Author: Daniel Y Wu

My experience writing the dialogue was harder than the poems, I had to keep referencing Topdog/Underdog for the layout of a dialogue. I also used inspiration from Lisha and Anthony from my cohort, using the horror element from Lisha’s works and referencing games from Anthony. I used the tone of the game GTFO that I’ve been playing recently. I had to keep thinking of ways that would flush out each individual giving them personality in their dialogues but also try to stay true to the tone of the game at the same time. Also compared to my poems, the writing is completely fictional as compared to the rest of what I have written for everything and relied completely on creativity which felt more difficult. Although not entirely too difficult basing it off of the games tonal slogan “Work Together or Die Together”.

My experience with writing poems was a bit more difficult. I know and have known that I am generally terrible at writing poems. The only way I know how to write poems is through rhymes. However looking through Staceyann Chin’s poems gave me a better inspiration or format of how to write one. Although around the time I was still dealing with events pertaining COVID 19 so mostly all the work that I wrote including the poems and future works are related to COVID. Thus all the work I written were probably in a way, toned in a lazy-ish, unenergetic and trying to connect my emotions in words to readers.

I thought the short story assignments were fairly easy. I already had some ideas, like any story, it needs a beginning, middle and end. All I needed to do was to fill in the gaps. Starting from Short Story #2 involved a bit of what was happening in Journal 6, as is what most of the work assignments have been based on about actually. It wasn’t hard basing these on true events albeit just not including some details deemed not necessary. I did not exaggerate any details, though it might’ve been better if I had to dramatize the story a bit more to make it a lot less a memoir and more a fictional story. But as I learned from the quote “the best lies have an element of truth to them”.

As I wrote in the side note of my previous Journal Assignment, I wanted to wait and see so I could write more in depth for my experience of the pandemic, but instead ended up just backlogging everything I had for this class as events played out. Events that I will now share.

My initial experience of the pandemic upon the household was actually pretty boring. Talking with my parents, daily to stave off the boredom, staying inside the house and almost never leaving, watching the news for updates. A lot of my friends and family though work essential jobs. A lot of them are NYPD, some as doctors and those in my cohort might have heard me mention a few of them are National Guard. Things started to take a turn for my mental health as I saw on the news that officers in the NYPD are testing positive for the Coronavirus, and National Guard being deployed in various hotspots. Doctors working constantly to combat the virus. One of my friends in the National Guard ended up testing positive as well and was admitted with a severe case of COVID 19. He would tell me in later events after recovering but, essentially, he would have a constant 104 degree fever and fluid were filling up his lungs preventing him from breathing. Hallucinations from the constant high fever. A change in his taste buds, where even the slightest bit of salt in food would taste like its been drenched in salt. And then there was the constant raging headaches that wouldn’t end. He told me it’s the worst thing he’s ever been sick with and to this day still has a nasty cough even a month after recovering. He’s going back for another test later this week. My dad who works for the USPS as a mail carrier, is also considered an essential job. They are still working during this pandemic. He came back home one day and was acting very suspicious. He avoided everybody, he was wearing a mask at home, and he would eat dinner only after everybody had finished eating theirs. He eventually ended up moving and sleeping in my sister’s now abandoned room since she had moved to San Francisco about 2 years ago. My mom and me were getting scared and asking him what happened and if he was sick or anything. He would reply “No problem” and playing it off. Then not too much longer he came back from home extremely early with a fever.  I would end up applying for Unemployment for my mom and for COVID sick leave for my dad at the frustrating USPS site. I would consistently ask how my dad was feeling and symptoms. I would report said symptoms to my cousins who were doctors working in this pandemic. They told me to get him self isolated (which he already was) and to keep reporting symptoms. After a while they told me he MOST (almost to the point of being sure) likely had a mild case of COVID and to up our precautions around my dad and if he had trouble breathing throughout the entire day. I texted my sister and I would hear her crying over her daily conversations on speaker in their phone conversations. My dad had trouble breathing throughout the night trying to sleep and would recover in the day. Since my sister’s room is only a thin wall between us, I could hear his struggles as I tried to sleep every night. I started to get heavily depressed and extremely lethargic. I could only play games to keep my mind off of anything and tried to keep a optimistic outlook especially on my face. Reports of mass graves being dug on Hart Island didn’t exactly improve this too. When he would try to speak to me or my mom, his voice was almost completely gone. He would talk in this extremely raspy voice that didn’t even resemble close to what he normally sounds. He looked extremely weak and would lay in bed the whole day. While this was going on, he one day got up and asked me to find him a testing site in Brooklyn, to which I did. Depression kept sinking deeper and deeper. I never did find out if my dad had went or not. However one day he seemed almost energetic, he spoke to my mom and I had noticed his voice even the tiniest bit, was better. I told him this and he was croaked “Really?”. Everyday seemed to be slightly better for him and eventually he fully recovered. He wanted to go back to work and to bring back income, but my mother ended up begging/crying for him to rest at least for another week. So he did and rested still in self isolation in my sisters room. His first day back to work was last Tuesday. And since then, hes back to the same old self he was before. I don’t personally know anybody that has passed away from the virus however, I’d take boring over the hell I’ve been through for the past 4 weeks. That’s what my experience of my household has been for the pandemic.

My embarrassing moment happened when I was 7 years old and I still at times cringe over and regret it. I used to be a frequent bike rider as a child. I would often on days with nothing to do, ride my bicycle around the neighborhood unattended. My parents trusted me to not cause any incidents as I had not one since I learnt how to ride a bike at the age of 5. On this day I was riding at a high pace as the streets were almost completely clear. I was seeing a pedestrian once every 3 streets and I would always be riding the street side of the sidewalk. As I continued biking down these streets, I had ridden down half of a completely empty street. A baby of about 3 years of age came rushing out all of a sudden out of a Chinese laundromat completely unattended. I panic slammed the brakes on my bike, however the bike I was riding had only front brakes. This caused the front wheel to completely lock up and at the speed I was going, caused me to fly forward off my bike as my bike did front flips over the baby. It looked like something completely out of a movie to anybody watching. I was so sure nothing had happened to the baby as both me and my bike ate pavement 2 feet behind her. I still immediately got up and ran over to the baby to make sure she was okay. The baby still in shock of what had happened started bawling and her family and also whom I assumed were her parents came out of the laundromat saw what had happened and came out yelling at me in Mandarin. I instantly figured out that they owned the laundromat, however I could not understand what they were saying as I spoke Cantonese. I could see from their body language that they were extremely upset at me.  Caught up with how misunderstood the situation was and how young I was, I ended up getting on my bike with tears in my eyes screaming “I’m sorry” over and over as I fled the scene. I rode home and tried to hide it from my parents, who instantly figured out due to how scraped up I was from eating pavement. I told them the truth and ended getting beaten and forbidden from riding my bike. I didn’t care, I no longer had any mood to ride my bike for pleasure ever again and felt relief as I was punished. I left my bike in the garage where it remains untouched to this day.

Side Note: I’ve been putting off these journal assignments as the pandemic ensued, I also wanted to wait and see for my experience for journal 6 but events started to take a turn which I will write about in #6.

1) There is an absolute monarch of a country. He punishes his people by death no matter how petty the crime. His views of the law are absolute. No morality enters the court, a homicide is punished exactly the same as a grandmother stealing bread for her starving grandchildren. Rebellions were put down brutally. Negligence by business owners causing the deaths of their employees were not brushed aside either. As a result, those wealthier than others started to give away their wealth to those that had less. His kingdom became a sort of utopia, nobody starved, there were no social issues. Everybody though lived in complete fear and went around their lives like mindless drones. Is this morally acceptable?

2) Jessica, her mom and the family dog are at home. Her father is out at work. 3 masked men have been planning an invasion into Jessica’s home for 2 weeks now. The home invasion is under way at her home. Her dog fights off the invaders and causes enough commotion for the neighbors to call the police. Family is grateful to the dog and have a special place in their hearts.

3) Edward comes home from work and greets his wife and daughter. Has a good time with his family and has dinner. His daughter comes up to him and says “I love you daddy”. He suddenly feels out of place. He continues through his day feeling uncomfortable until he finally spots a burnt doll in the living room. He snaps out of his delusion and remembers his family died in a house fire 6 years ago and is in a psychiatric center struggling to cope with his loss.

4) Thomas is hunting in the forest. He comes across a injured skunk and nurses it back to health. Once after full recovery, He releases the skunk bank into the wilderness. 2 weeks later, the Thomas went back into the woods to hunt again. He encounters a moose that proceeds to attack and badly injures him. The skunk he previously saved shows up and saves Thomas and protects him as he stumbles back home and gets help.

My experience with writing the memoirs was enlightening on my self issues. A “poor man’s therapy” is what I would put it. Putting my memories and analyzing them for the assignments allowed me to look upon them more than I would have liked to. Though I could have used happier memories in my memoirs I decided to talk about my more unpleasant ones as they were probably more interesting. Though I didn’t include everything, I did cover most of what was important. Seeing others who were even somewhat interested in my memoirs made me a little happy. Hopefully my life experiences help others with theirs.

I usually never have a issue with anonymity, but the one time I do remember feeling anonymous is the time I went to a house party being hosted by one of my friends Vito. I didn’t really go there to meet people just the intention of getting drunk as it was supposed to be one of those parties where everybody gets wasted. I didn’t know the majority of the party goers but the other friends that were there I didn’t see too often. I chose only to have small chat with the people I didn’t know because I wasn’t going to see most of the people again. A fight broke out during the party where Vito eventually had to intervene as one was so drunk he threw a punch and missed and ended up smashing a hole in the drywall. Eventually, I became drunk enough that the room was spinning and coupled with the fact that there was a DJ with music blasting and flashing lights, it wasn’t a good combo for me. I put my head down to sober up and prevent myself from vomiting, and a girl came up to me about 20 minutes later poured vodka on my head and said “Hey let’s party”. So I went back to partying and about 2 hours later, I was dealing with the aftermath of the party, namely everybody vomiting. I started to lay off the hard liquor during the later of the party and stick to beer to sober up but keep the buzz going. I ended up babysitting about 30% of the people and for one guy Paul, it was extra bad. I gave him more attention and he was grateful and I ended up befriending him and including him into my group of friends. I still hang out with the gang and only occasionally some of the gang still get that drunk.