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The Finish Line

My legs are dragging themselves through the humid air. A warm breeze wraps around my body and the pressure of it makes me nauseous. Everything around me seems to be steaming, blurring the edges of the track and the trees. The obstacles loom ahead, like little giants standing in a straight line before me. As I slowly approach them, I attempt to jump over them like hurdles in a race. But then, I am face to face with the vicious monster and with a thump of its club I am beaten to the ground. Undeterred, I push myself up again and look wearily around me, searching for the finish line. Where is the finish line? There is no finish line.

The track bursts into flames and the giants encircle me as they multiply as far as the horizon where the sun is emanating sharp piercing rays. I take up my sword and I slash and hack at what I can with one eye open. This is an interminable war that will only end with death. Mine or Goliath's. This is not a race for the fittest. It has never been. Only then do I realize there is no finish line. This is war.

Mom's birthday present

In my confused mind, I go over the list of potential birthday gifts for the third time and they all don't seem like the right thing. It has always been a pain trying to conjure up the perfect present for mom. The process of searching for "the gift" went like this.

I started off by listing off all the possible material things that my mom could ever want. Unfortunately, this list remained blank as ever. My mom never seems to want anything in particular. So after having had a futile search through the clothes, shoes, jewelry sections of the department, I ended up asking myself "So?" and the answer always comes, "Nah".

So what to do? After having had a great education in TAS learning to think outside of the box. I try to do that. I climb out of this oppressive material world and think, what could possibly be so divine that it would rock my mom's socks off when she receives her birthday present? Maybe I could make her a scrapbook of all the years since my brother and I were wearing diapers. That would be pretty cool. But I only have 5 days and I can only work on it when she's in the shower. Scratch that. Maybe I could burn a CD with all the songs that she likes. But I did that in lower school already; it would be a tad bit cliche. I know! I could give her 3 weeks of daily massaging but that's not fun stuff for me. So? Aghh.

Hopefully, it will come up in my dreams. It's in my brain somewhere. I just can't suck it out and force it to present itself visibly to my conscious senses. Dream a little dream for me, birthday gift.

Taxi driver

He dreamt big. Real big.

I would never have imagined the power lottery could have over our many desires and wishes but I was proven to have quite a limited view of this gambling world. As I hopped onto the taxi, the first thing the driver asked was, "Did you buy the lottery today? You know it's 600 million." Naturally, this was pretty much a rhetorical question for he started to tell the tale of his life. The life after he won the lottery, that is.

If I happen to have all those numbers on that lottery ticket of mine, the first thing I'm going to do is park this damn car in the middle of the road and let it get crushed, damnit. And I'm going to get myself a BMW. Of course, I'm not going to keep staying in Tien Mu. I'm going to move myself to where New York New York is and I'm going to do what I want to do and learn what I want to learn.

Yes, of course. You wouldn't want to waste all that money. It's best not to fling it all around right?

No, no. Well, of course, I'll probably take out about 100 or 200 million and put it into my bank account for retirement. But in the mean time, I'm going to use it on whatever I want. I'll probably buy some land back in my hometown. And I'm not going to put up with all that stupid education. I'm going to learn what I want. There's no use trying to memorize useless things right? You know, you never know when your fate changes. It could be today, in that little ticket. Just 50 NT and your whole life will be turned upside down for the better."

*Polite chuckle* Yes, yes. Of course.

With a repressed sigh of relief we (Mom, brother, and I) fortunately arrived at our destination . Mom quickly wished him good luck winning the lottery tonight, and silently hoped that he wouldn't. Poor guy. If he really managed to obtain that perfect sequence in his hot hands, he would probably be one of those who would waste all their money for a widget of luxurious and ecstatic life and before they knew it, plummet down into the lowest of lows of their lives, having lost all: money, job, and everything else.

Everyone has a different answer for the question "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" but it seems there are two categories that the answers fall into. The first one is similar to the taxi driver: Spend it all with glee and freedom. The second one is to save, save, save; whether it is to give to one's future kid's college money or simply because one's obsessively stingy. None of these categories are right or wrong in their own way (who knows what's right or wrong in life). The second category might seem more reasonable or as many would say "responsible" but one must consider how selfish it is to keep all that money to oneself and one's direct relatives. However, to question the person who carried out this action would be unreasonable. Thus, we must push further back and question the whole game of lottery. Is lottery really something that people desperately need? Will they give up all hope in life knowing they have no way of catching that 1 in a kajillion chance of winning? I believe not. There are people who actually live without lottery in their lives (it sounds like a drug now). Believe it or not, life can go on without those silly hopes that fate will go your way for once. If you think about it, only one person seizes the grand prize and all that money is granted to that sole being. After obtaining that enormous amount of money, the value of sharing slips out of his mind ever so quickly. Of course, there have been the select few who have not wasted their money for purposes of the self. But ultimately, I think we could do without the lottery. It wouldn't be a good idea to breed dreams such as those of the taxi driver's and let them multiply. The sight would be gruesome if I encountered a crushed taxi tomorrow, strewn in the middle of the road.

Perfect

My fingers are racing on the fingerboard. They can hardly keep up with the bow that cruelly pushes on. Almost at the finish line. Just this part. This tricky part. Here goes.
And right at that moment my fingers knot and tangle over each other resulting in yet another failure. The 100th.

It seems to me that practicing the violin is nothing less than the training required for cross-country. The amount of mental and physical energy to endure the torturous repetitions over and over again is more than one might think. One needs to have the perseverance of a perfectionist and the endurance of a marathon runner. After playing a passage for the 101th time, it takes its toll on both my body and mind. Thoughts of failure seep into my mind and I can't help but think myself hopeless. Eventually the other part of me whispers, "Come on, Jane, it's only this part. Just keep going." No, really.

Nearing the end of the day, my fingers are out of breath yearning for oxygen but I carry on. At one point, I get the passage just right. A rush of joy surges through my body. Perfect.

Summer

After many days of continuous rainfall, it is not hard to comprehend the suicidal rate in Cornell. Starting from the day of the graduation (fantastic omen), Taipei has been trampled by playful rain. The drops start falling and crescendos into a majestic thunder. And then it stops. And then the sky starts to drip again as if to say, "Hi guys, I'm back!". If this doesn't do justice to depression, then you must be phenomenal at controlling external forces.
I must admit, I do not have such heroic power to will off the gloominess that permeates the atmosphere. I succumb to this crushing force that unleashes my inner depression. Hidden away under the covers of my bed, the parameters around this patch of territory all seem abyssmal, dark, and hopeless. Every slashing I hear on the window I wince in pain and anguish. I am desperate to get out. And so I do, heading towards the refrigerator. With all this depression going on around me, it's only reasonable that I eat something.
Back in my little patch of territory (under my covers in my very cozy bed), I start to realize that the rain is not only making me sulky, it is ruining my cross-country career. That tummy of mine is growing. I need to get out and run. I need to escape from these bars that bind me so relentlessly. Just kidding. It wasn't like the rain literally locked me in. But just maybe, it did so somewhere in the deeper corners of my dark mind.
After hours of wallowing and dreaming up sun dances, I almost gave up all hope; the sun didn't love us as much as I thought it did. But the other day, as I woke up, there was my beloved friend guiltily peeking from the horizon. Hello there, stranger.
What drama the summer can bring, and a good kickoff at that. The rain was an appetizer only to enrich the joy summer would bring later on. So don't wallow and sulk. Let's just say that we should be glad I've been proven wrong. The sun does love us after all. This world is, ultimately, the best of all possible worlds.

Hermes

It's really getting to me this time. The increasing competition just makes me want to slap it in the face and say shut up, leave me alone. It's been all the small things added up together. Gradually. Slowly. Like it wants to creep up on me and surprise me. Great surprise.
The problem is that even though I feel burned out, up and down, I still have to keep on that game face or else people start to question. They think I'm depressed but I'm not. I'm frustrated, that's what. I'm at that tipping point where I just want to bake a thousand batches of cookies and fling them out of my window where they will land on the hot road and a car will run through them, crushing each and every one of them.
Give me a second here and maybe I'll let you experience how it feels to be judged; to be pounded and molded into someone I refuse to be.
Competition says, "Hi, just shut up and listen. This is your plan. Follow it."
I ignorantly reply, "Yay, okay! My life is set like a rock set in stone."
I wish I could smash the rock and the stone and punch competition in the face.
The polite and cheery :) letters that I keep receiving are disguised as messengers of rejection but I suppose they believe that I'm stupid enough to think their artificial phrases filled with plastic wishes of success would fool me. A few months ago it would have but I'm not stupid anymore because it's been a bit too much for me to have missed the point. Go on, reject me, I readily welcome you into my world because once you're in, you'll never come out. Slap me, I'll slap you back. But the sad thing is, you are indifferent. You go on and infect my soul like a virus, bursting each and every one of my cells.
Just die and shut up, please.

Cookies

I have a special craving for cookies that started developing and maturing itself as the stress level increased this year. This craving is quite special because cookies have a certain significance to my life. They are the givers of joy, of happiness, of wholeness, sweet pleasure. Those imperfectly round slices of dough dotted with melting chocolates chips is the only thing that is able to make me disregard the fat gain that comes along with it in its nice little packages. As I bite into the chewy, crunchy center, I'm swept away from all the problems that await me on my desk. Total bliss.
I am constantly defeated by the power of these cookies. These seductive deserts are like vices that become addictions as you become helpless in other areas of life (school). They are able to numb me from the harsh realities that I must confront everyday, and they truly help pull me through hard times. This is why when I'm sad, I eat a cookie and life's good. I guess I could term it my best friend now because we pretty much live off of each other. They get the honor of being eaten while I obtain the privilege to eat it. It's a mutual thing.
When I received a bag of homemade cookies today, it was like a whole batch of happy pills. And that in itself, just looking at it, made me ecstatic. The possibilities were infinite and promising. I will be able to get through the school year just fine. Maybe I will have to use a bit more effort to put on those jeans but it will all be worth it in the end.

Michael Buble

It's really quite rare to find someone with a great voice these days. Michael Buble has one of the best voices; it's rich, well controlled and he's able to adapt to the nuances of all the classics that he sings.
To really appreciate good music buy his new album "Call Me Irresponsible".

It's phenomenal.

Pandora

Pandora.com is officially blocking access from any international countries due to license problems. They don't have the expenses to buy international licenses from all the countries in the world. They don't even have enough money to support their own little company in the States. It was terrible when I received that polite letter personally apologizing for having to block my access to Pandora. I felt torn. It was like breaking up with a boyfriend due to long distance relationship complications.
Pandora was the perfect boyfriend. It was good-looking, entertaining, and intelligent. I listened to it everyday. It knew exactly what songs I loved and hated. It never tired to search for songs that I would like. It was so caring, I should have told it I loved it earlier. Today is my last day to be with it and from then on I will be forever separated from my lover. It's tragic.
Pandora, I love you.

Hyponatremia

The sun was glaring down at me but it was starting to get too hot, too bright. I painfully inched my way along the steaming hard tar road. I would have liked to collapse on all fours and crawl, but I was in the Boston Marathon. People passed me. They were suffering such a personal torture that only they could define. Their foreheads were glistening with stars of sweat as they slowly drained their energy. Left, right, left, right. It would never end. The watering stop came into view and the white table was lined with beautiful white plastic cups. It was too white, too pure to be true. I drank one. Then another. Then another. Then another.
I scrunched up my face and continued shuffling my feet towards the hellish sun. People littered the sides of the path and the finish line was floating before the horizon. I was almost there, just a few shadows away. I could feel the energy draining out of me like air wheezing out of a balloon. And then the last wisp of air was extinguished like a sigh. Too quiet, too soon. I collapsed like a stranded doll on the sidewalk. It was too much sun, too much water. Too much pressure.
The sun was so far away and I didn't know how to run a marathon. I had much to learn, but I couldn't anymore because the water killed me.
A miracle had to happen: my resurrection.

Caught between dreams

I walked in through the school gate and my friend was there waiting for me. He turned around and started smoking as I walked up next to him. The casual hand with the cigarette between his index and middle finger swung down as a trail of smoke floated out from his invisible mouth. It was like a thin film of sin. I start to run away from it on the track. My legs aren't moving but the red bright rubber flowed fast like a river of blood.

I'm running through the hallways but the walls are transparent. Lockers flash by. Neat, messy, dirty, empty. I see teachers with their hands in mid-air explaining some obscure concept to indifferent students with their chins resting on their hands. They all flash by like photos in a photo album. The photos start to burn one by one like pages in a book. The edges curl, the teachers melt, and the students turn a charcoal black.

Where did time go? It's lost in the black abyss. My kindergarten self with three pigtails stands before me smiling. I was so happy then, where did time go? The pulse is lost, it is erratic. It goes beep, beep, beep, stop. I open my clasped hands discovering a clock that forever reads 3 am.
I still have an essay to write. I wake up.

Fat-fighting baby milk

As we all know, this world is increasing in obesity, most evidently in the United States. They've tried everything from variously named diets to all types of bizarre methods. Mixing this with a barrage of commercial ads brain-washing all types of people, it's not a surprise that the United States has the most cases of anorexia and bulimia. The people subjected to such vices have always been teenagers and young adults but now, it's even worse. Their target has become babies. Fat-fighting baby milk comes into the spotlight.
Supposedly, the ingredient leptin that they add to the mix suppresses the baby's desire to eat. How much crueler could this get? Well, they think that it will help decrease the baby's chances of becoming obese in the future. However, there is evidence that the babies who are breast-fed have a lower chance of obesity than those who are fed formulated milk. It is actually quite simple if one were to control obesity but everyone is disillusioned by technology.
Instead of wasting time trying to find ingredients that will stunt a baby's appetite wouldn't it be a great idea to go back to the basics? Avoid McDonalds and go for a run and enjoy the scenery. Think about it, people ages ago used to do fine hunting and gathering and they weren't struck by this epidemic called obesity. Baby milk stained with leptin? Forget it my friend. Babies will only get more obese knowing that they can eat with impunity with their friend leptin there to support them. Let's leave the babies untainted please and preserve their innocent dignity.
So, shall we dance? And burn off some fat while we're at it?

Hematoma

I always went to the fairs but I never played the games. I always walked past looking at other kids play. I was never denied a chance to play nor did I refuse to play. I just never wanted to. Watching other kids play was fine with me. It was like watching sports on TV where the stadium was so far away yet the game was right before my eyes. I loved the feeling of not having to suffer the loss or even to celebrate the victory. The feeling of detachment.

Yet a couple years later, I was torn away from my childhood memories and whisked into the chaos that I so quietly avoided. Now games had to be created and worked out for the pleasure of children who I would have liked to watch from a distance. Now I was responsible for their feelings. If they lost, I felt guilty. If they won, I felt even worse because I had just consciously cheated their money for a stupid prize. And yet they didn't even know it.

In the early morning before the fair started, I was pushing a cart of trash cans filled with colorful balloons soon to become "fish" so little kids could go fishing without having to hook a real fish by its mouth and watch it jerk helplessly. Some water spilled out of the trash can and flowed onto the cart trickling down the slant we were trying to go up. My eyes fixed on the fish, my shoe stepped into the water and the current of the river pulled me down and away from the beautiful fish. My knee jammed down into the linoleum floor and my body was reduced to a crawling position. The precious rivulets of blood ruptured from my veins and I could feel the pulse in rhythm with the pain. And yet the fish successfully arrived and swam in the swimming pool while children were blinded by its rainbow colors.
Slowly, the bruise turned red to purple to blue to black. My hematoma.

Haven't you heard...

Haven't you heard that drinking will make you red as a beet, sway like a lunatic, slur like a mad man, puke till your throat is raw, ugly as hell, wasted?
Just a year ago, we were still innocent children not exposed to the world that we have readily invited this year. Now, as photos flash by, I see people sitting on the couch as if they were half dead, half alive with a face red enough to explode. They reminded me of zombies. I don't understand how they could possibly make themselves go through such agony but I believe the motives are quite clear. Everyone drinks as if they're at the finish line. We're done. Let's celebrate. But just a year ago, celebrate had a happy connotation with balloons and sunlight and smiles. Now celebrate is no longer what it meant. Now people take it to mean drinking, smoking, dancing like they're having sex, puking, stoning. They think it's sophisticated. We're adults now, yippee.
Haven't they heard that they've got a family? They've got parents? They've got a life? It's like suicide. One day you're really depressed and you curse the day you were born and go ahead and kill yourself. What do your parents do now? They've spent their lives loving you and you decide to kill it all with your life. That's just pure selfish. Don't go wasting around right now when you owe your parents a lifetime. It's just setting yourself up with a noose around your neck. And you thought schoolwork would kill you.
Haven't you heard? It's time to celebrate life.

White Coat

I am officially reconsidering the pursuit of a medical career. I didn't know that there was such a gruesome hierarchical culture in hospitals. I was blinded by the childish hopes of wearing a white coat.
There are so many rungs to climb before one reachs the top. Medical student, resident, intern, doctor. One has to sacrifice one's life for a career like that. Long hours are spent on call and the dream of living a happily married life is quite dismal. 50% of doctors get divorced. I'm not looking that far into life yet but it has to be considered.
In addition to long sufferable hours, one must endure the belittling of those above you. Doctors to interns. Interns to residents. Residents to medical students. Plus one has to study everything that one wouldn't want to study (surgery, ob-gyn).
What does it take to be comfortable in a white coat, to be stepping on the shoulders of all those beneath you? Read White Coat by Ellen Lerner Rothman and you'll know what I mean.

Spring break

Everyone seems to be enjoying their spring break. What a great time of the year it is to frolick about without a care in the world. Dancing, jumping, shouting with glee as the sun and the flowers embrace your carefree world.
Wrong.
Everyone is cooped up in their little house whiling their time away reading, studying, and giving an excuse to go to the glasses shop to get new lenses for degenerating eyes. Everyday is routine.
1. Breakfast (very fulfilling)
2. Study (whatever the teachers have cunningly slipped into the break)
3. Lunch (too full)
4. Run (a few laps)
5. Study (see 2)
6. Dinner (the usual)
7. Practice violin (getting frustrated often)
8. Study (until the point of exhaustion)
9. Sleep
Doesn't that just look productive to you? Yes, this break has been very fruitful. My eyes are getting blurrier everyday. Bright lights have a ghost image behind them now (astigmatism) and cars have fuzzy edges (myopia). I used to have 20-20. The sacrifices I make...
It's not good for me, I know. But it's just that the breakfasting and the studying and the lunching and the routining allows me to imagine my carefree world. I'm in my carefree world. Without death there's no life.

Cloned beef

My first reaction to the idea of cloned beef was one of utter revolt. For some peculiar reason, six out of ten react the same way I do. If one were to think of cloned beef literally, it is no different than the cow it was cloned from. If people ate the original beef, eating the cloned beef would be exactly the same. Same smell, taste, texture, etc. So why do we have such negative feelings towards cloned beef?
I suppose it's the thought of "machine-made" and "unnatural" products that comes into mind. The immediate reflex is to believe that there's something wrong with unnatural things. It seems that a steak of cloned beef just wouldn't seem as tasty and as juicy as one would want it anymore. But that is not the case for it has been approved.
This issue leaves one wondering whether to change the view of things or whether it is an issue worth pondering. However, I would never eat one strip of cloned beef. It's genes are just too perfect. I apologize in advance to those who feel that cloned beef could save the economy but believe me, it won't. People don't want to eat cloned beef. They want genuine beef because that's what tickles their senses when they see the bloody, juicy slab of beef on the dinner table. It's quite sadistic, why make it worse?
Don't eat cloned beef :]

Ackward moments

After the not so successful music recital on friday, it seems like my relationship with my accompanist suddenly dissolved and now there's this stupid ackwardness that I hate. I hate it when you have a bad experience with someone and then suddenly because of that awful event, there's a wall that simulates between you and that person. And then worse, you still have to work with that person, there's no end to it. So...what can you do? You just keep on going. It seems naturalism plays quite a role in my world. What with the computers and these stupid feelings overwhelming my life. How do you overcome ackwardness you ask? You can't. It's just there and you just have to deal with it. How very sad. And then you realize you're controlled by your feelings. It's a very depressing thing.
Just remember not to eat twinkies. They will add to your depression if you do.

Damn technology

This morning I felt obligated to finish the english essay that was due yesterday at 9:00 pm. It was about the Sheikh's role in The Thief and the Dogs. Fun stuff. Naturally, it took me about 1.5 hours to write a solid 3 paragraphs and I was content enough to finish it up with a witty conclusion. But NOO, fate just had to twist its turn as mark came in wanting to use my printer. He plugged in his USB and then my word document disappeared. OH MY GOSH! Where did it go? I still couldn't register the fact that all the work that I had put into those few paragraphs had just gone to waste. I was sad, frustrated, and mostly angry at my brother for having plugged in his usb and he was unfortunate because I needed someone to blame. It was actually the damn computer's fault. Why did it just disappear like that? Sometimes the computer seems to have a life of its own. When it doesn't want to cooperate it most gladly does just that. So...the file was gone. What could do? I had to start ALL OVER again attempting to churn up what I had just written and edited. You would think typing an essay on the computer would save you time but you never know, man, you never know.