Memories

Lately, I’ve been on somewhat of an emotional rollarcoaster. One minute I’m happy, one minute I’m sad, then the next moment I’m really mad. Where does it all end?

Actually, I know where and how it can all end. But somehow, the prospect of an end to this emotional rollarcoaster  is scarier and more depressing than being on the rollarcoaster itself. I find myself afraid of finality. Afraid of not being to turn back. Not knowing what comes next…or how I can bring myself to pick up the few pieces of a broken dream I have left and patiently wait for someone else to fill in for the huge missing piece and also glue everything back together. Everyone is telling me, “there are plenty of fishies in the sea.” But all I can think of is how they wont fit quite right into the hole that he has left behind. It’s like telling a 5 year old when they lose their favorite teddy bear they have slept with and played with for 5 years, “there are other teddy bears in the store!”  Or having a dog who spends 15 years being your best friend pass away and thinking “well there are plenty of dogs at the pound.” It will never be the same. People say, “well the next one could be better!” But they just don’t understand. It will never be the same.

Circumstances. If only. Change this. Could’ve been. Change that. Would’ve been. I wish. This. That. If only.

Don’t tell me to put things in perspective. Or about the other fish. I’ve heard it all. I’m just creeping, shuffling along at my own pace.

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Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the fact that so many if not all doctors shut themselves off from their feelings in order to successfully practice medicine. My mom has been in and out of the hospital a lot lately. I remember a time when she was getting her blood drawn and the nurse carelessly stuck the needle in and probed around underneath her skin to find a vein, resulting in a huge patch of bruising on my mom’s arm. Many instances like this have happened (even though it wasn’t a doctor in this case) and I keep thinking I can be different. I will treat everyone like my own parents and grandparents and their pain will be my pain. But then… I realized that I honestly don’t know if I can. I’ve never been through the experience of going through hundreds and hundreds of suffering patients, never been through the experience of reconciling with myself that there was nothing I could do to save someone’s life, never been through the experience, really, of facing death at all. Who am I to say to that I will for sure keep my feelings and my head intact as a doctor?

I decided to start volunteering at CT Hospice because of that. It’s a hospital for the terminally ill who have less than 6 months to live. People say its hard to deal with those who live their life on the other end of the life spectrum, to get to know people, listen to their stories and their aspirations, and then one day realize that they are gone. Rationally, and imaginatively I suppose, I know it’s hard to face death. But  my emotions–I don’t know where they will take me.

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Here’s a poem Mrs. Huie sent:

Cutting toenails at 82

I have forced my feet

To shuffle beside his

Down the faded halls

Of the Wade Park VA

Where his colored cane.

Like the lights of an ambulance,

Screams—I’m blind, out of my way.

He is an old big rig man

Who is now driven by my eyes

As I escort him to the podiatry clinic

Where he will culminate

His day of a basal cell biopsy

With a clipping of toenails—

How embarrassing, he says,

To have another man clip your nails—

While I, the medical student his grandson’s age,

Try to tell him it’s all okay

As I watch the toenails fall to the floor

And wonder when my clippings

Will begin to steal a part of me away.

Jason David Eubanks

Willoughby Hills, OH

I feel uncultured.

My friends throw out a random reference or name, for example Paul McCartney, and I have no idea who he is or why he’s important. 1860s–everyone knows that’s the period of the civil war, except me. Somehow, despite being born and raised in the U.S., I have managed to live under a rock my entire life and remain almost completely unaware of the political, historical, and social context around me. I’m embarrassed, frankly, and can’t help but be reminded of the infamous recluse and intellectual female Emily Dickinson, also heralded as the greatest woman poet in the English language (wikipedia). Living, or once living, proof that one can bury oneself under a rock and still be intellectual, cultured, and representative of “American.” Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. I must be one of them.

Conclusion of the day: I spend too much time speculating on my petty emotions and the small bubble that is my world. (Too much introspection, for sure.)

Where is my Aladdin?

In order to make others happy, you must be happy with yourself first.

It’s that time of year again– “the most wonderful time of the year.” New beginnings, new possibilities, new adventures just on the horizon… but somehow, as the end of this year and the beginning of the next approaches, I feel relief rather than the usual nostalgia.I feel a sense of urgency to finish the new year rather than a laid-back enjoyment of these final few days.

My family suffered a very hard hit personally when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though I smile on my face and dismiss it as only stage 2, easy to treat, she will be fine, inwardly, its hard for me to ignore the cold fear that still manages to creep into my conscious and my mind. The prospect or even possibility of losing someone so important, and such a pillar of strength in my life…it’s hard to describe. In the beginning of this academic semester, I was so driven to do well. I wanted to hurry up and graduate, get a job, marry and have children just to make sure my parents will still be alive to see me go through these most important stages of my life. I didn’t care if others perceived me to be overly serious about schoolwork, or in an overly serious almost-married relationship. I didn’t care of my friends thought I was boring for never going out to parties and having fun. In my mind, I was driven by a sense of urgency that nobody else could really understand. To be honest, I have lead a paranoid and lonely existence this year. I rarely hung out with my friends and mostly buried myself in my room, only seeking attention and solace from my boyfriend. I thought I would do very well in my classes. I even stopped working so that I could have more time to study. In the end, though, it all feel apart. I fell apart. During finals, though I was physically and mentally exhausted, I found myself tossing and turning on my bed, unable to fall asleep for 3 days straight. I ate maybe one meal a day and lost some weight as well. Honestly, I felt like I was losing my mind. My room was a mess, my sleep schedule was a mess, my life was a mess. I developed gigantic dark circles and puffy eyebags around my eyes that have lingered even to now. All I wanted was for it to all be over. Needless to say, my grades also reflected the chaos that was my life.

Maybe I’m merely experiencing the general phenomenon of “sophomore slump,” but to me, it feels much more personal than that. I feel like there is a certain lacking of strength in my character. I feel a sense of disorder in my life. Maybe those Taoist philosophers were onto something. I need to find a balance in my life. A balance between being driven and motivated, but not stressed to the brink of insanity. A balance between finding time for friends and sustaining my long-distance relationship. A balance between a carefree happiness and a  resolute seriousness that will take me somewhere in life. That is one of my greatest hopes for this new year–to find some balance in my life…and hopefully some peace with myself as well.

This year, I also feel like there has been a lot of death around me. Annie Le, the pretty doctoral student working in a lab just 15 minutes away from my dorm. Andre Narcisse, the student in in my graduating year who died on Halloween possibly because of some sort of overdose, and who many of my friends knew. Donna Colon, the lunch lady that served us breakfast ever morning in our residential dining hall. The 40+ chickens that my mom raised from chicks that were mauled, dismembered, and killed by wild dogs who didn’t even kill to eat. Life really is too unpredictable and too short. I must be grateful.

Instead of making a new year’s resolution this year–a list of petty things like losing 10 lbs or washing the dishes everyday or getting all As–I want to think about who I am as a person… and how I can find the same strength, conviction, determination, and character that my mom was seemingly born into.

I hope that everything else will fall into place.

Thanks to Jessica, I came across Amanda’s blog today. I liked it. One post in particular got me thinking — the post about why she quit facebook, deleted her twitter and cyworld, and cancelled her texting plan.

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“about a week ago i deleted my facebook due to numerous reasons, mainly because after so many years of over-exposure, i finally wanted to keep some things to myself. no longer will my friends know of my relationship statuses before i do or question me about the people who write on my wall. i dont need to read picture comments anymore or reply to comments. im really glad. at first i was totally bummed that i can no longer waste my time on facebook taking absurd quizzes and doing some harmless stalking. but after a few days i’ve become really satisfied at my decision.

soooooooooo

i decided to delete my twitter and my cyworld. i also canceled my text plan. LOL.

i know it is a bit extreme but its great. i love it. i think now i have more time to get to know myself better. i know some of you will ask how i will communicate with you since i dont really answer my phone. lol. i have aim and im always on invisible. but if you dont have my aim im not going to tell you what it is.

however i will keep my blog. because i actually MADE it. the format and the header, i picked the songs. its my baby. and i also like to read what i wrote before. its cool.

sometimes…..privacy is good. today i saw a cnn news about how almost everyone in america has a facebook and 1 out of 22 people in the world have facebooks. that is really creepy to hear. maybe im just weird.

just remember when youre on those site, there are some things that you want to keep to yourself.”

Credit: http://ax-world.blogspot.com/

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I hope you don’t mind me quoting you, Amanda, if you ever read this.

First of all, I really admired her for what she did. Mainly because it’s just…so gutsy! I wonder if I would be able to do the same…but all those pictures and messages on facebook are memories that I’m afraid to lose. And all those people I’ve known throughout the years I know I’ll probably forget about without facebook… I realized that facebook, whether I like it or not, contains a lot of my life. Maybe I’m just a huge sentimental freak. Or maybe I’m a huge attention whore. But with all the time I spend isolated from people, sitting in my room studying or wasting time, I’m not about to lose one of the only portals I have to the outside world. Which really is sad. I wonder if deleting facebook would force me to leave my room and seek more “real interactions.” But then again, there are so many people that I’m physically incapable of getting in touch with without facebook. It’s that whole facebook debate that I’m sure all media specialists are talking about. The pros and cons of facebook and the changing social (digital) interface of our world. Both scary and intriguing, don’t you think?

It would be something, however, I might want to experiment with. Facebook lets you resurrect your fb if you delete it, right?

I just wanted to tell you all about the worst transportation service I have ever had to deal with— Connecticut Limo (CT Limo).

The first time I waited at Phelps gate for the CT Limo to take me home for thanksgiving break, I was sitting next to a woman waiting for Primetime to go to the airport. She angrily told me she has had the worst experiences with CT Limo several times and now she has switched to Primetime. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but within 10 minutes, I started to realize that exactly why she so hated CT Limo.

First of all, the website has a fine print policy that if you’re late to your ride, you will be fined $50 (more than half of the ticket price!). I was 15 minutes early to wait for my ride but 30 minutes passed with no sign of CT limo to NYC except one CT limo bus parked across the street. I walked over to ask that CT Limo driver, very nicely, whether he knew when our bus would arrive. He rudely answered “It’s only been 15 minutes right? Be patient.” So the man was a douche, whatever. The important thing was that I had a flight to catch. I wondered, though, why they should fine us for being late if they couldn’t be on time themselves, but I shrugged it off.

What I was not okay with, was the fact that they make no mention whatsoever of where I should wait at the airport on the return trip to be picked up, or the fact that I had to register at ground transportation or else I will not be picked up at my scheduled time. I spent 20 minutes waiting outside after my flight had arrived only to be told that the bus was full and I would have to wait another hour for the next bus because I did not wait inside at ground transportation.

So I called CT Limo to clarify this whole situation. Was I going to be fined $50? Why did I not receive instructions at the time of purchase how to take the CT limo back? (turns out instructions were given halfway through the purchasing process in **fine print at the bottom of the page and after you check out, it is never to be seen again). This is what the CT Limo representative said (in a extremely rude and bitchy tone): “Uh, I have been here for 10 years and that is just how it has always been. I’m not going to argue with you about this *click*” And she hangs up on me before I can even say another word. That was kind of the last straw for me.

Then, to top the night off, the bus driver very suddenly put on his brakes (because he was following too closely) on the highway, and we got rear-ended hard by the car behind us. Stuck on the highway for another hour while the police came and made the report. The bus driver then yelled at another customer, who was still asking about reimbursement for any damaged luggage, and the drove off while she was still at his drivers window trying to talk to him. He said that since it was technically the other car’s fault, CT Limo would not be responsible at all for damages.

Honestly, I am surprised CT Limo is in business at all. Why would people not just take Primetime, which I have observed while waiting for CT Limo, is consistently on time, with affable drivers who make sure each registered passenger is on, and has a ticket price that is $30 less expensive? With all the other better and less expensive transportation methods, there really is no excuse to take CT Limo.

Don’t make the same mistake that I did.

There is a quote floating around somewhere on the web that goes something like this: “The beauty of first love is in the belief that it will never end.” I loved this quote when I first read it. There was something beautifully melancholic and wise about it, even if I could not fully grasp its meaning. I sensed the dangerous tone in it that warns us of love’s ephemeral nature. Yet I feel it is also telling us: cherish this beauty if you are lucky enough to be experiencing it.

When it comes to love, I’ve never thought about myself as being a romantic. Whoever believes in true love’s kiss or love at first sight or even love that lasts forever? That’s the fluff from fairytales that only the truly naive dreamers still believe. Dream on. At the same time, I’ve never really taken to the cynics either. I feel that people completely cynical about love shut themselves off to the remotest possibility that love could ever happen to them…which is a shame. They’ll never even experience the magical illusion that they are in love. I guess I’ve been caught in between…wanting to believe in the possibility of some glamorous “true, unconditional love,” yet not wanting to be just another young and naive girl.

(I hope, whoever you are, you are not reading this for answers. I just wanted to share a personal experience. It’s my hope that by sharing this, by writing this out, I may come to some greater understanding about myself.)

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When I first met Leo, you could say it was our first date, he was sitting over a bowl of pho at what was my favorite little restaurant at the time. His head was bowed down very low over his food, and he mostly peered over the rim of his bowl if he even looked at me at all. His back was perpetually concave and he’d occasionally stutter over what to say. He was shy and insecure and inexperienced with girls. That was my first impression. And although his quirky mannerisms were not attractive to me in the least, I was attracted in a different way. I was intrigued. I knew that he was very smart. My physics teacher mentioned that he did the entire AP physics C exam on the first day of class and only missed one problem. I also knew that he liked poetry and writing music because although we weren’t quite familiar with each other, he would periodically share some pieces he had written with me. He had a pair of very deep set and expressive eyes too. He was weird. And I was intrigued by what he was, and even more so, what he could become. To me, guys who were confident, self assured, and well socialized and situated in life were somewhat boring. I liked guys who had a story behind them. And this Leo kid, he was interesting.

As I got to know Leo more, he was weirder than I thought. And, ugh, he was a romantic. After dating two guys who thought they wanted to marry me while I was still in high school, I thought I was over those. But Leo, who was more of a dreamer than either of them, continued to intrigue me. He believed in sacrificial, unconditional love. His emotions were often intense. He was profusely apologetic over ever little “wrong” he could think of that he did. He had big dreams of saving the world. He was addicted to video games, so much so, that he said he’d wake up installing the game, and go to sleep crying and uninstalling the game. In a sense, he was like a little boy, groping around for some warm hand to hold and lead him to where he should be. I could tell that he liked me. Some days he would wake up early at 6 in the morning just to give me a wakeup call for class. Whenever I came home from school, he’d be waiting at his computer to chat with me. He would talk to me as I fell asleep. He told me that he could be the older brother I never had, someone who I could lean on. Even more touchingly, he told me that he expected nothing in return. He’d be a rock that lends support, but doesn’t ask for anything back. Because he said this, sometimes I’d nickname him “shi tou ge” (rock brother, in Chinese).

I thought he was silly. From my experience with past bfs, guys always get angry and hurt when girls don’t reciprocate or put in equal effort to the relationship. How could there exist someone who only wanted to give and never wanted anything in return? How could someone be so naive? I was skeptical, but he was convincing, not just in the way he treated me, but others was well. I remember times when he’d have 5 tests the next day, and if a friend were to ask him for help on their homework, he would gladly and willingly help without mentioning his own work at all. He would give out everything in his wallet to someone on the street who asked him for money. He treats children with the kind of patience and care that I, who love children, could never measure up to. He promised that he would never leave me. I thought, if he really was this kind of selfless and caring person, he deserves much better than all the unrequited love he had experienced in the past. He was deep, soulful, a thinker, and a dreamer. He was beautiful, and I had never met someone like him before.

The first few months of our relationship were wonderful. I loved watching as he slowly came out of his shell. He started looking me straight in the eye when he talked to me. We started holding hands. At my prodding, he stopped hunching his back. Even my friends marveled at the changed person he had become. Kristy said that when she first met him, he looked like a caveman…but now she’d rank him an 8/10 (9/10 if he worked out). Vishnu told me that when he first met Leo, he thought he was weird and wondered why I was dating him…but now he was really cool. Cooler than me. But as Leo gained confidence, he also lost a lot of his quirks. And a lot of what I had originally loved so much about him.

Maybe I made him a more selfish person. I yelled at him when he gave away $10 to a “guy who had a cellphone and needed $30 for a cab ride home.” He doesn’t give out money to people who ask him anymore. I told him to stop helping people when he has lots of work to do on his own. I told him to stop sleeping with his 10 year old brother because even 5 year old little girls sleep by themselves (or at least, I did). I broke up with him twice, once for lying to me about playing Starcraft for a month behind my back (and because I was hurt that he was even late to pick me up on my birthday because he was so tired from playing Starcraft all night). Once for some other reason, probably also related to the fact that he was perpetually late and didn’t keep his word. Leo, who was once so giving that he was willing to do almost anything for me, now realized that my demands were too high and too much for him. He stopped writing me emails every night after I had gone to sleep. He stopped calling me to say goodnight every day before we went to sleep. The number of random loving texts I received throughout the day dwindled. He became more busy and stopped humoring me like he used to when I was whiny or in a bad mood. A few times, even when I was crying, he would coldly ignore me. Slowly, he changed.

And maybe that’s just a natural progression of relationships. Eventually, when two people become very comfortable with each other, they reveal different a different side. This happened not just with him, but with me too. I was no longer constantly supportive and pleasant. When I was unhappy or just in a bad mood, I no longer covered it up. When I was angry, I yelled at him. When I was upset at him, I’d hangup on him and ignore him. When I was lonely, I demanded his attention. It’s hard to tell who changed first or when our relationship shifted to include negative emotions as well. There was once a time when I believed that we could never get in a fight. There was even a point where I thought for sure I would marry him. And, there was once a time when I believed that he would never break up with me.

After all our trials and tribulations, I realize that I do love Leo. In previous relationships, I never saw myself marrying the guy. I’d think about all his flaws and how I couldn’t stand them or live forever with them. But Leo was different. A couple of times I wanted to give up, true. But in the end, I still wanted to be with him. I would miss the tender, caring, and giving side of him. I would miss the little boy that needed my hand. I would miss the happy Leo that was out of his shell and relaxed and just enjoying the time passed. I would think about all the silly plans for the future we had together. There were times in our relationship that I still had some doubts about Leo. He was short, and I hated that. As with many girls, I wanted to marry a tall and handsome guy who was mature and established (rich wouldn’t hurt either). But over time, I stopped noticing his height completely. And I mean completely. Something that used to bother me a lot, no longer has any bearing in my feelings. I could accept if he ended up being a poor professor (teaching is something he loves very much). If he ended up deformed from a car accident or something, I’d be willing to take care of him forever. I’d still want to be with him. There was no point where I suddenly realized that I loved him. Love was a gradient, and I was simply slowly moving up that gradient. But love is not unconditional. If he had still believed in unconditional love today, maybe I might too. But we’ve both changed.

Today, he told me “You add a lot of stress and pressure to me. I don’t know if I will be happy with you.” Then he left me to myself to think about it. He has broken up with me before, in the heat of the moment. But this the the first time I’ve heard such candid words from him. He knows that I will feel hurt, but he decides to be honest anyways. This is really uncharacteristic of Leo. Usually, if there is something he feels will hurt me, he would rather lie to me or keep it to himself. While I was once so sure that Leo was different from all the guys out there and that he would love me forever and ever, I suddenly realized today that feelings can change. I realized that while love can be genuine, it does not necessarily last or mean a happily ever after. I told him that he did not have to stay if he didn’t want to. He told me he knew, but he wasn’t sure yet, so he’d let me know later. His words were a shock to me, but I felt eerily calm. And you know what? The first thought that came to my mind was:

“The beauty of first love is in the belief that it will never end.”

In the end, I have been just another naive girl. I have not found glamorous unconditional love. But I have loved.

So today, I played one of the most satisfying ping-pong matches (TD vs. Saybrook)  in awhile. Not because I was playing particularly well (I whiffed a couple of really ridiculous balls), but because I beat someone/a team I was pissed at…and, of course, that makes the win that much better.

When I first found out who I was playing today, Tam told me she was a huge bitch that had thrown a huge attitude about an IM football game and called him/TD unclassy and other names repeatedly while they were playing.  Basically, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to lose this game. Well, I walked over intending to be nice, because, hey, maybe this girl isn’t that bad and just had a bad day. She was curt, not too friendly, but what really set me off was that when I got to the table, her teammate came up and said really loudly, “Dude, this girl’s wearing ballerina flats. You can do this.”

I was pissed.

So what if I’m wearing ballerina flats? I could be wearing nothing and still kick this girl’s ass. Honestly, I can understand if he said something like that as a joke to her when I wasn’t there, but he said it really loudly and practically in my face. Anyways, I beat her 2-0 and TD won, so it was a happy ending.

I will continue wearing ballerina flats to my pingpong matches in the future.

The title of this post really gives it away: I am a compulsive email checker.

In the middle of long studying sessions for orgo, I will compulsively and randomly check all my emails. I have three different accounts, and once I’ve checked all of those, I will proceed to check my boyfriend’s accounts as well. As long as I am sitting in front of the computer, I will probably check my emails over 20 times in one hour, and most of the time there are no new emails. And of course, I’m disappointed. It sounds weird but I’m some of you must do it as well (just more or less obsessively than me). The question is: why?

On days like this, when I’m cooped up my myself in my room studying, I think that I compulsively check my email to gain some sort of connection to the outside world. Somebody PLEASE talk to me, send me an email, anything. Just confirm for me that I’m not alone in this world. The thing is, though, you would think that if I’m that desperate for attention, I’d just call up a friend and talk or go hang out/study together. But I don’t want to. I just want to be alone and undistracted and unburdened with the task of maintaining conversation. It could also be that I am waiting for something exciting to pop into my inbox…like a sale at urban outfitters! I don’t know.

Or maybe I’m just that bored and I want an excuse to do something else but appear productive. Yes…that may be it.

Now I shall go back to studying orgo.

P.S. I haven’t written here in a month because this entire past month including next week has been “midterm month.” Actually, seeing as how all my midterms are spread exactly a week and occasionally two weeks apart from one another, I might as well call this semester “midterm semester.” Hah.