And all that good stuff - 2011 reflections

As another wondrous year winds down to an end, it is time once again for me to write my insanely long year end reflection blog post to commemorate the glorious year that is about to end in less than eight hours as of this writing (hello run on sentence!) 

First things first, this time of the year is all about people planning their New Year’s resolution to better themselves as a person for the year ahead. Now, I can easily beat the dead horse in rambling about how most resolutions go to die when the second week of January rolls around, but that defeatist attitude is apparently not welcome at a time like this, so I shall not. 

2011 RESOLUTIONS

Instead, I will brag about the enormous success that was my own New Year’s resolutions for 2011. Granted some may call it cheating to only have THREE resolutions to keep, but whatever, do not lay the blame on me for being actually responsible enough to set goals that is somewhat achievable. My advice is instead of having a list of resolutions a mile long (think I saw on the social networks someone working on a list of 50+ (!?)) and being satisfied you will only hit a few in the new year, have a few that you know the likelihood of achieving is great, so that when you do succeed in all of them, it is a much greater satisfaction.

Anyways, here are the thee New Year’s resolution for 2011 that I victoriously accomplished: 

• 1. Blog consistently
• 2. Be able to read Korean script (한굴 hangul) at normal speed
• 3. Stop being lazy - most of the time

sidebar: if you think I am just pulling these out of my ass, I kindly refer you to my  blog post, in which all of the above was proclaimed.

Allow me to elaborate further. If you are reading this right now, you would undoubtedly know that this is a my personal blog. For the year 2011, I wrote a grand total of 42 blog posts (and my posts are not short by any stretch of the imagination). While this may not challenge the output of blog articles of my previous years (a post a day was pretty common back in my Facebook notes days), when accounting for the amount of work and other stuff I had to do, overall I am pretty satisfied with 42 blog posts for the year. Of course I aim to break that record next year (2012 New Year’s resolution #1!)

I happen to have another blog - my photography blog, and that also got updated frequently in 2011 with pictures and articles related to my photographic endeavors. So it is indeed fair to say the 2011 New Year’s resolution of blogging consistently have been quite successful.

As for reading Korean script at a normal pace (I feel like I must reiterate, this is read and read ONLY, does not mean I understand it completely), well it was a just a natural growth process as I continued to watch Korean tv shows. The more I watched, the better I got at it. For sure I could have just completely ignore the Korean and instead read the Chinese subtitles that accompany the videos (Chinese subtitles because my brothers and sisters over in the great nation of China sub the shows usually by the day after it broadcasts in Korea), but why rob myself of the educational opportunity if I don’t at least attempted to learn the orignal language of shows that I watch every week all though the year?

Sidebar: the best thing about Asian television programming as compared to American is that there are no such thing as reruns. There is fresh material and new episodes week after week. Makes you think what kind of bull shit it is that you need to wait months between seasons of shows (or even when they take their usual holiday breaks throughout a season’s run). 

The caveat of “most of the time” that was stipulated in the stop being lazy resolution was that old habits are indeed really hard to die. My entrepreneurship teacher always say that entrepreneurs by nature are lazy, so with that obvious flawed logic I take with me the entitlement that I can be lazy once in a while and everything will still be completely alright. Of course the resolution was to stop being so lazy that it will be impede me in whatever I was trying to accomplish, and on that front I think I did pretty okay. Though It is incredibly hard to quantify and show just how not lazy I was in the year 2011, merely spewing off a list of accomplishments would seem highly narcissistic. But alas resolutions are ultimately for the person himself, so my own satisfaction in a non-lazy 2011 shall suffice.

My emotions in regards to my 2011 New Year’s resolutions can be best summed up by this well known internet meme: 

MUSICALLY SPEAKING

Like most people of my generation (the most awesome generation for sure), I am a big part of the whole music fanaticism and how music is my life kind of thing. 2011 saw my iTunes library swell past the 12,000 mark. While that pales in comparison to the true music packrats of the world, I am still young so eventually I will be in the league of those people because as each year roll past the collection will only swell further.

Having 12,000 plus songs at my finger tip (not in my pocket, because my old 5th generation iPod can’t possibly hold that much songs, even if I compress them to hell) makes for a great personal juke box for the man cave, but that’s about it. I honestly would be lying if I told you I actually listened to each and every song (some haven’t even got one play!). Out of the 12,000 plus songs, only about 1,400 of it gets into the regular rotation. 

Since this blog post is about reflecting on 2011, how to do it for music? Well this year I discovered the wonderful app that is Last.fm. It allowed me to keep track of all the songs I have played for the the entire year, no matter on my Mac, iPod, or iPhone. This newfound convenience and power allowed me to discover just which songs throughout the year have been most played. If music connects with the feelings of a person like we all think it does, then the most played songs of 2011 ought to reflect pretty darn well the overall vibe of my 2011. So here is my top 10 most played song of 2011:

• 1. Owl City - The Saltwater Room
• 2. SHINee - 누난 너무 예뻐 (Replay)
• 3. Girls’ Generation - Echo
• 4. 4minute - Bababa
• 5. SHINee - Hello
• 6. 周杰倫 (Jay Chou) - 她的睫毛 (Her Eyelashes)
• 7. 4minute - Huh
• 8. f(x) - 피노키오 (Danger)
• 9. f(x) - Hot Summer
• 10. 鄧紫棋 (G.E.M.) - All About U 

Just a whole mess of K-pop, two Chinese songs, and surprisingly an American song made it to the top spot.

PHOTOGRAPHY

2011 was a big year for my photography “hobby”, as I easily doubled the amount of the photography I have done in all the past years combined. One big factor was that I finally finished all forms of schooling (for now) back in May so half the year I was much more freed up to pursue photographic endeavors (I mainly do landscapes so having time to travel to different locales was a must). The other big factor was my work. Since March I have been doing marketing stuff for this eco-friendly stationery company called O'BON. There were numerous opportunities at work to utilize my photography skills such as product and model shoots.  

Unfortunately, for much of this year I had to use the same amount of kit I started the year with. I was so hoping I would have a new camera body and few more lenses to mess around with by now. But the whole can’t find a job in this economy for recent college graduates really screwed up the financial situation. But a photographer must soldier on, and by no means was what i already have crappy equipment (I do own the best lens money can by for my particular kind of Canon DSRL). But next year I do hope to save enough money to get at the very least a new (and better) camera body (New Year’s resolution #2!). 

I did get a new lens this year - finally getting a prime lens to go along with my walk around zoom (if you don’t get it by now, a prime lens is one that does not zoom). A new Sigma 50mm prime lens will do wonders for me in low light conditions and most importantly, portraiture! Sadly I did not get this lens until December, and have only gotten the opportunity to use it on one assignment. But I am very excited for the things I will do with it next year. Most of the stuff I have been shooting so far have been landscapes and objects, and I really hope to branch out to shooting people (the only time where it is absolutely okay to shoot people is with a camera. Oh right, New Year’s resolution #3!).

For 2011 I also did the most popular project amongst photographic hobbyist - the 365 challenge. As the name suggest, I must take a photo a day, every day for one whole calendar year. On paper it sounded like a piece of cake, but the discipline required to actually remember and continue take a picture a day was way more than I have ever imagined. Many a days I was dangerously close to forget taking a picture (a few 11.59pm shots was shamelessly accomplished). Hard to imagine that today will be the last day and the end to the project.

I am incredibly happy that I did the 365 challenge, because now I have a set of 365 photographs to look back on and reminisce about the song and dance of 2011. Those set of photographs really becomes sort of like a year book compilation. That is exactly what I plan to do with the photographs - make a book out of them. As I continue to do the project year after year (yes, the project will continue on indefinitely until I physically cannot shoot photos anymore), I will have a bookshelf full of year books, chronicling my life. 

GRADUATION

This year I finally completed my undergraduate education from San Francisco State with a degree in business entrepreneurship. It was perhaps one of the proudest moments of my life (yet) standing up there on stage during the entrepreneurship commencement celebration, giving my thank-you speech. A culmination of two years of the hardest schooling I have ever gone through absolutely paid off in the finest of ways. Most important of which I have a circle of great entrepreneurship friends that I know will keep in touch and hang out with for the longest of time, sharing battle (and success!) stories.

The goal of the entrepreneurship program at SFSU is for everybody that is tough enough to graduate from the program to start their own business. While I still have aspirations of attending MBA graduate school (partly to appease my ultra orthodox Asian parents), I have decided in 2011 to start my business anyways. Because there will most likely be a two year gap between undergrad and grad school, it seemed prudent to start the business now, at an extremely small level, and grow it up slowly but surely. And since my business is mainly photography, I have the ability to keep it on the side and not cost me an exorbitant amount of money. Thus, junction industries was born in 2011.

The ultimate vision of junction industries is to be a digital media company, spanning photography, videography, digital design, and music. But of course that is many years ahead in the future. For now the main focus is photography, as that is that one thing I am most brilliant at (not to mention it is still a one man show at the moment). Like I said, the company will grow very slow and steady from small to hopefully someday enough of a size to fit in a warehouse loft. For now, it is just a photography blog, and a registered .com domain name. At least no one can possibly steal the name from me (knock on wood). 

As previously mentioned, 2011 was a big year for my photography in terms of volume and skill advancement. I also happened to monetize a few projects, and sold a few prints as well. Overall it was pretty satisfactory, because the goal since graduation in May was not to start making money with my photography, but rather doing as much of it as a I can and improve, without the barrier of school to take precious time away from me to do so. But I do want to start monetizing more and more projects and sell quite a few prints next year (New Year’s Resolution #4!). 

SPORTING INTENTIONS

Can’t reflect on the year without my favorite past time (of all time) - sports. I am an avid fan of my local sport teams, especially the San Francisco Giants. 2010 saw them winning it all by taking the World Series Championship, thus for 2011 there was a large amount of expectations for the team to do well and challenge for the title once again.

I have never gone to as many baseball game as I did during the 2011 season of San Francisco Giants baseball. I am too lazy to count right now, but the number of games went to is easily above 20. Anytime the tickets was reasonably cheap, it was to the ballpark I went. For baseball there is nothing quite like being at the park and watching it live (gives some modicum of truth to the traditional 7th inning stretch jingle), and now that I have gone to so many games in a season, I will never go to any less per season for the rest of my life (when possible.)  A very special shout out to the small group of friends that joined me in the fabulous entertainment that is Giants baseball. Let’s do it again in 2012 (New Year’s resolution #5!)

Unfortunately the Giants did not fare so well in 2011. The pitching was still absolutely fantastic, but the offense was just too anemic to give them enough support to win games. The lost of Buster Posey and Freddy Sanchez turned out to be unrecoverable, and towards the end of the year half the team was on the disabled list one way or another (What will forever be known as Black Tuesday). The Giants scored the least amount of runs in the National League, and missed the playoffs after winning the whole thing year before. As a fan it was a really sour note for me because the potential of the team was so great (and tangible, not just some made up hope of a fandom). 2011 season was a spectacular failure, and the great pitching was wasted. 

Still, going to so many games at the ball park was just awesome. Even when the team loses, the margin was so close that the games were for the most part always exciting. 

On the other hand, 2011 was a great season for the San Francisco 49ers, carrying with them a 12-3 record (and NFC West Division title) to the new year as one of the top Super Bowl contenders. It was a complete turn around from the previous decade of losing. New coach Jim Harbaugh was the final piece to the puzzle of a team filled with so many talented players that just needed proper guidance. I was never one of those people that railed on quarterback Alex Smith, and am happy to see him doing so well this season. NFL football Sundays have not been this exciting as they were in 2011 for the longest time.

Nothing like 49ers football in glorious high definition to highlight the weekend. Because unlike last year, I did not go to a live game this year. Hate to say it, but the 49ers’ stadium at Candlestick Park is an absolutely dump (it is the oldest football stadium in the league) and not a pleasant experience (world famous Candlestick weather patterns). No need to pay expensive tickets to see a football game when I get a better view from my couch at home.

AND ALL THAT GOOD STUFF

If there is one thing I take away from 2011, is that the the four pillars of family, friends, person, and work must all be in balance with each other. Meaning you can’t afford to neglect any one of them for the sake of another. I don’t think one can be happy that way, at least not at the stage of life where I am at. Sure you can solely concentrate on one aspect for a significant amount of time, and in some ways you should (some of my pals trying to start a business haven’t got the choice but to invest all their time into it), but please make sure you make it up to the other areas in due time. Especially your family. 

Anyways, 2011 was the best year of my life. That is how it is suppose to be right? I am at the point of my life where every new year should be the better than all the previous. The Chinese have saying during new years - 新年進步 which loosely translates to how you should improve with a new year. That is what I strive to do in 2012 and all the other years beyond it (insert joke about end of the world). 

Twenty four

For me, turning 24 years old has much more meaning than the much vaunted 25, also known as the quarter century mark. Granted when I do turn 25 next year, it will occur on the very special numerical date of 12/12/12, and it is going to be awesome (not to mention my automobile insurance will take a plunge to the cheap side.) Nonetheless, I turned 24 years of age yesterday, and with the usual lack of fanfare that is my birthdays over with, it is time to write down some random thoughts on the significance (if any) of turning 24.

Well, my parents can no longer claim me as a dependent (goodbye tax deductions, sorry Mother). So while turning the age pf 21 may traditionally signaled the beginning of adulthood and all the boozed up debauchery that goes along with it, in America nothing informs you of your adultness quite like having to file your own taxes. Here is to a life long tenure of paying annual tributes to "the man". Good thing we live amongst the age of great technology where there are programs that will allow me to file my own taxes no matter how complicated things get (right, like I make enough money to even begin to talk about deductions and itemizing). You know what would have been the perfect birthday present? Turbotax. 

Being patently Chinese (it annoys me when people say something is "patently" false), I am infinitely familiar with the Chinese zodiac. In Chinese culture, each new year is represented by an animal from the zodiac, in which there are 12. Thus every 12 years the rotation starts all over again. Birthdays in multiples of 12 are quite significant because the year of the particular zodiac in which you are born will repeat itself. I was born in 1987, the year of the rabbit. During the year when i turn 12, it was the year of the rabbit once again. No surprise, 2011 is the year of the rabbit, when I turned 24. Though sadly you certainly don't receive more Lunar New Year money for being the same birth zodiac animal as the current year (disregard nearly 3000 years of culture and start a new tradition anyone?).

Age of 24 also have educational ambition implications for me. According to the what now seemed highly naive plan, I was suppose to finish graduate school at 24, because that was the plan right? Graduate from high school at 18, four years of undergrad makes 22, and 2 years of graduate school leaves us with 24 (I can only laugh). So much for that, as I am just barely past half a year finished with my undergraduate studies. Whether it was due to personal failure of character (note: lazy) or economic situations (because having enough classes to take was never a problem during my tenure at SFSU..), things just did not work out as plan. 

Not only did I finish undergrad a year late, but to make matters worse I probably won't start my graduate studies for at least another year and a half (not like I am just sitting at home twiddling my thumbs - it is a matter of the application's necessities). So at this point it looks like I won't be done with the original plan at 24 until I am 28! Now on appearance this makes it looks like I am taking up something major like anything related to a hospital or an science lab - disciplines that naturally take a relatively long period to accomplish. But no, all I am going for is a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). So perhaps I am just a bit behind the curve?

Honestly, I don't think so. As I often tell my peers, our generation will live a really long time. The natural positive progression of medical technology, dietary (well, some of us) and hygiene means barring catastrophic acts of god (that would be natural disasters for your atheists) or nuclear annihilation, me and you will be seeing plenty of each other for decades to come. This means it is perfectly okay for me to be behind schedule on my educational goals set many years ago. So what if by the time I get my masters I will be at the twilight of my twenties? My asian genes promise that I will look just the same I do today (maybe even better). 

All the being established, for me being 24 years old  means one of those life transitions (though it kind of started a bit before that.) I am indeed done with undergrad, and have joined the workforce (99% in the house). No longer do I have to slave through a day of books sand numbers and come back home and still have to think about it some more. Something inherently liberating about leaving work and not have to think about it until the next day. Time is the thing that returns a bit to you, allowing me to spend more time with important people (or you know, watching lots of television).

The perspective and focus changes a fair bit. It may be incredibly cliche, but people do start to look at and wonder about what to do with the rest of their life once they have finished their undergraduate work. It is somehow that innate sense of boundary of what is planned for you and what you will plan for yourself. Having typical Chinese parents means education all the way up to undergrad is a given, but anything after that is entirely up to me. 

So that has been the meaning of turning 24 years old. Most importantly, 24 it is just a nice round and even number - much better looking than 25. 

Death, and Steve Jobs

It was a bit anti-climatic. Those of us who are familiar with the situation knew it was only a matter of time before the day would come. Major news publications were already waxing on endlessly about Steve Jobs’ legacy on the day he stepped down from the CEO position in Apple, as if the world was not going to see him for much longer. Indeed, Jobs’ passing last week did not come as a surprise to me. It has been known for a while now that despite the marvels of medicinal technology, Jobs’ battle with pancreatic cancer was going to end soon.

On the day of the announcement of Job’s resignation as CEO, I knew then that it meant bad news for his health (Jobs is a notorious hard worker, spending late nights at the Apple Campus regularly). Jobs has been losing weight and ghoulish looking for the past couple of years now, and pictures of him in the past month looked absolutely terrible. The consensus amongst Apple fans was that this was the look of a guy about to lose his battle with cancer. It was only time. 

Of course, even though the element of surprise was lacking, the news of Jobs’ death still hit with much enormity. Avid fans of the Apple was just as devastated with the news as Beatle fans were upon hearing about the assassination of john Lennon. The news hit me harder than I thought it would, even though I was as big an Apple fan as they come. After all, it is just one man’s passing - and a man I have never met at that. In a weird and cliche sort of way, the death of Steve Jobs has become one of those events you will remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news.

Thanks to the wonder of Internet and social media, news travels faster than even proper news agency can report them. I had just came home from work and was busy doing the great American past time of checking my Facebook when a post from a friend said that Steve Jobs is dead. My auto reflex was to check the major new sites to substantiate the claim (you know, not like I do not trust my friends or anything). To my surprise, nothing of the news was to be found for another 15 minutes. After that, all hell figuratively broke loose. news outlets of all kinds was reporting it, Twitter was over run (there was ~4.5 million tweets trending #thankyousteve in just a few hours), and posts with rest in peace wishes to Jobs started flooding my Facebook timeline. 

For the rest of that day and the day after, I soaked in all the tributes to Jobs, whether it be in pictures, the written word, or video. You have truly done something great when even the competitors of the company you created offers you respect at the time of your death. Clearly what Jobs has done with his short life has managed to touch just about everyone in a positive way, the world over.

ME, AND APPLE

I was relatively late to the party - I’ve only began being a fan of Apple products with the introduction of the iPod in the early 2000’s. It was during what was the early stage of the Apple renaissance, with Steve’s second go around with the company. Of course I have used Apple Mac products before, but that was only in the academic arena, as most educational institutions used prefer the Macintosh system over Windows PC. Back then I was still very much a PC user, as the gaming possibilities on that platform was many miles ahead of what Mac’s were capable of. Not to mention, you can build your own PC. 

For many of my generation, the iPod changed everything. Not only in the way we listen to music, but our perception of Apple - it was no longer that funky computer you only use at school. For many, the iPod was the gateway drug for Apple products. Never before had I use something so technologically advanced (slogan or not, 1,000 songs in your pocket at that time was simply amazing), simple to use, and most importantly, beautiful. Before the current state of Apple, the leader in consumer electronics design in the late 90’s was Sony. Their line of computers, CD players, Televisions, and other products all had an additional design quality that no other competitor can match (there is a reason Chinese people, a culture very conscious about image, have preferred Sony products for the longest time.)

Attention to beautiful design and aesthetics in practically everything is the biggest attribute of Steve Jobs I admire. All the products he put out since his return to Apple in 1997 all looked as beautiful as they are simple and powerful. With him it was paying attention to all the details and a perfectionism attitude. Jobs was so meticulous with the overall presentation of everything that he even had a strong part in how Apple retail stores should look. His belief that just because something is a mere “tool’ or "appliance” does not mean that it should look terrible revolutionized an industry that was once filled with much beige and plastic. It was due to Apple’s design philosophies that other companies in the tech world follow suit, realizing that consumers want things that work but look good doing it as well. 

As a person who always had a quirk for how things appeals to the eyes (I am a photographer, after all), Apple products was the natural fit. The first iPod (3rd generation) snowballed into a second iPod (5th generation), and eventually to my first Macintosh computer (2008 Macbook) when I started my collegiate undergrad career. I chose it because nothing in the PC world came close to the aesthetics of a Macbook laptop. The Macbook became my full time computer, and hence forth never looked back at the PC platform. From an everyday usage point of view, the Mac operating system is much more simple and intuitive. Not to mention, for photography and digital design work Mac it is the de-facto platform of choice.

In additional to the products looking great, Jobs also required them to perform its function in the most elegant and simplistic fashion. Keeping things to its absolute simplest form is something I also come to admire about him. Being once the minimalist hippy (there is a famous picture of him sitting on the wooden floor of his living room with nothing but a lamp), Jobs hated clutter and anything that is unnecessary. He also famously required things to “just work”. It made perfect sense: all consumers ever want from the products they buy is it functioning correctly in the least amount of time and hassle possible. 

STEVE JOBS, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

It was not until I started the business entrepreneurship part of college that I took to Steve Jobs as role model figure. He and Apple together was so successful that it was something to be studied and emulated. Questions like “what would Jobs/Apple do?” came up frequently in the process applying Steve’s entrepreneurial philosophy into planning my own entrepreneurial exploits. For example, the Apple design language has been so well received and universally acclaimed that everybody and the mother in the design world wants to to copy the “Apple look” into everything they make. You really can’t study entrepreneurship without looking at what Steve has done so brilliantly with two companies (the other being Pixar) 

A big part of any business is selling. While being the tech product genius that he was, Jobs also did one thing extremely well - the ability to sell. The so called “reality distortion field” and the keynote address Jobs is famous for was some of the finest examples on how to drive up demand and make consumers want a product so badly that they will line up by the droves at ungodly hours to get their hands on it. Having a beautiful product that can do the equivalent of a swiss army knife will do a company no good if they do zero marketing. As I have learn from business school, the mantra of “build it and they will come” is patently false. Jobs’ style of selling was very effective for the kind of products Apple was making; the company’s stock prices and record profits quarter after quarter reflect this.  

One way to increase revenue and profits for any company is to introduce new products, and almost no one does it better than Jobs and his team at Apple. In a tech industry where product innovation was the inverse of the speed that computing power is progressing, Apple bucked the trend by coming out with one product revolution after another. The iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Macbook Air took a product segments that already existed and yet so completely changed the paradigm that it practically evolved into a new segment. There were mp3 players before the iPod, smartphones before the iPhone, tablets before the iPad, and ultra portable computers before the Macbook Air, but those product segments were forever changed after the introduction of those products by Apple.  

It was Wayne Gretzky who famously said: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Steve Jobs took this notion with him at Apple and made products that consumers did not even think they needed until it came out. The innovations that came from this kind of thinking has been astounding, and it is something that entrepreneurs and business should strive to do.

ME, AND STEVE JOBS

It is hard to predict what Apple and the rest of the computer tech industry will be like now that Jobs is gone. There is a bit of fear inside me that wonders if the kind of product innovation and pushing the bar will now be gone along with Jobs. Apple is supposedly in very good hands, and Steve even outline the product strategy for the next four years before he left. As a fan of Apple, I hope for nothing but the best in Apple continuing to its upward trend. It would do Jobs proud.

As for me, aside from the attention to detail, keeping things simple, and the entrepreneurial arts, the thing from Jobs’ legacy I will take with me is summed up in his 2005 Stanford Commencement speech:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. … Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

9/11: never forget. But then what?

I was in middle school when it happened (which gives me a slight comfort in my feelings about my current age), and the memory of that day is still very much fresh in my mind. Being situated in the west coast meant that when the 9/11 attacks happened on the World Trade Center twin towers in New York, us teenagers with school obligations had merely started our dreary day. 

Honestly I thought it was a joke when upon arriving on school grounds there was whispers of an airplane being flown into the World Trade Center in New York (had a the faintest idea of what it even was). Once news sunk in that indeed it was not a joke and a plane did struck one of the towers, we all amongst ourselves chalked it up to an accident, because acts of terrorism was such a foreign concept in our modern society (to us teenagers anyway - we were all peanuts when the Oklahoma City bombings happened). 

Things quickly turned serious when we got locked in our homerooms and was refused to be let to our first period classes. We were told that what was happening in New York was no accident, and was very much premeditated. Students was to stay in homerun until the adults figured out what to do with us next. Hysteria sinked in with those without the stomach to bear the horror that was supposedly unfolding (haven't got televisions in our classrooms). Tears started flying, mongering about the end of the world, World War III, and general disbelieve that how a mundane monday in September can turn so upside down. Remember, we were still kids. 

Slowly but surely the administration allowed kids to be sent home with our parents, for the school district mandated that school session was cancelled for the rest of the day. Unfortunately for me that means taking the bus home (neighborhood school, like a boss) because I had a little brother who was only four and priority with the parental was infinitely higher than mine. Nonetheless, upon arriving at the comforts of home (a sentiment not shared by any New Yorker at that time) I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day, shellshocked, half believing and half not believing (saw both towers come crashing down). 

Nothing gel the American people together like our nation under attack (thanks FDR). The outpouring of support and pride for this country of ours in the months that followed was something never seen since the second World War. Heck even me, then still a citizen of the great communist nation of The People's Republic of China, was cognizant enough of the atmosphere at the time and proudly displayed a poorly made plastic replica of the American flag. 

Of course to best emulate the events of World War II, what do we do when our sovereignty is attacked by a foreign regime (only this time in the Middle East)? We go invade another country! Because the best reaction to thousands of lives lost is eye for an eye. Oh and we have some unfinished business at another country from a decade ago? Perfect alibi to invade that country to finish the job (well sort of, country still in shambles for all accounts)! 

Let's face it, the legacy of the 9/11 attacks for the past 10 years have been the (still ongoing) meddling in the affairs of two countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, the original goal was to find, eradicate, and bring to justice those that were responsible fo the attacks on our soil. The numbers don't lie however, the colateral damage on both sides have been far too great for what little ounce of closure the death of Osama Bin Laden has given us. America spent trillions on the war machine while the situation in the homefront saw a decline in educational prowess, crumbling infrastructure, a financial meltdown of historic proportions, and a legislature so inept that the only thing they can agree on is that our troops are worth supporting (even though democrats and republicans sit on either side of the fence regarding the war.)

It is sad to see the only outcome from the togetherness of the American people brought on by the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks is the general hubris of the United States foreign policy. We are more interested in bandying around our might on the world stage rather than fixing and improving our status at home. For sure the world looks upon America as the bastion of the free democratic world, and the question of whether to get involved into other foreign affairs is a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation.

At what point do we toss aside our ego and (false) sense of superiority and look without a blind eye at the problems our country currently face? At this 10 year anniversary of 9/11 attacks, America is at a crossroads - the decisions we and our legislature make in the next year and half will determine plenty of this nation's future. 

Today and every September 11th since 2001, we do well to remember those who perished, sacrificed, and those that fought and continue to fight for our freedom overseas. Necessary as it is, but it leaves out many others: the countless American muslims (and persons that look Middle Eastern) that are still on the receiving end of the much hate and discrimination, and the innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that are unfairly and collaterally affected by America's "war on Terror".