old year, new year

2008 had been a very eventful year: the first year of my life to share with a boyfriend, having moved twice, becoming a u.s. citizen, casting my first ballot in arguably the most historically groundbreaking presidential election ever (even though it still hasn't hit me how important obama's victory is; maybe it'll finally come to me when i have kids, and they ask me about the election when they study it in history class), gaining an official brother-in-law, having flown 5 times around the country for jobs, vacations, and holidays. i'm not sure if i can really catch up on everything.

becoming a u.s. citizen had brought up some questions within myself. i took the naturalization oath in a brooklyn courthouse. the room was filled with about 400 people, all there to become citizens that day. a man next to me got excited when someone started telling us about how we could still register to vote that day in the presidential election. like me, he wanted to have a say in the government he has to abide. most of the 4 hours were spent waiting for the judge to arrive. finally, she came and spoke nice words about how momentous this occasion was and how honored she was to preside over the ceremony. we had been given a flier with the oath of allegiance on it, and i looked over it before we actually did the oath taking. it starts off as such:

i hereby declare on oath, that i absolutely, and entirely, renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which i have heretofore been a subject or citizen...

it didn't affect me upon reading it in silence in my head. but when i had to say these words out loud, i found myself unable to make a sound; i froze. i felt my heartbreak, in having to voice my renouncement to what was once my home, the only i had known for the first eight years of my life, a place that had become part of my identity. i felt like i was being asked to betray myself.

there was no doubt that i wanted to become a u.s. citizen. i had no problem reading the rest of the oath. i just didn't realize how much it would hurt to have to give up my ties (albeit only in a governmental sense) when the time came. i felt hong kong ripped from me once, when it was handed back to china after almost a century of british governance. then, the pop stars i grew up idolizing (in a tween obsessed manner that evolved into a mature admiration as their careers took on a more serious direction) started to pass away. they had all been little chips in the core of me that i wasn't even aware of. having to vocally give it up cracked that core.

i know there's still a lot of hong kong that will always be a part of me, but this superficial identification wasn't as superficial as i thought it was. one's citizenship only defines their home according to a map, the invisible boundaries that certain people have created. but there really is no border; there are no edges; the planet is round.

so today, i went to the post office and applied for a u.s. passport. having to hand over my certificate of naturalization unnerves me only because i am afraid it might get lost. the post officer who helped me put through this application warned that it now can take up to three years to replace the document. but i just let it go.

i didn't know of true unhappiness until we immigrated to the u.s. i think this explains why i feel so strongly tied to hong kong while my feelings towards the u.s. is more ambivalent even though i've spent more of my life in the u.s. hong kong has been my childhood fantasy land. and i'm sure it has to do with my age at the time of immigrating as well. i was just about to turn eight. most people probably experience their first true moment of sadness right around then as children become more cognizant of their surroundings at that age. i am certain that i would've had to experience something devastating soon had we stayed in hong kong. but the way things have turned out, i associate happiness with hong kong and heartbreaks with the u.s. but as tough as it is to get over the heartbreaks, i persist.

a day off

it's veteran's day, a holiday we weren't expecting to have off work. therefore, we've made no plans. our one true day off. we survived october.

r's grandfather made it through his heart complications. we've made plans to visit him and the rest of r's family in florida for thanksgiving. the apartment is starting to look more put together as we've unpacked bit by bit.

we didn't do anything for halloween. it was b's last weekend with us, having been gracious enough to come down to nyc from philadelphia, leaving behind her new hubby for a month, to help out on my current project. amazingly, we survived the month with her staying with us. we had a couple of fights, but being sisters, we just got over them. r felt a little anxious about them. i think he never really fought with his brother because they're more apart in age than b and me, and therefore, didn't really understand that we would just get over fights.

r's mom came to visit the day b left. we introduced her to ikea. we wanted to go for a small couch that we believe would actually fit through the door, unlike the bigger version where the movers were stuck in the hallway and ended up taking it back to the warehouse. the new couch now rests perfectly in our living room. r's mom had been trying to think of a way to redecorate one of the rooms in her house. she wanted to turn it into a craft room and was struck with tons of ideas during her visit at ikea. luckily, there's a branch in orlando, fl so she would be able to implement them when she returned home.

the next day, we took the train with her to r's brother's house. r's brother took us apple picking, my first time. picking an apple off a tree and biting into it immediately is one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. something so simple but felt so wondrous. it happened that my favorite kind of apples, fujis, were one of the two varieties left to pick for the season. they were so delicious. we brought home about ten pounds of it. i think there are still a couple of them left.

then, election day was quite a day. i had registered to vote, handing in my registration card in person to the board of elections, but never got anything in the mail to confirm that i would be able to vote. i got a little worried since this was my first time doing through this process, having become a citizen recently. after getting instructions from someone at the board of elections, my day went something like this:

i stood in line, thankfully a short line, at my polling site in midtown to acquire a certificate to obtain a court order. the woman who helped me was so kind and proud that i had become a citizen recently and made the effort to vote. i took the certificate downtown, to the board of elections, and plead before one of the judges standing by to grant me permission to vote. it was my first time sitting before a judge on a one-to-one basis. she gave me a written notice that allowed me to vote on an affidavit ballot and instructed me to re-register so this wouldn't happen again. when i turned in my second registration card, the woman behind the desk told me that i was supposed to have been given an absentee ballot. i wished it had been the case, but the information was too late. i took the notice from the judge back up to the polling site in midtown and stood in line again. the woman who had been helping earlier that morning was still there. so she set me up to do my affidavit ballot, and when i turned in my ballot to her, she and her co-worker applauded, for turning in my first ballot and for the effort i made that morning. i think she was more excited that i was. i just hope the next time will be much easier.

also, a friend of mine from tennessee just started on a job in the city. her employers set her up at a hotel only a few blocks away from r and me. i'm glad that she's staying at a place so close to ours so that it'll be easy to see each other. she was working on the same project that r and i met so seeing her has made me realize how far r and i have come.

i'm just glad that things have slowed down a bit. work has gotten more hectic, but it's nice that everything else has slowed down. r and i had a couple of tough moments, but it's kind of nice to know that we can be grumpy and not agreeable all the time to each other and still be okay. i'm going back to doing nothing now and will post my naturalization oath experience next time.