Today I had a major scare! I was halfway done with my last piece of tofu when this sharp pain shot through my stomach. My right side remained hurting for the next two hours, during which my parents furiously tried to calm me down in their worried-to-death sort of way. I feared appendicitis, my old friend, and another trip to the emergency room. Thank you Linda! Thank you for not only bringing me cold and hot water (in case I wanted warm), but also walking me back to Hanszen. And Nastassja, for sharing your hospital story. :)

I’m going through yet another dress rehearsal with my suit. The final one! To go one size up or not… the dilemma of my life.

People say to dress for the job you want; I think I will dress for the size I want to remain. Thus, I’m sticking with the suit. No returns; no dramas! I spread my gratitude to all who listened to my non-stop suit talk/obsession!

There are no holes deeper or darker than that of self-pity, thus I am over it. This is a tense time; I have to constantly monitor my uneven thoughts to stay sane. At night, when overwhelmed, it helps to open my eyes and trace the dispersed bands of dark and light, the blind reflected on the ceiling. The identity crisis subsides; all the thoughts I would rather not think about clatter against my fingertips… especially now.

Friday night, I went to the village with Maria and Linda. Beautiful things everywhere, but I resisted and asked myself (again and again) the all-important question – could I not live without it five/ten years from now? I conquered myself; I spend no money. This trick worked less well the next day when I tempted my bank account once more in the Galleria. Six hours of shopping, Maria and I didn’t even cover half of that maze. About two hours into our suit-hunting experience, Maria kicked up our pace a notch by looking furiously for the perfect suit. She found it, and she looks wonderful. Me, on the other hand, somehow forgot the all-important-question and ended up with two suits, two shells, a shirt, and a pair of shoes that’s all-too-expensive and all-too-high for all except the part of me that wants to be Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City. I have been touching/thinking about my suits and shoes all day. I want to put them all on and walk around my dorm, but I’m afraid they will get dirty and I can’t return them if my parents were to HATE them… for it would truly take HATE.

Lead poisoning. Even though NY banned the use of lead in paint, it is still used in classrooms until 1980. Studies have shown that the mental damage done is irreversible--
“In the light of all these socially created injuries to intellect, most of which could be corrected by a fair-minded society, it may seem surprising that scarce research funds should be diverted to investigations of “genetic links” between the IQ deficits of certain children and their racial origins. There is something wrong with a society where money is available to do this kind of research but not to remove lead poison from homes and schools of children in the Bronx.” -- Amazing Grace by Kozol, wow. Read it.

I heard a song today. It put me heart to heart with this deep deep voice. It reminded me of good things long ended, long passed, as if they still have the sweetest possibility of remerging, replaying.

Thank you for visiting me, Linda and Maria! Five flights of stairs are more than I could ask of any friend – but you guys are more than friends. =) I apologize for the Olympics Maria; according to my dad, it was wonderful (hint hint)!

This semester is what life would have been like had I taken a different turn in college. Decided on the English major, on the life of a writer, instead of pursuing medicine. Who would I have been without surviving orgo and physics? Who will I become after surviving (assuming I do) the-class-that-should-not-be-named?! How soon can I recover if I don't get into the class I really want to take. It's hard not to take it personally, but I will try. I checked my emailed till 12:00 last night; only to realize this morning that the teacher may not post results till today. Aiiiiii…..

I talked so fast in class today I thought I would faint from short of breath. Why?! I had good things to say. I wish they didn't race out of mouth senselessly into the void.

I saw the sweetest movie, Fifty First Dates. It’s amazing what kindness could do to a guy – Adam Sandler was positively irresistible by the end of the movie. Must see it again.

To put things into perspective, I should do this by the hour.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day, when I tried and tried and can't achieve what I hoped to obtain. For ten solid minutes, I hated that place. I wish reality would take smaller strides away from the illusion I personally fabricated. Yesterday was the last straw. Life is telling me something. I hear it, but continue to argue. Would I do it again? The crossroad promises to re-emerge. Would I take the prudent and safer road, or the more daring and possibly miserable one. It's happiness I'm after, don't you know? Not fame, not money, not even success, but happiness, and love... always love. Can happiness exist in the absence of all four? Probably not, not for me.

The worst thing, ever, happened to the divers. This will be the end of my Olympic reporting; I think I'm jinxing them...

Last night I talked to a dear dear friend. The teddy bear she gave me in the eighth grade is still sitting on my bed, still wearing the American Flag wool sweater. I know the turtle slippers I gave her two Christmases later is also within sight, or within the packed boxes. We went to different colleges, and despite the letters and cards that we painstakingly sent each other, I believe we have morphed into different people. There are things that words cannot say, envelopes cannot hold, and there are gaps in our understanding of each other that can only be filled upon second thought. We filled some last night, didn't we?

That was for the sake of my sanity.

Now, for the sake of humanity, I quote my dear dear friend --

Does Bush really think that visiting the Underground Railroad Museum is going to garner him the African-American vote? Please give us a little more credit...are we cattle, because it seems as if he really wants to herd our votes...

Boom! It's on.....

Contradictory, that I should love the unnoticed passing of the day and loath the swift passage of time, as if the two were disconnected. I glanced up to see 2:05 pm on the clock when I thought it was only 12 :05 pm. The days are rushing together now, today felt just like yesterday. Soon enough, I will no longer be able to comfort myself with the idea that Saturday is still four days away. This is the time to take in home in slow motion, to not push my dad's nerves, to wash the dishes for my mom...

The Games is not kind to the older population. The girls in the women's gymnastics team will always be 16 because year after year, their replacements have the same physique, the same smile, the same ponytail, and the same yellow and red uniform. It is only me who is getting older. I still remember the gold medalist from Atlanta and her floor exercise. I saw her again last night, the same jump, the same spin, the same glow, the same spirit. Only the name is different. But then again, what is in a name...

There is nothing to do sometimes when you're having a bad day except to look onto tomorrow, but even "tomorrow" can be permeated by the day before. My happy blurb about the cute, cute diver I discovered with my first name will have to be put on hold. Instead, I look for words to describe an era, if short-lived, yet still monumental to me who cared.

It is true I didn't even know about Sidney until a week ago (where was I?!), it is true that the world championships also slipped my radar, but you mustn't think of me unqualified to be ever-so-proud of our men. Yes, I see the irony, people like me who laid on the pressure that perhaps collapsed their dreams in the first place now lament their loss. Their loss. It is just a game, no capitalization, no exclamation mark. It matters so to me because it matters even more to them. Theirs is a story of sweat and blood that will continue, if not here, then at Home.

I hope for redemption, missing the point once more. The age-old question of contentment and its elusiveness. It is hard to come by because we belive that the end justifies the means. We look for the end-product, anxious for the outcome, and erase the process, which is where true happiness lies... Maybe?

My boss asked me whether I will work till Friday. What a perfect opportunity to say, No sir, I will stop on Wednesday. Instead, I said I will work till Thursday. Is one day really enough to pack? Why was the first thing that popped out of my mouth not the truth? Guilt, I think, knowing my experiments should have been better. I take everything too personally.

I have wonderful friends who leave nice comments on my blog. Krystle, I will do better. I also have "friends" who don't care enough to register in order to leave me a note. =)

August is almost over, where is my secondary application?! I ask this after having ascertained that the schools in waiting mail out their applications to all applicants. I'm impatient, afraid I might have deleted one as SPAM. I want to put my hands on fate and push it along.

Reunion scenes. I always react as if I'm in a movie, and the climax depends on the degree of my shock. Last time I saw a friend from high school, a regular, same-class-same-grade friend, I stopped in my tracks, opened my eyes wide, gushed her name, and my hands instinctively covered my mouth just for the extra effect. If you are reading this and I have done the same thing upon seeing you, this is not to say that my reaction wasn't genuine. I am sincere, 99.9% of the time, promise. My elegant friend smiled without showing any teeth, and calmed said Hi. This is why I like spasmic and slightly neurotic people, it's no fun to spasm alone.

Just when I thought I'm approaching the boundaries of scientific competence, if only in the narrow but deep field of initiation factor 4E, I go to a weekly journal club meeting and come crashing down to face my ignorance. The ritual is too often repeated. I pour forth all my attention to the presenter, complaisantly following him for five minutes. But as is inevitable at such degree of concentration, my mind escapes from my hold, and I daze. Two seconds of missed words, and I never regain comprehension. I give myself the option to daze or die of boredom. I snap back every five minutes to find the same picture on the overhead. How?!
There are only five words!

Moments like these, I have such respect for the professors sitting around the table. The years of hard work that proceeded their knowledge. But it's more than work, it's faith and hope and passion. All will come with age; they better.

Last night was the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympics in Greece. I dare say that there are few more devoted Olympic aficionados than me. I drink in the words and take in the competitions, all the while on the verge of tears, moved by the beauty and strength of so many athletes and nations coming together. There is a string that links my heart to every Chinese athelet. The quality of their day, I take personally. The marathon runner from Kenya with the face of endurance, he must win, if only to bring a rare and hard-earned moment of pride and happiness to a country that so rarely enters the spotlight, to a people so rarely celebrated for who they are. The satellite in my house causes the local channel to become blurry. But I will deal, this is the Olympics after all.

I talked to a good friend last night till midnight. We talked about medical school and life; the two are so closely intertwined at the moment in both our lives. I'm going to shake off this nervous worrying; it's out of my hands. Despite of everything, I have given college my best. At 1AM in the morning, I wondered how good friends become good friends. How did she, the girl who is in many of my classes and worries unnecessarily about her grades and life, when deep down, we both know that she will succeed in both, become the person that I trust to understand, tolerate, accept, and forgive me. So this is my gratitude to you for all that you are and all that you are to me. :)

Talking about good friends, this is so I don't forget to drag it up next time we're in an argument, how could you not call me just because there is a new man in your life?! =) There are two girls here dying to get to the bottom of this, so call!

After three weeks of vacation, my boss will be back today. Is it my imagination or is everyone in the lab extra tense? He cut his vacation short by a whole weekend, drove the entire day yesterday, and scheduled himself to be back at work today, a Friday! That is the kind of boss he is, perhaps why he is the boss in the first place.

This has been the most ambitious working summer to date. Not a single day of vacation. There were times when I cared so much about the experiment that I cringed at every deviation from the protocol, and asked my mentor for advice at every turn. That, unfortunately, is not me, as anyone who was my lab partner will distastefully remember. Should I take a day or two off to pack? Me, the eternally fast packer, who when impulsively decided to go home two days early for the summer, packed up my whole dorm room in one day, plus studying and taking a three hour final! I'm not bragging. I worry abot my impulsiveness to get things done. In everything I do, there seems to be a drummer that fastens the tempo way ahead of time, and my heartbeat skips to follow. Is this anxiety, my dire need to be everywhere 10 minutes early? Sometimes I force myself to slow down, especially when doing an experiment, I stop to realize that the quickened steps trotting across the lab is my own.

A funny thought - working in the same hospital as my future husband, as I have no doubt that I will have one. Not in the same confined space, but the same general area. Not to see his face at every turn, but to harbor the hope of seeing his face at every turn. In my lab alone, there are three married couples. I see them come off the elevator together, eat lunch together, and wait for each other to get off work. If seeing each other everyday would lead me to feelings of claustrophobia or repulsion, then perhaps I should reassess the significance of this significant other. I have always, always been opposed to the idea of marrying someone in the same profession. It is like fencing myself into this defined corner of society, when there are so many other professions and corners to uncover. Two doctors... What if all we ever talk about is work? What if I become blinded by his professional brilliance and mistake stubbornness for discipline, selfishness for intelligence, intelligence for kindness, admiration for love?

Diet Coke. It started with college, will it end with college? I wonder...

Not a book review

1185 Park Avenue is a beautiful book, the telling of lives made extraordinary because it happened only to the people on the pages and no one else. I avoided Bill Clinton's "life", and opted for memoirs of people not in the spotlight. I think they redefine what is "ordinary", especially when I don't approve of that particular word at all. Is it possible to see glimpses of myself in a book about upperclass Jews in New York City? In my own life, I have no memories of going to a Park Avenue psychoanalyst, but there were distinct moments of craving help beyond my own consoling voice. Someone with a degree, a hourly payment I can't afford, seems so much more reassuring. There is no screened silence between my parents and I, ours is not affection held in balance by polite conversations and avoided taboos. But surely, there were screamed words that scratched and clawed and threatened to permanently shatter all hopes of reconciliation. Anyways, this is not a book review, I probably shouldn't have included the title.

The summer has come and (almost) gone, and I find myself at exactly where I imagined I would be three months ago -- shocked by the flight of time (yet again!), haunted by the uncertainties of next year, and all the while dimly reassured by the consistency of time, trusting it to take me away from future moments of hell as abruptly as it will bring me there. I will miss my friend, who was always more than a friend. You are my pick for the island, yes you are!

Last year of college awaits, really?! It seems like only yesterday I clutched my acceptance letter from Rice and refrained from jumping up and down my drive way. Did it not, at the time, validate all that I was and guarantee all that I wished to be? So why is it, one prolonged blink later, arrives today, and me, nauseous in my fear that medical school should find me wanting.

Have I ever faced rejection? The kind that would shake me to the core and launch me into a temporary depression, only to wake up latter stronger and wiser but exquisitely scarred? Maybe only from myself... That silly boy in the eleventh grade doesn't count. Remembering him is like remembering falling on concrete, a shell of memory persisting without pain. What would medical school rejection do to my fragile self-esteem, rebuild each day as it is? A part me (big big part) hopes to never find out...

Expecting Flight is the name of a little store that borders Louisiana and Texas. I see it everytime my mom drives me home from Rice. It has a rooster outside above the door and this beautiful name below. I smile every time. There is a fear that what's inside wouldn't live up to the name, or worse, other people agree and tare it down. It is the title of my blog, this way, it is immortal!