Passing on the Torch

I'm back at my university now! I start classes on Wednesday. -_-

Break was a bit too short, and yet at the same time too long. I can't stand being at home - sharing a room with my brother (long story), colder temperatures than in my apartment, sedentary as a barnacle all day, feeling lethargic . . . it's just not me. I also gained 6-7 lbs over break, fuck! It's okay, that weight isn't "real," it'll disappear in 2-3 weeks of subsisting on my own food and working out regularly.

So I come back to my apartment in the midst of my old Japanese roommate leaving and my new Korean roommate settling in. The first thing that hit me was the 80-85 degrees F. It was way too warm, especially in my room where it's an additional 2-5 degrees warmer. So I turned the heat down "back to normal."

I'm not sure if I said this, but my old roommate decided that the commute to his classes was too far (about 30 minutes by 2 buses). So he wanted to live in an apartment closer to central campus. My new Korean roommate (from Korea) is a material science engineer in his senior year, so he'll be much closer to his classes than I'll be to mine. He's here from January until July, which is conveniently when our lease ends. For a Korean (from Korea) he speaks remarkably good and unaccented English. He seems nice and pretty laid back. We'll see. My old roommate's still lingering around, as he still has some stuff left in the apartment that he hasn't moved out yet.

The apartment is in that chaotic transition state right now. I'm waiting for the dust to clear before I vacuum, sweep, and dust. I can't stand a dirty apartment (I'm not so anal as to require a spotless apartment, I just like to be able to walk barefoot anywhere in my own apartment), so I'm hoping things settle down pretty fast so I can clean a bit.

I have a GSI training session tomorrow from 8:30am until 5:30pm. Gross! At least we get free breakfast and lunch. After that I'll probably go see what books I need to buy. My friend should be back in town by the time I'm done so we can catch dinner and go grocery shopping. My financial aid situation's been all up in the air somewhat in the last few days, as I see random money being given and taken away from me. It's kind of odd. I hope things clear quickly so I know what my billing statement is by Wednesday, when the tuition bill is due.
-----
A quick note on something before I forget (and I'm sure I'll do a more in-depth post on it later). I don't think I can come out to my parents any time within the next 4 years. In other words, I'll need to be done with med school and in residency somewhere else. The ridiculous new proposal of some southern state (Alabama or Louisiana) where single parents and gay parents aren't allowed to adopt came up. My parents don't see what's wrong with that law. My brothers and I kind of argued that there are no studies that support that law logically. Yet my mom still believed that kids raised in such an environment would grow up to be not-quite-right, not gay themselves necessarily, but not quite right - as if they'd get messed up.

Gay marriage also came up briefly and my parents don't see why gay marriage should be recognized legally (granted, they didn't argue against gay marriage, but still). Their thinking (and specifically my mom's) is that both partners would be working, what's the big deal with joint benefits? I think if there was ever legislation in my state to ban gay marriage (too late, actually), my parents would probably not vote on that issue. I'd like to think that, while they're personally against it, they don't have a good enough reason against it. I know that if I come out as bi or gay to my parents, they'll think it's their fault. They'll think either they raised me wrong, or there's something genetic about it, or that there must've been some bad karma (something like that) in either their or my past lives.

I think there are two conditions that must be met before I will think about coming out to my parents. The first is that I am completely independent from them, so after med school. The second is if I'm madly in love with a guy who's "worth fighting for" and who I can see spending the rest of my life with. As of right now, neither condition is met and so I continue to bide my time. I get a cold chill when I think about some of the things they've said.

---TANGENT---
Okay, enough of my boring-ish day and pseudo-parental issues. I've caught up with 2 new-ish blogs. They are:

Life On The DL
Writing Fiction

I'm sure they're no strangers here, but head on over and say hi! :D
---END TANGENT---

The Great Blog Reorganization

Okay, it's not actually that noticeable. But, the urge to reorganize things in a more logical fashion washes over me every now and then - periodically, routinely even. So I reorganized the sidebars to the right. Most notable are the sidebars with the links to the blogs I read and follow. If I follow your blog and you don't see it there, let me know. Some blogs have been taken down, so they no longer show up in the following lists. The sidebar lists are as follows:

Blog List 1 (aka, The New-comers)
This list contains all blogs I follow that began (for the most part) posting in 2008 or later.

Blog List 2 (aka, The Veterans)
This list contains all blogs I follow that began posting before 2008.

Blog List 3 (aka, The Retired)
This list contains all blogs I read that are now either potentially abandoned, currently abandoned, or retired.

A more substantial post commenting on the poll (in the sidebar to the right) that ended later.

2009 Resolutions

It's that time of the year where we all commit ourselves to the "honored tradition" of declaring our resolutions for the year, and pray to God we keep or meet them. I sincerely hope I achieve all of mine. Many of them are on-going ones that'll probably carry over until next year and years after.

2009 is a year of change, not only for the US and the world, but also for me. A lot of things will be changing this year. I intend on taking it all in stride. My 10 resolutions for 2009 are:

1. Lose 20-25 lbs from my lowest weight in 2008. It should only take me 2 weeks or so to get back down to that 2008 weight from what I currently weigh (though I'm not sure I want to know). Hopefully I can go to the gym (almost) every weekday. If I can lose 10-15 lbs by Spring Break (end of February) that'd be ideal, but I want to lose all the weight by August and maintain my weight thereafter. Any tips and/or suggestions?

2. Update my wardrobe. I've been wearing most of my clothes since the beginning of undergrad. I've lost weight since freshman year of undergrad, so I went from an XL to a L and now to somewhere between an M and L (shirt size). A lot of my clothes are loose on me, so I need to get new clothes. The problem is that I hate shopping and I don't know what's fashionable, stylish, and will look good on me. Help?

3. Learn to cook new things! This is one of my on-going resolutions. Foremost amongst things I want to try are steak, various soups, and desserts. Got any recipes?

4. Get better grades in grad school. This may be a bit challenging, as I got 3 A's, 1 A-, 1 B+, and 2 S's (aka, pass for my pass/fail courses). I suppose I could get all A's . . .

5. Be a kick-ass GSI for Genetics. :D This one will be intense, but it might be fun as well.

6. Rekindle some old friendships, maintain current ones, and make new friends (both online and in real life).

7. Not let med school consume or destroy me when I start in August.

8. Begin to explore a romantic relationship. Don't care too much if it leads to sex or not. I just want someone to cuddle with and talk to at night.

9. Make progress in coming out. A resolution in progress, this one is.

10. Live by my philosophy for the year: Whatever happens, bring on the day.

I suppose there is one more resolution . . . but it's not one I can do much about. I would like more Followers on my blog (points to the 3 current Followers in the sidebar to the right). I want some blog love. :P So if you read my blog regularly, please Follow it (especially if I'm following your blog, ::wink wink::).

Now, to look back to my 2008 resolutions. Hmm, it actually seems like I've met most of them to some degree. Go me!! I hope I can do the same (if not better) for 2009 as well. :D

---TANGENT---
I don't know why, but I'm in a rather happy and silly mood. For your entertainment, I've provided the following.

Found at this link.

Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)


Kevjumba - Girls are like m&m's

---END TANGENT---

2008 in Summary

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Straight as the Arrow Flies

Okay, I'm done with break now. I tend to think too much, my brain doesn't want to stop. I need something or someone to keep me distracted periodically so I can stay focused (weird as that sounds). If I'm left to my own devices, my brain gets bored and I start to brood in dark thoughts. This has unfortunate ramifications.

I go to bed between 2am & 3am and wake up between 10:30am & noon. It's so hard to go to bed at night because my bed is freezing, and it's so hard to get out of bed in the morning because my bed becomes an island of warmth in a room of cold. I've found it particularly difficult to get out of bed the last several days. I would wake up and lay in bed for an hour or more before getting out. I also wake up with this . . . soreness at the base of my sternum. I think it's psychosomatic. But I digress, a little.

My life has been, by and large, "straight as the arrow flies." It has always been about the next step - about preparation and delayed gratification. I worked hard in elementary school so I could do well in middle school. I worked hard in middle school so I could do well in high school. I worked hard in high school and practiced the SAT/ACT (a lot) so I could get into a good university. I got into a good university, but then I had to work on keeping my grades up, doing well on the MCAT, doing research, getting clinical experience, and etc so I could get into medical school. I haven't deviated once from the path of this arrow's flight, though there were many instances that made me wish I had. I had set my mind on something I and I stick to it.

I've worked so damn hard, always to get to the next step thinking I'd breathe a sigh of relief when I get there. But I never do. I never took a break, I went straight as the arrow flies to the next step according to plan. I followed the damn Asian model. Granted, grad school for a year instead of med school is just a minor misstep along the path. I'm tired now, and unmotivated. I feel like I'm married to my career (which currently is grad student).

I can't help but wonder how many chances to hang out with friends I've turned down in order to study. Or how many other experiences I've forgone in order to prepare for the next step. I can't help but ask myself what I've missed out on all these years. Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot about people, life, and myself over the years. But just as everything in my life seems about set, something feels like it's missing.

That something is that I am lost in all matters of the heart. I've never dated. I've barely kissed, so I know I'm no good at it. I'm not sure how to flirt, or how to tell if someone's interested, or pick up on hints. I don't know how to get someone interested in me. I don't know what to do if a person IS interested in me (hasn't really happened before). I don't know who I am romantically or sexually. I want so badly for love to just fall in my lap and steal my heart away - to be so enthralled by someone that it defies all logic, to hold someone and cuddle for hours while listening to his/her day, to learn how to kiss and make myself vulnerable. I've had a taste of this once, but it was quite ephemeral; what remains resides in memories. I think the scariest part is that I might've suppressed this part of me for so long that I'm not sure I would recognize if I'm attracted to someone.

And you wouldn't immediately know upon seeing me, but from time to time it tears me up inside. It's like, my chest is heaving and trembling on the inside, and that soreness below my sternum comes back. It would be unfair for me to do something now at the end of a step and right before the next, so I'm cursed to suffer in this limbo for another few months at least. Come med school, will I have time still to figure all this out? Or will it be too late? I feel strangely alone.

Wow, and just skimming through, I've just seen this post plummet into the darker corners of my mind. And so the arrow continues to fly, ever nearing its target (whatever that is) and flying by a whole ton of things that I probably have missed along the way.

Cuttlefish, eh?

Found at this link.

Hmm, maybe this is the branch of biology I should've done research in, and not fiddled around with the E. Coli genome or cancer cells. Cuttlefish are certainly more interesting to observe than colonies of bacteria growing or cancer cells on a slide (or dish).

I've kind of been lethargic the last few days, and my head feels cloudy for most of today. It's late and I'm going to bed. I'll post something more substantial later.

---TANGENT---
So I remembered this JUST before I went to bed last night. I caught up with two more blogs! :P I think my eyes are going to assassinate me for trying to catch up with a blog each day/night. Left a bunch of comments as well (so to Razz and gatechguy1, sorry for the sudden influx of comments if you find that annoying!). Their blogs are:

Doin' me head in
Thoughts of a College Boy...

As always, if you haven't done so you, head over, check out their blogs, and say hi! :D
---END TANGENT---

Mask of Caring

---DISCLAIMER---
This post is a continuation of my last post, here. Be careful when reading this post. The tone of this post may not come out as I intend. It is not with sadness or loneliness that I post. For now it's merely an observation, a musing over the last several days. This post is rather long.
---END DISCLAIMER---

The more I come to realize about myself, the more I realize that my life is not always my own . . .

What I'm about to say I've never told anyone, and I doubt anyone remembered the event at any rate. When I was around 7-years-old or so, I wasn't all that well-behaved (are there any well-behaved 7-year-olds?). Once, my mom got so pissed that she swore at me in Chinese. It was the phrase 该死 (gai1 si3). I didn't know it meant "Damn it" as the second character, 死, means "death." I thought that she wanted me dead or something. So I went to the kitchen, took out a knife, walked back upstairs, and gave it to my mom. And told her to just kill me as clearly my life was causing her problems, and that if she didn't do it, I would. Of course she freaked out and never said that about me (or later my brothers) again.

Flash forward a decade or so. In high school and in my undergrad, I was the friend that others went to for help. I may not have been at the top my class (particularly so in my undergrad), but I had a way of explaining things that others understood, even if I myself didn't quite completely understand. Many of my friends weren't as eloquent at explaining things back to me, so I didn't get much out of this. My mom found this very annoying actually, and she would often say, "Why does so and so ask you for help? You always help them, but they never help you back! You're always giving them knowledge and get nothing in return. You need to be more shrewd and say 'I don't know' every now and then, you can't just let them take everything you know and then do better on the exams than you."

Even now this rings true, perhaps more so. And yet I continue to do it. I continue to help. I think my one jewel, perhaps my one defining characteristic and curse is that I sometimes care too much for others I know and get relatively little in return. Ironic how it's almost eerily similar to the doctor-patient relationship: you want a caring doctor who listens, yet you're "done" with them once you leave the office. This then, is my Mask of Caring.

When I was in high school, I would wake up an extra 20 minutes early or so and make breakfast and pack lunches for my brothers. Everything would be ready by the time they woke up, brushed their teeth, and came downstairs. I would proof my brothers' college application essays. I was the one to truly push and motivate them where my parents failed. In my own small way, I guided them without forcing them (unlike my parents, lol).

I'm no saint by any means. I hardly do much volunteering anymore. In high school I would volunteer for all these community service clubs, but I found too many of them shallow and purposeless. I would do things but never interact with - or even see - the people I was supposedly helping. I've found that in some respects, such undergrad service clubs are similar. Instead I did biomedical research. Although I'll never see the faces of the people my research may one day (in the distant-ish future) help, I know that it will help someone, someday. I've had a hand in breast cancer research, human genetic deafness, and colorectal cancer. These are not uncommon things that plague society. Yet I know I will never gain any glory (aka first authorship) from my research.

And whenever a friend needed help with something, no matter how reluctant I was, I would do it unless I had a legitimate excuse that trumped (which doesn't come up often, except during finals week). I was the one constant, the "rock" in people's lives. JW-M would rant to me, RZ-F would rant to me, SR-F would vent her frustrations to me. I took it upon myself really - no matter how much they didn't want to tell, I would elicit it out of them because I knew they needed to talk to someone. For a long time I was able to listen, passively, stoically, process, then give advice. I let things pass through me so they didn't affect me personally.

Then things changed, I don't know when. When someone was down, I became down. When someone was happy, it would temporarily lift me out of whatever state I was in. Reading the events surrounding other bloggers the last month or so has been rougher on me emotionally than I even realized. It was difficult to study for my final exams. I may sit here passively, stoically on the outside, but inside I cared. And it hurts, almost physically, when I find out a person can't confide in me. And although it's easy to just ignore my Google Reader while I studied, I had to know what's going on if at all possible.

It's easy for me to care less (aka, not think about) people I've never met, don't know in any way, and are removed from my life. But once a person enters my life, even at the very periphery, I can't help but care. Even if they don't talk to me much, don't reveal much to me, I will care. I don't know what it is, it almost feels like a duty for me to care. As if caring is a duty that we as humans owe to each other - to care unconditionally, without any real thanks even. How many times my friends have asked me why I cared about x, y, and z. Because I do, because I must.

I don't reveal much about my inner self, not even on this blog where I'm quite open, considering. I wonder how many people care to find out. I wonder what readers out there think about me - if I'm just talking out of my ass or actually being sincere. I know I don't come across as the most emotional blogger. That's just how my writing is. In caring for/about others, I've left little room for myself. Hence, my life is not always my own . . . I live, in a good part, for others I think.

And again, I don't really get much out of it. It's not like my brothers help me much. Actually, they try to get out of helping me wherever possible, lol. And despite helping others - in my lab, my friends, etc - it's not like I'm rewarded. Heck, most of the time I'm not even invited to things as they simply "forget" to invite me. Even the best amongst my friends - JW-M, SR-F, RZ-F, etc - will sometimes invite me as almost an afterthought at the last moment.

It's all okay, I suppose. I don't dwell on this much. I suppose the one thing I want most in this world is someone in person to love and care about who cares and loves me enough to want to figure out everything about me, and then reflect my care back on to me. I think, that's the only way I can truly care about myself in a positive way. At any rate, my Mask of Caring is almost a duty I undertake - to care almost unconditionally about others that I personally know.

---TANGENT---
So, for the last 2 days, I've been relentless catching up on two blogs in particular. Two blogs that many bloggers who read mine are well-acquainted with. They are:

Mirrorboy's Blog
Right Time and Place

If you haven't had a chance to go over and say hi, I suggest doing so. :P

Also, I'm still fighting for my A in Pathophysiology. The ONLY way I could get an A- is if they "standardized" the letter grades, which is weird and unfair. I can't let the ONE class I actually really CARED about give me an A- when the average according to the average points on my exams give me an A. Grrr.

I also read something in the news that made my blood boil. I won't talk about it here, that's for another post in the future.
---END TANGENT---