Category Archives: Work

I don’t know where this surge of motivation is coming from, but it must be squashed — immediately. I am now the managing editor of KoreAm Journal. [Insert nervous laughter here.]

At first, I wasn’t going to go for the job. I never really pictured myself as a manager of anything — peon duties have always been more my style. But then I figured, hey, I’m still young, agile and capable of hard labor (You know, as I’ll have to prance around to all those parties. That’s what magazine editors do all day, right? Wait, no? Huh? WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?)

I’d be glad to discuss some of the details of this transition over, say, a bottle of vodka. (This is more of a plea than an offer.)

Another week of madness. While I plow through my closet for suitable Vegas attire (What says RoWr in November?), check out the past two KoreAm cover stories. I’m actually quite fond of them.

(Please excuse the clunky website.)

October: Bobby Hundreds

September: Will Yun Lee

UPDATE: One more. Read about my nipple scrub!

Off to Sin City, bayboi!

Two stories by yours truly:

All-American Icon: Discovering the many dimensions of Margaret Cho

Finger Lickin’ Good: Move over, Colonel Sanders. There’s a new type of KFC in town and it ain’t from Kentucky. KoreAm bites into the pipin’ hot trend of Korean fried chicken.

I did it.

This morning, I got to work, replied to some e-mails and then relocated my notes, my laptop and myself to the conference room.

I did not bring the ethernet cord.

This is a monumental step for me. For the past many, many months, I have been a slave to the Internet. Namely, Gmail, latimes.com, nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, azcentral.com, Xanga, michellewoo.com (obviously), blogs of people I know, blogs of people I don’t know, Google (you know, the search engine), the 24 Hour Fitness online class schedule, MySpace and now the bottomless pit of a website they call Facebook (And no, Des, I don’t want to join your Ninja cult!). Yes, I do owe the Internet much praise and gratitude for providing me with life-altering gems such as this, but as a writer who has procrastination tendencies embedded in her neurosystem, it has also been the source of my downfall.

I believe my work has been suffering due to my a-a-addiction (OK, I SAID IT! Now, sit in a circle and clap for me) to the Internet. I mean it’s still awesome (obviously), but I just can’t get in the zone on cue like I used to. I’m constantly distracted (“Hmmmm, maaaaaybe instead of writing, I should refresh Angry Asian Man for any news I might have missed.”) And for someone who aspires to be The Most Famous Michelle Woo In The World, this isn’t OK.

So today I sat in stillness, surrounded only by the motivational Post-It notes I laid out for myself. I did a good amount of writing, even though I kind of took two lunch breaks (We’ll go through the 10-step recovery program for my food addiction next time). For now, I will try to limit my obsessive online behavior. I will check my personal e-mail only 3 to 7 times a day. I will visit Facebook only 2 to 4 times a day. I will not read blogs I know will probably be boring, anyway. I will be strong. I will take back my life.

Starting now. Or maybe tomorrow.

It’s been more than a month since this story ran, and since then, there’s been some good news. However, the family is still searching for a bone marrow match, so please register at an upcoming donor drive if you can.