Just to keep track of nearly everything I like...
DIET - FOOD:
Favorite Meat: Lamb
Favorite Bird: Duck
Favorite Seafood: Eel
Favorite Fish: Rock Cod
Favorite Cereal: French Toast Crunch
Favorite Candy: Reese's
Favorite Potato Chips: Ruffles
Favorite Condiment: Ketchup + Mustard
Favorite Fruit: Red apple
Favorite Soup: Any kind of chili
Favorite Salad Dressing: Bacon bits
Favorite Sandwich: Grilled Cheese
Favorite Vegetable: Anything steamed, but if I had to choose, brocolli.
Favorite Pizza: Lots of cheese
DIET - ETHNIC FOOD:
Favorite Chinese: Tofu of any kind
Favorite Dim Sum: Gigantic Steamed Meat Bun
Favorite Indian: Goreng
Favorite Italian: Spaghetti + Meatballs
Favorite Japanese: Unagi Don
Favorite Korean: Bulgogi and chap chae
Favorite Malay: Nasi Lemak
Favorite Mediterranean: Babaganoosh
Favorite Mexican: Cheese Quesadilla
Favorite Taiwanese: Ketchup Fried Rice
Favorite Thai: Pineapple Fried Rice
Favorite Vietnamese: Salad
Favorite Overall: Malay/Singaporean
DIET - DRINK:
Favorite Diet Drink: Mountain Dew
Favorite Smoothie: Soursop
Favorite Hot Drink: Hot Chocolate
Alcohol Drink: Margarita
RESTAURANT:
Favorite Breakfast: Waffle House
Favorite Fast Food: Chick-Fil-A
Favorite American Restaurant: Red Robin
Favorite Italian Restaurant: Pasta Pomodoro
Favorite Restaurant-Restaurant: Left Bank Brasserie
FANDOM (BOOK):
Hogwarts House: Gryffindor
Twilight: Team Jacob
FANDOM (VIDEO GAME):
Final Fantasy Class: Chemist
Favorite FF: 7 > 8 > 9 > 10
Favorite Summon Overall: Anima
Favorite FF Guy: Ramza
Favorite FF Girl: Tifa
Super Smash Character: Jigglypuff for strictly superficial reasons
Genre: Shooting zombies and dinosaurs!
FANDOM (MOVIE):
Disney Princess: Mulan
Disney Movie: Nightmare Before Christmas
High School Movie: Mean Girls
Comedy: White Chicks
Action: Dark Knight
FANDOM (TV):
30-Min TV Show: The Office
Favorite Office Character(s): Oscar, Angela, and Kevin
1-Hr TV Show: CSI
Favorite CSI Character: Gil Grissom
Cartoon: South Park
Favorite South Park Character: Cartman
Guilty Pleasure: Gossip Girl
Favorite GG: Georgina Sparks
FANDOM (ANIME / MANGA):
Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Anime Character:
Anime Power I wish I could have: Paper (ROD)
Manga: Death Note
Manga Character:
Artist: Hyung Tae-Kim
Favorite Shoujo: Ouran
Favorite Shounen:
Favorite High School:
POKEMON:
Favorite Bug: Butterfree
Favorite Dark: Absol
Favorite Dragon: Dragonair
Favorite Electric: Raichu
Favorite Fighting: Torchic because it has fighting in its final form and all fighting pokemon are ugly and useless.
Favorite Fire: Flareon
Favorite Flying: Flygon
Favorite Grass: Vileplume
Favorite Normal: Wigglytuff
Favorite Poison: Arbok
Favorite Psychic: Espeon
Favorite Starter: Charmander
Favorite Water: Starmie
Favorite Element: Fire. Always.
Favorite Overall: Flareon
Pokemon I think represents me best: Gloom
FAVORITE ANIMAL:
Bird: Owl
Dog: Corgi
Cat: Napoleon/Siamese
Rabbit: Any with floppy ears
Fish: Lionhead
Dinosaur: Brontosaurus
FAVORITE FASHION:
Brand: Chanel
Current brand: Rodarte
Model: Sasha Pivovarova
Male Model: Cole Mohr
Designer: Alexander McQueen
Store brand: H&M
Online store: ModCloth
Style Icon: Jessica Stam
Fashion Magazine: Numero
Overall magazine: Marie Claire
Perfume: Kenzo
Handbag: Chloe Marcie
Photographer: Hedi Slimane
Most Overrated: Freja Erichsen
Most Underrated: Siri Tollerod
FAVORITE MUSIC:
Genre: Pop
Current Artist:
Artist: Lady Gaga
Hate to Like: Taylor Swift
90s Band: Sum 41
Current Band: Death Cab
FAVORITE...
Holiday: Christmas
Organ: Kidney
Chemical Compound: Ca2+
Acid or Base: Acid! COO-
Medicine: Rosiglitazone because it sounds pretty
Day of the Week: Friday
Flower: Sunflower
Car: Lexus
Department Store: Target
Furniture Store: IKEA
Grocery Store: H-Mart
Overall Store: Costco
Friday, December 10, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Battle of the Blondes
I have a thing for blonde hair. Seriously. If anyone were to ask me, if I wanted to be reborn into another life and I got to pick, I'd want to be blonde. This has nothing to do with me being in denial with my culture or my ethnicity. I just think having blonde hair is more fun and exciting.
Therefore, I want to take this moment and list my favorite blondes from every single media outlet that I am familiar with. This is who I believe are the best blondes are their genre for whatever superficial and shallow reason I have to adore them.
In anime, the boys with dark hair are the ones who alwayys save the day, can be easily categorized, and be predictable in nature. But blondes..na ah. Blondes are like God's gift to every genre either real or fictional that they change things up wherever they go. Even if they aren't #1, they command the attention of the entire room no matter how much the author attempts to push the spotlight away from them. Sometimes they're the main act you can't get out of the picture. OK here we go.
FIRST, let's go to the make-believe characters.
My 3 Anime Boys:
YONDAIME: Too bad Naruto is nothing like his father. Naruto just annoys the living daylights out of me. I can't stand the sight of Naruto and he's everywhere in his series. All the time. I wonder why. But what I really wonder is why we can't get enough of his daddy. Yondaime is the fiercest daddy in the Naruto series and I find Yondaime a billion times more fascinating than everyone-needs-friendship Naruto. Any day.
TAMAKI SUOH: Probably the most (in)famous blonde of all anime series...besides Super Saiyan Goku. Usually the ditzy boys are ridiculously ugly, comical, and insignficant but not this half-Asian who plans on being a model if his plans on inheriting his daddy's throne doesn't follow through. Every girl loves Tamaki because he's not a playboy. He's a lover. He loves and cherishes all girls. And we love him so much that we allow him to love Haruhi.
FAI D. FLOWRIGHT: I probably spelled his name wrong and he's probably as gay as a doughnut but you can't deny that any girl would want this girly magician man to be her best friend. He's got the sickest tattoos, the ultimate bed hair, the most mellow voice, and that smile that you know would melt any cold woman's heart.
WHY NOT...Naruto, Edward Elric? Because even though Narutois the most well-known blonde of the moment, I don't like him and his stupid friendship-Sasuke obsession-retarded centerfold pranks. And Edward needs to find a new goal in life.
My 3 Anime Girls
THERESA OF THE FAINT SMILE: Best character in all of Claymore. She's completely muse material with the whole wavy blonde hair and alien face. Sure it got kind of boring when she realized she had a heart to take care of Clare but the way she owned the battle field in a way that made Priscilla look like an annoying, one-dimensional Mary-Sue. Her name alone speaks for itself. No one comes close to Theresa. Bitch.
LOTTIE: Unlike every single movie or story you find, this girl is CRAZY hyper and she's got your back. She's not the villain and you can't help but love her ridiculousness. She supports Tiana but not in the uber-gooey cheesy way that Disney movies do it. She's air-headed and loves herself but she makes sure you're in for the ride too. It's impossible to hate this faux-Paris Hilton persona.
MISA AMANE: She may not be the blonde that is the force of the series in the same way that Theresa is. She doesn't even leave a lasting impact on the story because of such overwhelming guys but what makes her probably the most famous blonde girl in all of anime right now is from what she doesn't do. Her passiveness, obsession, and lack of any real presence in Death Note is what haunts the readers that no matter what she does, no matter how pretty, how dedicated, or how much stronger she is compared to Light and the others, she's nothing. And that leaves a much more lasting impression than any other character I've ever known.
WHY NOT...Anna Kyoyama? Mary Sue.
My 3 Video Game Guys
CLOUD STRIFE: Sure he's mopey. Sure he sometimes look more womanly than Tifa. Sure he's more unreliable than a rebellious sibling but there's honestly no other blonde boy in all of RPG history that matches this ex-SOLDIER's insane hair, sword, and limit break if their lives depended on it.
RAMZA BEOULVE: I don't know, I just think he's cool and probably the only FF male character from FF7 onwards to really have a backbone and wage war because no one wants to leave this boy alone. Unlike Cloud, Squall, etc., Ramza doesn't look for trouble. Trouble finds him and he's got an answer to that.
ROXAS: Something has to be said if Sora's counterpart makes you like him just as much as you like Sora. Usually when twin parts or counterparts occur, we all usually lean one way or the other, most likely sticking with the original design. But not Roxas. I love Roxas and all his passive craziness if that makes sense. If some obscene situation in fate lead to a point where I could only save Roxas or Sora, time may have to stand still because I can't decide between both.
WHY NOT...Tidus? Blitzball is not a sport.
My 3 Video Game Girls
AYA BREA: Because she is Parasite Eve and there's no one in gamedom that shoots anything with more than two arms, jump from exploding vehicles, and does all that without annoying you with the stereotypical sass and wit you find in so many gun toting girls. She is perfect. She shuts up, shoots the zombie, asks what's next, and still commands your attention without saying something semi-annoying/witty every ten seconds.
SAMUS: Forget the suit. The moment you see that face, that's probably the last thing you'll ever see.
NAMINE: So yeah Namine does not have the manpower that Theresa and Samus have but she sure knows how to make a bloody mess out of everything. Her power is great but it's inversely proportional to her incredibly passive and weak will. Even though hearing her speak and talk is annoying, you got to admit, if she had real goals and even a fraction of the determination that Kairi had, everyone especially Sora would be screwed.
WHY NOT...CAMMY? Because she frightens me now. Really though, when I was a child, she and Chun Li were my heroes and I would use Cammy whenever I was bored of Chun Li.
So I realize a lot of these characters come from mainstream series and Square Enix, which is why this list is completely inaccurate. However, to something that has a little more merit are the real blondes.
My 3 Actors
MITCH HEWER: Google this boy. You know a boy's got it when my lesbian friend told me she'd turn straight for this guy.
CHRIS PINE: Blonde enough. You can totally tell he was blonde when he was younger. How else would he be allowed to be Captain Kirk? Right? Right?? Anyway, Chris Pine is here because Chris Pine was GQ's Man of the Year. For being an actor. In a Sci-Fi movie.
DANIEL CRAIG: This by far is the best James Bond ever. There is no James Bond like Daniel Craig and I can't remember what's going on the screen or pay attention what's happening because I'm hoping the bad guys won't hurt or mar Daniel Craig's blue eyes. He's got the suave that I think all guys are trying so hard to obtain but can't because this is Daniel Craig.
WHY NOT...Chad Michael Murray? Because he kissed Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. More ew because of Lindsay Lohan. But really I don't know why. I really like him. Honestly, I just ran out of room and couldn't give up Chris Pine.
My 3 Models
JESSICA STAM: This would-have-been-nurse made the smart move of using her face for fashion instead of a hospital. And honestly how can she? In my opinion, she's got probably one of the most beautiful faces in the world. John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, and Steven Meisel certainly agree with me on this as she was the leading lady for Dior, Fendi, and Dolce & Gabbana ad campaigns. I just wish Stephenie Meyer made Jessica her Rosalie because there is honestly no one in existence prettier than J.Stam. Probably Doutzen if Jess marred her face with 8 layers of makeup but not likely.
SASHA PIVOVAROVA: My favorit-est model ever who can do no wrong. There's not enough space here to describe why I think she's so great. No model yet (I believe) can do Biotherm, H&M, Chanel, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Tiffany's, and 6 consecutive seasons of every single Prada line consecutively. Honestly, I believe she's just getting warmed up.
SIRI TOLLEROD: Even though I think she's way too skinny to live, Siri is like hidden treasure in the sea of blank face models. She photographs like a painting and is almost a walking high fashion Barbie doll that has gotten the attentions of Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano several times. She's got the weirdest cheekbones and I think that's what makes her a real standout in a tide of blondes.
WHY NOT...Kate Moss? Not enough room to fit in this entry.
Maybe I should do redheads next!
Therefore, I want to take this moment and list my favorite blondes from every single media outlet that I am familiar with. This is who I believe are the best blondes are their genre for whatever superficial and shallow reason I have to adore them.
In anime, the boys with dark hair are the ones who alwayys save the day, can be easily categorized, and be predictable in nature. But blondes..na ah. Blondes are like God's gift to every genre either real or fictional that they change things up wherever they go. Even if they aren't #1, they command the attention of the entire room no matter how much the author attempts to push the spotlight away from them. Sometimes they're the main act you can't get out of the picture. OK here we go.
FIRST, let's go to the make-believe characters.
My 3 Anime Boys:
YONDAIME: Too bad Naruto is nothing like his father. Naruto just annoys the living daylights out of me. I can't stand the sight of Naruto and he's everywhere in his series. All the time. I wonder why. But what I really wonder is why we can't get enough of his daddy. Yondaime is the fiercest daddy in the Naruto series and I find Yondaime a billion times more fascinating than everyone-needs-friendship Naruto. Any day.
TAMAKI SUOH: Probably the most (in)famous blonde of all anime series...besides Super Saiyan Goku. Usually the ditzy boys are ridiculously ugly, comical, and insignficant but not this half-Asian who plans on being a model if his plans on inheriting his daddy's throne doesn't follow through. Every girl loves Tamaki because he's not a playboy. He's a lover. He loves and cherishes all girls. And we love him so much that we allow him to love Haruhi.
FAI D. FLOWRIGHT: I probably spelled his name wrong and he's probably as gay as a doughnut but you can't deny that any girl would want this girly magician man to be her best friend. He's got the sickest tattoos, the ultimate bed hair, the most mellow voice, and that smile that you know would melt any cold woman's heart.
WHY NOT...Naruto, Edward Elric? Because even though Narutois the most well-known blonde of the moment, I don't like him and his stupid friendship-Sasuke obsession-retarded centerfold pranks. And Edward needs to find a new goal in life.
My 3 Anime Girls
THERESA OF THE FAINT SMILE: Best character in all of Claymore. She's completely muse material with the whole wavy blonde hair and alien face. Sure it got kind of boring when she realized she had a heart to take care of Clare but the way she owned the battle field in a way that made Priscilla look like an annoying, one-dimensional Mary-Sue. Her name alone speaks for itself. No one comes close to Theresa. Bitch.
LOTTIE: Unlike every single movie or story you find, this girl is CRAZY hyper and she's got your back. She's not the villain and you can't help but love her ridiculousness. She supports Tiana but not in the uber-gooey cheesy way that Disney movies do it. She's air-headed and loves herself but she makes sure you're in for the ride too. It's impossible to hate this faux-Paris Hilton persona.
MISA AMANE: She may not be the blonde that is the force of the series in the same way that Theresa is. She doesn't even leave a lasting impact on the story because of such overwhelming guys but what makes her probably the most famous blonde girl in all of anime right now is from what she doesn't do. Her passiveness, obsession, and lack of any real presence in Death Note is what haunts the readers that no matter what she does, no matter how pretty, how dedicated, or how much stronger she is compared to Light and the others, she's nothing. And that leaves a much more lasting impression than any other character I've ever known.
WHY NOT...Anna Kyoyama? Mary Sue.
My 3 Video Game Guys
CLOUD STRIFE: Sure he's mopey. Sure he sometimes look more womanly than Tifa. Sure he's more unreliable than a rebellious sibling but there's honestly no other blonde boy in all of RPG history that matches this ex-SOLDIER's insane hair, sword, and limit break if their lives depended on it.
RAMZA BEOULVE: I don't know, I just think he's cool and probably the only FF male character from FF7 onwards to really have a backbone and wage war because no one wants to leave this boy alone. Unlike Cloud, Squall, etc., Ramza doesn't look for trouble. Trouble finds him and he's got an answer to that.
ROXAS: Something has to be said if Sora's counterpart makes you like him just as much as you like Sora. Usually when twin parts or counterparts occur, we all usually lean one way or the other, most likely sticking with the original design. But not Roxas. I love Roxas and all his passive craziness if that makes sense. If some obscene situation in fate lead to a point where I could only save Roxas or Sora, time may have to stand still because I can't decide between both.
WHY NOT...Tidus? Blitzball is not a sport.
My 3 Video Game Girls
AYA BREA: Because she is Parasite Eve and there's no one in gamedom that shoots anything with more than two arms, jump from exploding vehicles, and does all that without annoying you with the stereotypical sass and wit you find in so many gun toting girls. She is perfect. She shuts up, shoots the zombie, asks what's next, and still commands your attention without saying something semi-annoying/witty every ten seconds.
SAMUS: Forget the suit. The moment you see that face, that's probably the last thing you'll ever see.
NAMINE: So yeah Namine does not have the manpower that Theresa and Samus have but she sure knows how to make a bloody mess out of everything. Her power is great but it's inversely proportional to her incredibly passive and weak will. Even though hearing her speak and talk is annoying, you got to admit, if she had real goals and even a fraction of the determination that Kairi had, everyone especially Sora would be screwed.
WHY NOT...CAMMY? Because she frightens me now. Really though, when I was a child, she and Chun Li were my heroes and I would use Cammy whenever I was bored of Chun Li.
So I realize a lot of these characters come from mainstream series and Square Enix, which is why this list is completely inaccurate. However, to something that has a little more merit are the real blondes.
My 3 Actors
MITCH HEWER: Google this boy. You know a boy's got it when my lesbian friend told me she'd turn straight for this guy.
CHRIS PINE: Blonde enough. You can totally tell he was blonde when he was younger. How else would he be allowed to be Captain Kirk? Right? Right?? Anyway, Chris Pine is here because Chris Pine was GQ's Man of the Year. For being an actor. In a Sci-Fi movie.
DANIEL CRAIG: This by far is the best James Bond ever. There is no James Bond like Daniel Craig and I can't remember what's going on the screen or pay attention what's happening because I'm hoping the bad guys won't hurt or mar Daniel Craig's blue eyes. He's got the suave that I think all guys are trying so hard to obtain but can't because this is Daniel Craig.
WHY NOT...Chad Michael Murray? Because he kissed Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. More ew because of Lindsay Lohan. But really I don't know why. I really like him. Honestly, I just ran out of room and couldn't give up Chris Pine.
My 3 Models
JESSICA STAM: This would-have-been-nurse made the smart move of using her face for fashion instead of a hospital. And honestly how can she? In my opinion, she's got probably one of the most beautiful faces in the world. John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, and Steven Meisel certainly agree with me on this as she was the leading lady for Dior, Fendi, and Dolce & Gabbana ad campaigns. I just wish Stephenie Meyer made Jessica her Rosalie because there is honestly no one in existence prettier than J.Stam. Probably Doutzen if Jess marred her face with 8 layers of makeup but not likely.
SASHA PIVOVAROVA: My favorit-est model ever who can do no wrong. There's not enough space here to describe why I think she's so great. No model yet (I believe) can do Biotherm, H&M, Chanel, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Tiffany's, and 6 consecutive seasons of every single Prada line consecutively. Honestly, I believe she's just getting warmed up.
SIRI TOLLEROD: Even though I think she's way too skinny to live, Siri is like hidden treasure in the sea of blank face models. She photographs like a painting and is almost a walking high fashion Barbie doll that has gotten the attentions of Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano several times. She's got the weirdest cheekbones and I think that's what makes her a real standout in a tide of blondes.
WHY NOT...Kate Moss? Not enough room to fit in this entry.
Maybe I should do redheads next!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wearing a Tiger-Shaped Heart
Valentine's Day this year is going to be just like how it was for the past 21 years of my life. "Alone". However, there's something really odd about Valentine's Day this year that I feel is unlike any other Valentine's Day I've ever had and being "alone" is the probably not how I'm going to describe tomorrow night.
Because Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day happen to fall on the same day and happen to share the same crimson shades, tomorrow night, I will be spending Valentine's Day with at least 25 other individuals that'll make this year the most busy romantic day I've ever had.
However, I think this V-Day has so many things wrong with it mostly because I feel myself convulsing at the sound/site/presence of anything related to the movie Valentine's Day, which I hope completely bombs in the office (but I know won't because I'm the only single girl on the planet). It's going to be one of those movies with a kabillion guest celebrities who are all in lame, romantic, awshucks, and lol-worthy points in their life. They'll all run into some problem that gets in the way of their love life and by the end of the movie, they'll all realize Valentine's Day is not about the romance between two individuals but it's about loving and accepting each other AND yourself. I wonder if the sales for Twilight and New Moon will suddenly spike this weekend too.
If there's one thing I really like about V-Day, it has to be how it's practiced in other countries...more specifically Japan. I've read so much manga back then that there have been enough stories revolving on how characters deal with V-Day and I wish those scenarios were repeated when I was in high school.
In Japan, this is great. I could see potential for a lot of abuse here. Only females are expected to give males chocolate for V-Day instead of cards and flowers, so that they don't have to forever wait for the passive Asian male to ever act. Because V-Day in Japan is just like how it is in American elementary schools where each kid must give out commercial-themed V-Day cards to their teachers, frenemies, and strangers in their class, women in work environments typically give out chocolates to all of their male subordinates. But here's the best part because every woman has the bitch within them.
Women in Japan do not treat their chocolate gifts like generic V-Day cards. Depending on which guy ends up on their f-list or yes list, he may be lucky(?) to get some fancy chocolate cake or a pile of cheap chocolate from Daiso. In fact, the amount of chocolate a boy gets is directly proportional to the girl's love/hate feelings for them.
March 14 is White Day, which is the girl's big day in that the boy-given-chocolate is encouraged to return the favor or else is he is looked down by all of his female coworkers. By not returning the gift no matter the reason or the excuse sets the boy up for social suicide. To avoid the douche-status even if he's not interested, the boy is expected to return the favor. To show that he is not romantically interested, he provides a gift of equal value but it's in the form of inedible products like accessories or stuffed animals. If he does show interest, he'd return the favor by elevating the value of the gift and must return the "favor" to the girl 2 or 3 times as much.
Now that takes a lot of creativity there and I'd LOVE to see how much work and student relationships would crumble/arise from this sort of fun. It would totally give everyone things to talk about not just for one day but for a whole month! Think of all the comparisons that boys would give to each other on who got how many chocolates on V-Day. Think of all the girls competing for one boy's attention and having chocolate-themed showdowns. This would be like Flavor of Love but real life.
I mean, V-Day today has become a women-driven holiday with hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons so why can't America take advantage of the commercial opportunities and follow suit. If America followed this tradition, the female will always win and I know we'd put a ring on it.
Because Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day happen to fall on the same day and happen to share the same crimson shades, tomorrow night, I will be spending Valentine's Day with at least 25 other individuals that'll make this year the most busy romantic day I've ever had.
However, I think this V-Day has so many things wrong with it mostly because I feel myself convulsing at the sound/site/presence of anything related to the movie Valentine's Day, which I hope completely bombs in the office (but I know won't because I'm the only single girl on the planet). It's going to be one of those movies with a kabillion guest celebrities who are all in lame, romantic, awshucks, and lol-worthy points in their life. They'll all run into some problem that gets in the way of their love life and by the end of the movie, they'll all realize Valentine's Day is not about the romance between two individuals but it's about loving and accepting each other AND yourself. I wonder if the sales for Twilight and New Moon will suddenly spike this weekend too.
If there's one thing I really like about V-Day, it has to be how it's practiced in other countries...more specifically Japan. I've read so much manga back then that there have been enough stories revolving on how characters deal with V-Day and I wish those scenarios were repeated when I was in high school.
In Japan, this is great. I could see potential for a lot of abuse here. Only females are expected to give males chocolate for V-Day instead of cards and flowers, so that they don't have to forever wait for the passive Asian male to ever act. Because V-Day in Japan is just like how it is in American elementary schools where each kid must give out commercial-themed V-Day cards to their teachers, frenemies, and strangers in their class, women in work environments typically give out chocolates to all of their male subordinates. But here's the best part because every woman has the bitch within them.
Women in Japan do not treat their chocolate gifts like generic V-Day cards. Depending on which guy ends up on their f-list or yes list, he may be lucky(?) to get some fancy chocolate cake or a pile of cheap chocolate from Daiso. In fact, the amount of chocolate a boy gets is directly proportional to the girl's love/hate feelings for them.
March 14 is White Day, which is the girl's big day in that the boy-given-chocolate is encouraged to return the favor or else is he is looked down by all of his female coworkers. By not returning the gift no matter the reason or the excuse sets the boy up for social suicide. To avoid the douche-status even if he's not interested, the boy is expected to return the favor. To show that he is not romantically interested, he provides a gift of equal value but it's in the form of inedible products like accessories or stuffed animals. If he does show interest, he'd return the favor by elevating the value of the gift and must return the "favor" to the girl 2 or 3 times as much.
Now that takes a lot of creativity there and I'd LOVE to see how much work and student relationships would crumble/arise from this sort of fun. It would totally give everyone things to talk about not just for one day but for a whole month! Think of all the comparisons that boys would give to each other on who got how many chocolates on V-Day. Think of all the girls competing for one boy's attention and having chocolate-themed showdowns. This would be like Flavor of Love but real life.
I mean, V-Day today has become a women-driven holiday with hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons so why can't America take advantage of the commercial opportunities and follow suit. If America followed this tradition, the female will always win and I know we'd put a ring on it.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sweet Home Alabama
So January 26, 2010 is officially one day I will always remember because it's the day that everything became a reality. I've been on Cloud 9 since and I do not ever want to come back down to earth.
So this is the epic journey to Auburn, Alabama.
On Sunday, January 24, 2010, my mom and I left to the San Jose airport to go to Dallas. Everything was fine and dandy until AA told us that Atlanta was stopping all flights going from and to the airport due to thunderstorms. They don't know if they want to cancel our flight or wait so they make us sit in the plane for 90 minutes before they decided it's over. The next flight going to Atlanta was at 11AM the next morning which sounds OK if my interview was at 1PM. However, this flight going to Atlanta would start at 11AM and this doesn't factor in to the trip it would take to drive from Atlanta to Auburn. At this point, I'm thinking that pharmacy school is a dream that I'll never obtain because not only am I unable to get any decent interviews now, God is now sending thunder to prevent me from physically getting to a pharmacy school.
We pretty much beg the American Airlines employee at the counter to find a flight for us at this point that would get us as close to possible to Auburn as we can. My mom wants me to ask the school to postpone the interview but that's not going to happen. The AA lady, who's name I'll never forget now because she saved my professional dreams, named Nora found a flight going to Birmingham later that night. We take it immediately and when we get there, had to transfer the rental car from Atlanta to Birmingham. However, because Dollar-Thrifty rental car does not do one-way stops, we had to cancel the transaction, switch over to National instead and pay an extra $100 to do the one-way stop to Atlanta (since that's where our original return flight was).
We set out at 10-something PM to Auburn on the most epic road trip my mom and I ever experienced. Literally, we were expecting Freddy or Jason to pop out of fog or onto the road at any second. I didn't say this but I should have--that if we did hit them, not to stop but keep driving. Worry about the damages on the car later because I have an interview that I need to attend to. It was the strangest thing driving there as we would encounter a very small town where all the stores like CVS, Wal-Mart, and this grocery chain store (Winn Dixie?) would be off the side of the road followed by nothing but fog, trees, and possibly Jason or Freddy, for the next couple miles. We had the most difficult time finding houses and there were a LOT of ghetto looking gas stations where you sensed a serial killer hiding in the shadows. Even on the road we drove (Interstate 128), we encountered random clusters of fog that would come and vanish, and I was ready to see Freddy or Jason at any second. Fortunately, we never saw them or anyone with a chainsaw.
My mom and I eventually make it to the hotel at close to 1AM and the hotel was absolutely gorgeous and pretty much ON the campus itself. I remember my dad saying we had to drive to the interview site from the hotel just incase. I remember the parking permit that I ordered from the school. None of that would be useful because the permit didn't apply to the parking lot we were in, and being on campus meant it would have been a greater hassle to drive to the site of the interview than it would be to walk there.
The following morning was the day of the interview. My mom and I attended the campus tour and when we got back to the dean's meeting room, I remember telling Steph Chan that I bet I would count less than 5 Asians in the room that were going to be interviewed. I was right. I was the only Asian in the entire room and the only person that came from the west side of Alabama. I was surprised how uninterested people were that I was from California and I felt kind of isolated when everyone was talking about the school they came from, the rivalries among different colleges, not to mention the Recruiter singled out certain candidates openly because of the school they were from. Nonetheless, I recall there being way too much time for Q&A to the extent we had no more questions to ask by 9:30AM and on the itinerary, there were still another 4-5 Q&A opportunities to go.
After some Q&A moments, we were divided up into groups of 3 or 4 where we had to go to a room and have a prof or admissions member observe how we all behaved in a group setting. We were really nervous at first because I thought this was going to be either the same group activity I was placed under when I had my student advising interview in which we had to construct a study skills class on the spot or the horrifying group interview I experienced at Midwestern. Luckily, it was neither. We were giving realistic scenarios of what we would encounter if we worked in a pharmacy and what we determined was important in pharmacy care. Situation 1 dealt with a story I've heard before in which a guy, who's wife is dying from some incurable disease is a WHO volunteer, and a young pharmacist is offering a compounded drug at a discounted price but the guy is too poor to pay for it. What should he do if the drug had a 60% chance of saving his wife's life? The second situation was XYZ pharmacy is taking over your business in Family Friendly Pharmacy and one of the physicians who you formed an alliance with unintentionally screwed you and your white-teeth smiles image over. Describe and rank what values you hold for both these circumstances and discuss them as a group.
Initially, they had trouble connecting the videoconferencing technology in our room over to the videoconference at the Mobile campus. After we finished the group activity, all three of us forgot that we had an observer because we were too involved in the group interview to notice the television screen. I thought it was humorous how all three of our stomachs kept making noises throughout the whole activity and we sort of whispered to each other if our stomachs could be heard through the phone.
I have to mention though that the most hilarious part of the interview was one of the options to a situation you had to handle. You are the pharmacy manager and two technicians are complaining about having time off at the same time. How do you resolve this problem? One of the responses was "host a contest to see which technician can fill the most prescriptions in 1 hour". That is reality show material right there. And then Tyra Banks, PharmD. would instruct the technicians that you also got to look fierce typing and work those white lab coats.
Once we were done, we were the last group to join the others in the Dean's Meeting Room for lunch which was Panera! I couldn't really focus at that point because I was so hungry so before I got to ask the P3 and P1 students about their experience at Auburn, I inhaled a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips before I realized where I was and who was sitting next to me. The most interesting thing I learned from them was that it's not uncommon for Auburn students to leave in trailer parks. I'm guessing they haven't seen what California trailer parks are like. I got my chance to ask a few questions about what they were involved in, residency, and how the classes are structured (tests, quizzes, interrogations).
Once lunch was over, the admissions committee divided us up into 2 groups. I was in Group 2 so we got to have our pictures taken for the admissions committee to remember us. I always like to think that our pictures are taken for these situations so they can throw darts at us...I'm not sure why. Apparently, these pictures, if we are accepted, will be our student IDs. I was the first to have my picture taken but the really nice lady had to take my picture about 8 times because I failed to graduate from the college awkwardness of blinking whenever the camera flashed. After that, we got a very abbreviated tour of the pharmacy building where we only saw a few lecture halls, study rooms, and the clinic, which was reminiscent of CVS. Then, we were taken back to the Dean's Room where there was still 35-40 min left on the clock before it was our turn to interview. At 1:30, the first girl from Group 1 came back and in no time, all of us nervous girls were asking about how the interview went.
At some point, during this large amount of downtime, I'm not sure how or why but this one Ohio candidate with a super resume and I started a friendly verbal competition of who went to college in the most dangerous city. Hers was Toledo and mine was Stockton but I gave her the victory when she said people have been stabbed on her campus. UOP may have had a homicide but not on the campus itself. We talked about the ridiculousness of other pharmacy schools and basically got to know each other more about where we came from and what we were up to. They were all really friendly but really nervous which I don't blame them. In my mind, I was trying to follow advice from a StudentDoctor.Net article that encouraged interview candidates to keep to themselves to prevent psyching each other out. I noticed the waiver in their voices when they were anxious about it not being 2PM yet and us waiting in the room.
The next girl that came out of Group 1 was pretty early as well. When I noticed she and I had the same interviewers, I asked her how the professor and P3 student was since the 1st girl that came back told us how awkward her interview felt. I didn't get much of a response so I knew I was on my own.
I won't lie about how tough the interview was. I did my research on what questions they asked but this school was one step ahead. The two most difficult questions that I was asked was "describe a time in which you had to take care of a person older than 50 but was not your parent, family member, or teacher" and "name 3 people from the past, present, and future whom you would like to have dinner with and why."
Holy moly. The most I had prepared was Larry King because in my opinion, he is one of the most respected journalists. He is a fantastic interviewer who listens, asks the right questions, and respects the people that he interviews all which are qualities highly regarded in the health profession. Then, this was where I got stuck on choosing the next person. When I was thinking of who to select from the past, (never mind that a 'future' person had not even crossed my mind at that moment) for some reason, I could not think beyond these three individuals: Jesus, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. For some reason I was going to say Abe Lincoln because you can trust he didn't cut down the cherry tree. What???
But then the professor must have noticed me really struggle with that question because then he changed it to three people from the present. I was still trapped. Then, wordvomit occurred and Barrack Obama became my unintentional 2nd choice. Then, I suddenly became aware that Alabama was a red state. However, I justified that Barrack Obama, regardless that our personal views and beliefs differ, is an incredibly fascinating (my favorite word at this point) individual and I would love to learn what his thoughts were as he rose from the beaches of Hawaii to being elected to the most powerful political seat in the world. I would love to learn how he became the person he was. I wanted to Larry King him.
My third choice was a celebrity. Audrey Hepburn never crossed my mind even though I always talk about how much I idolize her style and persona. The same pause occurred where I couldn't think beyond Paris Hilton. This wasn't an interview for Teen Vogue, this is an interview for pharmacy school. I was about to say Lady Gaga but I doubt the professor would know who she was, so I picked Madonna, someone who everyone knows has made a significant contribution to pop culture, society, and feminism.
I realized I could have picked a scientist or a pharmacist...but it was already too late. I did have Einstein in the back of my head, but I really wasn't interested in having dinner with Einstein and talking about the laws of relativity...I should have said Darwin! However, if I do meet Obama, Madonna, or Larry King some day, I will thank them for getting me into pharmacy school. Obama can make things happen! Madonna use to work at Dunkin Donuts and Larry King never went to college!
I ended up being the 2nd to last person to return to the Dean's Room and I had a sinking feeling that my words during my interview were too strong. Did I sound too desperate? Were my words too extreme? I remember using terms like "I can't imagine myself doing anything else" and "this is what I was meant to do." Maybe I should have held back a little. Later, I met up with my mom and we decided to drive over to the nearby town of Opelika after I asked my dad (over the phone) to convince her to take me around after a stressful day. The malls they had really reminded me of the Stockton malls. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Mom was disappointed that she couldn't find Coach and Louis Vuitton, so I had to constantly remind her that we weren't in San Francisco. The dinner we had wasn't very good as my mom and I argued about where to eat. She refused to step foot in any restaurant serving pizza and sandwiches despite the fact we were in a traditional college town. She didn't understand the correlation of pizza and sandwiches is to traditional college town is the same as getting fries at McDonald's. Therefore, we ended up eating back at the hotel we were staying at.
The following morning, my mom was incredibly stressed out and panicky for reasons I'm still not sure of, checking our rental car every 5 seconds (literally) as she kept leaning over to look out the window while we were having breakfast. When I brought this up to my dad over the phone, we broke out into an argument in which she told me how I was disrespectful, ungrateful, and if I wasn't such a failure why would I be interviewing here in the first place. This argument proceeded all the way to the Atlanta airport, to Dallas (where our flight got delayed for 45 minutes due to a missing rubber seal in the engine), and back home to the American Idol auditions. I spoke as little as I could because of the emotional trauma I felt I was experiencing. But honestly, if there was anything I learned from my experiences here, it's that Dallas + American Airlines do not mix.
During the terrible American Idol auditions, at around 8:15PM, I decided to check my e-mail which I haven't checked since Sunday. My heart sank when I saw that the admissions committee was responding much earlier than I expected. A perfectly decent trip to Alabama went from bad to worse to downright I-wish-my-life-was-over. The admissions committee had told us their decision could take up to 14 days. However, my interviewing professor said the committee meets right after the interviews are over to discuss who's gets the ax. One of the P3 students that had lunch with us said give them until Wednesday...Thursday at the latest. All I could think was 'my life is going to be decided that soon'?
My heart was sinking when I clicked on the e-mail. I wasn't even emotionally prepared especially after everything I experienced that day. However, the first word I read was "Congratulations..."
Huh?
Wait a second.
Did they send this to the wrong person?
Is this really happening? I think my brain was about to explode that moment because all of my thoughts became run-on sentences and incoherent. Going somewhere in the fall? Don't worry anymore? Pharmacy reality? My dad's coming home Thursday? My mom is right there? I've been wondering so long? I got acce...?
I look over to my mom who's in the family room watching American Idol. Simon Cowell's words were becoming jibberish. I could care less that Avril Lavigne was a 20-year old behaving like a high school brat. Oh my gosh. OH my GOSH.
The first thing I think I did was shake my head, pointed up, and said thank you. Then, I tried as calmly as I could, walk over to the family room, shut off my mom's television and she's about to flip out again like she did earlier this morning, which was then I said: Mom, I'm going to pharmacy school this fall. I got accepted.
She suddenly stood up to hug me and cried uncontrollably pretty much telling me how proud she was for me saying that she was sorry for all the things she said and how hard she was on me for so long and the whole 9 yards. I don't even care at this point what she said that morning. I can only sense her body trembling from the news and from her crying. I couldn't cry though. I was too happy and all I could think was 'finally'. I was waiting to wake up but now I realize it's not a dream. I'm going to pharmacy school in 7 months. I'm not going to wait anymore. It's here and finally finally finally everything I have done suddenly has a vision. I finally see where I'm walking towards.
We tried to finish watching American Idol but we couldn't focus at all. Later on, I would realize my mom had no idea which school accepted me but then figured out it was Auburn after I mentioned how the school got back to me so fast. Everything Simon, Randy, and Kara said went way over my head. I could care less that Katy Perry felt dirty. I am going to pharmacy school.
At this point, I forgot I had a brother. I went to tell my dad over Skype what had happened. I tricked him into thinking that Hayward sent me some fees I had to pay up. He opened the e-mail to realize the e-mail was not from Hayward but my forwarded acceptance letter from Auburn and he said "YE-EAH!!" in a tone I've never heard before. Afterwards, I proceeded to drive to Angela's house to tell her news. She was about to leave her house with Pastor Jay from the parking lot with her kids when I came up. She was confused when she saw me asking if I was OK, if my mom was at home, and my dad was in Taiwan, believing that my mom and I got into another argument. I told her that I was doing fine. I'm not upset, I'm doing fine. BUT...I have some news to share.
The last people I spoke to that night was Vivian, Daniel, then Ryan. I wanted them to know about it in person before I announced it publicly.
On one of my fortune cookies, I wrote 1/27: Now, you can finally sleep. Ironically, I haven't been able to sleep well because I'm still giddy from the excitement. It really has been a fairy tale and the only thing I'm scared of is someone's going to wake me up from it at any moment. I'm waiting for the e-mail that says "sorry, we sent this to the wrong person."
I never thought how much that one day has affected me and changed my family. It's such an incredible feeling because even though so many things have gone wrong in the past two years, I feel like this one moment made everything. Made every single difficult moment worth it. There's this huge burden that fell off my back. My life's not suddenly perfect and peachy, but something here got fixed. I think that night, two years worth of frustration and anger and hurt dissolved in that instant. As terrible as that day began, it ended so perfectly. It's safe to say for me that it really is going down as perhaps the best night of my life because so much pain vanished that night. I didn't cry at all but my cheeks were sore from all the smiling that happened and I hardly got any sleep.
So at this point, I'm just trying to absorb this reality and right now, reality is really good.
So this is the epic journey to Auburn, Alabama.
On Sunday, January 24, 2010, my mom and I left to the San Jose airport to go to Dallas. Everything was fine and dandy until AA told us that Atlanta was stopping all flights going from and to the airport due to thunderstorms. They don't know if they want to cancel our flight or wait so they make us sit in the plane for 90 minutes before they decided it's over. The next flight going to Atlanta was at 11AM the next morning which sounds OK if my interview was at 1PM. However, this flight going to Atlanta would start at 11AM and this doesn't factor in to the trip it would take to drive from Atlanta to Auburn. At this point, I'm thinking that pharmacy school is a dream that I'll never obtain because not only am I unable to get any decent interviews now, God is now sending thunder to prevent me from physically getting to a pharmacy school.
We pretty much beg the American Airlines employee at the counter to find a flight for us at this point that would get us as close to possible to Auburn as we can. My mom wants me to ask the school to postpone the interview but that's not going to happen. The AA lady, who's name I'll never forget now because she saved my professional dreams, named Nora found a flight going to Birmingham later that night. We take it immediately and when we get there, had to transfer the rental car from Atlanta to Birmingham. However, because Dollar-Thrifty rental car does not do one-way stops, we had to cancel the transaction, switch over to National instead and pay an extra $100 to do the one-way stop to Atlanta (since that's where our original return flight was).
We set out at 10-something PM to Auburn on the most epic road trip my mom and I ever experienced. Literally, we were expecting Freddy or Jason to pop out of fog or onto the road at any second. I didn't say this but I should have--that if we did hit them, not to stop but keep driving. Worry about the damages on the car later because I have an interview that I need to attend to. It was the strangest thing driving there as we would encounter a very small town where all the stores like CVS, Wal-Mart, and this grocery chain store (Winn Dixie?) would be off the side of the road followed by nothing but fog, trees, and possibly Jason or Freddy, for the next couple miles. We had the most difficult time finding houses and there were a LOT of ghetto looking gas stations where you sensed a serial killer hiding in the shadows. Even on the road we drove (Interstate 128), we encountered random clusters of fog that would come and vanish, and I was ready to see Freddy or Jason at any second. Fortunately, we never saw them or anyone with a chainsaw.
My mom and I eventually make it to the hotel at close to 1AM and the hotel was absolutely gorgeous and pretty much ON the campus itself. I remember my dad saying we had to drive to the interview site from the hotel just incase. I remember the parking permit that I ordered from the school. None of that would be useful because the permit didn't apply to the parking lot we were in, and being on campus meant it would have been a greater hassle to drive to the site of the interview than it would be to walk there.
The following morning was the day of the interview. My mom and I attended the campus tour and when we got back to the dean's meeting room, I remember telling Steph Chan that I bet I would count less than 5 Asians in the room that were going to be interviewed. I was right. I was the only Asian in the entire room and the only person that came from the west side of Alabama. I was surprised how uninterested people were that I was from California and I felt kind of isolated when everyone was talking about the school they came from, the rivalries among different colleges, not to mention the Recruiter singled out certain candidates openly because of the school they were from. Nonetheless, I recall there being way too much time for Q&A to the extent we had no more questions to ask by 9:30AM and on the itinerary, there were still another 4-5 Q&A opportunities to go.
After some Q&A moments, we were divided up into groups of 3 or 4 where we had to go to a room and have a prof or admissions member observe how we all behaved in a group setting. We were really nervous at first because I thought this was going to be either the same group activity I was placed under when I had my student advising interview in which we had to construct a study skills class on the spot or the horrifying group interview I experienced at Midwestern. Luckily, it was neither. We were giving realistic scenarios of what we would encounter if we worked in a pharmacy and what we determined was important in pharmacy care. Situation 1 dealt with a story I've heard before in which a guy, who's wife is dying from some incurable disease is a WHO volunteer, and a young pharmacist is offering a compounded drug at a discounted price but the guy is too poor to pay for it. What should he do if the drug had a 60% chance of saving his wife's life? The second situation was XYZ pharmacy is taking over your business in Family Friendly Pharmacy and one of the physicians who you formed an alliance with unintentionally screwed you and your white-teeth smiles image over. Describe and rank what values you hold for both these circumstances and discuss them as a group.
Initially, they had trouble connecting the videoconferencing technology in our room over to the videoconference at the Mobile campus. After we finished the group activity, all three of us forgot that we had an observer because we were too involved in the group interview to notice the television screen. I thought it was humorous how all three of our stomachs kept making noises throughout the whole activity and we sort of whispered to each other if our stomachs could be heard through the phone.
I have to mention though that the most hilarious part of the interview was one of the options to a situation you had to handle. You are the pharmacy manager and two technicians are complaining about having time off at the same time. How do you resolve this problem? One of the responses was "host a contest to see which technician can fill the most prescriptions in 1 hour". That is reality show material right there. And then Tyra Banks, PharmD. would instruct the technicians that you also got to look fierce typing and work those white lab coats.
Once we were done, we were the last group to join the others in the Dean's Meeting Room for lunch which was Panera! I couldn't really focus at that point because I was so hungry so before I got to ask the P3 and P1 students about their experience at Auburn, I inhaled a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips before I realized where I was and who was sitting next to me. The most interesting thing I learned from them was that it's not uncommon for Auburn students to leave in trailer parks. I'm guessing they haven't seen what California trailer parks are like. I got my chance to ask a few questions about what they were involved in, residency, and how the classes are structured (tests, quizzes, interrogations).
Once lunch was over, the admissions committee divided us up into 2 groups. I was in Group 2 so we got to have our pictures taken for the admissions committee to remember us. I always like to think that our pictures are taken for these situations so they can throw darts at us...I'm not sure why. Apparently, these pictures, if we are accepted, will be our student IDs. I was the first to have my picture taken but the really nice lady had to take my picture about 8 times because I failed to graduate from the college awkwardness of blinking whenever the camera flashed. After that, we got a very abbreviated tour of the pharmacy building where we only saw a few lecture halls, study rooms, and the clinic, which was reminiscent of CVS. Then, we were taken back to the Dean's Room where there was still 35-40 min left on the clock before it was our turn to interview. At 1:30, the first girl from Group 1 came back and in no time, all of us nervous girls were asking about how the interview went.
At some point, during this large amount of downtime, I'm not sure how or why but this one Ohio candidate with a super resume and I started a friendly verbal competition of who went to college in the most dangerous city. Hers was Toledo and mine was Stockton but I gave her the victory when she said people have been stabbed on her campus. UOP may have had a homicide but not on the campus itself. We talked about the ridiculousness of other pharmacy schools and basically got to know each other more about where we came from and what we were up to. They were all really friendly but really nervous which I don't blame them. In my mind, I was trying to follow advice from a StudentDoctor.Net article that encouraged interview candidates to keep to themselves to prevent psyching each other out. I noticed the waiver in their voices when they were anxious about it not being 2PM yet and us waiting in the room.
The next girl that came out of Group 1 was pretty early as well. When I noticed she and I had the same interviewers, I asked her how the professor and P3 student was since the 1st girl that came back told us how awkward her interview felt. I didn't get much of a response so I knew I was on my own.
I won't lie about how tough the interview was. I did my research on what questions they asked but this school was one step ahead. The two most difficult questions that I was asked was "describe a time in which you had to take care of a person older than 50 but was not your parent, family member, or teacher" and "name 3 people from the past, present, and future whom you would like to have dinner with and why."
Holy moly. The most I had prepared was Larry King because in my opinion, he is one of the most respected journalists. He is a fantastic interviewer who listens, asks the right questions, and respects the people that he interviews all which are qualities highly regarded in the health profession. Then, this was where I got stuck on choosing the next person. When I was thinking of who to select from the past, (never mind that a 'future' person had not even crossed my mind at that moment) for some reason, I could not think beyond these three individuals: Jesus, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. For some reason I was going to say Abe Lincoln because you can trust he didn't cut down the cherry tree. What???
But then the professor must have noticed me really struggle with that question because then he changed it to three people from the present. I was still trapped. Then, wordvomit occurred and Barrack Obama became my unintentional 2nd choice. Then, I suddenly became aware that Alabama was a red state. However, I justified that Barrack Obama, regardless that our personal views and beliefs differ, is an incredibly fascinating (my favorite word at this point) individual and I would love to learn what his thoughts were as he rose from the beaches of Hawaii to being elected to the most powerful political seat in the world. I would love to learn how he became the person he was. I wanted to Larry King him.
My third choice was a celebrity. Audrey Hepburn never crossed my mind even though I always talk about how much I idolize her style and persona. The same pause occurred where I couldn't think beyond Paris Hilton. This wasn't an interview for Teen Vogue, this is an interview for pharmacy school. I was about to say Lady Gaga but I doubt the professor would know who she was, so I picked Madonna, someone who everyone knows has made a significant contribution to pop culture, society, and feminism.
I realized I could have picked a scientist or a pharmacist...but it was already too late. I did have Einstein in the back of my head, but I really wasn't interested in having dinner with Einstein and talking about the laws of relativity...I should have said Darwin! However, if I do meet Obama, Madonna, or Larry King some day, I will thank them for getting me into pharmacy school. Obama can make things happen! Madonna use to work at Dunkin Donuts and Larry King never went to college!
I ended up being the 2nd to last person to return to the Dean's Room and I had a sinking feeling that my words during my interview were too strong. Did I sound too desperate? Were my words too extreme? I remember using terms like "I can't imagine myself doing anything else" and "this is what I was meant to do." Maybe I should have held back a little. Later, I met up with my mom and we decided to drive over to the nearby town of Opelika after I asked my dad (over the phone) to convince her to take me around after a stressful day. The malls they had really reminded me of the Stockton malls. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Mom was disappointed that she couldn't find Coach and Louis Vuitton, so I had to constantly remind her that we weren't in San Francisco. The dinner we had wasn't very good as my mom and I argued about where to eat. She refused to step foot in any restaurant serving pizza and sandwiches despite the fact we were in a traditional college town. She didn't understand the correlation of pizza and sandwiches is to traditional college town is the same as getting fries at McDonald's. Therefore, we ended up eating back at the hotel we were staying at.
The following morning, my mom was incredibly stressed out and panicky for reasons I'm still not sure of, checking our rental car every 5 seconds (literally) as she kept leaning over to look out the window while we were having breakfast. When I brought this up to my dad over the phone, we broke out into an argument in which she told me how I was disrespectful, ungrateful, and if I wasn't such a failure why would I be interviewing here in the first place. This argument proceeded all the way to the Atlanta airport, to Dallas (where our flight got delayed for 45 minutes due to a missing rubber seal in the engine), and back home to the American Idol auditions. I spoke as little as I could because of the emotional trauma I felt I was experiencing. But honestly, if there was anything I learned from my experiences here, it's that Dallas + American Airlines do not mix.
During the terrible American Idol auditions, at around 8:15PM, I decided to check my e-mail which I haven't checked since Sunday. My heart sank when I saw that the admissions committee was responding much earlier than I expected. A perfectly decent trip to Alabama went from bad to worse to downright I-wish-my-life-was-over. The admissions committee had told us their decision could take up to 14 days. However, my interviewing professor said the committee meets right after the interviews are over to discuss who's gets the ax. One of the P3 students that had lunch with us said give them until Wednesday...Thursday at the latest. All I could think was 'my life is going to be decided that soon'?
My heart was sinking when I clicked on the e-mail. I wasn't even emotionally prepared especially after everything I experienced that day. However, the first word I read was "Congratulations..."
Huh?
Wait a second.
Did they send this to the wrong person?
Is this really happening? I think my brain was about to explode that moment because all of my thoughts became run-on sentences and incoherent. Going somewhere in the fall? Don't worry anymore? Pharmacy reality? My dad's coming home Thursday? My mom is right there? I've been wondering so long? I got acce...?
I look over to my mom who's in the family room watching American Idol. Simon Cowell's words were becoming jibberish. I could care less that Avril Lavigne was a 20-year old behaving like a high school brat. Oh my gosh. OH my GOSH.
The first thing I think I did was shake my head, pointed up, and said thank you. Then, I tried as calmly as I could, walk over to the family room, shut off my mom's television and she's about to flip out again like she did earlier this morning, which was then I said: Mom, I'm going to pharmacy school this fall. I got accepted.
She suddenly stood up to hug me and cried uncontrollably pretty much telling me how proud she was for me saying that she was sorry for all the things she said and how hard she was on me for so long and the whole 9 yards. I don't even care at this point what she said that morning. I can only sense her body trembling from the news and from her crying. I couldn't cry though. I was too happy and all I could think was 'finally'. I was waiting to wake up but now I realize it's not a dream. I'm going to pharmacy school in 7 months. I'm not going to wait anymore. It's here and finally finally finally everything I have done suddenly has a vision. I finally see where I'm walking towards.
We tried to finish watching American Idol but we couldn't focus at all. Later on, I would realize my mom had no idea which school accepted me but then figured out it was Auburn after I mentioned how the school got back to me so fast. Everything Simon, Randy, and Kara said went way over my head. I could care less that Katy Perry felt dirty. I am going to pharmacy school.
At this point, I forgot I had a brother. I went to tell my dad over Skype what had happened. I tricked him into thinking that Hayward sent me some fees I had to pay up. He opened the e-mail to realize the e-mail was not from Hayward but my forwarded acceptance letter from Auburn and he said "YE-EAH!!" in a tone I've never heard before. Afterwards, I proceeded to drive to Angela's house to tell her news. She was about to leave her house with Pastor Jay from the parking lot with her kids when I came up. She was confused when she saw me asking if I was OK, if my mom was at home, and my dad was in Taiwan, believing that my mom and I got into another argument. I told her that I was doing fine. I'm not upset, I'm doing fine. BUT...I have some news to share.
The last people I spoke to that night was Vivian, Daniel, then Ryan. I wanted them to know about it in person before I announced it publicly.
On one of my fortune cookies, I wrote 1/27: Now, you can finally sleep. Ironically, I haven't been able to sleep well because I'm still giddy from the excitement. It really has been a fairy tale and the only thing I'm scared of is someone's going to wake me up from it at any moment. I'm waiting for the e-mail that says "sorry, we sent this to the wrong person."
I never thought how much that one day has affected me and changed my family. It's such an incredible feeling because even though so many things have gone wrong in the past two years, I feel like this one moment made everything. Made every single difficult moment worth it. There's this huge burden that fell off my back. My life's not suddenly perfect and peachy, but something here got fixed. I think that night, two years worth of frustration and anger and hurt dissolved in that instant. As terrible as that day began, it ended so perfectly. It's safe to say for me that it really is going down as perhaps the best night of my life because so much pain vanished that night. I didn't cry at all but my cheeks were sore from all the smiling that happened and I hardly got any sleep.
So at this point, I'm just trying to absorb this reality and right now, reality is really good.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Oregon Trail MMORPG
I do not play MMORPGs and I am not into the whole online fantasy world of leveling up characters and paying a server to purchase digital weapons and explore digital worlds when I could be using that money to go to France. However, if there is absolutely any MMORPG I would put my money down for, it would be for the best computer game of all time: Oregon Trail.
If some video game designer stumbles upon this blog on a dull day, this is how I would envision an Oregon Trail MMORPG being done in the most politically incorrect and historically offensive way. However, this online game would remain as true to the original version as much as possible.
First of all, you start off in Springfield, Illinois. Before you start off in Springfield, Illinois, you got to choose your character. Your character will be the same age as you are so you have no control over that. You can't lie about it because you're paying for this game with your credit card and the game will go by the birth date you used to open your credit card. Somehow. However, you can choose your gender and occupation. So here's this. You and a bunch of friends can get together to start a caravan or you can start on your own but you won't be able to because with more people, you get more money. More money means more supplies. More supplies means y'all stand a better chance of getting to Oregon in one piece.
So after you're done purchasing your supplies like you would in the original game, you and your friends or strangers you just met in Illinois can name your caravan and be off on your journey to Willamette Valley! The more oxen you got, the faster you can go.
The best part of this game would be the many options you can do with your character like you would in a typical MMORPG. The hunting is the best part of the game. When you hunt, the game immediately becomes a first-person shooter like you'd see in the online coop first-person shooter. You can shoot anything! Your teammates, your enemies, and best of all, the buffalo! Once you're done shooting, you can haul the meat back. The game should leave the option open for cannibalism if the only other source of food is the enemy caravan and you're stuck in the Mojave Desert for 8 days.
Since this game is part coop first-person shooter, you can start battles or defend your caravan from the flaming arrows of Native Americans who are angry that you are trespassing in their territory. You can also start battles or defend your caravan from other caravans. You can have weapons with you so it would help that someone in your caravan is a Revolutionary War veteran. You can pillage, steal, and burn other peoples' caravans or Native American villages but because Oregon Trail was originally meant for children, your penalty will be annoying notices on the side of the screen saying that this is morally discouraged.
To deal with the conditions like typhoid fever and broken arms, you can heal faster if you got a doctor on your team! You can't do as much while you got dysentery so your stats on attack, defense, and speed go down temporarily until you get better. You could try hunting while you're sick but the screen will shake up just as you're about to shoot just to mess with your vision.
The best idea would be the effects of death. If you die in the game because you were impailed by too many arrows, there are only several checkpoints throughout the game where you can choose to "start over" at. You carry your skills with you but when you die, you take nothing with you. When I say nothing, that means nothing. You end up at a checkpoint you were previously at and you are naked with no supplies. Remember in the beginning when you had to purchase supplies and had to buy sets of clothes? This is where this comes in handy. You are reduced to the role of a n00b and must rely on the giving hearts of other users in the game for pants, shoes, and shirts. Being naked may seem like a great idea for a while but the clothes ultimately help you with your stats. Pants increase defense and better protect you from snakebites. Shoes also increase defense and help with speed when you are being chased by angry bears. Shirts will increase your defense and improve your health by protecting you from the everchanging weather of the game. This is also where being nice to other users comes into play because you don't want to be one guy that the enemy caravan recognized as the guy who tried to steal their oxen...and you're naked. To encourage you to put some clothes on, you cannot leave your checkpoint or do anything productive in the game until you are clothed. Plus, you can contact your buddies and see if they can come back for you or you go to where they are. You can meet up with your buddies by hitching a ride with a neighboring caravan or by going on your own. By hitching a ride with a caravan, you agree not to steal anything or burn their caravan to the ground until you get the approval of transferring back to your original groupie.
The expansion packs make great assets to the game. They give you more options to explore different routes beyond the "Oregon Trail".
The first expansion pack that I had in mind was the Native American Expansion Pack. As politically offensive this is, you are given the opportunity to start as a Native American instead of a banker from Chicago. You get to either attack caravans passing by or you can help them. This expansion pack will function more like Harvest Moon and less like Darkfall. You can also have the option of following Americans to their promised land but be careful as you may die of measles.
The second expansion pack that I had in mind allows you to deviate from the trail to Willamette Valley and explore different historical moments in American history. Your caravan can take a detour to Texas where you can help defend the Alamo from the Mexican government. This expansion pack will be the fluke in the series.
The third expansion pack would be great for fans of the classic MMORPG in a fantasy setting. Instead of traveling upward to Oregon, you can detour to Utah where the Mormons take settlement. At this point, you can get your Guild Wars on by helping to build up the Mormon church or tear it down. You get options of moving up in the Mormon church and accessing new commands in your menu by resurrecting zombies. You can increase your stats by obtaining holy relics and using your powers to either help or terrorize the caravans coming by. However, if you began as part of the Salt Lake City settlement, you carry those same powers with you even if you leave Utah, but beware that even thy holiness cannot stop American bullets and Native American arrows. But you can use MP (magic points) to resurrect zombies to defend you and your fellow men.
Like any game, there's always room for customization and extras. You can pimp your wagon by adding chrome wheels or stronger equipment to make sure your ride doesn't get stuck when it snows. Another extra can be something like by being courteous and nice to the LDS church and having a member join you, they can bless your oxen into racing to Oregon faster than ordinary oxen.
These are the ideas I have in mind so far. Yes, the expansion packs would most likely never be made because they would be marred with historical inaccuracies and offend anyone associated with the American flag but I would put money down to play this if such a thing existed. There are so many possibilities with this game that you may never want to end up in Oregon after all.
(Some of these absolutely great ideas came from my bro and Scott. I don't even care about taking credit. I just want someone to make this happen someday.)
If some video game designer stumbles upon this blog on a dull day, this is how I would envision an Oregon Trail MMORPG being done in the most politically incorrect and historically offensive way. However, this online game would remain as true to the original version as much as possible.
First of all, you start off in Springfield, Illinois. Before you start off in Springfield, Illinois, you got to choose your character. Your character will be the same age as you are so you have no control over that. You can't lie about it because you're paying for this game with your credit card and the game will go by the birth date you used to open your credit card. Somehow. However, you can choose your gender and occupation. So here's this. You and a bunch of friends can get together to start a caravan or you can start on your own but you won't be able to because with more people, you get more money. More money means more supplies. More supplies means y'all stand a better chance of getting to Oregon in one piece.
So after you're done purchasing your supplies like you would in the original game, you and your friends or strangers you just met in Illinois can name your caravan and be off on your journey to Willamette Valley! The more oxen you got, the faster you can go.
The best part of this game would be the many options you can do with your character like you would in a typical MMORPG. The hunting is the best part of the game. When you hunt, the game immediately becomes a first-person shooter like you'd see in the online coop first-person shooter. You can shoot anything! Your teammates, your enemies, and best of all, the buffalo! Once you're done shooting, you can haul the meat back. The game should leave the option open for cannibalism if the only other source of food is the enemy caravan and you're stuck in the Mojave Desert for 8 days.
Since this game is part coop first-person shooter, you can start battles or defend your caravan from the flaming arrows of Native Americans who are angry that you are trespassing in their territory. You can also start battles or defend your caravan from other caravans. You can have weapons with you so it would help that someone in your caravan is a Revolutionary War veteran. You can pillage, steal, and burn other peoples' caravans or Native American villages but because Oregon Trail was originally meant for children, your penalty will be annoying notices on the side of the screen saying that this is morally discouraged.
To deal with the conditions like typhoid fever and broken arms, you can heal faster if you got a doctor on your team! You can't do as much while you got dysentery so your stats on attack, defense, and speed go down temporarily until you get better. You could try hunting while you're sick but the screen will shake up just as you're about to shoot just to mess with your vision.
The best idea would be the effects of death. If you die in the game because you were impailed by too many arrows, there are only several checkpoints throughout the game where you can choose to "start over" at. You carry your skills with you but when you die, you take nothing with you. When I say nothing, that means nothing. You end up at a checkpoint you were previously at and you are naked with no supplies. Remember in the beginning when you had to purchase supplies and had to buy sets of clothes? This is where this comes in handy. You are reduced to the role of a n00b and must rely on the giving hearts of other users in the game for pants, shoes, and shirts. Being naked may seem like a great idea for a while but the clothes ultimately help you with your stats. Pants increase defense and better protect you from snakebites. Shoes also increase defense and help with speed when you are being chased by angry bears. Shirts will increase your defense and improve your health by protecting you from the everchanging weather of the game. This is also where being nice to other users comes into play because you don't want to be one guy that the enemy caravan recognized as the guy who tried to steal their oxen...and you're naked. To encourage you to put some clothes on, you cannot leave your checkpoint or do anything productive in the game until you are clothed. Plus, you can contact your buddies and see if they can come back for you or you go to where they are. You can meet up with your buddies by hitching a ride with a neighboring caravan or by going on your own. By hitching a ride with a caravan, you agree not to steal anything or burn their caravan to the ground until you get the approval of transferring back to your original groupie.
The expansion packs make great assets to the game. They give you more options to explore different routes beyond the "Oregon Trail".
The first expansion pack that I had in mind was the Native American Expansion Pack. As politically offensive this is, you are given the opportunity to start as a Native American instead of a banker from Chicago. You get to either attack caravans passing by or you can help them. This expansion pack will function more like Harvest Moon and less like Darkfall. You can also have the option of following Americans to their promised land but be careful as you may die of measles.
The second expansion pack that I had in mind allows you to deviate from the trail to Willamette Valley and explore different historical moments in American history. Your caravan can take a detour to Texas where you can help defend the Alamo from the Mexican government. This expansion pack will be the fluke in the series.
The third expansion pack would be great for fans of the classic MMORPG in a fantasy setting. Instead of traveling upward to Oregon, you can detour to Utah where the Mormons take settlement. At this point, you can get your Guild Wars on by helping to build up the Mormon church or tear it down. You get options of moving up in the Mormon church and accessing new commands in your menu by resurrecting zombies. You can increase your stats by obtaining holy relics and using your powers to either help or terrorize the caravans coming by. However, if you began as part of the Salt Lake City settlement, you carry those same powers with you even if you leave Utah, but beware that even thy holiness cannot stop American bullets and Native American arrows. But you can use MP (magic points) to resurrect zombies to defend you and your fellow men.
Like any game, there's always room for customization and extras. You can pimp your wagon by adding chrome wheels or stronger equipment to make sure your ride doesn't get stuck when it snows. Another extra can be something like by being courteous and nice to the LDS church and having a member join you, they can bless your oxen into racing to Oregon faster than ordinary oxen.
These are the ideas I have in mind so far. Yes, the expansion packs would most likely never be made because they would be marred with historical inaccuracies and offend anyone associated with the American flag but I would put money down to play this if such a thing existed. There are so many possibilities with this game that you may never want to end up in Oregon after all.
(Some of these absolutely great ideas came from my bro and Scott. I don't even care about taking credit. I just want someone to make this happen someday.)
Friday, January 1, 2010
Shine, Shine, 2009
2009 is probably the craziest year of my life. And it most likely will be for a very long time. More things happened to me this one year than probably the last 20 years of my life combined and I want to highlight the people and the moments that made this year the most miserable and the most amazing year so far.
I would have never imagined that not going to pharmacy school and “taking a year off” would provide so many new experiences. On December 22, 2008, I found out my grades for the 1st semester of junior year, and was hit with the realization that I was not going to pharmacy school next year no matter how hard I could try to recover in my last semester at UOP. Following that day, the people who I spoke to, you all knew it was the worst three to four months of my life. Daniel Wang, Sarah Hoffman, and Angela Chan: without you three, I don’t think I’d be smiling today. I think, and you three would definitely agree, that I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for you three to help me through the darkest moments of my life. Because of you three, I can keep going and keep doing what I want to do.
I could go on and on about what went down, which really defined the way this year was shaped but I’m not going to. I want to focus on the most defining things that came out of 2009 for me.
First and foremost was Alpha Phi. Even though most of you didn’t know what was going on, I can’t thank you enough for the shelter and escape you gave me from school and my predicaments when I came to the house. Even though I knew this place couldn’t resolve what I was going through, it provided me the escape that I needed when I was overwhelmed. Cat Cho, Dana, my big, little, twin, Dang, Rhobe, Hooton, Lola, Yeli, Karen-time: you girls made me laugh and forget all my problems when I came over, and that was all I needed to go on for another day. I never ever would have thought in my life I’d be in a sorority or wish I’d live in a house governed by estrogen.
Secondly, who knew that not going to pharmacy school meant I’d have the next best thing: Tom, Elisa, Ari, Mandy, Shu Han, Mil, Kris, Kristin, Steph, Eleni, Ashley, Carina, Christine, Tony, Debbie, Norma, Stacey, Lupe, and Daniel. I think my training was probably the most painful you guys ever had to deal with but I’m thankful for every day you all put up with me and are willing to teach me so much. Despite the grief and frustration that I’ve brought along, you’ve made my experience with pharmacy so much better and something I want to do even more now than when I was at UOP. There were moments I wished I quit, but for every moment I wanted to, you guys provided twice the amount of new lessons, skills, challenges, and encouragement for me to stay on track. I don’t know about you but personally I’m glad I ended up with you guys. Thank you for making this such a great experience so far. I can’t believe it’s already been 6 months!
Thirdly, has to be my family who returned as the center focus of my life. I put you guys through so much. I can’t believe how much we’ve been through. From January to June, I’m pretty convinced we were probably the most miserable family in a twenty-mile radius because of extenuating circumstances. Behind the family outings, behind the gifts, behind the hellos and goodbyes, we had issues. Oh boy, we had issues that ran 8 miles deep yet I’m amazed how much we overcame. We still got a long way to go but I want to highlight some memories that I felt defined our year together: the Burberry watch + Christmas bird, the Asparagus Festival, meeting Martin Yan, the 5000 phone conversations you received during my last semester at UOP (it seemed like 5000), Starbucks with Dad, hanging out with Dad when Mom was in M’asia, Dim sum disasters, hospital trips, Monterey, Half Moon Bay, Carmel, Cirque du Soleil’s KA, Prada, Best Buy at 3AM, the Hayward dilemma, movie nights, Rosie McCann’s, the day we went to SJ Airport 3 times, flying to 3 different states, pretty necklaces, girls’ night with Mom + Aunt Kim and Kim’s infamous “I wonder where I stand” quote, Blink-182/Weezer/Taking Back Sunday and long-boarding and go-karting fail with my brother, and the first Christmas present exchange in my family.
Fourthly, the friends I reconnected with lightened up the last two months of this year: Ashley, Scott, Justin, Katherine, Hayne, Sarah, Gab, Iris, and Chris. The new friends I met, thanks to Christine, made things a lot more interesting: Mico, Maybel, Joe. I feel like I am living the life I never got during college because I was constantly being plagued by insecurities and issues with what I wanted to do in life and how I was going to get there. Some of you are aware that I have some sort of anti-social sort of mood going on, which I am trying so hard to break out of. I think I’m doing a much better job of that now and I hope you can see that as pretty much say yes to nearly everything now instead of making up new excuses why I can’t be seen. Some of the things I want to mention that made this year memorable: D&B with Hayne and Alex, Justin’s hangover and realization that Ashley was a Jew, NYE at Straits, Santa Cruz time with Sarah, coffee/tea time with Sarah, Halloween with Sarah, Temple, movies with D. Wang, X-amount of hour-long conversations with Tan, Daniel, Ryan, and others I just can’t remember, yikes, Santa Cruz before graduation. I feel like I’m leaving off a lot of people here, the psych kids (Jake, Anthony, Mae, and Chris W).
Fifth, the professors I encountered this year really defined my academic experience: Wrisch, Land, Dai, Ram, Nieto, and Severet. In one year, 6 out of my 7 favorite professors were either teaching me, encouraging me, and/or challenging me more than I’ve ever had during my first two years of college. This was the year of super professors. I believe I had the best professors that both UOP and Hayward’s got to offer and I’m kind of scared to see of what 2010 will bring because I don’t think it can top off the mentors I encountered in 2009.
Lastly, there’s no amount of words for me to describe the troubles that changed my perception on life this year. I want to bring up two friends of mine whom I’ll never see again because of incidents that were beyond their control. Both of them had a huge impact on an issue that was going on in my life and as much as I and everyone that knew them wished they were here today, I’m thankful for the influence they have on my life even at this point.
I think the person that people saw on January 1, 2009 and the person that people saw on December 31, 2009 are two different people. I came into 2009 with dread, fear, anxiety, helplessness, sadness, sleeplessness, insecurity, and a lot of apologies. I can’t even put into words about the emotions I felt during January except that I hope the first 5 months of 2009 are something I would never have to experience again. However, the last 3 months of 2009 were nothing short of exciting, unpredictable, scary, painful, insightful, and I’ve emerged with a renewed sense of determination.
Before this year, I have never gone to a concert, never longboarded, never went to downtown SJ, never seen Cirque du Soleil, never had a job that I actually looked forward going to, never taken a taxi, never had a nice Vietnam War veteran who loved rodeo in Vegas pay for my taxi fare, never been to 2 different states on opposite sides of the country in 2 weeks, never had 6 hours of sleep in 4 days (for finals), never met a celebrity, never had three consecutive gatherings in a row (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's), and never partied beyond my house to celebrate the New Year’s. Call me boring all you want. The difference between me now and me back in Jan 2009 is that I believe myself to be boring, but I just really don't care at this point. I've already spent way too much of my life insecure about what I haven't done yet. I think it's about time I actually just do it instead of thinking about it.
In conclusion, the same problems that followed me during 2009 are still following me in 2010. However, I feel that something's different this time. I feel like I’m more prepared and wanting to see what’s to come instead of dreading it. I wonder if I’ll make it to pharmacy school, if I’ll meet someone special, if my friends will still be there, if my family can settle down, if anything from the last year or even the last decade will have any kind of closure.
Nonetheless, this year has been one very wild ride. And instead of trying to take control, I think this time I’ll just sit back and see where it will take me.
I would have never imagined that not going to pharmacy school and “taking a year off” would provide so many new experiences. On December 22, 2008, I found out my grades for the 1st semester of junior year, and was hit with the realization that I was not going to pharmacy school next year no matter how hard I could try to recover in my last semester at UOP. Following that day, the people who I spoke to, you all knew it was the worst three to four months of my life. Daniel Wang, Sarah Hoffman, and Angela Chan: without you three, I don’t think I’d be smiling today. I think, and you three would definitely agree, that I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for you three to help me through the darkest moments of my life. Because of you three, I can keep going and keep doing what I want to do.
I could go on and on about what went down, which really defined the way this year was shaped but I’m not going to. I want to focus on the most defining things that came out of 2009 for me.
First and foremost was Alpha Phi. Even though most of you didn’t know what was going on, I can’t thank you enough for the shelter and escape you gave me from school and my predicaments when I came to the house. Even though I knew this place couldn’t resolve what I was going through, it provided me the escape that I needed when I was overwhelmed. Cat Cho, Dana, my big, little, twin, Dang, Rhobe, Hooton, Lola, Yeli, Karen-time: you girls made me laugh and forget all my problems when I came over, and that was all I needed to go on for another day. I never ever would have thought in my life I’d be in a sorority or wish I’d live in a house governed by estrogen.
Secondly, who knew that not going to pharmacy school meant I’d have the next best thing: Tom, Elisa, Ari, Mandy, Shu Han, Mil, Kris, Kristin, Steph, Eleni, Ashley, Carina, Christine, Tony, Debbie, Norma, Stacey, Lupe, and Daniel. I think my training was probably the most painful you guys ever had to deal with but I’m thankful for every day you all put up with me and are willing to teach me so much. Despite the grief and frustration that I’ve brought along, you’ve made my experience with pharmacy so much better and something I want to do even more now than when I was at UOP. There were moments I wished I quit, but for every moment I wanted to, you guys provided twice the amount of new lessons, skills, challenges, and encouragement for me to stay on track. I don’t know about you but personally I’m glad I ended up with you guys. Thank you for making this such a great experience so far. I can’t believe it’s already been 6 months!
Thirdly, has to be my family who returned as the center focus of my life. I put you guys through so much. I can’t believe how much we’ve been through. From January to June, I’m pretty convinced we were probably the most miserable family in a twenty-mile radius because of extenuating circumstances. Behind the family outings, behind the gifts, behind the hellos and goodbyes, we had issues. Oh boy, we had issues that ran 8 miles deep yet I’m amazed how much we overcame. We still got a long way to go but I want to highlight some memories that I felt defined our year together: the Burberry watch + Christmas bird, the Asparagus Festival, meeting Martin Yan, the 5000 phone conversations you received during my last semester at UOP (it seemed like 5000), Starbucks with Dad, hanging out with Dad when Mom was in M’asia, Dim sum disasters, hospital trips, Monterey, Half Moon Bay, Carmel, Cirque du Soleil’s KA, Prada, Best Buy at 3AM, the Hayward dilemma, movie nights, Rosie McCann’s, the day we went to SJ Airport 3 times, flying to 3 different states, pretty necklaces, girls’ night with Mom + Aunt Kim and Kim’s infamous “I wonder where I stand” quote, Blink-182/Weezer/Taking Back Sunday and long-boarding and go-karting fail with my brother, and the first Christmas present exchange in my family.
Fourthly, the friends I reconnected with lightened up the last two months of this year: Ashley, Scott, Justin, Katherine, Hayne, Sarah, Gab, Iris, and Chris. The new friends I met, thanks to Christine, made things a lot more interesting: Mico, Maybel, Joe. I feel like I am living the life I never got during college because I was constantly being plagued by insecurities and issues with what I wanted to do in life and how I was going to get there. Some of you are aware that I have some sort of anti-social sort of mood going on, which I am trying so hard to break out of. I think I’m doing a much better job of that now and I hope you can see that as pretty much say yes to nearly everything now instead of making up new excuses why I can’t be seen. Some of the things I want to mention that made this year memorable: D&B with Hayne and Alex, Justin’s hangover and realization that Ashley was a Jew, NYE at Straits, Santa Cruz time with Sarah, coffee/tea time with Sarah, Halloween with Sarah, Temple, movies with D. Wang, X-amount of hour-long conversations with Tan, Daniel, Ryan, and others I just can’t remember, yikes, Santa Cruz before graduation. I feel like I’m leaving off a lot of people here, the psych kids (Jake, Anthony, Mae, and Chris W).
Fifth, the professors I encountered this year really defined my academic experience: Wrisch, Land, Dai, Ram, Nieto, and Severet. In one year, 6 out of my 7 favorite professors were either teaching me, encouraging me, and/or challenging me more than I’ve ever had during my first two years of college. This was the year of super professors. I believe I had the best professors that both UOP and Hayward’s got to offer and I’m kind of scared to see of what 2010 will bring because I don’t think it can top off the mentors I encountered in 2009.
Lastly, there’s no amount of words for me to describe the troubles that changed my perception on life this year. I want to bring up two friends of mine whom I’ll never see again because of incidents that were beyond their control. Both of them had a huge impact on an issue that was going on in my life and as much as I and everyone that knew them wished they were here today, I’m thankful for the influence they have on my life even at this point.
I think the person that people saw on January 1, 2009 and the person that people saw on December 31, 2009 are two different people. I came into 2009 with dread, fear, anxiety, helplessness, sadness, sleeplessness, insecurity, and a lot of apologies. I can’t even put into words about the emotions I felt during January except that I hope the first 5 months of 2009 are something I would never have to experience again. However, the last 3 months of 2009 were nothing short of exciting, unpredictable, scary, painful, insightful, and I’ve emerged with a renewed sense of determination.
Before this year, I have never gone to a concert, never longboarded, never went to downtown SJ, never seen Cirque du Soleil, never had a job that I actually looked forward going to, never taken a taxi, never had a nice Vietnam War veteran who loved rodeo in Vegas pay for my taxi fare, never been to 2 different states on opposite sides of the country in 2 weeks, never had 6 hours of sleep in 4 days (for finals), never met a celebrity, never had three consecutive gatherings in a row (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's), and never partied beyond my house to celebrate the New Year’s. Call me boring all you want. The difference between me now and me back in Jan 2009 is that I believe myself to be boring, but I just really don't care at this point. I've already spent way too much of my life insecure about what I haven't done yet. I think it's about time I actually just do it instead of thinking about it.
In conclusion, the same problems that followed me during 2009 are still following me in 2010. However, I feel that something's different this time. I feel like I’m more prepared and wanting to see what’s to come instead of dreading it. I wonder if I’ll make it to pharmacy school, if I’ll meet someone special, if my friends will still be there, if my family can settle down, if anything from the last year or even the last decade will have any kind of closure.
Nonetheless, this year has been one very wild ride. And instead of trying to take control, I think this time I’ll just sit back and see where it will take me.
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