Usher Says it Best

Why the Title?

This blog has gone two whole posts without an explanation of its purpose.  If this was a document for my line of work, my supervisor would have slammed it back in my face and told me to learn how to structure a report.  But, it’s not and I’m sure my audience will forgive me. 

I’ve entitled it “Neither Here Nor There” and described it as musing on life in transition. While I won’t likely write explicitly on transition and lack of permanency in every post, I think my generation is all about change.  A lot of us are having to make a decisions without much certainty in our daily lives.  For example, maybe ten years ago, having a masters degree from a well-respected school meant that you could safely bet on a solid job.  Today, that is hardly the case.  Another excellent example, I dare you to find a twenty-something that hasn’t moved less than five times in the since starting college.  I’m sure even a generation ago, moving around was pretty frequent, but not quite as common as today.   Since moving out to go to college, I have resided at over seven different addresses (not counting moving back and forth to my parents’ house and a summer commuting from Temecula to West LA).  The latest of which was a move to the other end of the state to take a short-term job. Talk about transiency.

Baby Cousin Campaigning for Obama 08

And I don’t just mean transition in a negative sense.  My generation likes change. My generation elected President Obama for his promise of change.  That change (or transition) was about hope.  A persistent, fervent expectation that things will get better.  A lot of us think that we need to change how humans interact with our environment.  We are the generation who thinks news that is over 5 hours old, is just plain out of date.   And some some ways that might be a good thing.

We have had all this inconsistency thrust upon us by the economy.  There just aren’t as many opportunities for us, so we have to settle for less than ideal and change our lives around frequently to deal with it.  I have a theory about how we are handing all this change.  I was in 7^th grade in my yearbook class, when I saw the images of the planes going into the Twin Towers.  That changed my life and my perspective on what it meant to be a citizen of the planet Earth.  My generation saw the harsh reality of that global tragedy.  That day opened our eyes to the rest of the world and that someone way on the other side of the planet can directly influence our way of life.  That one event I think also impassioned my generation to be more globally conscious.  We no longer just want a job where we can make enough money to buy our burbs house and have a nice car.  We want to make a difference.   We have this sense of bigger than ourselves.  That is how we deal with the difficulty of this period of transition.

Here’s a  little illustration of what I’m talking about.  Not exactly the same point, but related.  Take it away, Usher & David Guetta.  

I'm Bad at Two Things

Mom and I on a train in Europe, just days after the LSAT

Three years ago, I was wrapping up my last week of studying for the LSAT.  I had always wanted to go to law school ever since my AP Environmental Science class.  My internship working at a city attorney's office had gone super well. I actually liked doing the work that the attorney's were giving me and I was good at it.  Plus, I got to save the environment!  There were plenty of women working there and they loved it. They had both a great career and time for their families.  So, I, unlike so many other law school applicants, knew why I wanted to go to law school.  I had the grades, the extra curriculars, the personal statement.  Needless to say, I was feeling good about being a law school applicant.  I just needed to get a great score on the LSAT.

So like all good future law students, I didn't take a job that summer and only focused on getting myself an awesome LSAT score to match all the rest of my awesomeness.

Only problem, is that it turned out that I was not actually very good at the LSAT.  Even after my not-so-cheap prep course, I was still not getting it.  It was kind of a problem.  I had only even been not great at one thing.  That was trig-based calculus.  I was okay with being not great at calculus, but I couldn't be not-that-great at two things.  So, I kept studying and took the test.  The day of the test, I went in and felt amazing about the first section.  But, then I got to the second section.  And I panicked.  The second section was a repeat of the same types of questions as the first section.  Which meant that the first section did not count because it was an experimental section!  All my confidence drained away.  I kept looking at the clock, which I never did during practice tests. The test wore on and finally the test was done.

Notre Dame before some yummy crepes

Luckily, my mom and I were hoping on a plane to Madrid for my graduation present 24 hours after that whole ordeal, so I didn't really have to think about it too much.

Given that I now have MURP after my last name and not Esq., some things have changed in the past three years.  I didn't exactly get a top score on the LSAT and within a year and a half I realized that I actually didn't want to go to law school.  Flash forward three years to today and I'm chatting with my friend whom I met volunteering at the Hispanic National Bar Association.  We talked about how years later we are both very happy that for one reason or another, neither of us went to law school.  About how it was probably a good thing that the LSAT was there to actually stop us from going to law school.  It made me think back to high school where if you were smart, you were either going to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.  I was blessed to have the support of my family to explore urban planning when I signed up for my first course at UCLA.  And, even if it took a couple of years, they were happy for me when I said no for the last time when my mom asked if I was going to apply for law school.  And I think they are especially happy now that I only have 1/3 the debt I would have had if I'd gone to law school.  I'm not trying to say that law school is bad.  No, in fact, one fo my favorite classes in grad school was a course I took in the law school.  Nerdily, my environmental law case book is one of the five personal objects I have in my cubicle at my new job.  Reflecting back on the journey that brought me to where I am today, I am grateful for all the experiences and people that helped me realize where I really wanted to be.  You all know who are you.  Thank you (especially to my mom, whose birthday is tomorrow!)  Send her some happy birthday facebook love.

Volume I: Rummikub and Texting

Abuelito laughing at Robert's tebow.

I've been meaning to do this for a long time.  

That's generally what I can say about a lot of good ideas I've had over the years.  I am definitely an ideas person and sometimes it takes a little push for me to get going on an idea.  What pushed me to start this blog on what I anticipate will cover everything from cute puppies to urban policy?  Well, last week, my family laid my grandfather to rest.  He was a man who brought his family to this country in hopes of giving his children and his grandchildren a shot at a better life.   My grandfather, or Abuelito, always had a smile on his face and a joke up his sleeve.  He enjoyed the simple things, like playing rummikub.  He was pretty hip (as in he had a facebook page, an email and was a texter).  And he loved the Lord, meaning he snuck his way into to seeing Pope John Paul II so the Pope could give his blessing to the Familia Torres.  It's been hard to think about how I'll never be able to get a hug from him again, but it made me think about living my life in a way that  would make him most happy, or as Father Seamus said at my grandfather cemetery service, to carry on the Torres family flag for his legacy.  So, I've decided to just to start doing some things that I've always wanted to do.  One of which was starting a blog.  Another of which was trying new recipes (I baked a peach pie tonight, which was delish).  I also read that writing about the loss of a love one helps with the healing.  So, here I am kicking off the blogging.

         But, back to carrying on my grandfather's legacy.  

       I really remembered how much I wanted to write about my grandfather     on my new blog after listening to Michelle Obama's speech at the DNC.  She reminded me about how I am where I am today because of those who have come before me.  I am not in my fortunate circumstances today just because of what I have done.  No, I am where I am today because "unflinching sacrifices" from my family.  I stand on the shoulders of my grandparents who took risks to come to a new country where our family had a chance at good jobs and education.  I wish I had asked my grandfather more about what it was like coming to the US and what it meant for him to be here.  Still, I go forward knowing that my talents and education don't just below to me.  They belong just as much to my grandfather as they do my future grandchildren.  They belong to the past and to the future.  I shoulder that responsibility to lead a meaningful life because of those sacrifices.  But to also remember to enjoy the simple things and to, of course, stay hip.