1. 1.The year starts and I travel to Death Valley with my parents. I’d been there twice before as a child. I don’t remember much during the trip, aside from the wide fields of salt and the desert sand painted different colors. I’m freezing but I step out onto Badwater Basin. My shoes crunching in the salt that looks like snow. My mom keeps asking, Do you remember this? Do you remember what the mountains looked like? At night, we sit around a fire and drink beer. They tell me that I should travel more.
   

2. 2.I’m meeting writer friends for the first time, attending AWP for the first time. I’m at the hotel’s basement bar. I’m happy and nervous and curious. We talk about alcohol because that’s the thing you do when you’re in a bar. We talk about our favorite bourbons and whiskeys. Someone says, “Oh no, we’re writers talking about whiskey,” and I laugh because it’s true. I feel a release, a belonging.
   

3. 3.My niece learns to call me “Alvin” and “uncle,” though it sounds like “Awin” and “uggle” because her mouth is too small, her lips still learning to form words around her tongue.
   

4. 4.I move to Portland finally. My parents help me, filling their SUV with many of my things, or at least the things I think I will need. They stay a few days to help me settle in. My first morning, I wake up to the sound of crows calling and answering. At first, an annoyance, but it grows on me. The call and response, the sunlight, wings flapping on roofs.
   

5. 5.My best friend is my roommate in Portland. We begin playing basketball. We talk about how good it feels to hear the net’s swish. It reminds me of ocean waves.
   

6. 6.My phone beeps and I wake up and check it. Beth tells me I’m being promoted to associate fiction editor, shows me a screenshot of the team, my name right there. I go back to sleep. When I wake up, I check my phone again, assuming it was a dream, but it’s all there, still real. The things I’d end up learning. The friendships and growing I’d do.
   

7. 7.I go to a concert with my friend. The concert features Jay Som, Japanese Breakfast, and Mitski. I’m in awe of these three Asian-American women leading an entire concert. They all sound beautiful and fill my heart. For the first time in a long time, I think of my Korean skin as armor, as bright light and power.
   

8. 8.When I go back home for the holidays, six months since I’d moved, my niece is more talkative. She can hold conversations. She says, “Play Play-Doh with me.” She gives me a Christmas ornament with Ariel from The Little Mermaid. She says, “Talk! Talk!” and we make believe Ariel goes to the zoo. My niece is the gauge for how much I can love a person.
   

9. 9.Days when it rains here. I think of this city I’m falling in love with. I think of finally finding my place and how much I’ve changed. I think of how lost I can still feel though, the way the world is shifting. I think of the future I might have, some woman I’ll love. Tick tick tick against my window.
   

10. 10.Mitski ends her set with “Last Words of a Shooting Star,” the song that first introduced me to her.
    I always wanted to die clean and pretty
    But I'd be too busy on working days
    So I am relieved that the turbulence wasn't forecasted
    I couldn't have changed anyways
    

Alvin joined the Little Fiction | Big Truths team earlier this year and we feel like he instantly made us a little bit cooler. Also earlier this year, we got to go drinking with Alvin in LA’s Little Tokyo district, which also made us feel a little bit cooler. In conclusion, that Alvin’s alright.