french – Letters by Soo

January 6, 2019May 10, 2020

Some Experiences of 2018 and Goals for 2019

Experiences of 2018

1. loved

2. made life long and diverse friendships from my time in California in the summer

3. tested myself as the CEO of my own company– and dealt with and am continuing to deal with the everyday prospect of rejection and personal rejection and observing myself responding to and living these moments, well, or not so well.

4. saw the fruit of my strong relationships with the women in my life

5. revealed a personal long term trauma of mine from childhood to a room of 60+ colleagues and strangers > which unintentionally sparked a wonderful and effective road to recovery, healing, closure, and peace in my life. It was a mixture of owning the experience and being of the age and emotional maturity to really own it. I’ve talked about this trauma to other people before and when I was younger, but I was never “there” emotionally and mentally to free myself from the burden of my experience. This time, it seems I was.

6. actively sought to support, pray for, and aid the people in my life and colleagues I met once or more than a couple times through my work.

7. experienced very little depressive thinking and anxiety

8. had the opportunity to travel and experience the most wonderful new things nearly every month

9. lots of family loss and pain because of health problems + dealing with the painful history my immediate family shares.

10. learned to love my body and myself even more. Not over exceedingly. Just accurately.

11. practiced killing my pride and the areas of my close-mindedness

12. Experienced both the bliss and fortitude of not comparing myself to anyone and the pain of putting myself down or making myself insecure by comparing myself to others throughout intermittent months

Goals of 2019

1. Be a better listener. More actionably, stop interrupting and learn to put pen to paper if my thoughts keep overruling my desire to listen to the other and overwhelming my head and tempt me to interrupt conversation.

Enforce the mindset that a conversation with ANYONE = a precious time to show my appreciation for and understanding of them through LISTENING – action.

2. Stop my pattern of mumbling.

3. Last year to become fluent in French

Take it as a black or white scenario. Winner takes all.

(This kind of harsh mentality might not work for everyone, but I’ve found that for me, when I deal with mental absolutes when setting expectations for myself, I end with half or half + the expectations I set myself. )

4. Be increasingly there for my family members, H, W, J, and J while keeping boundaries for the life and identity that I am uniquely constructing for myself on my own terms.

5. Learn how to say NO – two reasons – 1. protect my wellbeing, and my limited energy (if I keep saying yes, I’ll run myself to the ground) and 2. check bullshit from others as the first sentence is uttered or written. Find a way to stay kind and respond or ignore messages without feeling guilty and without bile to people who seek to take or have an agenda that is not wise or in service to you or others?, or… I feel like there is a wiser way of going about this. But I haven’t come to the answer yet.

6. Have ATEM succeed

7. Work better to protect the marginalized and misunderstood, particularly those with issues I am personally passionate about:

sexual harassment
- check people, even if they are people who are more powerful than me or men I have a personal attachment to.
gender discrimination
- grow as a woman who denies expectations prescribed to her present and future (be independent! Be a wife! Don’t be a wife! Don’t quit your job! Quit your job! Be more dependent! Be less dependent!). Grow as a woman who determines what it is to be herself on her own terms. Grow and inspire by example. Currently, it means being secure and proud of the fact that I want to 2. continue doing fulfilling and meaningful work, and 1. [In the future] devote all of my resources to be the best family woman there ever was. I want to have a wonderful husband and I want to have children. I want to devote myself 100% to my partner and am okay with throwing myself 100% to support my partner’s career aspirations (if and when a family exists), so long as when the time comes that I am asked to make a sacrifice, the changes are decided on “together” with the mutual understanding that it was needed not because I am a woman and it’s the responsibility of the woman to fulfill the family rearing needs, but because it was my choice, my honor, and my joy to take that choice for the family; I am 100% supportive of any partner making career changes or stepping back from something for the family as a whole. That is my definition of being a woman and a person on my own terms.
racial discrimination
- be more vocal in the public sphere and during my day to day commute when I see this happening for example on NY subway platforms.
domestic violence
- explore and identify projects I might want to get involved in either with my resources with time or finances
- think proactively about the future: while there are not many in my personal network that are married, the numbers will rise with time, and it is important to be diligent and create a strong foundation for my female (not excluding males too) relationships now of openness, compassion, and willingness to listen, so that if the time ever comes these people (or even me) have someone to fall back on and trust or send an SOS too.
lack of access due to socio-economics – financial/human capital
- immediately actionable: use the professional and personal network I have to nurture and help individuals in the ways I can.

8. Visit my mom in Korea

9. Go back to France. 🙂

10. Find a new system to reincorporate an optimal rate of reading and doing/seeing art (things I love) as I continue to build ATEM – system I continued into 2018 with and worked with throughout the year doesn’t work anymore due to the immense time suck I’ve had with my personal time due to work demands and stress (stress, because when super drained, it is hard to read, even if you do have that hour).

October 15, 2018March 21, 2020

The Dreamers, a story of denial, withdrawal, and sexuality– how French.

(written, but unpublished from August 23, 2017, age 24)

The Dreamers is not for the sexually faint of heart, but it is truly a story to behold.

The lines that stayed with me:

“One of us, one of us!”

The scenes that stayed with me:

When Isabelle’s hair catches on fire, and Matthew is instinctively aflutter with trying to take it out and the scene fuzzes out and in–and everything seems to just slow down with that gaze..

Obviously, one of the most sensual and irreverent sex scenes I’ve ever seen. Isabelle and Matthew having sex for the first time in the kitchen whilst Theo makes some eggs for himself in the background, copping a cig, with a literal revolution (student demonstrations) and chaos unfolding on the streets.

Theo and Isabelle playfully slams the door on Matthew in the rain. And he’s locked out. A true third wheel in the most unnatural sense of the word. Matthew is left standing for moments that seem like a life-time, exasperated, dejected, rejected, third-wheeldified. So much passive aggression in this scene. SWEET RICHNESS.

All the gazes!

The best scenes and moments are left untouched so you’ll have to watch the film on your own if you’re curious to and want to understand what the hell I mean from the above.

But here’s a couple of photos to brief you 🙂

April 9, 2018March 21, 2020

Mom & I: South of France

We both love France so much.

It’s quite funny actually– like mother like daughter they say 🙂

We arrived at our intense loves for French culture independently, really.

My mom as a high schooler loved studying French and French culture. She said it was due to an inspirational and charismatic teacher. She loved the language so much she got her Bachelor’s in French and if not for the conservative times in South Korea in the 80s and the social demands of her family, she tells me she would have moved to France right after university. At the time, her father, my grandfather, particularly was adamantly against the idea.

I too, loved France since I was a kid. In middle school, I picked up French as an elective, and I ended up really enjoying it. I was “christened” Juliette– a name I was head over heels with. “So pretty!” I thought. Entranced first by the beauty of the language, as I grew older, I quickly ended up being in love with everything else as I was exposed to other elements of French culture: the food, the cultural practices, the entertainment, the people’s way of living. I even booked a flight to France right after I graduated NYU, and had paid the deposit for a studio and the tuition for a 6 mo. program at La Sorbonne haha– so bent was I on moving there and figuring out a way to get a visa… a job… and a life in a place that seemed so much like home. None of these things ever ended up happening. Different circumstances, along with different decisions come into play, along with different people… and life goes on.

We are so grateful whenever we are able to come back to this country that has left such an inexplainable and cosmic mark on our souls and spirits.

I’m sad that my mom is leaving today.

Our vacation to the south of France is our first mother daughter solo trip since maybe… 2016? I think I should do this more often. It’s been such a blessing getting to know her more deeply this past week not just as my mother, but as a fellow woman and peer.

TO DO: Hog my mom from J and J.

How loved am I.

August 28, 2017April 14, 2020

Home Secrets

I don’t call myself the ideal homemaker, and my friends know I rarely cook. I’d also prefer to use FlyCleaners, but they “don’t yet service in my area”.

However, thanks to the Amazon savvy lady that is my mother, combined with my penchant for taste, I have picked up some tips and tricks à la “Health, Household, and Baby Care”

that make me feel somewhat better about my aforementioned failures.

Dry Shampoo

The Harmless One

Klorane Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk

My All Time Personal Favorite

Screen Shot 2017-08-27 at 10.19.57 PM.png — warning: it does have a strong English garden-like smell to it.

Batiste Instant Hair Refresh Dry Shampoo: Floral & Flirty Blush. I found this at Boots back in England. It will be a staple for life. I only recommend this scent. I’ve tried the others and I wouldn’t say I recommend.

What The People Say

Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray: People have recommended this to me as one of the best on the market, but frankly the smell really irritates my nose and affects my sense of smell. Perhaps you might enjoy it. After all, we are all different.

Stains, the bane of white blouses.

If you are busy, sometimes messy, and selectively lazy like me, you’ll need something quick, effective, and something that won’t frustrate you for taking so long to remediate.

Shout Wipes is your man (your men?). Many people swear by Tide Pens, but this is has taken out more stains for me from experience, and I also appreciate the fact that it’s technically impossible for the treatment to “dry” out before you use it because they sell these in single-use AIR TIGHT packs that retain all that good moisture and active chemicals. That’s what I primarily don’t like about Tide Pens. The pens aren’t dependably juicy. I like consistency.

Start with a 24 pack (I’ve linked you to that one), but I’d say go for the 80! No regrets.

Do you even know how humid your room is?

If you don’t believe me, take a look

While the current humidity level of your rooms won’t affect most of you, you should care because your clothes are the ones that will receive the brunt of all the moisture. Save yourself the emotional pain that comes with a moth having eaten away at your $2,000 mohair knit sweater and buy these miracles that are the Damp Rid Hanging Moisture Absorber.

The smell is also quite nice.

The end.

But wait!

One more.

This isn’t really a home – grooming hack– it’s really just a life hack that’s made my life incrementally happier this past month:

Limitless Coffee, an lllinois based coffee and tea company, has created some of the best flavored coffee I’ve ever tasted in The United States of America. For context, I’m a big coffee enthusiast, and while I don’t regularly go to cupping classes and such, I feel I have sufficient experience to tell you that this truly is different [a gem!] from any of the coffees that you or I’ve ever tasted— even judging against the big coffee names and my favorite coffee makers such as Toby’s Estate Coffee. I don’t know how else to say it.

It’s not sold in Whole Foods yet, but I hope a buyer finds it and places some big orders for New York, and quick!

Complement this homey read with some splish-splash music by Caravan Palace, a fairly unique electro-swing French band. My favorite song of theirs is Aftermath.