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.