Pursue My Dreams

This week has been up and down, in my opinion. The bad things are that my personal routine and spiritual discipline goals are still not quite where I would like to see them. But when I thought about it, I realized that my standards for myself are pretty high. It’s all about perspective… I have…

Born with Sickle Cell Disease

Last September, my brother underwent a trial treatment at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago to expel his Sickle Cell Disease blood from his body. How do they do that? you ask. Well, they find a match and exchange that person's blood cells for his own. Pretty simple. They flush his body with the new blood, and…

I’m Not A Foodie?

A lot of my friends are foodies. A lot of people are foodies, but I mostly eat to survive. There are things I particularly like to eat but I’m not a very picky eater and I don’t frequently have cravings. After I got home from Japan, I was probably most excited to eat quesadillas or…

Sirens

I had never imagined sirens to be a male creatures until I overheard a song playing one day at work. The mythical creatures were always depicted as female beings that would lure sailors to sail into rocky waters with the distraction of their beautiful song. But the male singer’s voice had the same captivating grasp…

Lessons from A Picture Book

I used to work part-time at my university library, and now that my mom has a school, I’ve decided to start cataloging and organizing the children’s books. I’ve come across some really good literature in the process. I’ve found a graphic novel based on the story of the “Korean Robin Hood,” Hong Kil Dong. The…

Fast-Forward Dynasties

Do you remember when Lucy had returned to her brothers and sister from Narnia, but no time had passed at all? Time passed so slowly in Narnia in comparison, or barely at all. In a way, I felt like that as I was reading through the Old Testament a second time. I have read most of the…

My Namesake (cont’d)

“Whuddabout the othuh name?” I asked. “Whea you git Oshea from?” “I got it from this music artist I used tuh like,” my dad answered, again with little explanation. I thought through the old-school artists I knew my dad listened to, but the name Oshea did not jog my memory of late-80’s/early-90’s hip hop and…

My Namesake

I told my friend I liked him once but I guess he didn’t return the feelings, and he turned me down. I was hopelessly rejected. I was distraught. I was alone. I was single. He didn’t want me. But to be honest, I was none of those things besides single. I had little to no…

Keeping It Interesting Cont’d

There are still a lot of things I can improve on, but one thing I did not expect was to receive complaints for doing my job decently well. We teachers get a lot of petty complaints--I don't understand anything; you said my name wrong; you speak quickly; it's difficult, etc. But my strangest complaint was that…

Keeping It Interesting

Some of my baby students are amazingly fast learners. They are brilliant and it's incredible to see such young children learning so much. Others, however, baffle me with how brilliant they are not... I seriously don't understand how they can be that slow. I don’t say this to be humorous at all though. I have a genuine…