So proud of Team Japan today! They won in their match against Denmark earlier today, 3-1, and won their ticket to advance to the next round of the Final 16 in the World Cup!!!
These are the moments I wait (im)patiently every four years for…
Everyone knows that expectations for Japan were pretty low going into this year’s World Cup — mine were, too, and I was just going to sit back and enjoy the games. But it’s upsets like this that make the world of soccer exciting! This is Japan’s first time scoring three goals in a World Cup game, and this year is the first time they have won a match on foreign soil. (They did well in 2002, but it was on home soil.)Â So proud of the Samurai Blue!
It’s been an exciting couple weeks in World Cup, and I have high hopes that the best is yet to come. It’s great to see some of the underdogs making it into the Final 16, like the U.S. and Japan.
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Virginia Tech offensive tackle Ed Wang made history this past weekend when he became the first full-blooded Chinese American player to be drafted into the NFL this past weekend when he was picked up in the fifth round by the Buffalo Bills.
Wang was born and raised in Fairfax, Virginia, my old stomping grounds in Northern Virginia, and of course, we share the same alma mater. I always remember his signature long hair and ginormous build — he was a formidable presence that you could not miss on the football field at Lane Stadium.
His Beijing-raised parents were both members of China’s Olympic track and field team in the 1970s, and it’s inspiring to hear about their journey together as a family to get to this point:
A huge congratulations to Ed Wang — he will surely become a role model for young Asian American kids around the country! How exciting that one of our very own Hokies has been able to come this far and establish a milestone in the history of both football and the APA community.
I saw this great PSA this week which was inspired by the documentary film The Cove, which I wrote about earlier this month.
It’s very powerful and features a number of celebrities, among them Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Aniston, Robin Williams, Jason Mraz, Naomi Watts, Ben Stiller, Hayden Panettiere, Paul Rudd, James Kyson Lee, Russell Simmons, John Leguizamo, and Courtney Cox. It even features a handful of Japanese American celebrities like Tamlyn Tomita, Carrie Ann Inaba, and Chris Tashima — no doubt strategically placed, since the issue is about the dolphin hunting in Japan. What matters, though, is that they all came together to save the dolphins.
Please watch the video below, and if you’d like to take part and sign the petition, go here.
Three years. My heart is in Blacksburg today as we remember the 32 Hokies we lost on April 16, 2007. It was exactly three years ago that our cherished Virginia Tech campus was branded as “the site of the deadliest peacetime shooting incident in U.S. history.”
Never before then or since have I felt the magnitude of pain and heartbreak that I experienced on that day and the weeks that followed. The trauma of losing a friend among the 32 victims in the horrifying tragedy, coupled with the unrelenting harassment by reporters for a comment as a representative of the Asian campus community, was too much for me to endure and I underwent counseling at the campus clinic for a week. I would quietly cry myself to sleep every night, which regrettably kept my roommates up and made them sick with worry. There was simply no escaping the tragedy, with yellow tape and police cars everywhere on campus, and our school being the top news story every time we turned on the television. I felt like I shed a lifetime of tears that week — you’d think that eventually, you’d run out of tears to cry, but they just kept coming.
They came at the convocation the day following the shooting, when the sky was a serenely calm blue in comparison to the stormy skies of the day before.
They came at the candlelight vigil later that night, as thousands of candles lit up the drillfield in the middle of our campus.
They came at the organizational board meetings for AASU and VTU, where I saw my fellow officers more broken than ever.
They came at the memorial picnic, where I shook hands with Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum and saw such indescribable sadness and utter exhaustion in his eyes, which had just witnessed the worst bloodshed he’d ever seen in his lifetime.
They came on graduation day, as my heart screamed that this was not the note I wanted my college years to end on.
They came as I laid down my graduation bouquets at the memorial, for my fellow students who were forever robbed of the opportunity to walk in their own commencement ceremonies.
But amidst all the heartache that left me bleary-eyed, there were countless tearful moments that helped me to heal. I was so humbled to see how many universities, communities and individuals reached out to us in support and love from all over the country and across the world. Students from our rival school at the University of Virginia painted their Beta Bridge in Virginia Tech’s orange and maroon colors with the message “Hoos for Hokies,” reminding us that we share more in common than we have historically been prone to admit. Colorado State University sent us thousands of paper cranes symbolizing peace. Penn State paid their respects to Virginia Tech by dressing in our school colors for their annual Blue-White football game. Niagara Falls was bathed in orange and maroon lights in a moving tribute to the Hokie spirit, marking the first time the falls had been lit in the wake of a tragedy. Every flat surface in Squires Student Center was covered in banners, posters, and memorial items sent in from around the nation, and so many arrived that they had to switch them out every day. It was these sights and more that moved me to tears and really showed our campus that love can surpass the hate that brought about such a such a horrific event.
Above all, I was inspired to see the strength and solidarity with which our campus community stood in the face of this unexpected and unprecedented tragedy. I am not sure how I would have made it through the final month of school were it not for the support of my fellow Hokies — my roommates, friends, classmates, professors, managers and coworkers.
Three years later, we are still healing. I know I have not completely healed yet, and I’m not sure if I ever will. There’s still not a day that goes by without April 16th crossing my mind in one way or another, however fleeting it may be. There are still moments when tears spill over inexplicably, when there isn’t even anything conscious there to trigger them. It’s painful to remember, but too important to forget. The world stopped and watched in horror as a nightmare unfolded on our campus three years ago — it is my sincere hope that we will never have to see another April 16th.
I ask each of you to take the time to be a Hokie today. Appreciate life a little more, take in every moment around you, count your blessings, tell the people around you that you love them, slow down, remember what’s truly important in life. And live for those 32 that do not have that chance anymore.
Although I’m all the way on the other side of the country, I will be proudly wearing my orange and maroon today in remembrance. Hearts have been broken, lives have been taken, but we will always be here standing tall and proud to be Hokies.
We are Virginia Tech. We will continue. We do it for 32.
We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. Never Forget April 16, 2007
Just got home this evening from a weekend in SoCal. I am pretty wiped, and will have to save photos and update on the trip for another day when I have more energy.
This past week was the 2010 World Figure Skating Championships in Torino, Italy. It seems almost cruel to make these figure skaters compete when they are still reeling from the Winter Olympics that ended less than a month ago, but I suppose such is the demanding schedule of an athlete. I didn’t get to watch the men’s and ladies’ programs due to the fact that I was busy on the evenings before my trip and was in Southern California during the ladies’ skates, but I kept up to date on the results via online news on my phone. 😉
It was a pleasant surprise that Daisuke Takahashi and Mao Asada were both able to take home golds for Japan.
Daisuke Takahashi became the first Japanese man to medal at the Winter Olympics this year, and he became the first to win the men’s world title this time. As I mentioned before, he has been my favorite male figure skater for a while, and it was really inspiring to see him do so well and finally be able to take home the gold after suffering a career-threatening knee injury. He only had surgery just last year and was able to overcome the injury and make such an incredible comeback! I am really happy for his win.
Mao Asada, who was forced to settle for silver at the Olympics also made a strong comeback this time and regained the title of World Champion (she had previously won the title two years ago, in 2008). Her long-time rival Kim Yu-na suffered an unfortunate fall and an uncharacteristic shaky performance, which opened up the room for Mao to grasp the title. Although Mao’s scores were below her season’s best, I am sure that the title gave her a feeling of accomplishment after training very hard this season. It’s no consolation for her dissatisfaction with her own performance at the Olympics, but she has said that she feels rewarded for her efforts in challenging and pushing herself. She noted that Daisuke Takahashi’s win from a couple days ago inspired her to win another gold for their country, and with the World Championships scheduled to be held in Japan next year, she feels that they were able to set a good starting point for the following season.
Also, the Chicago Tribune reports at the end of their article that Mao is looking for a new coach to replace Tatiana Tarasova, who she has been with for the past two seasons. I think I echo the same sentiment as a lot of other Mao Asada fans when I say that I am happy to hear this. Not that Tarasova was a bad coach — I do believe that Mao needed to improve on her expression during her programs, but since she has been with Tarasova, her programs have been very dark, heavy, even plodding at times, and the style does not seem to fit Mao at all. I hope that whoever coach Mao switches to will bring her back to the lighter skating style that she is better suited and known for, while still improving her emotional expression on the ice. Tarasova is a legendary coach, but it would also be better for Mao to no longer have a long-distance coach, since Tarasova was mostly in Russia while Mao trained in Japan.
But for now, I hope that both these skaters, as well as Kim Yu-na and Mirai Nagasu and all the other skaters who came fresh off the Olympics to compete at Worlds, can go on home and get some well-deserved rest after this busy season. I’ll miss seeing these stars on the ice, especially since this was one of the most exciting seasons for figure skating that I’ve ever witnessed, but it’s time they took some time off to shift their focus and just enjoy life off the ice for a while.
