Untitled [My First Entry]

I've always kept a diary of sorts. When I was little I would use those cute ones with flowers, bright colors, and the lock with keys. They were usually given to me for Christmas or birthdays. So I didn't have any control in what they looked like, but I did have control on what I wrote in them. My diaries from 3-5th grade were filled with pre-teen angst and depression. I wrote about death and despair. My parents (as they tell me now) were concerned, but let it go. Although I kept them fairly private, I remember sometime in middle school sharing my thoughts with my best friend at the time- Jennifer. I remember letting her read them in my bedroom of my parents' suburban, two-story, carpeted house. It made me feel closer to her. I look back now, and I think she was my first love.



Why glasses_girl and Different Lenses?



I've had glasses since I was four years old. In the hallway, we have all of our school pictures from pre-school to 12th grade. There's only two photos of me without glasses: one from pre-school and one year in middle school when I tried contacts (which I never tried again- hard lenses suck). One of my first identities was being an Asian girl with glasses in a predominantly white area in Indiana. Being an Asian girl with glasses was a triple whammy for sterotypes.



"You look so smart." "I bet you're good at math." "Did you place in the science fair?"

To these questions, I respond, "Yes, I not only look smart, but I am." "No, I suck at math." "And yes, I usually do place in the science fair, but I don't really like science."



Every year, I would get to pick out my new pair of glasses. This was a HUGE deal to me. I'd go to the mall with Ma. She'd say she'd pay for the "basics," but anything else I would have to pay for with my own money. These extras included monograms, pictures, wire frames, or thinner lenses. Some of my past choices were my initials, a unicorn, wire frames, and thinner lenses.



I had astigmatism, which until adulthood I thought was actually called a stigmatism, which growing up I never really knew what it meant, except that my lenses were typically thick- no matter how "thin" I paid extra for. The thickness of the lenses also made my selection of frames more limited. I had to pick from plastic frames, which could hold the thicker lenses better. Boy how things have changed now.



Without my glasses, I was almost blind (and I say that with no disrespect towards actual blind people). I always had my glasses within arms reach. One time in college, I had to ask someone else to find them, because I had left them somewhere in my room. I could be entirely physically naked, but if I still had my glasses on... I felt clothed.



Different Lenses... I have studied sociology and women and gender studies. I feel like I'm constantly looking, watching, and observing (all three different things, I contend). In Women and Gender Studies we talk/learn about "lenses." Maybe my glasses were my pre-cursor?! They (and other academic subjects) use this whole metaphor of glasses when they talk about lenses and framing. Only in academics could one take opthomology and turn it into something else.



I hope my blog can be a space for expression. This is for me, but this is also for the others who read it, which I am acutely aware of. I hope my blog can help "get out" some of the thoughts I typically carry close to me, which sometimes make me think I'm going insane. For now, I will try and commit to daily blogging.