The Quiet Child

Quantifying Success

Sometimes I feel like I’m quantifying success.

I know you shouldn’t settle for less, but these past few months I’ve been struggling to get a job because of various limitations.

  1. Getting a librarian job in the PNW (Pacific Northwest) is competitive
  2. If I want to be a librarian, I have to move out of state

As someone who lives in a household with her parents, moving out of the house isn’t as easy as some people think it might be. There are also various reasons to this:

  1. My parents are Asian (Korean)
  2. My parents are conservative
  3. My parents aren’t really assimilated into American culture

It’s actually very common for Koreans, at least in my household, to live in the home with their parents until their children get married. So moving out of the house, much less moving out of state, is not something I can do so easily. So where am I? I recently got connected to a lead librarian and I’ve decided to apply for an entry-level position at the library.

One of the reasons I didn’t do this right away is because I felt like I was quantifying success. I have to be successful by the time I’m this age. I’m not doing anything right if I’m not in this position by this age or this number of years. I felt like I was constantly comparing myself to my much better peers in my cohort. Some haven’t even worked in libraries and yet find themselves in librarian positions.

And I felt like I was setting for less by applying to the same position I could have applied for when I graduated from high school.

I basically felt like a failure. I felt like I wasted all this time and I really felt like I wasted my 20s.

And I started to think about why I felt this way. Sometimes it takes talking to someone else to realize that the thoughts I were having were insecurities and me, selfishly, wanting to take the easy way out. I expected for my life to work out after I graduated from graduate school.

I have to tell myself that there’s nothing wrong with reaching your goal in life at a much later date than other people do. Just because I’m nearing 30 and still working retail jobs isn’t something I should be ashamed of—because I know that’s not what I’m still going to be doing 5 or 10 years down the road.

But just because I know this, doesn’t mean my insecurities go away or my confidence gets any higher. I still feel like I wasted my 20s. I should have done this or I should have done that. But reality is, I can’t turn back time. I think it’s important not to look back in the past of “what ifs” but keep moving forward.

Signs I’ve Fallen In

It’s been about a year and a half to two years since I became a fan of a k-pop group. I’ve always been a casual fan of k-pop but this is the first time that I’ve actually followed a group so closely before LOL 

Here are some signs that I’ve fallen in too deep:

  1. You’re happier when it’s your idol’s birthday, then when it’s your own
  2. You buy multiple copies of their album because there are different versions
  3. You buy a lot of fan merch–which includes photo books, season greetings, phone cases, stickers, dolls
  4. You keep track of their schedule, i.e. what shows they’re appearing on, etc

It’s weird, but they make me really happy.

In other news, I just finished a book titled The Last Namsara.

The Last Namsara (Iskari #1) by Kristin Ciccarelli

In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of sky and spirit, who carried love and laughter wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be darkness—and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death-bringer.

These are the legends that Asha, daughter of the king of Firgaard, has grown up learning in hushed whispers, drawn to the forbidden figures of the past. But it isn’t until she becomes the fiercest, most feared dragon slayer in the land that she takes on the role of the next Iskari—a lonely destiny that leaves her feeling more like a weapon than a girl.

Asha conquers each dragon and brings its head to the king, but no kill can free her from the shackles that await at home: her betrothal to the cruel commandant, a man who holds the truth about her nature in his palm. When she’s offered the chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the life of the most powerful dragon in Firgaard, she finds that there may be more truth to the ancient stories than she ever could have expected. With the help of a secret friend—a slave boy from her betrothed’s household—Asha must shed the layers of her Iskari bondage and open her heart to love, light, and a truth that has been kept from her.

Books with strong female heroines are my favorite.

One of my pet peeves with YA fantasy (or really, just fantasy in general) is that heroines are always defined by their romantic relationships. Also insta-love. Blech. If I wanted to read a romance book, I would have picked up a romance novel. The main character, Asha, finds herself feared by everyone she meets and is being forced into a marriage by her father, the king.

At first, you think the book is going to follow the mantra of “dragons are evil!! all of them must die!!” but the more you read, the more you realize that not everything is black and white.

“… every one of us is born with a song buried deep in our hearts. A song all our own. And our mission in life is to find that song.”

Although I strongly dislike fantasy where romance is the main focus, The Last Namsara does, in fact, contain romance. 

However, being the badass Asha is, she doesn’t let her relationship with Torkin (the romantic interest) define who she is. As she grows as a character, so does her relationship with Torkin. Rather than the other way around–where her relationship grows before her development as a character can grow. 

A couple of things I didn’t like: I did feel like some of the secondary characters could have been more fleshed out and I felt like a couple of the plot points were explained away too easily. 

But overall, great book! 4/5 ★★★★