Can't Sleep

I thought I had gotten used to caffeine now after a semester of so of drinking tea and occasionally coffe. But I stopped for a couple of weeks because exams were almost done, and classes were getting more spaced out. Well, I had a couple of coffee yesterday around noon. and it wasn't even a full cup of coffee. it was about half of a small cup, with the rest being cream and sugar. I had about 3 hours of sleep last night, woke up this morning around 8 or 9, and I'm still awake...not being able to fall asleep.

Remember the Car...

What am I passionate about? Art, music, science fiction, medicine?...maybe even writing...

writing and reading is something i never had an aptitude for. when i was young, i started talking very early, but I was never good at a language. I moved around so much between countries that I never got beyond a certain level in any one language. I started learning English when I was around 9 or 10 years old when I came to the U.S. The school board tried to access the level of my english so they could place me in an appropriate grade level, and you know what their conclusion was? "inconclusive." because I knew so little english at the time that they couldn't get a good assessment. so i went to a school where there was an ESL teacher that actually spoke chinese. my parents also drilled me everyday after school. and in a few years, i got to the point where I could get by without a Chinese translator. and eventually, by 9th grade I got myself into Honors English.

but through this whole time, i never really understood a lot of the things we were reading. well i understood what the authors were saying in these books. I understood what was going on. but I never really understood what the underlying meaning of it all were. I guess you could say, i wasn't really that good at reading between the lines.

something's happened in recent years though. through my recent experiences I am starting to discover what I am passionate about. actually, i haven't discovered for certain THE one thing I am most passionate about, but I am starting to discover some stuff I really really like. like singing for one. i really want to take voice lessons sometime in the future. and writing. i haven't gotten like A's on every paper I have written in the past, but there's something about writing I find...relaxing.

I've had a few events I could safely say most people my age don't experience. And through these events, I have had experiences I could actually relate with those written about in books. and reading some of those books again, I actually enjoy them a lot more than I did before. and in the mean time, I am finding myself able to write a lot more and a lot faster than I did before.

and so comes the realization that writing is a lot more than just putting words on paper (which is more or less what I did in high school. and even through out a better part of my college career.) but no...to write something good, you have to actually have something to say. Something worthwhile. a theme or underlying message that you want to get across. and that message can't be too broad or the reader will end up all over the place. and that message can't so specific that no one will be able to relate. but that's only one part of the battle.

the next part, and i think this is an important part, is that the message has to be something you believe in. something you are willing to fight for. so that if someone comes up to you on the street and say "oh hey, i read what you wrote. its crap!" you have to be able to say "no its not!..."

anyway, my point is...I feel like during my high school and college years I was just on autopilot and going through life in the passenger's seat with no idea who was driving. now I am starting to take the wheel. but i'm still straddling the shifter, with one leg back in the passenger's seat, one hand on the wheel, trying to climb over into the driver's side while the car's still going full speed down the highway... scary isn't it lol. but i say its also exciting.

My Quote Book

did you all know that i have a quote book? i jot down quotes i come across every now and then that are meaningful. the two quotes from my last post are both in there. and here's a few more of them:

"lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends." ~Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Love is like Playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules. Then you must forget the rules and play by your heart."

"one sees clearly with the heart. anything essential to invisible to the eye..." ~ The Little Prince.

all of these quotes, and many more in my book not posted on here have something in common. and its something we all need in life. and that's passion.

some people are passionate about their careers. and some people are passionate about a loved one. and some people are lucky enough to have both a job and a family that they are passionate about.

Its what drives our lives. gives us reason. something to fight for. something that's worth all the pain and suffering in this world. I know you guys know what I'm talking about. Everyone has a little pain and suffering every now and then. some more than others. but that's what makes us passionate. that's what those judges are looking for in the voices of the people singing on the stages of American Idol or The Voice. That's what WE look for when we turn on those reality TV shows.

"You know, the greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died, 'did he have passion?'" ~ Serendipity

So ask yourself...what am I passionate about?

Remember Fear?

I'd like to start this entry with a quote from Winston Churchill, "success is not final, failure is not fatal. it is the courage to continue that counts." a perfect quote to summarize my life right now, if there ever was one.

Courage, the strength it takes to complete a task in the face of fear. i've learned awhile ago that everything in this world comes in twos: good and bad (like and dislike, easy and hard, black and white…) i know the world is not black and white. but it is a mix of black and white, just like life is made up of likes and dislikes, easy things and hard things. All experiences have opposite extremes that cannot be separated, just like the north and south poles of a magnet. cut the magnet in half and you get two magnets, with two north and two south poles. there is no one without the other. there is no good without bad. no courage without fear.

because all experiences we encounter are defined by opposites. whether you realize it or not, the level of our happiness can be elevated by how much sadness we've experienced. our sadness deepened by how much happiness we used to know. but fear is a curious thing. it starts with a little feeling. perhaps sadness..sadness that we didn't accomplish what we set out to accomplish. then that sadness turns to worry. we worry that the next time we come across a similar experience, we may once again fail. then we actually come face to face with our next task. and when put on the spot, our worry becomes full blown fear. and that fear keeps us from doing what we need to do. and so the cycle begins: fear that started out from failure now causes our failure, which in turn fuels our fear of failure.

so what do you do in the face of fear? you must realize that fear is not a bad thing. which brings me to another quote: "beneath the greatest saint, lies the greatest sinner. that the one is put into place to control the other." fear makes us doubt ourselves. but it also forces us to react in ways we may not expect. think about what people do when they don't know fear. think back to when you were a kid, having never experienced fear.. what do kids do? they eat bugs off the sidewalk. they run into traffic. they fall and break their bones. ok, so maybe these things aren't stuff only kids do, but my point is…people do these things for different reasons. kids do them because maybe they don't know any better. adults do them for better reasons (hopefully.) because I would eat a bug if i'm stranded somewhere with no food around. I would run into traffic, if an axe murderer was chasing me. and I would purposefully break a bone……….hmm, so i can't really say that I would do this one, but Aron Ralston definitely broke his arm to free himself from a boulder after being stuck for 127 hours in Utah. (have u seen the movie 127 hours with James Franco?) all of these things would take courage. some would take more courage than others. but that courage comes from fear. fear of death. and i guarantee you the most courageous person you will ever meet in your life will have gone through some of the most fearful things. either that or they have yet to realize their true potential.

failure makes us realize what we really want, because it makes us face the question of whether what we are pursuing is really worth the pain. and if it is, then what we gain from feeling our fear is courage. we become courageous enough to pursue the possibility of the pain that we have experienced before. but at the same time, our fears from previous engagements help us make wiser choices, so maybe this next time it won't be as painful. we need courage to pull ourselves out of fear, and we need fear to hold us back from doing things that may be morally questionable. and in the end, its this balance that leads us through a successful life.

Remember forgetting Michael Jordan?

I just saw the first episode of Happy Endings, a new show in ABC. well one of the jokes in the show is a high school going "who's Michael Jordan?"......

are we really getting that old? that the younger generation is already starting to forget Michael Jordan???

Remember that Dental Lecture?

The morning of March 30, 2010, at 11AM I had my very first Dental School lecture. Yes you read that right. I was in a dental lecture...

I got up this morning, ate a little breakfast and prepared for my upcoming Immunology lecture of the day. JW and I walked our usual two blocks to class, but got to the building a few minutes late. We snuck into our Immunology lecture stealthily snaking thru the ailes beneath the words of our professor's lecture. As we sat down I noticed that our Immunology professor didn't have her normally distinctive accent. Then I looked a little closer and, though she looked very similar, this wasn't our normal professor. I thought, oh wow we have a guest lecturer today? Then, after I settled down in my seat, I looked up at the screen. I tried to understand the "lingual pressures" that pushes outward on the teeth and how if that is mixed with the inward pressures, the dentures would feel ...wait, what? dentures?? I looked around and all of a sudden we realized that we weren't in Immunology class. This was a dental lecture. I checked our syllabus and it turns out that we didn't actually have class at all today...

We had already disturbed class by walking in late, so we didn't feel right walking out right then. Especially with another professor standing right at the rear exit. To make matters slightly worse, the professor lecturing asked for volunteers on stage. That was when that professor standing at the exit started walk up the aisle picking out students to volunteer! I had a fleeting moment of panic and my heart skipped a fraction of a beat. Thankfully, they only picked out 4 volunteers. 2 in blue shirts and 2 in purple shirt. I rejoiced in thinking, thank God I didn't wear a purple shirt today. (cuz I do have a purple shirt, and I did seriously think about wearing it today.)

We watched as the professor demonstrated a few things with the students, and then she gave us a break to walk around. We took that opportunity to promptly excuse ourselves from the lecture about dentures that we weren't supposed to be in, and went back to studying for another class that we soon would have an exam in.

and that was my adventure of the day.

Sunrise

Had a dream this morning that woke me up at around 5:45 am. On a whim, I decided to drive out to the harbor and catch the sunrise...

Remember Church?

Just recently I was talking to a friend and somehow the topic turned to cultural differences. Not the differences, say, between the U.S. and Asia, but cultural differences between the more liberal north and the more conservative southern states.

One of the most striking differences is formality. Especially when it comes to those of attire. People in northern states, especially in bigger cities, are much more casual about how they dress. Well, except for when they go to interviews. People seem to dress just equally formal for professional interviews. But one example I can think of is at weddings. I have been to two weddings in South Carolina. At both of which, every woman was in a dress and every man was wearing black suits with ties. In St. Louis, which I will consider a more liberal city even though Missouri as a state in general is still a bit more conservative than St. Louis, I have been to one wedding. And at this wedding, maybe slightly less than half the people were dressed as formally as those I saw at weddings in SC.

Another example is church. I found out people in St. Louis went to church in jeans. I realize that sometimes people go to church for more social reasons than religious. But even so, at no church gathering, however social it may be especially on a Sunday, would you see anyone dressed in jeans in SC. I'm not trying to pass judgement on those who go to church in jeans. That concept was just not normally practiced in SC.

Which brings me to the topic of religion. I never really thought about this topic but now that I think back on it, its a very prevalent difference. When I was in college in St. Louis, no one talked about God or Jesus that much. Maybe it was just my group of friends, but that topic just doesn't come up as often in regular conversation. Even if it did come up, its more likely to be because of a religious reference and people are engaged in some intelectual debate or something about religious studies. But in SC, the word God or Jesus gets used much more often and more freely. More often than not, you get the feeling that God is like a father figure and Jesus is friend in people's minds. Not a study topic. People are more intimate with their talks of religion.

With that said, I never really considered myself to be a die-hard southerner. I never really thought myself as a conservative until people pointed that out to me in St. Louis. People made fun of me for being shocked that people went to church in jeans. I guess I don't mind it, but I wouldn't wear jeans to church. And I think wearing a suit with ties to weddings is more appropriate but I do like the idea of being more casual and celebrative in rejoicing in the marriage of two people. But I guess I am more conservative than most people in lots of aspects. During one of my interviews, I remained standing in front of the chair I was offered to sit in until my interviewer sat down. She called me a gentleman. I don't think I'm a gentleman by all means, but I guess the cultures around my high school community rubbed off on me. Now that I'm living in Boston, I feel myself becoming more and more distant with the Southern culture. (I don't really say "ma'am" or "y'all" anymore, both of which were said on a daily basis when I lived in SC.) I guess I am a southerner deep down, and I do hope that I don't become so foreign to the culture that people can't even see me as from the south.

Remember the 2011 New Year?

I've been staring at this box where I type my blog for days now. I've typed several drafts of this post, and yet somehow something with each one seemed wrong. and so I end up deleting it...and I end up right back where I started. with an empty blank page.

I haven't posted in awhile, so I guess I should talk a little about what's been going on since the last post. I had finals. Which I was afraid I may have failed, but turned out I passed. No excitement there I guess, huh? Then winter break, Christmas, and New Years. Now, I'm back in Boston with a bunch of information and letters sitting on my L-shaped desk from the Massachusetts Office of Jury Commissioner about my Jury Duty.

Winter break was awesome, btw. I think it was one of best breaks I've had. Relaxing, but always with some nagging from my parents, of course. Got see a lot of friends from high school. New Year's Eve was a blast. I don't think I've ever stayed out that late, or gone to nearly as many bars/clubs. And ran into a lot of friends I haven't talked to since high school, which was kind of weird but also very nice. And then Louisa's family, Jimmy's family, and Moya's family (minus Moya) came over. some of us went down to Daytona Beach. we visited the Ponce de Leon Lighthouse, and walked out on to the beach. It was the first time I actually saw surfers.

anyway, so there's my last few weeks of class and the winter holidays. I'm still sitting here feeling like there's something I really want to say in these blog posts, but having a terrible writer's block, I have no idea how to say it. So until I can refine my thoughts and maybe polish my words...I will just have to leave you with these words: Happy New Year!