still awake

its one in the morning and lucy is still awake. i'm taking this opportunity to introduce the world to my hidden secret--this blog. its not really much of a secret or much to this blog, since i hardly use it.

it came in handy when i needed to re-collect a lot of thoughts throughout last summer. when i was falling into pieces.

can you believe it? that its almost going to be a year since the summer of drama.
and now, this year its going to be the summer of opportunity.

i dont know how to feel though: in one hand, i am super excited. on the other hand, really sad. just picturing myself in the other side of the world. can you believe it? its like me? this queer man of color from the lincoln heights barrio going to South Africa?

Sometimes, these things really amaze me. What I have become.

When I was younger, I never envisioned myself at UCLA. Deficit thinking, i'm sure. In fact, I never knew where I would envision myself. College was something everyone told us we had to do, but this world was (and to some extent continues to be) really new.

While in H.S. I  used to walk up Westwood Blvd to the UCLA campus for different reasons, sometimes we'd come for AP Readiness, other times I'd find myself at the LGBT Center, talking to QA Board Members about support for H.S youth. Anyway, I would walk up the street and see all these people, most of them White and a few Asian(-American) students, and I would get soo excited to see a Latino/a and an African-American/Black student. It used to remind me of the days in ELementary School when we would come to UCLA, and since then we knew -- that we were the minority at UCLA. My friends and I used to play "how many Latinos can you count" in one day. I would never get more than 10, once I remember my friend counted 20. We were all excited! So awkward how it worked: counting our reality.

I would walk up Yamatos, Baja Fresh, Corner Bakery -- and be in awe. But I knew I would never be there. I would never be able to afford it, even less get admitted.

Years later, eating there is like nothing. And tonight, I am sitting in my Westwood apartment carelessly typing this -- waiting for Lucy to wake up, so I can return to cleaning the room.

Leaving to the other side of the world.