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When I'm not here, you may find me wandering the pages below. (If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference!)

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Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Nothing says Seattle like

... my boarding pass and Starbucks!!!

In truth, I don't actually drink coffee very often, but I was really cold in O'Hare and wanted something to warm me up. Skinny mocha, yum yum yum.

It is wonderful to be home for the summer. D cleaned the apartment from top to bottom and it is gorgeous. After we got back from the airport last night, we just fell onto the couch and admired it all for a while. The coffee table is all fixed too, so now the living room doesn't look so empty (the table took a few nasty whacks when the movers were transporting it last May, so we had to send it off for some cosmetic surgery). Next stop: art for the walls. Perhaps we'll do some looking this weekend.

The last week of school bulldozed me, but I think I managed to pass all my finals (with room to spare). I now have three hundred flashcards for my Chinese history course that I can't bear to throw away after putting all that work into them. Maybe some other poor graduate student will benefit from them next spring. I also got my history term paper back (that semester-long research project on footbinding) right before the history exam started, and I got an A! Absolutely unexpected and a huge relief. I was going into the final with 50 percent of my grade essentially undecided, and the paper reduced that by half -- phew!

I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do with myself now that I'm allowed to take a break from being a student for the next few weeks. At least, until I receive the books I ordered for the lit class I'll be teaching in the fall (I get to design my own syllabus). Regrouping, certainly. But in conjunction with that?

I think I've forgotten what to do with free time.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Nothing says Seattle like

... my boarding pass and Starbucks!!!

In truth, I don't actually drink coffee very often, but I was really cold in O'Hare and wanted something to warm me up. Skinny mocha, yum yum yum.

It is wonderful to be home for the summer. D cleaned the apartment from top to bottom and it is gorgeous. After we got back from the airport last night, we just fell onto the couch and admired it all for a while. The coffee table is all fixed too, so now the living room doesn't look so empty (the table took a few nasty whacks when the movers were transporting it last May, so we had to send it off for some cosmetic surgery). Next stop: art for the walls. Perhaps we'll do some looking this weekend.

The last week of school bulldozed me, but I think I managed to pass all my finals (with room to spare). I now have three hundred flashcards for my Chinese history course that I can't bear to throw away after putting all that work into them. Maybe some other poor graduate student will benefit from them next spring. I also got my history term paper back (that semester-long research project on footbinding) right before the history exam started, and I got an A! Absolutely unexpected and a huge relief. I was going into the final with 50 percent of my grade essentially undecided, and the paper reduced that by half -- phew!

I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do with myself now that I'm allowed to take a break from being a student for the next few weeks. At least, until I receive the books I ordered for the lit class I'll be teaching in the fall (I get to design my own syllabus). Regrouping, certainly. But in conjunction with that?

I think I've forgotten what to do with free time.
Posted by This Ro(a)mantic Life at 12:54 PM
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