A little disappointed in myself for making the same mistakes I've made before. Alas, with each opportunity to repeat the past is an opportunity to really get it right this time.

I have much to learn still.

are my jokes really that predictable?

roar.imsad.

haha herp derp

Not the way it should be

So, I actually like medical school a lot.

1. Professors are (for the most part) interesting
2. The science-y stuff is fun- I get to cut out and hold a human heart tomorrow
3. The people I've met here are awesome. Pretty much everyone I've met here is friendly and so interesting. They each have their own stories to tell- I have classmates who did Fulbrights in Africa, worked as professional chefs, worked as firefighters, who had pregnant moms that refused to deliver until the NBA finals were over. There's even a Quaker in my class!

A few months ago, I blogged about how excited I was to move onto a new stage in my life. The prospect of meeting people who were from faraway places and cultures seemed adventurous and inspiring- and I had my heart set on going somewhere far away for school.

So, I ended up in Southern Cali which was actually a lot closer than I had projected. But nonetheless- the geographical proximity was far enough and the diversity ensued. As I mentioned above, my class is full of fresh faces from different backgrounds. One of my closest friends here is from the Phillipines, another is from Florida, and I have a few from LA. I even have a black friend! I HAVE NEVER HAD A BLACK FRIEND BEFORE. None of them are Chinese or are from the Bay Area- which has been a stark contrast from the community I have been raised in for the 22 years of my life.

I like this. Now don't get me wrong. I love Chinese Bay-Areans. But this change of environment and its milieu of people is new for me. I have much to learn from people who think differently from me.

---

For the last 3 months I've been living the same schedule. Go to school, webcast, study, study study. Break once in a while to talk to Lloyd, study, facebook, sleep. With all this information I have to retain- I can't fathom how I could change the cycle- it literally feels like every minute I have should be filled with studying.

I talked to a friend at the gym today who has a completely different approach to this beast. He goes to class, finished studying by 5, and reserves weekend for playing, hanging out, and basically having fun. So then I thought "What the heck... FUN???! How can you manage to do that with all the lectures we have to study!" 

And then I sat and I thought to myself. What I'm doing- this is not the way it should be. What's the point in immersing myself in this city of LA, full of incredible people... if I'm not going to make time to actuallly do fun things. Yes, I  know that getting a good medical education is #1 on my list of "Reasons why I'm here in LA" but to neglect the other good things in life is surely...foolish.

My fridge (now that sam has left for the weekend)

pictured here we have bbq sauce, ketchup, butter hiding under a bowl, 

3 week old snapple, taco sauce, corn nuts in a bag.

Lloyd: "you're like bachelor frog"

i'm completely frazzled.

on a lighter note...thanks for always being there to cheer me up... Lily!

<3 p="p">Angera

note to self:

relax, take it easy, breathe

WHOA. SLOW DOWN, WORLD.

Apologies to everyone I have half assed communication with for the past two weeks. 6 days of school, 10 lectures, 185 classmates, 3 days of bf + family visiting, 1 white coat ceremony,  1 roomate moving in, and a shitload of material to learn all crammed into two weeks has been full on social v academic warfare.

But things will simmer down, right? Either that or pick up exponentially x.x

Well, not going to say I didn't expect it. Here's to the start of med school.

Crash Course on moving to Manhattan

Hi, I'm Angela's best friend Jon. She was naive enough to ask me to write a guest post regarding living in New York so here it goes:

This is my 3rd week living in the upper west side and I still get confused by the subway system. 

Shit is expensive

Seriously, no dollar menu at Mcdonalds? $15 shots of stoli? $600 bottle service  to get 4 guys in to a club and you don’t even get an actual table or seats?? This shit is crazy.  Unless you’re an investment banker you’ll probably be getting owned by the prices here. The only bottles and models I’m fucking with are Gatorade bottles and MATLAB models.  For the prices I’m paying to live here I could probably support a small village in Sudan.

Finding an apartment sucks if you're not rich

To find an apartment you’ll have to decide if you’re going to rent or sublet. If you rent you need to make 40x rent. For example a shitty $1500 studio on the “upper” east side on 95^th will require you to make at least $60,000. I write upper in quotes because people will advertise apartments above the 90s as the Upper East Side but it’s so far up that it’s essentially Harlem rather than the lavish gossip girl stomping grounds that one would hope for. Additionally, you’ll most likely work with a broker and that will cost you about another rent’s month in addition to the 2 month deposit you’ll probably have to put up.

If you instead decide to save money and sublet a place you’re also probably fucked. Half the posts on craigslist are probably scams; The other half are filled with lies. 2 bedroom basically means you get the living room in a 1 br apartment. That nice room in the east village that you see for a reasonable price is a 6^th floor walkup with 90 sq feet of space. Not only are most of the apartments shitty or lies, the real estate market is extremely competitive. For each apartment that you find that you’d actually be willing to take there are dozens of potential renters competing with you. Basically don't expect to live anything like they do in Friends without some serious $$$$$$$$$$$!

It smells like pee everywhere

It shouldn’t be a surprise that new york smells like shit. The subways smell like pee and the streets are lined with garbage. You’ll also see rats that are bigger than cats and abnormally large insects that have thrived eating the garbage lined streets of new york. Apparently bed bugs are also a major issue with shitty apartments here so you should pretty much never buy any used bed furniture while you’re here.

The weather = WTF!??!

If you're used to california weather then the east coast is going to suck. There is nothing more confusing than trying to prepare for a humid 95 degree thunderstorm in the middle of July. The winters are equally frustrating because your lips will chap if you go more than 2 hours without chapstick. You'll also have to dress like an eskimo to keep warm.

No more driving!!!

If you love driving like I do then you'll be disappointed if you move to New York. Driving in New York is not only frustrating and probably slower than the subway, but also as expensive as renting a second apartment. If you do take the subway you can essentially get anywhere in the city in under 30 minutes. Trains usually come in under 5 minutes which is something you can't really say about BART. However, in the morning and afternoon commutes the trains are extremely packed and you'll sometimes have to miss a train and take the next one to get on.

There’s tons of shit to do!                                                                                                           

Probably the main reason so many people come here is the variety of things you can do. Last friday I saw Starry Nights at the MoMA, went clubbing in the west village, took a limo to koreatown to eat, and got home at 5am. The next morning I went to Ippudo in the east village, walked central park, went to the museum of natural history, and went to a rooftop bar! It’s pretty much impossible to be bored here. The only question is whether or not you have enough time and money to take advantage of these opportunities.

parents just left two hours ago.

this is nice and all!

but i miss my parents/ other human beings already. Q_q

24 hours and I move to LA

And somehow it hasn't hit me yet....

"We can do whatever you want today"

The past month has been nothing but spoils. With no 9-5 job I got to hang out daily with L&L, family, and friends. As always, my parents have been too good to me and provided me with all my at-home needs, even though I'm inevitably a brat and take them for granted sometimes. June and July has blessed me with the opportunity to stay home and watch the olympics, make ice cream from scratch at whim, and go on trips with my favorite people.

Ah, trips. A string of trips kept my busy pretty much the entire last two months: Disneyland, Vegas, Yosemite, and finally the motherbeast of all my vacations thus far: two weeks in Brazil.

Brazil: The TLDR and lessons learned:

1. Vacation constipation. You can run, but you can't hide.

2. Always carry your passport with you. Always.

#3 is a lesson; one that I'll introduce with an anecdote.

On our first night in Manaus, Janice and I were looked up and down by two men as we were walking to the grocery store. At first we shrugged it off, thinking it was just a slimy pair of guys. A minute later, we crossed the street and as we turned to look at them they were running in the opposite direction they had come from; one of them with a backpack in his hands and the other wielding a gun. 

What. The heck. That could have been us! Stupid me for carrying my bigass Canon strapped around my neck- might as well have written "I AM A TOURIST-ROB ME" on  my forehead. Thank goodness Nayson, brown as a local, was also walking with us and stared them down as they were eyeing Janice and me. Lesson learned:

3. If you ever feel unsafe in a foreign place, don't go out at night. If you happen to find yourself out at night, be vigilant and look like you belong.

Not going to talk expand too much on Brazil because nothing but a deeply invested post would do it justice. I don't have the capacity for that at the moment... I'll save it for another post. And anyway, I had planned to fashion this post as a resting place for my thoughts about the all too imminent future.

---

Begin: Thoughts on the all too imminent future.

As the end of the week approaches, so does my move to LA. I'm excited yet apprehensive for the move as it marks the end of my 22 year residence in the great Northern California. 

I'm ready to meet new people, but will miss being able to see loved ones every day. I'm ready to go back to school and learn things, but I know that all too soon I'm going to miss the freedom of my current schedule. Call me a geek but I get a little giddy at the thought of being able to study science again. I say this with caution though, as I know once the studying begins, it will pile on mercilessly. I have heard that that starting medical school is like "trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant." I can only imagine how overwhelming and copious the workload will be- but if it weren't stressful it wouldn't quite be medical school now would it.

As I enter a new stage of my life, I've been contemplating the things I could do with a fresh start. An aspect of my life I've been trying to get on the right track again is my running (no pun intended). Ever since ending high school, running has evoked in me a sense of both joy and despair. Joy because, well, running is my element. It's the only activity I've ever felt I truly "excelled" at and the only one that provides me with an emotional reverie to slip into during times of need. But sometimes when I reflect upon my post-high school relationship with running, it feels heavy. Having no coach to guide me, no team to run for, and no section championship to train left me feeling really... wasted. Like my potential for greatness was stymied by my own ineptitude. Sure, I ran a few races over my college career but they were all kind of dreary, half assed efforts. I never thoroughly trained for any race I ran. I'd like to change that.

A few weeks ago I signed Lloyd and I up for the "Awesome 80's race"in the Pasadena rose bowl on September 1st. After signing up for the race, I decided that it was time for me to actually put an invested effort into training again. So yesterday, I sat down with myself and had a little meeting. I planned out a workout schedule for month of August, and realized that this was the first time in my life I had done so.

For every race I have ever run, I had either prepared for it by having a coach tell me what to run (high school) or by running whatever I felt like each day (every single freakin race post-high school). Never have I actually made a workout schedule for myself until this one. Without a doubt I know that by nature of being a medical school student, there will be conflicts with this schedule. But I've realized that there are both pros and cons to the situation:

cons

-The sheer time it takes just to attend school is lengthy, making it hard to find the time and place to run

-Studying will take time (...duh) which means I will have less time time to run

-I've scheduled in a lot of 6am and 4pm workouts. 6AMs may be a pain in the ass to wake up for, and 4PMs in the LA heat may predestine me to unpleasant heat exhaustion

-No fremont older and no tilden park. WHERE am I going to run? I know that with time, I'll find some good areas but settling into a new hood and new hills may be rough. I know myself pretty well. And so I know that I will probably get lost as soon as I start exploring.

pros

-Running calms me. This is an infinite "pro" against med school stress

-I hear stories of those people who start waking up early every day and find they have more energy and focus during the day. I hope I'll be one of them...

-Despite "con" #3, I'm kind of excited at the idea of waking up early. I always feel good after a run, and the idea of beginning the day on a high note should resonate well throughout the day.

-Finally being able to meet new people means being able to meet people who also like to run with me some days!

-USC has a gym. For last resort late days at school, I suppose I can head there to get my fix.

OK, gonna finish this post quickly so I can zip out and get an 8 miler in: the remaining item I have on my list is to stay off Facebook until my move is down (so..Sunday?). I have too many things to take care of at home. No time to dilly dally online!

K, bye blog, thanks for listening to me rambling. As always, I reward you with pictures and media!

1. Haha which of these sounds like a phony professional..

2. at the 10 minute mark, I melt a little bit  (thanks for the link, Theo). Hence the namesake of this post

edit:typ0s

what the heck just happened

sorry, another hair post

if you are bored of me talking about my hair, you're going to have a bad time reading this post. might as well quit and read something more interesting.

In the summer of 2011, I almost had long flowy hair. It was a great length, a few inches below my shoulder. I was aspiring to grow it out even longer but one fateful day last summer, my mom chopped it to the length of my chin. I was furious. I vowed to never let anyone screw up my hair again.

Lesson #1: Never let mom cut my hair

Fast forward to present time. Well I suppose history repeats itself because this summer I was finally well on my way to having "long" hair again when I decided a year of cultivating my locks merited a trim. So I called up a hair salon just for a minimal trim and some hair styling and WHADDYA know, they mess it up. The end result was layers so choppy my stylist literally had to ask another woman at the salon to fix it. Still not happy with the operation, I went home and tried to even out the layers myself.

Lesson # 2: Never try to fix your own hair, Angela

After a terrible disaster cutting my own hair, I rushed to Lloyd's hairstylist who has been cutting his hair for over 10 years (pause for awww). She finally fixed it. It looked good! Well as good as you can get after having two hair cut accidents within the week. But now I'm back at square one and will have to sit and wait and be patient for another year before I can finally join the long hair club.

So. I, Angela, do solemnly swear to let no one cut my hair (except for minor trimmings!) for an entire year. NO SNIP SNIP UNTIL JULY 6, 2013.

TL;DR: For as long as I can remember, I have wanted this hair:

So senior year of college, I started growing it out

2011 sometime spring. ALMOST LONG!

RUH ROH. Accidents happen. This is months after my mom "trimmed" my long hair. 

(Also, meet Janice she's one of the best friends I could ask for)

Vegas Summer 2012: Woohoo a year later and it's growing back nice and healthy! 

(And in case you haven't met lloyd, here he is!)

Today: Not what I expected after a "trim"

PS if you notice theres a tiny bit of red in there! dyed a chunk of it last week on impulse

So there you have it. ok ok, I'll stop posting narcissistic blogs about my hair for a while. Hopefully in a year roarim20 is still open for business and I'll be able to show the world that I have the self restraint to stay away from scissors for a year. See you next July folks!

got bangs yesterday

I wish my hair did this

and not this

One of those nights.

It's another one of those nights when I felt tired enough to pass out... but when the time came for me to fall asleep, sleep itself became ever so elusive.

So I just sits here. and rambles about my life- POETRY style

I call this one..... STUFF I'VE BEEN UP TO SINCE THE BEGINNING OF JUNE 2012

Just a few weeks ago my summer began

After fighting HIV for one year, I needed to tan.

So I hopped on a plane and landed in Vegas

To reunite with my wife- how happy it made us!

Through the next week, I played in my hood

Till the next thing I knew, I was on a trip to the woods..
I went with my sister, who's one heck of a baller
I heard her doggie once wore a gold collar.

In a "cabin" we feasted on nice marble tables

To prepare us the next day for mean mountain cables

The next day we rose at 3:30 AM

For a 16 mile hike that they call "half dome".

How painful this was, on 3 hours of REM

With no one to complain to (no service on phone).

We hung on for dear life, like in that movie Titanic

Especially on the cables- some of us panicked!

The next thing you know, we're eating some ice creams

And letting our bodies recover, the muscles and hemez.

The day after I came back, Dr. Lin hacked out two of my friends

Ever since then, the pain never ends.

Last week I had 32 teeth, and now I have 30

Where #1 and #32 used to hang, it is empty and dirty

I called up my pops, who came in a hurry

Like Lily sprinting, who fast and quite furry

He offered me attention and fatherly care

But since he's a doctor and my mouth hurt a lot, I just wanted some vicodin but he didn't give me any he just gave me normal over the counter Advil damnit

So to pass the time, I play with Lloyd's dog

But tell my parents I'm at the library looking at book catalogs

Sometimes Lily is not so smart and smells like poo

Good thing she knows tricks and she's not a dumb foo

In just a few weeks I'll be in Brazil

Have we planned anything yet? Not really, close to nil.

But I have no worries we will have planning calls

And I'm happy as long as we see Iguacu falls.

In just a few months I'll be in LA

(I hope I can climb there, or I'll forget how to belay!)

But first things first, tomorrow I'll be raising my paw

To fight my first speeding ticket in the court of law.

Well here you have it, my first published life's poem

I have so many thoughts, I don't know where to throw 'em.

I feel kind of sheepish, as I don't know who reads these

Except for Eleanor, who I should start charging fees.

HAHA. That was fun. Hope I can sleep now. PS I hate blogger formatting. will fix tomorrow.

went to the bathroom to get some nailclippers

ended up cutting my hair. need to get it fixed tomorrow.

meow >.< this is so me of me.

Truth

Ah, how it burns to know what you could be if you made yourself just a little less...

comfortable.

Every once in a while, I come face to face the greatest downfall of my being. I stifle my own potential.

Reading this really pissed me off.

"EDC reveler dies after fall from Strip hotel room"

TL;DR of the article: 22 year old girl attends EDC and takes some laced pills. She begins to panic and becomes paranoid that someone is stalking her, so her friends send back in a cab to the hotel. Alone. In the hotel room, she attempts to barricade the door and sends panicked facebook messages to her friends.

Her dead body was found the next morning. She had taken a 20 story fall from her circus circus hotel.

Reasons this whole fiasco pisses me off

1. Victim's friend makes the unabashed accusation that "EDC claims a friends life. I lost a dear friend this weekend." Most likely, the quoted friend's blame chart sounds like: EDC-->ecstasy-->innocent girl dies. Well, ain't that dumb. In no way does EDC condone drug use. Nevertheless, a large and stupid subpopulation of its attendees blindly consume MDMA without responsible discretion and then try to project blame on others for their own bad choices. 

2. Victim's friends sent victim back to her hotel alone in a cab, alone, knowing she was paranoid and tripping out. Some "friends".

3. One of the article comments linked to this reddit page. If this personal account true, the girl had taken MDMA at a previous festival and experienced the same paranoia. After going to a psychiatrist, who told her to lay off the drugs, she took them anyway.

4. Lastly, the title of this article. "EDC reveler"- really? A crass generalization that again, baselessly gives a great event a bad name.

Hearing this kind of shit gets me riled up. This is the quincentennial case of people who take a great thing and singlehandedly shit on it for the rest of us. Now I'm no a hardcore raver nor was I one of those bros chanting"I <3 EDC" on the strip last weekend. But I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with my friends and listening to some good sets at EDC. Knowing that people attending the same event are out there creating unnecessary tragedies truly ruins the experience for the attendees and the event organizers.

About the drugs.

I am not a critic of substance users; I believe that the desire to experiment with substances is totally understandable and natural for some people. But you're a moron if you don't practice some personal accountability. Don't put something in your body unless you've done your research and have accepted the potential consequences. If you're going to try something new, know its source, what a dose is so you don't OD. If you've tried a substance that screwed up your mind or body WHY would you take it again. Taking a drug for its "cool" factor is getting really, really old.

Back at Cal, I had a really nice lab partner. He was good looking, charismatic, and very intelligent. He also loved partying. After not seeing him in years, I searched him on facebook and my jaw dropped when I found out he was in a coma. The fuck? Turns out he OD'd on drugs at a party, had a heart attack, and suffered irreversible brain damage.

There is a redeeming yet bittersweet part to the story. It's been two years since the incident, but the boy's heartbroken mom has been faithfully updating the world on her thoughts and her son's condition as she stayed by his side. She even inserts kitty posts, probably for some emotional solace. Recent updates I've copied and pasted from his FB timeline:

-After weeks of doing increasingly well, following commands better, reading flash cards, and generally showing some more brain function, ____ suffered a seizure this afternoon. It lasted about 4 minutes. He has been off the anti-seizure medication for about a month or so and I dread putting him back on it because it slows brain function. We will see what the neurologist says tomorrow.

-News, news, and mews. Layla the cat has been released from the bathtub, having used her litter box appropriately. She is now the denizen of my home office, which is a much larger space, although still a confined area. She seems to need confinement and solitude, although she enjoys visits from her humans. Not so much from Zelda, who has enough energy to drive poor Layla nuts.

-It has been a very difficult couple of weeks. I removed the cap from the trach because I couldn't stand to hear him moan. He immediately fell asleep and stayed asleep for two days. He has been sleeping quite a bit because he was totally worn out from spending all his efforts just breathing.

-I don't know what we are going to do about the trach, but it has to come out so he can learn to speak. I am at a loss as to how to accomplish this goal without going backwards a full year and beginning the capping process all over again. Truthfully, I don't know that I have another year in me. I remember that I was once a fun, carefree person, but I no longer can really remember what that felt like. They say that a mother is only as happy as her most unhappy child, so that could be part of the problem. 

I can't even begin to imagine the toll this has taken on the boy, nor the amount of regret that he must feel to have placed his loved ones in this position.

No roll is worth this shit.