Sleepless in LA

I was telling a friend the story of my molar.

It was the last of my milk teeth, and when it was time to pull it out, the tooth broke, leaving the root embedded in my gums.  I was about 12 or so, I think, and dreaded the dentist (still do!).  My mom made a big deal about how now I’d have to go to the dentist and have him pull the remainder of the tooth out, and I freaked out.

So I took matters into my own hands and using a pair of steady hands accompanied by a hand mirror and tweezers, I tweezed the lil mofo out of my gums.  It hurt, sure, but it sure did beat going to see the DDS.

Telling the story reminded me of how scared shitless I am about life in general — how I’d rather hurt myself than risk being hurt by someone else.  Apparently, it’s the way I’ve always been…  Never fully able to bestow trust on another human being, never being able to completely relinquish control over to someone else… never able to love another in the gut-wrenching, life-altering, fire-breathing, miserable way that one should love another human being.

It’s no mystery then, that I am nervous and anxious at all times.  How can one not be, when you feel that not a soul in the world’s “got your back”?  And so I go on, destroying myself in an attempt to prevent others from destroying any fragment of my being.

Irony is indeed an ongoing theme in my life.

http://www.shakeout.org/

California’s greatest fear is The Big One.  It’s been a while since we’ve had any notable shaking and I think the fear of the devastating toll a major earthquake, “big” or otherwise, has been buried deep in our minds, underneath the more mundane, diurnal distractions of making it to work on time or figuring outwhat to get for lunch.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-shakeout14-2008nov14,0,4787598.story?track=rss

This article pokes jest at the attempt for the greatest earthquake drill ever.  In my own life, I was in a chemistry lab, and proceeded to duck, cover, and even hold, precisely at 10AM.  Had it been the real “big one” I may not have fared well, seeing as the chemistry labs are not adequately equipped with duck-able spaces.  The chair I ducked under barely covered my head, leaving most of my fragile spine at the mercy of the things that may land on it.  Obviously things have to be investigated further to ensure the ultimate level of safety.

My class takes place in Northridge, where on an early January morning in 1994, a quake with a magnitude of 6.7 had struck.  Buildings were damaged and had to have an “exoskeleton” built to reinforce the buildings.  Most buildings are now expected to survive the “Big One” if and when it should occur — experts seem to be saying it’s a matter of  when, not if.

But in 1994, the earthquake happened at 4:30 in the morning.  It was also a holiday Monday, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  So casualties were much less than had it happened on an actual working Monday in the middle of the workday.  Would we be equally lucky?  I doubt so.

It’s always scary to read the horrific predictions that are made, be it realistic or not.  Some say all of California will sink below the Pacific, rendering it an Atlantis of sorts.  Nevada will have a beach.  But the truth is, no one really knows if this “Big One” will even hit during our lifetime.  Regardless of its size, any major earthquake is potentially a great disaster, and it’s always better to be prepared than not.

So I guess I’ll make like a boyscout and be prepared!

Last week was a taste of hell for me.  I had three exams in three classes along with the rest of my usual school work.  I was in total denial that these examinations, which can potentially alter my grades significantly, will take place.  I procrastinated, which made things even worse.  I was out of control.  I don’t have any results yet, but I missed any standard I could have set for myself by quite a lot.

Then I worked my usual weekend, and it was also quite horrific; the workload was incredible.  I had four patients, all of whom were discharged; then I took over three transfer patients from another nurse.  And that was just Friday!

Somehow, though, the stars lined up and made a three-day weekstart possible for me.  Most people have the occasional three-day weekend; this week, I was given Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off, from both school and work.

Certainly I could’ve spent the three days catching up with school work and even getting a bit ahead.  But I felt like this was my chance to rest up for the remaining stretch of the semester.  I have about a month more to go, but it’s a long road ahead.  So I spent the three days doing absolutely nothing.  I watched a lot of TV, slept as much as I could (oh, to sleep!), and did some light shopping.  I took a long bubble bath, and even went to get a massage.  I had lunch with a coworker and dinners catching up with friends.  I feel totally justified in taking some me-time.

Am I now ready to get back to work?  Well, I really could use a few more days of R&R — but I don’t.  But I’m in much better shape than I would be in had I not had the three days off.  My grades certainly will suffer from last week’s debacle… I’ll just have to make peace with it.  I did the best that I could.  I just took on too big of a load, and next time I won’t do that.  Nothing can change all that.  I can only change what happens from now on.  I’m moving on.

I’ll have two weeks of school, and then a couple of days off for Thanksgiving.  Then I’ll have a week of school, followed by a week of final exams.  So really, there’s not too much left, and I can also recharge a bit over Thanksgiving.  I’ll give it my best shot, and that’s all I can do.

As you can see, I’m really still in the process of convincing myself.  It’s been a rough semester… really, it’s been a rough year.  It may take another year to graduate, but I’m definitely slowing things down school-wise.  My sanity is much too precious to sacrifice.

It’s an important day in American history; Change is truly in the air.  Next January, Barack Obama will be President of the United States of America.

I live and breathe in a heavily democratic, true blue state of California, and I can palpate the excitement that surrounds the current election… or rather, the results of this year’s election.  I am excited that the masses are excited — it’s true democracy in action.  However, I’ve never been more disappointed in the inability of the masses to articulate their opinions in a manner appropriate for a discussion.

I’ve yet to hear anything concrete about dislikes and likes of any political candidate; one of the most vocal opinions, if you can call it that, is “Palin’s just stupid.”  And it’s not just about Sarah Palin — it’s about all the candidates.  McCain’s too old, and Obama lacks experience.  But no one seems to be capable of speaking beyond a few adjectives when it comes to expressing their opinions.  I would imagine that a statement such as “Palin’s stupid” wouldn’t warrant a proper discussion, but people, educated people, mind you, have discussions that springs forth from such statements!

“Palin’s so stupid!  She’s just a gun-toting hockey-mom from the boonies.”

“I know!  I mean, she did pageants and stuff — I saw on TV that she kills caribou in Alaska.”

“She’s never gonna be Vice President.  She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

I know I’m being miss snooty here, but that’s not a conversation that should come from intelligent people.  And it’s not just about Palin.  What about the issues?  What about their accomplishments in their respective offices?

It is disheartening that people can be so quickly dismissive of a public figure.  George W. Bush has been the butt of all the political jokes for the last eight years.  I don’t agree with the direction he took the country, but I respect him as a politician.  Perhaps he appears not to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I really wouldn’t feel comfortable dishing out criticism about a person whose job I cannot perform.  Would I be able to run a nation if I were placed into the Oval Office?  I don’t think so.  But Mr. Bush has been voted into office (okay, questionable, maybe) and he has even won a second term.  Enough people in the country had faith in him to be the commander in chief, and whether he performed the duties to your satisfaction or not, he has done his job.

One can hardly expect other nations in the world to respect our country if we have no respect for our leader.  It’s disrespectful to the sacred foundations of this country and it’s disrespectful to the office that has taken oaths to lead this nation.  One of the beauty of this country is that we have the right of free speech; but really, it should be the right to intelligent speech.  Stupidity should be punishable by law.  “Bush is a wackjob” serves no other purpose than to demoralize the people around you and diminish their faith in the government.  People have died to give us the right to speak our minds; they turn over in their graves to see us abuse that right with statements like “She can see Russia from her house.”

Koreans are very patriotic people.  The love they have for their country is fierce with loyalty and a solemn reverence.   The citizens of Great Britain praise their queen to live long.  In Israel, both men and women are drafted into the army where they serve with honor.  On the other hand, Americans, are quite good at hating America.  The few times when Americans love America?  During the Olympics.  It’s the best country in the world, for goodness’ sakes.  Even with all its flaws, it’s a place where you can be all that you can be and then some.  It spans from sea to shining sea, and it’s got mountain ranges and the Great Lakes, the Great Plains, the Grand Canyon, and the Rio Grande.  There’s so much to love.

So I’m glad that voter turnout has increased this election year.  I, personally, cannot vote yet.  However, I feel that it’s a great improvement in the people taking part in the democratic process.  Americans, especially those of my generation, have been marked with apathy, and it’s high time that we get off our butts and start pulling our own weight.  Instead of calling the president “retarded,” we should do our part for the process — call the legislator, write letters, convince others (with valid arguments!)…

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi

I sheepishly must say that I just finished the movie, The Kite Runner.  I never really felt that I had the time to read the novel, but if the movie’s this good, the book has got to offer something even better.  It’s definitely on my to-do list.

It also made me think about myself, as a person who writes (it’s very difficult to call myself a “writer” without arousing guilt or a sense of pretense within), what my experience is.  Khaled Hosseini is an Afghanistan transplant living in California, and his novel draws a lot from his own life.  Art imitates life.  The history of his motherland is one of turmoil and instability; his unique background as an immigrant from a nation with a story of its own offers him … can I say a certain edge? … in his writing.

And it’s not just Hosseini.  High schools across America teach the Joy Luck Club/Amy Tan for the sake of teaching culture in literature.  Tan’s novels feature Chinese women.  It’s who she is.  It’s what she knows.  Therefore, it’s what she writes of.  John Grisham’s novels are always about some rookie lawyer who’s yet to be jaded by the legal system, who gets wrapped up in some controversy.  Grisham, of course is a retired attorney.  But he’s clearly figured out what he knows and what he can write.  Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie, and many others draw from their backgrounds to write.

It’s really not farfetched to call these fiction work “memoirs” — they’re memoirs with fantastical plot lines fused into them.  So what’s my niche?  Perhaps I could be the Korean Amy Tan.  Or the Korean Jhumpa Lahiri.  Only, I’m just so Americanized to be a Korean anything.  But I’m not American enough to be the next Candace Bushnell.  I can’t even feign to write about life as a White American.  Or Black American.  Or Hispanic American.  What do I know of their experience?

It’s not that I wish to write in a way that reflects my culture or background so much.  I think these great writers have a way of being genuine in the portrayal of their “background” but somehow makes it more about the human experience that can be related to by any person, whatever their international identity.  Shakespeare’s historical plays featured the English royal family, but deep down, it’s more about basic human characteristics of love, hate, betrayal, courage, cowardice, and so on and so forth.  Shakespeare’s the “man” when it comes to writing, and that’s why a Korean can read his work and be moved and a Russian can read his work and also be moved, and everyone in between.

What can I write about that is me, and how can I write it that the reader can connect to it?  I rarely see writers write about things completely out of their realm — I suppose J.K. Rowling is a muggle so her work doesn’t reflect her at all, but generally speaking, writers write about what they’re familiar with.  Especially in the ages where everyone and their dogs are writing memoirs left and right, with ghostwriters and whatnot!

The bottomw line to this problem is that I have yet to have figured out who, exactly, I am.  Who am I?  My existence is so convoluted and diluted and torturous, who I am and what I am are questions furthest from my mind.  I hardly know the answer to whether or not I should pee now or later — and that’s something I really should’ve mastered twenty-some years ago.

I’ve started to brainstorm to see if I can narrow down as to what I am, and the best I’ve got so far is “confused.”  Maybe that’s what I should write about.  Being confused.  I deal with confused people at work all the time — patients who are not oriented to reality (brain injury does that).  People can give me their birthdate and what the current year is, but an octagenarian will tell me she’s 38 years old.  At least she knows!  She knows she’s 38 years old; whether that be factually accurate is certainly debatable, but she knows, she knows!  I can’t say with such certainty as to what I am.  And sadly, I have no brain injury to use as an excuse.

So another thing to add to my list of things to do: Find out who and what I am.  As soon as I read The Kite Runner.

I work 12-hour day shifts every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  It gives me a nice continuity that I work three days in a row like that.  However, it does kind of leave me in an information vacuum for three days.  I may work 12 hours, but in actuality, it does come out to something around 13 to 14 hours, with time spent getting ready and commuting back and forth, although it’s not too far of a commute.  When I get home, I’m tired and hungry.  I pop in a DVD and usually manage to finish a movie over the course of three nights.

Most often than not, I don’t check my e-mail, turn on my computer, or watch TV.  Hence the information vacuum.  Most TV I watch during the weekend is the glimpse I get when I step into a patient’s room who happens to be watching the tube.  This weekend, my patients were either confused and not watching TV, or watching a station spoken in a foreign language.  I had no idea what was going on with the rest of the world while I took care of my patients.

What did happen was that there were fires — fires extremely close to where I live, in fact.  Last night when I got out of my car and walked toward home, I smelled something being charred — I chalked it up to a neighbor having a BBQ.  It was, of course, things being charred in much bigger proportions in the next town over.

When did I find out all this?  Just now!

There was an automated phone call that came to my cell phone a few minutes ago, explaining that due to the fires, multiple freeway closures, and deteriorating air quality, all afternoon classes at my school were cancelled, effective immediately.  Whether school would be in session tomorrow will be announced at a later time.  I did see a friend of mine mention something about the fire on her Facebook, but didn’t think much of it.  After the phone call, I finally visited latimes.com and got caught up on the much belated news.

I do live quite close to one of the fires, but there’s really no sign of fires from where I am now.  The Santa Ana winds were howling all through the weekend like Halloween arrived early.  The 210 and 118 are definitely closed and the 110 is bumper to bumper traffic.

I’m scared and truly feel for the people who have had to evacuate and possibly lost their homes.  Inside, there is a devilish side of me that’s just glad school’s closed for the day.

I had my first exam of the semester last Thursday.  I was under a lot of stress, because it was the first of all exams among other things.  But after the exam, I felt much better.  Although results are still pending, it wasn’t as catastrophically challenging as I imagined.  I have another exam tomorrow (sigh).  If only I can pry my eyes away from Top 30 Celebrity Feuds on E! — I can just see my IQ points drop as I gaze at the boob tube with my jaw dangling off the rest of my head.  

Many people around me comment on how I have my plate full.  I do seem to pile things on my plate like a starving citizen from a third world country at Todai, it’s true.  But I’ve always told myself that I do what I enjoy, and being productive and making constant contributions to my own person is something I absolutely enjoy.  And I do try to keep things balanced, at least from my perspective on things.

Being depressed is never fun, and I’ve always have my ups and downs; I feel that my downs are really something I inflict on my own being, and I decided that the theme of my 28th year in life would be “change.”  Change means to be proactive and eliminate the causes of anguish on my own terms; change means to inherently deal with the neurosis that clutters my mind and soul, and attempt to organize some order admist the chaos of life; change means to cultivate the real human relationships I have with the people around me, because, really, that is what life is about, isn’t it?  All the money, the wealth, the joys in life would mean nothing if one lacked people with whom to share it all.  We’re all in the business of people.

So it has come to my attention that my plate overfloweth.  I have consistently enjoyed doing everything all at once — in fact, I can’t recall a time in my life when I didn’t hold down a job and school, except a few occasions due to … technical difficulties, shall we say?  I’m a workaholic, it’s true, and I’m proud of it.  But these days, I feel as though I’ve taken things too far.

I feel anxious when I’m spending time with friends, when I have pressing lab reports that commands my attention.  Hell, I feel guilty petting my cats in the morning when I am in a hurry to get to work.  I secretly hope that my brother would take some of my scrubs when doing his laundry, and peevishly hand him a hundred dollar bill like a band-aid to cover my shortcomings as an older sibling.  I am no longer enjoying what I do when I carry anxiety, guilt, and a sense of failure on my shoulders like it’s the newest thing in fashion.  I’m wearing stress like it’s going out of style.

The answer is to reduce the school work.  I really can’t reduce work work, because, well, I do need to take care of my physical existence, i.e. pay the bills.  But it is too late to unload a class or two now; the deadlines have passed.  I did drop a lab course after hours of debating back and forth in my head.  In all honest to goodness truth, I should’ve dropped some more units.  But could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, right?

The thing is, I recall feeling burnt out last May, and it’s starting to come back to me… that I wasn’t going to take this many classes, in fear of burning out.  Somehow, the heat of SoCal summers have given me short-term memory loss.  Perhaps this is why women bear multiple offsprings, even though giving birth (appears to be) is more “miracle you survived” than “miracle of life.”  I digress.

The week goes by without my knowing.  Monday through Thursday I am all about school, and my thoughts rarely even cross work at the hospital.  Friday through Sunday, I work my three-12-hour shifts, and rarely I think about school.  It’s as though I live a double life, Jekyll and Hyde.  And between the two personas, a week is lost.  Then another week.  Then another week.

Obviously, enjoying life is far from happening.  I rarely even have the time to think things through.  Did I pay my credit card bill?  I think I did, but I could be remembering last month’s payment.  I want to glide through the waters of life, or maybe sail through on one of those pedal boats; right now, I’m barely keeping my nose above water.

I do get a little anxious when I think about reducing more school work, because that will most definitely postpone my tentative graduation date of 2010 (and 2010 seems far enough as it is!), but in the next few months as the stress level exacerbates, I’ll have to weigh my options and think about the outcomes… in the grand scheme of things, what’s one year?

So note to self: unload the plate when this semester is over.   Unload.  Unload.  Unload.

I just realized… this is my 10th year in college.  (Sigh)

Most people would’ve obtained their Ph.D. and then some after a decade at a university, but I guess you could say that I took the road less traveled.  Well, that’s really not accurate; I took a lot of detours on the way and had a few flat tires and accidents.

I really feel like I’m finally back on track.  Chemistry is challenging and mind-boggling, but I’m approaching it with the same fervor I had when I took chemistry for the very first time in the 10th grade.  After years of feeling stagnant, it feels like I am making some headway into the path I want to be on.  A sense of accomplishment does wonders for your self esteem.

It’s a little embarrassing to still be working toward a bachelor’s degree after 10 years in college, but I’m embracing all my shortcomings and bad lucks and chucking it up to a growing experience.  Some day, I’ll stop being a perpetual student…

I can’t post my research paper on Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”  It’s a decent piece, I suppose, but for a piece that was supposed to have had more time and effort dedicated to it, it’s not something I can be proud of.  I could’ve done better, but the paper just dragged.  I get a good feeling about a piece of writing that I do when I can connect the dots… like a lightbulb that goes on.  You start brainstorming and all the brainstormed ideas turn into dots… a good paper comes in when you’ve thought it through enough that you start to connect the dots, and an explosive conclusion (which is one of the most critical points in any paper) happens when all the dot-connecting comes together into a Jackson Pollack-ish image.

For my research paper, I had some dots, but none were really connecting.  I think I needed more time for it to brew it my noggins.  It’s like a cup of coffee poured from the coffee press way too early — all the flavors are not quite captured.

I thrive better in a competitive environment.  I like it when instructors are challenging and critical (to an extent).  It provides a sense of drive for the entire class to move forward and a healthy dose of competition never hurt anyone.  But this was an online class, where I never saw any of my classmates.  I never saw any of my classmates’ papers and the comments/grades they got, and it brings about a lack of motivation for me.  I’ve actually read the poetry analysis, because they were posted on the web and we had to read two of our peers and comment on them.  A lot of them sucked.  Many were written in the first person format.  Many started off their essays with “I liked this poem” or “This was my favorite poem.”  For me to comment on an essay like that was no easy feat.

The worst was this one girl, who announced on the first days of class that she was a published writer, and yet had issues comprehending the instructor’s prompts on the papers we had to write.  Granted, the instructions for the class were hazy at best, but from the looks of her poetry analysis,  the only publication she could’ve gotten was having her letter printed in the Dear Abby section of the paper.

If I were to get a good grade on this research paper I wrote, I’d lose the small amount of respect I’ve had for this class.  It doesn’t do me any good (other than to raise my GPA) to have perfect 10s for grades on papers I personally feel shitty about.  I am, perhaps, my own critic.  But I know when I write a good piece of work that should deserve a high mark, and I know when I haven’t quite made the cut.

Lately, I’ve been a little cranky.

It all started with my birthday, and the lack of celebration.  First off, none of my friends were able to come up with a date to celebrate my birthday.  It would be one thing if such an event was never suggested in the first place, but it’s been nearly a month since I’ve come of age and the closest friends I’ve got haven’t seen each other.  Secondly, with the advent of text messaging, nobody called to congratulate me on my birthday.  I received a bunch of text messages, but apparently, I’m not worth wasting their breath on.

I just feel like I need to be loved.  I don’t feel like I register as a priority to anyone else.  I’m the girl who would always be there when you need her, so there’s no urgency to hang out.  It’s sad.  I think I carry a large empty bowl.  Nay, a bowl is too elegant of a vessel; I carry a large empty bucket.  It could be filled with meaningful relationships and the love and care other people have for me, but it’s empty.

Am I just a snotty broad destined to live and die alone?  Maybe.  We’ll see.