Remember the Car...

What am I passionate about? Art, music, science fiction, medicine?...maybe even writing...

writing and reading is something i never had an aptitude for. when i was young, i started talking very early, but I was never good at a language. I moved around so much between countries that I never got beyond a certain level in any one language. I started learning English when I was around 9 or 10 years old when I came to the U.S. The school board tried to access the level of my english so they could place me in an appropriate grade level, and you know what their conclusion was? "inconclusive." because I knew so little english at the time that they couldn't get a good assessment. so i went to a school where there was an ESL teacher that actually spoke chinese. my parents also drilled me everyday after school. and in a few years, i got to the point where I could get by without a Chinese translator. and eventually, by 9th grade I got myself into Honors English.

but through this whole time, i never really understood a lot of the things we were reading. well i understood what the authors were saying in these books. I understood what was going on. but I never really understood what the underlying meaning of it all were. I guess you could say, i wasn't really that good at reading between the lines.

something's happened in recent years though. through my recent experiences I am starting to discover what I am passionate about. actually, i haven't discovered for certain THE one thing I am most passionate about, but I am starting to discover some stuff I really really like. like singing for one. i really want to take voice lessons sometime in the future. and writing. i haven't gotten like A's on every paper I have written in the past, but there's something about writing I find...relaxing.

I've had a few events I could safely say most people my age don't experience. And through these events, I have had experiences I could actually relate with those written about in books. and reading some of those books again, I actually enjoy them a lot more than I did before. and in the mean time, I am finding myself able to write a lot more and a lot faster than I did before.

and so comes the realization that writing is a lot more than just putting words on paper (which is more or less what I did in high school. and even through out a better part of my college career.) but no...to write something good, you have to actually have something to say. Something worthwhile. a theme or underlying message that you want to get across. and that message can't be too broad or the reader will end up all over the place. and that message can't so specific that no one will be able to relate. but that's only one part of the battle.

the next part, and i think this is an important part, is that the message has to be something you believe in. something you are willing to fight for. so that if someone comes up to you on the street and say "oh hey, i read what you wrote. its crap!" you have to be able to say "no its not!..."

anyway, my point is...I feel like during my high school and college years I was just on autopilot and going through life in the passenger's seat with no idea who was driving. now I am starting to take the wheel. but i'm still straddling the shifter, with one leg back in the passenger's seat, one hand on the wheel, trying to climb over into the driver's side while the car's still going full speed down the highway... scary isn't it lol. but i say its also exciting.