Tomorrow is the last day of MICU. Thank you for making this a three week rotation instead of four (or five). I will try not to complain about clinic because misery is all relative.

The month flew by, but here and there I left the hospital and got a little excited about life... Such as when...

- Steve was away for two entire weeks in Vietnam and I got comfortable with Skype. Instead of going to London+Paris, I now want to go East for my fabulous vacation...

- for the time being, however, I'll settle for DC in November. I secretly booked Steve's favorite hotel and didn't tell him. Instead I made up a "fake" hotel and poor him has been planning metro routes around this "fake" hotel.

- Before this week ends, I should get my contract for my first real job! Very excited...

- Romantic picnic in the park, rowing around on a canoe... Very surreal. Totally worth saving up two days to have the golden weekend.

- Navy blue peacoat with gold buttons... yummy...

- Linda N is having a baby! My new favorite intern is having a baby! The girl down the street is having a baby!

- Baby R Us is magical!

- First moonlighting gig coming up. How else could I afford the fabulous hotel with the fabulous peacoat? Don't feel sorry for me... at least I have a way to make some extra cash.

The end... for now...

MICU today. Hope I don't miss fall...

I saw a girl wearing brown boots today! First boots I spotted this season. The weather forecast for the weekend ahead promises cooler weather, and I dream of my own boots slumbering away in their boxes. Still... not sure how she thinks she can get away with tall leather boots in 85+ degree weather, except that she works within the air conditioned confines of Anthropologie, where everything is magical, and anything goes.

The past 2.5 hours had me spinning with frustration.

It didn't help that today is the end of my one week vacation with my parents, leaving them always stir up worries and uncertainties that I'm never strong enough to confront. But on Saturday, I had Steve to look forward to. And poor him, always a ready distraction for all my present woos.

Then saying goodbye to Steve today... a different set of worries and uncertainties altogether. I know he thinks I'm a drama queen (and actually proved it by putting a pink, feathery, glittery "drama queen" crown on my head in a costume shop today), especially during our weekly departures. Some days I'm extra pathetic, and actually become snotty and puffy eyed from crying. Today, the sadness of leaving my parents on Saturday + leaving him Sunday paralyzed me in his condo through an extra episode of Chopped. Thus the late departure, thus the extra frustration for the past 2.5 hours (which can be summed up by saying I HATE automated phone messages and I HATE FEMA).

September 11th. I'm hardly qualified to write anything about that day, given how remote and disconnected I was to the events when they happened. A college student in Texas with no TV... all I remember is how my class was the only one not cancelled. That's not to say I wasn't shocked or horrified, but second hand emotions... so easily shrugged off. This morning when I watched MSNBC re-broadcast the images, I wonder how I went all these years without seeing them beginning to end, but is anything ever the same again?

Shhhh.... don't tell anyone... but I've been googling wedding venues and wedding photographers and wedding dresses (most of all, wedding dresses). It's not that I'm about to get married, but it's also not that I'm NOT about to get married. Who can tell these things really. The inspiration is a set of beautiful wedding photographs in Santorini that took my breath away...

http://www.iqphoto.com/destination/

So far, my plan is to spend all my money on A) the dress and B) the photographer, and skip the wedding part all together. And as long as I'm allowed to be selfish (on my blog, at least), I will fly my favorite wedding photographer from San Francisco to wherever I am...

And the dress. I've always wanted a Carrie Bradshaw meets Christian Lacroix meets Vera Wang creation with angles and dimensions, the kind of lacy whiteness that makes the average person's head spin. This deep rooted imagery is completely changed by Linda Lee, whose own simple and ever so elegant wedding dress made me think -- why so big?

http://www.junshien.com/6370/

I don't have a dress yet. Is it true when you see it, you know it? It's still too early. After all, I'm not really looking...

My favorite sweet and tangy shrimp, except this version is jazzed up by lobster meat! Long slices of green onion, ginger, and garlic sauteed until you can smell its fragrance in the air. Then a splash of soy sauce with a spoonful of sugar later - the most amazing shrimp. It is best with the heads on, of course, but good luck finding those!

SSI

My first weekend home with Steve. Never knew my parents could be so hospitable. Always knew Steve could be so charming. He felt, oddly enough, like he belongs here, in a space that has never seen the likes of him.

A lot of cooking! A lot of watching my mom cook. A lot of memorizing the details of this house and this life that I'm so rarely apart of.

Yet, when I am here, I am home.

Certain roles can't be claimed. One can't just put a name down, sign up, stand in line. Every silence is filled with reluctance... to yield. It says: don't be persistent... please.

So let it go.

Because first... do no harm.

Because if I didn't, it will become about me... and "us"

Because we all deserve the right to sulk, in peace.

Because when you stand on the outside, you can't talk yourself in.

A tiny shift to the right

Edged in sideways.

In one glance

"Life" strangely undisturbed.

But look from the inside out

The loss

of an empty space.

What is the proper number of kisses

For a man to leave this world?

The average depth of melancholy?

The approximate wetness of hope?

- Max Garland

(from Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham)

I made it through my intern year without shedding a single tear at work. There was this one drive home after another hard day at the VA when my face was a bit wet and the exit off the highway a bit blurry... At the end of most days, and definitely the end of every month when I leave a rotation, I can say without a doubt - I like my job. Not "love" with all its passion and thrill, but a quiet contentment and the feeling of "no regrets". With second year halfway over, I have to make some serious decisions about "life". It seems that I am at a crossroads. Here I find myself uncertain of who I am and what I want.

It is easy to say - be yourself... "Myself" has been a shifting concept, an unstable image based mostly on the refection I see through the eyes of others. How I feel about myself depends entirely too much on which direction I look and whose eyes I look into. Is this why I choose to surround myself with people who love me, and avoid those with fleeting glances that say - you're not important? The truth is when I opened this neglected blog and read some earlier entries, it was the first time in a long time that I felt a sense of "me". I suppose that's why I decided to stamp 2011 into my blog. After alllll these years, "Expecting Flight" is still such a fitting title.