Where I am From...

I am from firework watching from the balcony and barbeques,
from Black & Decker late nights with friends and neighbours
and the beat of explosion in our hearts.

I am from the tall apartments and freshly mown grass
that felt like rain againt my legs,
I am from the lillies in vases that always smelt burnt.
I am from plucking petals off daisies;
"He loves me... he loves me not...", with the many petals
and the yellow core that's all is left.

I am from yearly family dinners, and family trips to Disney Land,
from road trips with brown bags ready.
I am from watching baseball on the couch the ice in the oolong tea melting.

I am from don't wear my make up and don't touch my clothes.
I am from the insults from my sister,
and the hand-me-down clothes.

I am from neatly stacked books, newly cut flowers
and the daily polished windows.

I am from smiling will get you far in life,
and don't jude a book by it's cover.

I am from my mother stuffing me in stiff clothes being dragged to church.
I am from don't do this and don't say that.
I am from saying a prayer before meals
and suppresing eye-rolling.

I am from Kawasaki, Japan.
I am from sushi with aunts and ramen with giddy uncles.

I am from strawberry picking on early Summer mornings,
from cards with worn edges,
I am from car trips to grandad's farm.

I am from reach for the stars,
and you can do better than that.

I am from the pig tail wearing girl in the glossy picture
of the family trip to Sydney.
From the porcelain Japanese doll that sits on the piano.
I am from the trunk that stores hundreds of those pristine photographs of our family laughing.

I am from the stiff, strong, and elegant branches of the sakura tree that grows in my grandmother's backyard with the forever changing leaves.

Tsunami Hits Japan

It was 2:46 when the ground beneath us began to shift. The capacious classroom was soon filled with copious amounts of tumbling textbooks and flying paper. The ground continued to shake and we were thrown back on to the wooden floor. Screams were audible from down the hallway as the teachers hastily tried to regain control over the students when it was obvious it was crucial to get the students to safety. Miyagi, Japan was where the tsunamis hit, we had to get to the roof fast.

The kids were fitful older brothers and sister were shouting out for their younger siblings, the azure blue of the sky was now filled with fire and dust as the nuclear plant near by burst into flames. The fastidious teachers took attendance quickly and the banter among the boys were silenced. The shaking earth decelerated before shaking even more furiously, throwing us back on to the floor.

Settling down the children were facilitated once on the roof. Emergency blankets, water, and food were deployed as the cool March wind howled with smoke. A pang of debris and sea water filled our noses, we looked down to see a wave of water pushing it's way through the city. Cars, dirt, broken parts of houses floated helplessly in the power of the wave as citizens pushed people aside to get away from the horror that chased them. We watched people scream for loved ones, looking frantically even if it meant going into buildings that could crumble any minute now.

Wasted: A Memoir on Anorexia and Bulimia

The title of the memoir I read, is Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. I think that the title Wasted reflects on the main character, Marya Hornbacher. She became an anorexic and bulimic person as she grew up, so the title shows how she wasted her body and life because of her obsession with food and her paranoia of becoming an over-weight person.

Marya Hornbacher became so conscious about her weight ever since she turned three years old. She would call herself fat in front of a mirror, play with her food, and refuse to eat ever since she could remember. Her father was warm towards her, and was going on and off diets. Her mother however, had continuous mood swings, one time, playing Barbies with her, another, picking at her food and acting very much like who Marya grew up to be. Her parents were constantly fighting, taking their arguments out on her, competing to be the better parent. Marya would try to be like her mother, cool and collected, while her father would tell her to stay a kid forever, and her mother wanting her to hurry up and grow up.

The memoir was written as a novel and how the Marya Hornbacher today, looks back onto her childhood and how she became a bulimic-anorexic. The memorist, Marya came to know how she pushed away everyone in her life, refusing to eat when she was so small she shouldn’t have to worry, and already getting an eating disorder. And then eating as if her stomach was a bottomless pit and then puking it out as a child. hooking up continuously with boys she hardly knew, getting pregnant during high school twice. She worked hard at a newspaper company as a journalist as she became older, and refusing to take a break, and working more than she’s paid to. She became obsessed in to keeping herself occupied so she wouldn’t have to constantly eat.

I think the book was really creative and how she described how she felt as she went through hospitals, homes for the mentally ill, and then her parents. She makes the reader feel as if they could feel their own bone jutting out awkwardly the way her’s felt. Although some may find it endless and tiring to hear about the memorist’s weight, other girls can relate to what Marya was going through, growing up with the fights with her parents, and being targeted by the boys in her grade due to her early puberty.

Some lines I loved are; “I would lift off into the sky, float over the iced white streets, yes, that was death, and I was the princess trapped in a cage, dying of a broken heart. That was death.” And “The self I’d had, once upon a time, was too much. Now there was no self at all. I was blank.” And “checking my bones, feeling for signs of softness, my brain veering back and forth from pig-pig-pig-fat-pig to stop-it-you’re-okay-it’s-okay-okay-okay”.

I thought the book was very insightful and helped the reader understand how bulimia and anorexia is not just about their vagueness and how they only care about their weight, but Marya Hornbacher shows how there is also fear and how she was unable to open up to anyone and didn’t feel like she can live a normal life. The memoirist went through a suicidal phase so I thought that would help the reader understand and be able to connect to her.