Fishing for Metaphors

My New Year’s resolution started early. Well, it only started early because my premiere plan for this blog is ending and that has got me thinking a lot about what to do with this blog.  Do I keep it active, hoping that it will do better this year than the last? This is like déjà vu all over again. I believe I did a lot of these posts in the past but none were quite this personal. In my opinion, personal posts tend to do better than reviews. Naturally, I think we all want to find a way to connect. So, why not open up a little bit?

So far, my stats for this year aren’t so great compared to the last. It has been slow going. Back then, if there were a couple of genuine readers, I’d keep going unless real life became too demanding. I think most people, to their horror, if they had my stats, would quit a long time ago for the amount of effort I put into blogging.  But I didn’t go into blogging hoping to make big money, become internet famous, or become a writer one day. I simply just want to connect with like-minded people and jot down my thoughts somewhere. Along the way, I rediscovered the joy of writing, which made me think why didn’t I choose a career in writing?

When I was a college student, I had a Modern Literature professor, who thought it was in my best interest to let me know that I was not a strong writer and that I would be in serious trouble if I were to become a reporter/journalist because I tend to make several ESL (English as a second language) grammatical errors in my essays. Looking back, he was probably not the best person to go to for career advice, but there was some truth to his statement. After many years of hoping and living the idea that I would become a reporter one day (passion can only take you so far), I was spiritually crushed to learn that maybe reporting was just not meant for me. I scrapped up the idea of becoming a reporter or any career that has to do with writing-related, despite knowing that I have the right mindset and the determination.

I remember when I was a teenager, I was adamant about a career in journalism. I even job shadowed a court reporter at the local newspaper company, thinking one day, I am going to be a great reporter. Well, you can blame television shows for glorifying reporters. In reality, I remember I almost fell asleep during the court session, listening to the monotonous attorney presenting his case in front of a brightly lit room, and glancing at the court reporter who sat beside me, scribbling on her notepad with a red pen. Her notes were unreadable and she knew it when she showed them to me and smiled.

She was a brunette. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she had blunt bangs. She wore an oversize light brown blazer on top of a white blouse with greenish-gray slack and carried a dark brown, leather crossbow bag. She was nice and as eager to show off her job to someone who was excited and young as I was. I remember I had to get a guardian’s approval before I could attend the murder trial. To my disappointment, the session went on for hours. I started to hear the court reporter’s stomach growling when the day was close to noon. The trial was so dry that my mind started to drift. It was nothing like on T.V where murder cases are dramatized for entertainment purposes. Her job was tediously repetitive. There was the notetaking part, the listening part, the researching part, and then the writing part. She had to organize her notes and make sense of all of them for normal people like me to understand. However, at the time being young and inexperienced, I couldn’t appreciate the work she did. Thinking all reporters appreciate honesty, I wrote her a sincere, thank you letter that went somewhat like this:

Dear Karen (I think that was her name),

Thank you for allowing me to job shadow you, but your job is pretty dry. I appreciate your time.

 –S.

I could have been more flowery with my word choice. In my mind, I thought I sound sincerely grateful for being honest. As a result, I burned all the chances I had with landing a job at my local newspaper company. Still, I persisted that I wanted to be a reporter/journalist even after learning the starting pay was not much. I wanted to be a reporter because I have always known I want to write combined with a love for justice. I want to seek the truth and report it. I was so naïve to even understand how the world operates. I was so adamant about taking that career path that I decided to take a journalism class at the local college to learn how to write news. To my disappointment, my journalism instructor said to me, “Somewhere in this strange world, you belong.” It was a nice little comment to let me know I still need a lot of work to improve, but he didn’t want to rule out the writing possibilities for me. He said I was very good at finding leads, covering boring topics, and asking good questions, but politely told me that my writing was painful to read. He gave me an analogy about a violinist who took several hours and years in the shack to produce a beautiful sound. No one enjoyed listening to her play the violin until she mastered the instrument. After taking several intense writing courses throughout my school life, I kept hearing the same thing over and over from teachers: “Your writing is intelligent, thoughtful, and interesting, but you need to be careful with grammar.” So, I just kind of gave up on the idea of ever becoming a reporter.  It is until recently, I learn to sympathize with myself. None of those teachers spoke a different language other than English, and most importantly, none of them know what it’s like to feel like a foreigner in your own birth country. They can’t possibly identify and empathize with my thought process, but that’s a different story for another time.

I remember when I created my blog, I wanted to kill the quiet time I had to endure after work. So, I just write. I tried to write and publish my best even though I know I fell out of practice. For a while, I mistook the word survivor for survival. In a world where people are obsessed with numbers and meeting quotas, my writing is just child’s play. I do not expect my blog to grow exponentially and I am fine with that. I am more interested in ideas; not perfect grammar and I hope my readers feel the same way.

“To err is to human,” I quote Alexander the Pope. I will continue to make grammatical mistakes in my writing because I am not a robox. Get it? Robots think inside the box. I don’t. 😀 But I am not going to lie, robots are cool and so is this music video of Björk’s All Is Full of Love. Enjoy your day!