"The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger (2003)

A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks them in the bonds of love.

The interesting thing about this story was that I had heard about it a long time ago, and all I knew was that time-traveling was involved. I'm a huge fan of time-traveling stories, and my impression was that this was a sci-fi, so my boyfriend picked up this book for me. We both discovered that it was a romance, and he gave up on it, haha, but I continued reading. No regrets.

• For me, the beginning started out intriguing but confusing. There are a lot of elements about time-traveling that they don't quite explain in the book at first, but things get cleared up along the way if you keep reading. However, this makes it a little inconvenient if you're the type to pick a book back up after several days of not reading it.
• I loved how the author wrote the chapters; they weren't necessarily in chronological order (which sometimes doesn't even make sense anyway, due to the whole time-traveling aspect) but in an order that was able to build up suspense. The pacing of the chapters also helped in creating the suspense. Some chapters were longer than others, but none were unbearably boring or unhelpful, and I liked the details.
• For some reason, I thought Henry's character started off uncharming. There didn't seem to be anything extraordinary about him, aside from the obvious genetic mishap. But he begins to grow on you as he matures.
• No matter what you think of Clare, it's hard not to respect this woman for her never-ending supply of patience and strength reflected in her faithfulness. Just... wow. Sometimes though, when her writing style changed to appropriately match her agitation (think long run-on sentences with many "and"'s on end), I got annoyed because it just seems like a very "edgy" thing some authors do when they want minimal effort while appearing super melodramatic. I feel like you can get your point across without dramatically changing the character's narration flow.
• Also speaking of which, this book is very dramatic. Which is lovely in its own way, but can also come across as hopelessly romantic and a little surreal. The main characters' love story and a few of the side characters (Kimy especially) were the only things that felt real - the rest were a little bit over-the-top, like something you'd see in Hollywood. For instance, Gomez obsessing over Clare for so many years while Charisse was popping out his kids seemed ridiculous. And Ingrid killing herself because of Henry. Even Henry's dad is a little crazy because of love. Everybody acts very Shakespeare-esque because of love, and it's hard to connect that with the other little parts of life. Work (like seriously, academia or actual ambitions) are hardly mentioned. Even friendship isn't as touched upon.
• Then again, all the characters are artists of some sort. This may be why they seem to play and love all day.
• The barely-there sci-fi component was probably the most annoying part of the book, in my honest opinion. I liked that the author reached out to be original and explain how the time-traveling gene works, but the genetics explanation also seemed very dumbed-down. Obviously, it wasn't a big part of the novel, but I felt like they just gave us a very basic understanding of how genes work and not really anything substantial about the actual mutation itself, like how it could have occurred (gene/environment interaction?) or the potential damage/success scientists could take from studying such a mutation.
• The twists along the way were well-implemented - good job, Mrs. Niffenegger, I was not expecting any of those that you threw our way. The quotes about time in the beginning of each part were poignant and particularly relevant, and just made the audience feel more strongly about this love that surpassed even the obstacle of time. In the end, all that suspense built really created something beautiful and powerful. Maybe I'm just emotional, but I did start crying at the end, and that was what told me that this was a really good book.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars!

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card (1985)

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut - young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Back on Earth, Peter and Valentine forge an intellectual alliance and attempt to change the course of history.

This futuristic tale involves aliens, political discourse on the Internet, sophisticated computer games, and an orbiting battle station. Yet the reason it rings true for so many is that it is first and foremost a tale of humanity; a tale of a boy struggling to grow up into someone he can respect while living in an environment stripped of choices. Ender's Game is a must-read book for science fiction lovers, and a key conversion read for their friends who "don't read science fiction."

• First of all, I don't consider myself a sci-fi lover. I like some sci-fi novels, but growing up with a dad who was a mostly exclusively sci-fi avid reader, I wouldn't consider myself a "science fiction lover". That being said, I thought this was a fantastic book and I would absolutely recommend it to anybody, sci-fi lover or not. 
• You get a lot of interesting comparisons between personalities in the book: Peter vs. Valentine, Ender vs. Peter, Ender vs. Valentine, Locke vs. Desmothemes, etc. Leadership styles clash, political turmoil occurs, and the environment is confined and restrained, even down on Earth or in the Internet world. It makes you really think.
• Ender's struggles throughout the novel really makes the entire books. The sci-fi aspects are just a bonus, for those who love the space setting. What makes this book really interesting is watching a child genius struggle under the weight of pressure and psychological manipulations. In the end, he is molded into this whole other Ender, but all of these obstacles have allowed him to prevail in "saving" humanity, even with these fed lies.
• I really liked how this book was very intelligently-written. There's a lot of politics in this alternate universe, some history and physics lessons, military tactics, and some interesting psychology/sociology amidst Ender's interactions with the other kids and with the teachers.
• The ending was great. The plot twists were great. The explanations behind the aliens were great. The important parts in the book were all well-implemented, without seeming cliche or forced.
• I do wish they developed Peter a little more. He seems like a very promising character with a greater role to play. However, all I really got out of him was that he was Ender's greatest enemy until Battle Station, he was a ruthless genius behind two Internet figures who became immensely popular, and that Ender continued fearing him (or being just like him) even after many years. In the end, he's referenced again as the reason why Ender can't go back to Earth, and some other things happen, but I was a bit disappointed with how that ended.
• The ending part with the queen bugger really confused me. I won't say more, for fear of spoiling it, but - what in the world was all that with the giant mountain and all those familiar icons from the games Ender played at Battle Station? I still don't understand how that ended up there, even though it was supposedly a "message." But I suppose the buggers have always been the mysterious backdrop throughout the novel. Nobody understands how they communicate with each other (though there are theories), or why they attacked us, etc.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!

Losses

I've taken the Melatonin 3 mg and I think I'm about ready to sleep, but there's some stuff going on in my head that won't let me rest peacefully and after five long days of eight-hour shifts as a pharmacy intern in a small, independent compounding-retail pharmacy, I really need this sleep.

I'm really scared of a lot of things right now, but it gets harder to talk about them with anyone, let alone an online blog. It's this whole professionalism vs. personal issue that's at stake here... On one hand, I want to release some of my anxiety, in a sort of selfish way, among my former peers back in Texas, but on the other hand, I worry that I'll just get myself in trouble or they might see me differently.

It's not like I'm doing anything seriously detrimental or remotely illegal (and if I were, I'd be very stupid to confess it online), but I feel like I've transformed into this whole other person that my old friends can't really like and maybe I can't even really like this new person I've become, yet I can't revert back to my old self. It's SAD - seasonal affective disorder. I had the same thing last year around the same time, I'm pretty sure, where I was reclusive all the time and uninterested in everything.

Anyway, a few days ago I told R that I didn't want to see him. It was probably the hardest and most selfless thing I'd ever done, but I'm not really proud of it because that meant I had to break a promise. At the same time though, I keep telling myself that it was well-justified, and that in the end, it would hurt much less. If I were really selfish, I would covet this visit and leave satisfied knowing that he wasn't over me, and that would be about it. I wouldn't think even further down the road about the people I could potentially hurt (him, me, his future significant others or my future significant others), and I would just be impulsive about things. I already feel so bad about the Austin visit... As ridiculous as it may sound, I'd rather leave the past behind. I loved those times so much, and I still do, even thinking back on it, but I don't ever want him to feel obliged or haunted by me, and I feel horrible about making someone else sad, especially if I care about them. I think it'll make the transition onwards much easier now, so we can move on. But then, doing what I did made me feel sick to the stomach, especially after I realized that he will probably never look at me the same way again. It always hurts, I guess. Losing the first person you ever really open yourself up to.

There's so many more losses to go through, I'm sure, and I'm still so young. I need to get used to this sort of stuff.

And then I also don't want to be particularly sad about things or make other people sad by telling them how life sucks, etc. I can't even tell A about this sort of thing, even though I used to always ask her for advice. It's such a Debbie Downer topic. I tell myself that she understands me, how lonely I feel most of the time, how much I miss her, but then she seems a little more preoccupied with work and her boyfriend, which I can also understand. We all have our own lives now. But I do wish that she could actually plan out a time to see me over winter break and not subjectively "hope" to see me. I'm the sort of person who needs concrete plans, otherwise I get convinced that it'll never go through, and after more than 10 years of friendship, I thought she'd understand.

It's so reassuring having S and B to talk to. I feel like they're my only two real friends from pharmacy school... In professional school, everyone seems to have their own life where it's hard to pencil in new people. Nobody really cares to make friends as much as they did in undergraduate, haha. Either way, I'm grateful for their presence, especially S who is always 100% supportive of me.

Okay, I think the Melatonin is really kicking in... It's been a long day. It's been a long week. Hell, it's just been a long year in general. I need a break, but I'm an idiot and I never have any idea what to do when I finally catch a break, so I went ahead and applied for jobs and ended up getting full shifts over this winter break. So that'll be fun. That's why I'm always stressed, haha. Ugh, I need to get over it.

This Thanksgiving Holiday

I'm sorry, I've been meaning to update for a while now but haven't had the heart/time to. My last draft of a post was about "Shopping Therapy," but then it felt so superficial that I had to discard it halfway through. After my last couple of posts, which have been focusing more on the personal, I didn't want to post about the price of the materialistic things I bought.

It's been really weird transitioning from a college sophomore into a PY1, from undergraduate to professional school student, from Texas to North Carolina, from UT to UNC. Admittedly, I am still learning a lot about UNC and still have no idea where half of the buildings on campus are, but as a pharmacy school student, there's really never a reason to venture outside of the following three places: the pharmacy school itself (which consists of two buildings), the Health Science Library (and even then it's iffy because the pharm school has free coffee and printing, which are the only two reasons I ever go to the library), and the Beach for days where I forget lunch.

It's strange looking outside in the morning and seeing fog. It's even stranger driving around and seeing such tall trees. I love it here though; it's so pretty in the fall. The campus is absolutely stunning, and getting to walk around Duke University is a rare privilege that I never thought I'd ever be able to casually receive. (As a Tar Heel, I know I shouldn't say that because Dook sucks, but honesty, they have a gorgeous campus that somewhat resembles Disney World, in my opinion.)

Professional school is so different from undergraduate too. I have friends who ask me every so often how pharmacy school is different, and I try to look for words to explain and realize... there's just so much. I don't want to start rambling, so generally, I just tell them that the students are older and that there is much more self-discipline involved, both of which are very true.

It's not necessarily... more competitive here. Or maybe it is. But it's hard to explain how. Every classmate I have met here wants residency, and so they're going all out for high GPA, different professional fraternities, a hospital job at Duke or UNC, etc. At the same time though, we're like a huge family - everybody's looking out for each other, we're all helping each other any way we can, and I really like that vibe. I haven't came across a single person who seems manipulative or stingy. I guess everyone just has really high standards for themselves, which is suitable for a person like me, because I've always been that way too, and so I really love feeling like a part of a group of extremely motivated people. Nobody deters me from going over and beyond the requirement, and I'm always busy, which is nice.

In the past, nobody has ever explicitly said it, but people like A and L would look at me like I was crazy for wanting to take on more projects and they often said things that made me feel as if I was "trying" too hard. Like, "oh, well if you wanna be an overachiever..." or "what's the point of ____?" For instance, when I was a preceptor for Microbio or when I was taking up a professor's offer to get coffee together.

Anyway, it's going to be a little lonely for the rest of the week because everybody's going home for Thanksgiving break and I decided not to. Now that I've seen my apartment parking lot, I'm wondering if I made the wrong decision, but then I tell myself there's a lot I need to work on, and hopping on the plane for a total of 8 hours (not to mention layover and travel time) and spending hundreds of dollars for plane tickets wouldn't be worth it. I can't work very well at home, with my family around anyway. I'm telling myself we have all of winter break to catch up, and so that's one thing to look forward to get through next week.

Halloween with my pledge brothers! We dressed up as inappropriate and amateur crayons.

The officers of the 2014 pledge class of Kappa Psi... Vice president, historian, secretary/treasurer, social chair, and president from left to right!

Dinner at Monterrey's with the bigs/littles!

Then volunteering at Durham Rescue Mission with my pledge brothers:

And then of course, Thanksgiving dinner with Kappa Psi! Faculty and professors were invited, it was a great networking opportunity, not to mention free food. I made the gravy, hadn't expected such a big crowd of people to show up, and then felt bad because it ran out too quickly.

4th of July

Got a free tshirt from the leasing office of my apartments! Reasons to love living in Austin, I suppose...

I went to the mall to get a few things that were on sale for this holiday, and ended up buying a nice thin cardigan for only $7 at Hollister. My friends, L and C, stopped by to chat and eat lunch with me, and it was all fairly nice. I felt kind of bad for L - he drove two hours down from Burnet to hang out with a group of friends, but in the end, only C was really available to hang out with him for the entire day. That must've felt pretty shitty. I hadn't made any promises in the first place, but I told him I'd be glad to see them if they wanted to drop by, and it was nice to see them again.

Then I spent the rest of this Independence Day with R. We kept hearing firecrackers but never saw anything... I was a little disappointed because I thought UT's main tower would at least be lit or patriotically decorated, but there didn't seem to be anything like that. Our original plans had sounded really fun, but that couldn't be carried out either.

Then again, it is just 4th of July. I've never particularly paid much attention to this holiday. I think I was just looking forward to this one because I've been craving a reason to go out and do things and celebrate, but I suppose that would've been a celebration for all the wrong reasons, huh..?

20th Birthday

It's weird finally being 20 years-old. I guess. Or actually, I don't know. It really doesn't feel any different from being 19 years-old, or even 18, I suppose. And that's how time gets you. It slips by in such a way that you don't even notice you're old until you are.

I don't believe I'm scared of getting old any more than I'm scared of death, but I'm scared that I'll age extremely ungracefully, with a lot of issues, both psychological and physical. I don't ever want to have loose folds of skin or have dementia. I'd like to be small, sweet, and petite even as I grow up. Hopefully I'll stay fairly attractive too and will have accomplished some great things. I'd like to have a loving husband without a trail of sticky divorces, bring in a steady flow of money with a job I can respect, and be able to travel the world.

I spent the first half of my birthday feeling extremely touched by the messages I received from close friends and family. In lab, J overheard something that made him realize it was my birthday, and he passed the word to K, L, and M. That was how I ended up with a banana, half a sandwich, and a cupcake - I'm sure they all pitied me and were half-amused that I was still naive enough to care about getting older. Still, the gesture was very sweet, and I was glad to have made some new friends in Austin.

R was extremely sweet to me and had bought an incredibly thoughtful gift. It was a lovely, sun-shaped necklace from a Texan brand. I had the most peculiar feeling when I opened up the case - it was such a nice necklace, and for a second, I felt almost as if I betrayed myself. I've been trying to remain so markedly unsentimental about leaving behind something that means a lot to me, but now I'm reminded every time I see it that somebody once loved and cared about me so much.

It's sort of hard. But at the same time, I'm so happy in this relationship... I don't want to forget things, I just don't want to be pathetic about my resolve to leave, you know? It's a difficult thing to think about, especially when you're young and uncertain about things... I don't know. I can't really talk about it just yet, and maybe I won't ever be able to, but I'm grateful for being with him for now.

We ate dinner together at California Pizza Kitchen, watched the bats at Congress Avenue Bridge (totally a weird idea, but it was my weird idea), and had ice cream. It was a wonderful day, and I got a good reminder that no matter how stressed out I am, I should always make time for the people and things I love.

A Typical Friday Night

My mom called to tell me she was coming back from NC - but just where the hell am I going to live in Austin for the last two weeks of summer school, how am I going to make my way towards orientation when my finals (for those prereqs to get into pharm school, ironically) are supposed to be on the same week, and would I be comfortable living in a huge apartment with two girls and a guy?

Nothing was quite working out the way I wanted it to, and I was already feeling really tired and stressed, especially since the week before I had just resolved a huge annoying dilemma (asked special permission from the professor and advising office to switch Bio lab out from session 1 to session 2 so I can make it to that class without becoming late to all my other classes in turn). So right there, on the phone with my mom, I began hyperventilating.

I love her though, she's a great mom. She told me to just slow down and breathe deeply (which is not as easy as one might think, especially when your chest hurts and you're shaking and can't control your breathing, so that sort of annoyed me), but then she said:

"Hey, the whole housing situation in North Carolina, I'll deal with it. You, just focus on your studies, and don't stress out too much, okay?"

I really owe her one. I feel so alone in everything right now, and it really sucks because everything else is sort of weighing me down. Nothing seems to be fitting in my schedule, you know? The timing is just wrong.

I spent my Friday switching between feeling sick and lonely and desperate and crying, which is really pathetic, to studying stoically. It was the most awful feeling in the world. I had a sequential panic attack later on that night, triggered by my thoughts and not anything anybody said, and it was worse because when you're done with the first one, you already feel so drained and tired, but then you feel the second one coming on and you think to yourself, "Oh no, you can't let this happen, no, no," and then it happens. And the second one is usually harder to control. The whole thing took about 30 minutes before I stopped shaking and my chest stopped hurting and I could breathe properly again, but the recovery time took much longer. I don't know how others recover, and I wish I knew an easy way. All I can do is hold myself together and cry like a child, and it feels so pathetic.

I ended up calling R while crying during recovery time, and he was comforting, in a possibly humoring me sort of way, but still, it was nice. I haven't been able to hang out with him a lot because my schedule is so horrible, and every time I've seen him this week, it always concerns my Physics homework. So I was really grateful for that.

After we hung up, I then spent the rest of my Friday drinking the remainder of my roommate's vodka out on the patio and feeling so alone. It's funny how I used to laugh about her doing that - I always thought of drinking as a social activity, not as something to do on your own. Maybe it's because I miss them - my roommates, I mean. After a long day at school, I would come home to find D sitting on the couch, watching Big Bang Theory. I'd come and join her and we'd chat and laugh a little bit during the commercial breaks, and then Y would call to order pizza and come sit with us, and it was nice having support at home, not quite like a family, but a good substitute. But now I have no one to vent to. All of my closest friends are in Dallas or Korea or India, and in any case, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer and ruin their vacation time.

And I'm also so scared of being a whiny, clingy, needy little thing, just another one of life's burdens, and worse is the thought that I can't do what I thought I could do.

I feel depressed and miserable, and I can't tell anyone about it. I want to, but then it's also so embarrassing. They all think of me as the go-getter, the one who applies for everything and gets everything done with efficiently, but right now I'm just a mess and my motivational energy is at an all-time low. All I can do is vent in my blog, and feel a little better about how irrational my thoughts are.

(Wow, angst much? I think I'm going to stop right here. It already sounds ridiculous.)

I have support. My family and friends love me. I'll just have to stop thinking depressing thoughts and bite the bullet. In the end, it'll all be worth it.

Little Bits of Crazy

It really sucks because recently, I've been getting panic attacks again, one or two times every week. Before that, I haven't had a panic attack since I was maybe 16 years-old, and so I went ahead and consulted Google to find out how I could minimize this frequency.

It turns out they're usually caused by major transitional life changes, stress (perhaps a shit load of summer classes and preparing for pharmacy school..?), and are maintained by a person with a temperament "more susceptible to stress." So naturally, I guess who I am makes me more vulnerable to panic attacks then, if those episodes are really what they are.

And if you've never had a panic attack before, consider it a blessing. They're really awful... You sound awful and irrational, even to yourself, and then you feel like there's absolutely no hope for whatever it is that triggered the reaction, and your chest hurts and you can't breathe properly and you can't get away because gosh, how do you escape your own body?

Anyway, I looked up other solutions, and here's what I plan to do now:

• Take in less caffeine. Apparently, substances with a lot of caffeine can trigger panic attacks, so I should probably lay off the coffee.
• Avoid alcohol. I've been drinking a little more recently (not outside my house, of course), just because it's so accessible now. But it makes me even more depressed now, so I'll stop.
• Get more sleep. I think I'd be a lot more productive if I maybe slept for more than five hours. I used to be really good about sleeping, but now it's all out of whack and I feel so unmotivated.
• Exercise. I'm thinking of taking up running again, since it used to always cheer me up. I'll clear up some time over the weekend.

I'm so glad that panic attacks are more common than I thought they were... I really thought I was just composed of little bits of crazy, you know? Because wow, it's not really a big deal, so what, I'm taking on a little more stress than I usually do, and my thoracic cavity goes into full-on freak out mode.

But I think it's just a temporary thing due to some minor lifestyle changes, and maybe I can get it fixed. Until next time!

A List of Things That Define Me

The topic was "Who Are You?" but I felt like that angle was sort of cliche and way too boring. Although a list probably isn't the most practical format to define something, I thought that it would do a better job of conveying my personal characteristics better. (The idea was conceived while grouping body parts in different lists for Anatomy class.)

• Perfectly round money ears
• Virgin black hair
• A love for thought-provoking books and documentaries
• Cold heart (according to my mom)
• Hard head (according to my dad)
• Existentialist philosophy
• Buddhist lifestyle
• "Early bird catches the worm" attitude
• Permanently awkward skitterish-ness
• Constant "anxiarrhea" (characterized by a tendency to feel sick and fill my ass up with worries)
• A miserly temperament
• High expectations and crushing disappointments
• Strange and sudden obsessions
• Petite frame
• Truck loads of restless ambition and misguided pride
• An aversion to being looked at while eating
• Independent, strong sassy woman who "don't need no man"

Every now and then, I get these typical girl insecurities or interpersonal relationship problems or doubts about myself, but I feel like everyone hits these small little bumps down the road anyway, and in any case, those don't really define people. Maybe the big things do though, like the death of somebody I really looked up to or the decision to pursue pharmacy school.

Summer Break

It's been super relaxing so far in Dallas. I love my family so much, and it's so easy to forget that special connection you'll always have with your immediate family when you're away from home for so long. Whether I'm watching a Star Trek marathon with my brother or playing golf with my dad or shopping with my mom, I really appreciate every minute I spend with them. My parents are always really busy and don't have a lot of time either, so it's nice that they took a few days off just to spend time with me and my brother.

 My mother surprised me by losing 6-10 lbs from the last time I saw her! Apparently, A's mom has been giving her a lot of vegan tips and such. She's super happy and has been taking better care of herself, so I'm really happy and proud for her too. She looks great.

Goofing off with my brother, who's finally starting to adjust to life in Aggieland. We watched a bunch of superhero movies together too!

I hadn't eaten Paciugo in so long... Probably my favorite ice cream place^^ This is at one of the nicer malls in Plano!

I'm back in Austin right now, and I'm enjoying quality time with my roommate, my best friend, my boyfriend, and myself, of course. Yesterday, I had a grocery shopping date with the bestie at Hong Kong Supermarket - she ended up buying sweets and snacks, and I bought a Black Sesame Hair Treatment, just to try it out. Although some people find the smell of Chinese medicinal herbs off-putting, I've always enjoyed the smell of ginger and sesame and such. In my opinion, it's rejuvenating.

Afterwards, I had hamburgers and homemade ice cream with R and his family. The chocolate ice cream came out sooo well - a perfect soft, creamy texture in between grocery ice cream and milkshake. The trails were really cool too.

Such a pretty dog! Mixed German Shepherd with Golden Retriever. She looks quite a bit like my Daisy too, who is a mixed German Shepherd with Shiba Inu.

^Daisy!

Hippie Hollow

So my best friend and I decided to drive down to Hippie Hollow and take a look around. It was a far drive out, but so worth it! I never realized how diverse Austin landscape can be.

We saw the weirdest squirrel ever! A mountain squirrel maybe..?

The lake area!

Oh gosh, this duck touched my foot with its beak!! I guess it was curious or just blessing me.

Picnic at Mount Bonnell

I had a wonderful time Saturday morning, hiking up the so-called "mountain" (which was, in all actuality, just a very big hill) with my boyfriend, R, my best friend, A, my high school underclassman, S, and my FIG friend, L!

Before the climb!!

With the bestie at the viewing platform! :)

Later, R tries to hide from the camera in what appears to be an attempt at strangling me.

Setting up food for the picnic!

R demonstrating that he indeed knows how to use chopsticks... by force-feeding me a cookie.

Me and my friend L!

 Beautiful day~ wasn't too hot either!

Just your typical group of college students sitting over the edge of a cliff, enjoying the view over expensive houses in Austin...

I was thrilled about the potluck-style picnic too. Everybody brought something! A brought Sprite, cups, and popcorn; L brought cookies; S brought forks and spoons, chocolate brownies, some Indian potato dessert; R brought plates, cups, sandwich materials (roast beef or honey ham), chips and salsa; and I brought chopsticks, napkins and paper towels, Polish sausages, and sparkling non-alcoholic white grape beverage. We had ourselves a merry feast^^

"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Bronte (1848)

 

 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious tenant of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son from his father's influence, and owns her own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her.

On its first publication in 1848, Anne Bronte's second novel was criticized for being "coarse" and "brutal." The Tenant of Wildfell Hall challenges the social conventions of the early nineteenth century in a strong defense of women's rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands. Anne Bronte's style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered "an entire mistake," has earned her a position in English literature in her own right.

So I began reading this because I've read Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" and Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" when I was younger and was curious about the third sister. This book seemed a little more interesting than "Agnes Grey" (which I will probably get around to eventually too), and so I went ahead and downloaded the free Kindle version. Here are my thoughts.

• This was a very creative format for a Victorian-era book. The entire narrative is read through a series of letters or diary entries, which gives you a very keen perspective on the feelings, thoughts, and reactions of the main characters.
• Gilbert, the narrator, does not seem like your typical Byronic hero, which is insanely refreshing. He jumps to conclusions too quickly, acts rashly and violently when enraged, and constantly has doubtful and immoral thoughts. It's great - I like the way his character undergoes a change for the better throughout the story, and his jealousy and doubts are very relatable.
• Helen is one of the best female characters ever conceived, I believe. She appears very cold, but is actually very practical and has had terrible experience with love and marriage before. I am fond of female characters that are very strong but don't come off as bitchy or pushy. Helen shows her strength through self-sufficiency, which can be seen through her unwillingness to owe Gilbert money and other small details like so. I didn't agree with her attitude towards raising her son, admittedly because it seemed unnecessarily harsh towards the male gender, but it's understandable why she thinks the way she does. She is witty and resourceful and always thinks ahead, making her very likeable.
• Bronte's depiction of alcoholism and infidelity is brutal. I absolutely loved it, how the book showed the dissolution of what seemed like a picture-perfect wedding, and how feelings are crushed as reality settles in. Expectations are constantly being lowered until both partners are unhappy; psychological abuse takes place; shit happens. It's sort of fantastic in that way, because you really feel for all of the characters. Except Helen's husband, who is such a dick, and the woman he was cheating on Helen for.
• Religion is also a very interesting theme throughout the book. Helen is good mostly because she is "Christian"; her husband wonders aloud whether or not God will accept him as he is dying. It's all very interesting, especially when tied up with the town's gossip.
• The ending gets really sentimental, mostly because you can really "feel" the struggle. Waiting for someone is always really hard, and I imagine it's even worse back then, before you had technological means to reach out to someone within a matter of seconds.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!

This Past Week Has Been Hell

Two Organic Chemistry lab reports due on Tuesday, one Microbiology exam on Wednesday, and a persuasive presentation due on Friday. Not to mention the crapload of discussion questions, prelab assignments, homework, and PLUS preceptor responsibilities that I had to deal with. Ugh, but I'm so glad that's over with. I really tried my best to go all out on Friday, mostly because I'm going to be spending my entire Saturday and most of my Sunday studying and preparing for next week, and on Sunday night I have a banquet so I want to finish all my work before then.

Beautiful day on Friday! The fountains were on and everything.

So first, I went to a Crawfish Boil with my best friend and her boyfriend. Free admission, we got tshirts and drinks and a hardcore reminder of why college parties are so dumb and overrated. But still... free crawfish! So good.

Yum, they seasoned it with Cajun spices and added sausages, potatoes, and corn!

This was A's first time ever even eating crawfish!! I taught her how to eat them, haha.

Later on, I had dinner with my Lab Rats at Hopdoddy's! Well, most of them anyway. L invited us all. Out of the group, L and B are probably my closest friends from the FRI FIG, but after last night, I realized I was close to each one individually as well, and the personal jokes made me more fond of them. We've been through a lot together, even if B is now International Relations major and C is now in Computer Science.

B was probably the first friend I made in the FIG - I remember us getting lost together when we were trying to look for the Underground Bowling. L was the first to actively reach out to me by offering to buy me an ice cream. W goes to LPPA meetings with me - he usually asks me a lot of questions about pharmacy school applications and classes and such. I always run into C so randomly on campus, and he once asked for my number after a random encounter. K is the nice, smiling guy who invited me to his birthday party and introduced me to his group of Asian pre-health friends. And I remember how E used to always tell me funny anecdotes about his high school and parties and roommates right before a Chemistry exam.

Hanging out with my college friends always makes me realize how much I will miss them once I go off to UNC. Even if they're not a huge part of my life, it's great keeping updated and just laughing at each other. (They were making a bunch of jokes about how the Nanjing massacre happened when Japan was testing out its Gundam robots and made a stupid mistake, and other refreshingly insensitive jokes.)

Oh, and apparently I was voted as the one who would have the least trouble finding a significant (or insignificant?) other, which I thought was really funny. I have no idea how I got that reputation, but L was exaggerating about how I had so many guys clinging on me, and E said, "I'm not surprised - look, I bet dating is the least of her worries when she has a pretty big selection," and C said, "I bet you're going to end up with a good-looking doctor up in North Carolina. Such a basic thing for Erin," which really made me laugh because "basic" means "a typical, white-girl thing".

Anyway, I do hope I make really good friends over at UNC too. I'm not exactly looking out to marry a doctor from Duke or something though, the idea is pretty laughable because it's so "basic." I guess we'll see what the future holds. Until next time!

InspirAsian

So it was a typical Friday night, and B invited me out to see Arden Cho. I'd never heard of her before, but apparently she's a famous Youtube star and singer and actress, and so that was a pretty cool experience. She sang well too, of course, and I recorded some of her original music live.

Me and B!

With the actual Arden Cho! Yay, she's so lovely and seems to have a great personality.

Honestly though, I preferred Joseph Vincent's concert more;; but that could possibly be because he's a very attractive guy, haha, and he didn't really talk a lot. Whereas with Ms. Cho, she was supposed to talk about inspiring the Asian-American community, and I just fell asleep while she was talking because it was a long day and I didn't feel like listening. In any case, I don't feel like Asian-Americans necessarily have it hard, especially when compared to other minorities. And she was mostly talking about the entertainment industry, and I'm a Pharmacy student, working in the labs all day, not really concerned about finding a job later on because so far we're still in pretty high demand. So it was hard for me to really relate and care about what she was saying.

All in all though, that was a great concert and a good way to unwind!

Forty Acres Fest

I dragged R along with me to check out Forty Acres Fest, one of UT's traditions showcasing student organizations and such. It featured live music and a bunch of interesting booths.

Bra Pong! Throw a ball into a boob-holder and win a prize!

I thought this was cute too. Recycling for the win!

There was also a petting zoo with these fluffballs! And an iguana and a hedgehog, but I couldn't get a good picture of them.

R and I ended up eating samosas with ketchup. They were only $1 each.

Live music!

Overall, it was a nice day outside.

The Debate Inside My Head

So I got accepted into University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Eshelman School of Pharmacy. And I absolutely loved the school, at least from what I saw of it when I went over to interview: it had a nice, down-to-earth Southern vibe, the latest distance-learning technologies, amazing research facilities and residency opportunities, a beautiful campus, brilliant students and professors, and a wonderful reputation as a pharmacy school, seeing as it's consistently ranked in the top three over the past couple of years.

It sounds really stupid and whiny, especially since I pride myself on being very self-reliant and ambitious, but I'm also a little scared of accepting their offer of admission. Part of the reason lies in just pharmacy school itself: it's a professional school, and the classes are much more rigorous. It seems like a challenge, and of course I have enough confidence in myself to be assured that I can rise to the occasion, but I'm scared of being proven wrong. What if the stress proves to be too much? What if I'm not one of those amazing undergraduate students who manage to come out alright? What if my lack of experience - in, well, anything really - completely screws me over? I'm only a sophomore. Everybody I had talked to at the interview either already had a degree under his/her belt or were going to graduate this upcoming May, and I saw from the official UNC website that only about 12% of accepted potentials were undergraduate students, which scared the bajeezus out of me, even if I won't admit it to my parents or anyone else really.


And then there's the issue of moving to another state and paying out-of-state tuition. I have to present proof that I want to stay in North Carolina in order to get the more reasonable in-state tuition, so that means I have to get a job or buy a house or... something. Maybe get a driver's license for that state..? I'm not sure. I just... I'm really going to miss Austin. I fell in love with it two years ago, and I'm settled so comfortably here. I already renewed my lease at the place I'm staying at right now too, since I hadn't entertained the possibility that I'd get accepted at UNC. Hell, I'll miss Riverside, even though I always complain about it. I'll miss my roommates and my high school friends and my FRI friends.

Of course, there's also R, who I'll probably miss like it's no one else's business. I would never relinquish such an opportunity for a boy anyway (and I know he'd never ask me to either, thank goodness), but it doesn't really make things easier. He thinks I'm wasting my potential by not pursuing medical school, but unfortunately, I also fell in love with the field of pharmacy a long time ago, starting with watching my grandmother hustle around her little clinical pharmacy, and further nurtured by UT's FRI program in which I worked with plants to produce pharmaceuticals. I never had the chance to try anything related with doctoring, so I'm not sure how I would feel about it.


My family is thrilled for me though. I know my parents were secretly half-hoping I'd get rejected from the only two pharmacy schools I applied to because I promised them I'd try for medical school if I couldn't get to pharmacy school by my sophomore year, but now my mom is practically flying over the moon, bragging to everyone that her daughter is saving her so much money by getting accepted relatively early. Anyway, it's all just a turmoil in my head. I'm so excited because I really do want to go to UNC, but then I have doubts and things I care about here holding me back...


Whatever. I'll get it all figured out. For now, here are some spring break pictures!


Eating dinner with my childhood friend and American sister!

With Mengqi-gege and his wife, me and my brother!

Eating at Kimchi in Dallas' Koreatown! Met up with B and L over the break^^

A Shitty Person

And so I guess I am, in fact, a shitty person.

I was selfish and inconsiderate and oblivious and rude... I dunno. I hurt my best friend's feelings, and that really broke my heart last night because even though we constantly make fun of each other and are such "jerks" to each other (according to my friends), he really didn't warrant anything to make me act the way I do, and it's the worst because I really am not as stupid as I act sometimes, but I really let all the signs slip right through with this one and didn't notice how he might've felt betrayed or used.

He's a good one too, you know..? He's always been there for me whenever I needed emotional support, and I always thought I was the same type of prop, but then he had a really shitty week and I KNEW he did, and it astonished me how I didn't even reach out, like I hadn't even been aware.

And then of course, there's another thing going on in the side. I thought it was so right at first, mostly because I hadn't realized that R was still harboring feelings... which was silly. My other best friend, A, thought I was so stupid since apparently it was "very obvious" and just about everyone else knew but me. I guess there were signs, but I always attributed them to something else, like just a competitive spirit or pride.

I dunno, I'm just... so sad right now. Of course I love him (how could I not?!), but it's a very confusing sort of love, where most of the time he's the best friend and then sometimes he's a fwb/boyfriend type of thing. I see him doing something silly or quirky, and I just think affectionately to myself, "Oh, look, it's so R of him to do so - that's my R," but then he's not really my R, he's his own person and I can appreciate it without a label - because labels are so annoying, right? Especially in interpersonal relationships, right? There's expectations attached and it always hurts someone when you have to remove a label.

But labels are so necessary, and that's what I've learned, so I will never again engage in a casual relationship. It just... hurts, and it sucks because as a girl, you feel very "easy" and aware of how easy you feel, and it's just not classy at all, you don't want to be defined by something without a label. I'm too used to the structural world I live in anyway, so maybe that's just me, but I was resentful the whole time.

Anyway, I'm rambling... Just... I felt so sad consistently thinking about it, and then I realized that part of the reason why I'm so upset is still very selfish. Yes, it sucks knowing how R hurts and not knowing what I can say or do to make it better, but another reason I feel so bad is because I know he probably won't ever forgive me and I still want to keep him.

It really is a selfish thing to want, and I'm sort of ashamed of it... Of course, it's probably also very natural and human of me, to a degree, but I have always been more selfish than the average girl, and it's always served me well in other things like academic field while screwing me over in things like interpersonal relationships... Now I understand why I can't manage to stay friends with any of my ex's... haha. Then again, I never wanted to stay friends with someone once it was over, but this one might've been different because I fell in love with him.

But anyway, A warned me that even if he ever does forgive me, our friendship will be completely destroyed, and there's not really a way to salvage it, so the only thing I can do is learn from it. R himself also thinks that.

So for the past 24 hours I have been wavering because I know the right thing to do is to give him a lot of time and space, let him heal properly and move on, but then I miss him so much and I can't help wanting him to still love me. Which is ultimately even more selfish than the first option, since I know it'll probably all end up just backfiring and hurting him and me. He has commitment issues and I'm insecure, and then there's a huge chance that I'm going to a different school next semester, and so there's only the slightest chance that things would ever work out.

And so that is why I am such a shitty person...

Umm So Yeah

It finally happened!! Very unexpectedly haha, but I appreciate it.

I've never had a non-creepy Chinese guy ask me out before. I've always assumed it was because I'm just too Americanized or too far from the ideal Chinese girl, and so I just always assumed I would never be with someone like me - an American-born Chinese, which is fine, because I don't really look at race anyway. I know my parents would want me to though, haha.

But uhh apparently speed dating really does wonders, haha. I got a swarm of texts coming in after Valentine's (okay, so that's an exaggeration, but I had a few text messages from guys who seemed to have probably copy-and-pasted the same generic message to the chicks who gave them their numbers), but there were two guys who actually personalized their text messages a little more and made the effort to reach out and let me know they remembered me, which I really appreciated.

I agreed to eat lunch with one of them, A, mostly just to thank him for putting in the effort and potentially make a new friend. Honestly, I didn't remember him by name, but the minute I saw him, I remembered as the nice smiling guy. He was super nice and easy to talk to but not really my type (I doubt I was his type too, haha).

The other guy was more of my "type," I think. I thought he was really cute at the time and was a little surprised to get a text from him. It was easy talking to him too (via texting anyway!), he seemed pretty smart, and we both agreed to hang out sometime next week.

Then today he asked me if I was free for lunch. Unfortunately, I was eating lunch with a couple of friends... I hope I didn't sound like I was just blowing him off :( I'm so bad at texting cues and arghh.

On the other hand, I got a pretty good grade in Organic Chemistry exam and a relatively good grade in Microbiology exam. As it turned out, the Microbiology grade distribution was pretty messed up... The majority of students had D's; there was only one A and four B's. I happened to get a B, so I guess I did alright compared to the other students... Still, it was pretty depressing.

And CVS Pharmacy might hire me... I have an interview coming up. I also have an interview for UNC's Pharmacy school, so I'm just super antsy right now. Well. Hopefully, it'll all be alright.

Valentine's Day is Sooo Overrated

HALLELUJAH. This week has passed, and I'm still alive and intact in one piece, amazingly. Due to the snow days, we had our Microbiology exam delayed... and it was rescheduled right before the Organic Chemistry exam and after we turn in the Microbiology lab report. Which was a complete halting moment for me.

1-2pm: Microbiology exam.
2-6pm: Microbiology lab (report due).
7-9pm: Organic Chemistry exam.

I can't even study for Ochem in between the two exam times because of friggin' lab.

After freaking out and wringing my hands and pulling out my hair for about 30 minutes, I played the Mulan song "Be a Man" and then promptly got down to work. M joined me for Tuesday and Wednesday study sessions. I talked to Dr. S during the PLUS preceptor meetings, and she wanted me to discuss the next exam topics at my PLUS session a day after the exam! I was really hesitant to, because I know nobody's going to show up all eager to learn after a huge exam, and luckily it got cancelled.

Still, the exam was killer though. I wasn't expecting it to be easy, since my senior preceptor had warned me that the class average for each midterm is always a 55-60 (and Dr. S is not generous when it comes to curves) and L from Communications had also warned us, but still... holy shit, I don't think I ever had such a hard biology exam before.

The Ochem exam was better. The subject itself is intense, but I feel like I have a pretty good intuition of where the electrons move since I've been doing chemistry for so long... Mechanistically, it all made sense in my head, as anything does if you practice it a lot.

I guess we'll just have to see about grades, but I'm just happy it's all over with. After the exam, I went out with M and A to eat at Teji's, the fairly new Indian restaurant down on the Drag... It's so good. The biriyani is a huge portion, and my dish was super good, with only a mild flavor of Indian spices (which I had requested because usually the flavors are wayyy too strong).

So anyway... after those exhausting three days in preparing lab reports (there's also the Pre-lab for Ochem, which takes forever since we work with fifteen different organic solvents and have to write MSDS information on them) and studying hardcore, I completely forgot about Valentine's day and my plans for it. I mean, what is Valentine's day compared to this? Haha.

I received two lovely crush-grams, a perfume sample, two candy chocolates, two candy-hearts boxes, and a valentine card from my bestie. Haha.

Holding up A's beautiful valentine card to me!

Working on Valentine cards with A and L after Ochem, haha.

So anyway, I'm working on an assignment in Communications with four other people (A's in this group), and one of the guys is a senior. So he came up to me last week after class and asked if we were in the same lab. We didn't, so he probably mixed someone up as me. But after that, he would talk to me after every class, and then a few days ago, he asked, "Do you have any plans for Valentine's?" That sort of question can come across as either very casual or very obvious, but in this case it legitimately seemed casual because we planned on spending Valentine's day finishing up our project together. Haha, it's just funny how in college, it no longer seems like a holiday but just the consumerist occasion that it is. But it's nice to send and receive crush-grams for free, thanks to UT.

I went to meet our new mentor at around 6. She brought pizza and salad, which was really awesome of her, and we sat and chatted about life in graduate school and plans for tonight, that sort of thing.

I went to the speed dating event later on, which took much longer than I thought it would, but I had a nice time. As always, there were some cute guys, some creeps, and then the nice, average people. I made a lot of friends though. It seems that most Pre-Pharmacists are Asian girls!

All in all, it was a great day. Ultimately forgettable that this is a day for love... Until next time!