Superpowers
01/21/01
Latent Geek Powers…
I’m in denial of the inner geek. Little known fact. I was accepted to MIT when I was applying to college. I was also offered a Presidential full ride scholarship for NYU where I would have been studying with some writers that I admired immensely. Given the opportunity, I probably would have sold my left nipple to be able to go there, live in New York, and really just focus shamelessly and selfishly on the art of writing.
Had I gone to MIT and become an engineer as per my Dad’s wishes, I’d probably still have declared Creative Writing as my major. In the end, I got my BA in at Michigan.
And did more than enough to make up for the other opportunities that I passed over. I used to be a science & math geek.
Blame Ms. Forintos for killing my love of math my junior year in highschool. And blame .no one else that I’m glad for having gone to Michigan.
So why pass up on MIT or NYU to go to Michigan? Family. Family is desperately important to me. To this day, I don’t think my father even knows I was accepted to MIT.
I received the letter, read it once, twice, and then promptly tore it up. How could I abandon my father?
1991/1992 was a tough year for the Kims. Full of challenges and an unfair rush into reality and the understanding of what really was important in my life. That year, the Kim family disintegrated in some ways. My mother passed away. My brother moved to Hong Kong and I was leaving the home I’d grown up in to go to college. It’s no wonder to me that he nearly died that year, stoic as ever and ignoring a pain in his gut that wound up being an inflamed appendix. The weekend before, I was home from Ann Arbor, a mere hour’s drive away and while dad complained of pain, and took some medication, he refused to go see a doctor. The Monday afterwards, he drove himself to the hospital, in agonizing pain and was told by the doctors that it would have burst within another hour or so otherwise. He immediately went under the knife and didn’t call me to let me know until Tuesday afternoon.
I couldn’t even imagine being further than I already was from him. For my father, that was the first year he became a parent to me. He stopped hiding behind the paper, zoning only in front of the TV, retreating to his room. He started to really see me. He started to talk to me. Really talk to me. And to listen. For a stoic little Korean man, set in his ways, stubborn and emotionally disconnected from his children while living in the same house, this was tough. Now both his children were out of the house, and his wife, he visited often at the cemetery. I think the sheer loneliness and awareness of the time he’d lost hit him hard.
“Julia, I know I’m not good father always. But now I know, I have to be your father and your mother. Try to Daddy happy. I love you”
Saying I love you was so hard for my dad at first.. to come out naturally. It always seemed forced, concerted, and with a rusty effort. Now he’s leaving me silly messages on my answering machine and giggling. How much do I dig it.
*Grinning - Ear To Ear*
So back to my latent geek powers
I was talking with my housemate Jon about the movie Unbreakable. Granted, I haven’t seen it so he gave me the basic spoiler plot and it got me thinking about my untapped geek powers. Hmmm… At least I already have programmer mentality - I’m lazy. Really. Really, Is there anything more delicious in the world than a really super sudsy bubble bath?
Friday - Long day at work, venting, backrub & bubble bath
Saturday - Too much laundry & Erica’s house warming party
Sunday - Lounging lounging, lounging, and then a long day at work
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