December 5, 2013

  • It’s been such a busy year! And I have been contemplating what I should post about for my official first post on Xanga 2.0. I felt like it should be something important, so I felt kind of lost wavering on what was worthy of a first post…though technically I still have all my hundreds of posts from before.

    Do people still post/read here though? Or is it ghost town-y? >_<! I'm not a huge fan of this whole wordpress-thing…haven't really had the luxury to explore how it works. :/

    I feel like I've lost all my ability to articulate properly "in real life" (though I technically count internet as "IRL" since what I post here is in fact real experiences, and the friends I've met are real too – I hope!), because currently I spend most of my writing time working on patient notes…"Patient is a x-years old fe\male with a past medical history of…Patient stated…patient reports that…patient described…on examination it was found that…". I'm currently on my primary care rotation which has been okayish. Some days are awful – I had a couple bad days when I did not feel like I connected well with patients (i.e. patients who were coming in only for lab work, so there wasn't much to talk about, or impatient patients – fancy that!), but then other days are a lot better.

    Honestly, I'm feeling a little worn out from primary care. One of my preceptors/attendings is kind of slow moving (and so am I), so we get behind with patients; so instead of working on notes in the clinic and making them wait, I try to see the patients back to back. But that means I have to take almost all of patient notes home to write. And I like to spend a lot of time on my notes, besides being detail oriented, because then whoever sees them next will have a clearer idea of how they were when they saw me, or what concerns the patient had, and thus to see if they got better at all. A lot of notes I have read from previous people just weren't as clear or helpful, so I prefer to spend the time so that hopefully it will benefit the patient later on. But it is exhausting, because then I am in clinic from about 8AM until 5-7PM (depends), and then I spend a couple more hours writing notes, and then I need to study still on top of that, and then sleep/eat/take care of whatever other thing in life.

    But this week was refreshing. I had my women's health week this week. And although I'm not particularly interested in "women’s health” in the sense of wanting to OB/GYN – I haven’t ruled it out, but I also don’t have it high on my fields of interest. But anyways, Monday was kind of meh, but Tuesday and Wednesday were really nice. Tuesday I got to go to Moffitt Cancer center and scrubbed in on a few cases with Dr. Laronga. I mostly just observed, and did a little retracting and knot cutting, nothing fancy, but it was very interesting nonetheless…

    (Digression, but relevant:) While I was on my surgery rotation (which, by the way, I LOVED) I got to scrub in on a mastectomy/reconstruction. I got to help out a fair amount, because there was no resident helping out with the reconstruction portion of the case, but as for the mastectomy portion, I felt kind of stressed out/dissatisfied with the results…I felt like the surgeons rushed it a too much and didn’t really do a great/clean appearing job…and then the plastic surgeon was in a rush because he was running late for an unspecified planned event, so though he was annoyed at the mediocre mastectomy, he didn’t really try to fix their work. He kind of brushed it off because the patient was getting tissue expanders and was going to have to come back in a few months for revision anyways. So when he finished, her breasts looked pretty uneven and quite lumpy. I was pretty upset with how they finished it, but I’m not really in any place to say anything – and I didn’t really know any better since it had been the first mastectomy/reconstruction I had seen, so I didn’t know if maybe that was just the best that they could do?

    One of the other surgeons that works at Moffitt and is one of our professors once said (paraphrased) – “you should treat patients as you would like your mother to be treated” – and watching how careful Dr. Laronga and her fellow were with the patients at Moffitt was just so much more reassuring than what I saw at TGH. Sure, there are so many excuses that one might argue: Moffitt is also has a much better reputation than TGH and is also specifically a cancer center, TGH is a teaching hospital, the surgeons at TGH were general+plastics whereas at Moffitt the surgeons performing the surgery were surgical oncologist specializing in the breast, and the patient population that goes to Moffitt has better insurance, but still. It is frustrating to see the disparity between the results when you hope to work under the previously paraphrased mantra. It isn’t even just a cosmetic concern, but also health: it was important to have removed all the breast tissue during the mastectomy because of possibility of recurrence…

    Then Wednesday I got to work again with Dr. Laronga, except this time in her breast clinic – where we see patients being consulted for surgery, or for follow up. Again, the compassion she demonstrated towards her patients was remarkable. This topic actually hits very, very close to home because my own mom is a breast cancer survivor. And I feel bad because she was struggling at a time when we were all still very young/in elementary school, so we weren’t with her for her doctors appointments, and I really hope we behaved well enough…my memory from that time is somewhat foggy. And I just hope we were supportive enough…but seeing these women struggling with their diagnosis, prognoses/unknown prognoses, determination, strength, and fear – I wondered how things were for my mom, and just hoped that the doctors that treated her were this kind and reassuring to here. I just hoped. And it was so evident by the end of each visit that all these women felt better – maybe not about their prognoses (Dr. L always was frank) – but comforted because they felt safe knowing they were in good caring hands. And the confidence the women had in her, and the compassion that she demonstrated…I just felt so overwhelmed emotionally because I desperately hoped that that was how my mom was treated; and I hope so much that that is the sort of doctor I can one day be.

    It’s just such a struggle though – medicine is adulterated by money (often run as a business, sadly…but then there are problems like insurance, law suits, etc.), bureaucracy (hugely inefficient in so many ways),…I’m scared that people will get lost in those factors and forget the people they are treating.

June 16, 2013

  • Father’s day + Xanga thoughts

    First and foremost, happy Father’s Day :) !

    While I agree that we technically celebrate our loved ones everyday, it doesn’t hurt to have an official day of celebration to remind us not to take that which we love for granted.  Over the past year-or-two, I discovered a passion for cooking and obsession with food.  I can’t say my waistline appreciates it, but I’ve also been trying to delve more into healthier foods (i.e. increasing fiber/whole grain intake; more veggies).  So, when my parents, sister, and I were trying to decide what to do for Father’s day (my sister happened to be visiting home since a friend of ours got married recently, and I live close enough to home that I could visit to celebrate; my brother is off on an outdoors retreat, so he couldn’t make it bummed), they initially decided to come visit me Saturday and visit a beach.  But the weather was dismal and my mom didn’t feel well, so they postponed the visit until today for lunch.  So to make the drive worthy and also because I enjoy cooking, I decided to create a small feast for the four of us!

    Pardon me, I’m still in my ‘jammies. 

    I started prepping on Friday (since I thought they were coming Saturday) by starting with dessert (my fav, of course silly):

    I had to make sure each layer could set, which means a lot of waiting time in between.  This is a dessert consisting of a chocolate mousse, strawberry gelée, and a vanilla yogurt panna cotta (reduce the amount of cream needed :D ) over a hazelnut crust

    It’s actually a hash-up of many recipes I liked into one dessert (see links for what inspired me; I’ve tried the first three recipes, but only the crust for the last one) because my Dad loves chocolate, and I love Neapolitan ice cream, so why not find a middle ground?  Plus, it is a good way to reduce monotony with so many different textures and flavors that actually work well together.

    I then spent Saturday doing whatever prep work I could do for Sunday, so that means baking a cake and making some beet pasta (my first time working with beets.  And that’s when I realized – I’ve never been able to describe the smell of rain, but it is always distinct – but now I finally knew how I could describe it – rain smells like beets!  Or vice versa).

     I was so excited about that discovery that I thrust the beet towards my unassuming boyfriend, who found his nose to be stained by the beetjuice.  I beet my boyfriend.  (Then I baked the beet, and then “beat” the beet…)

    (I absolutely do not condone violence, but how could I resist the pun…).  Anyways, the rest of the lunch consisted of:

     

    Leek and asparagus with salmon (and gnocchi), kale and butternut squash in browned butter, the beet pasta with pumpkin alfredo, bacon and facon wrapped asparagus (mom said the facon was actually pretty good…looking at it makes me worried, but I wanted to cater to her dietary preferences), and a chocolate hazelnut cake!  Tada!  I think I made their drive worth it…oh there was also a squash (which I didn’t try/rarely eat), but I made it because they love veggies. 

     

    Inspired by the Hasselback potatoes, I attempted it on squash (I didn’t want to do too many potatoes since there were already gnocchi…and then I wanted to color/flavor balance it, so I didn’t want to do sweet potatoes, which would be similar to the pumpkin and butternut squash…so yellow/summer squash would serve as a different texture and bright color).

     {All photos taken by my sister heart}

     


    The best photo from the day was this one though:

    My sister managed to capture an adorable picture of my parents in which my dad is genuinely smiling (he frequently does this artificial smile, sort of like how in HIMYM Barney is always ready for pics…sort of anti-candid photos.):

    Not to mention he’s wearing one of the shirts I got him for Father’s day a few years ago (a Threadless shirt with the big dipper on it, since he used to always take us stargazing heart).  {And I definitely inherited the sweet tooth from him.} :)


    Xanga

    I’ve been mulling over the imminent deadline for supporting Xanga, and decided to go ahead and pledge to support.  I’m worried though – the numbers have kind of plateaued, so maybe it won’t survive [???].  I’ve been reading some posts about Xanga, and it feels almost like a Titanic moment, where the boat is sinking slowly, and we’re all waiting to see what happens.  I really want it to survive – kind of a combo of understanding that it is a tight-knit community, nostalgia, and being super sentimental.  I feel some culpability too, because I think a lot of Xangans like myself have probably taken it for granted that Xanga would be around for us even if we were no longer super active…but in reality, the up-keeping requires active members, revenue, and so many other things.  And at the same time, I don’t like the sound of Xanga 2.0…WordPress?  It just seems so weird to me.  Like it’s not Xanga if it is hosted on WordPress…it is WordPress in disguise of Xanga?  And I have the dilemma of multiple usernames…I kind of want to keep them all alive, but there is no way – I don’t have the means (I have at least 14 old Xanga accounts that I just like looking at from time to time, re-living old memories, inside jokes, some shared with friends, some “secret” Xangas from teenage days, memories that I have long forgotten…) – I wouldn’t even have an idea on which one I should preserve.  Sure, I have the archives downloaded, but it just doesn’t have the same feel as seeing it with the layout, and being able to visit old abandoned sites belonging to friends…It’s just all very different.  But Xanga 2.0 doesn’t really preserve all that entirely either.  But for now I support because I’m sentimental, maybe a tiny bit hopeful, and because Xanga means a lot to me, and a lot to other people.

    I’m not sure how rational that is.  Thoughts?

June 20, 2012

  • Some thoughts

    Pics by Randall Munroe, and then copied and pasted around by me…(a la). MCOM = Morsani College of Medicine – USF got an endowment by the Morsani’s so they added Morsani to our school name.  The name change was somewhat controversial at our school, but what can I say?

    I arranged the above for a potential class shirt, but it seemed only my close friends liked it; others were less excited.  But it basically encompasses everything my class is known for…we have our athletes, flash mob/dancers, foodies (<3), drinkers (embodied by people with party hats), sleepers, ADD/ADHD/caffeine-overdosed (swivel chair), TV people.  And then the other half of the cycle is us studying and practicing our doctoring skills.  My friends wanted me to make our own shirts since the shirt committee didn’t like it.  So perhaps I’ll get this printed (or try printing it myself!  One of my summer goals was to learn to screen print, but it is a lot of work and a lot of mess…hmm, is it worth it?).

    *   *   *

    I’ve been away for quite a while, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been on occasionally snooping.  O_~ – no worries, I haven’t forgotten Xanga, though perhaps I have forgotten my writing-voice, or how to write in general.  My absence can be accounted for in a simple or complex way.  Simple, being that medical school is basically a blackhole and I somehow made it into the event horizon and now cannot escape its pull (ahhhhhh).  And also complex, in that I’ve been having small internal crises, which I suppose I can elaborate on now. 

    I spent a lot of my younger days being relatively unsocial – not antisocial, but just passively social – social when things were arranged, but mostly just social when at school, or within my nuclear family; I did not venture out too frequently, largely because of a disinterest in being socially assertive, though I had been encouraged to be more assertive (in all walks of life), or at least try to; coupled with a somewhat crippling fear or discomfort with things like talking on the telephone.  [To this day I struggle with those fears; a fear of an unknown voice at the end of a line, fear that my hearing (or lack thereof) would making things awkward, fear of a lack of understanding - for some reason I am terrible with accents, and probably above all a fear of being awkward and inarticulate.  And I hate asking people to repeat themselves, because it seems my hearing just isn't the best; especially when there is a lot of background fuzz.  But I digress.]

    …I became more social after attending Duke TIP summer camps, but my social life shifted towards people online/long distance rather than at home, with maybe one or two exceptions.  But after maybe a year or so of keeping in touch really well with these friends, each year I found my friendships gradually fading, as my friends, and myself became progressively more busy with school work.  After a while, a part of me started to become increasingly detached from people – why?  Year and year again, I would feel a sadness inside at the ebb and flow of friendships that I had felt to be so deep and full of potential.  But a part of me felt that those friendships would end up living in the past, in that we were all long distance and so our friendship circles would be confined to the people from camp, and being young it was hard to arrange to meet up in future/present days.  So even our memories seemed to be a thing of the past.  I let friendships slip away…

    It didn’t help that my first relationship was one that was carried over distance too.  It is true – I learned to communicate more and more, as I found myself increasingly attached; and then things like Xanga helped perpetrate that – I could hear my own voice when I wrote, typed, but when I had to get up and speak, I felt myself lost.  Online, I generously allowed myself whatever time I felt needed to compose my thoughts, to carefully construct my words.  I was happy with my composure.  But in person, I didn’t have that luxury.  Conversations move at a faster pace in person; you have to think quickly and speak up to be heard – you have to pace yourself, otherwise the conversation moves on.  For me, that meant, my voice was often lost.

    Part of me needed to be away from a place of introspection – because sometimes I suspect that when I think too much, and allow myself to worry, I end up making myself more awkward.  Part of me needed to grow up, and learn how to speak in real-time.  But I was torn, because over the years I had developed friendships here on Xanga that I was afraid to lose in my absence.  And I have relied heavily on my journaling to remember past events, chronicling my life (you know, like an external hard drive o_~).  But I needed (and still need) to learn how to interact with people in my normal day-to-day life.

    Part of me felt like I was being cowardly and disappearing under the auspices of being busy with med school: it was 95% truth – school was absolutely consuming for both mind and spirit (psychologically, I was quite shaky from stress); but to say I had no social life, and no time for correspondence would be a lie.  But the above .  I am not entirely sure at the present how much time I will have to post/browse once the school year starts back again – second year is supposed to be kicking first-year up many notches, and at the end of second year I have the biggest test of my life (USMLE Step 1 – it’s probably the biggest thing residency considers since my school is pass/fail/no-grades, so it basically determines what I can do for the rest of my life…besides interviews, letters of rec, etc.), but I’ll be around for the next few weeks.

September 3, 2011

  • school

    Med school started a month ago, and life’s been so busy since…I can honestly say I have never studied this much and this frequently in my life.  I’ve been scared that the amount of studying I’ve been doing would burn me out.  But we have faculty here who remind us we need “mental health time”, time to pass doing things we enjoy outside of our studies. 

    And the folks in my college of med (COM) are quite interesting.  I haven’t met everyone yet, but from what I’ve seen I like everyone  I’ve met.  I’ve met some people and feel so at home with them in these few short weeks.  Family so soon?  Practically…and most of them seem really social too.  I’m amazed at how they’ve balanced their study/fun time, as many of them like to go out for drinks (frequently -_-”).  I’ve gone to a couple social events, but not too many.  With so little time I feel like I’ve been put in a position where I have to start considering what things to keep in my life, and which to cut out.  Like one second year (MSII) told me she gave up TV last year so she could have time to socialize and study.  I really enjoy the TV shows I keep up with though (and the season hasn’t started yet so it hasn’t been a distraction).  Sometimes I feel like TV is one of those easy venues to feel more connected with the world…as odd as it sounds.  It’s just it’s an easy topic to talk about, and it’s easier to identify people with similar senses of humor or interest if they’re interested in some overlapping shows.  That could just me being socially lazy sometimes; but I don’t know, a lot of people do choose their shows according to interest, i.e. HIMYM, is hilarious, but I could see a bunch of hopeless romantics loving it; Big Bang Theory, maybe nerdy kiddos (but still funny if not nerdy), etc. It would be hard for me to give up those shows, but it’s definitely more important to not lose touch of reality and friends over stuff like that (obviously).

    I’ve been mostly trying to keep up with (besides studying): 1) eating (with friends–2 in 1, eat and social), 2) a little exercise (kayak, stretching, maybe soccer, if I can bring myself to play again), 3) creative stuff, whether artsy or cooking/trying-to-bake.  Staying sane!  And a little lurking online :P

     

     

     

    On a more serious note though, it’s amazing how much we learn here…it’s exhilarating and exhausting.

    This summer I visited my grandmother in Taiwan; and she isn’t doing well at all.  In fact, she’s been in a comatose state for over a year due to having undetected and multiple strokes.  Well, she’s been basically paralyzed since then too.  I remember trying to hold her hands, but they were contorted and bent over, as if gripping her fists.  It saddened me, and I had hoped that perhaps I could soften her hands or grip, maybe by warming them–perhaps no one had tried to keep her hands limber by moving them…so maybe I could pry them gently.  But her hands wouldn’t budge.  And I didn’t want to push too hard.  I only had time to visit twice, but both times I tried to keep them warm, and pry gently, but no avail.

    Well, we’ve been learning about the musculoskeletal system, and I learned about something called contractures while learning about muscular dystrophy.  Basically the joint/muscles shorten permanently, i.e. from the muscles being too tight/contracted.  Usually to avoid this physically therapy is required, and it can be relieved only with surgery, but even then it is almost always irreversible.  And the professors (was co-taught by three folks that day) said that once contractures occur, the person is basically doomed.

     

    My heart dropped when I heard that, but I guess it is something I was expecting anyways, depressing as it is. 

    Sometimes I feel like learning more and more means destroying more and more of my childish hopes to heal others; it’s hard to admit defeat, knowing that some things are just irreversible.  So many maladies; many, with so little hope.

    But then there are also many with hope, and that’s just something I’ll have to keep in mind.

June 21, 2011

  • Thessaloniki (1)

    I am studying abroad in Thessaloniki, Greece.  Thessaloniki is Greece’s second largest city, but it is not a major tourist site, as compared to Athens.  The first day when I arrived, the hostel I was staying in was experiencing a black out (I was pretty nervous because my flight came in at around 1:30 AM and I didn’t arrive to the hostel until probably 2 AM) so I thought it might have been closed and I had no idea where I would live; but turns out it was fine, just out of electricity at the moment.  The next stress inducing incident was that in the darkness, I did not see that I did not completely put the key into the lock and I accidentally broke the key.  Oops!  Luckily the hostel-keeper was able to open the door for me (-_-” a little embarrassed).  Jetlagged, I didn’t wake up until late, but awoke to rain and demonstrators/protesters outside marching about.  I waited until both disappeared before venturing out.  I was able to find the water easily:

    The greyness of the evening made the water silvery rather than blue.

    I have since moved from the hostel into an apartment in a slightly different part of Thessaloniki.  I like the location of the hostel better unfortunately. :(   The street I now live on is not as well known, so I’ve had a taxi driver take advantage of that (from my perspective, I think he was genuinely unsure where it was at first, but he asked for directions from another driver and then after being on the main road next to where my small road intersects, he started looping around…a LOT).  Not to mention, it is further away from the living situation of half of the other study abroad students, and further from the area I enjoyed exploring earlier in this trip.

    Class for me starts Thursday, and I’m excited…honestly, I am ready to have a schedule and some regularity in my life.  As fun as being adventurous and free can be, it is exhausting.  I’ve been on the road so long that right now I am reaching a point in which I would like to be settled for a while and curl up somewhere cozy.  Should I leave (i like going on adventures)?

    Unfortunately, my study abroad program JUST began, so right now is that awkward social period when I need to meet people and figure out who I will be hanging out with during the rest of my stay…and once those friend-groups form, it’s just hard to integrate oneself…So I want some peace and alone time, but now is not really the best time; otherwise I might be taken as being withdrawn or uninterested, aloof, etc.  I feel so stressed out…for me, being so social is draining; and I am terrified–terrified that I won’t find my niche on time, terrified that will feel so isolated like I have allowed myself to be in the past, terrified that I might not adjust as well as I will need to be [and even more terrified thinking that in less than 2 months med school will start and I will be in a similar situation all over again with so many new people, new things, new situations ><!  AHHHH...>< >< ><].  I know in a few days I should be a lot happier, I just need to survive and get there.  I just need to bite the bullet.  But honestly, right now I’m pretty unhappy because I feel like I am doing things I don’t want to being doing, but  need to be doing (being social despite being in a slightly anti-social slump; it’s just I’ve been surrounded by so much foreign that I just want to retreat to the comforts of familiarity, which I can’t seem to find here).  There’s a beach day tomorrow, and I am wary of being in the sun too much, given that I will be learning to sail this summer, so I’ll be in the sun quite a bit soon…I’m afraid to be exposed too much.  Plus, I just recently visited a beach:

    I should be more positive, really.  After all, it was a lot of fun.  Cece and I found a dock by the water from which many [local?] boys dove…it was nice until the nice boys left and some creepy boys surrounded us and harassed us: 

    (Cece & me on the dock before the creepy boys hence the happiness :D )

    Cece recognized that they were probably up to no good before I did, so she started walking away thinking I was following behind, but I was slightly inattentive due to being overwhelmed by attempting to be polite by trying to inch away and explaining that I didn’t understand Greek.  I guess for future events I should worry less about manners and be concerned for safety first. ><

    Beyond that, we were able to enjoy the lovely blue/clear waters and chill with a nice strawberry-lemon smoothy in the warm sun and journey back to our apt later. :)   The sun was rather draining, and the journey to the beach rather exhausting (we took the wrong bus on the way there, so we ended up sitting on the bus for an extra hour or so…scenic tour of the city?), so the thought of the transport and the sun makes me a little anxious to be overexposed.  But there are a bunch of water sports available here because the water is so nice…it is tempting but I want to exercise moderation; but I also need to bond with my peers…debate debate.

     

    Today my program took us to Vergina where Philip II (pop of Alexander the Great) was buried.  No cameras were permitted in the museum, so I wasn’t able to snap any shots of the tombs or things excavated with the tombs.  On the way back to our bus though I was able to get a quick shot of the countryside (so beautiful):

    and the flowers:

    As a side note, in transit to the beach I think I saw some poppies in the fields (!!!)…I haven’t seen them except in photos, so I was pretty excited; except I was sad that we were so far from them.  I think poppies are so beautiful…

    That’s about all I have been up to lately (oh, besides trying to scrub the shit out of my bathroom!!!  Upon arrival I noticed the curtain was moldy, so me and Cece removed it; but upon closer inspection there is mold all over our bathroom…so gross. :( ).  So I guess I’ll debate beach day in my head tomorrow/today…sigh.

    Positive, positive, positive!  That is what I need to be…maybe it’s been my deprivation from music?  In an effort to be social, I haven’t had my earbuds plugged in…[also, I forgot my beloved headphones in California :( ...I think my parents brought it home?].

June 11, 2011

  • *<|:D

    Summer birthdays are so frequently forgotten…it’s just so easy to lose track of the date with no solid schedule.  But that’s no excuse for good friends.

    Dear Morgie,

    Happy Birthday! 

    With much Xanga-love.heart

June 10, 2011

  • (:

    Saw in person my first Xangan today, Nick! :) (besides people I knew before finding them on Xanga).

    I forgot to snap a picture, and I realized shamefully that if I don’t write or don’t take pictures, my memory is often faulty (regardless if I care or not, it just seems deficient when it comes to events -_-”…I am not sure why I fail so…).  So here’s a little tribute to today’s lovely adventures + recap of my day.

    So my day started off being very pathetic…I awoke and grumbled about the time while answering a call from my dad needing my mom’s flight information (groggy and slightly grouchy some mornings…today was one of them).  Yesterday, I had visited a bakery, Tartines, with my sister and a park, Dolores.  I bought her a pastry with pepper and Gruyere cheese, which is her fav and a buttermilk currant scone (it had sugar crystals on it…and I basically love most sweets with sugar crystals…couldn’t help it!).  So since she ate her pastry, she wheedled for me to buy her one to replace it for our upcoming trip.  So today my plan was to revisit Tartines and buy one and then visit the park again.  Well, it was close to noon, so I did not want to leave for fear that Tartines would be super crowded since it was lunch time, and not wanting to hangout in the noon sun…so I decided to delay my trip for a few hours.

    How did I spend that time?  I had already finished catching up with Big Bang Theory and HIMYM, so I was kind of stumped.  Then I saw this ridiculous video with dancing gnome looking people and ended up watching YouTube video upon YouTube video of America Got Talent.  The pathetic part is that I saw some incredible videos that caused me to tear up–some because of the performance, and some because of the sheer happiness of the contestants at being accepted.  Then suddenly I got a call from Nick saying he wasn’t too far/if I still wanted to hangout.  Yay!  I was pretty excited, probably the most happy I have been since being in SF besides when I first saw my sister. 

    I’m not really too familiar with the area, so when he arrived we stopped by Tartines since I needed to grab a pastry for my sis; and I grabbed a scone for Nick because I thought it was pretty fantastic the day before (nom nom!) and we swung by the park briefly too since I knew at least it’d be pretty.  After returning we chatted a bit more before going to visit my sister working at Facebook!  The traffic was horrific on the way there (ugh…o_o), horrible in a small-town-person-wouldn’t-understand-way, though visiting large cities had prepped me for it (but that doesn’t take away from the aversion towards traffic…meh).  After we arrived, we found my sis and got a little introduction to some of her co-workers and then toured the two campuses briefly.  I was excited about all the Magritte references found around Facebook since he was one of my favorite artists (!).  Got a glimpse of Mark Zuckerberg from afar too.  :O  I was pretty excited about being in such a nerdy environment as a whole. :3  Yay…but unfortunately my sis said since they’re relocating a lot of the cool stuff has already been removed.  :.  We then ate dinner which was quite scrumptious (I guess Indonesian food?).  I was particularly excited about my sparking apple juice and the fried tofu they had and some of their rice (with coconut stuff in it??  Reminded me of Thai food, nom nom!). [wait...did my sister just chuckle in her sleep?...updating in the dark >_>]  Then we bounced back to San Fran, but took a different and much prettier (and faster) route. :D   It was gorgeous…so many hills…it’s nice seeing topography, especially coming from Florida where it is flat as a pancake.  D:!  We hardly even have hills, it seems; though we should since we should have some karst topography with our groundwater/aquifer/sinkhole/limestone/etc…(?)..or maybe it’s just flat where I’m from (well, in Marion County, apparently our highest landmark was our landfill…fail -__-”).

    (:

     

    I chatted briefly with my sis’s roommates after getting home again; two of which are doctors :3 (!).  But then I got tired and went to hide out in her room, doing a combination of packing and laying plastered to the floor.  (Yes, pathetic -_-”)…I guess sleep calls now, since we need to catch Caltrain [?] and BART to find our aunt tomorrow to hitchhike to LA. :) …zzz.

    P.S. Xanga rearranged my tags alphabetically when I hit edit :D !  And it removed my exclamation marks censored

June 3, 2011

  • mini update

    It’s been a long time since I have updated–I didn’t realize how much time had elapsed since my last post. o_________o

    Taiwan = land of the good food, whether it is Asian or non-Asian food… 

    I had this marshmallow-y delight while grabbing dessert + juice with my aunt, cousin Aileen, and mom.  It was sort of chewy with fruits embedded…if only I remembered the name of the coffee shop or the dessert. -___-.  I have more pics to share of scrumptious and beautiful food, but most are on my mom’s camera, still in Taiwan.  I left a little earlier so I could visit my sister in San Francisco before heading to LA for a wedding.  I’m a little anxious about jetlag because I had just finally fully adjusted to Taiwan time…so first I had to change to 12 hours different from eastern time to get to Taiwan; then now I’m in California, so I’m 3 hours behind eastern time.  Soon, I will be going to Greece which is maybe 7 hours ahead of eastern time?  My circadian rhythm = amok.

    {This is what I always think about when I think of jetlag…thank you Randall Munroe <3}

    Random thing I noticed: In Taiwan, instead of giving people jobs waving flags for construction areas, they created moving mannequins that wave the flags:

    I guess in the long run this would save them money (over having to hire someone to wave it), and possibly be safer too.  Though I guess the dummy can’t direct traffic, only create awareness…so no worries, robots haven’t taken over yet :) !

    During one of our excursions from Taipei, I visited Tainan with my mom, where an “aunt” hosted us.  One of the notable sites she brought us to was of this abandoned house that got swallowed by trees:

    It was an awesome place, though apparently kids generally love it (in the old days there weren’t boardwalks or stairs so kids were allowed to run around anywhere and climb everything), but adults find it either boring or creepy.  Guess I’m still somewhat of a kid at heart.  :)

    *  *  *  *  *

    So, overall it was a nice trip.  It was basically a mom-and-daughter outing to Taiwan so we could visit my grandma and other relatives; also my mom has a 30-year  :3 reunion to attend.  Right now my grandma is not doing well; basically, she had a series of strokes a couple of years ago that went unnoticed and therefore untreated–the people caring for her simply thought her memory was just deteriorating quickly; they didn’t think much of it assuming she was just getting old… ><, and I guess she wasn’t able to say what was going on either.  So now she is actually in a coma-like state.  :(   We were wondering if she recognized my mom’s voice though…because whenever my mother spoke to her, tears welled up and dripped.  But we were wondering if that was just coincidence an her eyes needed to be moisturized, or if it was a sign of recognition.  I sat and accompanied her for maybe 30 minutes and there were no tears until my mom returned from visiting her brother next door…so I kind of suspect slight recognition, on a very basic level.  She is largely paralyzed though, so it is hard to really know anything. ><…it is a very sad state to see her in.  She is tube fed too…no living-will was established though, so we do not know what she would have wanted done with her in this state.  Though apparently she has been largely paralyzed and coma-like for over 1.5 years at this point…Personally, I would not like for my “life” to be perpetrated by a tube as such.  And even if she could awake and she wouldn’t return to her old self (which, I heard she had a brain scan that showed many many areas no longer work)…but no agreement can be come to in the family as to what to do.  I guess some of them want to take away the tube, and others want it to persist, arguing that they can’t stand to starve their mother.  {But it’s not like they visit her much in this state either…so even if she was just paralyzed and thus unable to speak, she is probably bored and lonely with just an aid and a radio…}.

     

    On a brighter note, I felt happy because I was able to see other sides of my mom–her interaction with some of her siblings and friends.  One of the things I love doing is just listening to conversations, esp. of my parents because they’re pretty interesting people, and so are their friends.  Plus, my parents didn’t really tell us a lot about their lives growing up, though we have asked.  So this was a good way to get some insight on that.  (Wish they would have told me more!  I felt like I learned a lot on this trip).  I found that my uncle (mom’s younger bro) is quite funny in many ways, one of which is how thrifty/cheap he can be (hard to describe, or rather hard to explain how it’s funny).  :)   And then I found out one of my aunts is just like my grandma (dad’s side) in one way: whenever she has to exercise she complains about things like headaches…but when brought to a mall she is as lively as ever (good way to sneak some exercise/movement in?).  Hehe. :) …ahh, family.

    More on Taiwan later, when I get access to mom’s camera. :) (~1 week?)

    I think I might go hit up a concert…Free concert Amoeba music of Architecture in Helsinki!  Not sure what the protocol for free shows is, i.e. if I need a ticket/voucher or anything or if I just go?  Also, not sure how to get there, so I’ll need some time to figure that up. :)

March 19, 2011

  • Musings

    So while gardening the other day, I was wondering to myself–why do I like working outdoors so much?  A couple ideas that came to mind:

    • Fresh air
    • Nature
    • Vibrant colors

    But then I thought some more, and was able to draw a few parallels between gardening and my aspirations to be a doctor…

    A gardener and a doctor should probably recognize that their line of work often requires them to get down and dirty (whether in dirt or in someone’s guts).  Despite the risks (whether it be creepy crawlies or diseases), the gardener or doctor has a job which they must complete.  Thus, a gardener and doctor would probably be best off wearing gloves, despite the inconveniences they create by being bulky…

    Also, to be a good gardener or doctor, one must get down to the root of the problem, otherwise the problem might reoccur again, and often worse.  Like using antibiotics, if not all the weeds are eliminated, eliminating a couple might make it easier for the weeds that weren’t removed to proliferate better with less competition/more nutrients.

     

    It might all be a stretch, but those were basically my thoughts while gardening, other than frustration at the number of weeds and occasional feelings of alarm when stumbling across earthworms (I was afraid I’d accidentally kill them while digging holes for planting flowers). pleased

March 14, 2011

  • Happy Pi Day!

    Strawberry Meringue Pie :)

    Recipe (except switch key limes for strawberries…I made key lime pie last week, so this week I made this instead.  Plus, it is strawberry season :D ).

    Spring break!  I’m so happy to be home for a while.  I spent Friday night buying beads with a Living Social coupon, and the beading store was ridiculously amazing…I think it created a black hole for my wallet and my money just couldn’t resist the gravitational pull.  I then went over to my friend Cece’s house and we pretty much hung out with a couple other people and ate pizza together/watched old episodes of Batman (I forgot how cheesy it could be.  One of them featured a villain who called himself “The Creeper” (lol!) and another one featured the Judge.) =)..it was nice relaxing and enjoying our Friday night. 

    Saturday we then spent at the beach (Ft. De Soto):

    Group photo

    Human pyramid :)

    (Photos courtesy of A. Kurtz’s camera…Gabby took the pyramid pic, and strangers took the group pic)

    It was a lazy day, again, just kicking it back at the beach.  The sun was gentle enough to leave me with practically no tan and no burn despite having applied no sunscreen from 2:30 until about 6.  However, the weather was just chilly enough so that going in the water would be too cold, so we mostly just hung around playing some soccer, frisbee, Catch-phrase, chasing Gabby and sea gulls, and eating.

     I spent the rest of Saturday night cleaning my room.  It’s the first time in a while that I was able to do a complete clean up of my room–prior to that night I had mostly done small amounts of cleaning here and there, and it would become messy again almost instantaneously…however, it was easier to clean up because I moved most of my clothing into the hamper.  And I guess my clothing was a bulk of the mess. blush  Yay..clean room! :)  

    I think my rooming situation should improve too.  I guess I hadn’t written about it much, but I had been having major issues with one of my roommates because she never cleaned/take out the trash, but would complain about messes or whatnot, and has been really irritating in general (leaves food rotting in our sink, puts food down our already clogged drain, has her bf over 5/7 days of the week, but he doesn’t clean either; and they’re noisy enough to wake me up from my should-be heavy sleep <–because of sleep deprivation…).  Well, I guess she angered my other roommate (whom I am close to) enough to make her leave for the night, last week, so I decided to write her a note on the things that were bothering us and how we have already addressed the issues she raised so we hoped she would respect our hopes too.  Well, that note transformed into a short essay (3 pages, single space, 12 pt Times New Roman, ~1800 words), but it seemed effective enough.  It’s nice to think that the situation is improving since it stressed me and my close-roommate out a lot.  We’re both very non-confrontational types, but I guess in our three years living together we haven’t had roommates cause us so much stress/anger.  : (I even talked to a bunch of people about it to see if I was just being too crazy about it or if I was being reasonable…I feel like I was being fairly objective when explaining my situation, but they most of them said they felt angry just hearing about what was going on..)

    I returned home yesterday, and pretty much just did a combination of relaxing, eating, cleaning the carpet, and playing Super Smash Brawl with my brother.  Today was a nice day…woke up, ate a late breakfast, watched half of a Chinese movie with the parents, and then went to eat Thai food for lunch.  The afternoon was devoted to finishing the movie, and then gardening. :)   I have a couple thoughts about that too, but I’m going to eat some pie and think more about it before I write about it. ^^

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