This year, I hope she can see for herself how lovely and how wanted she is. I hope she likes my present. — Writing prompt: “You live alone, and you wake up to find a surprise gift in your house.” from MtN’s Holiday Writing Veranda hosted by Aradia M. I can’t believe she didn’t clean her chimney. And anyway, what kind of 26-year-old lives alone in a tiny cabin in the middle of…

Imagine a world where everyone loves who they are and embraces who they want to be — Rows and rows from the stage, Samin Nosrat’s words echoed in my ears. I’m unsure why it is calling out to me now, but it may be the silence of solitude on a rainy and pitch-black 3.11 AM. (Curse the black tea which I over-poured and over-steeped). There’s no doubt…

How COVID-19 gave us the opportunity to use words and writing as a vehicle of change — “Do you mind if I ask what you’re using this money for? It doesn’t look too difficult doing what you’re doing.” One participant asked me after I asked everyone in the Writing Veranda, our free 45-minute online writing session, to donate-as-you-wish to our newly created Venmo account. I held back…

Uncovering my brother’s search for his identity — I can easily say that my younger brother, Fresh, is one of my closest friends. Despite the strong relationship we have, for him, the process of discovering his identity was complicated and lonely. …

My mission to erase the red ink — I vividly remember being in eighth grade when my English teacher, Mr. Grime, returned my essay on Romeo and Juliet and circled every single grammatical error I made in thick, red ink. He labeled ‘T’ for incorrect tense, ‘SP’ for spelling mistakes, ‘SV’ for subject-verb agreement errors. These were just…

Life is a fixed lottery system, and I got lucky. Having the privileges to clean water, quality education and more, I was able to learn, strive and achieve because of my environment. Growing up in a bubble of wealth but regularly taking trips to rural parts of my home country…

Why you should talk to strangers — I was just quickly stopping by a small concept store in the middle of Koreatown, hoping to buy a particular present for a friend. However, the supposedly 15- minutes visit turned out way longer than I expected. Tim was one of the friendliest retail associates I’ve met. He knew well…

my heart clenches and tightens. it longs for its owner, thousands of miles away. it calls for its lover, oceans and oceans apart. it yearns for its holder, hours and hours behind. it asks for forgiveness for it knows it cannot bear the pain much longer.

In the quest of all things, we like to end up forgetting what sparked our pursuits in the first place. Is it fame? love? success? wealth? Or a combination of them? We get so involved in our day-to-day basis of things. Each day, we wake up and proceed to do…