oh vandy

Coming to the South for college, I think, was one of the best and most important decisions in my life thus far. Even since the college process, I realized how much the mistakes I made have been molding me into the person I am today and that if I had not made the same mistakes, I could be at an IV school but as a much worse person.

That’s not exactly what I was going to post about, but something that I think about at least a few times each month. What I realized today was:

1. I understand why my dad always gets to frustrated when people don’t understand him. Today, I was signing in at the hospital for my volunteer work and the lady at the desk “couldn’t understand me.” I asked for the binder and she said, “what?” and I asked louder and she said, “Oh oh! Volunteer! I couldn’t hear you! I mean, I could hear you but I couldn’t understand you” Excuse me? What does that mean? I speak English just fine, thanks. How much of the not understanding is racism and how much is truly not understanding?

2. Doctors are mean people. I think the whole process of becoming a doctor is mean. All that competition, all that work, it’s got to rub off on you somehow. All the doctors I volunteer with are….not mean really, but not exactly what I would call nice and kind. They’re all very professional even in conversation and they’re all very, well, intimidating. I’m easily intimidated, to be sure, but I try my best to at least show some spirit and enthusiasm. I wonder if that’ll happen to me. I wonder if my girliness and giddyness will one day disappear to replaced by some monster Lily I won’t recognize. I hope I never lose that youthful edge, mentality, and playfulness. I hope none of my friends do.

3. I’m never ever coming back down South again. When Dat Phan was like, “I want to live in the South so bad,” I just couldn’t understand him for the life of me. Why would you ever want to live in a place where racism is so entrenched, it’s not even recognized anymore? Well, that may be a little harsh, but for me, it’s not hard to believe. Maybe I’m just cynical about the South now, but I was all optimism and innocence when I first came here so don’t say I didn’t give the South a chance. All those Southern accents too, it’s a pain in the fucking ass. Like, speak normal English folks. Please. Okay now I’m just being mean, spiteful, and unfair, but whatever.

4. I have no idea what I would be if I weren’t a doctor. Well for one thing, I’d take more philosophy classes. Probably not any more political science or history classes, but more English classes for sure. Maybe econ for sake of at least having SOME knowledge of it, although it sounds like a terribly boring and not a very thought-provoking subject to me. There’s just so much out there and I’m so little…

Tonight was Dat Phan. It was incredible. Just incredible. He was pretty gosh darn good. Like genuinely funny! Some of his jokes weren’t so great tho, but mainly because I didn’t relate to them (like the spicy soup thing with his mother? and the smoking thing with his dad? yeah, didn’t resonate with me…) But some of the others were great. I can see how much work he puts into his comedy. You don’t think about this when you’re watching the show, but he always adjusts his routine to the audience’s reaction to a joke, he always pitches a new idea to a free audience before he performs in front of a group like us, and God knows what else. There’s just so much planning, effort, and intricate work that’s involved, it makes me realize stand up comedy is so much more than just being funny. I also really appreciated how he incorporated Asian American issues into his routine while being really nonconfrontational about it, like the whole bit about racism in the beginning. I thought that was pretty brilliant and received a good response. I put up pics on facebook for those of you who want to see some…

The turnout was just simply amazing. It was waaaay beyond my expectations, like Taste of Asia. I was so shocked, I felt kind of overwhelmed. It was like, where did all of these people come from? Did the posters actually work? Did people actually read those and then decide to come with some friends? I saw this random dude from my philosohpy discussion section there and I was like, where did YOU come from? Good lord, haha.

And meanwhile, there are essays and finals to be written and to study for….school go awaaaay.

this has been the absolute worst week in school history. never have i stayed up this late for academic reasons. and never will get this little sleep due to academic reasons. this is just insane. and ridiculous. i’m not even going to rant about what exactly happened it’s just all so FRUSTRATING. it’s a little better now as i’ve almost finished my paper (and it’s not totally crappy…hopefully), but it all still sucks. absolutely sucks. (and the pats won’t be on tv this week either. wtf)

kill me now.

on the bright side, i got my rent cd! that’s a bright spot on my day. a huge bright spot amongst…not many bright spots….

but dat phan’s here! and he’s a great person. his energy is simply overwhelming, i dunno if i can handle it, haha. he’s performing:

Thursday, 8pm
Student Life Center :: Ballroom A

Omfg. I hate school.

My laptop died today. I mean literally died. My powercord thingy is flashing an ominous yellow color, which indicates a hardware problem. A hardware problem. Oh god, it’s dead. My life is my computer. I kid you not.

This is definately not a good week for my laptop to just suddenly die because I have two papers due this week. Well, one on Friday and the other on Monday, but they’re long and important. I really hope it’s not my hard drive that’s damaged. Oh geez oh geez…..

And Toshiba’s website says that I can get it repaired at (practically) any UPS store. Why do I get the feeling that they’re wrong?

Oh damn, I’ve finally reached that point in the semester where I just can’t seem to sit down and study for more than 5 minutes. Call it “burnt out” or whatever you want, but there ain’t nothing that’s gonna make me crack down I think. I don’t seem to have the motivation to complete the semester. This always always happens to me. It’s probably the reason why if I’m getting an A before this time of year, I’ll end up with an A (b/c even if I slack off, it’s not enough to pull me all the way down) but if I don’t have an A by now…..forget it, it’s not happening. This is also probably why my spring semesters are always worse than my fall semesters — by a lot. Always. Where the hell do I find the drive to finish the semester? Or to get through this physics test?

I’ve basically been working my ass off since….beginning of July. That’s not cool, but it’s also my own fault. Good one Lily, way to be smart, way to plan ahead. I’m never doing that again. I’m going to treasure my summer vacations and take time off before fall semester.

On a completely separate note, the Patriots are playing the Saints this weekend and I’m watching it on our 49″ TV with Bose surround sound (as opposed to a dinky 20″ with um, regular stereo?). They better crush them or else I’ll be sorely disappointed. Maybe Kevin’ll get to teach me and Zhou the rules of football. Those would have been nice to know before I became a big fan, but it ain’t too late!

I’ve decided to make pumpkin pie from scratch for our Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, I’m gonna probalby fail miserably, but I’m going to try. That’s what I did last night instead of studying for physics, I looked up recipies for pumpkin pie (found a couple good ones too!).