With the start of the Fall semester looming, I keep reminding myself that at the end of this next term I’ll only be 9 units away from major program completion, 12 units from completing all requirements by the end of the Spring 2026 semester.
I grew up in a time when the “boy’s don’t cry” attitude was still a prevailing and unchallenged social attitude, and with everything that happened to me in my adolescence, my response was to grow callous and rid myself of the high emotional sensitivity I had in early childhood. It certainly didn’t help that those were also times in which presenting as straight-passing was a prudent survival mechanism. In turn, this has created a high bar for art in any medium to clear, and why I highly value media that is able to elicit an emotional reaction from me. The stronger the better.
For everything going wrong in the world—the U.S. specifically—2025 has been a rich year for me in this regard. In music, television, and gaming, I’ve experienced very strong works that didn’t just entertain, they’ve moved me to tears and inspired a sense of resolve that feels critical in enduring the future ahead.
Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster horror film certainly lived up to the hype. Without getting too deep in the subtext reeds and attempting to unpack a lot of the underlying meaning that the Black contingent on social media platforms have already discussed at length earlier this year, all I feel necessary to say is that the musical sequence midway through the film was worth the price of admission alone.
That amalgam of Black culture across time that is deeply synonymous with American culture was poignant enough, but the inclusion of Asian dancers associated to represent the two Chinese secondary characters resonated with my Chinese ethnicity, in total a stunning representation of the power of music and the oneness of humanity. It was an excellent warm-up to the visual feast that was…
Beyoncé tours are more than just music concerts, they’re major cultural and economic events at this point. Ever since her 2016 Lemonade album, she’s been on an insane ascent as an artist, no mean feat given that she’s always been an undeniable front runner in the entertainment industry. The level of detail, intentionality, and overall quality of all of her recent works is unparalleled, and has pushed me from “she’s good, I like some of her songs” squarely into fan territory. 2023’s RENAISSANCE tour will forever be the experiential apex of live music, but this year’s Cowboy Carter tour was still impressively magnificent—especially for a country themed album that I was not musically as enthusiastic about as I was its predecessor.
At face value, it was a live performance. In context, it was a celebration of Black history and excellence in the presence of the peak artistry. More than that, it was a soothing of the American soul, a time and a place where the Star-Spangled Banner could once be symbolic of “old glory” and not modern racism.
In terms of actual 2025 music releases, the standout piece was Japanese band Sakanaction and their latest single, ｢海珠」(Kaiju, meaning “strange beast”, usually given as “monster”). The song was the first new release in years, it came on the tails of a publicized struggle with depression by frontman Ichiro Yamaguchi in both news and a couple of documentaries. Both musically and lyrically, the song is astoundingly dense in poetic beauty. From the perspective of someone intimately familiar with depression and living in these modern post-truth chaotic times, the message really hit hard when the music video (with an official captioned translation) came out a few weeks after the music release.
「今何光年も遠く 遠く 遠く叫んで また怪獣になるんだ」
“Now, I’ll roar so loudly that I can be heard from many light-years away, and turn into a kaiju again.”
Despite being around for a good while and being very popular in their native Japan, the song ended up being the first time the band’s music was used as an anime theme song. Although I don’t usually watch anime, repeatedly reading comments praising the show and the song’s thematic relevance eventually led me to…
This anime adaptation of a manga by the same name technically debuted at the end of 2024, but I didn’t come upon it until earlier this year; luckily by then, it was available to stream in its entirety. I started out highly dubious that a fictional period piece anime about heliocentric cosmological model would be able to retain my attention. Yet in a world where flat-earth conspiracists exist in this day and age, there was something fitting about a contemporary artwork revisiting the dogmatic oppression of knowledge and a universal truth that did historically happen.
With the plot’s driving conflict rooted in our reality, the ultimate resolution is also implied; the story arcs and the characters in between make the journey worth it. In them lies the notion that the experience and fruits of enlightenment lie a beauty worth dying for. It was a layered take on mortality, meaning in life, and nature of reality. Yet, for as great as Orb was, it pales in comparison to the masterpiece that is…
I could, and probably eventually will, write extensively on this unexpected marvel. To try to capture it adequately in a summary paragraph or two is a lost cause. The first game by a French indie game studio, and in one fell swoop eclipsed every entry in my lifelong relationship with the Final Fantasy series. It is musically unimpeachable, visually stunning, and fantastically well written. I haven’t been compelled by a game to learn the head writer’s name since Amy Hennig gave us both the Legacy of Kain and Uncharted series, but I’m already a big fan of Jennifer Svedberg-Yen.
“For Those Who Come After” and “Tomorrow Comes” are brilliant in their simplicity as catchphrases.
Read moreFear and Anxiety are what drive us to compare ourselves to others because we start deriving our sense of who we are and what our value is based on how we stand next to other people
Although the San Diego State University summer session doesn’t officially close until the 15th of this month, I got all my remaining coursework done earlier this week. Another pair of A’s locked in for the transcript, and the start of a very brief respite ahead of the Fall 2025 semester. As autumn looms, the looming circumstantial pressures are causing me a fair deal of worry and anxiety. On top of the upcoming 16 unit course load, it’s also become highly imperative to find a new income source.
In the face of these adversities, the unhelpful specter of comparison has also been invading my thinking. Be it my own peers or even younger adults of a different generational cohort that are thriving professionally and/or financially, it drives a painful poignancy of how far behind I am from my envisioned actualized self; a double whammy of negative self-perception, inadequacy in relation to others as much as my own personal standards. Left unchecked, that line of thinking devolves into lamentations over my personal history that lead up to this present existence. Specifically, all those prime years in my 20s and early 30s lost to reorienting myself mentally and emotionally after all collective trauma my younger self endured, all while the world at large has continued to spiral out of control.
In the monomyth of my life story, this is my Apotheosis stage, all preparation for the more difficult part that is the road ahead. In the context of everything before, it’s tragically comical to think that has all been the “easy” part of this life.
In the down time between job search efforts, I’ve been focused on doing all the little things needed to bridge that gap between my lived reality and idealized perception. I’ve been actively drafting personal essays, journaling, working out, and making updates to the website—I got a color scheme defined, the beginnings of an actual landing page laid out, and have been getting reacquainted with the relevant web technology principles. Pushing these type of milestone updates again feels like a good start, but as always, there’s still so much more to do.
Along with my usual introspection, I’ve recently started organizing and revisiting my past journal entries & blog posts spread among different digital archives. In doing so, it’s become very apparent to me just how much I’m still being held back by my old ways—the fears of failure and inadequacy, the guilt of having failed my child self, the shame for struggling with the challenges in my life as much as I have. It’s all stuff I’ve long identified as unproductive and unfairly self-imposed judgement, yet nonetheless have never been able to fully unburden myself.
It’s a large reason why I’ve long-kept my online activity sparse and light. Blog posts and social media engagement seem trivial in the face of pursuing a higher education while simultaneously trying to further develop a long-running professional career in need of more notable achievements. But in this modern hyper-connected world, keeping a low profile and neglecting the digital landscape only make outcomes harder and longer to reach.
My self-expression has long been in the aim of becoming somebody else and delineating myself from who I used to be, but now, the attitude has changed; my past is something to be reclaimed and embraced, and in doing so, I may also find my true voice and motivation.
Life right now feels like it’s in limbo. My quotidian existence for the last 3 years and counting has largely been flattened into three simple aspects: the college student, the dog owner, and the basic self responsible for the lower levels of the Maslow hierarchy of needs who since last year has also been required to take on self-representation in the court of law. That last one has (and still continues to) cost me so much time, effort, and mental-emotional overhead. While I recognize the objective validity of these challenges in my life, they nonetheless feel like a privileged problem set compared to the other horrific realities being faced by people in today’s America and across the globe. People are being aducted illegally on U.S. soil by the government, others are being starved and killed in pointless unnecessary wars abroad, and here I am fretting over finances and the weariness of being “me”.
Right now, I’m little over 1/3 of the way done through my short scheduled student tenure at SDSU. At 16 units the inaugural Spring 2025 semester and 10 over this present summer session, I’m on track to meet my goal of graduation at the conclusion of Spring 2026. Even though that’s still little under a calendar year away, I’m already stressing about what comes after, whether it’s having to find an employment opportunity that puts my hard-earned degree to use or stressing over how to afford the cost of a Master’s degree program. Given that I’m currently on track for a Magna Cum Laude honors designation having a GPA that’s fractionally above 3.7, it’s looking likely I could finish with the highest Summa Cum Laude honors.
As to my dog—my raison d’être, the main motivation in my life to keep pushing forward—I often struggle with the guilt that instead of being able to give him a maximalist life full of adventure, he’s instead apartment bound with me while I tend to these academic and/or profressional obligations. It helps that I’m fortune to have a network of local dog owners that are always happy to lend a hand and dogsit, in addition to my roommate, but it still weighs on me nonetheless.
And on that third aspect concerning legal matters, that headache endures. Hard to believe that it’ll almost be a year since it all started in a few days on the 17th. Given that I’m so preoccupied with academics and the other more urgent demands in life (read: bills) and still in the process of moving through the appeal process, exercising First Amendment rights on this whole saga is going to have to wait.
This trio of personas dominate my life. They leave very little time, energy, or monetary resources for anything else, even something as simple as communicating or spending time with friends. So many blog posts, private journal entries, personal essays, all kicked down the road like the metaphorical can and ultimately left unwritten. It’s a reality/feeling that doesn’t inspire confidence when weighed against the pressing need to do more: finish building out this blog visually and consistently update it, establishing and developing an online presence and voice, become a more efficient interpersonal networker, make a significant and meaningful positive impact on my home city. All in the effort to satisfy a self-imposed existential redemption for past shames that were outside of the control of my younger self.
Despite feeling like I’ve been doing as best as I can and at the expense of so many other aspects of myself, I’m fully aware that the immediate future is going to demand even more of me. In this moment, I can’t imagine how I could possibly manage to fit more into my daily routines. But at the same time, knowing I have a set of self-directed standards to meet, there’s no other option than to find a way; a huevo, as my people say.
Last Sunday morning, June 1st at approximately 10AM, my roommate took the dog out with him for morning coffee walk before I got up myself. Leaving the apartment minutes later on my own quest for a latte, I had a couple of regular faces around the neighborhood ask where my dog was. I replied that I was having a one of those idyllic days for parents where the kid is off under someone else’s care and you don’t have to worry about it. Morning coffee in hand, I returned home to have my roommate inform me that he needed to tell me something.
Apparently, they had gone to a different local coffee shop, Good Omen Coffee Co., and had spent a few moments seated at a table outside, making conversation with a couple of other patrons with their own dog while the pets socialized together. During this, my roommate saw my harasser, off at a distance and putting his biological baby child into a carrier inside of a car; Good Omen is the designated neutral location used for child exchanges for his unsupervised visitations. Thinking nothing of it, my roommate was suddenly distracted by another passing dog whose presence triggered and unpleasant response among all the dogs present, requiring him to frantically scramble to detain my dog without any advance indication. As the other dog finished passing without incident, he looked up to find the harasser with his phone out recording him and my dog. Upon noticing this, my roommate started drawing the attention of the couple he had been talking to and anyone in their vicinity toward Leonardo, the crazy man standing off at a distance recording them for no reason, getting them to verbally acknowledge that it was strange and weird behavior.
This is all highly reminiscent of last summer, when on July 15, 2024, the harasser took advantage of crossing paths with my roommate while he was walking the dog—having had multiple instances of passing by me without my slightest acknowledgement—to bait him into an interaction he then sensationalized and used as a basis to file a request for restraining orders against both him and myself, alleging stalking, harassing, threats of violence, and fear for his safety and, even more heinously, that of his biological child.
All done as a pre-emptive ploy to undercut the validity of the testimony he knew I was going to provide in his family court custody case, of his homophobic hate speech and attempt at forced entry into my residence with the intent of physical violence on the day the baby was born, delivered via at-home birth by my downstairs neighbor.
Given that I current have an active case in the Court of Appeals against him, I can’t help but suspect he might be trying to scheme up some ploy to try to improve his chances in the appeal (it won’t) and/or initiate some new frivolous action. I will not be surprised in the slightest if some time this week he files a new completely bogus case against one or both of us.
To quote the great classical philosopher Gwen Stefani:
“Few times been around that track so it’s not just gonna happen like that”.
I’d elaborate further, but much as I want to, it’s not yet the time nor place.
It’s been a few days since I graduation from San Diego City College on Thursday, finally getting to walk after having completed all my required coursework in the Summer of last year and my degree not issued until the conclusion of the Fall 2024 semester. Dated December 16, 2024 and received in the mail back on March 3rd of this year, it’s an accomplishment that’s been stuck in a state of suspense and nice to finally have played out in full.
I was curious as to how I would feel that day, having never done a graduation walk before; I had tested out of high school at the start of my senior year, obtaining a legal diploma equivalent by way of the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). Thereafter, I had made peace with living a life in which I would not be a college student/graduate, and the opportunity to walk for a graduation ceremony a faint and highly unlikely possibility. I never really felt like I missed out on anything special by skipping my high school senior year and its processions, and after 20 years of mentally treating graduation ceremonies as something so personally meaningless, was unsure where my perspective would land that day.
It ultimately ended up being a very gratifying experience. I wore my regalia while I took the dog out for a walk before heading down to Balboa Park to check in for the commencement ceremony in the early afternoon. It was nice to show off to everyone I know, and to get congratulatory acknowledgements from strangers throughout the entire day.
While it’s been great to bask in the accomplishment, reality doesn’t wait, and I immediately have the matter of financing the summer session and choosing classes for the upcoming Fall semester to contend with.
Not only that, the commencement ceremony also brought a bittersweet poignancy to matter. Getting my associate’s degree is something I’ve already done, it’s time and effort already spent that I no longer have ahead of me as my future but instead as my past; that much older and done through this life. And in a more immediate context, the challenge of putting these degrees to work and materializing a return on this investment—and pay off the student loan debt incurred to obtain them—isn’t that far away off. Seeing as how even graduate-level professionals with advanced degrees are facing high uncertainty and competition in the modern job market, getting academic credentials is only a part of the process.
This student life of mine is only slated to last for another calendar year, presuming everything goes according to plan between now and then. That means that on top of keeping things together academically between now and the slated finish line next Spring, I’ve also got a lot of other areas of personal development to vigorously work on: health & physical fitness, real-world social networks, creative output and hobbies, interpersonal relationship management, the list goes on.
All my adult life, my approach has been to keep my head low, do hard and good work, and learn as much as possible. Doing that independently taught me a lot, now being further reinforced by the standards of collegiate education in business studies. But I also realize it’s time to start changing tack and doing “more” to make something out of both myself and my recently-changed legal name.
This month has flown by so fast. All of April leading up until last week was an academic gauntlet, sole focus on ensuring my academic success while sacrificing every other aspect of my life that isn’t my dog. In the week since finishing the Spring semester at SDSU, I’ve been preoccupied with catching up on personal administrative/financial work, and preparing for the graduation commencement ceremony from San Diego City College.
In this time between classes, it feels like I’ve got a lot to do in order to prepare for the upcoming Summer session and the Fall semester to follow. Optimizations to my homework/study space, and to my lifestyle. Over the past 1½ months, I’ve been sacrificing all of my fitness and recreational activities to concentrate on academics; I haven’t journaled or exercised much at all lately, and any updates here at all.
The goal between now and the start of the upcoming summer session is to apply the takeaways from my inaugural semester at SDSU and get everything in place to make sure the next one goes even better. Not will there be the remaining academic workload to tend to, but also my other projects and initiatives. Things are only going to get busier, and also form the foundation for the things to come—but that’s a train of thought for another time.
Had the last two final of exams for this semester today, one at late morning and other in the early evening.
It’s hard to believe it’s already over and done with. As much I’m glad to progress and keep moving forward, there is a certain melancholy over how fast it all seems to be passing. One down, two more to go.