nothing

I've been working really hard, nonstop outside of meals and this will continue for the week so I can finish my research and concentrate on school which I've neglected for quite some time. In the midst of it big things are happening like my talented brother winning second place at the WPT and choosing to lose one of my best friends and a 3 month countdown to the Boards. On top of it my foot has been pathetically stress sprained and I have costochondritis--"harmless chest pain" that is not a myocardial infarction or pneumonia but makes me clutch my heart when I breathe in and when I laugh. I look wryly upon the feelings of my heart's literal ache and the refusal of my feet to take me anywhere.

Yesterday I rediscovered Kirin milk tea. Summer before last my brother Stephen and I were wandering thirsty in some garden in Japan and came across a vending machine with Kirin tea (there are a lot of vending machines, very few trash cans, and inexplicable cleanliness in Japan). That was the first time I had it and it was soooooo good. Thereafter we'd instinctively look for it passing by any vending machine. When she returned home from Japan, Aud brought me a pack of powdered milk tea packets that I rationed for the whole semester. That was last year and I haven't had it since then. Until yesterday when I was roaming the Asian grocery store with Allison and randomly saw it and immediately bought it. In the car she commented on how I don't seek things out but am happy with what's given to me. It made me realize that it's an interesting dichotomy, how tied I am to the past and how I adapt to the present. I also believe strongly in appreciating where you've been and where you are at the same time you're trying to go elsewhere--not with one as compensation for the other, but both equally valuable and inextricable.

One main reason I'm not as stressed about the Boards (yet) as I was with the MCAT is because even though things weren't ideal back then they've turned out well. The year of worry about where I'd go to school was useless; I didn't end up where I thought and it's been wonderful. I always seem to end up where I fit. I'm not always sure whether that's because it's really that way or because I make it that way, but that's irrelevant at the moment. Even though there are definite negatives, I'm grateful to have had such space and good people here to make me grow.

Working away in our living room yesterday, in the comfy pink Queen Anne chair Jen found on Craigslist, surrounded by snacks from the Asian store and basking in my milk tea--the image of our night driving back from New Hampshire came to me all of the sudden. That night Allison asked if we could look for stars, and we drove off to find the darkest nothing we could find. We'd point to directions where there seemed to be nothing so that we could see the night light best. We found some fair amount of darkness. The stars weren't too spectacular, but I remember crisply that night and the desire to go towards nothing.

There are a lot of things I've wanted to write about in the recent past, and always. One of my happiest patient interactions thus far being a very sad case of a person just a few years older than me with a few years to live. The photography exhibit of nursing home residents and of very ill people, reminding us that if we don't actively do art it won't happen. Being tested and videotaped doing a full history and physical exam. The second year show. My family.

I want to unravel and relish everything but I would also like nothing for a little while. While writing this, iTunes fell on Jimmy Eat World's "Goodbye Sky Harbor," wherein after a normal beginning, a continuously repeating riff sets in and constitutes much of the very long song (four times as long as most songs designed for our byte sized pleasure). A., who listened to music completely different from me but was open to my preferences and quickly fell in love with J.E.W, once talked about how much he loved this song, how you could listen to it even intently and still be immersed even though the tone doesn't change at all.

So much so that when the 16 minutes 14 seconds are over, I repeat.