Sometimes I refuse to feel better. If I didn't, I would sleep with this book. I would keep a copy in every room of my apartment. I would read it instead of watching TV. I would read it instead of blogging.

I'm going to mail a copy to my "little swallow" (literal translation of her Chinese name). She is in DC! From China!! For three years!!! Here is when no amount of exclamation marks or adverbs layered on adjectives layered on grandiose vocabulary could express how utterly shocked and happy I am. Sure, she is still rather far, I still can't see her right away, but we are in the same country!!! I haven't spend quality time with her since I was seventeen! Our last reunion in 2005 was only 48 hrs and so very rushed.

I'm also going to mail her a package of gumbo mix! I think cooking has never been her forte and I still remember my first bite into a hamburger when I first came to the US... the taste of pickles was so disgusting it would take months before I give hamburgers another try (must have been a whopper). There is something about the spices in gumbo that agrees rather well with even the most unaccustomed/picky of Chinese taste buds. Plus it's easy to make. Plus I just want to send her stuff.

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/eatpraylove.htm

Today is a historic day in my country, and this entry is just my way of saying -- I'm here. This happened in my time.

The day Barack Obama was elected, about twenty TV stations televised the last twenty minutes of the election. I flipped the channels without pausing, a blur of balloons and confetti. I did stop for one full minute on one particular image, long enough to formulate what this election meant to me.

The image was a little girl sitting high on her dad's shoulders, waving the American flag with such excitement that her blond curls went wild. She couldn't be more than five, and the big smile on her face convinced me that she grasped fully the significance of this election, had toiled for the president's win, and was so proud of the victory. I thought: how special, for this one moment in time, there isn't an ounce of racial prejudice in her heart. She truly loves her President, as only a child can. Then I thought how amazing it would be for a whole new generation to grow up with an African American man as their President, if only for the personification of racial equality, an extra weapon to fend off bigotry. I hope all the narrow-minded conservatives slept a little uneasily that night, and their festering beliefs shaken just enough to let some new air in.

I also hope once the Inauguration is over, my new President won't continue to be a celebrity, at least not in this blindly-worship-and-douse-with-impossible-expectations sort of way. I hope he does wonderful things for the country. As of right now, he is what we need... and I'm thankful for what he has already done.

A little trepidation on rejoining the home crowd. I've been away for so long. Three more months of rotations, then it's almost graduation time. Sounds fast, but can feel like an eternity when the immediate future is so uncertain. I don't even know where to report to for clinic next week. How I would like to climb back into Linda N's sofa bed, curl up with The Traveler's Wife, and catch the late shuttle.

Beautiful hazelnuts. They are my favorite. Special little dome tops with pointed nose. I was careful not to burn them in the oven. That would be so sad.

Just because I like a city, doesn't mean I have to live there for three years... Yet how hard it is to commit three years of my life to a city that I do not enjoy.

The city of Charleston had me at the first sniff of these road-side, home-made praline candy stores. I thought they were a New Orleans specialty and would never be found beyond the rain gutters of French Quarter, yet there they are on streets with such promising names (Market, King, East Bay).

I'm not pointing to anything in particular. The greedy smile says "I want it all". In the end, I settled on pumpkin fudge and warm praline. They made my tour through downtown Charleston, in the drizzing RAIN, quite enjoyable.

There were chocolate barks of every kind. This one in particular caught my eye because it seems easily duplicable... by TnL. I seem to remember some M&M cookies that were well received. This may be worth a try, don't you think?

A pot of gold! Actually, it was a barrel.

Look how clean the streets are, a striking contrast to my beloved French Quarter. I can make these critical comparisons without feeling guilty because I LOVE New Orleans, and we all know it's quite acceptable to criticize what we truly love.

Where to go for lunch? Not an easy question to answer when Charleston is a city known for its lowcountry cooking and entire magazines are devoted to answering this very question. So...

Bull Street Gourmet. It does not disappoint. Fresh sandwiches made from scratch by smiling cashier/chef/owner behind wooden counters. It's a local kitchen/restaurant with a steady streaming of customers lined up for their take outs. The famous chicken salad sandwich is dotted with cranberries and hazelnuts, creamy and crunchy...

Interesting how well walnut goes with banana, like tapioca with milk tea. Pecans? Almonds? Not the same. I have tried half a dozen bread pudding recipes, but the simplicity and variations on this rustic dessert always makes it hard for me to turn down a new one. In fact, I have never repeated myself. The truth is good bread soaked in creamy sweet custard is good no matter what you do. Burn the topping? Scrap it off! Still good. Forgot the raisins? Sprinkle it on! Still good. My mom wanted me to make bread pudding for her, so I tried a new banana walnut version with raisins soaked in brandy. Oh so goo!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/banana-walnut-bread-pudding-with-buttery-rum-sauce-recipe/index.html

Interesting that even though I insisted no celebration, I cannot forgo the need to feel especially special today… When I was ten I demanded ten presents (the tenth one, I remember, was a white fluffy stuffed animal hidden in my bed). I now prefer to spread out my material needs evenly throughout the year. I do, however, appreciate the cookbooks my mom bought without second guessing me with "are you sure you need these"? It was my birthday, and she bought me what I wanted with an obliging consent that I will miss... tomorrow. The pretty ribboned zucchini salad below is from Giada (her book I actually didn't buy). I didn't have asparagus so I sprinkled on some sweet corn for color.

Interesting how I don't feel a day over twenty… five?

I had the same old discussion with my parents today, which almost dangerously ended with me not in tears. No such luck. My mom opened her mouth for two seconds and down pour the tears. They just don't get it. I don't get it. Is this going to be a sour topic for the next few months or the next few years?! Will this never be resolved?! Dear God, is there anything I can do? A class, a book, divine intervention?! I'm so frustrated I cry when driving long distances... I so wish to give up, but that involves stop living... There is no changing their minds, there is no changing my mind, there is no changing status quo... so... for now, some tears seem to be all I can do.

My mom is on the computer with her best friend in China, via video phone. They're both eating sun-flower seeds and talking about getting older, laughing at themselves between sounds of spitting out shells and talking over each other.

I'm reading Under the Tuscan Sun, a book that writes so elaborately about nothing at all (at least so far). Beautiful adjectives and modifiers lavished on mattress springs and broken table legs. It's not at all like the movie, which I rather liked because it's so people-centric. I read it for the parts that she talks about food, the pointed differentiations between buffalo milk mozzarella and regular cow's. Also because when I was little my mom told me no matter how labor-some certain books may be to read, the author put in so much work writing them that the least I could do is finish. I wholeheartedly disagree. There are far too many amazing works out there to spend time on the not so amazing ones... but her logic made so much sense when I was eight that I still can't shake it... Sometimes I rebel, putting down unfinished books for months at a time, but always retrieving it from the bookshelf when I can't bare its neglected binding sitting so sadly on my bookshelf, accusing me of mistreatment.

So I'm half way through my latest book, so I'm inspired to write about nothing at all, so continues my search for the next amazing one...

Okay, so... ratatouille... I made it but I don't really get it... Don't be mad, all the ratatouille lovers out there, but it's just stewed veggies with some herbs... right? I keep thinking maybe when I layer it all together, the whole thing would take on this new flavor, but my zucchini still tasted like zucchini. The problem is I make too many things without having tasted them first (done the correct way), so I never know whether what I made is close to the way the kitchen gods intended. I want to taste Linda's before passing judgement on the dish... after all, there was a whole movie named after it.



What I loved from dinner are the thyme popovers I made! I've never had popovers before so I have no idea whether mine rose to the target height. But below this crusty top is a texture so light it's almost hollow, a fluffiness I like to pull apart with both hands between my fingers before putting it in my mouth. To think, I didn't even have the whole milk specified in the recipe... how good they would have been otherwise.

Happy New Year!!!

Something delicious came out of my oven today -- a hazelnut cake with 2 heaping cups of hazelnuts, pulsed with sugar and a tiny bit of flour. The most amazing part is this cake calls for no butter! The nutty flavor really shines through. I baked this healthful dessert at the very first day of 2009, hoping to start a trend for this coming year!

I couldn't get into the groove of baking this morning, staring at the recipes and missing Linda N's smooth, marbled kitchen counters. Sure, I have three springform pans and muffin tins big and small... but my stupid kitchen light buzzes like a mosquito when I turn it on. It wasn't until I started chopping up apples that I started to feel better, even dared to imagine the apple galette as pretty as the picture. It's still in the oven, I'm once again struggling over the fine line between gooey rawness and burnt crust. Thus the resetting of the timer for every 3 minutes... thus the cursing of the oven for lack of an oven light! Aiii... I do what I can.

I go home tomorrow, in time for New Year's eve. It's only been a couple of weeks since I saw my parents, so I dare say that I don't miss them yet. I do miss the people I more recently left behind, the old friends who snap into my present no matter how loosely we keep in touch... and I wonder, how did I ever get by without talking to them everyday. I resist the urge to text and call over random little things, just to keep them present a little longer. I don't count on the next time we meet (with xiao ming!)... life can be unpredictable in the worst ways... I have pictures to bring back the great friends I have, here and now.

I'm picking and choosing what I want to talk about... skipping over topics too complicated and convoluted to spill over my keyboard. I don't want to talk about the residency interview process, the false sense of security programs douse on their applicants and the uncertain aftertaste in my mouth after each trip. Before I rank programs, I need to rank my priorities... and that has been very difficult. It involves a balance of personal happiness and professional success... perhaps the two are mostly counteractive for all but the lucky few.

Something else I don't want to talk about is the dark cloud hanging over me for the past months. It comes and goes, more out of sight when I was reading "Eat, Pray, Love", but comes back at the most inconvenient times. It makes me sad when I should be happy, forces me to smile insincerely, and pushes me to participate in conversations I know nothing about ... so no one notices that I feel out of place...

Let's talk about how difficult it is to bake a cake or tart or pie for the very first time and not know what it tastes like before giving it to people. That first bit (mine and theirs) is pure torment, that moment of silent chewing before the verdict. Of course, I have taste buds of my own, I know perfectly well when something is good, amazing, or horrid... So is it appropriate to criticize my own baking in front of other people, or is that bad baker etiquette. I need to know.

Yet another new recipe from my new cookbook (Williams-Sonoma's Savoring Desserts). This almond sponge cake only takes a little flour, the rest are finely ground almonds (almond flour?). I love that. The texture is more substantial and satisfying, a nice contrast because it's very moist. One complaint is how sweet it is, and I skipped the last step that asked me to poke holes all over the cake and pour simple syrup all over it!

This Apple and Goat Cheese Galette is worth repeating! I know this because my friend picked his second slice with bare hands and ate it like a pizza! Such gusto is a great compliment. Of course, you have to like goat cheese... The puff pastry make this very easy, no kneading or rolling needed. I've been making a lot of layered apple desserts (all different, mind you), because that is the one staple I always have around...

It has been a good month in Houston. So good that I don't want to leave, so good I'm making plans to come back, so good that I wonder wouldn't it be cool if my friend and I both end up here for residency. Yes, it has been a good month.

On my last morning in Houston, Linda N took me to our favorite crepery one last time... CoCo Crepes and Coffee. She was in the mood for anything Nutella and I wanted the old favorite - raspberry white chocolate mousse (no, it's not too early for this much sugar).

Thinking back, we realized that we have come here every weekend for breakfast
and that one time for lunch with the girls.

I miss it already.

I got my first pedicure in the village with Linda and Linda (and Linda's Richard) and confirmed what I suspected to be true -- I have sensitive toes and very thin toe nails. I was trying hard not to say "ouch" or make any tortured faces... When I glanced over at the girls they seemed comfortable as can be with their magazines in hand and the nail ladies painting/filing/scrubbing away. This is all rather worrisome because I loved my pedicure and look forward to more in the future.

I'm having packing anxieties. Apparently so, since I'm sitting on the floor surrounded by open suitcaes, unconfirmed iteneraries, short sleeve dresses, a scarf, a mitten, and this laptop I'm about to leave behind... blogging. Let me explain. It was 70 degrees in Houston this morning. Now it is 45 F. I'm about to leave for the Sunshine State tomorrow where it's almost80 degrees... but only after waiting thirty minutes in the freezing cold at the crack of dawn for the super shuttle to take me to the airport. What's a girl to wear? What's a girl to pack? My tiny suitcae will be filled up to the max with my suit and shoes alone.

Thus the anxiety. Thus the blogging.

2008 is almost over, so suddenly. I'm back where I started, long ago. I find myself forgetting old grudges, giving the city another chance. There are so much to miss, after all. The hardest part was driving in, seeing the Fannin St exit for the first time in four years. I have exited here hundreds of times before, but never in the driver's seat. I changed lanes and missed my exit... by choice.

I burned toast yesterday. Reflexively I panicked, seeing the thick, dark smoke leaking out of Linda N's little white toaster oven. I turned on the fan, opened door, cracked on the AC, lit the candle… Suddenly I'm back in that cramped dorm room, where nothing belonged to me except the lavender cup filled with colorful pens. Suddenly my blond roommate is accusing me of stealing her ID, so early on Saturday morning. Suddenly I'm trapped within the hedges, with nowhere to go except the gym.

The smoke clings to the apartment, my current apartment so close to the med school, the one Linda N invited me to share with her for my month in Houston. I scrub the toaster clean, throw out the dark brick of a toast, and chase a fly out of the balcony door. The smell stays. Linda comes home. I tell the story. She laughs. I'm all flushed. She laughs some more.

I still wait for the shuttle every morning, which comes around only once a hour but drops me off so close to work. I drive all around the city, sometimes purposely muting the GPS to get off track, just a little. I haven't changed that much. There are still isles of stores in the Galleria I only peek into. I see my old self in all the old places, in every person running around the outer loop. I smile at her, and smile at myself because there are still so much of her inside me.

How appropriate, I'm reading The Time Traveler's Wife. It gets me thinking of the time traveling I do these days.

I boiled so much hot water for the past few days I broke the electric kettle. Now I use the coffee maker and pretend it doens't have old coffee taste. I haven't done anything for the past week except drink, eat, sleep, and putting lip gloss on my dry, chapped lips (St louis is the driest city on Earth). I shall power through and blog on.

At this very minute, my mom is packing away bits and pieces of this house and moving it all to Atlanta. This will be last holiday I spend in St Louis, after 2.5 years of calling it home. I have trouble grasping the idea that some people spend their whole lives in one place, that one house could hold ALL the memories of a lifetime. As far as I'm concerned, "home" can be many places at the same time. I have moved so many times by now that beside the hassles of packing, no lament or sadness comes with this move. There is only the excitment of seeing a new city, and hope that maybe this time we will stay put for awhile.

August 2007 was a good month.

I don't have any pictures to remind me of the truly memorable moments in BR, like how my roomate picked me up off the floor and threw me into bed to sleep, all because I refused to take a nap postcall and used that as an excuse not to go out. That night at Tsunami's turned out to be one of the most fun, the yummiest sushi I've had in a long time and chocolate cake so warm and soft I didn't know whether to chew or purr. I lost the snapshot of the six donut men that represented Team C -- I had a leg, Anne had an arm, and Tati a body or two. And then there were the bedtime giggles, so very contagious, about nothing at all... Delirium, some may call it. I miss it so.

August ended so soon, in between my hurrying along some moments, and lamenting every other. If only it were possible to skip hours and days, but never seeing the end of the month. We departed, my happy roomates and I, while still believing that we can never grow tired of each other. I can't, and shouldn't, ask for more.

Two tests in the next two days -- my chair hasn't even cooled from studying for Step I, and here I am again. Yuck doesn't even begin to describe this moldy feeling deep in my bones... All I want to do is look at photos of this past weekend -- arrange them, rearrange them, post them, re-post them...

It's hurricane season in NO again. Weather predictions of rain have persisted for the past two weeks. At the moment, lightening and thunder make my hands shake and my head swim... like I need another excuse for this lack of concentration.

This tiny apartment of mine, carefully arranged for comfort and hominess, is not so conducive for studying. I just want to curl up in my huge desk chair and stare into space.

Who ARE those people that become what they aspired to be, and DO what their passion dictates they must do?! Are they ALL on TV?! Do they not have parents? Do they feel no pressure?

As much as I want to think I am who I choose to be, I also believe that choice was restrained by stipulations laid down long before I was born. I can no more choose my choices than I can choose my parents. I can "rise" as much as I want, and "overcome" as much as I want, but in the end, the balance of the universe is not to be shifted by my stubborness or determination... or God forbid, failure. What's my point? I forget. But if there is ever limbo on earth, that's where you can find me...

I hate to think that the universe is conspiring against me, but it is. Getting sick a week before Step I, who's heard of such bad luck. I realize worse things happen every day, but in my world, this is earth shattering. I'm enjoying the best two minutes of my day RIGHT NOW -- breathing through both nostrils. I shall grasp this second to cram in more FIRST AID, before the hypoxia kills more neurons.

A bit over one month since my last blog about my last cold, a bit too soon. So much for the "resilience" I always boasted for my name sake. Yes, that's what my name means, resilience.

To all my friends who are having dinner parties on this Saturday night-- Enjoy! The world is on your side. I have a box of recipes stored away myself, wonder if I will ever try them all. Hope the bread pudding turned out well. :)

These days, I'm in a perpetual state of anxiety and doubt. Anxious that my huge test is coming up, doubt that I can do well. Then today, looking for distractions, I opened my notebook of favorite quotes and book excerpts though the years. I came across "Desiderata". I read it out loud, and by the end, there were tears in my eyes. I had forgotten how many phrases from this short poem had stayed with me through the years, how many quotes have circulated and surfaced in my brain times and again. Then today, I realized that despite it all, I still believe in the words.

"Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass."

"Beyond wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe if unfolding as it should."

So optimistic, so true.