LXII : Contradictions

Today, or more like these past 3ish days, I've been feeling like I'm so contradictory.. leaning toward hypocritical a bit probably.

1) Why are people so revolved around money sometimes? I thought myself okay with not having the lavishness of the rich, but I really find myself thinking a lot about how much can I save up/earn/keep in my bank account. In the beginning, I thought I would be fine just using my apartment as (a very expensive) storage place since my lease doesn't end until July 28. But now, I'm thinking I should have looked for subletters earlier and gotten someone to take my spot for at least a month or 1.5 months. That would save me much. I even juggled with the idea of asking if it's possible to terminate my lease early... but now I wonder why I didn't ask my landlord earlier? And then I thought, if I did terminate it early, the deposit (which was 1.5 month's rent) would be theirs, which is less than what I would be paying if I kept until the end of the lease. So that's good, but then I keep thinking "would that mean the other three roomies will have to pay more?" which leads me to another point....

2) Why do people think so much about themselves? I thought I was the type to place others before myself because by helping them out, I feel happy. So I guess in a way that does seem like I'm doing everything for myself in the end. These past few days I've just been feeling like I should only think about what would benefit me, and not the other people in my apartment, though I can't say they acted without thinking about my interests. Let me back up a bit. Two of my roommates found two subletters last week for the summer and they posted our apartment as 2 singles. And the subletters' pay will be going toward their rent, which means me and roomie 1 pay our $625 each month while roomie 2 and 3 pay $25/month + utilities. The two people they found are not strangers, which is what I was hoping for. I keep thinking it makes sense that they should pay less since they worked hard at finding people to sublet, but should they really be the ones to keep everything? Why can't the total rent go down just a bit anyway? But, I keep thinking, maybe I should just terminate my end of the lease... if it even works that way. But I really want to find someone to sublet to. Or I could just see my bank account deplete further (loans suck).

3) Why don't people tell me what's bothering them? I don't think I do that much... actually I know I don't tend to want to tell others about what's on my mind because I don't want to bother them with my issues. I still think "why add to their list of life issues?" even though I understand how friends wouldn't mind at all. In fact, I know they would want to know about what's upsetting or bothering me, but I can't help going along with the thought that if I can lessen the burden on anyone, then why not do that. Job-finding is going to be terrible since I find internship-hunting overly stressful already. I'm too greedy--not being able to pick which internship to do and so wanting to do both even though I know it's impossible. As a result, I've been pushing back deciding whether to confirm the current offer while I hope for an offer from another. They're both good, and I'm sure I'll enjoy either way, but why can't I settle on one already?!

4) Why do we tend to say how doomed or badly we are/did? I find myself going along with the flow: "ah, there's still tomorrow to study/finish writing," "I changed my answer to the wrong one at the last minute," "I had a 50-50 chance, and I chose the wrong one," etc. I always end up thinking to myself "what was the point of that?" To feel comforted in the fact that others say that way too, even if they don't truly feel that way? I always thought I'll be happy as long as I do better than last time, but I think I'm always inwardly hoping I also do better than others...

5) I believe people can achieve what they set to achieve. Yet I keep doubting myself, keep worrying about the "what ifs" that could happen, keep dwelling on the thoughts of what others would think, and keep believing I didn't give it my all. I play safe, and I don't take risks even though I know it's what I want to do. I just pretend I'm daring enough to do stuff... but that's only in front of others. What about in front of myself?

...I think I'm just stressing out before finals, but I've been stuck in this thought mode from early this week and it's not getting any better. I can't wait for finals to be over and I can't wait to be in summer vacation. I'm just hoping this phase will pass smoothly, and I won't have this constant feeling of pushing everyone who is worried away. I've been wanting to distance myself from everyone, but I know that wouldn't help. laaa....

All in all, I keep wondering, "Is this normal?"

By the way, last day of classes. woot.

LXI : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 14 and 15

Tuesday (4/13), I watched Mononoke Hime in Japanese Anime class, but we didn't finish it. So I found the whole movie uploaded somewhere on the internet and finished it. It probably remains my favorite film by Miyazaki. The first time I ever watched it, I remember suddenly realizing how there could be a perfectly well-written story with no villain. Well, I guess no villain as I'm used to stories and animated films having. On top of that, I realized how people and nature keep clashing. In addition to loving the story and the characters, I love love LOVE the music. Hisaishi is amazing at composing music that touches the heart, at least it touches mine. Mononoke Hime, Spirited Away, Kikujiro, Laputa, etc. I think genius means being able to reach through to someone's heart, getting passed all walls that could be there and hitting the emotions. In one word: WOW.

I think every time I've watched Mononoke Hime, I've always lingered on it for the next three days or so. It has that strong of an impact on my mind. Truly amazing. Anyway, these two weeks were "rest" weeks because I didn't have any exams. But then, it also meant I was supposed to catch up on work. Of course, I am still behind, but I have a very good excuse: my birthday!!

Saturday was hanging out with Phoebe, Steph, Lint, and Monica at the Stinking Rose and pigging out on their delicious bread. We demolished the first plate when it came and shocked the waiter refilling the bread when he gave us the second plate. It was hilarious because after probably 4 plates, he came over and was like "oh..." and walked away cuz we weren't done yet. Apparently, he only took the plate when there was 1 or 2 left. And by plate 4, we finally decided to "eat smart" and wait for our meals. We had an appetizer (garlic fries ish) that kept making us lose our focus to leave room for the real meal. But oh well, it was a fun dinner. Garlic ice cream is pretty delicious. Like tofu cheesecake (Hayward!). ahh.. lovely. And miso ice cream (Japan...).

Sunday was dimsumming with roomies and Lint. We wanted to go to Yi Mei, but this is what we found when we got there:

It was sad for us, but what made me feel even sadder was seeing two more Asian vans driven by daddies pass by slowly and seeing a grandpa and daddy walk up to the sign. The families that go to the restaurant weekly must've been more devastated than we were. In the end, we went to Elite, right next to Yi Mei. It was a bit pricey, but it's worth it because the portions are big! I very much enjoyed stuffing myself full with their dimsum.

Monday was dinnering with a few of the baddy team members. We ate at a Taiwanese restaurant called Pa Pa Walk. Very delicious and, once again, I pretty much over-filled my stomach. I loved these signs they had for the kitchen and the bathroom:

But food didn't stop there. We went to Kelvin's apartment afterward and Irene brought me a huge cake!

I didn't get pictures, but I blow torched (for creme brulee) the Hello Kitty candle and then literally defaced it. Seriously, sometimes I think I should get over my dislike for Hello Kitty, but I sleep with a Pochacco blanket every night so how can I? We played BANG! (they had to teach me first) until around 1am. What in the world is the renegade supposed to win at that game?! I managed to trick one vice into killing the other vice, but then by the time it gets down to the sheriff, vice, and renegade, I think we pretty much know who's who. -,- Unless the renegade is persuasive enough to get the sheriff to believe he is the vice... I have no such skills. *sad* There was one surprise for my birthday. Jeremy managed to stuff a beer can into my baddy bag without my noticing, and I only found it when I got back to my apartment and unloaded my bag. Now I have a random beer can in the fridge, which I honestly forgot about until yesterday... whoops.

Tuesday was interesting. It started off with Lynn giving me a shirt and my mom sending me package that had a shirt from my sis and Helen (among other lovely things). Shirts together:

Because I slept so late on Monday and couldn't fall asleep until 4am because I was thinking about my first phone interview (for a biotech company internship), I convinced myself that I would skip Japanese Anime class. So I did. And it was wonderful, though I got up early enough that I could have rushed to class... nah. I went to research, but got out early because I told Russell it was my birthday. It was funny conversation:
M: Can I leave early today?
R: Of course not! You have to stay the whole time.
M: It's my birthday.
R: What? What are you doing here! Get out of here!
I'm going to miss researching with the group. I know they'll probably all finish their PhDs soon and whatnot, so eventually we'll disperse. But sometimes, can't time just feel longer when we're having fun? Anyway, dinner was with Kit, who took me to an El Salvadorian restaurant near campus. It was surprisingly filling and delicious, but I still love my Asian foods.

So birthday was super awesome and I'm glad I got to spend it with so many different people I love hanging out with. Love love love.

Now there is one week of classes left and then finals. My last ones of my undergraduate career. I will miss it, but look forward to Pharmacy school! I get excited when I talk to pharm students. So much to know! So much I want to do! Little my little, life will fall into place. But for now (I always have to pull myself back into the NOW), I will go at the pace I am comfortable with.

LX : Nature and Us

Eyjafjallajokull (what a word to say), an Icelandish volcano, spewed ash yesterday. I just wanted to note that huge word. But I do wonder now, it's been a long long time since we've had disasters caused by different acts of nature, right? And now that China had another huge earthquake this past week (that again resulted in deadly collapses of concrete buildings), instead of standing in shock, we're finally pulling together a country, or almost the whole world, to do something about the consequences. So, is it that difficult to pull together again to solve something we started way back when the Industrial Revolution started? Rather than blaming someone (as in the way you can't blame someone for causing an earthquake or a volcanic eruption), why not just think of ways to solve what the problem is? Yeah, people still find someone to blame for the consequences of a natural event (especially when the results of the disaster could have been less in magnitude), but we find what problems there were before and work to fix them.

Anyway, less blame and more solutions? Meaning that blaming is not a solution.

LIX : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 13

This week was horrible up until Friday night because I had a Physio exam on Friday. I realized how much I despised having big exams on Fridays because of this week. I work the hardest for Physio, and I dread Physio tests the most, but I completely enjoy all the things Herrera teaches in Physio. Anyway, week 13 was a tough week mentally and physically. Apparently, I had been lacking proper nutrition because my lips were super dry and the skin kept flaking off, and on top of that, I felt like my lips were slightly swelling outward such that they were getting thicker-like. It was horrible, but I bought some Emergen-C (which I was surprised that it didn't just contain Vit C! It has a bunch of the Vit. B and necessary yummies) and took that toward the end of the week. I'm glad that my body's feeling much more normal, but not completely just yet. It might be due to the strange weather here, too. Hot and then so cold!

Random little cheer-upper while studying:

Super tiny red velvet cupcake! :)

Its deliciousness in one bite revived my motivation to study longer. yay for sugar!

Anyway, studied my butt off and then the weekend came! Relay for life, where I donated 9 inches of my hair, but it was measured from the longest strand, so I kind of cheated. I probably averaged 7 inches... whoops. The minimum was 8 inches. :P I still had shoulder-length hair that night when I went to badminton training. And I don't know how to capture my feelings for the badminton team members, but I love how hilarious some of them can be. We went to a pretty expensive Hong Kong-nese restaurant (Sea Harbor Seafood Restaurant or something) because we wanted to try it out and use some of the club money~ social event y'know! It disappointed us when the waiter kept coming back to tell us "oh, we ran out of [blahblah]" for at least 3 dishes that I could understand (why so many cantonese-speakers on our team?!). Also, the dishes were so small! 13 of us went and we each paid $16 for that dinner... but many of us went to In-n-Out afterward cuz it really did not fill us up. I was too tired to eat even though I was only "satisfied," so I just hung out with them since my driver wanted to get a burger. I found out that I get excited talking about science-y topics. He asked me "So would you get atrophy if you only ate 1 meal one day?" But apparently you eat normally for the other days. And we talked about the physiological conditions that go with just having a meal one day of the week. No problem for the body, right? It just super uncomfortable to feel your stomach gurgling all the time.

Then, on Sunday, I went to visit my friend's apartment in Alhambra, which I'll be next year! I am going to USC Pharmacy School!!! :D *proud to be a complete Trojan* And then, that night, I started studying for my Monday Pchem exam... but I felt chill about it. So weird. I wish I could feel chill about all my exams even when I know I haven't completely studied for it. But, unfortunately, I freaked out studying for Physio. when it was only Monday. and the exam was Friday. *sigh* Our mind and body are WEIRD sometimes.

LVIII : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 11 and 12

Whoops, I fell behind in my weekly updates for this supposed-to-be awesome semester. Week 11 was class stuff on weekdays, which had this surprise me on Tuesday:

Extra large agar plates! Compared to Week 9's extra tiny agar plates.
Other than that, the only really exciting event was Saturday (3/27). CHIP (health club at USC, Community Health Involvement Project) had it's own health fair set up for the first time, and I volunteered to help keep it organized by being crowd control, directing people to the site, and helping just move things along. At first, we were worried that people wouldn't be coming because we started at around 10am and there were no crowds on campus (we were situated inside campus, unfortunately a bit). I helped trying to get people interested, and we were lucky that other events were happening on campus. One was the Easter event by the volunteering program at USC, and their advertising was much better than ours at getting community families to come. We got the volunteers there to direct the families to our health site afterward so they could get free blood pressure screenings, free blood glucose screenings, information on health issues and what you can do to avoid them, and fun kids activities revolved around health. In the end, I say it was a success. There were finally crowds of people by noonish, and we provided lunch which was probably one of the incentives to coming to the health site. Food really is a powerful object/notion. Very powerful. Beware of food.

Week 12, however, seemed much more fun, and much faster. On Monday, I had a micro exam, so I skipped physio lecture, which meant that when I went on Wednesday to physio lecture, it had been a whole week since I last sat in on my physio class. I'm positive I was not lazy. Wednesday was canceled though the prof. pre-recorded the lecture for us, Friday I always skip except for next week, and Monday's time was used very wisely. I hope. We'll see how well I did because for the first time ever, I started studying for a big exam the day before the exam. Yipes. I hope I learned my lesson and gained this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Horrible one.

Wednesday was Physio lab, and I wish I could post my video up! We looked at the leg muscle of a frog. More frogs were killed two-ish hours before we cut them apart. It was gruesome and gross having to pull the leg away from the body and cut the skin off (pretty much rip it off) to expose the muscle, tendon, and nerves. Sometimes the frog's leg was impulsively twitch because the organs and nerves were still functional. The frog was only brain-dead. It blinked sometimes while we were cutting it's body apart. Horrid. It was like watching a bloody gory film to me. yuck. But watching the dissected muscle twitching was awesome.

Just yesterday (Friday, 4/2), I went to the Ahmanson Theater in LA to watch the musical Dreamgirls. We met the female singer of The Miracles, and I wish I knew more about American pop culture. Unfortunately, I know very little. Extremely little. To give you an idea of my knowledge: I know Diana Ross only because she sang "If We Hold On Together" for Land Before Time, which I love. From there, I researched a bit about her and the Supremes. I know nothing more. Anyway, it was an awesome musical, very audience-engaging. Loved it, and hope to watch the movie some day soon. Here is the hallway to a building across from the Ahmanson, where we listened to the lady speak. She was a great speaker. One person from our group told her she was a legend in her eyes and just wanted to let her know. Hearing that was touching to me too, even though I knew nothing about the speaker. Fans truly are amazing as well.

Last thing for this week is today's Post-Season. It was the last tournament for this badminton season, and was held at UCLA. I'm sad that so few people attended, but I still enjoyed my games. I only wish I could make it further into the winners bracket more often, rather than always having to end up in cons or losing my second game. I enjoy the main bracket games more. Intense, frustrating, yet rewarding. I will miss badminton because I know I will have to play it less and less, eventually having to put badminton into my schedule rather than scheduling around badminton. Also, I will miss team dinners and lunches, or rather, I will miss the team gatherings. I can't express how much I love my team, but I hope that the team will always be here, though the members will keep changing. We ate together at a Persian restaurant called Sherazade(sp?) in Westwood. I ordered a Lubio Polo or something. Chicken kabob, rice mixed with beef and stuff... yellow long rice too. Anyway here:

It was a large plate, but I finished ALL of it. Cleaned it. Delicious, filling, but a bit too pricey for me. I paid $17 (Dish was $14ish). I'm satisfied for this week. Now to wind up and focus on studying for a week, before continuing to have fun outside of studying. I will try my best to not let loose until finals are over.

Oh yeah, last thing: Bloody Monday (and season 2) is an incredible drama. I'm sad it's over and I have no Japanese drama to follow now. I will find one eventually, I hope. I'm getting more and more picky. ;)