a bit of old writing

Lock clicking, doors opening to the smell of new carpet. Its all as we’ve left it - walls gleaming white, glasses that masquerade in plastic put away next to the dishes from pottery barn. Appliances silent. I take a step into the home that is not mine, but for a week I will pretend. Set my bag down in the corner. Black, like yours next to it.

The home in my mind will have walls that do not gleam. They will be open and uncovered, rough with the strength of the material holding up our lives. I will trace the grains in the wooden beams into the texture of your skin, watch the world outside our windows until they turn black to mirror the world inside.

Our dishes will be cheap porcelain, with loud Chinese designs, and forks and chopsticks that do not match. Make dinner with me, and we’ll not think about tomorrow. Slices of tomato slimy between my fingers, just as the phone hums off in the distance.

For now the gleaming white pottery barn dishes will have to do. I watch you heat your milk for cereal in the morning, hair slightly askew, right leg rattling the table beneath our bowls. But you don’t seem to notice. I am looking for my keys again.

perspectives

Mark was supposed to fly back for the weekend on Friday, but because his original trip went through Tokyo, and because there are no workable alternatives, the trip is now canceled. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. Interesting how tragedies now have such a global effect and are felt even far away, albeit in little ways. As much as I’m heart broken anytime an opportunity to spend time with him is foiled, its a small price to pay compared with what the people in affected areas are going through. Heres hoping things over there get better soon.

confusion at large

Hong Kong has been, in a word, confusing. Aside from the traditional Chinese characters I can’t read and the Cantonese phrases that don’t make sense, it would seem that I should feel perfectly at home here. It is afterall, inhabited predominantly by (at least) bi-lingual ex-expatriates like myself who are young and here to have a good time. My first night in the city I took a trip to Lan Kwai Fong and was met by a giant outdoor drunken party, comparable to tailgate but without the Halloween costumes. A few streets down I had a midnight snack of red wine and thin crust pizza at a quiet and less drunken Italian bar. The waiters, of course, spoke perfect English and an American couple bantered a table over, sending their cigarette fumes my direction. I might not have bothered to fly 16 hours to the other side of the world. Then again I might have been more inclined to party had I not just stayed up for 24 hours straight (inability to fall asleep in airplanes while seated next to individual with an incessant twitch).

In general, it feels strange to be speaking more English than Mandarin in what is technically a part of China, but is in reality a strange amalgamation of China, Britain (and Europe in general), Australia, and at least from my view here in Cyberport, what must be some failed city planner’s ideal of cyberland circa 5000 AD. Apparently the vision was for the area to become the next silicon valley of Asia (hence the spacey name) instead families moved into the new and glitzy high rise condominiums and it has become more of a daycare with a scattering of office buildings. Men in suits take their lunch breaks while toddlers with their nannies play in the fountains.

In Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, the massive shopping malls overflowing with Gucci and Prada (amongst every other luxury brand this poor college student can’t afford) stare down the petite asian women who debate…to monogram or not to monogram the latest addition to a collection of Louis Vuittons. Food establishments squeezed between the endless shopping malls are an interesting mix of east meets west.  Ruths Chris steakhouse next to a bubble tea shop and the hotel breakfast buffet that displays dimsum adjacent to bacon and omelettes. The bubble tea for one, is excellent, though I’ve yet to be impressed by the cuisine here in general (either totally bland or drowning in sauce).

Between spontaneous trips to the ballet and stumbling upon beaches, theres been a lot of sitting and staring at this view. Theres nothing I can say about the ocean that hasn’t already been said, but I will say that I am grateful for its vast and endless blue and for the ships that sail slowly by, looking for their destinations. And I’m grateful for this chance to relax in an interesting corner of the world. Not sure I will ever know what to make of this place and this taste of international semi-business travel. Yes, the mooching of Mark’s expense account, classy hotels, and beautiful views have been nice, but I’m not much for exploring on my own while he sits in on conference calls and puts together powerpoint pages. Weird that this is a world I’m about to enter, yet currently feel so disconnected from. Here I miss my sense of purpose and feel that I’m aimlessly drifting amidst all these people more similar to myself than I’d like to admit. Or maybe I’m just bad at being a tourist, more inclined to sit here and overanalyze than to make an effort to navigate, plan, and execute.

time gaps

Two years of long distance has thus far, consisted of much rummaging around plans to get ourselves to the same city, along with numerous fights and rough patches in between late work nights and stressful finals weeks. Still, largely little reason to complain thanks to a consultant boyfriend who works in an industry where weekly travel is the norm and not the exception.

It’s been interesting to discover over the past two weeks that hes been in Hong Kong on a new project (to stay for 6 more) that hardest thing by far has been not being in the same time zone. The 13 hour time difference makes it so theres never really a time when we’re both free to talk - its class time during bed time or bed time during rush off to a three hour meeting time. That hes eating breakfast when I’m eating dinner should be not difficult to conceive mentally, but it completely throws me off and causes a lot of hating on my missed call list and my over-used anytime minutes. Thank goodness for google voice and video chat. Will be relieved come April when schedules are realigned, and when this thesis I’m currently avoiding working on will be also be done. Til then, must tell myself to carry on and mind the (time) gap.

lessons from college (part 1 of many)

The hardest thing (about life so far anyway) is not getting into that med school (the one with the 2% admit rate), that internship, that job (yes, the one everyone seems to want), or even figuring out what it is exactly that you do want. All of that comes with time and a bit or a lot of hard work. Luck, also. The things that threatened to ruin my life (failed midterms and rejection letters) didn’t seem so important even a week later. The hardest thing, and I speak for myself and my own character flaws, is simply being happy with what I have been given. Because somehow contentment seems synonymous with stagnation, and well, its just so much easier to keep being greedy.

overheard on a c-1

Two freshmen girls bonding over a pair of shoes. Within minutes they had exchanged names, hometowns, dorm allegiances, and complained about the travails of organic chemistry. Couldn’t help feeling a bit nostalgic for friendships so easily made before being defined by niches or post-college aspirations. Then again, not nostalgic for organic chemistry or the growing pains that come with these years of college.

Cute

Funny/adorable moment of the day: When the bus driver, upon seeing nolan smith crossing the street, stopped the bus and jumped off to ask for his autograph on a ripped off C3 sign.

“My grandson loves him!” He explained as he got back on the bus. Some little boy in Durham is getting a nice surprise tonight. :)

haircuts

I used to want to do something “cool” every time I got a hair cut. I’d give the hair dresser free rein to do whatever he/she liked without giving any specific directions on what I wanted. Amazingly, my lack of preference usually yielded the same disasterous result. Somehow, the combination of my massive amounts of hair coupled to its unique (for a Chinese girl, anyway) texture with tendency towards frizz would invariably lead the hair dresser to put in an extreme number of layers, to the point where the difference between the shortest strands at the top of my head and the longest strands at the bottom was something like 6 inches.

After years of repeating the same awful experience, I suddenly realized today that I have no more desire for “cool haircuts.” I badly need a trim though, perhaps I will just order the hair dresser to cut exactly one inch off the end of my hair.

lasts and firsts

It just occurred to me, as I mentally prepare myself to head back to school tomorrow, that I’m closing in on the last “winter break” I’ll have in a while, at least, until I go to grad school. But even so breaks aren’t likely to be quite the same. Already friends are scattered in various parts of the world and harder to find around the common hangouts. I guess this real world thing is finally sinking in…

Scary as it all is, it also feels good to be taking on more responsibility. In the past month, I paid my own tuition for the first time, turned 21 and bought my first legal drink. And lately I’ve been poring over interior decorating blogs in anticipation of finally being able to move into an apartment of my own (dorm life has been fun, but is definitely getting old). All in all, its clear that my excitement outweighs my nostalgia. I’m ready to have one last awesome semester in the dear old gothic wonderland before moving on to a great job in a great city, accompanied by my bestest boy. Hello 2011, I’m so glad you’re finally here :)

morals

Had a great discussion with my thesis adviser today about how she became a philosopher (by a lot of random chance; moral: life is full of surprises I should stop trying to predict) which then somehow lead to a discussion on the differences between the anglo philosophical tradition and the french/german philosophical tradition (moral of the story: decided not to take graduate level class on Heidegger). Then had dinner with an awesome Duke doctor who shared her experiences in being a woman, having a family, and being a doctor, and when/how all those things do and do not fit together. Moral here: challenging but doable, as long as you define your personal values very carefully and then stick to your guns. Female mentors FTW.

Thanksgiving break

..always too short :( Currently packing to go back to Duke for the (most excruciating) last 3 weeks of the semester. But the last few days have been a much needed break spent mostly lounging around at home eating lots of wonderful home cooking. Black Friday shopping was pretty relaxed this year…with less actual walking and more online drooling. My wishful holiday/birthday wishlist (unfortunately out of my poor college student price range) is as follows:

burberry quilted jacket

tory burch reva flats

Canon s95

I’ve been meaning to write - but somehow always too tired or when I navigate to this page, find that I lack the adequate words to describe this experience. In general, work days are demanding, fast-paced, weekends are a treasure - when I manage to avoid doing work. Today for instance:

Got up this morning and made spinach mushroom omelets, did dry cleaning, bought groceries, then went hiking up kennesaw  mountain after a picnic in the woods. Got back, picked up dry cleaning, bought more groceries, then Mark had a friend over for dinner. Went for a swim, listened to a Brahms violin concerto while halfheartedly pedaled on an exercise bike. Amazing how much living you can accomplish in a day, uninterrupted by corporate America.

Next week we move to our new office. Already halfway through, and then I have a week between the end of the program and the start of senior year. Maybe some good time to get my thoughts in a row, preferably on a beach somewhere, far far away from the nearest computer or blackberry.

last year on ldoc

It’s LDOC, and I’m pretending to do work.

There aren’t very many people here, purple walls and orange table dividers drape the clicking noise of the Macbooks and announce silent progress. Girls in sundresses are out on the quad already, despite this too cold for sundresses, but sunny no less, day in April. My biology lectures sprawled on the table, something about the hangover locus in Drosophila. And inebrieometers. How appropriate.

Today, I am 19 years old, 68 food points on my DukeCard, no intellectual property to my name, addicted to the New York Times, hopeful, anxious, more or less still undefined. Two more exams, a few more pages on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, boxes in storage, keys returned, posters rolled up, and I will go back to Solon with five more months of life experiences to carry around with me to Borders and Chagrin Falls.

I do plenty of looking back and looking forward on a regular basis. But today I think I am content to just stay in this moment. I am thankful this feeling. For the people who have touched my heart more deeply than they will ever know. For the possibility of faith. For all the opportunities, and for the adventures I will have in the years to come, starting with my foray into the ruins of Greece in T-minus 25 days. For conviction and confidence. For acceptance. For pure and simple, unfettered, uncomplicated, happiness.

Funny @ the Library

While studying for my Physics E/M final. Luou kindly reminds me about protons and electrons:

“Remember, protons are pretty girls and electrons are fan boys hovering around the proton. And since usually the pretty girl has quite a few suitors, the fanboys (electrons) have NEGATIVE feelings towards other electrons but POSITIVE feelings towards the proton (pretty girl). Man, I should have been a physics professor.”

Thanks Luou.