Year 10: Week 0 – Ten Years

There’s not a lot in my life that I’ve done for ten years. Yes, I’ve had relationships longer than a decade, my car is around 12 years old, but I’ve never been at a single school or job for this length of time.
Ten years is difficult to conceptualize. As Tanya Tucker sings in her new incredible song, “Bring My Flowers Now,” “The days are long, but the years are lightning.” I know there was so much work that I did, and so many things I went through, but it doesn’t feel like tens year’s worth of experiences. It somehow feels like less.

After year 3, there was a sense of settling, a sense that I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone.  Somehow I always managed to find new challenges, even though at times these felt more like crises.

As the year has started, at time I have felt inundated with things I needed to take care of, but I’m determined to make sure that I see these as features of this job. We are annoyed at what we don’t accept, and problems can be feel annoying because they happen year after year.  This regularity proves they are features.  Does this meant that we can’t change things and make them better? No. True acceptance is not about not giving up on improvement, it’s about helping you become less emotionally involved and frustrated.

I learned long ago in my being right is overrated in personal relationships. I don’t lose anything by telling Diana that she is right and I’m wrong, and I don’t gain anything if I prove myself right in my mind to her but it leaves her feeling annoyed with me. This past week, I’ve applied this to my work and given up on being right and focused more on being effective. The interesting thing is that some of my most effective moves have been completely giving up the idea that I’m right.

It feels like a loss to not let someone now that they are wrong. However, if I do make it clear they are wrong and they shut down, than what was the point? Maybe it’s okay if I let them think the wrong thing if it means that we can move forward to fix a problem together. My words probably aren’t going to change their mind anyways, so what’s the point?

Like every year before there are unique challenges up ahead. I’m looking forward to working through things with others, enjoying lessons that I’ve done before, and taking the time to enjoy making things happen inside the classroom and in administrators offices.

I’ve made three professional promises/goals for myself.
1. Don’t work hungry, and eat more often (sometimes I skip meals).
2. Remind myself that the annoying tasks are helping students, and have a point.
3. Work to elevate others, faculty and students.

So here we go.  Another ride through this school year.

Parenthood: Week 333 – Long Time Coming, Part 1

There are moments in life that mark the passage of time. Some are filled with joy like marriage, and others are filled with sadness like death. Some moments like birthdays feel inevitable to some of us and to others these are incredible moments. Some of these moments are in our control, while others are in fact out of our control. We face these moments as choices we make in our lives limit the forks in the roads and leads us into twists and turns unexpected, but meaningful nonetheless.

Many moments in life have been marked by saying goodbye to a home. I have been blessed to have many places in my life filled with love, supports, community, and family that have transformed soulless structures into living, breathing, beautiful, and unforgettable homes.

There was the condo I lived in during and after grad school. A place where Diana and I made a home, brought Buffy into our lives. A frat house and a campus felt like a home, where I felt seen, valued, and included. I felt more sure of myself in that college than I’ve ever felt away from that place. Maybe that was my youthful bravado and arrogance, but I like to think it had something to do with the people who helped me along on my journey to learn to be myself and love that person I would become.

I don’t remember much about the place that my parents brought me home to after I was born. It was in Kirkland, it was beige, and what I remember most of all about that place is softness. The carpet, sheets on a bed, and my mother’s arms.

Before first grade we moved to Mercer Island. There was that tiny kitchen where my mother was able somehow to create symphonies of meals. I loved watching my mother cook as a child, and I still do. There was a hot tub room off of the porch which my dad would spend late nights relaxing in by himself. I never understood why you want to be in a hot tub or swimming pool by yourself. Didn’t you need someone to play with? As a father, I completely understand why he needed that time alone, and if we had a hot tub, I would be doing just as my father did.

There was the grand piano that was absurdly big for the living room and meant that we didn’t have a formal dining room, or much of a living room. The size this instrument took up in that room was an expression of the size that me and my brother took in my parents lives and their commitment to nurturing our passions.

My parents’ room fit a bed, a NordicTrack machine, a Lazyboy chair, and an chest of drawers with a television on top. As my father would watch TV with the footrest of his chair fully extended, I would curl up as a small child between his legs in the space between the chair and the footrest. When my dad would eat steak in front of the TV he was always willing to share his meal with me carefully mixing the salt and pepper on his plate and dipping it in there before feeding it to me. If he was annoyed how much of his favorite meal I ate, he never showed it.

That chair at some point was replaced by a loveseat. This was the chair, that curled up with my mother, I watched The Color Purple. I’m not sure either of us knew what we were watching when we settled on the Lifetime network that summer afternoon, but for some reason we stayed with that film. Together, we explored the beauty, power and wonder of the Black experience, and get my first taste of "Black Girl Magic."

If there’s a more memorable and important film watching experience in my entire life, I can’t think of it right now.


My brother, Ed and I had adventures in that back yard, on the living room couch, and playing, well, everywhere in that house. No place was off limits to our play from the stairwell to the garage.

Ed’s room had a smell that has always stayed with me. It was a scent of something older, cooler, and more sophisticated. His room had these bookshelves about waist high sitting on the floor filled with fantasy and science fiction novels. I would spend time fascinated by the covers, careful to make sure I put them back in order. Even when I was old enough to read these books myself, I always preferred to have my brother retell the stories in those books instead.

My room was the space where my imagination ran wild as I created stories and adventures with my Legos and action figures. This was the place where late at night I would listen to songs on my CD player on my head phones over and over on repeat, trying to figure out the wonder and magic of music. It’s where I learned to be a musician, practicing countless hours in that room chasing something I would only understand much later in life.

To be continued….

The Islander – Part 11: In The Band – Part 2

All I learned about football I learned through marching band. So basically, after spending nine years of participating in marching band from high school to college and in my professional life, I barely understand the broad outlines of the game.

But…I loved being in marching band.

I don’t know why and how I fell in love with marching band so quickly. Standing in the rain my sophomore year being yelled at to stand at attention, turn quarter turns in unison, and be trained to be yell in loud responses was really alien to me. Remember I had never been in an organized sports team, I had never done anything like a drill with other people in unison, I had never really watched a football game, or actually seen a marching band perform. You’d think with that background I wouldn’t like standing in the rain being yelled at…but something about it made sense and felt great.

Marching band taught me one ways that human beings bond is through suffering. As humans have evolved, many of us live with layers of privilege that shield us from the types of suffering that helped  our ancestors develop a sense of community, which is essential for human meaning. Examples of the ways we create suffering are as interesting as they are absurd: golf, dance marathons, running marathons, and trying to coordinate line art on a football field with a couple other hundred teenagers while playing glorified noisemakers, otherwise known as a marching band.

There was cheering, playing pop songs, being miserable in the rain, and it all felt right because it all made me feel like I belonged. My high school marching band was what I call a “family style” marching band. The focus was more on having fun, and feeling successful and included than marching at a competitions, which we didn’t do. I’m so glad that this band was like this because I was in this group with seniors who had been in this band for four years, and sophomores in my grade who had been playing their instrument for at least four years, while I had only been playing for a couple month. However, none of that seemed to matter, I was in the band.

Marching season eventually turned into concert band which opened me up to a whole world of music. There was basketball pep, which was a blast. Again, I barely understood the game, but it didn’t matter. It was about being in a tribe, chanting, playing and screaming.

I fell so hard for band, my senior year before my senior year I came up with the crazy idea to be a TA for the freshmen band. I continued my math tutoring work, and PE independent studies, which I needed to do to make space in my schedule to take band and orchestra, and somehow my parents helped make this work for me.

I loved my time with those freshmen, but more than anything, what I loved the most ways helping through marching band season. It gave me the taste of teaching that I would later find out was my calling.  Those freshmen meant more to me than many of the seniors in my class, and I often think back at these wonderful people I had the opportunity to mentor.  

When I looked for colleges, one of the factors I considered was finding a college that had a “family style” marching band, and I’m so glad that I did, because I would not have made it through college without my band family.  It was in that band family I met my wife.

It all started with the fight song.  Joining band in high school forever changed my life, and set in me in a wonderful direction that has taken me places beyond my understood potential, and to experience I never imagined and will never forget.

Parenthood: Week 332 – Running Towards The Cries

When you reach out for a crying baby or crying toddler, sometimes you are doing it because you have an idea that you can somehow make that child feel better. However, other times you do this because your partner needs a break. This is what happened on a recent plane flight.

Ethan is not at the age where he will pay attention to an iPad during the flight but he is too old to chill out and nap. So instead of doing either of these things, he would be entertained by one of us for 5-10 minutes, loose it because of some small incident like dropping a cracker, and become seemingly inconsolable. At this point, if he was with Diana, I’d reach out to him, Diana would hand him over to me, and the crying would escalate, but eventually subside. I would figure out a way to keep him entertained but inevitably he would lose it again and I would hand him back to Diana.

There are other times when we lean into the crying. Sometimes Diana needs to take care of something and she is holding Ethan. As I reach towards him, he clearly is not happy and doesn’t want to come with me. However, in that time Diana needs space so I peel him off as he screams and walk away as the tears start rolling. This needs to happen, and in this moment, I know that it’s not going to be pretty but I do it. Diana does the same for me when Ethan is not done cuddling with me but I need a break or have something I need to do alone, like go to the bathroom, which I have done with a kid on my lap, but it’s more comfortable not to...trust me).

Sometimes swooping in when Ethan is having a moment is exactly what he needs to calm down, but other times it doesn’t help at all, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong choice.

Parenting isn’t just about making your kid happy. Ethan needs to learn that sometimes someone that he loves, who loves him back needs a break from him. This lesson is not well received and isn’t learned with some tears but it’s an essential lesson. How we treat other people’s bodies is an important thing to learn in life that you can start teaching toddlers. Ollie learned at a young age that Diana wasn’t into early morning cuddles so if Ollie gets up early, he always jumps into my side of the bed. Ollie's understanding of Diana’s needs allows him to better respect her, which adds depth to their relationship.

Parents have to run towards the cries, reach out to the little ones and bring them close as they scream. There’s a thought that we can make the little ones feel better in our efforts but we do it even when we know it’s going to possibly may makes things worse. It’s an action that expresses our complete love of our children from the happy moments to the sad ones. As we hold them tight in their screams, we learn to embrace all of who our children are and who they will become.

The Islander – Part 10: In The Band – Part 1

I was cold, I was wet, and I was exhausted, and I was having the time of my life.

In the amphitheater outside of the lunch room, the marching band was having their moment. At the end of every game, we’d march back from the football field and stand in rows on the large circular steps. After playing music and marching for the community, the students, and the football team, we would play music for ourselves. This specific evening, the band was playing for us, the seniors in the band after our last game. In the pouring rain, we danced in the center, surrounded by the band, joyously dancing.

Most people started band in 6th grade, I didn’t start until sophomore year. When it came time to do band, choir, or orchestra in middle school, my choice was easy. I had been playing violin since I was 6 years-old, I was really good at it, so I went with orchestra. Throughout middle school I was satisfied with my choice. I was the best violinist in orchestra. This was a really nice feeling since I wasn’t popular, I was bad at sports, and while I did fine academically, I never feel like one of the smartest people in the room.

I’d hear the band play during our music concerts, and their renditions of “Hot Cross Buns,” other typical middle school band music didn’t impress me.

My brother, Ed is three years older than me and had gotten into playing piano for the high school jazz band. So, when I was a freshmen, and he was a senior, with his help I got into jazz band as a pianist. It was a whole new world, a style of music that I hadn’t played before, and it was fun. I knew about brass and woodwind instruments, but I had never seen people play them like these upperclassmen did (Jazz band was an auditioned group that usually only included upperclassmen).

One day in jazz band, our teacher announced that the drill team needed a recording of the fight song to work on their routine for the football game. Since all of the jazz band kids except for me and my brother were in marching band and they were some of the best players, it was a simple enough thing to do. I’ll never forget one of the drummers strapping on a set of quads marching drums and being absolutely in awe as he warmed-up.

I watched memorized as they band played through the fight song. The percussion parts were fast and kinetic. The moving bass line was driving and powerful and the flute parts sparkled. Counter lines weaved in and out of the melody and the break strain with its chants was like nothing I had ever heard before. I had no idea that music could be this. It was one of most unforgettable musical performance I had ever heard in my life.

I didn’t know how to play any band instruments, I had never seen a marching band, I had no idea how hard it would be to stand on a football field for hours learning to march, and how uncomfortable it would be to wear a uniform for an entire football game. But in that moment, I decided that I was going to join the band.

Parenthood: Week 331 - The Aisle

I’ve envisioned how mass shooting would play out in my school. As a responsible teacher I know the processes if I got notice that there was an intruder in my school. I’ve played this out like a movie in my mind: check the hall, lock the door, put the students in the back closet, carefully explain to students what is going on and keep them calm. I’ve thought about what would happen if a shooter made it into our cafeteria during lunch time and what my role would be in that moment. It’s a horrible and scary thing to do, but it’s my responsibility as a teacher to be prepared.

I’ve never thought about how I would deal with a mass shooter outside of school, until last week.

I was pushing the shopping cart, trying to keep Ethan entertained. He is in a wonderful stage where he is fully exploring language. He is trying to name things, and communicate more actively through words. It truly is a joy when he realizes that I understand exactly what he is saying and we are connected through language. The down side of this is that along with the moments when he communicates clearly with me, there is frustration when he cannot make himself understood.

Ethan is screaming for something, but I have little idea what he is saying, so I’m literally pulling off whatever I can imagine that he would want from the shelves to satiate him long enough to finish the grocery shopping. Loaf of bread! Nope. Apple sauce? Nope. Oh, saltine crackers!

I’m going through the aisles trying to focus on what I need to buy, and where I need to go to get the items. As I shop, I’m reorganizing the shopping list in my brain by location so I can make the shortest route around the store. At the same time, I’m feeding Ethan saltine crackers. He’s eating two at a time, dropping crumbs as he eats, and then angrily demanding more.

As my brain tried to manage all of these thoughts, something shifted, and suddenly as I looked down an aisle, I wondered, “what am I going to do if a shooter comes into this store?” The image of the security guard I passed as I walked into the store came to mind. Could this guard so anything if a shooter came into the store? Did he have a gun or a taser? What should I do if I hear shots? Could I jump behind the deli counter while holding Ethan and escape out the back?

I took a deep breath, as a I felt a cracker Ethan threw hit my face. Ethan then managed to stand up, wiggle out of his restraints in the shopping cart and flop forward.  I caught him and he leaned into me.  Ethan grabbed my shirt collar with one arm and wrapped his other arm around my neck. I tried to get him to sit down, but he refused. Part of me was getting frustrated that he wouldn’t just sit, but I let that feeling past. I gave up on trying to get him to sit down in the cart, and shopping all together and just pulled him out of the cart into my arms.

I held him against my chest and felt his head rest on my shoulder against the side of my neck. I kissed him on the head gently, and inhaled softly taking care to notice his scent.  I looked down the empty aisle looking beyond for something I longed for, something I needed, and something I hoped beyond cynicism that I would someday find.

The Islander – Part 9: Why Girl-friends?

The first time I was called “Gay” was my freshmen year of high school.

This bullying was based on the fact that I was hanging out with girls a lot of the time. This logic made no sense to me as I knew that I was straight. I was very aware of my straightness and my sexual attraction at this age, so I had no doubt that I was not a homosexual, but I also knew that it was girls who made me feel good about myself in the platonic relationships I shared with them. As much as I wanted to do something to keep these bullies at bay, having friends was not really something I was willing to sacrifice to be “cool.”

I tried to socialize with other boys. I could talk video games, and throw around insults and other jokes, but there was a lack of depth in our conversations. Also, there was so much that the other boys, namely sports, talked about that I wasn’t interested in discussing. While there were things that girls talked about that weren’t my interest like fashion, their conversations about these topics didn’t seem as exclusionary as the ones boys talked about.

Even though I knew that my relationships with my girl-friends were abnormal, there was enough space in high school and college for me to foster these relationships. As I entered adulthood, a door seemed to shut. One reason I love being a teacher is that I have the space to become friends with women, as the in schools there is proportionately higher amount of women in the field than in many other industries. However, like I mentioned before, the extension of girl-friends from the work place to hanging out outside of school is tricky.

Didn’t sex get in the way of these relationships with my girl-friends? This is one of those things that I have found as an interesting point of discussions. One of the main arguments ala when Harry Met Sally is that men and women cannot be friends because of sex.



The idea is that a guy can’t have a conversation with a woman because he will be thinking too much about having sex with her to focus on other aspects of her humanity. And without a sexual aspect of the relationship to somehow manage this tension like in a marriage relationships, two people of different genders can’t engage in a meaningful relationship.

This idea sets low expectations for men. It excuses them for mismanaging expressions of their own sexuality, and sets up for failures in their relationships with women. Men in this model are excused for not developing ways of acknowledging all the facets of a women’s identity. Also, the idea that a sexual relationship is somehow essential sets people up for strange relationship dynamics. Yes, sexual compatibility is very important in a long-term partnered monogamous relationship, however a strong sexual connection cannot overcome other issues in a relationship.

Did I think about my girl-friends sexually at times? Yes. Did I ever have crushes on them? Sometimes. However, for the most part I didn’t act on these feelings. Some of this had to do with a lack of confidence but moreover it was because after a while, like a sister, I didn’t see them that way. Mentally acknowledging sexuality does not have to lead to action, and there was simply more important parts of my relationships that was worth maintaining without a sexual expression.

We seek in our friends things that we see in ourselves. As an Asian boy, I didn’t see a lot of me on the surface in my peers, so I looked for people like my own mom who were interesting in talking about how they saw the world.

Women and femininity have always fascinated me. I remember putting on my mom’s jewelry, trying on her make-up and playing dress up with her clothing. When I was kindergarten age, I learned through society that there were gender roles in society that I had to abide by. So I sought out other ways to explore femininity.

There were limited outlets for this. My main extracurricular activity was music lessons, which were not very social. The popular culture that I enjoyed, comics, books, and sci-fi/fantasy were from male perspectives, created by men, and most often focused on male characters. Then the 1990s Disney animated film renaissance came, and I had a way to explore women in our culture. Film like The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and The Beast were by no means ideas ways for me to explore and thinking about women, however it was what I got. Because the films were so popular and omnipresent, it wasn’t weird for me to be into them. Okay maybe it a was a little odd for me to buy the The Little Mermaid song book and sing those songs until I had them all memorized. However, it didn’t feel as much a push against gender expectations as wearing a dress.

I’ll never forget being in a book store in New York and seeing The Little Mermaid song book at the endcap of a shelf. It was a beat up copy but I was still so excited and surprised to see that such a book even existed. I treasured that thing, using it to learn all of the lyrics and eventually play the song son the piano.

I watched this generation of Disney films as much or more than I watched the Star Wars films….which I watched all of the time.

As I got into high school the way to explore the female experience narrowed to the point that the only way to understanding myself as well as others was through girl-friends. There were a few books I read in high school which ended up being some of my favorites like I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and The Color Purple, helped me betters understand women, but the vast majority of the books, and the curriculum I learned were from male perspectives.

I am so grateful to the girl-friends I had in high school for going outside of the norm to be my friend.  I'm sure their boyfriends and other people made comments to them about hanging out with me, but they never told me about these issues. 

I don't know what my life would have been like without these girl-friends but what I do know is that they were the friendly faces who said hello to me in the hallways, made me feel needed by valuing my advice, and supported me through those years. 

Parenthood: Week 330 – The Moral Obligation Of Parenthood

Rep. John Lewis reminds us all, “When we see something that's not right, not fair, or not just, we have a moral obligation to speak up and speak out to do something about it.” He has lived by this maxim, and he almost lost his life practicing what he so eloquently preaches.

A couple nights ago, I was about to go to sleep and I came across a video of Rep. Lewis and I remembered this saying. So I got my laptop out and sent out an email to a company that had put on a show that put on a horribly offensive juggling act.

There was moment when I thought I would simply get around to sending this email, but it left my mind until Rep. Lewis and his words came into the front of my consciousness.

This “moral obligation,” is very difficult, and asks so much out of us as citizens. There is so much that is not right that is not fair that is not just in our society. Racism, sexism, antisemitism, white supremacy are present in almost every industry, almost every hobby, and almost every American past time. It can feel like a lot to do, and it can feel all-encompassing, but that’s the charge, and that’s responsibility. We may fail times but we have to try.

One of the reasons I felt that I could not let that email go was because my whole family went to that show, and it hurt me deep inside when Ollie said that one of his favorite parts was the act in the show that openly mocked little people (people who have dwarfism). I didn’t know what to say to that, and I know I’ll figure something out soon and come back to it. It was such a clear example of how we have to do better for our kids.

Yes, we have that moral obligation, but as parents there’s another layer to this charge. When we see something that's not right, not fair, or not just, we have a moral obligation to explain to our children why what we see is so wrong. This may be something in the actions of our children, or something that observe in a movie, or a book. It’s not enough to throw away the offensive Dr. Seuss book, or make sure that they don’t see the version of the film that has offensive racial stereotypes. We have to make sure they understand why we are making the choices we are to speak up and interrupt.

I often don’t know how to explain all that is wrong to my six-year-old in a way that is appropriate and that he will understand. Sometimes all I got is that “this movie makes people feel bad, so we aren’t going to watch it.” It’s really hard to know what to say but we’ve go try. Because  even if we stop our child for a moment and stumble through words, they will sense our emotions. This pause, this moment of thought will make them wonder what and think deeper about their own perceptions and share in our feelings.

I was warned about the challenges of parenthood including social media, screen time, tantrums, sibling conflicts, potty training, racial identity development, and gender issues. No one told me about how hard it would be to explain the injustice and oppression of the world to my children.  It’s one of the most difficult things about parenting, but it’s one of the most important and meaningful. 

Never forget, our children are our greatest chance, our greatest hope to make this world a better place. 

The Islander – Part 8: Girl-friends vs. Girlfriends

One of the things that I missed the most about high school and college are my girl-friends.

For this post, I’m making a distinction between “girlfriends” a person that a male-identified straight person has as a romantic and sexual partner, and a “girl-friend,” who is platonic female identified friend to a male-identified straight person. I’m not saying that Gay identified men do not have “girl-friends,” but taking account to my positionality, and the point of this post, we are talking about what it means for a straight guy (me) to have girl-friends high school.

Recently, I made a list of all of my close friends in high school and about a quarter of them were men.

In high school the social environment gave me more freedom to interact socially with woman then in my adult life. There were more corners of schools, conversations in hallways, and situations in music classes that provided me the time and space to hang out with my girl-friends. As an adult, I have found less and less that there is socially accepted for me to hang out with women who are friends. In block parties, I find all of the women are talking in a group, and all of the men segregate themselves into a separate group. Think about it for a second, for me as a married man, to ask another married woman out to go watch a movie is usual, and raises eye-brows.

My connection to women as friends goes all the way back to my mother. She has been an amazing mother all my life, but she has also been a close friend. She would listen to me talk about all kinds of things, and helped me discover many of the things I loved about myself. Many of my favorite activities as a child were associated with my mom like grocery shopping, and cooking in the kitchen.

I didn’t connect with other boys as a young child. Most of them were into sports, and I wasn’t. Hanging out with them in recess never worked out so well, because the talk and activities were sports-centric. In girls, I found people, like my mom, who were as interested in talking about life as much as I did.

In Montessori kindergarten, one of my best friends was a little white girl with curly hair. We would play all of the time together. She would lead me around the room, and at some point, she kissed me. This was all confusing, but what I did get is that my life made more sense with her as a friend.

Middle School was more of the same. I did eventually join up with a group of guys one year younger than me who were into comic books, (which I loved at that age) than sports. We would talk comics during recess as opposed to playing sports. While this developed, I found strong connections with girls during class, and the in the hallways.

I knew at this age that it wasn’t normal to have girl-friends. I don’t remember other kids making comments to me about this in middle school, but I do remember some teachers having a laugh about how “chummy” I was with some girls. It wasn’t until high school where this starting feeling more and more out of place.