I made a post on a Facebook group the other day for Asian American professionals about my interest in Asian American advocacy. I keep doing informational interviews with people from the US and that means waking up at 2 or 3 sometimes to call with them. I am interested in advocacy work, but I also know it pays horribly. Even my Asian American studies professor talks about the high turnover rate for this work. I don’t think I could do DEI work for corporate though. One of my friends sent the contact information for a DEI position at the hospital he works at. I’ll reach out and talk to them there as well.

I also have been talking to a lot of different people who teach English abroad. One of my mentors is in Taiwan and I met lots of people here who teach English and/or have taught English here or other Asian countries in the past. I’m not sure how covid will affect these jobs, but it is also something I’m interested in. I’m not sure if it would be a forever job, but I do want to live in Asia for a while at some point in my life. Wouldn’t it be good to do it before I’m older? Some of the people I talked to ended up getting higher ed degrees in TEFL and becoming professors or working with adult English learners. That’s also a future I’m interested in, maybe abroad or in the US.

I talked to one of my old RAs and she does instructional design for English language learners in the US. I thought that may sound interesting, but she doesn’t like how little she interacts with people on a day-to-day basis. I don’t think I would do well in a job where I don’t talk to people often either… I thought that may be something I wanted to do, but I don’t think it would be for me right away. I also talked to someone who works in the DEI industry at Dell and… it just sounds like I’d want to scream doing that kind of work. It would be hard for me to feel like I’m doing anything when so much of the corporate world is set against liberation and equity.

I don’t know if I am searching for teaching jobs here because I have met good friends and people that I want to stay in contact with or because this is actually my goal. But maybe my life goals are just to be with people I love and who love me. I know that there really isn’t a set location for something like that. And with covid, I’m not sure that I’ll be hired anywhere right after graduation anyways. I have 4 months of school….

Thinking about life in the US gives me a lot of pain, but I also know I’ll be okay. I’ll be with my sister and mom and while it may not be as active as my life is here, I will be in a home that I’m familiar with. I’ll have my sister to sleep by and bother when I get bored. But I also know she’ll be busy with her courses and internships and that’s okay, too. The future is so unsure.

My internship for the fall is in marketing with a publishing company. My resume is honestly all over the place. Advocacy, educational policy, marketing… Where am I going??? I guess it’s good to figure out what I do and don’t like and I’m only 21 right now… But I’ll be 22 soon and one of the Korean Americans said that it’s in your mid-twenties that your resume can start to box you in. What does that mean? I feel like it’s honestly about the connections you have. Which sucks. And most jobs (at least in the US) are given based on previous relationships with people, even if they are posted online.

While I’m home, I want to reevaluate my goals. Who do I want to stay in contact with? Where do I want to end up? What do I want to put my energy into? How do I feel more positive about my self and realize very few people have set plans right after college? I’m doing alright. I shouldn’t compare myself to others. It never helps. It’s okay for me to be flexible and unsure.

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In other news, today was a good day. I had waffles with my old roommate and we walked around in the rain. We watched Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 and then had 순대국. She’s 27 and was furloughed from her previous job in the travel industry. She can’t return to her boyfriend’s house in Singapore because of the travel restrictions and is looking for work in Korea and anywhere she can. Right now she’s doing a Korean language school. Later, I went and visited the Chinese adoptee who lives with her boyfriend and 2 dogs. Being around animals is so comforting and I miss my cats more when I see other pets. But I also know I’m allergic to them. 😥 Pros and cons, I guess. But whenever I see her, 50% of the conversation is about her dogs. This time I talked to her boyfriend more and he was nice. He’s studying to get into the public engineering sector and is also 27. She’s 25 and has been here for a few years. I don’t think she wants to stay, but she will until February at least. I wish I was more relaxed about my future like she is. She seems to just go with the flow. I’m back home now and it’s 10:44. I just ate some of the potato soup my landlady made and I’ll read The Alchemist, which my old roommate lent me. Today, walking in the rain felt nice. And that was enough for me.

I used to imagine my life in metaphors. I was on the bus earlier and just remember the hope that I felt making these up. Like my life was a book and the way the rain fell was a metaphor for the way things would always fall, be unexpected, etc. but people keep going. It’s silly, but thinking like this makes me feel like life is worth living. Sometimes I question why literature and music and art are important, but then I think back to why I romanticize the world. It’s about feeling hopeful for the future. And I’m grateful that I have people in my life to remind me about that.