Until recently I immediately discounted all stories centering race. Whenever a headline with the subject appeared in my newsfeed I would instinctively shun the perspectives as coming from a person damaged in some other deeper way unaffixed to it, that race was being used yet again as a scapegoat.

In the...

My dad's H-1B expired as I was about to enter my last year of middle school It wasn't all his fault, there was also mishandling on his employer's side. But at the end of the day the blame game didn't matter. Our family had to begin planning our move out...

Adults focused on their careers and long running projects know the feeling of returning to square zero. They know what it's like to work hard for some time all the while feeling like they're progressing until one day a blip makes them feel like they haven't progressed at all. In...

That first evening after learning we had to move to Korea,  I sat in my room brooding, scheming scenarios that would allow me to stay in the states. I don't remember them all but they converged on me running away and living on my own.

My 12 year old imagination...

Asking another family to let me stay with them seemed insane. More so than living on my own as a soon-to-be teenager. I see now how much this had to do with my fear of rejection. If I were to go live on my own than nobody could reject me....

The only friend I felt comfortable asking was Dan.  He was also the one who I felt the most shame to ask. 

Dan had been my first friend after moving to this new place called Middleville couple years back in 5th grade. But after I decided that I wanted to become...

When recalling my first visits to Dan's house, his older brother Kenny comes more vividly than Dan himself. 

The first thing I thought about Ken was that he seemed so big. He looked so strong, walked around like he owned the place, and swore basically every sentence. On our bus rides...

"I heard you and Shook are gonna live together?"

"So you and Shook are gonna be roommates?" 

The questions I so embarrassingly anticipated finally came. I was especially scared to hear it from the most popular kids in our grade. I thought they would stop talking to me, but in fact nobody...

I still remember the first lesson I learned when I got to the Shooks'.

It wasn't that late, but it felt dark. Must've been overcast or something. The whole family was in the dining room. I heard Dan's mom jovial and high pitched, "Abe's here!" Then I heard Kenny's booming...

I can't remember how Noah and my mom and dad got to the airport. Who drove them? It's reasonable to think that Dan's mom drove us to the airport so that I could say goodbye from there. Reasonable to imagine my final goodbye was a teerful hug with my mom...

I had already liked pro wrestling -- aka 'fake' wrestling -- before moving in with Dan. If I were by a TV when it was on I'd get excited and watch. But wrestling had never been a thing I planned my schedule around. Mainly because my family rarely had cable....

My first Monday at Dan's house was all about wrestling. Not just watching RAW on TV. Not just incessantly chatting all day about what who would win and who would get their asses kicked on RAW when it finally did happen. But also literally wrestling.

The bedroom that Kenny, Dan, and...

Dan was about an inch taller, but much larger. By this time, which was around 8th grade, I think he was around 200 pounds. Thankfully for me, he wasn't muscular like Kenny otherwise I wouldn't stand a chance.

Dan was also shirtlesg. Instead of blue jeans he wore basketball shorts. I...

One thing Kenny excelled at besides football, wrestling, and weightlifting was pitting me and Dan against each other. I laugh lighthearted at his tactics now after all these years but back then I craved Ken's approval wherever I could snatch it. 

Even before I lived with them Ken constantly made fun...

The fridge always had at least one 2-liter pop, the pantry a wide selection of cereal, chips and other salty snacks, and sweets like Ding Dongs. I remember having to get used to Dan casually taking a bag and pouring himself a deep, wide bowl of salty potato chips. 

"You want...

Joan always used the phrase going into town whenever she went to Hastings. Often Dan and I would either be playing video games upstairs in our room or playing video games downstairs in Kenny's new bedroom so she would have to yell it up or down a stairwell. She also...

Just out of college I still believed that children cared for the same things as adults. If I hadn't washed my hair I'd be scared that the kid would find flakes in my hair and find me gross. Or if a kid found out I didn't have a job I...

My favorite reaction to somebody crying over how nobody could ever be interested in what they have to offer is to bring up how big gangster rap had been in the late 90s and early 2000s. Without the music industry's creative portrayal of criminal, violent, drug dealers living in the...

"I get drunk sometimes. But getting high's better" Kenny said.

What fascinates me now is for all the marijuana that Kenny talked, his descriptions now seem cartoonish. Maybe he had used general, vague descriptions because he knew I, being inexperienced, wouldn't have a clue what a bowl or bong was. But...

I went through most of sixth grade not making new friends. Instead, I noticed that I was spending more time with kids I had previously avoided. Losers. I was a loser and so the last type of kid I needed around me was another loser.

i went through most the year...

My 5th grade year began someplace in between elementary and junior high. Forest Hills had elevated the 5th grade out of elementary schools and built these separate, brand new buildings specific to 5th and 6th graders. I don't remember the actual name for this new transitional school category, but the...

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   Elementary School
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Besides friends from my apartment complex, almost every other friend I knew lived in a house. I could tell their houses were qualitatively larger than my family's two bedroom apartment, but the difference never struck me like it did my mom. 

I noticed this affect only after my play...

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   Elementary School
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Without knowing what babycorn was I asked my mom if we could find babycorn pizza. She didn't know what that was either. Every once in a while though I'd ask again for it again.

Babycorn pizza was Hassan's favorite food. We ate packed lunches in our corner of a...

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   Elementary School
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Meadow Brook Elementary School had a control panel that allowed it to divvy its enormous gym into different sections. One half of this gym was our cafeteria. Everyday the Lunch Ladies would wheel out foldable, laquer-wood picnic tables that would host wave after wave of students eating in...

As a kid anything seemed significant. A store named James' Tavern would make me think that my friend James either ought to shop there or be destined to own the place in the future. When somebody told me they lived in Battle Creek, I imagined the place sporting daily musket...

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   Elementary School
--------------------------

My introduction to Pokemon Cards was a booster pack from my friend Eunchan. 

"Let's play." he had said.

"Okay." 

We left my parents' apartment. I followed him thinking we would be playing outside. But instead of running to the playground or to get our bikes we walked slowly. Eunchan caressed this...

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   Elementary School
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My mom taught me to pray before each meal. I even believed that you would go to hell if you forgot or neglected enough times. Whenever I'd skip a prayer my brain would begin racing to remember the last time and calculating my running ratio. Most times my...

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   Elementary School
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My mom had to drag me away for meals. I would either be playing outside with the neighborhood kids or inside glued to a videogame. Whatever had my attention, it pained me to step away for something as trivial as a meal.

I couldn't understand the adult world's fixation...