Friday night spent watching Something's Gotta Give with Maria... and fighting the urge to eat oodles of Halloween candy. She was unhappy with the ending... and who could blame her, anyone as hot as Keanu Reeves should not depart with a broken heart. But the movie could only end the way it ended - with love at the end of the day, however old, wrinkled, and imperfect. The same reason Carrie could not have ended up with Alexander Petrovsky, Diane Keaton had to share that final scene with Jack Nicholson.

Saturday morning spent reading Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World and then hitting the gym... once again fighting the urge to eat oodles of Halloween candy.

An ode to "pumpkin smash" from Jumba Juice, and thoughts of it at the beginning of every holiday season. I never really appreciated Christmas until my first Christmas at Rice, and that rainy Sunday I spend with Renee studying for bio final in the Village - the epiphany of 先苦后甜。 Ever since then, the beginning of October till the end of Christmas became my favorite time of the year (except maybe the first week of the summer). For someone perpetually home sick, it has a distinct aura of home that makes me light-hearted with hope and happiness.

No, anonymous 2, I have no idea about the Melville quote. So anonymous 1, if you’re reading, care to explain?

Since last week was all about taking tests, naturally, this week is all about getting them back. Cell bio test went better than expected, all the motivation to do better. My happy news last Saturday couldn’t have come at a better time, just when next semester promises to crush me with math and genetics.

I tell my over-achieving friends (when they get what they think is a bad grade), that grades aren’t everything. But are they? I think hard work matters, persistence matters, attitude matters… in that sense, grade matters. But if a bad grade was to diminish all the hard work and persistence, and make you doubt your very competence and intelligence, then perhaps it is better to think otherwise.

Madame Butterfly was wonderful (thanks Maria)! Butterfly had the most amazing voice, so piercingly bright my eardrums hurt (in a good way). Her vocal cords cannot possibly be made of the same muscles/nerves as mine. Truth be told, parts of my 21st century, semi-feminist mind wanted to scream at her to plunge that knife not into herself, but into he who abandoned her for three years, married another woman, and then came back to claim the son he never knew he had! I believe in love, in waiting, in suffering, in agony, in mourning, but what I cannot accept is resignation. It was a beautiful ending for the opera, but a tragic ending for women-kind.

I poured over my last Rice course newspaper, and there sprung feelings of nostalgia I never thought would emerge. The end of an era in my life is well under way; I can no longer delete all emails starting with “graduating seniors”. There are pages and pages of classes with contents I would never divulge, marking lives I would never lead.

Last Saturday was beautiful, yet I was troubled. This Saturday is rainy and dreary, yet I feel surprisingly alive and inspired. Another hour on the phone with my beloved little swallow. I now realize that my Chinese, though adequate, is still only functional at best. Hers is so eloquent, so concise, so expressive... her words like little firecrackers, crisp and clear. They are so wise, why?! Is she not only one year older than me? Is my own naiveness a product of my life, or my personality?

Tonight is Linda2's birthday bash! She is turning 22! Xiao ming wanted the party simple and sleek...

October 23, 2004 is a big big day. Today, I realized that my dream of becoming a doctor will come true. The last four years of Rice, with all its ups and downs, have all been leading to this moment. What follows will perhaps waver my happiness, but the reassurance and importance of today cannot (canNOT) be discounted!

I wish I could express my thoughts as strongly as I feel them. This has been an empowering experience, and I want to share it with the world… Or, just my friend, who although so innocent and untainted, has trouble believing in the good of the male sex. I’m not worried though, because I still believe that good things happen to good people. When it happens to her, it will be extra pleasant precisely because she never expected. As for me, I need to take on a bit of that shield, even if it is just a soft shell forming…

p.s. "Orchestra shoes" are a pair of black shoes I wore to my first orchestra concert in the 7th grade. I remember going after school with my mom and her friend, looking through a discount store with shelves of shoes. I wish I remembered the price, but they have no heels and three little peacock shaped holes in the front. The most amazing thing is they have remained shiny after all these years, without having ever been polished. They make my feet look very small, which isn't necessarily good because a). my feet are already painfully small and b). I need to wear them with suits that I feel should be balanced with more weighty shoes. Why did I make my mom send them to me? Well, my next medical school interview recommended that we bring tennis shoes due of the amount of walking involved. I figured, better flat shoes than Nikes... don't you think? Yes, I know you don't care.

It is 1:00 am and I'm not tired... why? Could it be the eight pieces of dessert I had at the Camacho study break? Could it be nerves regarding the cell bio test tomorrow morning? Could it be... that? (no to that one). Whatever it is, I need to climb up my new wooden stairs and put in my beloved ear plugs, because tomorrow, I hope to get up at 6:00 am one more time.

I received a package from my mom today containing my old black orchestra shoes. They're so adorable, no heels and somehow shiny after... has it been almost nine years? wow! She also send me a pumpkin baby in the spirit of Halloween and a card. It said "Love is like music, some high notes, some low notes..." What she wrote inside of the card is too beautiful to be translated. It made me think "let me never complain about the unfairness of life again!"

I'm yawning...at last... good night!

Hallmark did the trick. Thank you!

Of all the bad things I think I don't deserve, there are plenty of good that generously comes my way. Thus, life is fair once more.

Coherence comes hand in hand with hindsight, along with experience and acceptance. I have kind friends who push me towards bravery, and I have brave friends who examplify that actions often resonate louder than thoughts/words.

The first time I took public transportation in Houston was Freshman year. On the way back from the galleria with two friends, sitting on a deserted bus at night (clutching my Abercrombie bag with the red shorts... ), I distinctly remembered a poignant commercial (for coke? MasterCard?). It was a group of friends, sprawled on a New York subway in the middle of the night, too tired to talk, with expressions of happiness and contentment on their faces. At the time I was in high school, and I wished it to be a glimpse of my own life in college -- precious youth dotted by fleeting moments shared with friends.

I mentioned it at the time and received only blank stares.

Such scenes have repeated themselves over the years, but rarely do I consciously feel the pluck of the moment. But last Saturday night, waiting for the metro-rail in downtown Houston with Maria and Linda, brought the commercial to mind once more. In between our law-school/medical-school/grad-school and doctor/lawyer/corporate banker talk, I realized that this is my youth flashing before me. How many more years can we talk about our life in future tense? Am I fortunate to have settled on a path, or unfortunate because all the other paths I will never know? I don't have a subway full of people I can sit happily in silence with, but I'm thankful for the few I do have.

The night ended with Maria and I walking around the inner loop 1.5 times... that's what happens when we have hunka hunka chocolate cake at Hard Rock. :) The conclusion of the night -- we're too old to lose friends...

I feel drained because of all the studying. Is it because I have been so purposely lazy for the past two weeks that my brain has not warmed up? Or because... well... too much studying is too much studying. Half hour before my modern dance test. Yes, I know...

For the past two days, Houston has been so beautiful that it seems almost inappropriate for the usual stress that precedes a week of tests. So I spend a Friday night in the library, contently studying with no anxiety attacks. It's really not that bad, especially when one has good friends close by.

The pre-med office made a mistake that's quite too late to correct. They apologized, and I accepted. I mean, what is there to be done. How much damage it did, if any, I will never know. Thus, to not drive myself crazy, it's best to just categorize this into the "fated" bucket and move on.

Other things are fated too... and I must MUST MUST accept! I will bite my lips and chug through this process. Thank God I have tolerant friends who try so hard not to roll their eyes at me... thanks... I appreciate so much!

Oh! How could I forget! New Orleans was fabulous. I had a sense of ... anticipation... like I belonged there. Not THERE as in the location exactly, but there as in medical school. At this point, I just want to go anywhere that can mold me into a good good doctor. I can't wait... really.

It's true, I can't spell. I know sooner or later I would forget to push the spell-check key and expose my little flaw.

There is no milk at home, but there are more sugar and candy than I’ve had all year. I'm addicted to these mini-eclairs! At 241 calories per serving, how many do I really need. Now my mom is grinding up all kinds of stuff to make moon cakes, the beautiful kind that requires a mold.

She said she is happy every time I come home, and I wondered at how many more "homecomings" I will have. I look a few paces into the future and sure enough, they're more dispersed, more rare, and more complicated… Shopping with her till way past lunchtime, then "food" at Barnes and Noble. If I were to write a memoir one day, yesterday would be front and central.

Is it okay to blog things that I should have put past me days before? I hope so, and this clicking sound on my keyboard is just another healing remedy on my way to recovery.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why not? I have been here and there, on both sides of the equation. And I know, better than anyone else, that there are no logics and no reasons in such matter. No explanation necessary. All that could be said, I can tell myself.

The next blog promises to be more cheerful! Don't give up on me yet...

A wake up call came in the most unexpected form. I called a (fill in the blank) for some information, and the response I received in return was unexpected. I think I counted on kindness and support, if only residual smidges of it left over from the two weeks of freshman year when we were good friends, when I listened to his "similar" problems. Yes, it's true, I didn't help him. But I listened, didn't I? I thought perhaps he also shared a similar regret at a friendship slipped away and also wondered, sometimes, at where that trust went?

I was wrong then; I am wrong now. His (fill in the blank) made me realize my own silliness and stupidity for the past week. I think what I really needed was for someone to scream at me, to snap me out of this deep/blind/suffocating hole I have been digging for myself. To lift my head for just one second and realize that all is not dark, all is not lost.

To see things for what they are -- I have to take deep breaths before every such action. It still stings, the piece of hope it denies me, the piece of pride it robs me. But I woke up today with a more peaceful feeling than I had in days. Yesterday I wanted to escape home almost as much as I wanted to escape from myself, but today, I can wait for home, I can wait for anything.

I change my mind, I take back what I said, someone will measure up... stunningly.... subtly... effortlessly... but not today.

Today, the world is just as it should be.

A sense of loss, at what might never be. Same time, same place, same weather, yet all that was is no longer. Strange, how time takes us away from happiness and sadness with the same adamant speediness, leaving behind an inconsolable emptiness. Or is this peace?

Confusion at end of a Sunday…

I have dialogues, I have scenes; I have backdrops, I have props; I have all the right words, all the right lines, all the right expressions, all the right gestures. I can make myself cry, laugh, laugh and cry, in a hundred different ways. Who can measure up to such fabricated illusions?

No one has.

I talked to a beautiful friend yesterday... she came over in the prettiest skirt (my roommate said it looks like the one Reese wore on Sweet Home Alabama). The only class I have ever had with this friend was cardio-kickboxing freshman year, but somehow, over the years, sporadic phone calls and get togethers are enough. She told me when she gets overwhelmed in life, she surrenders to God. I'm envious of such faith. I sat in bed this morning, after once again being attacked by my thoughts, and decided that I too, wish to surrender.

And so I have, and three non-interrupted hours on a Saturday morning were spent on my Chun Tao paper; I am rather proud of myself. I haven’t even taken a shower yet! My roomie is off to take her LSAT, I’m debating whether yogart and chocolate milk are enough to bring for her from lunch… maybe something salty is a good idea.

I’m happily bored, can’t you tell?

If there were no music, would I daydream? If there were no songs, would my heart break? If there were no lyric, would it be easier to settle?

I can't always do this, adding imaginary actions to real people, then becoming disappointed when they don't live up to my expectations. Little Swallow is right, in such matters, it is better to just let things be. I have to focus on reality, and not get carried away...

October 13th. Let this be the beginning...

Sleeping early almost always means getting up early, and sure enough, I was up at 6:30 this morning. I have noticed that writing is the one thing I cannot do when my brain is fried. So I revised Chun Tao at 7:00 am and believe progress was made. I truly want to do her justice.

I did Amazing Grace justice! yeah!

The pressure is ON!