Give a year. Change the world.

On Friday, I was accepted into City Year New York for the 2012-2013 school year! On Monday, I was offered a position as a counselor at P.S. 24 Brooklyn's after-school program run by The Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. I'll be ringing in the new year performing in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. And six hours later, I'll be on my way to Honduras to lead two service trips, be reunited with mi familia hondureña, and meet the kids in SHH's recently inaugurated children's home. If I were you, I would be pretty jealous of my life right now.

I think I might have seen a commercial for City Year once on ESPN, but other than that, I had a very vague idea of what City Year was. I was doing research at the A&P office one day, looking for local blogs for one of our clients, and I came across the City Year New York blog. Later that day, I went home and went home and did some of my own research.

For those of you who don't know what City Year is, it's an AmeriCorps program that sends teams of young people, ages 17-24, into low-income community schools, providing the students in those schools with one-on-one or small group attention during and after school hours. City Year corps members serve as tutors, mentors, and role models for these kids who don't have many people to look up to. Our goal is to close the achievement gap, and let our students know that they have a fighting chance to be great and do great. People call it the "domestic Peace Corps."

The best thing that City Year has to offer is the opportunity to inspire and motivate. Over the years, I can think of three teachers who inspired motivated, and shaped me into the person I am today: Miss Quinn, Mr. Howard, and Dr. Kilbourne. 

My sixth-grade teacher, Miss Quinn, nurtured my talents and was my biggest cheerleader. That year, I really felt that the sky was the limit for me, and if it weren't for her reassuring me along the way that I was a great writer, singer, and person, I wouldn't have developed the confidence to pursue the things I love at such a young age, that I've continued to build upon over the years. She wasn't just a teacher, but she was my best friend. I remember meeting her in second grade when my class and her sixth graders were putting on a farewell performance for my second grade teacher, Ms. Sears, and I vividly remember second-grade me thinking, "I am having Miss Quinn as my sixth grade teacher!" 

My junior-year AP Literature teacher, Mr. Howard, taught me to become a better critical thinker, reminded me that I was smart, and cared enough to get to know me as a person. In high school, I didn't really apply myself to things I didn't want to do and seriously lacked motivation. But he saw my potential, knew I could do better, and made me want to be the best. After school or during lunch, I would hang out in his classroom, and we talked about my family, my crazy, Korean mother who "just didn't understand me," boys, friends... pretty much everything most people talk to their moms about, I discussed with Mr Howard. For a man who is the epitome of a sarcastic cynic, he's one of the most compassionate people I have ever met.

My sophomore-year macromarketing teacher, Dr. Kilbourne, inspired me to go to Honduras on a service trip that changed my life forever.

In my opinion, many colleges like Clemson, that are located in the middle of nowhere, are microcosms that breed selfishness, superficiality, and materialism. College for us is, first, a place to party, and second, a place to get an education. Don't get me wrong - I had the time of my life, learned a lot along the way, both from teachers and friends, and made lifelong friendships. But I fell into the trap of wanting to fit in when I had always been proud of being true to who I am. I wanted a David Yurman this, a Tory Burch that, and I have never invested so much of my parents'  money on fashion in my life, regrettably so. 

I took Dr. Kilbourne's macromarketing class because it was a prerequisite, and I had to either take that or Marketing Research. I chose Macromarketing, and on the first day of class, I remember seeing this tall, lanky, long-and-white-haired older gentleman standing in front of the classroom. He wore wiry glasses, a white long-sleeved t-shirt tucked into his light-wash 90s-reminiscent denim jeans, and plain tennis shoes. The books we had to read were about social this and environmental that, and all I thought was, "He is going to bore me to death this semester." It ended up being my favorite class, and he, one of my most inspiring teachers.

Dr. Kilbourne gave me a heavy dose of perspective when I needed it most. He taught me that the amount of stuff I was buying was not only unnecessary, but damaging the world I live in. He taught me that the way we're living our lives so individualistically, completely blind to the rest of the world, needs to change before we do irreparable damage. He taught me that buying nice things will make you temporarily happy, but doing good things will create happiness that will last forever. He taught me that things have started to define people, instead of people's thoughts and actions defining themselves. He planted a fire in me to do better, spend less, and most importantly, to think more. It was because of his class that I started becoming myself again, the person that I had abandoned in order to "fit in." His class was what fueled me to taking that leap of faith and volunteer in Honduras.

The common thread between Miss Quinn, Mr. Howard, and Dr. Kilbourne is this: they believed in me when I didn't. They found me when I had lost myself. To me, these teachers are heroes because they teach to make a difference. They teach to inspire, motivate, and change. They reminded me of my great potential. They reminded me of who I was and the great things I was capable of achieving. They taught me to think differently, act differently, and be the best me I can be. Because of them, and all the other teachers who have inspired me throughout the years, I joined City Year. And I can only hope that my future students will remember me, years down the road, the way I remember Miss Quinn, Mr. Howard, and Dr. Kilbourne.

Give a year. Change the world.

What you're supposed to do is what you love to do.

So much for updating my blog regularly.

I always do this: commit to blogging, keep up with it for a little while, and eventually get too busy, preoccupied, lazy, uninspired. This time, I'm not making any binding or non-binding commitments in the hopes that I will blog regularly on my own accord.

So since my last blogpost of naive euphoria, a lot has happened! A person can really grow up and change a lot in eight months.

The most drastic change I've made so far is quitting my job at Allison & Partners two weeks ago. If you've talked to me since March 2010, you know that my life's path and perspective changed drastically after volunteering in El Progreso, Honduras. Poverty is a personal struggle for me, not because I've lived through it, but because my Honduran family continues to live through it. To go from working in the nonprofit industry solely focused on social change, to the corporate world more focused on personal gain, was a drastic change I naively did not anticipate.

During my internship at Allison & Partners, I learned a lot about myself, life, and my passions. Among many other things, I discovered:

1. I need to be active. I need to interact with people, be on my feet, play with children, dance, sing, build, perform... furiously moving only my fingers as I sit on my ass for nine hours does not count as physical exertion and it definitely does not motivate me to wake up every morning.

2. I am a hard worker. As an intern, I wore many hats: administrative assistant, printer expert, book binder, product stocker, receipt scanner/taper, minutes recorder, notetaker, secretary, brainstormer, magazine delivery girl, mail delivery girl, account coordinator... the list goes on. To be completely frank, I did not want to do 98% of the menial tasks I was responsible for every day, but I did them with a smile on my face and made the tastiest damn lemonade out of the lemons I was given. I know it might be hard to believe, but I actually enjoyed news monitoring because I learned about industries that I never thought I gave two shits about or could ever understand, like technology. If I had never been the sole news monitor for the Dropbox team, I would never have discovered that Steve Jobs is one of my heroes.

3. I love performing. After sitting at my desk for nine hours, I was mentally and physically drained. But there would have to be a tornado between me and my three-hour choir practice or hour-long dance class in order for me to go home directly after work. Pushing myself creatively, musically, and physically was imperative to my happiness, and it's what forced me out of my bed every morning.

In short, Allison & Partners taught me to pursue my dreams, work hard, and always think positively, and I will always be grateful for the experience.

I had thought about quitting for several months before I actually did it, and knew that the corporate world was not meant for me (nor was I meant for it). But I became quite complacent with receiving a steady paycheck, not worrying about money, and living comfortably, so I stayed. Everyone told me not to quit without another job, and I followed that advice until I came to a point where my happiness could no longer be compromised. I had to do what I felt was right, which was to chase my passion for people, music, and creativity, and I had to be prepared to face the consequences of a less predictable life. Although being unemployed and searching for a job in such a terrible economy has not been a walk in the park, I refuse to compromise or settle.

After reading articles and blogs, watching videos and documentaries, and doing some serious soul-searching, I've realized that I was put on this earth to do great things, and I might as well be dead if I'm going to waste my days living comfortably. I've always been a dreamer, and I don't know why I briefly fell into conformity... probably because it's easy, risk-free, and what the majority of the world does. Doing what you love may be a riskier way of living, but no one in the history of the world became great by living a comfortable, risk-free life. Steve Jobs quit college after four months, slept on the floors of his friends' dorm rooms, built Apple out of a garage, and in the end, created software and products that revolutionized technology. He dreamed big, risked big, and in the end, it paid off.

Jaded people say that it's stupid to continue chasing your dreams beyond childhood. They say, "It's time to grow up, get real, and get a real job." Yet most of these people are stuck in these so-called "real" jobs for which they feel hatred, dislike, or worst of all, indifference. I don't understand why people would want to wake up and live mediocre lives fueled by hatred, dislike, or indifference if they had the option, ability, intelligence, and opportunity to do otherwise. If you don't have serious financial binds or family members to care for, what is stopping you from chasing your dreams other than yourself? I realized that the only person standing in my way of chasing my dreams was me. It wasn't my mom, my dad, or all the people who advised me to follow the status quo. I had let other people's thoughts affect and warp my own. So from personal experience, I plead: don't let it happen to you.

If your passion is music, dance, technology, writing... hell, if you get really jazzed about picking up trash because there's so much of it all over our damn city, then do it. Do the things that truly make you feel alive. Live your life so you don't look back on it and regret, asking yourself, "What if?" I know that my life is too important to squander, not helping, not singing, not dancing, not performing, and not innovating.

That's why I joined the Brooklyn Community Chorus. I'll be singing the solo for "Joyful, Joyful" (the Sister Act 2 version) next Friday in the Jingle Bell Jamboree, a holiday concert held in Brooklyn where locals and families gather to watch musical performances. I'm also performing on New Year's Eve and ringing in the new year with Brooklynites who were too lazy to venture into Manhattan and watch Beyonce or Rihanna perform. Making a choice to do the thing I've always loved to do led to other opportunities, and these small successes will continue to drive me to sing. They will serve as reminders to never give up on my dreams.

Leaving my job of comfort, security, and stability has taught me to trust my intuition, do what I love, and never settle... actually, Steve Jobs taught me that posthumously through his Stanford University commencement speech in 2005, but quitting made me understand his words so much more clearly. If you haven't watched it yet, you need to watch it on YouTube now.

If you're confused, in a rut, at a crossroads, or whatever other terms we have for "don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life," first, figure out what you love to do. Do you love to cook, build, sew, paint, fix, farm, organize? What you're supposed to do is what you love to do. And if anyone tries to stray you away from what you love to do, turn that opposition and negativity into fuel towards chasing your dreams even harder.