ages 0-9 i grew up in the quiet suburbs of Ohio, ages 9-18 i lived in the bustling Shanghai that never sleeps. it was the abrupt adjustment to the loud from calm, the back-and-forth code-switching and the fragments of Mandarin scattered in the English sentences I spoke that turned into whiplash. like my life, my artistic focus is never still, and hurls itself between lines, through the wind. i have brisk moments where i push past my comfortability to learn something new, and i have longer moments where that pushy self keeps going and never turns back.