School

Worst first day of school…ever

Near Future

So in all honesty, I’m pretty scared of the future right now. I just am. I need more Jesus right about now.

Collision

It’s been awhile since my last post so here I go again.

Just after a few weeks into summer, I’ve realized that I live in two different worlds. I have my Hmong/church world and my school/college world. And the one thing that is probably one the of the most difficult things to do is collide both worlds. Why do you ask? Let me try to explain.

I’ve grown up in my church, an all-Hmong church. I’ve known most of the families there right now all my life. Whenever the weekends came around, I always hung out with my 3 brothers and 1 sister and the more poorer Hmong families of the church (just cause my family was pretty poor itself). So basically it was just about at least 15 guys and 1 girl whenever we hung out. We always played games together, laughed together, did basically almost everything together except school, particularily in my case cause I nor my siblings went to school with any of the Hmong kids. Thus, I was a very shy kid at school. Some people find it hard to believe but it’s true! I was probably considered a loner back in the days at school. Rarely talked, kept to myself, only talked when needed to. Of course I had my circle of friends, but what did they really know about me other than I was “cool”? I never did anything for school. No afterschool activities/clubs or sports. I never hung out with school kids cause I couldn’t really, no car or rides or cell phone, so I just stayed home a lot. I even had days where I tried to count how many words I could say throughout the entire schoolday. Now I think that’s pretty crazy huh. Anyways, as you can already tell, that was my school life during my junior and high school years. BUT during all those times, the one thing I looked forward to every week was church, where I felt most comfortable with the Hmong environment. All my friends were there, people I know and grown up with. At church, I was myself, I didn’t have to put up a mask like I do at school. Not to mention that the Hmong community expands WAY beyond the borders of Illinois. That’s why there’s almost no UIC people who know who Hmong people are, cause Illinois barely has any of them. If you go to Wisconsin and Minnesota, Hmong people are everywhere, believe me. And if I ever met a Hmong person ANYWHERE in the United States, there’s a good chance that we could be related. That’s just crazy. ANY HMONG PERSON! and I can be related to that person. That’s how crazy the Hmong world is. We’re all connected one way or another, especially in the Hmong Christian community because about only less than 10% of Hmong-Americans are Christian and there are well over 250,000 Hmong in the US. So I know people from California, Oregon, Alaska, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennyslvania, Rhode Island, New York, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, and probably have relatives in the rest of the United States.

Now, here’s where the whole collision part comes in. Now that I’ve entered college at UIC, the people there have become almost like family, especially the AAIV family. When I first entered AAIV, I was a pretty quiet guy. I did my typical school personality which was be quiet, don’t talk much, say what’s needed to be said and you’ll do fine. But I soon learned that I can’t do that anymore. No more “nice guy” mask that I use in school, no more doing the least amount necessary to get by, and especially no more counting how many words I can say in a school day. I soon realized that I had to be more myself around these people. I’m not gonna lie, it was hard, especially cause none of the AAIV people were Hmong except Kong, my cousin. But I soon came to learn and understand more of the dominant Korean and Chinese cultures in AA. And sooner or later, I found myself acting more “natural” around them. All the events helped. Fall Retreat, Winterfest, CUP, Spring Celebration, CFW, and other smaller things like large group, small group, prayer meetings, and many more. The list goes on and on. All of this soon became my life during the school year. Academics and AAIV was my school year, not just my Hmong life.

Now because of college, I feel like I live in two completely different worlds. I have my life at UIC which primarily revolves around AAIV and I have my Hmong life. In all honesty, last summer I tried avoiding bringing the two worlds together. I never invited my Hmong friends to any of the AAIV gatherings nor did I ever invite school friends to my Hmong/church gatherings. It just felt TOO awkward for me. I know it sounds selfish of me saying all of this, but this has never happened to me. Like I said before, my school life and Hmong/church life never collided in the past. I was always living in one world or the other. But now that it’s summer time, there’s a ton more chances to have both worlds come together. And it has already happened, a few times actually. There were times where some AAIV people came to my house and met my family. Now that was super weird for me to experience. It just felt weird. Never in my life have both worlds collided like how this summer has been so far. NO ONE met my entire family including all 4 siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and/or church friends until this summer. If it were me, I would’ve been overwhelmed like crazy. But because it was me who’s colliding both worlds together, it just felt weird.

I really don’t know where I’m going with this but the whole collision business means a lot to me right now. I have two lives, two families, but how can I collide both worlds? How can I be Tony Yang in this world and Tony Yang in the other? In all honesty, I’m more myself in my life at home but what about school? Of course I act myself a lot of times but am I REALLY myself? Beleive me when I say this but ALOT of people at school don’t know how I act around my brothers. I’m sure many people would find it rather surprising. This is just another thing that’s hard for me to deal with, acting myself in both lives.

Sigh, I’m just going to end it here cause I don’t know where I’m going now ahah. Let’s just say one final thing: it’ll be hard for me if I ever dated someone who isn’t Hmong.

Before Finals Week…

So I just felt like writing a little somethin somethin before  I die later this week. Hm, last week of the year already, crazy huh. Man, the school year has passed by so quickly. It’s pretty hard to imagine that so many memories were already made throughout the year. A lot of good times…let’s give a few shoutouts shall we? Casino Night, job well done Heather. I remember me and John Hwang stealing those chairs for you . Ice-skating, I’ll use my pickup move on a girl next year. Sprititual Chain Pain, that was pretty hilarious Han’s small group. Cocoa House, being an MC was nerve-wrecking but it was a good experience. Awesome job Cheryl for helping me along the way, I appreciated it. Bride Wars was a fun night, thanks for chillin with me(you know who you are). Winterfest was amazing. God was really evident there. That was a weekend I won’t ever forget. Worship team was great! Definitely learned alot from the team, props to all of them. Being a support member for 2 small groups was amazing. Learned alot from my small group leaders so props to Helen and Han for those. Spring Celebration, damn let’s just say I hope my reputation didn’t go down ahah. Next year, someone has to carry on the sophomore tradition of wearing pink tights. Wonder who it’s gonna be….

Well enough about the memories, there have been a lot of developing relationships that have been built over the year too, especially with the freshmen. Man I love them, so encouraging and energetic. Reminds me of me my freshmen year but a lot better. Shout out to the boys, you guys rock. Great bunch of guys who love to have fun, yet also ya’ll know when to be mature. Talking to you guys is amazing. I learned alot about you guys and I hope I was encouraging to ya’ll as well. The girls, dang I just got a lot more sisters. If I haven’t told you directly, all you ladies are my sisters and you all hold a dear place in my heart. Why you ask? Well come find me and you’ll find out. All in all, the freshmen class have been awesome. ALSO! Just wanted to thank everyone else. All the upperclassmen and my class as well. Everyone’s been encouraging this year and it’s been a blessing to see growth in everyone, especially my class. Man although I’m one of the only guys in the class, I’m grateful to have sisters like the sophomore girls. Although they can get annoying at times ahah but I still love ‘em.

Man a lot has happened this past year huh. There’s a lot more that I really can’t post here just cause it’s just too much information to type BUT! if you want to know more, then please come ask! I’ll share it with you, I think . Plus, right now I’m kind of having a hard time in life in general. So if you’re willing, come find me and I might open up ahah.

TY out

My long-awaited update

Hello. People have told me to update so I gotta update. So let’s see what’s new with me eversince February…there have actually been a lot of things that have happened since. Winterfest, ACW, Special Large Groups, and other stuff I really can’t think of at the moment. All of these events have been pretty awesome I must say. But what about me? What has been going on in the regular life of Tony Yang? Hm, now THAT I have to think more about. I dunno, there have a been a lot of things going on with me. For instance, my family just moved out of the house we were in. Well technically, it was my uncle’s house in Wheaton but our family stayed there due to some personal matters. In any case, we now live super close to Fox Valley Mall in Naperville/Fox Valley (wherever that place is located…). I haven’t even been to my new place yet cause I haven’t been home. But I’m looking forward to it! Especially in the summer. Although I know our townhouse is pretty small and it won’t hold my parents and my 3 brothers and me in it most of the time, I’ll probably be out of the house a lot either working out or running or just chillin somewhere. You know what would be cool too? Ok so our garage is separated from the house so then there is a line of garages. So I was thinking we could park our cars outside and leave the garage open so we can have some hang out times in there. Play cards or games or just hang out and chill. I dunno, just an idea. Anyways, I live a lot closer to people as well. Freakin I was google mapping it and stuff and I live so close to Eric and Midm them all. I was like, “Wtfreak….” ahah. SO hopefully I can spend more time with Naperville kids in the summer. PLUS Heather, Jerry and Ellen will be back so we can hang out more yay!

Anyways, enough about that topic. Geez school’s already comin to an end huh. This year went by so damn fast. Meeting new people and everything, developing new relationships, all that good stuff. Let’s just hope and pray that I can finish strong! Well let’s all hope and pray that we can ALL finish strong.

I don’t know what else to say right now…I’m just looking forward to summer. Cedar, fishing, camping, volleyball, basketball, nice weather, work out more, running, working hopefully, possibly school, and oh yea! taking my shirt off outside .

This is it for now. I’ll come by more often.

Need a new update…

Hm, I really should update this more often…I’ll do it soon, I promise!

Dreams

If someone came and asked you that you can have any job in the world and everything would be paid for, what would your dream job be?

I was talking to someone about this before, and I would say that my dream job would be a fisherman at an exotic location such as Hawaii or Australia, etc. I would love to just sit back and enjoy what’s around me. I would love to just explore the islands in the area in my small boat as well as just enjoy the ocean. I wouldn’t mind being dirty if it means living in a place like this. But then again, if I was dirty, I could just simply dive into the vast ocean to cleanse myself. Diving, just another one of the crazy things I want to do too. In this case, it would be free-diving, just freely swimming around, enjoying the wonders of the seas. This would probably be one thing I would love to do if I had the chance to. There aren’t many words to describe how I feel about it yet there are many words to describe the surroundings. Plus, I love nature, so this would be such an ideal job for me! And just being in nature brings me this kind of excitement that gives me chills down my back. I just love being in awe of what God has created. I mean seriously, just look at it! Beautiful…simply beautiful. This is the life I wouldn’t mind having.

So what is your dream job?

Personal Interview

So lately, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things in my life. Like my last post, a lot of it has to deal with my financial issues. Money has been bothering me sooo much these days! It’s even come to a point where I really can’t do some of my homework cause of it. But I’ve come to a realization that a lot of the reason behind it is due to my pride. I’m so prideful when it comes to money. When people offer to pay for me or ask if I need anything, I often respond back saying things like, “No, it’s ok, I’m fine,” when in all honesty, I really need the help. I know for some people, $10 isn’t a lot of money at all, but in my case, it is a lot…Ok ok pause, what am I really trying to get at? Oh yea, I’m pretty prideful when it comes to money. That’s what I’m trying to say. So as a way to resolve this issue, I’m trying to meet up with people to talk to about this problem. Currently, I would say this is my biggest issue right now, but there are always more at hand.

Ok, other than my own personal problems, how is Tony Yang doing? Let’s ask him!

“Well, Tony, how are you doing nowadays?”

“Well, I’m alright. Today, I was watching some people play Rumikub or however you spell it, and I really feel like I would be a great player! I really like games like that where it takes a lot of brain power to manipulate the game to my liking. I also got a new phone. It’s pretty nice actually. Everyone I met today were super happy when they heard I finally got one ’cause I’ve been phoneless for almost 3 months now. Pretty crazy stuff but eh, oh well, I didn’t mind being phoneless for that long. Aside from that note, recently, I’ve been trying to develop better habits. I’m tryin to stop playing so much games, stop procrastinating so often, and just be a good student in general. I know it’s hard, but I really feel like I could do it this semester. If I keep up with it, then I really know that I can accomplish more in the future! There are just a few things that I would like from other people though, and that is accountability. Please PLEASE if any of you see or hear that I’m slacking off, I would like you to tell me. I won’t get offended or anything, trust me, I’m a nice guy. But I really just need people to tell me when to study and stuff like that.

Hm, can’t really think of anything else right now. OH YEA! This is a special shout-out to Heather Chan. Heather, if you’re out there reading this, then you better have some tissue next to you or somethin’ ahah. Ok here we go.

Dear Heather,

I still can’t believe that you aren’t here with us at UIC this semester. Every time I walk into your cluster, and I pass by your old room, I can’t help but feel a little down. Yes I know that Eunice lives there and don’t get me wrong, Eunice Oh is a pretty cool person, but in all honesty, it’s just not the same. During these past two weeks, there were some small minor details that reminded me of you.  I already told you them but it doesn’t hurt to mention it again. Now that you’re gone, I don’t have anyone to laugh out loud at my burps and call me Tonysaurus. Remember that time we came back from Greektown and I burped in your hair without knowing it until you told me? Man, funny stuff. There was this one time at the gym where EVERYONE was there! The ballers, your clustermates, and other people who worked out or were at the gym when it closed. I just miss it when you would also come out with Cassie and Selina and whoever else from the girls’ locker room and come talk to all of us. And then we would usually talk about basketball or working out. In all honesty, I think we talked about cute boy more than basketball or working out ahah. As weird as this sounds, I’ll miss getting IM’s from you requesting songs. When you did that, it also meant that I would get new songs to listen to so it’s a win/win situation for me as well. Another thing I’ll miss is our times in the cafeteria. You would ALWAYS make me food! Or at least go get food with me and then we would critique food together, although most of the time it was usually you doing all the talking while I’m doing all the eating ahah. I’ll most definitely miss our long, stupid, carefree, random, yet honest talks. Man there were too many to remember, but all I’m saying is once you’re back, we’re gonna have even more of those. We can still have more of those too but I need to get skype or a webcam first (sorry!). Well anyways, what I want to say is that I’ll miss you, and I can’t wait for summer when you’re back so we can go out to Dunkin Donuts and talk about Munchkins again . Have fun in Italy, don’t leave here with regrets and don’t come back home with regrets. You’ll be in all of our prayers, and I hope you can also continue living out your faith overseas. Bye Heather!

Sincerely,

Tonz

Money

So, I’ve come to a realization during this past semester: people just really don’t understand it when I say I’m poor. When I say I’m broke or I’m poor, I just really am. I don’t have much money to use, whether it be with me or in my bank account. I know people say “I’m broke. I gotta save money…” ALL THE TIME! I know that already! But I just feel like it’s different with me. Why? Just because I know for a fact that my family isn’t blessed like many other families. We aren’t like your typical Asian-American families. We don’t have fancy cars, a big house, high-paying jobs, nothing like that at all. I live in a small house, one story and a basement. During the summer, the number of people who live in my house can go as high up as 10 people! Craziness…My parent’s don’t really have high-paying jobs. It’s still difficult to manage ALL of us kids’ school tuition, 2 of us being in college, the other 2 in high school still. Not to mention my mom and sister are living in St. Louis with my step-dad who won’t even let my sister come visit us at all. Well, what I’m trying to get at is that people other than Hmong people (no offense) REALLY don’t understand my situation, let alone most every Hmong student’s situation. I’m not trying to say that I want to get rich and everything. It’s just that I can’t do a lot of things that people WANT to do like snowboarding all the time or go out and eating at some pretty cool restaurants. When it comes to hanging out, can we just sit back and chill? That’s all I really want to do. No spending money, no fancy restaurants, no expensive trips. Just sit back, relax, and have fun with friends and family. I know at times people want to go out for special occasions, and I know there are people out there who would love to go but can’t because of financial issues. I always fall under that case. But seriously, who needs money when it comes to hanging out?! Well, I hope this also DOESN’T stop people from making plans about going out and stuff like that. By all means, going out and having fun is fun still. But not ALL the time do people have enough money to do certain things. Ok ok, I really don’t know where I’m going with this right now, I’m just ranting now. But yes, like I was saying earlier, my family doesn’t fall under that “rich Asian-American family” category. Sometimes I wish we had more money, but things don’t happen that way. And yes, I know this too: God doesn’t call those who have, He calls those who do not have. I still find grace through my family’s financial issues, and that’s always a good thing too.

Well, this is about it. This is kind of what’s been going through my mind these past few days. It’s not the ONLY thing, but it’s one of ‘em. There are just some things I just can’t write in a blog ahah. If you want to know, come find me

Chill and laid-back

If I would describe myself in a few words, I would use chill and laid-back. Why? Because that’s how I am! Plus, people have told me that I’m a pretty chill and laid-back kind of guy. But right now, things are…you can say, a little rough, primarily more on the academic side. I am total hypocrite when it comes to school. I tell people to study all the time, yet I don’t even do it. What’s wrong with me?! I can’t even simply sit down and open a text book. This part also conflicts with reading the Bible. BECAUSE I can never sit and read out of my own free time with any kind of books like fiction books, it’s hard for me to simply open up the Word. And by this time, my chill and laid-back personality kicks in and tells me to just chill and go with the flow. Geez, it’s pretty hard to be chill and laid-back huh.