting together or are crazy people who need to stop picking up tiny canon details and then pairing people like Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood together. And to those responses, I say: FACEPALMMMM!

In light of being really impressed with Tom Felton’s performance in the sixth Harry Potter movie (if I have to be picky, I’d say he was the only thing that was memorable and left an impression on me), I’ve been scouring for good Draco-centric pieces. Came across this piece (D/Hr) called “The Universe is a Great and Beautiful Thing,” and here are some passages I really liked. (Just because it’s my habit, here’s also a song to listen to while you read the passages.)

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In his dreams, he wakes up to different images and different sounds. On Thursday he wakes up to the image of bees pollinating from flower to flower and hears blurry, jingly Indian music, as if his neighbors had turned their music up so loud that it had crept through the cracks and bled through the crevices – like a leak – into his apartment. The span of time varies for how long he sees them – sometimes they come in quick flashes, like lightning in the country, or a slap a mother gives to a misbehaving boy in public. Other times they play and play, like a haunted tape that never runs out – until it finally does, and he is left in darkness.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

He misses the big things – like the sky, and the people, and the sun. But he also misses the little things, like the sound of rain against the pavement, and the moisture rings from cold drinks.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

This – this was his funeral. Except sadder. Because he wasn’t dead, except he kept wishing he was, though he had no way of possibly hinting that to anyone around him. He thought about death all the time, and every time he kept imagining how it would be. A beatnik party. A sauna with a broken dial. A rodeo with monsters and whores and thieves. Or maybe – and this was his favorite one – a strange little club, almost like AA, where people are doomed to always meet and talk about their feelings and their internal afflictions and even hug. Except, maybe, instead of the neat donuts and treats there would be stale crackers and veggie platters.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

These days, any bit of distraction is good, no matter what it is. For example: the other day a fly was trapped inside his room, and, seeing the light coming from outside the window, it had spent a good amount of time trying to find its way out. And he’d watched it. It reminded him a little of himself, really. Sad little fly, stupid as hell.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

It reminds him of ingredients to certain exotic dishes that when someone reads out loud, it doesn’t make sense. Nor does it make sense on paper. But when you finally put it all together, it oddly does come together – even in a strange, uncoordinated and unexpected way.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

There are millions of microscopic trembles inside his body – not from pain, not even from the desire of pain, but from something he doesn’t really recognize.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

One day she’ll tell him about how her father proposed to her mother, and why her mother had first told him No. Another day she’ll tell him about what her favorite book is, and how she uses her least favorite book as a coaster. And maybe another day she might tell him about her sleepwalking neighbor who had gone missing one night, or about how her cat had died a few years ago from eating a dead mouse that had been killed with poison.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

You could retrace your steps and relive your life and try to distinguish the bad choices from the good ones – and in the end, you come to find out that it doesn’t really matter. Because you end up where you end up, and it’s hard to imagine anything else.

– Read “The Universe is a Great and Beautiful Thing.”

WHOOPS. I got really carried away. But I love it when an author’s writing is so good that you’re just astounded at how an author managed to think those things and then found the right words, and then put the right words into the right order to form those just right sentences.

Click to read full article.

Second piece I did for Northwest Asian Weekly is a book review for David Yoo’s “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before.”

When I first decided to become a journalism major, I did it because I knew I couldn’t be an English major and crank out pages and pages of analysis on fictional books. I don’t have the patience for that sort of writing. I vaguely thought that journalistic writing was a lot shorter, a lot more to the point and was something that I thought I would be able to handle. And even that decision wasn’t the end result of wanting to be a writer for the rest of my life — I had always known I wanted to work with art and design — but rather, that it was doable.

To be honest, it was because I couldn’t go to art school that I decided to choose the j-major. It was a practical area of study to go into, despite the gradually lessening reliance on print. Journalism was as practical as my interests could go, and East Asian Studies was the “interest” major that I would probably have not majored in had I not decided first to be a journalism major.

My decision to double up as an East Asian Studies major was because I naively said to myself, “Oh I think I just want to major in this because I want to know more about East Asian history.” Back then, I was superficially interested in the idea of “knowing” my own history without realizing that it’s really not just dates and events. Things got complex in the middle of studying all these dates and events and my perspectives as an American and as part of the “West” complicated things even further.

And somehow, my choice to major in journalism and East Asian Studies has taken me down a route I never would have imagined myself going down. I’m writing, and I’m writing a lot about East Asian culture. It’s kind of a job I can see myself doing now.

It’s not really the getting paid part that makes me flush when I see my own work printed; it’s just that I experience a tiny spark of joy to see that there is something I had to say, and I said it, and there is a living, breathing audience for it that extends beyond the internet.

I’m using skills that I lost hours of sleep over in order to try to influence the way other people think. There are so many things out there in our society that need to be critiqued, that need to be brought attention to because there are just so many people who don’t want to talk about them. And I really believe it’s my responsibility to do so.