who i am today...

you know i was thinking about the fact that i haven't told you all a lot about how i was growing up. i look at who i am today and i am a totally different person than i was in high school and college.



deb and i had a fairly normal childhood growing up. i will say living in the south was a bit hard in the town we lived in as we were constantly asked if we were related to the 3 otherasian kids in school and of course everyone tried to "speak chinese" by making these stupid noises . i also got asked a lot if i knew karate (and thinking back, i should have taken karate so i could kick some people's butts so they would STOP ASKING).



but like many teenagers, i was looking for who i was meant to be- not quite comfortable in my skin and trying to navigate those dangerous teenage waters. school wasn't hard. i graduated at the top of my class but i would give myself a barely passing grade on the social aspect of my life which is hard when you are trying to fit in.



i found this photo in my stash the other day. it brought back a flood of memories about my those years (and i am sure for deb too but with a different perspective). this photo was taken in 1992 (with some of our childhood friends). i had just finished my first quarter in college.

one thing that stuck out in my mind is this story which i haven't thought about in a long time - when i was a senior in high school.

at our high school, they had these "pageants" - which was not supposed to be about how you looked - and how they sold it to us was it was supposed to be an overall who represents the school the best " in beauty, academics and extra curricular activities" . truthfully today i think they were just trying to get the gals to buy expenive dresses to compete and then sell tickets to this "pageant" at the school. the only thing you needed to do to apply was to be nominated. so one of the girls i was friendly with and i made a pact - i would nominate her and she would nominate me. so we did and that was cool. they were to pick 10 girls to "compete" in this.

i had done this so that i could "fit" in - so that i could at least show myself that in the scheme of things, i wasn't at all ugly and i could feel good about myself. here was the thing, i knew that i had a chance b/c the teachers were the ones who decided who got into this pageant - it wasn't a "popularity contest" with my peers. i stuck my neck out there b/c i felt in the hands of my teachers that i could at least get the chance to compete.

well we all know what happens next. i wasn't in the pagent. when the names were announced, i had to hold my breath not to be upset about it. i mean these were teachers that i had known - that had written recommendations for me - that i competed with on the academic team for.

and i could only attribute it to one thing - i was ugly. i mean i was competing to be the smartest nerd in the class (so it couldn't have been the grades) and i participated in like 5-8 activities since i was a freshman - so what else could it be? it was that i was a dog. and that just made everything even worse.

i did end up going to the pageant. i think i only stayed for about 30 mins b/c my heart couldn't take it.

it is funny but with the passage of time, i now realize that all of that stuff doesn't matter anymore. it seemed so important then and made me so sad then. i look at the photos of me NOW and even though i have gained like 20+ lbs since then (of SHEER MUSCLE of course - kidding) - my eyes now tell a different story of who i am and who i have become.

...but sometimes it is nice to visit those memories to remind myself that life isn't always as bad as it seems. and in the end - the nerds win (haha).

i will post the RAK winner tomorrow! thanks for all the great challenge participants and comments!