weaknesses and messes

Over the course of an overload of conversations, feelings and observations, I've seen that the judgments we make about what's fair and honest become complicated when applied to romantic relationships. "Complicated" is a copout for a concept that's really too complicated for me to explain. I don't mean that the guidelines have changed, only that I seem to be much more forgiving when they're not followed, now that I've broken them too. We hurt people we care about, unintentionally but also when we know what we're doing even if hurting someone else isn't the purpose of our action. At first this seemed to be an excuse for what I've done--saying that it's an inherent weakness, and in some ways it probably still is an excuse. Yet, I also do believe that this is a part of how people are, and this recognition doesn't mean I'm giving in and will stop trying to be stronger than this weakness.

Growing up I was my brother Stephen's confidante. By the time I was in high school, just 14 which seems so young now, he would tell me about his girlfriends, who he pined for, how he saw love. For years since then I would listen and offer my idealistic views of how things should be: that if this girl was the one, she would love him too; that if that girl cared about him, she wouldn't be so self-centered; that if someone was in a relationship you shouldn't interfere; that if feelings were unrequited it's not meant to be; that if you truly care for someone you can be selfless without losing independence because love is good that way. Easy, unqualified comfort. And if you didn't follow these concepts, you must either not really love a person or you were being too selfish for it to work--something was wrong, in any case.

Now, having gone through certain things and seeing people close to me go through the same and more, I'm less able to harshly judge people's vulnerablities and weaknesses. I have the same sense of what's right, but can understand why people go the other way and I no longer think of them as too weak to do the better thing. Even without feeling all of the same exact things or without having been in the same exact situations, I can understand why a person would stay with someone who's unsure about their love and commitment, why a person wants to let go of something and still half-hang-on, why a person stays because of uncertainty or fear, why we hurt people when we want to be selfless. Feelings like these make you strong and weak in different areas.

I've spent a long time coming to terms with the guilt I felt over being weak about these different things. Part of why it's taken so long is because despite everything, I still have those clean, ideal visions of how things should be; I never expected it to be so messy and fragile. Over time I've become more forgiving to myself and to others. People hurt each other, sometimes because they don't know any better, other times because they thought what the other person might lose wouldn't be as great as what one person or both people gain. All of this is more complex than I could ever fully grasp, it's all such a mess--but the fact is even if we don't completely understand or anticipate, it's still our responsibility to deal with it.

What I really want to say and declare for myself is that even though I'm accepting my weakness, I'm no longer willing to just keep being that way. I can see and imagine the ways in which people hurt one another, and it makes me incredibly grateful for how he has treated me and I absolutely know that he deserves better. It has never been about putting myself down, because though I've learned much about my flaws, what I take away most is knowing what I can give and knowing what I don't know yet. I think I'm more ready now to try and overcome this weakness that seems to plague all of us when we feel. I don't know yet how capable I'll be, but I really want to give it an honest effort. I get scared and guilt returns when I remember that I'm not any better than anyone else, and that selfish desires are not so easily suppressed. But I want to stop dwelling in the middle because of my own needs, because of a need to control things, a need to sustain a closeness, a need to remedy the problem I started. I have to let go of these things, because deep down I still believe in all those things I told Stephen when I was a teenager. It's like I've told people in conversations about these things...when you care about someone there comes a point where you care about them outside of yourself, outside of how they are connected to you.

I still believe that love, in all its forms, can be selfless, and I'm going to try and stop looking to the world to prove it to me, to instead take it into my own hands. I think it'll be okay, and probably less melodramatic than this is making it seem.

what i learned in college

Since leaving college I've thought a lot about the places (Cambridge, Adams, Boston) and the people (blockmates, acquaintances, Adams residents). Everyone knows that's where the "real" education happens. I rarely actively think about the classes. But I came across some of my old essays this past weekend and I started to think about what I learned academically. Specifically, I read over an essay on the Attica Prison Revolt that I wrote for Social Protest, which I took for our Moral Reasoning core (why can't we call it philosophy like everyone else?). That class was hard because while I can be logical, I find it hard to be so rigid and theoretical. I remember being frustrated while writing the essays because we had to refer to so-and-so's framework and you can't make statements like, say, "Even though his life was shorter, it was fuller" the way you can in English. And even harder was the pressure to be original when it feels like every theory's been taken; the objective is so much more limited than the subjective. But as I was reading over the reasoning in the paper, I found myself appreciative of strict reasoning, and I was glad to be forced into taking a stand instead of relying on only instinctual feelings of right and wrong. Because even if I just reasoned my way back to what I initially felt instinctually, it made me better understand how I see things, and pushed me to defend my perspective.

All that made me think of John Parker's last Shakespeare lecture where he told us that he wasn't teaching us his interpretations but instead a way of thinking and reading. I can't even remember the phrase he used, but I recall the basic premise--that after we forget our scribbled notes and essay theses, he hopes we'll remember how to approach literature, how to study it and how to enjoy it. And to be honest, for all the classes I took, I would not for the life of me be able to describe to you every literary era or tell you the major themes of all the classics. I can't quote poetry off the top of my head and I can't remember all the names behind the pseudonyms. But English at college made language a real, living thing for me. I settled into loving a sentence like it was written for me, finding that the color green could make me inwardly ache because it described something both groteseque and heartbreaking, carrying a character around with me. And having the privilege of being around writers made me so aware of stories being imagined and observed and relayed--to hear Helen Vendler talk about why poetry is important, why James Wood simply liked a passage, Jamaica Kincaid introduce a grad whose thesis became a book, Stephen Greenblatt act out Othello, Zadie Smith give the stage to Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby. Swoon.

And then there's the science. A lot of it was awful but chemistry compensated for me. I hated chemistry in high school and it was hard to adjust in the beginning because I knew nothing when I took chem in college. But freshman chemistry is still one of my favorite classes. The problem sets were painful for their reliance on us manipulating otherwise straightforward calculations, but I liked the concepts of equilibrium and kinetics. After I accepted being bad at organic chemistry, I just let myself enjoy it, and it was easy to do that with Jacobsen, speed-chalk-writer and notorious Mr. Serious who despite the intimidation convinced me this was beautiful. Again, I wouldn't remember how to synthesize anything now and I barely remember the names of the groups but I still recall the premise of making bonds, seeking stability. I remember being fascinated by how on the smallest level, we just want to be stable, to be compatible with things around us, how we will always react a certain way in a certain situation. None of this appreciation helped me do particularly well in these classes but they made me think about science much differently, and I could see how one might equate this kind of structure with the existence of a higher form. And in the idea that maybe we make up this structure, I found myself back in literature--and I felt that everything's a story.

So I'm incredibly grateful to college for giving me so many forms of thought. There's more of course, the bits of art, history, math, sociology that I picked up along the way--none of it enough to think I know anything about any of it, especially since I remember very little, but it's nice to have peeks into how people who really know, might form their thoughts. On top of that, I'm grateful for the outside lectures, the diverse tutors in our houses, the clubs who brought the outside world into our campus.

I remember hearing Samantha Power talk about Darfur, and distinctly feeling that this was a privilege because I wasn't just learning about the issue, I was hearing about it from this amazing journalist/activist who I probably wouldn't have even heard of otherwise. And yet I'm probably still not as informed as I should/easily could be. And I thought of Henry and him always pushing us to ask what are the implications of our privilege, and what're we going to do with it. Understanding it has taken some time, but I do hope I'll have it in me to take the next step of using it. It's so very cliche and often for pomp more than substance but I do think of that Harvard Yard inscription--the one that tells you to "enter and grow in wisdom" as you come in and to "depart to better serve thy country and thy kind" as you leave.

I'm still somewhere in between grow and depart.

the unnecessary

One of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and the only one that's brought me close to tears while only reading and not watching it, is King Lear. After reading it for class I thought about that line "O reason not the need!" for a long time and it comes back like all the touching ones do. King Lear was asking his daughters for more knights and they keep telling him he doesn't need these things, and he's half-crazy at this point and he begins rambling about need and beggars and so on. Professor Parker talked about the distinction between humans and animals being that humans enjoy, cultivate and "need" things that they don't really need for their basic survival. How the things that are really important to us are things that are "superfluous." Life is one thing, and human life is another.

The buzz topic of the recent past is happiness. When were we happy and unhappy, and why. For my birthday last year Henry gave me a book on happiness (which I haven't read yet, I'm sorry to say, Henry!). I think he was trying to tell me something. He probably thought I was unhappy. Which sometimes I was, but following that period was the best time in my life thus far. Best time being the most intensely happy, though there were other periods of being steadily happy which can be just as good. I remember Yonina telling us once about the best year of her life, when she was working in New York, and I can't remember her explanation for why. I got so caught up in the feeling of it, the steady contentment. I find it difficult to read about happiness in a book, though obviously I find it in writings; I guess it's the idea of speaking about it directly, because it's such a textured thing and doesn't seem to stand alone but is instead buried deep in other things.

The passage from King Lear arose in my mind again after a surge of chats about happiness, and also paying attention to why I've been really happy to be back in California after my trip in January, much differently than when I came home post-Cambridge. If I had to choose a thread, it would be the unnecessary. In college my happiness was different than now and I was somewhat minimalist. When it came time for senior sales I realized I had nothing to sell, because I had nothing in my room beyond our Harvard-issued furniture and all of my things fit into six storage boxes and a suitcase. It's not that now material things are more significant in their own right; I'm still as materialistic as your average person. Only that the unnecessary carries certain feelings, like a sense of permanence in temporary places, growth, being young and inexperienced and idealistic, faith that things will work out and you can take them slowly, a lot that I can't articulate.

I like having and doing things that I don't need to have and do. I like making side dishes and having vegetables with dinner even though my brothers only care about the primary meaty food. I'm relishing making new recipes because the joy of eating good food is the pleasure of making a fundamental need more than fundamental. It makes me happy to have fruits on our table in the wooden bowl I got for Christmas that I would never buy for myself, and to have snacks in our cabinets. I appreciate decorations and photo frames and candles and vases, and moving books from my room at home to my apartment even though I've already read them. I love having time for movies, and stories in them that aren't mine but become mine. I'm especially happy for the luxury of music, which has become more clearly the substitute for and substance of much in my life. It's there when I'm driving, cooking, doing nothing.

It's not a new thought to think about bare survival versus a full life, but I suppose what I mean is aside from the big things that provide personal fulfillment beyond what you literally need, like your job and friends and family, all these other things are purely for you. People need that.

new york

*I might add photos later if I’m not too lazy, but for now most are on facebook !

Second trip back to the East was wonderfully crazy. Ten days, winter frenzy, place to place travel, changing environments, roomie reunion, a whole lot of New York and a dash of Philly—whew. I’ve visited NY more than any other city, but each time it feels as big as the last. Coming back to a place allows the luxury of exploring its lesser known corners.

I flew in Thursday and stayed with Damani in a small room that had Harvard-like furniture. I watched hours of television, which I admit was a treat because I don’t have TV at my apartment. I liked getting a feel for Washington Heights, which is not as bad an area as people say. NY has so many distinct neighborhoods, and even those with bad reputations have a lot of character. And it seems so West-Side-Story, how things can be divided by street (the better and not so good sides of Broadway, for example). Sometimes it feels that everyone’s on top of each other in the city without really touching, and other times you’re all too close.

On Friday night I trekked to Brooklyn to Melkis’s homey apartment. It took me three subway lines to get there, and her place is a bit of a hike from the train. I was so hot from being underground that the cold felt nice, and as I walked it started lightly snowing. My first snow since I’ve left the East! It was so quiet in her neighborhood, and I passed a large park and a small grocery store and a church. It was quite nice to see her again and especially to see her situated comfortably in a new home. George gave me a hug too. Haha. We went to Times Square to meet Amy, Courtney and Chris (yes, Chris! you hermit) for dinner at the Stardust Diner. I love diners, and the East definitely beats us in number and variety of diners. This was a 50s style place with employees who continually belted out songs. We sang along to We Go Together, and Amy poured some sugar on a guy crooning Sugar Sugar. Chris was taken to the front of the restaurant and serenaded by a woman named Leah...I remember her name because she sang “I’ll Be There” and when she sang “just call my name” Chris would yell “Leah!” It was a relief to slide into that cocoon of laughter and lightheartedness. I’ve missed you all so.

We stopped by the MoMA to see Sleepwalkers (an outdoor exhibit featuring faces of people in the city on screens on the museum’s walls). It was a little surreal, to be people in the city observing this representation of other people in the city. It was refreshing to be roaming the streets so freely. After that we went to a happy hour where we had $6 martinis in a variety of flavors (lychee, white peach, red berry, mango). I got warm and flushed, and had a nice conversation with Chris—it’s been so long since we’ve talked! Then we bid farewell to the boys and went to the China Club...it wasn’t too crowded because we made sure to get there before 11 to get our free drink ticket. It was a really fun place, with a lot of people but not enough so where I felt suffocated. And apparently it’s a pretty famous club, but I didn’t know that until afterwards. In case you were curious, the only thing in the place that remotely alluded to its name were a couple haphazard round lanterns. So nice to dance with the girls again! There were some funny encounters, but my favorite was when the endearingly nerdy boy that Amy and Melkis befriended defended our honor by shoving an overly pushy guy away from the circle. That must’ve made his night. We were all exhausted after a few hours, and we could barely make it out....we had to stop at McDonald’s to sit down and get water, and we were falling asleep at the table. Haha, we’re so old.

We slept in and had brunch at Enid’s, a corner restaurant near Melkis’s place. Kristina, one subway stop away in Brooklyn, joined us, and she got along really well with everyone. Enid’s, as Amy said, is a gem. The decor is subtly funky and bright, there’s a photobooth (it was broken) and delicious free coffee. Brunch is such a cozy meal, and a lovely way to spend a couple of hours indoors after shedding winter layers. Afterwards we walked to Bedford Ave, an area of Brooklyn with quaint shops, vintage stores and the like. Some of us bought $20 jeans at Brooklyn Industries (what an ordeal to get my boots and thermals off to try them on) and we all compared the ridiculous prices we found in some of the stores. I liked the Tibet Boutique, and the mini-mini-store. After walking around in the cold, we gravitated to Max Brenner’s for warm desserts. It was packed so the wait was forever and the service not great (except for our cute waiter for whom Amy wrote a compliment on our receipt), and the place overall was a bit overrated. But, it was a novelty to have chocolate pizza! And fondue, and a delicious asparagus waffle. It was one of those places that was definitely all about the allure of trendy, cute packaging. But like brunch, it was a good meal—a dessert dinner, this time just girls chatting, wondering how boys talk when they’re alone. With the stroke of an acronym (HB) Kristina became acquainted with the lovable humor that lies beneath Amy’s innocence. After lots of sugar, we went on a happy hour crawl that became unintentionally Asian-themed. The first place was our favorite, Hedeh, an understated Japanese bar with a lot of open space, each sake bottle basking in its own compartment in shelves built into walls and a wide area between the bar and small, high tables. Amy had the sake sangria, Courtney a (raspberry?) margarita and me a sake mojito. Delicious! The edamame was a highlight; we were hungry from having had only mostly dessert, and the light salt on them complemented all that sugar, and they were warm. Winter really kicked in while I was there, and I relished anything warm.

After that we headed to the Asian Pub, whose name was affirmed by the cheap food (a mix of everything: dumplings, sushi, pad thai) and colored lights. We had more edamame (this one peppery and not as good as Hedeh’s…but free!), and chatted some more (I learned of Amy’s Duke adventure, which I still can’t believe I didn’t know about!). Courtney headed back to Jersey, while Amy and I stopped by the Orchid Lounge. We couldn’t find seats and were disturbed by the photos of random Asian people on the walls, and how the bathroom walls were papered in random Chinese ads (we knew orchids = Asian!), so we went to a nearby bar instead. We sat and talked for awhile. I miss our talks, and how natural it was to share—to fret, vent, muse. I think we stayed for a long time to avoid going back into the cold.

On Sunday our attempt to have high tea at Alice’s Tea Cup failed (a two hour wait?!) but the day was one of my favorites. We went to the Cloisters, a branch of the Met, in upper upper Manhattan. We had to walk through Fort Tyron Park from the subway to there, and it was cold and gray and the water was still. It was a beautiful cove of the city, far from the bustle of downtown, and so very quiet. I’m not much into medieval art, but the architecture was refreshing, of the kind that really takes you into its arms and keeps you with it. A lot of old architectural elements were built right into the museum, so that the museum itself was a part of the past. The man at the coat check told us that we needed to visit it four times a year: fall, winter, spring, summer. I’m sure it’s gorgeous when warm, with the greenery abloom in the garden and sun through the windows. But I liked seeing it first in the winter; the somber feel seemed to suit its remote location. I really loved it, the idea and the place too.

We caught a bus outside the museum and took that all the way to 5th Avenue (a hundred or more blocks?), which took absolutely forever, but gave us a unique way of seeing the city. It was nice not to be underground while traversing the city, and the scenery changed so swiftly at times. We took the bus to FAO Schwartz, which wasn’t open the last time I tried going there. I told the girls how I’ve always wanted to find the huge piano from BIG, and so we kept straining our ears for piano keys. And they had it on the top floor! We tossed our shoes aside and jumped all around on it, and then stayed to see the professional piano players play Chopsticks, Heart & Soul and Fur Elise. What an unexpected check off my list of things to do.

That night we had a home-cooked meal of spaghetti and rolls at M’s apartment, and indulged girliness as we watched Love-Wrecked (“Marooned…like the color?”) and Beauty & the Geek. After this perfect weekend, it was a week of interviews and staying at a different place each night. You never know what to expect when staying at a stranger’s place, and each school presented different atmospheres, comforts and discomforts. Even though it was tiresome, I relished being able to get from place to place, figuring out where to transfer trains and navigating by walking. It’s so satisfying when your itinerary goes as planned. Public transportation makes me feel good because I generally know where I’m going, which, as most of you know, is not my normal state.

Aside from getting around Manhattan, Brooklyn & Queens, my proudest feat was getting to and from Philly, which is an awesome city. Someone described it as scrappy, and I found it fitting. It’s a walkable city, and I walked with my host from school to Center City/downtown, a 25 minute walk, and then from her apartment to Chinatown, about 15 blocks. So I got a small feel for its streets, and found it to be nicely organized (good for the directionless). The downtown was a surprise: quite beautiful, modern with the old historic feel in the backdrop. Lots of restaurants, bars and cafes, and I hear the food is really great. UPenn is an absolutely gorgeous campus, and again, though it gets a bad rep, I like how it’s in the middle of West Philly, and even more that the school seems very integrated into the community rather than set aside from it. Anyway, it only took a day to fall in love with Philadelphia, its rough edges, intimacy, unabashed acceptance of itself. Sometimes I think I give my love too easily, because there aren’t many big cities that I don’t like. I don’t love LA but it still has its charms. Whatever…I don’t think it makes what I feel for each individual place less significant.

After getting back from Philly I stayed with Kristina at her new apartment. Another highlight! She just moved into her place so she was still setting up, but she went out of her way to make me comfortable, getting things for me even as she hadn’t provided for herself yet. We went to a little Dominican place for dinner, where I made the mistake of ordering bread pudding (is bread pudding not pudding?), and I finally met Wayland. Quite a nice boy Kristina has =) Back at her place, Kristina shared her bed a la junior high sleepover and we stayed up very very late talking. We’ve kept up with the concrete events of our lives over the past years, but that night we caught up in a different sense—learning about how each of us has grown, how we perceive and feel about a lot of those Big Things, boys careers people. I think we learned a lot about each other. One of the things I was most struck by, was her comment that over the eight/nine years we’d known each other, she’d never seen me “like this.” She explained that I’d always seemed certain, of how I was and what I wanted, and that this was the first time I seemed to be unsure. That surprised me a little, because I’m as uncertain as the next person and probably more so, sometimes. I guess that it’s easy to unconsciously give off that air of confidence because it makes you feel less scared. I think it’s brave of people to admit when they’re unhappy with things, or when they’ve made bad choices, or when they’re a little lost. Maybe in the past I’ve kept these things to myself because I usually end up feeling that things will work out and I prefer to communicate once I’ve gotten to that point. Recently it’s been harder to say that about things, especially when it comes to things involving other people. When it was just me, I feel like I have the capacity to make changes if things go wrong, to deal with my own mistakes and decisions. With other people, things suddenly become more fragile. Hence the higher degree of uncertainty, and probably why I shared it and why Kristina detected it. It’s kind of a scary thing to see in yourself, but it’s also a step forward, I think.

Aside from seeing Brooklyn, I got to see more of the Upper East Side, another distinct part of the city. It definitely is a big chunk of NY, with Museum Mile and Central Park and all of that. Then I saw Queens for the first time, to stay with Amy. I did enjoy the 7 train; it was my first above-ground in New York, and the bit I saw of Queens (Woodside) was really nice. Things were smaller, and the way the stores were compact and right next to each other reminded me of Chinatown and SF.

For our second roomie weekend, we took advantage of Restaurant Week to get a three-course meal at Mesa Grill. Even though the meal wasn’t as good as you might expect for the price (though we paid a lot less due to the Restaurant Week fare), I was so glad to be done (all done!) with interviews and readying for another weekend. Relaxing into a meal is the best feeling. Afterwards we saw Freedom Writers, so the whole evening was reminiscent of dinner + movie outings of past, nothing unusual. Which was nice, because it was just hanging out rather than a thing-to-do-during-vacation.

But the next day was definitely a thing-to-do-during-vacation. Atlantic City was an absolute blast. It was the four of us from A-47 so we joked about it being like Sex & the City. I was glad that things worked out with our bus (yay again for logistical success). I hope that I get to see nicer parts of Jersey someday, because really, the scenes from our bus consisted of flat nothing, and not pretty-desert-flat-nothing but just, wow, really nothing. Atlantic City exudes sketchiness, but it was much warmer there than in NY, so it was great to walk along the Boardwalk. We didn’t plan too much before getting there, so we just grabbed some maps and worked our way around. The first thing we did was to eat at the Hilton Buffet. After that we trekked our way over to the outlets. I shopped a lot during this trip, a combination of not shopping a lot in general, no tax on clothing!, and the plethora of nice, cheap items. Amy and I got $30 knee-high suede boots at Nine West, probably my most exciting find. Usually I get so tired out by shopping that it’s not much fun, but this time I was energized by being with three other girls ready to seek bargains and offer opinions. Thank you for waiting for me when I took forever with my layers in the fitting room.

After that we had a quick dinner at McDonald’s (dollar menu!) before heading to the casinos. Haha, we really did our best to gamble the absolute minimal amount—playing at the penny slots and cashing in after our $5 had gotten up to 6 or 7. We basically were sitting around looking like we were gambling so that we could get our free drinks. Which took a hell of a long time! There weren’t as many waitresses as you’d expect. We would enter a place and hunt them down. We had the silly idea to collect a cup from each of the casinos we were going to (Caesar’s, Bally’s, Tropicana, Hilton) but we only managed to get two out of four. We missed Hilton because they were so crowded they never came to us for drinks, and Tropicana because they served only regular plastic cups without any logo. The drinks were really weak, but we had a lot of fun anyway.

After we made our rounds, we headed to 40/40, Jay-Z’s club. Haha, the security hated us for having huge shopping bags that they had to search. Melkis’s apology: “We went to the outlets. We’re not from here!” It was a really nice place, very large with interesting décor and a lot of side/upper areas for reserved parties. We were definitely the only people there who weren’t black. It was pretty amusing, given how diverse the four of us are, and we kept hoping we weren’t going to get hurt for being the minorities. Once we got past that, it was actually really fun. The music was good, they played Mase! And the people there really danced. A few of them also really did other things, haha. Such craziness. The night ended a little unpleasantly, and it was rough taking the 3:30 AM bus back to NY and not getting into bed until 7, but it later became just a part of the whole experience of a long night out. As Amy said, it was the wackiest night ever.

Given the amount of money we saved with the incredible deals at the outlets, the fact that our $35 bus ticket included a $5 voucher to the buffet and $22 to gamble which we cashed and put into our wallets instead of gambling, and 40/40 had no cover charge…we determined that we actually made money on this day trip. =)

So yes, my trip as a whole was indulgence in things substantial and superficial: in New York, friends, food & drinks, apartments, schools, outings, conversations, clothes, nights, girliness. It was fantastic.

new year

new year
I don’t usually reflect on past years or think much about new ones come January. Mostly because the calendar year seldom signals any change for me. I think more in terms of the school year, or my age. This year is the first that I’m not in school, and the first in four years that I haven’t been busy with exams and papers. 2006 was also an “important” year: we graduated, I left a city and group of people that were my home and love and escape and reality for four years, I committed and applied to medical school, A. and I loved and traveled and broke up, I moved into an apartment in San Francisco, I started my first full-time job and derived a new sense of failure and also a new kind of fulfillment, I found myself more distant from my family than when I was 3000 miles away. I was able to organize my photographs and mementos from the past couple of years, I had more time to keep in touch, I had to choose what I wanted to leave at home and what to take for my new place. It was difficult, because I wanted my place to feel different from college but I hadn’t accumulated or done anything new yet, and I felt a step behind my new life. For these and other reasons I can’t quite discern, this year is the first that feels like a new beginning, or at least a time to think about what I’ve been and what I want to be.

Perhaps this comes from learning more about myself and people this past year than I have in a long while, maybe ever, and growing in ways I didn’t anticipate. It’s scary, and comforting, to think there’s so much we don’t know. So what is it that I learned? Nothing novel or anything I haven’t thought before, but the thing that was special about 2006 was it wasn’t mere thought, it was actual experience (even if much of that experience happened internally).

The last stretch of Harvard in 2006 was so much more difficult than I foresaw, and so was post-graduation, not because it was bad but because it was so full of everything and many times I felt too small to hold it. No other year have I seen my flaws more deeply and clearly, things that worked against me and what I wanted for others. Getting fixated on little things, being stubbornly self-contained, not being able to get past things and improve, taking advantage of some love and not even recognizing other forms. It's amazing how you can be so aware of your faults but still struggle so much to change. I do think that this happened because of the challenges I accepted and created, and so, it was a byproduct of something necessary. And the faults aren't so bad when the ones you care about seem to like you anyway, and when you know that you, like everyone, are fine and can always keep trying. It was the best surprise to know someone who pushed me to make these efforts, not with pressure but with the steady force of just being there.

And I tried really hard this year. Seems like an odd phrase because I can't quite follow it up with concrete phrases of what I tried really hard to do. Sometimes to stay the same despite everything, and sometimes to be better because of everything. Vague. Through it, I found that I am capable of reaching out after all, and the people who you really love and trust will be there waiting for you. These are few and rare, and thus all the more deserving of the inner effort it takes for me to ask for them. It’s okay to need things from people. I didn’t feel weak, like I feared. It sounds so obvious, but I really did feel more human, at my most broken and torn and confused. I hope that I’ve given a lot of myself. It will always be my nature to keep certain things close, not because I don’t want to share but mostly because I’m not naturally good and open with explicit expression. I also find more and more that this is the way a lot of people are, or at least the people close to me, and that everyone wants/needs signs that you care and want to know before they reveal themselves. And I care and want to know, and there are other people who do too, and they’re worth it. There’s still a long way to go, and all this was the main theme of the story I wrote for creative nonfiction this past semester. It ended: “Still scared, but feeling more capable, I continue.”

At the same time, it’s okay to feel and be alone. During certain moments, it was hard to be away from the bustle of school and the cove of company that keeps me busy and warm. It was odd because before this I’ve always been fine with being alone, but I guess this was a different kind of alone. Feeling loneliness then was new, and though sometimes that did make me feel weak, I ultimately grew to see it again as a human vulnerability. As lonely as that was, I’m glad to have gone through it. Knowing that some things exist independent of environment and other people was something I couldn’t have really felt otherwise.

I’m also glad to have been immersed in college and then be removed from it in the same year, as hard as that also was. Because even though I can’t avoid defining some things as inextricably tied to the college phase and that time in our lives, I can see better now how we are beyond that, not just now after graduation but even within those confines. Yes, the people I know and love do define my college experience, but they themselves aren’t wholly defined by the experience, and neither am I. One of the things I’m most thankful for is the perception of life as a thing that stretches and expands. It helps me find the balance between appreciating what’s past and what’s now, and what can come.

I’ve never made resolutions either. I always thought that kind of thing should be an ongoing process, but I can see the benefit of having a defined time and reason to say, I’m going to do something. I’ve also seen how unrealistically ambitious I tend to get when making lists of to-do. So this year I made some concrete resolutions that will be hard but not impossible: learn to (somewhat) play the guitar, cook a new recipe each week, and get to know San Francisco even more. And those harder conceptual resolutions? I resolve to try to remember all this, to be open, to be more patient and take things one at a time when I’m overwhelmed, to be good to other people and less self-involved, to be the “sort of person upon whom nothing is lost.” I suppose it may be a cop-out to say that my resolution is to try, but 2006 taught me that it’s quite a hard thing to just try, and I don’t want to overlook my own weaknesses in making too bold of a resolution.

So this year, in summary? It has been my happiest, my hardest, my loveliest, my saddest, my best, my favorite, my most. It’s not the last.

a long entry

I should get in the habit of writing when I feel like it, and not worrying about making it comprehensible and whole. It sounds silly, but sometimes I feel so compelled to make some sort of story with some sensible trajectory that it tires me just thinking about it and I don’t write anything. All the while the tug to share all the nothings pulls at me. So anyway, these are just some things, for memory’s sake.

body
My physical body feels everything my mind unconsciously feels, and it annoys the hell out of me. I can’t seem to fully revert to the blissful sleep of past (when that past was is hazy), of long long hours uninterrupted by early morning anxiety. I’m not generally anxious; it’s minor, which is why I worry about it. I really hope that I don’t require complete carefreeness to sleep well, because I had better get used to Growing Up and all that it entails. A few months ago I developed a recurring rash. At first I thought it was allergies but I couldn’t find anything that connected. My brothers told me it was probably stress-induced. I told them I wasn’t stressed, or at least I didn’t feel like it. Often it came out of nowhere, without any external instigators. But it’s true, often it coincided with stress that I didn’t really acknowledge--I got it before my first interview, when things were hectic at work, when things were hard between Andrew and me. And now after a couple nights of restless sleep I have a sore on my lip, which apparently also tends to arise during stress. I hate that my body reacts like this, reminding me that things do affect me and I can’t just think about them in isolation without remembering that this is indeed my life in fact, not my life hypothetically. The thing is, I’m happy with most things, only that things are hard in the way they are for everyone during this time in our lives and it’s not an easy happiness. I both naturally and continually put effort into appreciating and valuing that, and I wish my body would let the rest of me take care of it instead of reacting too.

cooking
I’ve learned that a little flavor goes a long way, that I will probably never be good at presentation, and that bell peppers are the best thing in the world. Bell peppers are such funny, wonderful things. They look and sound spicy but they’re sweet, they smell so nice and are so bright in color. They’re fun to slice and their seeds coat everything. They’re crunchy and oddly shaped. Anyway. I can make: Vietnamese pork chops and chicken drumsticks/breasts/wings (Vietnamese only because that’s the way my mom makes them), Thai curry chicken and California rolls (thanks Erika), fish muniere, rosemary/lemon chicken, chicken parmesan, mushroom and onion hamburgers, various stir fries. My problem with cooking is that I don’t understand the nuances, and I’m also impatient, and it’s hard to buy things for specific recipes when we’re always buying in bulk, and it’s hard to try different things without the necessary culinary accessories and tools. I did get pots and wooden bowls for Christmas. Making do.

brothers
So you know how around adolescence everyone realizes that their parents don’t really know everything after all, and that you actually think quite differently from them? Well, as far as my relation to my older brothers go, this relevation didn’t come to me until this past year and most sharply since I’ve graduated. Despite their having raised me and possessing somewhat parental roles in my life, the very nature of them not in fact being my parents kept me from losing that kind of faith in them at the time when people begin to question their parents. And for the most part that was okay, because I do value their judgment and experience, and the relevance of these to myself. But my goodness, how I’ve changed in college, how I’ve come to see how adamantly I disagree with my brothers about certain important and fundamental things. Not like political issues or moral dilemmas; it’s hard to explain, exactly. Small things that mean a lot, like I'll see value in an image or thought or book, and they don’t (or vice versa). And big things that mean a lot, like how I chose heartbreak and think that’s all right, and they don’t. I know these dissimilarities occur among all people. But with my brothers it's difficult because for so long they've been intertwined with who I am. Not that I haven't been aware of our distinctions before, but the gap in understanding has never been so glaring. I realize these changes in me are of the kind that are most apparent to oneself, and that the core most people see remains the same. But sometimes I can’t stand being around people who have developed an honest, strong portrait of me, so much so that they can’t begin to contemplate the possibility that I’ve changed or perhaps that I have kept and keep things to myself that they never saw. Stephen, with his infuriatingly confident way, evaluates everything I do as either characteristic or uncharacteristic of me, as if he knows how to categorize all that I do correctly. I can’t deny what they do know of me, and I can’t convince them that they don’t know everything. It drives me completely insane, and it makes me long to meet new people who don’t have a baseline conception of me. It also makes me grateful for the few I already know who use acts I make or thoughts I express to explain my character, instead of the other way around.

At the same time, I’m not losing hope that I will remain close to my brothers, that though our changes haven’t occurred in parallel, that I will remember how accepting they’ve always been and that it’s a matter of time, patience, active effort, and willingness. After much frustration with the ways in which the pieces of my family do not fit together…during the lovely Christmas dinner with the seven of us and the ensuing madness of present-opening, I found myself again finding the same essence and more of my dysfunctional family. I know this is how family functions, imperfectly and with rough edges.

San Diego
I had a fun weekend in San Diego. Seeing Erika (my best friend from junior high) was kind of funny, in that way when you see how much and how little things have changed over a long time. I wonder if I’d be different if I’d gone to Irvington instead of Notre Dame. While concrete circumstances may have turned out the same, I think what I think about and the way in which I think about them might be a little different. Then again, Erika reminded me of when I shared with her my fear of never meeting someone who would understand me, this fear arising in full force when I was thirteen. So I guess maybe Steph is right, that even if we were farm girls in Asia dedicating our lives to manual labor and our husbands, we’d still be contemplating the same thoughts. I don’t know. In any case, the flashback to junior high really made me appreciate the liberty I’ve had to be immature (“did I really do that?” “I said WHAT?”) as much as the room for growth (I feel quite distant from all of it). Southern California is warm and very laid-back, but I think I will always belong here. Here in the sense of what I feel here, not necessarily here the geographical area because I don’t feel tied in that way. Where do I see myself in ten years? Anywhere.

James Blunt
Steph compared a concert to a vintage wine or a flower, in its transience and the poignancy that comes from that, and I found the thought to be apt. You can listen to the music before and after, but the moment when you see it flowing from the source, you feel the fleeting quality of it right then and there. James’ voice is special. It amazed me that someone could produce something so perfect. Every lilt that you assume to be a result of polished studio production came instead from a slightly ragged Brit filling every note with something inside him. After a new song, he started the concert with “High,” which gave me something that resembled girlish delight. I’ve always liked how his album starts with this song, with all its images that don’t directly relate to a kind of beginning but somehow make me feel it anyway. I cried a little during “Goodbye My Lover,” partly because A. was there, partly because I am woefully in love with James’ voice, and partly because, even though no one likes crying in public and I hate crying in general, I felt like it. He played it just as you’d imagine, alone on the stage with a piano and a microphone to amplify a sentiment that’s already swollen and raw with hurt. I’ll never forget how that song made me stop. It did that to Steph (“arrested me”) and A. stopped the album after that song too. Somehow that makes it more personal, not less. He played an amazing rendition of “Out of My Mind,” where all the little elements of the song came to the forefront and every second of it was full; every part made me smile or inwardly flutter or bite my lip. I’m so glad to have seen him, and with people who really receive and value all that he gives.

high school friends
Long meals are one of my favorites. Being with A. and sharing our love of diverse tastes and ambience and character in the dining experience heightened my appreciation for comfortable company that lingers and sustains after a delicious meal. Sharing wine with Rea Mae, Tanvi, Kristina and Victoria didn’t make me uncomfortably old; it made me feel fit for this new skin we’ve each developed. I so value how everyone has grown yet radiates the same endearing, admirable qualities they’ve always had. I like how we talk about new things, and re-talk the old things. You girls are so quality: so smart, with real convictions and goals; funny, with unabashed silliness; kind, with such genuine warmth; fun, reminding me of the lovely freedoms of being this young. And Victo, your presence never fails to make me feel less alone, whether we’re driving or buzzed and rigging a game of King’s Cup or wrapped under blankets watching Little Miss Sunshine for the second time or sharing yet another cozy bed or chatting in your room or browsing in H&M or swapping cheek kisses on New Year’s Eve.

upcoming
I can’t wait to see my girls in New York, to venture into Atlantic City, and for our blockmate reunion in the spring. The thought of places makes me happier. I feel so lucky to have lived in Boston for four years and to have seen so much of New England. I love California, and San Francisco looks different every morning, revealing a new shade of beautiful with each glimpse. I can’t imagine not being somewhere urban during this time of life. Going on interviews has proved tiring, but I appreciate the renewed excitement for the future that I get each time. There’s so much left. Being immersed in the stories of older people in my writing class made me feel that in such a uniquely fulfilling way. Getting glimpses into the fullness of their pasts and how alive and eager they were for their presents and futures—it pushed me to concentrate on life as a continuous story and not a series of clearly defining phases. The bookends that we place on the sides of our experiences often make me forget what’s beyond them. There’s the four years of high school, the four years of college, the four years of medical school, making me feel like life comes in blocks and that once one is coming to a close, a lot has gone by when in fact the next block is even longer, only it’s not quite a block.

the east

Back from a whirlwind tour of the East Coast. I feel like my post-college life has been a stretched-out accordion: all the feelings and thoughts dispersed over a long period of uneventful time and space. But during this trip someone or something decided to try and make a noise by compressing everything, and all things of the recent past and the near future came together in the small sliver of one week and a pocket of the country.

I flew from San Jose to Baltimore, and had a long conversation with the passenger next to me. I’m not good at starting talk with strangers, but lately I’ve encountered several very open strangers who have been easy and interesting to talk to. This stranger did aircraft maintenance for the Coast Guard, and because this entailed quite a bit of travel, he’d been all over the place, from Alaska to China (he showed me photos on his computer). We talked about cities and food, and he told me a bit about Baltimore since he’d been living there for a couple of years.

I had a very hazy idea of how I should get to campus after I got off the plane. All I knew was that I didn’t want to shell out $30 for a taxi, and that somehow the light rail plus some other form of public transportation would take me to Hopkins. Though no one knew exactly how I should do this, everyone was very nice and helpful. Practically every stranger I spoke to in Baltimore (and being directionless me, I spoke to many) was super nice to me, which gave me a warm impression of the city despite what people say. I got on the light rail and had another good conversation with a stranger, a middle-aged man commuting home from work, who seemed as proud of me for pursuing medicine as if I were his own daughter. His smile showed a genuine sense of gratitude and pride, something that I haven’t seen in such a pure form in awhile.

I was going to take the subway from one of the stops but was told I’d have to transfer light rails to do that, so I got off at a random stop near the symphony, was told that the school was six or seven blocks away but that they were long blocks and that I couldn’t walk it. So I took a taxi which didn’t cost me much at all and gave me a chance to converse with a down-to-earth cabbie who kindly, bluntly told me that I better be careful “cause this hospital is in the hood.” He also told me exactly which streets we were taking as we were driving, which I forgot instantly but still appreciated.

I hurried to drop off my things because I wanted to get dinner at the Inner Harbor before it got too late. Eugenie saw me at the front desk at Reed Hall and called out my name. She told me she and her roommate, who was hosting a friend who was also interviewing, were going to go to the Harbor and asked me to come along. We never spoke much in college, but she was so welcoming and sweet that it seemed natural to hang out. She showed me their suite in Reed, I met a lot of first-years, and got to use the subway that no one in Baltimore seemed to know about or use. Since it was late Thursday night, the Harbor was pretty deserted, and it was a nice way to quietly take in the city. I was grateful for having run into Eugenie, and it became a running theme of the weekend, having familiar people in unfamiliar, different places.

After my interview the next day, I took the train to DC. It was raining and wet and a bit of an ordeal to get to Baltimore’s Penn Station, but it felt nice to get there and sit for awhile to wait for the train. After the three train trips I took during this trek, I’ve developed a fondness for train stations. I used to think it was just NY’s Grand Central that I liked, having met and departed from Andrew there a few times over those years. But no, a lot of train stations are unexpectedly nice (the unexpected came from New Haven’s small but beautiful train station). I like the sense of old, how there’s no hassle to get on and off like there is with planes. I love the non-electronic signs they use to post times and platforms, where the letters and numbers turn and turn noisily until the right one is posted on the sign. I like having room on the train, the fact that I can move around, the scenery, and especially how I can feel the motion, unlike on a plane when you don’t feel like you’re moving at all.

Anyhow, it was a short trip to DC, where Frank picked me up and guided me through the subway back to his place. It was so good to see him again; he’s such a teddy bear, huggable and comforting. We had dinner and caught up, and back at his place I got him to watch the last half of Life is Beautiful with me despite his efforts to study. When he was showing me his movie collection, I shook my head at one after another as I didn’t recognize any of them. He said, “Yeah, these are black movies.” At the very end when I was thinking I probably wouldn’t watch anything, he showed me his last movie, Life is Beautiful, saying that he’d bought it because he saw that we’d had it in our room in college. But he never got through it because he didn’t want to read subtitles. So he wasn’t really watching as I was, but he got slowly sucked in and told me that he was choked up at the end. Haha.

Andrew drove from Virginia to meet me in DC, and I spent the rest of the weekend with him. We saw the World War II Memorial, and visited the other monuments in the National Mall since we were there, though we’d seen them before. It was interesting, to contrast the WWII Memorial to the Vietnam War Memorial, which is my favorite. We talked about how there is a different kind of loss that emanates from the Vietnam War Memorial and its veterans, how the Vietnam one focuses on lost lives. The whole memorial is just their names. Unlike the WWII one, which features quotes about the fight for liberty, and names of all the states and territories, and a whole host of other symbols and structures. It was much more elaborate and emphasized sacrifice in quite a different light.

After that we had dinner at the oldest restaurant in DC and got ready to celebrate Halloween. We didn’t have time or energy to get costumes, but we headed to a club his friend had recommended for a Halloween party. After realizing that we were the only people around those streets and clubs who was not black (whoa for being the minority among minorities), we decided to go to Georgetown instead. Which turned out to be a great decision. There were tons of people in costume, and the small streets were lined with bars and shops. It was a festive, cheery, fun atmosphere; it’s always invorigating when things seem to flow out of places into the open streets, back and forth. It was fun to dance with him again, and be silly as is our natural state. I got a bit more tipsy than I have been in a long time, and he took care of me well. It can be nice to let someone do that once in awhile.

The next day we went to DC’s tiny Chinatown, where a ten year old girl mixed me not-very-good bubble tea and he had not-so-good moon cakes. It was fun to see, though, and we always get so much from walking and observing together. Later in the afternoon I took the train (Washington Union Station in DC is also quite nice) to New Haven, where a med student (a recent Harvard alum) picked me up. Oddly enough, I could see myself there in that city that doesn’t get much credit. The mix of gritty and quaint reminded me of Cambridge.

How immensely happy I was to be back in Cambridge. There is no place I love more than Cambridge and the Square. Besides its concrete charms of people, quirks, nature, city, school, water, shops, food, subway, Adams...there is no place I've grown more. It's where I experienced my lowest lows and highest highs.

I got to Boston first, and felt at home when the skyline greeted me while driving through a small street in the dark. Then took that ever-familiar M2 shuttle ride from Longwood to the Square. I got off at the Adams-Lamont stop and walking by Westmorley Court, I was struck by the most incredible heart-choking sadness. The autumn was perfect and beautiful around me, crisp and sunny, and there I was in the midst of it, such a pathetic spectacle, a bundle of mess. To distract myself, I decided to look for our fern. I’d bought a fern from the plant sale at the beginning of senior year and hung it up in my room. Later I took it down and put it on my windowsill so that it would be easier to water, but it didn’t fare well. It was constantly shedding (like Gregor, remember girls?) and its typical coloring was a dry yellow, not the bright green that it had when I first got it. I thought I’d throw it away when I was moving out at the end of the year, but Andrew fought hard against this. He wanted to plant it somewhere and give it a chance. So we dug a hole in front of A-entry and plopped the fern there. We viewed it mostly as a false sense of hope, but when I was leaving for Cambridge during this trip, he asked me to look for it. So I did…and there it was: greener, fuller, and happier than it had ever been when I’d had it. Not only still there, but thriving. This erased all feelings of melancholy, and I felt the most sudden pang of happiness.

Later I ran into Lily and she said she thought of me every time she saw that fern, because she had seen us digging up dirt to plant it. At the time we were embarrassed that someone had witnessed our whimsy, but when she told me that, I was grateful. A part of me was still tangibly there. All of these things—they do still belong to me, perhaps even more so than to those who are still there. As I walked around and around along those brick sidewalks I am so tied to, along that river, around those buildings, near those stores, atop that grass—I knew I would still have all of this.

People are always trying to let go and move on at the same time, when really I need these to be distinct. Last June was so hurried, things built up so intensely atop of one another, there was no real time and space to say goodbye. He said that maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that I wasn’t missing out on anything because this was the full experience: rushed, packed tight. I don’t regret it. But I am glad to have come back, after time and distance from it, to take the time to slowly bid farewell. And I think that’s how it was meant to happen, not right away, but after a little while and during a return.