Literacy Narrative:

One of the most interesting books that I have read in my senior year of high school was The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Basically, a guy named Ashoke survives a train crash in India, and he was assumed that what saved him was a page from his favorite book by the author Nikolai Gogol. Ashoke has a tradition where the eldest family member has the role to name the newborns but when Ashoke is expecting a child, the name for the baby got lost in the mail and the eldest family member suffered a stroke so in a rush he decides to name his son by the last name of his favorite author, Gogol. Gogol was always conflicted with his name: his named gets mocked by his high school classmates, and he finds out that the author his name is based on has a very tragic backstory eventually leading to suicide; so, Gogol changes his name to but realizes he becomes distant from his family with this new identity, so he goes back to his cultural roots. The interesting part of the story was the insight into Gogol’s name, and this causes me to do a Google search on my name. Fun fact, the first name for all my siblings is “Ming” which means bright, but we are distinguished by our middle names, my older sister has the middle name Na which means graceful and elegant, my second sister’s middle name is name Si which means to think, my brother’s middle name is Bo which means precious. Now while there is Bright and Graceful, Bright and Precious, Bright and Thoughtful, my middle name is Gui which means expensive; so bright and expensive, ambitious but costly, risk reward. I think about the meaning of the combined “Ming” and “Gui” when I was reflecting on my last summer as a high school senior, and it could’ve been better.

Sometimes I see my name as positive as my sibling’s names if I do something unregretful. I remember running to my high school just a few hours before my graduation as this day coincided with the last day of school- I won’t be able to see my friends and teachers again as a senior. I had lied to my antsy brother (get it? because its Ming Bo) that I was going there to pick up a special tassel for my graduation cap, but really, I wanted to get a signature from every person I had known for my whole 4 years at this high school my siblings used to go to. Ever since I came back in person, I regrettably spent my whole senior year as this hollow person but when I decided to risk this bright and precious time to get ready for graduation with an expensive hour and bright hour of yearbook reunion, I had chosen the most cathartic ending to a high school journey with overlaps of signatures in my yearbook as opposed to a silent, humble resignation of a high school senior. I wish I could say the same thing for how I spent my senior summer before college, sometimes regret it but I question whether if I should be ashamed of how I spent it.

Every time summer vacation rolls by, I have this issue that I call “Summer Sleep Schedule Syndrome” where I stay up all night till sunrise and then wake up somewhere late in the afternoon, that summer I wanted to cure my syndrome by hanging up my nocturnal reputation. I’d say for a “Bright but Expensive” person such as I, nothing ever goes free without its caveats: if I were to give 2 quotes about me it would be, “Things get in the way” and “I hate loose ends” because my friend had introduced me to a game called “Valorant” and what was supposed to be a relaxing summer turned into my worst case of Summer Sleep Syndrome. If I were to explain what makes me addicted to video games, I would say that 30 percent of it is just enjoying the gameplay but the other 70 is reaping the spoils that are there for the taking and like any other modern video game marketing strategy Valorant has a battle pass. For the non-gamers, a battle pass is a marketing system in games where you pay an affordable price of usually 10 dollars just to have access to unlock some cool stuff for your game however you must play the game in order to unlock and usually there is a new battle pass every 2 months. Since I was new to Valorant I would usually feel left out as my friend would give me his decorated gun while he picks up my plain and boring counterpart. When I saw the new issue of the pass, I thought the “Fruitful but Risky” side of me thinks that if I pay 10 dollars I can play with a more customized arsenal and I can still enjoy a senior summer if I aggressively complete this pass early but the “Greedy and Reckless” part of me thinks that I’m wasting my summer just for a few pixels on my screen and I’ll be happier if I can spend my summer without playing games. So, my goal was to complete Valorant ‘s battle pass by playing for an excessive amount of hours in order to have some cool stuff in the game but also to prevent video games from consuming my summer and it will cost me my sleep, it’s a bright but reckless plan.

            Battle passes can vary between games: some are generous to players like working a 9 to 5 shift with benefits and opportunities to help you with your workload but other games (such as Valorant), have battle passes want your soul like you’re working for 12 hours a day and the only way to get leverage is if you pay them to make your job less tedious. Since it was summer, my parents would come to my room to take nap because they don’t have an air conditioner in their bedroom and when they wake up, they see a dark room illuminated by a computer screen with me – bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair at 4 the morning just playing in order to live a summer that is free from the clutches of this imprisoning battle pass. Sometimes I fear that I might lose progress by passing out, so I decided to invest in caffeinated drink mixes and what was supposed to be an investment of 10 dollars, grew to 40. What used to be an empty fridge now filled with purple colored Poland Spring water bottles, what used to be a neat and organized desk now a plastic landfill containing drops of that drink mix. It was very costly, but it was tasty and I’m drinking water more.

            I wasn’t entirely stuck in my room, the same guy who introduced to me to the game ironically gave up on completing his battle pass to his enjoy summer; some days he would invite me to go out for a walk and for the first time I have been Korean Town and ate at the food galleries with him. Other times it was my mom who I accompanied with to Central Park, and I started to notice how blurry my Vision was and how much this plan had taken its toll. I was near the end of this pass and its these moments that motivated me to order to proceed without being crutched by caffeine. Literally on the last day of July I had been freed from the shackles that I put self in, and it was sunrise. I forgot to mention that the only good thing about that Summer Sleep Schedule is when the sun rises: the blackness fading into this shade of blue, the windows of the skyscrapers reflecting this orange hue from the sun, the unpolluted summer air due to the drivers being in their beds.

 In the end, I only lost my July to Valorant but I enjoyed my August in the way how it was originally intended. Sometimes I relate to how Gogol feels unsatisfied towards his name and his acceptance of it. Sure, I do regret wasting my entire July on a game but on the other side of the coin, had not I played then I would have regrets about not having those cool cosmetics because I decided not to risk it. When I judge the morels of my bright but expensive decisions it’s like flipping a coin and I’ll give you my two cents here. When flipping a coin, it is easy to choose the head or tail of the coin but the hardest thing to make is to make the coin stand- to have both the heads and tails, to have the best of both sides, to have a perfect graduation and a cathartic end to the senior year in yearbook signatures, to have a relaxing summer and video game loot. Its risky but it can be fruitful and it’s something a person with “Bright but Expensive” in his name would do.