Day 4: About your family.

My family is, basically, just my mom and dad. My parents have always been VERY loving - sometimes TOO loving.

My dad is a hard person to explain. He's not a simple person. My dad is sometimes intimidating, sometimes off-putting, sometimes a big bear/comfortable to be around, sometimes weird, sometimes sociable, sometimes...A LOT OF THINGS. He is NOT constant. I'm not sure if it's because of his age (71) that he's all over the place or if he's always been this way, but my dad is so many things there's no one way to describe how he is most of the time. Also, my dad is a "victim" of ADD - he can be a child to the extreme! I have ADD too, but it's mild and compared to him it's NONEXISTENT. My father acts like a five-year-old sometimes. Sometimes I think it's funny and I go along with it, but other times....My dad thinks he's funny, but unfortunately a lot of people don't understand his humor and he's prone to not make sense (to most) - I think this is a curse a lot of dads have though. Also, he's EXTREMELY sensitive. More than anyone I know - but this has grown with age. If you do (or better yet, FORGET to do) something he expects he'll remember it.

My dad's a smarty pants. He knows a lot about a lot of different subjects, but he's very opinionated and narrow-minded, which is a dreadful combination and can prove embarrassing when he forgets his place (which rarely happens thankfully). As the saying goes: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. So true, especially when it comes to my dad.

My father is a family man. The only thing he loves more than family is God. Honestly, there's nothing he enjoys more than being with my mom and I - or reading. A word to describe my dad would be rowdy. He's a little boy trapped in a man's body - and sometimes, a lot more when he was younger, I'd see that man reappear but mostly it's the boy I see now that I'm older. He loves to do things for people, to make them happy. He writes me notes in the mornings ("Made you lunch, it's in the fridge, Love you Grace" or "Don't forget to feed the 'dawgs' dawg") and will buy my mom and I random little gifts a lot of the time - so much so that it's become normal. He's humble but at the same time he wants to be recognized. He seeks attention, and when he doesn't get enough of it he'll let you know. My dad has a quick temper but VERY little bite. He loves to yell. He'll yell for almost anything; I honestly think he thinks it's fun. He is a loud person most of the time, or when he's happy at least. Sometimes he can be somber (as when he doesn't get enough attention). Honestly my dad can be a little draining (going back to what I said about being a five-year-old). When it comes time to have kids, I have this gut instinct that one of them will be exactly like my dad. I don't know why - I just have a (foreboding) feeling. Ever since my dad was born he's been getting into trouble - aka he's clumsy. Unfortunately for me, I have inherited his clumsiness and I'm surprised that I'm alive to this day to be honest. Granted, it's gotten better with age but back in even high school I would LITERALLY trip almost every other day - once I tripped and fell flat on my face during passing period, to which I just laid there. I don't know how I wasn't shunned. As a seven-year-old I climbed on top of my roof and tried to jump off (I really can't remember if it was because I wanted to see if I could fly or if it was because I couldn't get down) - then again, that's just STUPID. Not really clumsy. I could go on with stories like this from both my dad and I but I think I'll stop for my sake. Oh, once I tried to microwave coffee in a glass cup. Yeah...that didn't end well.

In short, my dad is honestly an awesome person. However, things have changed between us thanks to this year and my dad's drinking problem (which I wrote a whole entry about). My dad is doing so much better though, in fact I haven't seen him drunk in nearly a month and a half now. Like it usually pans out, there's a lot of things I disagree with my parents about/don't like about them, but there's a lot more that I love - and I love them dearly and couldn't ask for more than what they've given me.

My mother is simple. But our relationship is somewhat complicated. This is because of the whole mother-daughter feud that's been going on...since the birth of the first daughter I'm sure. Just like the father-son feud. Some girls are EXACTLY like their moms, or close to what their moms are. Others are COMPLETE opposites. That is what my mom and I are: complete opposites. Ever since birth, I've been the non-ideal daughter (for my mom at least). I was a big time tomboy. I HATED anything girly - I would put up a fight over wearing a dress or earrings or anything I thought demeaning. I had a reputation to uphold and as far as I saw it, my mom wanted to ruin my image with girly frilliness. That was just not me. I fought long and hard but eventually I turned to "the dark side." I started dressing up, wearing make-up, etc - mostly because it was the norm (thanks society) but also because I felt pressured by my mom to be more of a "girl." I mean, do I think it's a bad thing now? Not so much. But I really do wish she would have laid off a bit - no one likes to think there's something wrong with them, and by their own mother much less. My mom is Korean so she's VERY - how shall I put it? - annoying about school. I was put into tutoring from the age of 8 almost to 13 - the cursed KUMON. I hated Kumon, how the Kumon building had no AC and the fans would grate on my ears while I was doing math packets of LONG DIVISION and WORD PROBLEMS - and how it was so quiet with students scribbling miserably away, watching the clock in anticipation of escaping. I hated the ADDITIONAL HOMEWORK Kumon gave out in packets - always packets. I would always try to hide them when I got home - that really displeased my mom. From Kumon came SAT weekends. Just how I loved to spend my weekends. In the same environment, now only focused on SATs and how "life-changing" they really were. Fuck the SATs. I hate how you're judged on how well you do on a fucking test, that it determines where you get in - I don't understand the system; it's faulted. Piano lessons were another thing I learned to hate - mostly because I had a dinosaur as a teacher who owned this ancient scraggly dog who thought it was a cat and scratched non-stop on her stained carpet. It gives me shivers just remembering. In a way I've always thought myself a disappointment to my mom. Unlike my dad, my mom is like a drill sergeant when it comes to education - but the thing is I think it hurt me rather than helped me. I've always been under this extreme pressure to excel by her - and it's stressing, it was more stressing in high school than now though. I know she's disappointed that I transferred from UCSB - that I could have stayed there, or even that I can transfer now to a UC again but refuse to. And that sucks. It sucks even more because I'm her only child. Another reason I wish I had a sibling is so that someone else could share the load. My mom has always wanted me to be a nurse, or doctor. For the longest time, I wanted to be a pharmacist - to please her. But I WOULD HATE IT. And I'm tired of living my life according to my mom. I did that too much in high school. My mom is always on my back about something - anything - and I know saying all this makes her look bad, but I do know that she does all these things because she loves me. Like my dad always tells me: "We wouldn't tell you ANYTHING if we didn't care so much about you."

I get it. But it gets overbearing. That's why I don't like living at home again. It's like high school all over. I can't take it sometimes, and that's why I'm usually never home.

But anyway, my mom is a STRONG and STUBBORN person. I have never met anyone as stubborn as her and it is trying! My mom is stronger than my dad - she grabs the bull by the horns you could say. She honestly doesn't care what you think because what she thinks is right - and you cannot change her opinion no matter how ridiculous it might be. At the same time, my mom is very caring. She's sweet when you meet her - but don't think you know her from first impressions, she can be VERY mean. She's an entrepreneur and honestly one of the most CREATIVE people I know. She's an artist, and I've always been jealous of her abilities. She's very funny and a VERY social person. I fight the most with her - it's only natural. She's truly one of my best friends and I tell her ALMOST everything. I love her and I know no matter how much we bicker that she loves me too.