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.