the abcs of 2008

I stole this idea from Victo, who did it several years ago.

Ayden met the world August 12, and brought us together for our first full family Thanksgiving celebration in snowy Colorado.
Bon Iver holed himself up in Wisconsin in the depths of winter to recover from a rough year, and ended up recording the ineffable album that’s been my constant companion in 2008’s winter, the sounds to my first snowfall and its cold snowy run past icy creeks and flake drenched roads. Wife & I were front row in concert, bought our first vinyl records (still in need of a player), complete with autographs due to the kindness of a roadie.
Chapel Street, where lies our new residence, is home. Our roomy kitchen’s been host to big planned group dinners, roomie meals, smatterings of guests, which means Nupur’s spice-filled veggie Indian with bread from scratch, my mom’s crack chicken and noodles with fish sauce and crispy 2 AM egg rolls, and Jen’s comfort Chinese and strawberry banana smoothies and friends cooking in our kitchen, pancakes and Korean rice and pastas.
Dani California was the theme song to our summer cross country drive from California to Connecticut: “Black bandanna, sweet Louisiana/robbin’ on a bank in the state of Indiana/Never made it up to Minnesota/North Dakota man was a gunnin' for the quota/Down in the Badlands she was savin the best for last/It only hurts when I laugh/gone too fast.” We didn’t rob in true Thelma & Louise style or see Louisiana, but we did bask in the surreal Badlands that, from seemingly nowhere become surreal canyon, and we DID drive straight through the entire span of Minnesota.
Elected Obama and for once felt good to be a part of the current events of this generation, and to know that long stuggles are worth something and will continue, because “what began in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.”
Friendship pushed me to act on what it really means to be there for those close to you, to put someone else before what can hurt you. Goes without saying that friendship requires give and take, but normally what’s good and happy for one is mutual for the other. It doesn’t usually require you to give up something really, really valuable. But this year, I let go of a friendship that I want in my life and will always tangibly miss, and worked everything in me to its worn edges to keep another. Knowing it’s best for people you care about is worth the effort, even if it doesn’t take away moments of difficult and sad, and there is the reward of a best friendship. Knowing this is easy; actually being tested and doing it wasn’t, for me. But that’s what 2008 gave me for the first time, and twice. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish circumstances had been easier, but given this, I’m glad for the challenge and the hope that I’m capable.
Guson’s camera, which I had to borrow for Puerto Rico because my faithful college digital camera died (which became obsolete within months but served me for years), got me to give myself an SLR, to document summer and future travels. With such sensitivity to light, images are no longer lost in the dark.
Harvard reunions with the roomies nearby in New York, Henry coming back from South Africa, Jen coming by New York. Visiting, as I have annually in the fall-winter since I’ve left, for the Game, visited the old dorm, tunnels, library, dining hall and Bernard. The snow-in-a-can still sticks to our fireplace brick, and they’ve put a new DVD return box in the Adams library.
Iron & Wine, our Halloween costume to mirror our namesakes. Made a flowy thing out of burgundy curtain and a tissue paper wine label (Gamay Rouge, made in California for most likeness as possible), and Jen went crazy attaching metal things to herself (utensils, safety pins, jewelry).
Jojo’s, the dark reddish coffee shop with pillows on the next block from home, joins my list of favorite study spots (with Koffee Too and the architecture library). Each has things to endear (window ledges, warmth, good chai, open space, sun-pouring windows, quiet/noise) and things that bother (dimness at night, cold, quiet/noise, crowds), and where I go at a particular moment depends on a number of these things.
Kites stole a corner of my affection,seeing hundreds of them in the sky in the big grassy field at El Morro, where we dispersed to the edges of the grass to the water and stood on walls, watching families fly so many that they felt like stars. Then flying them on the island of Vieques, standing in the ocean somewhere where the Atlantic merges with the Caribbean (we never could decide where we were standing), the first time I flew a kite in the ocean and the first time, at twenty four, G. flew a kite at all. Then in Vietnam where my favorite photograph is of my favorite person there looking up at one, as she told me how kites work, how you run and release and there it goes, up.
Learned the physical exam and will continue to find new ways to mess it up.
Music reached the height of addiction (this I realize when I get a little physically anxious studying without it). There’s little that can be felt that music doesn’t feel too. It’s kind of amazing that sounds can do that. Books, movies, even food makes sense; we make, as a society and individuals, associations with words, images, tastes; but why are songs in minor key darker and more somber than those in major? Why does a certain bow across a certain string make something in you move too? For that phenomenon…concerts include Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Built to Spill, Thao Nguyen, The National, Rachael Yamagata and Bon Iver.
New Mexico tickets bought one week before flying, for my oldest brother’s no-frills-but-beautiful wedding where I made my first speech for the person who raised me with such love and care.
Older, like every year. I can’t remember when I stopped feeling my age but this year was no different in that either.
Published Atrium, the first volume of our literary magazine. Its coming out party consisted of Bar pizza and wine, live music and readings from my classmates and people from the nursing and public health schools, and the majority of our class supporting.
Quit writing only about myself and started writing more about other people, granted because they made me feel or think. This happened because I learned a lot about people outside my friends and family, and in an entirely new setting. The chance to meet, even for a moment, such variety and depth in real people, even though I see the limitations (now and in the future), was the best thing med school’s given me so far.
Richard got married, my first very close friend from high school to do so. Despite this grown up rite, a long California drive and night of champagne and dancing with the girls whose lockers were next to mine for years made me feel how young we are, despite time passed.
Spring break in Puerto Rico was the best week of first year, obviously. Kayaking in a the bioluminescent bay, hiking in the rainforest, ferrying to the beach island of Vieques, lazying on a different beach each day and the hot tub at night. To be outdoors all the time, in weather that rendered lotion unnecessary, was insanely happy.
Turned carrots into carrot cake (“wait, does carrot cake have REAL carrots?” asked an innocent first year), after eating so much of Claire’s carrot cake, and apples into apple pie and flour into pie crust and so on. I love sugar.
Undid the epic knot in my hair, which was particularly unruly due to being wavy and very long this year, and required the long, assiduous work of several friends. 2008 was host to my first distinct hairstyle (that I liked, thus excepting my 6th grade perm). I’ll miss long wavy hair, even if tangled to the point of oblivion.
Vietnam was the place of many firsts: meeting my uncle and relatives, spending a summer abroad, completing the public health project, hot humid days on end without electricity, finding how quickly you adapt to sleeping on back-aching slabs of wood, seeing my dad’s countryside village, riding motobikes with strangers. Best first experience.
Writing has gone slowly: began half a dozen trains of thoughts, finished not close to one. Because I didn’t do it and because it was the one thing I wanted to do most, writing more is my one concrete resolution for this year.
Xiphoid process, an extension of the sternum, was what Allison came up with for an “X” word, when we played the alphabet game night driving through Colorado (after I told her it was not likely we’d spot a “xenophobe”--not being able to see anything, we just guessed at what we might see if it were daytime), showing how much we learned in anatomy.
Yale Med was my life, 2008 being my first full year of being a medical student. It’s hard work, and hard sometimes to learn and cooped up with yourself without being able to do much with it. Though as med students issues of balance, usefulness, and ability arise often, finding a swelling sense purpose in the people, science, and experience reminds me of how lucky I am.
Zero is how many times I talked to strangers, my one resolution for 2008. Oops.