Since we started college, no visit to home has been unaccompanied by conversations about how it feels to be back home and what it means. As more time goes by, the visits become fewer and more far between, and the conversations about them longer. I don't see Fremont being a place that I will be again, outside of the holidays. It won't likely ever again be my home again in the sense of living here for any extended period of time, not even summers. I may end up in the Bay Area again, but that could be anywhere--not this street, not this place.
They say home is where your heart is, but I'm not sure my heart is here either. Not because I don't love Fremont. It always surprises me when I come home, how beautiful Fremont is. This small town with few claims to fame, with little to do, with little to see. One of the first things I did here was run around my neighborhood in the morning. The love I felt for this home was so immediately palpable; it breathed as I breathed. So much of it came from familiarity, because if you know me you know it takes forever for my surroundings to become familiar to me. Even now, I'm little aware of the street names and how they relate to each other. But I recognize things and it doesn't take much to re-feel them. The route to my piano teacher's house and the church where we played our recitals, the steps where my first boyfriend and I used to kiss, my old junior high. It has been gorgeously bright and warm enough to run comfortably in a T-shirt. December is a nice month here, where the hills are just transitioning from brown to green, so you see them in all their shades. Seeing Christmas lights on houses and decorations in the yard, during the day instead of night as intended, gives this small cove of the town an endearing charm. Instead of magic, it's real, and sweet. Fremont's not hip or urban or quirky or worldly or especially quaint, and it doesn't keep anything hidden that makes you want to seek out its corners. It just is what it is, a place where people live.
Maybe for that reason, home has become a place where I fix things. I've written earlier about how I hang onto broken things as long as possible, but when I come home I'm more amenable to changing them. I finally switched from rain-worn phone to my old phone so that it won't die on me after a few hours anymore. My family gave me a new laptop for Christmas to replace my only somewhat functional computer of the past few years. Home is where my mom sews buttons back onto my coat, where I finally get clothes dry-cleaned, where I cut my hair and go to the dentist, where I finally get a pair of dress pants so I can stop wearing the ones from high school. Home is where I began running, and where I returned to it during difficult times. It's clear that much of this is about convenience and familiarity, but convenience is not easy to come by and familiarity inherently doesn't happen instantly. Some things aren't so easily mended, but what comes first is the desire to mend, to maintain or move forward. I might carry my heart wherever I go, but this will always be a place to move around the pieces, to put them back in place or make them anew.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Saturday, December 29, 2007
body
Maybe it's anatomy, or running in the mornings, or Body Worlds tomorrow, or talk of organ donations, or M & A's resolutions to gym & hot yoga it up in the new year, or Mike S's musings on naked parties, or something completely unrelated...but I've been thinking a lot about my body. I've mentioned before that my body is pretty aware of me--it inevitably responds to my stress and anxiety in the form of rashes, canker sores, sleep deprivation, exhaustion. On my end, I haven't been too good at reciprocating, haven't paid much attention to my body. I make observations and pick up on the details, but I don't consider it like I do other aspects of myself. Like Aud says, I'm too self-aware...which is true, and also paradoxically the reason I become blind to certain things. So this is going to turn out to be a pretty superficial and self-centered entry, but I suppose most my and blog entries are.
Mike mentioned that at naked parties (okay, I'd never even heard of those until this conversation), you see that every body has its imperfections. I thought that was an interesting insight to have during a naked party and made me think on what I try to hide and what I value. I feel lucky to have been in environments and around people that make me loving of even those things I hide, of those fragilities. It makes the imperfections things that I seek to describe, understand, articulate.
Since running at home, I've confirmed that my feet are abnormally sensitive. Some people think all feet are unattractive, but I don't think that's true. I think it's definitely true of mine. They blister really easily, especially on the sole below my big toe, and my heels have a coarse quality more typical of someone who actually is physically active. They remind me of my dad's, except my dad stood 14 hour days and I bum like no other. And the nails on my toes just grow awkwardly.
My skin in general doesn't stay healthy for long; it dries easily because I love really hot water in the shower and probably because I was born that way. The skin that comprises the boundary between fingernail and fingertip is really sensitive to cold and sometimes cracks so that I bleed. I'm not very good at moisturizing either. While I like my hands in general, they're not attractive either. I can't keep my nails long or even nicely trimmed or maintained, because I have this habit of peeling them, which everyone thinks is disgusting and I find soothing.
Besides shying away from letting a significant other's feet touch mine and discover their lack of appeal, I hesitate to shed the shorts over a bathing suit on the beach. I've gotten used to the fact that my thighs (and calves) are bigger (the few people I've mentioned this to scoff, so to clarify, I mean--proportionally to the rest of me, okay, not absolutely). I actually kind of appreciate that now (the thighs, not so much the calves--which I'm also not really fond of because of how my skin gains a spotty quality there). I appreciate them because it's the little thought I think to myself and fold in my hands whenever someone comments on me being too small or thin. I keep it for me and then feel no urge to defend myself. But anyway so the hesitation isn't due to that; it's because I developed the inevitable stretch marks early on, before I even knew it was normal and was kind of freaked out by them. So those are there. Probably forever.
I've grown out my hair the longest it's ever been, and the tangles that arise because I don't brush my hair become particularly apparent when I'm at home and there's no conditioner to smooth them out. When I was little I never brushed my hair. When it got so tangled that my mom forced me to brush, the brush got stuck in my hair and that was a mess. I swear that ever since then, that spot in my hair grows in tangled--even after cutting it and growing back as new hair, it gets impossibly tangled in that one spot, becomes a ball of uncombable string.
Some of these things never bothered me, a few I grew to accept on my own, others were loved and cared for in a way that comforted and reassured.
My favorite bone is the clavicle, because it's what I like most on myself, the way you can feel it and how it's the most easily fractured bone in the body. I especially like where the clavicles meet, the hollow beneath your neck...which I learned in anatomy is unromantically called the sternal notch. It's an actual space, and you can press into it and feel its texture and contours different from the bones leading into it.
As much as people tell you appearances don't matter, I think senses do. Feeling the cold sole of worn feet against thick calves when you cross your legs, running ragged fingertips along an arm to relieve an itch, tugging on that mass of messy hair when you have to stop being a homebody and go out in public, holding or being held by that hollow when you are vulnerable and loving. It can be as much you as those things inside.
Mike mentioned that at naked parties (okay, I'd never even heard of those until this conversation), you see that every body has its imperfections. I thought that was an interesting insight to have during a naked party and made me think on what I try to hide and what I value. I feel lucky to have been in environments and around people that make me loving of even those things I hide, of those fragilities. It makes the imperfections things that I seek to describe, understand, articulate.
Since running at home, I've confirmed that my feet are abnormally sensitive. Some people think all feet are unattractive, but I don't think that's true. I think it's definitely true of mine. They blister really easily, especially on the sole below my big toe, and my heels have a coarse quality more typical of someone who actually is physically active. They remind me of my dad's, except my dad stood 14 hour days and I bum like no other. And the nails on my toes just grow awkwardly.
My skin in general doesn't stay healthy for long; it dries easily because I love really hot water in the shower and probably because I was born that way. The skin that comprises the boundary between fingernail and fingertip is really sensitive to cold and sometimes cracks so that I bleed. I'm not very good at moisturizing either. While I like my hands in general, they're not attractive either. I can't keep my nails long or even nicely trimmed or maintained, because I have this habit of peeling them, which everyone thinks is disgusting and I find soothing.
Besides shying away from letting a significant other's feet touch mine and discover their lack of appeal, I hesitate to shed the shorts over a bathing suit on the beach. I've gotten used to the fact that my thighs (and calves) are bigger (the few people I've mentioned this to scoff, so to clarify, I mean--proportionally to the rest of me, okay, not absolutely). I actually kind of appreciate that now (the thighs, not so much the calves--which I'm also not really fond of because of how my skin gains a spotty quality there). I appreciate them because it's the little thought I think to myself and fold in my hands whenever someone comments on me being too small or thin. I keep it for me and then feel no urge to defend myself. But anyway so the hesitation isn't due to that; it's because I developed the inevitable stretch marks early on, before I even knew it was normal and was kind of freaked out by them. So those are there. Probably forever.
I've grown out my hair the longest it's ever been, and the tangles that arise because I don't brush my hair become particularly apparent when I'm at home and there's no conditioner to smooth them out. When I was little I never brushed my hair. When it got so tangled that my mom forced me to brush, the brush got stuck in my hair and that was a mess. I swear that ever since then, that spot in my hair grows in tangled--even after cutting it and growing back as new hair, it gets impossibly tangled in that one spot, becomes a ball of uncombable string.
Some of these things never bothered me, a few I grew to accept on my own, others were loved and cared for in a way that comforted and reassured.
My favorite bone is the clavicle, because it's what I like most on myself, the way you can feel it and how it's the most easily fractured bone in the body. I especially like where the clavicles meet, the hollow beneath your neck...which I learned in anatomy is unromantically called the sternal notch. It's an actual space, and you can press into it and feel its texture and contours different from the bones leading into it.
As much as people tell you appearances don't matter, I think senses do. Feeling the cold sole of worn feet against thick calves when you cross your legs, running ragged fingertips along an arm to relieve an itch, tugging on that mass of messy hair when you have to stop being a homebody and go out in public, holding or being held by that hollow when you are vulnerable and loving. It can be as much you as those things inside.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
anastomoses
I used to think that fiction would bring about my downfall, but am finding that scientific fact is contributing too. Each offers a glimpse of beauty whose existence I appreciate and consequently strive to possess, but can't quite create for myself.
Everyone here turns to me when they want to know in what context the word "satiate" can be used or which Shakespeare play "Get thee to a nunnery" is from or what some eight-letter word means. I've almost never been able to give an accurate or complete answer. I would like to explain to everyone that for me, studying literature means only appreciation, not expertise. We speak the same language; I don't know any secrets. I can't verbalize myself any better than you--I'm probably worse at it because I value all the feelings and know none of the constructs.
On the other end of the spectrum, Aud says that I'm already using a different language now that I'm in medical school (something everyone warns you about). Three months of massive amounts of material and learning later, I find myself with a new vocabulary but little fluency. I know a lot of multisyllabic words but don't expect me to tell you a story.
"Kafka on the Shore" alternates chapters between two narrators whose stories appear disparate and converge as the novel goes on. A familiar device, but Murakami is aware of its contrived nature. He makes us conscious that he's conscious of it. We grow to understand that the point is not that this kind of connection actually exists. In fact, the out-of-reality happenings remind us that this doesn't happen and won't happen. The point is we can substantiate our underlying desire for connection in fiction. Murakami never confirms the connection, never actually says that this could happen, but nudges us and says, but doesn't it make sense to happen this way? Isn't it beautiful this way, doesn't it hurt in that lovely aching way and make you breathe slightly irregularly?
In anatomy we hear "anastomosis" over and over. Two arteries start from the same source (the aorta), branch off and become different things (the posterior and anterior intercostal arteries), then these different things come back and converge. So it does happen in a concrete thing, and it makes sense, and it's beautiful in how it works. Every part of the body is related to another, and it is a system of connections that keeps you breathing so you can tell when someone like Murakami comes along and makes you breathe offbeat.
But that's a body and that's a book, and this is me.
Everyone here turns to me when they want to know in what context the word "satiate" can be used or which Shakespeare play "Get thee to a nunnery" is from or what some eight-letter word means. I've almost never been able to give an accurate or complete answer. I would like to explain to everyone that for me, studying literature means only appreciation, not expertise. We speak the same language; I don't know any secrets. I can't verbalize myself any better than you--I'm probably worse at it because I value all the feelings and know none of the constructs.
On the other end of the spectrum, Aud says that I'm already using a different language now that I'm in medical school (something everyone warns you about). Three months of massive amounts of material and learning later, I find myself with a new vocabulary but little fluency. I know a lot of multisyllabic words but don't expect me to tell you a story.
"Kafka on the Shore" alternates chapters between two narrators whose stories appear disparate and converge as the novel goes on. A familiar device, but Murakami is aware of its contrived nature. He makes us conscious that he's conscious of it. We grow to understand that the point is not that this kind of connection actually exists. In fact, the out-of-reality happenings remind us that this doesn't happen and won't happen. The point is we can substantiate our underlying desire for connection in fiction. Murakami never confirms the connection, never actually says that this could happen, but nudges us and says, but doesn't it make sense to happen this way? Isn't it beautiful this way, doesn't it hurt in that lovely aching way and make you breathe slightly irregularly?
In anatomy we hear "anastomosis" over and over. Two arteries start from the same source (the aorta), branch off and become different things (the posterior and anterior intercostal arteries), then these different things come back and converge. So it does happen in a concrete thing, and it makes sense, and it's beautiful in how it works. Every part of the body is related to another, and it is a system of connections that keeps you breathing so you can tell when someone like Murakami comes along and makes you breathe offbeat.
But that's a body and that's a book, and this is me.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
the family you choose
Last week, late Saturday night, I brought some cookies to Bibhav's room and we were chatting when Don came by and told us that there was free food downstairs at Marigold's. We were enticed by his plate of rice and chicken, so we got Guson and went to get some. There were three long foil trays filled with rice, pork and chicken. I started eating and thought I'd bring back a plate of leftovers for the next day. Guson then says, why don't we take all the trays back. I ask him where we're going to put all this food. He thinks we can fit it in my fridge. My microfridge which can't hold a carton of milk unless it's lying sideways. He's convinced. We each take a tray up to my room. For the next hour we take apart the shelves in my fridge, fold the trays every which way, take out some rice, put the tray back in to see it not fit, take out some more rice. Guson works at this patiently and oblivious to the ridiculous nature of his effort, while Bibhav grows tired and curls up on the linoleum floor to nap, and I stare in wonder at the whole episode.
Somehow it fits, and the boys promptly arrive for lunch the next day with Jen to help us out. We eat the leftovers for four meals: take out the foil trays, scoop heaps of food onto plastic plates, stuff the trays back in, clean the rice that's spilled onto the floor, transfer food from plate to plate since only one of them is microwaveable, heat them until our plastic plate cracks, wash the disposable ones that still work, divide the heaps, pick at the bones, finish each other's food. Sometimes we supplement the meal with tea whose leaves occupy most of the cup volume because we don't use a strainer, or maple candy, or burnt cookies. Somewhere along the continuum of this ritual, we form a family in which I am the mom, Bibhav is the silly kid, Guson is the grumpy grandpa, and Jen is the auntie.
***
A representative conversation:
B: When's dinner?
G: I'm eating Marigold's.
K: Haha, I TOLD you you wouldn't finish the leftovers. If other people want leftovers let me know but otherwise maybe it'd be good to save for when we have everyone since it takes work to heat and wash. Is that okay Grandpa? Whoever Grandpa is.
B: Doesn't look like there is much choice Mommy. Fine. Eating with Grandpa it is. Stupid Grandpa.
G: Don't disrespect your elders, whippersnapper.
B: Sorry. Nice to see you have accepted your position though.
G: I was telling Kim the other day that, technically, this means I'm her daddy (ooo)
J: You could be the paternal grandfather, you know.
K: I told Jen you all are adopted. I don't know where the grandpa came from. He just arrived one day and stayed.
G: There is no father in this family. Bibhav is a bastard.
B: Adopted bastards are cool. Uninvited grandpas who won't leave and moreover, are Korean, are not cool.
G: Grandpas who steal booze and trays of Indian food are cool.
B: Shut up Guson.
Blogger: synaesthesia - Create Post
***
I love my family.
Somehow it fits, and the boys promptly arrive for lunch the next day with Jen to help us out. We eat the leftovers for four meals: take out the foil trays, scoop heaps of food onto plastic plates, stuff the trays back in, clean the rice that's spilled onto the floor, transfer food from plate to plate since only one of them is microwaveable, heat them until our plastic plate cracks, wash the disposable ones that still work, divide the heaps, pick at the bones, finish each other's food. Sometimes we supplement the meal with tea whose leaves occupy most of the cup volume because we don't use a strainer, or maple candy, or burnt cookies. Somewhere along the continuum of this ritual, we form a family in which I am the mom, Bibhav is the silly kid, Guson is the grumpy grandpa, and Jen is the auntie.
***
A representative conversation:
B: When's dinner?
G: I'm eating Marigold's.
K: Haha, I TOLD you you wouldn't finish the leftovers. If other people want leftovers let me know but otherwise maybe it'd be good to save for when we have everyone since it takes work to heat and wash. Is that okay Grandpa? Whoever Grandpa is.
B: Doesn't look like there is much choice Mommy. Fine. Eating with Grandpa it is. Stupid Grandpa.
G: Don't disrespect your elders, whippersnapper.
B: Sorry. Nice to see you have accepted your position though.
G: I was telling Kim the other day that, technically, this means I'm her daddy (ooo)
J: You could be the paternal grandfather, you know.
K: I told Jen you all are adopted. I don't know where the grandpa came from. He just arrived one day and stayed.
G: There is no father in this family. Bibhav is a bastard.
B: Adopted bastards are cool. Uninvited grandpas who won't leave and moreover, are Korean, are not cool.
G: Grandpas who steal booze and trays of Indian food are cool.
B: Shut up Guson.
Blogger: synaesthesia - Create Post
***
I love my family.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
thank you
Every blog seems to have an obligatory list of things to be thankful for, not necessarily always at Thanksgiving. I've never made a public one, mostly because I often write when I'm happy for something and I assume that comes across. Lately though I've been feeling a bit of an ache. While there has been as much to be happy for as always, instead of appreciating those things, I've entertained that ache more than I'd like. So here's to being grateful (though nowhere near adequately) instead of self-pitying (whose threshold of validity has been surpassed long ago).
I am glad for:
public transportation
It's not so alarming to get lost on a subway, because there are really only so many places to go and there is one map with solid lines and colors and only so many directions. You have little responsibility once you get on except to remember when to get off. I spent a fourth of my time in Chicago on trains and buses, and walking short distances, and count all of it as seeing the city. Thank you for keeping me still and taking me places.
things that keep you warm
Tea. How the flavors can be a intricate mix of spices and things but still taste smooth and simple, and thereby, comforting. How it holds lovely things like milk and honey and sugar. Fireplaces, books by the fireplace, and winter music like RHCP's By The Way and Radiohead's In Rainbows and The Cure's Disintegration. Large groups of people you love in one place. Coffeeshops. Winter accessories that you lose, mourn, and never quite replace. Blankets borrowed from friends. Hot pies.
the uniqueness of people
As I re-meet old friends and make new ones, I find each one to be irreplaceable. It's overwhelming to think of what each one offers, how each person gives me something different and compels to give them something different. I miss my friends from home. I miss how Victoria is part of home, how Aud understands my introversion, how Tanvi laughs at everything and makes me laugh at everything, how Kristina speaks with a fiery passion that somehow brings out her core gentle kindness, how Sarah lets me be whatever I feel like. I miss my college friends. I miss Andrea's questions and listening, Jackie's genuine caring of everyone, Jen's sensibility to things around her, Amy's honesty, Melkis's quick propensity to laugh and cry, Steph's warmth, Chris's elusiveness, Henry's love which he extends so naturally, Frank's contagious positivity, Courtney's love of quality things like NYC and coffee. Hi Albert, I miss you too and your empathy. On Thanksgiving break I missed my classmates--Allison squatting in my room and how easy it is to talk to her about whatever, Bibhav's silliness cheering me without fail, Don's nightly milk stops and how he seems to appreciate those few minutes, how Guson both echoes my thoughts and makes me consider new things, Macdale's tangible humor, my awesome PCC group. And everyone I see in class and don't even talk to regularly, I missed them too. Thank you for Andy and Connie and Gina who I saw in Chicago and make me think once people enter your life they stay in some form. And I miss you; I think I will always miss you. You are in everything beautiful, and there is much beautiful.
having things to miss
Thank you for things and people so worthwhile that I consciously miss them.
yale
Thank you for keeping me busy and fulfilled but not too stressed, for being an unexpected fit. You're not without your flaws but neither am I and I think we understand each other okay. Thank you for making me feel this is a privilege and that I need to keep deserving it each day, and understanding when I can't quite do it because I'm a bum. Thank you for the amazing financial aid that makes me fear less postgraduate debt and gives me some leeway to pursue what I want.
loves
Thank you for the joys and pains of the first, and for the formless idea of an unknown second. Thank you for the constant ones: Mom, Dad, Hoang, Bao, Duy and Binh (all the names for those of you who try to remember those brothers of mine)--for how I don't have to miss you because you always feel close.
my memory
I know it makes me think too much and things linger longer than they should and it makes things hard for me. But thank you for letting me keep everything in one place.
I feel the need to say thank you rather than to just give thanks, just because it's nice to think of directing all this toward someone/something. To think that there's something out there enveloping the thanks we give, like the catcher in the rye that Holden Caufield imagines catching those bodies as they're thrown. Some things for you to catch.
I am glad for:
public transportation
It's not so alarming to get lost on a subway, because there are really only so many places to go and there is one map with solid lines and colors and only so many directions. You have little responsibility once you get on except to remember when to get off. I spent a fourth of my time in Chicago on trains and buses, and walking short distances, and count all of it as seeing the city. Thank you for keeping me still and taking me places.
things that keep you warm
Tea. How the flavors can be a intricate mix of spices and things but still taste smooth and simple, and thereby, comforting. How it holds lovely things like milk and honey and sugar. Fireplaces, books by the fireplace, and winter music like RHCP's By The Way and Radiohead's In Rainbows and The Cure's Disintegration. Large groups of people you love in one place. Coffeeshops. Winter accessories that you lose, mourn, and never quite replace. Blankets borrowed from friends. Hot pies.
the uniqueness of people
As I re-meet old friends and make new ones, I find each one to be irreplaceable. It's overwhelming to think of what each one offers, how each person gives me something different and compels to give them something different. I miss my friends from home. I miss how Victoria is part of home, how Aud understands my introversion, how Tanvi laughs at everything and makes me laugh at everything, how Kristina speaks with a fiery passion that somehow brings out her core gentle kindness, how Sarah lets me be whatever I feel like. I miss my college friends. I miss Andrea's questions and listening, Jackie's genuine caring of everyone, Jen's sensibility to things around her, Amy's honesty, Melkis's quick propensity to laugh and cry, Steph's warmth, Chris's elusiveness, Henry's love which he extends so naturally, Frank's contagious positivity, Courtney's love of quality things like NYC and coffee. Hi Albert, I miss you too and your empathy. On Thanksgiving break I missed my classmates--Allison squatting in my room and how easy it is to talk to her about whatever, Bibhav's silliness cheering me without fail, Don's nightly milk stops and how he seems to appreciate those few minutes, how Guson both echoes my thoughts and makes me consider new things, Macdale's tangible humor, my awesome PCC group. And everyone I see in class and don't even talk to regularly, I missed them too. Thank you for Andy and Connie and Gina who I saw in Chicago and make me think once people enter your life they stay in some form. And I miss you; I think I will always miss you. You are in everything beautiful, and there is much beautiful.
having things to miss
Thank you for things and people so worthwhile that I consciously miss them.
yale
Thank you for keeping me busy and fulfilled but not too stressed, for being an unexpected fit. You're not without your flaws but neither am I and I think we understand each other okay. Thank you for making me feel this is a privilege and that I need to keep deserving it each day, and understanding when I can't quite do it because I'm a bum. Thank you for the amazing financial aid that makes me fear less postgraduate debt and gives me some leeway to pursue what I want.
loves
Thank you for the joys and pains of the first, and for the formless idea of an unknown second. Thank you for the constant ones: Mom, Dad, Hoang, Bao, Duy and Binh (all the names for those of you who try to remember those brothers of mine)--for how I don't have to miss you because you always feel close.
my memory
I know it makes me think too much and things linger longer than they should and it makes things hard for me. But thank you for letting me keep everything in one place.
I feel the need to say thank you rather than to just give thanks, just because it's nice to think of directing all this toward someone/something. To think that there's something out there enveloping the thanks we give, like the catcher in the rye that Holden Caufield imagines catching those bodies as they're thrown. Some things for you to catch.
Monday, November 5, 2007
afternoon
It was a mildly cold, sunny day and after just two hours of class, lunch and errands, a long Monday afternoon stretched its limbs for me to follow. I packed my bookbag and walked down York Street with Radiohead's newest because I'm addicted; it's so delicious. The up and down I routinely take on York reminds me of how we felt like we'd been in Luang Prabang (Laos) forever because there's one main street and we walked it multiple times a day. The intersection with Elm Street reminds me a little of Cambridge, with Au Bon Pain on the corner and the expanse of brick becoming evident as you stand in the middle, a triangular intersection on your left and half of a cross on your right. I saw several girls wearing brown knee high boots. I have fond memories of Amy and I finding ours for $30 at a Nine West outlet in Atlantic City.
I went to Koffee Too to study. I don't like its structure--two adjacent rectangles separated by a wall--as much as Koffee which has two adjacent squares flowing into one another (more angles but open ones so that it feels like one big place with lots of corners). I usually choose it over Koffee for proximity's sake, but today it was also for the busy street view.
I ordered almond steamed milk but the order was wrong and they gave me peppermint instead. I told the guy it was okay and that I'd try something new. I've only had vanilla and almond before, and peppermint wasn't better than those, but it made me want to try all the flavors (there's maybe thirty). Which I can probably do because I always get steamed milk. I thought about how Toscanini's has closed in Harvard Square and how I can never get Vietnamese coffee (coffee with condensed milk, lovingly sweet so you don't need extra sugar) from there again. Steamed milk, which is also warm and sweet, isn't better or worse, just different.
I opened my biochemistry text and began reading about glycolysis, which we started learning a couple weeks ago (um, I'm just a little behind). I've tried looking at it before but it all seemed like mindless mechanism and I didn't think there was any point in memorizing details I'll just forget. But our biochem conferences have been pretty interesting and I find myself with a funny desire to want to understand conceptually the breakdown of glucose and all the related processes. Today it fell into place more and I decided that glycolysis (and all the pathways we've learned since) is an acquired taste, and I believe in letting things grow on you (probably because I'm the type of person who needs to grow on people). There's certain satisfaction in being able to follow a system. I read in more detail about how glucose synthesis isn't the exact opposite of glucose breakdown because breakdown requires some irreversible reactions. You can't just go back; to make glucose you have get around those irreversibilities, make up some new reactions. And there are all sorts of ways your body tells you to make or break down sugar. It's pretty cool.
I took breaks to read Kafka on the Shore, which came in my mail today. Haruki Murakami is like an old friend, immediately comforting. His language pulls you in so swiftly, you don't even notice except that so suddenly you realize you're content. The main character in the book runs away to Takamatsu, on the island of Shikoku: "Shikoku, I decide. That's where I'll go. There's no particular reason it has to be Shikoku, only that studying the map I got the feeling that's where I should head. The more I look at the map--actually every time I study it--I got the feeling that's where I should head. It's far south of Tokyo, separated from the mainland by water, with a warm climate. I've never been there, have no friends or relatives there, so if somebody started looking for me--which I kind of doubt--Shikoku would be the last place they'd think of."
During my solitary trek south to get to Aud's island this past summer, I went to Takamatsu and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip, partly because I felt the most alone there than anywhere else. From my journal that day: "The train getting here was shaky and lacked signs. Getting off at a station, there was one person manning a run-down booth...The train only comes every half hour. It might be the typhoon but everything is empty and desolate, and the air is a bit ominous. I found groves and a small nursery on my hunt for bonsai. There's almost no one around, and the landscape here is so different. Very few buildings. Just sharply shingled rooftops, train tracks, narrow streets, and green and brown, plant and dirt."
While studying, an English teacher began holding office hours with her students at the table next to me. It was so representative of the kind of meetings I'd have back in college. I miss the kind of thoughts that writing essays forces you to consider and develop, but am also glad that I'm free to think without need to commit to a structure and thesis. I eavesdropped on two different students' ideas for their papers (the role of women in proposal scenes in The Importance of Earnest and how language interacts with social context of separate plays) before I decided I needed to move if I wanted to study anything.
I moved to a window-side cushy chair and while I got some work done, I found that my studying requires a hard surface and space to spread my things. It wasn't too long after that that I headed back to campus, darker out now, especially with daylight savings disappearing. Another day over that in retrospect, will be the filler between significant events, but that in the moment is all you have.
I went to Koffee Too to study. I don't like its structure--two adjacent rectangles separated by a wall--as much as Koffee which has two adjacent squares flowing into one another (more angles but open ones so that it feels like one big place with lots of corners). I usually choose it over Koffee for proximity's sake, but today it was also for the busy street view.
I ordered almond steamed milk but the order was wrong and they gave me peppermint instead. I told the guy it was okay and that I'd try something new. I've only had vanilla and almond before, and peppermint wasn't better than those, but it made me want to try all the flavors (there's maybe thirty). Which I can probably do because I always get steamed milk. I thought about how Toscanini's has closed in Harvard Square and how I can never get Vietnamese coffee (coffee with condensed milk, lovingly sweet so you don't need extra sugar) from there again. Steamed milk, which is also warm and sweet, isn't better or worse, just different.
I opened my biochemistry text and began reading about glycolysis, which we started learning a couple weeks ago (um, I'm just a little behind). I've tried looking at it before but it all seemed like mindless mechanism and I didn't think there was any point in memorizing details I'll just forget. But our biochem conferences have been pretty interesting and I find myself with a funny desire to want to understand conceptually the breakdown of glucose and all the related processes. Today it fell into place more and I decided that glycolysis (and all the pathways we've learned since) is an acquired taste, and I believe in letting things grow on you (probably because I'm the type of person who needs to grow on people). There's certain satisfaction in being able to follow a system. I read in more detail about how glucose synthesis isn't the exact opposite of glucose breakdown because breakdown requires some irreversible reactions. You can't just go back; to make glucose you have get around those irreversibilities, make up some new reactions. And there are all sorts of ways your body tells you to make or break down sugar. It's pretty cool.
I took breaks to read Kafka on the Shore, which came in my mail today. Haruki Murakami is like an old friend, immediately comforting. His language pulls you in so swiftly, you don't even notice except that so suddenly you realize you're content. The main character in the book runs away to Takamatsu, on the island of Shikoku: "Shikoku, I decide. That's where I'll go. There's no particular reason it has to be Shikoku, only that studying the map I got the feeling that's where I should head. The more I look at the map--actually every time I study it--I got the feeling that's where I should head. It's far south of Tokyo, separated from the mainland by water, with a warm climate. I've never been there, have no friends or relatives there, so if somebody started looking for me--which I kind of doubt--Shikoku would be the last place they'd think of."
During my solitary trek south to get to Aud's island this past summer, I went to Takamatsu and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip, partly because I felt the most alone there than anywhere else. From my journal that day: "The train getting here was shaky and lacked signs. Getting off at a station, there was one person manning a run-down booth...The train only comes every half hour. It might be the typhoon but everything is empty and desolate, and the air is a bit ominous. I found groves and a small nursery on my hunt for bonsai. There's almost no one around, and the landscape here is so different. Very few buildings. Just sharply shingled rooftops, train tracks, narrow streets, and green and brown, plant and dirt."
While studying, an English teacher began holding office hours with her students at the table next to me. It was so representative of the kind of meetings I'd have back in college. I miss the kind of thoughts that writing essays forces you to consider and develop, but am also glad that I'm free to think without need to commit to a structure and thesis. I eavesdropped on two different students' ideas for their papers (the role of women in proposal scenes in The Importance of Earnest and how language interacts with social context of separate plays) before I decided I needed to move if I wanted to study anything.
I moved to a window-side cushy chair and while I got some work done, I found that my studying requires a hard surface and space to spread my things. It wasn't too long after that that I headed back to campus, darker out now, especially with daylight savings disappearing. Another day over that in retrospect, will be the filler between significant events, but that in the moment is all you have.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
hunger
I'm always hungry. It's not always I'm-starving and it's not like I can't go without food during my cravings. Sometimes it's just a slight hollow that shifts to different areas of my stomach and mind, making me think I'd like something sweet one moment, salty the next, ooh maybe sweet and salty.
Today I told Albert that I think I'm leptin-deficient with a super metabolism (kidding, but this is a scientific possibility no?). Leptin is related to satiety; without it you feel hungry even after eating and this can lead to obesity. He said that in this case I should be grateful for my deficiency because without it my super metabolism would kill me. I hadn't considered that. My abnormalities, a lack of one thing and an excess of another, balance each other. The fetal heart comes to mind again, how sometimes when you have multiple defects, one abnormality keeps you alive in the presence of another. Science is an endless source of unoriginal analogies and I've been studying all day, somewhat to catch up and mostly to be alone.
Also today I told D that he's peculiar, not so much because his individual qualities are peculiar but because the combination of them is. All this got me thinking about qualities in general, how they communicate and interact within a person.
People always say that when you arrive to a new place, you can reinvent yourself, offer whatever representation of yourself that you'd like. But we also know that even if you attempt that, you inevitably fall back into yourself. I've been lucky to grow up appreciating what I can offer and also knowing full well the wide expanse for improvement, and being comfortable with both.
But with each new place, there is still that inner desire to transition from quiet to loud. I use these terms not to necessarily describe literal volume, but more as a way to classify people whose selves come across with ease (loud), versus people whose selves are below the surface (quiet). And this doesn't correlate to superficial versus deep. There are people who are deep that immediately come across that way, and I'd classify them as loud.
The process of knowing yourself and other people here has been interesting, because it's a dynamic I haven't encountered before. A hundred of us, with the same schedule and routine of work and play, half of us living and eating in the same space, the other half barely dispersed in a two-mile radius from the rest. There's only so much room for difference in what we do, and maybe because of that, there's also a lot of space to draw upon individual characters and qualities. You see yourself being unravelled and digested by other people in the same way that people have unravelled and digested you before. There are the few more invested encounters that have their unique nuances but where you place among the larger population often follows a similar pattern.
Here I'm one of many because I'm from California and went to Harvard. Here I'm distinct for being an English major and the only Vietnamese girl. Most everyone knows these superficial details, and while they're superficial, it's nice that we know them about each other. It's nice to have a baseline, so that certain things come across despite quietness. And though I feel the time may have passed to get past baseline with some because friends have formed and niches carved, there are many opportunities for those things beyond baseline to come across.
Even with the potential, there sometimes feels like something is missing, something I can't quite share because of my quietness. Because of the stillness that arises from fierce deficiencies and stormy excesses. Maybe it's not solely me. Maybe the quiet of connection is the result of not just my own quietness but of a serendipitous balance between the quirks of interaction. One means of communication working in high gear masks the inability of another to function, leaving a neutral line of understanding. Maybe the intricate compromise struck between abnormalities and oddities within a single person is also characteristic of interaction among people, lying in the space in between. The only way you can tell if this is true is if you feel that slight hollow that's fed and then needs to be fed again.
Today I told Albert that I think I'm leptin-deficient with a super metabolism (kidding, but this is a scientific possibility no?). Leptin is related to satiety; without it you feel hungry even after eating and this can lead to obesity. He said that in this case I should be grateful for my deficiency because without it my super metabolism would kill me. I hadn't considered that. My abnormalities, a lack of one thing and an excess of another, balance each other. The fetal heart comes to mind again, how sometimes when you have multiple defects, one abnormality keeps you alive in the presence of another. Science is an endless source of unoriginal analogies and I've been studying all day, somewhat to catch up and mostly to be alone.
Also today I told D that he's peculiar, not so much because his individual qualities are peculiar but because the combination of them is. All this got me thinking about qualities in general, how they communicate and interact within a person.
People always say that when you arrive to a new place, you can reinvent yourself, offer whatever representation of yourself that you'd like. But we also know that even if you attempt that, you inevitably fall back into yourself. I've been lucky to grow up appreciating what I can offer and also knowing full well the wide expanse for improvement, and being comfortable with both.
But with each new place, there is still that inner desire to transition from quiet to loud. I use these terms not to necessarily describe literal volume, but more as a way to classify people whose selves come across with ease (loud), versus people whose selves are below the surface (quiet). And this doesn't correlate to superficial versus deep. There are people who are deep that immediately come across that way, and I'd classify them as loud.
The process of knowing yourself and other people here has been interesting, because it's a dynamic I haven't encountered before. A hundred of us, with the same schedule and routine of work and play, half of us living and eating in the same space, the other half barely dispersed in a two-mile radius from the rest. There's only so much room for difference in what we do, and maybe because of that, there's also a lot of space to draw upon individual characters and qualities. You see yourself being unravelled and digested by other people in the same way that people have unravelled and digested you before. There are the few more invested encounters that have their unique nuances but where you place among the larger population often follows a similar pattern.
Here I'm one of many because I'm from California and went to Harvard. Here I'm distinct for being an English major and the only Vietnamese girl. Most everyone knows these superficial details, and while they're superficial, it's nice that we know them about each other. It's nice to have a baseline, so that certain things come across despite quietness. And though I feel the time may have passed to get past baseline with some because friends have formed and niches carved, there are many opportunities for those things beyond baseline to come across.
Even with the potential, there sometimes feels like something is missing, something I can't quite share because of my quietness. Because of the stillness that arises from fierce deficiencies and stormy excesses. Maybe it's not solely me. Maybe the quiet of connection is the result of not just my own quietness but of a serendipitous balance between the quirks of interaction. One means of communication working in high gear masks the inability of another to function, leaving a neutral line of understanding. Maybe the intricate compromise struck between abnormalities and oddities within a single person is also characteristic of interaction among people, lying in the space in between. The only way you can tell if this is true is if you feel that slight hollow that's fed and then needs to be fed again.
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