taking the time to appreciate the stars

there is a man at work who is the nicest person you will ever meet. he will do anything you need him to do because he just wants to make sure you get what you need done in a timely manner. he will stay late at work and postpone his own responsibilities to make sure you are not overwhelmed. he will share his cookies or sweets or the potatoes on his plate. never asking for anything, he gives everything. he's my boss, and during my short year at my job, i've always felt supported. i think that has been important in motivating me to do my best with the duties given to me, but also important in expressing my ideas to improve the lab. in that way, he reminds me of my parents and my brother. always in the background but always present in helping others grow as better people.

the end is upon us for my friends and me as new yorkers. even though emily is staying in our apartment, i'm moving out on monday, and lisa's future is undetermined. at least there is some return to normalcy as neehan moves into my room. meera will be in philadelphia; savita in newark; anjali in boston. deb will be working in the upper east side, and our potlucks will be no more (as we know them anyway). gary will stay in his apartment without meer or anj, but with karen instead. with grad school at hand, we will no longer be dictated by the free schedules of our friends and of our jobs, but by the schedule of classes and figuring out how to navigate our new homes and communities. i hope i meet people to fill their shoes. my future friends and classmates could NEVER replace my current friends, my soulmates, in any way, but i need that person to be supportive in all cases or that person to ground me when my head is in the clouds or that person who is willing to try whatever crazy idea we come up with. things will be different, but i know that the friends i have now are the ones i will have forever. like stars, just because i can't always see them doesn't mean they're not always there.

at times when i get sad, i just want to be wreckless. i want to be able to push myself to the edge of my comfort zone and feel SOMETHING. yesterday i was disappointed and i just gave myself a stress migraine. i couldn't bear it. i rode my bike home and along the hudson river, there was a truck parked in the middle of my bike lane. to feel so small next to it was a strange feeling. i started to think about our impact on our environment as one single person. who are we to think we can impact change? i guess someone's got to take the initiative.

as i biking, i thought about random things:
the one time someone said to me, "you know, i was ready to believe in love at first sight, but you made it impossible." i just don't think you can like someone based purely on the physical

the one time someone bought me chocolate and a pillow for easter when neither of us was catholic.

the one time a skateboarder ran a red light as i crossed an intersection and said, "watch it lady!" i felt so old

the three times i called 311 because of the beeping noise going on outside my window at 5 am due to construction

and also how things will be very very different when i leave new york next month.

sister good-eats

as i dragged my suitcase across the city from port authority to work at 8 am, i passed by two newspaper vendors of AMNY and Metro. i went to the woman with Metro because thats the one i usually read, but the AMNY distributor said, "hey sister good-eats," since i was munching on a gala apple, and grabbed the Metro from my hand and rolled a copy of AMNY with it and stuffed it in the handle of my suitcase as i continued to roll along.

it got me thinking that even though he might think i'm healthy for eating an apple, he did not see me eat ice cream, cookies, cadbury chocolate this weekend as we celebrated a belated mother's day. it got me thinking about exceptions. this weekend was an exception to my usually healthy lifestyle, but i also overindulged. exceptions chip away at our foundation. if who we are is determined by our actions, how can we be who we are if we constantly make exceptions to our usual codes of living? to identify what is right and wrong, we have to be able to understand and label what is right and wrong to us. we have to be strong in that once we make that commitment, we don't let ourselves down. we have to stand by our own standards despite peer pressure.
---
minutes after i typed that, i ran into one of the vet techs who told me there was coffee downstairs (there goes that self-control)! so of course, needing my fix i went and there were these beautiful cheese danishes topped with almonds. i had a quarter (whew.) and i grabbed some for my coworkers. as i walked back juggling a box, my coffee and the danishes, the guard on duty who should have reprimanded me utilized his bring-it-on-"spirit fingers" to tell me to hurry up and get out of there. it was so nice! and then there was a custodial staff member who saw my struggle and opened two doors for me down the hall. and since there was a fire drill, all the doors were closed so i had my fill of obstacles. then on one of the few remaining sets of double doors, i hear a "can-eye-can-eye-can-eye", when i opened the door i turned around to see why someone was talking gibberish behind me. it turned out, he was asking, "can i get that for you?" and wanted to open the door for me. talk about a nice and fulfilling 10 minutes!

life in the suburbs

this morning i woke up to the little footsteps of peanut, the cutest and best trained yorkshire terrier ever. i went back to sleep and when i opened my eyes, vi was holding peanut ready to throw him at me. plan foiled. i love being home with my family, it's comfortable all the time. i got up and ate strawberries and yogurt, it was yummy. then i watched it's me or the dog with dave and vi. we tried some of the tips on the dog at hand. it worked, so cute. we had a FEAST for lunch and then after the parentals left, so did dave and vi. i watched never been kissed and good luck chuck. it was a good vegging out weekend, i'll go back to being healthy tomorrow.....

rach came to pick me up and we went to her house with the cookies and ice cream vi bought us the night before. we watched cake eaters with kristen stewart which was meh. and went to the mall to pick up a shirt at express for rachel. we talked about some things that are usually kept behind closed doors, which was really fun and liberating. back at her house and watching broken english, i completely melted at the character of julien. so cute. it's crazy to be back in nj and always feel like everything is left unchanged. then we did a facebook stalk on past elementary and high school people who have gotten engaged, married, pregnant, etc etc. and wow, the streets may have stayed in place, but the people really really have changed. i miss high school sometimes, but i like my life better the way it is now (thanks to all the wonderful people in it now.)

i'm going to california in one month, but the more i think about it, the more i don't want to go. there's too much i still have to do with the people here. i guess it's time to step out of my comfort zone.

ps my dad just asked me to have a glass of wine with him as we talked about our day. :)

from stem cells into differentiated ones

today as i walked on broadway north of houston, i passed by a little boy with reddish brown hair crying as he held out his hands. his two lime green toy cars were on the ground, and it seemed like he had just gotten up after a fall. his dad with the same exact hair color was smiling at him as he consoled him. i felt like i witnessed a moment that they might forget, but it was a really great moment. a dad who obviously loves his kid? we need more people like that. sigh: remember when those days? being young meant having an endless world of possibilities at your scratched up hands. like a differentiated cell, it just gets harder and harder to see options as you get older (sorry for the analogy, i've been at a radiation biology conference all day... and will continue to be attend one until saturday - amazing and interesting topics though!)

i also just watched grey's anatomy season finale. wow. those were the two most intense hours i've been through for a while. i was on the elliptical peddling out my anxiety. i think i might have ran up the wall if i hadn't been busy working out. life is so fleeting... and so out of our hands. we can plan to make the decisions we want to make, but what if something happens before we are able to? like percy who was in love with reed but never did anything about it? today, it became too late. that was tragic. i've taken my fair deal of risks... granted they are always too late and done knowingly without the chance of good outcomes. i just need to work on doing something when there is still hope, when there is still something i can do for an outcome i want. maybe once i make a choice to do something that is somewhat binding, i panic at the possibility of being stuck, like a differentiated cell haha. seriously, i can think of one thing i could do, but i feel myself hesitant.

to wait or not to wait...

life's too short to make all of your own mistakes

scooters.

envisioning myself riding one makes me happy. even simply saying the word makes me smile. however, as i expressed interest to my mother, she advised me against it. she said she used to ride one back in vietnam when ho chi minh city was still saigon. my grandparents were merchants, and one day as she was bringing things to and from the market, she got into an accident. with these words, i imagined food and feathers flying everywhere along a dirt road with the scooter lying sideways in the middle of a commotion. then she snapped me back to reality by reminding me of the teeth work she had done and the large flower-looking scar on her elbow.

those remnants were the result of that incident. i knew she had the scar and was with her when she went to the dentist for a check up when something seemed wrong... i just never took the time to ask how. i always forget my parents had their own lives before becoming my mom and dad. i should stop to learn about their past more often.

anyway, today at work i was carrying a big box through double doors and a man waited the extra 20 seconds to hold the door open for me. he actually waited: it wasn't just the usual push the door open for a little longer until a person holds the door open for him/herself. on the flip side, as i peddled like a drowned cat down the west side hwy, a driver who was warm and dry in his car continued to speed by the intersection as his light turned green without letting me go ahead of him. it was his right to do so, but i felt myself grow a little colder inside. though, maybe it was just the rain soaking through my clothes.

silhouettes along the hudson river

today as i was biking back down to my apartment via the westside highway, i saw silhouettes and was reminded of ghosts. i thought about the past and how it can continue to follow us, continue to haunt us.

last night, so many things were unburied from the past. from arrow bar to one and one, i was disappointed in myself as i allowed anger to seep in. as neehan, emily, and i ate white pizza, sweet potato fries, brownies and whatever else was in our refrigerator, i thought about the actions of others and how they affect our relationships with those people. my friend had dated someone i liked for a long time before and not knowing what to do (i felt guilty trying to stand in the way), i gave her my blessing. slowly, it chipped away at me as he asked for my advice in dating her. it chipped away at me as i saw that he showed feelings for her that he never had for me. when they broke up, i was relieved. it pains me to be unsympathetic in someone else's misery, but like i said to her as we had our first talk about it in five years today: my friends would never do that to me.

this all happened in high school. five years ago, we graduated from high school and moved on with our lives. it's not about the boy anymore. it's about trust. and ever since then, i haven't been able to trust her. i never admitted that to her because i never admitted that to myself. there has been so much history that i was afraid to let go. how can you cut someone off who had shared so much of your youth with you? who had been with you through so many experiences? well, to be frank, i had let go. our friendship wasn't real. i thought i could forgive and forget, i willed it to be so. yet, no matter how hard i tried, in the back of my mind, i did not trust her and haven't since september 2004. tears were shed and cups of coffee drunken... and we talked out things i never thought we could have honestly and openly talked about. we'll see if these wounds will heal for real this time. afterwards, we were joined by aaron, aaron and john at union square. we went to good burger on broadway and 18th st and then ate in front of the abe lincoln statue in the park. meera met up with us after a while and we went to forum for a happy hour drink. then, as we started to go home, meera and i decided to grab dinner at azuki on park ave south between 19th and 20th (i believe). i had the salmon teriyaki and she had some delicious sounding maki. then i biked home. thank goodness for a steady place to come back to.