The Hotness

Gross. Just gross. There really is no other way to describe the mini heatwaves that come through the mid western states. It is not just the hotness that is bad, honestly I could live with the hot. It is the, and you will hear this time and time again if you ever come to Kansas, humidity. The nasty hot wet humidity. Where it is sometimes pointless to even take a shower, because just a few minutes walking to your car will make you sweat like none other.
Now, I have lived in Florida so I know there are places that have higher humidity than

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Kansas. But, and this is a very big but, the heat and the humidity combined with no wind, and if there is wind, it seems be even hotter that the temperature. When the humidity makes the heat index 10 - 15 degrees hotter than 95 degrees, then it is hot!
I know this is a silly little blog, but we just got off of a mini heat wave and it just reminded me that I have never lived in a place where I have been this miserable in the summer. When your car air conditioner can't cool your car down enough because it is so hot outside, then it is time to move. Well, I think anyway. :)

K

PSA

I forgot about this website that is, well, I think is awesome. I love fashion and everything included with it. I do love to go to the luckymag.com website, and there is a section where you can find a whole bunch of awesome stores that they recommend. There are some stores that will recognize and some that you will not, overall a good place to go to if you are stuck in a rut with shopping and wanting a change.

K

Am I American?

So, I think in a previous post, I mentioned that my mother is from South Korea. She did not come over to the states until she met my dad and they got married. My dad was in the Army and met my mother when he was stationed in Teajon, South Korea. Now, I'm not going to go into the whole mixed raced marriage and how each side didn't like each other, blah, blah, blah. That is for maybe another post.
What I would like to jot down, is how sometimes, i'm not sure what to tell people when they ask, if I am American. I mean, I am American because my father is, but I did live 90% of my life until I was 12 overseas and most of it in South Korea. (Which is awesome by the way, and I would go back and live there in a heartbeat.) So, I guess I am "technically" American, because I do have American citizenship. But, when you live in a foreign country for as long as I did, and are surrounded with two cultures growing up, it is difficult sometimes, to really know who you are.
I like to call myself Asian-American. And to be honest, i'm not quite sure the technicalities of what makes someone an Asian-American. I used to be fluent and am relearning the language, and my mother is Asian, so it makes sense to me to say that I am Asian-American. But, I know this bugs some people. They tell me, "Well, your father is American and you live in America so you are an American." Which is all fine, but just because my father is American does that cancel out the fact that my mother is South Korean. Does it change the fact that i basically grew up with in South Korea, and spent so much time with my Korean family? Does it change the fact that I would rather have Korean food than American food? Does it change the fact that my basic DNA makeup is half Korean and half American? And does just living in America make you and American. Because to be very honest, I don't really feel like and American.
A lot of the things that I do are not very American. A lot of my thoughts, the way I reason things, and the way I act, some are not very American at all. I guess the bottom line is I don't feel like just an "American". I feel like a person who is a mixed race.
It also makes me question the African American label. (And I pray anyone reading this does not take this the wrong way in any shape or form.) Which also brings into question the whole white/black/yellow thing. I jokingly tell my friends that I am a "light beige" or "ecru" color. (By the way, I am not very pc.) If someone whose ancestor was from Africa generations ago and they still call themselves African-Americans instead of just an American, does that mean I

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am able to call myself Asian-American?
Oh well, I guess I can call myself whatever I want to call myself and let people think what they want to think. I do consider myself an Asian-American, I put that on all my paperwork, and if there is not a space for that I check the "Other" box, or now they have a "More than one Race" box. I am so proud of the fact that I am half American and half Korean. I take every chance I get to tell people that I am mixed, I am proud of that fact.
So, I am not trying to start a huge philisophical debate in my head, I am just trying to figure who I am. Or, I guess who I should tell people who I am. All my life I have said that I am Asian-American, so I am going to stick to that story.

K