the golden hour

The LSAT test is coming up on October 9. I feel alright about that. I've taken it once before so I know what to expect. I'm studying harder each day and fighting to stay focused.

There are difficult things happening in my own life right now. My partner and I have been misunderstanding each other for many months now. We were in a place where we couldn't communicate kindly with each other. But I lived 9 years with a husband without ever feeling satisfied with my communication with him. However, my partner said to me, "We're the kind of women that would stay together forever out of loyalty to each other, but I don't want that for you, I don't want that for me. I don't want you to only stay to be kind to me, I want us to be able to get what we want." I thought for a while and said, "You're right, I want to be free, I want you to be free."

We agreed to break up on a Friday night, after a long day at work, and right before taking a LSAT practice test at 10:00 am the next morning. I took the practice test, but by section 3, it was reading comp, I lost my concentration. I just sat at the desk for the rest of the session, wiping my eyes with my fingers.
It's been 11 and a half days.

In the last week, I've reasurred myself, "We'll get back togther." I even call her still and ask if I can go over, like last night. I leave voice messages. In the mornings, I hope she's alright getting to work and hope her day is going well in the afternoon. When the sky is a golden hue in the evening, I think of her, she told me that it's called the golden hour, excellent lighting for photographers and a time we loved walking by the water.
I call to wish her sweet dreams, and leave phone messages.

Since I first shared with her my goal to go to law school, she told me she would help me get there. She provided me with funding for private lessons. She helped to raise my son, practicing trumpet with him, doing math homework, attending school events and being his friend. She drove me to take my first LSAT test last year. I finished the test and walked next door to her job, where she was facilitating a retreat. I was hungry and she saved me two lunch boxes from the retreat.

This is the kind of partner she has been to me.

I was given this meaningful relationship as I prepared for law school last year and as I'm about to turn in my applications this October, my relationship ended. Right now, I think this is unfair to me and her, we don't deserve this kind of sadness and pain. We both gave our all to make this relationship work.

Now I'm going outside. I'll stop by the post office to pay off the other half of rent, very late this month, and going to do more LSAT practice.

I'm re-reading this post as my LSAT buddy Ruby and I are about to time ourselves on logical reasoning.
It's been another week since breaking up and my heart is still raw. Last night, I felt so angry at the pain I'm feeling. I wanted to throw rocks at buildings and break the glass walls of those tall skyscrapers. So I defriended my former partner from my Facebook. Silly, but I had to get some kind of control in this sadness. I thought, "Everything I want from this life, I never get."

I walked to the water this morning and sat under a tree. I was greeted by dragon fly, humming bird, butterfly, egret and seagull was standing calmly on a wooden post, floating on the sea.

Here I am at the library. I was blessed with a beautiful relationship to a wonderful woman for one year, and feeling so shitty today, all I got from this relationship is....staying the path to reach my goal.

Before I go to the market

I must be really nervous about applying for law school because this is my second post in a week.

It's overcast today in Berkeley, which is, I guess, the common weather around here. Just took Niko to school and back home to go grocery shopping. We need some fruits and vegetables.

I'll be going to the library today to do some logic games. At this time before app deadlines, I find the most solace in the library studying and getting my personal statement ready. I feel so sad when I have to leave the library because I know I won't be able to work on my stuff outside the library. I just can't do my studying and applications at home. Perhaps I bring all my anxiety home and leave all my anxiety at home before going to the library. Hmm, I should try to change that. My sister and my son live with me at home so if I'm bringing and leaving a lot of my stress and anxiety for apps here, that must affect them too.

Today, I will be conscious of shedding my anxiety at the door before I enter my apartment. I will enter my apartment with gratitude in my heart for a job and for compassionate co-workers, for the opportunity to apply to law school and to live with a supportive sister and an amazing son. I also think of my good partner who is at her grandmother's funeral in Arizona this week. And my companion of the road towards law school, the fierce Melissa Gant.

As I write, I watch a green hued humming bird flying around the neighbor's cherry tree, picking on the dried pits. Whenever I witness a humming bird with my own eyes, I feel very blessed. In my indigenous knowledge, which I constantly unravel each day, I learned that the humming bird is a manifestation of little people and little animals, like faeries. Part of my ancestry are little people and little animals, faeries. When I witness a humming bird, I am reminded that the ancestors are walking with me in this journey, this difficult journey, and their presence makes me humble and grateful. Their presence gives me compassion and I am reassured that law school is not just a possibility, it's mine to claim because it is a tool I will use to help my community. This is the promise of my ancestors, the little folks.

Applying for Law School

It's September 1st. The stress is settling in. For People of Color.org, the nonprofit org that helps prospective students of color to apply to law school, set the law school application deadline for Oct. 1st. The majority of law schools' deadlines for application are Feb. 1st or 15th, but most schools are rolling admissions, so it's to a prospective student's advantage to apply as early as possible. Many schools open for applications on September 1st.
I'm studying for the LSAT. Revising my personal statement for the 30th time. I need to send drafts of my personal statement to professors I've had so they can send my letters of recommendation to LSDAS. Some schools have extra essays to write beside the personal statement. Trying to start on those. Right now I'm also reviewing schools' applications online and calling their admissions's offices and asking questions about fee waivers for apps and if they're rolling admissions or not, etc. Yale is not rolling admissions. Josie at admissions told me that around Thanksgiving is a good time to turn in Yale applications.
We can use the letter of recommendation questionaire with our letters of rec. It's provided by LSDAS and it's optional. I'm thinking of not using it. I still don't know.

I'm getting short tempered at work. I'd rather study for the LSAT and work on my personal statement then do work right now. Work can wait for one month but I need the pay. It's nice that my son is back at school. We'll both have a lot of homework.

My LSAT score is still not up to what I want, but, unlike last year, I'm not scared of the LSAT and I enjoy studying it. And, I'm improving each day as I study. Right now I'm taking a Kaplan prep course that I won from one of the FPOC events. Although many prospective students told me that Kaplan is useless, I find it helpful, although I must admit that I use the Testing for the Public prep course strategies instead of Kaplan strategies.
Testing for the Public is super amazing, particularly for people of color who are women and queer and immigrants! Hehehe, but for real! It's an LSAT prep course that teaches you how to think like a white straight male who has lived in the U.S. all his life! It doesn't do that by hypnotizing you or make you deny your ancestry and personal histories. It just teaches you strategies that help you to understand how the test makers and those who do well on the tests think. Because, for real, I don't think like that. Unfortunately it's only offered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
But I'm enjoying my Kaplan class. Particularly because I take it with Ruby, a Samoan/Tongan sister who is amazingly positive and enthusiastic about life. Even when our homework isn't done, Ruby praises the fact that we at least made it to class. Even when we don't make it to class, Ruby points out that at least we're at the library studying. When we should be in class and we're not at the library, Ruby praises the fact that we're somewhere having fun instead of being unhappy. She's a great LSAT buddy!

I just wanted to write this brief post to alleviate some stress I had from not posting anything on my blog for the last four months. I hope to post more often as this process becomes more stressful. Blogging can help me keep my cool. Much love!

Traveling Seed, a blog post from April 25th

I started this post back in April 25th and added to it today.

Tonight we went to see Cherrie Moraga, one of my favorite writers!, and Celia Herrera Rodriguez's mixed medium production, "La Semilla Caminante/The Traveling Seed: A Multimedia Performance Work," in a theater in The Mission. It was a play about ceremony, particularly the kinds of gatherings indigenous women in the U.S. deliberately initiate to heal together using indigenous medicines, art and knowledge.

The central narrative in this play was the story of a middle-age woman struggling with coming to terms with healing herself. She attends ceremony after ceremony and doesn't wake up to what her role is in the ceremony yet.

As a young Tongan woman growing up in Utah, my friends and I held tight to the idea of ceremony. We imagined and dreamed with all our hearts, with all our might to gather with other Pacific Island girls in Utah who immigrated to this new country, just like us and who knew so well, just like us, how lonely it was to grow up in the shadow of memories that happened in the homeland.

Meeting at an Eek-A-Mouse show, on the steps of the Liberty Wells Mormon chapel or the Indian Walk In Center, those nights at the parking lot of the 'Unuaki Tonga Methodist Church on 4th South. When we met, we always tried to seize the moment, to continue the ceremony that is always created when we meet at the same parking lot to drink, bump music from our cars, just to be with each other. The ceremony that will fill the empty void in our lives for a moment before we returned to our white suburbs, our poor working class neighborhoods, the tokenism of our presence in white schools, the colonial teachings of our churches, the letters from our brothers in prison. We lived for those nights when everyone around us was Tongan and the jokes were Tongan; the perfume, strong and heady, smelled like a Tongan; and the hot breath of desire on the nape of the neck spoke Tongan.

It was in these gatherings that I held ceremony with Tongan and Pacific Island sisters. We stood in circles, wearing heavy coats in winter and sweatshirts in summer, with Big Gulps of Rum and Coke, passing around joints or sheets of acid, laughing out loud at Yellow Man's advice, "Girl, you can't do what the guys do you know and still be a lady."
This kind of ceremony lasted all weekend, doing beer runs after using up everyone's money. We wanted to to prolong being together, the feeling of belonging together. Everyone worked hard to pitch in and take care of each other but the void we wanted to fill with each others' presence just grew larger. Soon enough the void was partying together with us, which is no fun. You don't want to party with histories of your own pain.

I wonder what kind of ceremony would have helped to fill the void of isolation and self hate that was so prevalent within me when I was in my early twenties growing up in Utah?

What kind of indigenous Tongan healings are there available for young people in Utah, the Bay Area, the homeland today?

What role does ceremony play in my life today?




An ongoing post I'm working on: Why do I want to go to Harvard Law School?


it begins with my dad. it begins with my dad for me. all the places and things that my dad began with, is also my beginning.
i was seven, weeding my cousin Hiu's and I's taro plants in the garden. we lived in Kolomotu'a in Tonga. I saw a man standing down the road watching my home, the two room house my mother and two of my sisters lived in. this is before the two youngest siblings were born.
the man stared intently at our house, so i knew he was my father. he looked like he felt he had to come back home but really didn't want to do it.

rest in peace Howard Zinn

howard zinn passed away today. i have always felt a warm reassurance that "A People's History of the United States" existed and that it was written by a caring, smart white American male historian.

when i lived in east boston in the mid-2000s, there was a rally for the U.S. to get out of Iraq almost every other week at boston commons. i remember howard attending many of these rallies. he was the tall thin man with beautiful gray hair, constantly surrounded by students. i think i marched passed howard at 3 different marches. there was always someone talking to howard and someone waiting to talk to him. not wanting to interrupt his conversations, i touched his back and thanked him quietly. he never flinched or shrugged away because he didn't know me. he always smiled and welcomed me.

i feel very blessed and humble that howard and his work was a part of my intellectual, cultural and spiritual development. i bought my son niko the "People's History" graphic novel last year. the stories in it helped niko, who is now 11, as he continues to shape and hone his consciousness of being a boy at this time in america.

i thank howard for giving his life to the struggle for people to live meaningful and equitable lives in this country.

with howards' passing, i think about my own life and what i will leave younger generations when i die. i've been thinking a lot about my calling in life.

with missing the law school application deadlines last year and receiving a low lsat score, i've been thinking, "what if law school is not for me?" i should just be a poet. i'll put more time to writing poetry and tour as a poet rock star.

my son said to me, "but you are already a poet mama." "oh, hmm," i thought. in his prayer tonight he asked the gods, "please help my mom find out what she wants to be."

on saturday night, my sister fui and i were part of an asian artist showcase. at this event, i met a classmate from my lsat prep class last year. he's vietnamese, an undergraduate student at cal and he will be graduating this spring 2010. when we met at our lsat prep class, we were very nervous about the class expectations and the test and we talked about where we wanted to go to law school. this friend told me that he wanted to get a high score because he planned on going to columbia university. at the event on saturday, i asked him how his applications went and he told me that he was accepted to columbia and is waiting to hear from harvard. wow, this was great news from my classmate!

i thought about his great news when i came home. i did think about our differences: he's a traditional student, he's doing his undergrad at a top school, and I assumed that he does well on standardized tests. i also remembered how kind he always was to me, an older woman in the class. he is always genuine in conversation and talks to me when we run into each other in public. when i first met him, he seemed awkward to me and shy, but as i see him more, i realize that he's young and still coming into himself.

i saw my own reflection in my young classmate. i saw that i too, although much older in age, am awkward in this process of applying to law school. I am very nervous and am still coming into myself in my journey to get to law school.

talking to my classmate on saturday woke me up from my stupor of self criticism and self doubt. my classmate shared his news with me with kindness and by doing this, he allowed me to imagine myself in his own accomplishments, that his great news is an example of great news that i will receive one day too.

i'm still a little beat around the edges and my heart is still broken from not making last year's law school application deadlines, but, after hearing from my classmate that he's going to the school of his choice, i remember the great joy i felt when i realized i wanted to become a legal advocate. i'm feeling that great joy coming back. i'm scared to capture all that joy back again though because, since recently being disappointed with myself, the self doubt comes back and i say, "what if you don't do it again." sure, i guess there's always that risk that i may not apply again this year, but there's a promising possibility that i can do it and that i will get into the school i want, just like my classmate! i must choose to pursue joy, not failure.

i remember a fellow americorps legal intern i talked to back in 08. he was a young man like my classmate, but he was italian/irish from the historically irish southie neighborhood of boston. he was finishing his senior undergrad year when he applied to 50 law schools. no one accepted him. then he served as an americorps legal intern, retook the lsat, finished undergrad. and applied to 37 schools, including his dream school, bc (boston college). he got accepted to 7 schools, including his dream, bc, where he is starting his second year. it's an inspiring story!

i'm really proud of my classmate and am grateful for how his example of kindness, hard work and commitment, helps me in my struggle to pursue joy in my life.

i think of howard zinn and how his work brought joy to people, how he made it easier for us in this country. how did howard find his calling in life?

my calling for right now is to wake up to myself, my kind and hard working, committed self. to greet myself in the morning and when my heart sinks and shrieks away from the everyday chores of living and hides away from the law school process, i will hold my heart and carry her steadily with my own hands. each day, my strength will return and, each day, i will forgive myself and trust myself again.

while i do these things, i will not hate and blame people around me who see that I am engaged in a fierce struggle with myself. i will not be angry at them because they see that i am vulnerable and exposed and that they offer to help me. i will not dismiss them because i am ashamed that they witness on a daily basis how difficult it is for me to return to my own joy. i will let them help me to stand up. i will find joy in transforming my self hatred to reflect, instead, the great love my companions have for me.

disappointment, postponement and continuing the path

Yesterday, after tough conversations with my sister and thinking deeply about where my life is at, I wrote to my undergraduate professor, Dave Stanley, and said:

Hi Dave,

I'm so sorry that I had you working on my letter of rec. I kept pushing myself to apply this year (for law school) but, after many conversations with current law students and a few law professors, I have decided to postpone my application until this fall, Fall 2010.
My LSAT score was low (145 out of 180) and I am going to retake the preparation class and retake the test.
I do want you to still write a letter of rec for me in September 2010.

I am very sorry for putting this extra stress on you Dave. Thank you for all your support throughout my attempt.
I look forward to your continued support this year and, together, we will make attending law school a reality for me!!!

Dear readers,

I apologize for not writing on my blog. I thank readers for congratulating me on taking the LSAT and wishing me luck on my score. I thank all of you for your encouragement.

I am not applying this year. My score of 145 is below the average. I was going to apply anyway to a program that would accept my score because I didn't want to repeat the grueling and painful experience of retaking the preparation classes, studying constantly at the library and the anxiety of retaking the test. I really wanted to avoid all this.

I spoke with a recent graduate of UCLA Law School who was a student representative at UCLA's Law School Admissions Committee and now working as a Public Defender. He challenged me to take the LSAT again to improve my score. A current Boalt Hall Law School student advised me to retake the test too and to apply no later than Thanksgiving. I didn't want to hear this advice.

My mind was preoccupied with my apps. I worked on my personal statement and applications but I didn't feel inspired and motivated anymore. I hit a brick wall with trying to finish my personal statement. I couldn't even write on my blog. I felt very disappointed with myself in receiving a low test score and I couldn't look beyond my disappointment. I started to feel depressed and became very angry and put my anger unfairly on my sister and my relationship with my girlfriend.

I did not spend time with myself to think about my disappointment, to evaluate what happened. I did not thank and acknowledge myself for working hard and earnestly. I judged myself harshly and buried myself in work.

I received a consulting job in late October to help City of Oakland planners to designate neighborhoods in order for these neighborhoods to more readily receive regional funding. Although the research for this project spanned two months, it took me three days to finish the document I was contracted for. I marveled at how fast it took me to finish this City of Oakland document compared to the months upon months I have taken on my personal statement.

Throughout this time, I insisted on applying to law school anyway. I felt that I had to be committed to my goal to apply in 2009 for the 2010 school year since that was my original plan.

On Friday, my sister Fui and I were driving to the KPFA Community Radio Station to do an interview on the Hard Knock Radio Show about an anthology we are helping to edit called, "Uso's on Freeways: An Anthology of Pacific Island Writers from/in the Continental U.S."

That morning I woke up angry. I didn't know why I was angry, but like many times before, the anger was just there. I felt very uncomfortable with the anger that was in my bones and that filled each cell of my body. I have felt this anger for most of my life. Although it brought great discomfort and hurt, I never talked to anyone about it before.

My sister tried to talk with me about ideas for the radio interview and I found it difficult to just chill out and enjoy myself. I became very critical of her suggestions and I exuded uncomfortable vibes.

On our drive to the KPFA studio, a feeling of great anger came upon me as I sat next to my sister. My sister felt it and could not understand why I would be so angry at her, especially when she secured this interview for the anthology and treated me kindly. She began to cry and she postponed the interview because we weren't in good terms. She told me to go home, but then called me a few minutes later to talk about what happened. I immediately changed my attitude because I could see how I hurt my sister. For the first time in my life, I took the anger that was inside me and held it outside of myself so I could see it, so I could look at it as something that I had carried but I do not have to carry for the rest of my life.

Fui asked us to try to solve our differences, particularly since we promised my son Niko that we were going to watch Avatar 3D for the first time that night. We didn't want to create family drama for Niko, and also, for ourselves.

I told Fui about the great anger that I carry. It was the first time I had talked about the anger itself. An immense anger that is a burden on me but that I have carried since I was a young child. Fui (and Elisa, my girlfriend, has said this too) said that the anger I carried helped me to survive in the past, but it now hindered my development to find joy and happiness.

I looked at the gigantic, calloused and hardened ball of anger I held away from myself and let it go. It melted like snow and flew away like dust. The memory and habits of the anger I carried for so long, returns many times and I have to put it outside of myself again and give it to the universe.

In my conversation with my sister, I found out that my ball of anger was full of my disappointment of my low LSAT score and the fact that I didn't apply to law school this year. I wept out loudly and horrific screams wailed out of my mouth as I came to terms with the reality of my law school process. I received a low LSAT and I did not apply to law school in 2009.

The reality of my law school applications is also the reality of what happened with the rest of my life, because my law school application does not exist in itself, it is part of me and I am part of a family, a community and a world.

As I wept in disappointment and shame for not having applied to law school in 2009, I cried out angrily and said, "I'd give up coming out queer this minute if Harvard accepted me right now." When I feel great anger boil in me, I blame and become distrustful of things I love the most and those who love me the most, like my sister, my family, and, as I cursed out, my girlfriend.

Would I really give up loving and accepting my queer self, which is the difficult work I did in 2009, for a place at a law school?

My commitment to become a lawyer for disenfranchised people and things comes from having grown up as a kid who honed a keen understanding of power disparities from being treated unfairly and silenced by people who were uncomfortable with my "weirdness."

I am humbled that I will become a queer lawyer one day.

Lawyers are legal advocates for people and things. On my journey to become a lawyer one day, I must be my strongest advocate. That's why I must set aside the ball of anger that has festered in my life. I must let go of my anger, which includes my shame, my embarrassment and my disappointment. All these things stop me on my tracks from continuing to reach my goal.

I am applying for law school again. I learned many things from my first attempt that were important lessons. I also have a bigger and stronger posse to help me on this journey. I thank the members of my posse who are present all the time, in body or spirit, and are committed to seeing this journey through with me.

2010, what a great year to try again for law school!!!