Category: Uncategorized
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February Fashion Challenge, Day 9: Every Outfit Everywhere All At Once
“When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything.” Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) Waymond Wang, as my friend Crystal would put it, has big loser energy. At the beginning of Everything Everywhere All…
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February Fashion Challenge, Day 8: Green with excitement
I’m lucky to live in a place 10 minutes away from both beautiful shorelines and top-notch hiking trails: in the grind of my daily work, where I’m often caught up planning out my students’ futures, the sights around me remind me to slow down and appreciate all the vibrant life around me right now. Trees…
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February Fashion Challenge, Day 7: Swapping styles
And just like that, we’re officially done with the first week of the February Fashion Challenge! Whoo! One of the questions I had when I was initially planning this month was how I’d keep my outfits work-appropriate. My company doesn’t demand that we show up in full suits every day, but since we work with…
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February Fashion Challenge, Day 6: Blazin’ hot
“Don’t wear that jacket – only fags would wear something like that.” Years later and I still chafe at those words from my father. Even after I’ve left home, graduated college, and established myself as a professional and an adult, they take me back to 15, when I buried myself in oversized hoodies and tried…
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February Fashion Challenge, Days 4-5: Slim Jims and snapbacks
Happy Sunday! Today, we’re doing a double fashion feature to celebrate the weekend. A fun fact about my job is that I work on Saturdays: in fact, Saturday is the busiest day of my work week. Because I work for an educational program that serves students across the Bay Area, it’s the only day of…
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February Fashion Challenge, Day 3: I was really hoping that he will come through
Anybody who knows me knows how much I love K-pop girl groups. I love awkwardly following K-pop choreography and miming high notes in my shower. I’ve lost hours of my life breaking down LOONA’s music videos frame-by-frame and falling down Twitter conspiracy theory rabbit holes. I literally wrote a 20-page college paper on Produce 101…
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writer with a lowercase w (on writing in a life full of limitations)
Last Sunday, my laptop broke for the third time this year. The first time was my fault: I stupidly left a bottle of water unscrewed in my backpack, only realizing my error once I saw my backpack leaking all over the linoleum floor. By the time I pulled out my poor laptop, it was too…
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My name is Mo, I’m a teacher, and I’m not okay right now.
Dear colleague: My name is Mo Kim, I’m a high school teacher, and I’m not okay. I have held onto this letter for months now. I’ve turned it over in my head like a worksheet I can’t solve. I’ve clenched it between my gums as if that would stop the bleeding. But even when I hold…
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Put your fucking hands together, 2020 (a love letter to Charli XCX and educators everywhere)
I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been so captivated by this old video of Charli XCX launching into a tirade performance at Melt Festival in 2013. It first made the rounds on Twitter in 2018, when her now-famous words “does anyone fucking know this fucking song?” became the meme of the day, and it still…
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Loneliness, self-love, and the strength to keep going in Lee Hi’s “HOLO”
I woke up last Wednesday morning with my left shoulder out-of-place. Unable to sleep the night before, I had wrapped my arms around my pillow, conjuring a warm body in its place. There was nobody left when I opened my eyes – just a phantom throb. A reminder of emptiness. It is stubborn, this ghost.…