Why Georgia

It's the last day of 2006 and I should be writing a best-of blog, but instead I'm just stuck here wondering. Wondering. Thinking. Pondering. It's strange how all the what if's can keep you up at night.

2006 was supposed to be amazing. And I won't lie. There were some fabulous moments. Sunrises and beach bonfires. First kisses. Parties to end all parties. Graduation. Summer loves and spring flings. Getting my white coat. New York. Spontaneous family dance parties.

But so much of 2006 had so many question marks as well. And now I'm sitting here, wondering. Wondering how a year so promising turned out to be one of my darkest to date.

I had a dream last night. I dreamt I was driving down this straight open road around sunset in a gorgeous red convertible going 85mph with the wind in my hair. It was actually very music video-esque. I didn't have a care in the world. No destination really. I was driving just for the hell of it and I was so happy.

Then, out of nowhere, it got pitch black, and I hit a huge truck - a huge cargo truck - in a head-on collision. And as everything proceeded in slow motion, as they will during car accidents, I hit another truck as I reeled and tried to gain control of my car. It flipped and turned, sirens and beeping alarms going off everywhere, and then I woke up. I woke up scared out of my mind how metaphorically-realistically my dream had just recreated my life.

It used to be that when things were bad, the only direction things could go was up.

Oh how wrong that turned out to be. Turns out they like to hit you while you're down. Hit you and beat you to a bloody pulp until you're nothing but a shell of a person wondering whether anything is worth the proverbial "it" to keep going.

My dad has cancer.



I can't sleep, but I don't even know how to write this post.

It's not fair. It's not fair for him. It's not fair for our family. Our family has enough heartbreak to last for the next five generations. We just can't seem to beat the odds. If it's not one thing, it's another. I don't know how my mother manages to keep us all together when we're bursting at the seams and falling to pieces. All at the same time.

I completely lost it when I found out. I still lose it from time to time, and I'm amazed I can keep up a good a facade as I do when I'm around friends. Like nothing's wrong, when actually, everthing is. I can be the most open person in the world - and I have the best friends in the world to open up to - but I don't during times like these. And I don't know why I suddenly just emotionally break down. Shut down. Especially since I feel so alone. But I feel so alone because I can't let anyone know how much it's eating me up inside. Because I've convinced myself that maybe, if I keep pretending everything is okay, and everyone believes me, maybe - just maybe - it will all be okay.

I'm sorry for ending 2006 on such a depressing note. But I wanted everything that's recently happened to be an ending, and not a beginning. Because while no one wants to end on a bad note, no one really wants to start on a bad one either.

Last year I started this blog, knowing that my wishing on satellites was childish and silly. This year, I don't care how childish it is. I'm crossing my fingers and toes, jumping over cracks (to save my mother's back), wishing on stars, satellites, planes, birthday cakes...I'll do whatever it takes. I just want my family to be okay.

Please.

Starfish and coffee

Last Christmas

It's a little insane how quickly time flies. And it's a little insane how much can happen in just one year.

Happy birthday blog. You officially turn one year old today.

So much has changed since then, and yet, so much has stayed the same.

My older sister is getting married. Married! I still can't quite wrap my head around that. And it was painfully obvious this year. Instead of forming alliances and plotting how to take down Park Place during our family Monopoly tournaments, she was off visiting her soon-to-be in-laws. She's not just my sister anymore. She has extended cousins and great-aunts to have dinner with.

I don't like sharing.

No, I lie. I don't mind sharing. I don't like change. Why bother fixing something that isn't broken? And our family is a well well well-oiled machine. Everyone plays a specific role - my little sister is the tomboy, while my older sister plays the protective, yet ridiculously girly one, and I'm the rational one. So when you've been wronged in an argument, you go to my older sister first and have her rage with you about the injustice of the world, before you come to me and realize that hey - you were a little wrong too, and then you go hang out with my little sister who somehow makes everything better with a trip to Starbucks.

Our balance was off this Christmas.

But that's life. Things change, and you change with it. Adapt to the new.

As I flipped through my old posts, trying to figure out what to write today, I came to the realization that I need to be better at adapting. I'm so used to clinging on to what's familiar, to what I know. Yet, reading my posts, I was shocked to see that those times when I was most ecstatically happy were all times when I took a chance and ventured out of my comfort zone.

My family, friends, school are all changing. And I've been stuck in the same. In the familiar. I've wanted to stay there. Where I thought I knew what to expect. But the course is changing, and I'm suddenly the only one standing still in a fast-paced city. Even as I try to hold on to the familiar, I'm realizing that everyone is changing around me. What was once familiar is now vastly different.

It's time for me to pull up my roots and learn to grow in different places. In the unfamiliar.

Bring it on, 2007. Though I'm a little apprehensive, let's see where you end up taking me.

Bigger than my body

I could be famous.

Well, I’m not. But I get mistaken for it whenever I fly.

So I’m an Asian girl. And it seems that every time I go home to Los Angeles, someone on the airplane asks me if I’m a different Asian actress. It helps that my dad travels a lot and always upgrades my ticket to first class. It helps me exude importance and celebrity.

Ohmigosh, hi!! I love your work!!

Huh, what??

Can I get your autograph?

You talkin’ to me? Very Robert De Niro of me, I know.

Oh is this a bad time?

Oh no no no. I just think you have the wrong person.

You're not Sandra Oh?

Substitute in other names – Lucy Liu, Gong Li, Michelle Kwan. It’s the same every time. Well, sometimes they don’t know the names and just say things.

Oh! You’re the girl from the Bond movie! Tomorrow Never Dies! That scene with the you know what was amazing! And the way you kicked that guy’s ---

Or sometimes they’d talk about me loudly to their very disinterested husband, who’s just trying to read the latest sports news.

Look Hank…it’s that girl from the Charlie’s Angels movies. (Cue here where Hank looks up and is mightily disappointed that his wife isn’t talking about Cameron Diaz or Demi Moore.) Look Hank…are you looking? I didn’t know she played the violin…why do you suppose she’s in Chicago? Excuse me miss, are you ---

But my response is always the same. I’d smile politely at them, blush a little and tell them that no, I’m not who they think I am. I’m just a plain ol’ student going home for the holidays. To be perfectly honest, I silently gloat inside that my commonplace genes somehow look famous during this exchange. But I digress. They look a little embarrassed and then after an appropriate amount of time has passed, go off to get their luggage.

Today was a little different.

So you’re not Ziyi Zhang?

No, sorry.

Oh…

That’s disappointing.

Man. If I had known she’d be so crushed, I would have pretended right along.

But the icing on the cake happened five minutes later.

Look Hank, at the woman in 4B. Isn’t that Princess Diana?

Marge. Princess Diana’s dead.

…

Oh.

Embers and envelopes

You'd think I would have learned to never ever leave a hot stove.

Apparently I didn't. And, well, now I have a crazy fear of sirens and fire alarms and angry neighbors.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last night, I was itching for a midnight snack, so I decided to fix up a plate of waffle fries. I followed the directions and everything. Turned on the stove to 475 F. Preheated the oven. Arranged the fries in a single layer and tossed them in.

So as I was waiting for my food to cook, I watched the ending to a Friends episode on TBS. Went to the bathroom. Wrapped up my Christmas shopping. Started packing. Sat down at my computer and replied to an email.

Then I smelled it. Something gross. Something burning. Something definitely burning.

And that's when I remembered I was hungry forty-five minutes ago, and had put my fries in the oven.

I rushed to my kitchen, and was amazed by how much smoke there was. Quickly I turned the oven off and yanked the door open. Smoke came billowing out, and as our fire alarm started beeping loudly and insistently, I realized that there was a small fire inside. Apparently, our cookie sheet had changed shape as it heated, and one of the fries had fallen off and caught on fire. I threw some water on it, but the smoke got even worse, and I heard my neighbors' fire alarms start to go off too.

Fire successfully out, I rushed to the windows and threw them open, as I willed the fire alarm to shush. Doors started opening, as my neighbors started wondering what to do.

Do we evacuate? We're not supposed to take the elevator when there's a fire are we? But it's a small apartment fire, and we're on the 27th floor. There's no way I'm walking down 27 flights of stairs...

I silently started freaking out as my neighbors started going around to the different apartments to figure out where the smoke was coming from. I grabbed my Oust can and started spraying like no other. Thankfully the fire alarm stopped, as the smoke started to clear the room.

I left the windows opened and hopped under my covers. But every time I heard sirens, I'd jump up and run over to make sure the fire department wasn't coming for me. See, after that incident in April? My suitemates and I are on fire probation...and I really don't think another kitchen fire would look good on my record.

Now, given that we live right next to the hospital - with ambulances pulling in and out all the time - I've been awfully jumpy.

Dreams for plans

What do you do when everything you've ever done has always gone well for you and you've had everything you ever wished for, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you hit a brick wall and realize that you have nowhere left to go?

I just hit that brick wall.

I'm starting to worry that medicine might not be right for me. Or rather, that I might not be right for medicine. That while I may have the passion, I might not have the smarts. And while I was always convinced that as long as you really loved something, you could do it - I'm starting to realize that the smarts are a mandatory prerequisite. All the passion in the world isn't gonna help me.

So where do I go from there?

Everything I've ever done has been for this. My friends, my family, my hobbies, my life - my everything - revolves around medicine. And since everything up to today came to me so easily, pointed me in this direction, I don't quite know what to do.

My compass is broken.

I've having the "who am I?" crisis four years too late. I should have been discovering other things I'm good at while I was an undergrad. Heck, I was even an Undecided for a good two years. And all I found out was that I could never write a newspaper column and my stage fright got proportionately worse with audience size. There went journalism and music. But it didn't matter. Because I had medicine. In fact, I even pointed to those failures as clear signs that medicine was right for me. That they were necessary detours on my path to becoming a doctor.

And medicine seemed so obvious. I'm a good person. Despite what the jealous ex-girlfriends and backstabbing ex-best friends may think, I am a good person. And medicine to me, was the noblest profession one could have. It was something where you could actually make a difference in someone's life. Actually help someone else. And everything pointed me in this direction. I got a scholarship to a high school medical conference - and I loved it. I loved the fake PBLs, the site visits, the public health symposium. I was accepted as a high school student to do neuroscience research at the local university. I got into an honors program straight out of high school - which meant guaranteed admission to a top medical school in the nation, and no MCATs. My writing thesis was about terminal care - and it turned out to be the easiest twenty page paper I'd ever written. I joined Dance Marathon, and immediately fell in love with the autistic kids that we worked with. Every detour in my life has somehow led me back to medicine.

Now I'm left wondering, if medicine isn't for me, what is? The problem with being the girl with everything is that when everything revolves around one thing and that one thing is taken from you, you're suddenly a girl with absolutely nothing. No direction. Nothing to fall back on. Nowhere to go.

Remember that blog from a couple of posts ago? The one where I lamented about wanting a sign? Proof that yes, I am smart enough. Yes, I belong at Northwestern. Yes, I will be a competent doctor.

I didn't get the sign I so desperately wanted.

The sign I got said in big blaring letters: YOU DON'T BELONG HERE. BUT IF YOU WANT TO STAY, YOU BETTER DAMN WELL MAKE SURE YOU WANT TO BE HERE.

I want to be here so badly. Desperately. Terribly.

I do. I really really do.

Here's hoping that's enough to get me through. Because I don't know what else there is for me out there.

California dreamin'

I miss California.

Breakaway

I think I'm homesick.

I always get this way around the holidays. Especially right after Thanksgiving. Maybe it's because I don't go home. Maybe it's because I spent Thanksgiving with my roommate's adorable cousins, and I miss my own family. Maybe it's because I spent Black Friday with my older sister and her fiance, and it just hit me that our Thanksgivings will never be the same after she's married.

Maybe it's not homesickness at all. Maybe I'm just realizing how much studying I have yet to do, and I'd much rather disappear. Or run away from it.

I'm burnt out.

That sounds so silly. It's only been two units! But I am. This constant stressing to be at least average on a test? Not healthy. But every day, the stress levels just seem to rise a little higher, and I swear, I feel like I'm in over my head for this current unit.

I'm burnt out and I miss my parents.

I'm overwhelmed. And I shouldn't be. But I'm at a top twenty med school, and I'm starting to wonder if there was a huge fluke in the admissions office the day they sent me my acceptance letter. Honestly, should I be floundering this much? Should it take me 3-4 lecture run-throughs to have a vague idea of what I'm supposed to be learning? If I'm supposed to be here, why don't things come more easily than they do?

This unit was going to be different from the last two, I told myself. I was going to stay on top of things, study with a genius, swallow my pride and ask the stupid questions, get things done...I was going to prove to myself that I belonged here. That I could be a top twenty med student. That the admissions office didn't make a mistake.

I don't know if that's going to happen. Tomorrow's the one-week mark. And despite my resolutions, I find myself hoping, crossing my fingers, that I'll somehow miraculously pass. Here's hoping I have a guardian angel looking over me. Honestly? There are serious problems with going from being the top student in high school to being above-average in college to clinging on by a hair in med school. I peaked in high school, and it's been a steady decline ever since.

One thing's for sure; my self esteem is plummeting.

But that's not what concerns me that much. I can handle not being the smartest person in class. I can deal with low self-esteem. What worries me is that I might not be as competent as I thought. And if there's one thing I don't want to be, it's an incompetent doctor.

So much for wanting to help people. I should have became a baker instead, and made a fortune off of healthy dessert alternatives.

I wish I were home. Having bonfires with my friends and enjoying the year-round California weather loveliness. I wish I were studying at home, knowing my mommy would bring me midnight snacks of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Giant bear hugs from my dad. Yes, I'm twenty-two years old, but those childhood pleasures still make me infinitely happy.

I just need a sign, an omen, validation. Anything, really. I need something that tells me that yes, I do belong here. That yes, Chicago could be home too.