islanded in a stream of stars

My first thought is that I'm a sucker.

I'm on my way to the supermarket, walking away from a roommate behind a closed door crying to her mother on the phone. I'm a coward for not staying after she finished the call to comfort her, but somehow making my way up the police blotter zone street. W. H. Auden wrote in "Moon Landing" that we were always more adept at courage than kindness, and at that moment I have to agree with him. The anger I have directed towards myself comes out in my stride, the guys drinking beer in front of the after hours storefront doorways instinctively moving out of the way.

I'm so lost in my thoughts that I almost miss him in the sage green tank top and black skinny jeans. "Excuse me, sister," he beckons me in a pleasantly androgynous voice, "but I'm a long way from home and I hate to say this, but I need help."

Just two days ago a 58 year old lady very rationally and very humbly beseeched me and another friend to pay for a tow truck or else her car would be impounded and she couldn't pay for the ticket. We all like to think ourselves good judges of character, and I handed over $11 while weighing the probabilities in my head of how honest she was about paying me the money back (I didn't doubt that she was in a tough spot). My friend, a native Brooklyner, reluctantly hands over $10 so that the lady has the $21 she needs. "From the hands of babes," she mutters before asking me for my phone number so that she can pay me back within the next three hours. She even recites her home address not so far away, although foolishly I don't write it down as I have no pen with me. I don't doubt that it's hard to knuckle down your pride and ask for money when you genuinely need it when you're in an area where so many people pass them by, assuming that blacks are stupid, lazy and aren't doing enough to get out of their crappy circumstances. I get that there are theoretically resources in the community designed to implement more long term solutions to these sorts of social issues, but clearly they're not able to reach enough people to a significant enough extent. I honestly don't expect to be paid back, although I have no idea if she called because I'm missing my cell phone at the moment. I just hope that she was able to take care of what she needed to get done.

"What seems to be the problem?" He goes on about how his boyfriend at USC invited him over for a good time but instead took his wallet so that he could buy weed. Now he can't, and home's far a ways a way up in Baldwin Hills, and the cheapest way to get there is by bus, but the buses come fewer and fewer as the night progresses and gee, this neighborhood's not concerned about public safety at all. It's not the greatest place to be "all Beyoncéd up"...I'm not really focused on the exact details of what he's saying. The eyeliner's applied with a skill I envy and the glittery silver lip gloss really complements his ebony skin. The effect's surprisingly subtle.

I hand him $5, and he shakes my hand firmly without being overpowering, holding on as he thanks me. "God bless, I feel a spiritual connection with you. You have a strong grip!" Somehow this connection gets to me, too, and I sense that he's hungry. "I'm on my way to the supermarket," I tell him. "Do you want me to get you something to eat?"

He lets go and smiles, revealing perfectly straight white teeth. "Are you sure?" He hesitates slightly. "I've been out here, and I sure am hungry..."

( Read more... )

My mother and I are passing outside a stationery store and take a moment to peek in at the merchandise.

I am chuckling over a proto-Lolcats featuring a kitten wearing a funny mask.

My mother is laughing, too. "Porn for women! That's just brilliant!"

I turn to stare at her. "What are you talking about?"

She points at the calendar next to the cat one. It features a shirtless man vacuuming the carpet.

Such are the differences between how an asexual views the world and how most others do. But at least I have an idea of what else I should get Mom for Christmas!

Many happy returns to gandydancer and storybox! I hope you had wonderful birthdays.

Dear X: Semi-feeling me up in front of your mother, even in the guise of a friendly hug, is just awkward. Even if you're slightly drunk. It's especially awkward when we share the same grandmother. But you're my cousin and ultimately one of the most decent guys I know my age, so I won't snap at you this time.

So, within the past week:

I got Kim Cattrall's autograph while passing by some random restaurant in Rome. She's absolutely stunning in person - maybe even more so than the brief glimpses I've seen of her on screen.

The AARP apparently will offer me a complimentary travel kit should I join today...at the ripe old age of 20. Do my web browsing patterns really mirror that of a baby boomer that much? This must be a sign that I should get off my sorry butt and get ready to apply for my gerontology grad program this fall.

Morgan Freeman practically fell on top of my dad yesterday night as we were leaving the theater where we had just seen him perform in the Country Girl. He was quite the gent about it, being very apologetic while being crushed by a horde of autograph seekers right outside the stage door. I also caught a glimpse of Matthew Broderick, who was in the audience that night. I swear these things never happen to me when I'm in LA, although meeting the cast of Finishing the Game last November at the premiere was one of the coolest experiences in my life so far.

It is crazy how much less expensive things seem, even in New York, after Italy. I've heard more French spoken on the street and in the stores these past few days than I did the entire time I was in Europe.

Whenever I finish my two news stories (hahaha, as if I ever turn anything in before deadline) I have a lot to still write about Italy (I know, I know, that's what I always say). I guess I could sum it up as follows:

It was overcast with the vague sense of dampness at odds with the electric bustle of a big city at night. Arriving in New York's JFK last night was, in some ways, remarkably similar to my arrival in Italy at Milano's Malpensa airport.

As much as I have learned of life from the stories people have shared with me, some things really must be experienced to be understood beyond an intellectual level. I won't remember every church and fresco I saw, every note of each piece performed at the concerts I attended or even every lick of gelato I tasted. But what will stay with me is the impact atoms of personalities colliding into each other in transit, with even the relative brevity of contact subtly or significantly altering the trajectory of each party in the encounter.

I've gained enough confidence to at least make some effort to haggle with street vendors. I can navigate subway system in a language I don't know. I've learned that falafel and döner kebab stands are the best deal the other side of the Atlantic. I now know what it's like to be on a train for 13 hours (I spent ~77 hours in total on trains) and hope to never repeat the experience. I've felt the spine-tingling experience of the otherworldly when entering the darkened majesty of cathedrals that have laid witness to thousands like me passing through. I've scrubbed off the dust and dirt of centuries settle on my skin after wandering from one side of Rome to the other.

I don't know if I'll ever return, but I've brought back enough to last me for what I hope to be a lifetime's worth of value. But at the same time, I won't forget what I left behind.

If you were interested in that article about how women supposedly think about shopping as much as men do about sex, there's an interesting complementary article about how sexual arousal can lead to more impulse spending, at least for men. I'm curious as to why women weren't included in the study, as theoretically the study implies that neural mechanisms for rewarding behaviors driven by the biological imperative for reproduction or novelty should be roughly the same. I'm sure the psych geeks among you have much more insightful comments about the matter.

( petty grad school angst )

You haven't quite experienced Switzerland until you've pushed someone who weighs more than you do up the gravelly mountainside of a château (Château Gruyère, just like the cheese) at midday.

The short version of Switzerland: It was the most peculiar sense of homecoming I've ever experienced in a country I've never officially traveled to. It's too complicated to explain here in detail, but I'm actually from Switzerland in the most primordial sense. I woke up on the train from Milan enchanted with this isolated, surreal haven of almost pastiche-like European cosmopolitanism. My Chinese relatives spoke perfectly fluent French, and thankfully they were able to understand what I was saying. They were the most gracious hosts anyone could ever want, showing us around the natural extremes of lake and mountain and the fairytale towns and expansive countryside. I came back a day later (yesterday afternoon, in fact) than I expected, but it was well worth it even if I am a little nervous about my Italian midterm in a couple of hours.

Tonight I'm back on the road again after going to class for the first and only time this week. I basically attempted to teach myself all the Italian that I missed (thankfully it wasn't too bad), and I'm taking art history pass/fail. For the record, my parents were the ones who encouraged and supported my playing hooky for an extra day to spend more time with my relatives; thankfully my professor didn't seem to mind as she's been distracted with some of other students, and the scholarship people don't need to know anything about my activities over here.

A sensible person would ask why I'm so hellbent on going to Vienna. Why must I go *this* weekend? If I had any sense (which I don't) I would've actually gotten all of my transportation taken care of before I left for Milan/Switzerland last Thursday, except that I had no time or access to the Internet for the past couple of days.

I've dreamed of Vienna for years. Admittedly, it all started with the Living Daylights (shut up, 007 fans - I can hear your snickering several thousand miles away across the Atlantic), then it was the Third Man that pretty much sealed the deal on the "I must go here before I die" list, which really isn't that long. And after I wrote (and now published) that one short story, I feel even more compelled to see the world I tried to evoke in person.

The truth is, I'm terrified about this trip. I'm terrified of what will happen because there's something in me that says it's now or never, that I may never have the chance to do what I'm doing now ever again because the future is shaping up to be a hectic one that won't allow me the time to do this. There's a 50% chance I won't be able to travel with the ease I can now, and if I'm not careful the window of opportunity's going to fall shut faster than I know it.

It's also the first time I've traveled internationally by myself. Although safety's more of a concern, I'm actually looking forward to being able to control my agenda and travel light, literally and figuratively. The trouble is that I also know no German apart from "danke" and a few random phrases that are probably quite incorrect that I picked up from watching WWII movies with my father.

At any rate, by this time tomorrow I'll be on the train to Vienna. Let's see how it goes.

Thanks so much for all of the birthday wishes - I feel so lucky to have such a thoughtful f-list :) I'm writing bunches and bunches of letters and am slowly getting around to mailing them out, but it'll be a while as I have over two dozen people to whom I'm writing. If you want a postcard, though, leave a comment here (all comments are screened for privacy). horosha, yes, I'll accept the raincheck :)

Last Saturday I started off the third decade of my life in Venice, living out a dream that many older than I fantasize of experiencing. My roommate India - the most perfect traveling companion I've ever had who isn't eyepiece_simile - and I trekked from one end of the city to the other, through endless calles (alleyways) and across countless bridges big and small. We visited numerous cathedrals with Maria and Marco featured in the title and the highlights of the Piazza San Marco, although sadly. Boiling our visit down to these set points, though, misses out on what you actually experience as a visitor to the city.

As I wrote in something that I'm currently working on: Venice allowed him to find refuge in eternal beauty and the allure of intrigues past, to hide away in the shadowy calles and the ebb and flow of glass green canals. The city restored his faith that even when besieged by change and decay, human achievement could stand against time and still rejuvenate the spirit. It wasn’t the ubiquitous presence of churches, as awe-inspiring as they were, but the grace of cultures melding, the serene congruity of centuries in architectural form simply existing that instilled such wonder. Il Palazzo Ducale exemplifies the tranquil riot of contrasts that is this city, the imposing paneled, gilded and frescoed splendor of the legislative and judiciary quarters juxtaposed with the cool dark jails for criminals of all stripes just behind the walls.

And this rarefied world is slowly sinking into the lagoon that had shielded its initial development and growing pains as a city, lending just the right touch of romantic melancholy amidst the tourist kitsch.

( More musings about being in Italy )

On a completely unrelated note, lilbabiangel888 tagged me for the following meme:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening.

Technically, these aren't all songs because as an unabashed soundtrack geek, I still find the whole concept of music with vocals and words rather nifty. I'm more of a spirit rather than the letter of the law kind of person, anyway. You can download these if you click on them.

Songs to listen to when leaving Venice:

This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home: Doctor Who Series 3 (Murray Gold)
Ratatouille Main Theme (Michael Giacchino)
Theme from the Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Paul Cantelon)
Broken Hearted Melody: Sarah Vaughan (taken from Infamous)
Same Mistake: James Blunt (taken from P.S. I Love You)
Suzanne: Noel Harrison (courtesy of the ever-generous wiccagirl24)
Kissing Through Glass: A Very Long Engagement (Angelo Badalamenti)


Meme 2, snagged from swashbuckler332 and lehah:

Post a reply and I will:

A) tell you why I friended you,
B) associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc.,
C) tell you something I like about you,
D) tell you a memory I have of you,
E) ask something I've always wanted to know about you,
F) tell you my favorite user pic of yours,
G) in return, you must post this in your LJ. (More like highly recommended, because I don't like coercing people.)

It looks increasingly probable that I'll be staying an extra year here to get my master's in gerontology, or the study of human aging. It also means that I have to get my recs and whatnot for grad school ready by fall of next year, but on the bright side, I don't have to take GREs, and I think my chances for getting into the program are pretty decent. Mostly it's that USC's really making an effort to retain undergrads for their grad programs...unless it's the clinical science psych program, in which case all bets are generally off because it's one of the most research-intensive out there. Go figure.

What happened to clinical psychology? The average PhD acceptance rate is lower than that of med school at 6%, and I don't think I have the mettle to last 7-8 years in a research-oriented program. After doing research just as an undergrad, I've realized that I'm really not cut out for it; my mentor/professor was so right when she warned me that (quantitative) research sucks out your soul. Seriously, I wasn't sure if I had a soul until research this semester nearly drained it from me. My chances of getting into a doctorate program are much better if I specialize in working with traditionally underserved and rapidly expanding population, and if doctorate programs don't end up working out, at least I have a good vocational safety net in an area that honestly interests me. My preoccupation with caregiving issues and the fact that I have a much easier time connecting with older adults than with kids seems like a decent preliminary indicator that the subject matter's a good match. At the very least, all of us grow older, so you might as well learn while you're young about the issues that you'll be facing.

My mother's response to hearing about all of this was "We'll support you, but is your heart really in it?" That's the first time I've been criticized for giving primarily practical reasons for a decisions! I laughed inwardly when she said that - my mother, the would-be writer who wound up in finance, is much more the closet romantic than I am. People, even my mother, tend to see me as either having a brain or a heart, but not both in equal measure. I attempt to research my future in nauseating detail so that I can plan accordingly; dreams are great, but you can't expect that desire alone will get you where you want to be. I can't exactly tell her that one of the main motivating factors is that I want to know how to take care of her and dad better in the future when she herself is anxious enough about the prospect of aging. I don't know how to explain to her that pragmatics can coincide with passion, that I understand that compromise is necessary if you're going to achieve anything sustainable and worthwhile.

On a somewhat related note, Dad has his "one year later" follow-up with his neurologist to check up on the progression of his Machado-Joseph disease in a couple of hours. Around this time last year, he showed "significant clinical improvement" a month after a month of stem cell treatment in China. As for the long term gains, who knows. I'm personally skeptical that it'll do any good in the long run. Due to the fact that Dad received spinal cord injections of umbilical cord stem cells and not embryonic ones, he basically received a sophisticated form of blood doping where most of the stem cells turned into extra red blood cells, which temporarily make one feel more energized. I can't quite remember where I obtained this information, but from what I've heard, umbilical cord stem cells aren't as good at passing through the blood-brain barrier.

In some ways, I'm one of the worst people to be "educating" people about stem cell therapy from personal experience. I've written a brief account about it here, but I seriously doubt that anyone on campus really read it. The reporters still call home sometimes; inevitably, we know what articles will be written by the Western press. Honestly, it pisses me off that they write about we patients like we're a bunch of desperate patsies looking for any cure that has some sham of promise. There was this one Salon article that makes me cringe for its condescending tone. People don't pay $20,000 to be human guinea pigs solely because they're naïvely deluded about the possibility for being cured. The prevailing social stigma and discrimination against people with disability makes their lives so unbelievably difficult on them and their caregivers that they are willing to try anything because they have nothing to lose.

When you've grown up with a parent with a chronic medical condition, you know better than to even think of cures. I don't expect to see a cure for my dad's condition in my lifetime; to be honest, from a utilitarian viewpoint, funding's better allocated to other medical conditions such as cancer and stroke that affect a greater proportion of the population. I just want to live in a world where people with disabilities can actually find jobs in accessible workplaces and be able to use public transportation without fearing that the bus drivers won't stop for them because loading them on will delay everyone's schedule. In some ways, that's why I have difficulty understanding all of these "Walk to Cure Muscular Dystrophy" races. I don't doubt that new vaccinations and screening measures will benefit everyone in the long run. But why must we spend so much time and money on developing medical treatments that will inevitably only work for some of the population and yet neglect relatively simple accommodation measures for people with current impairments? The medical conceptualization of disability posits disabling conditions as needing to be cured, rather than to be accommodated and a focus of lifestyle adaptation in cases where the underlying medical conditions currently lack a cure. A social model of disability advocates an environment that's universally accessible and recognizes the influence of social attitudes about the capabilities of those with physical and cognitive impairments play in the roles we have available for people in the disability community. And being tired makes me ridiculously wordy.

Anyway, getting back to my original point - as important as it is to foster dialogue about the ethics of stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine, we risk overlooking the underlying issues of disability awareness and rights. The dangers of focusing so much on finding cures for severe medical conditions is that we ignore the necessity of providing accommodation for those with disability and creating more enabling environments so that everyone, not just the able-bodied, can truly celebrate “culture of life.” Using stem cells to cure chronic diseases underscores the prevalence of the medical model of disability and the social prerogative in eradicating the conditions that cause disability. Patients are driven to seek expensive, potentially risky experimental treatments abroad because they find that their quality of life has significantly deteriorated due to the lack of resources for people with disabilities and their caregivers. If legislators are hesitant about funding embryonic stem cell research, they could invest public resources instead into extending access to people with disabilities instead of forcing scientists to pursue embryonic stem cell research elsewhere. The ideal goal of stem cell therapy is to improve the quality of life for those with medically related impairments, but there are multiple avenues of pursuit in achieving this objective. As important as it is to acknowledge and protect the rights of humans coming into being, it is all too easy to overlook the eroding civil rights for people with disabilities and the sociopolitical conditions that have made stem cell therapy such a pressing issue in the first place.

OK, I confess: this is my belated Blogging Against Disablism Day post. And there's a lot more I have to say about the subject, except that I really need to finish my take home final for my disabilities and healthcare class, so I'll get around to that later.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow” rather accurately sums up my last day at the family shelter where I've been spending time. I never really saw myself as the kind of person who enjoyed being with kids as more of my volunteering experience has been with senior citizens and hospital patients with chronic disorders, or tutoring older kids one-on-one. My priorities there were to ameliorate academic difficulties, act as a mentor to kids dealing with the usual teenage transitional issues and be a source of comfort and distraction to those experiencing various kinds of pain. Those experiences were certainly valuable, but I developed fewer deep relationships at those places as I had less of a chance to get to know the others there. The relatively privileged teenagers I spent time with were either going to grow out of their current problems or go through years of self-destructive experimentation finding themselves, or the more sickly people would approach the end with dignity or despair; I had a more finite range of expectations for their outcomes.

Needless to say, my experience at the shelter was different in that I had expected. I am ashamed by my initial, low expectations and am honored by how much they let me into their tightly knit community. To actually have a group of people really look forward to seeing me, even if it was just once a week — I feel privileged that they welcomed and accepted my relatively brief presence in their lives. It's so rare to feel like I actually matter to anyone my age, that my value is more than being useful by fulfilling a set number of expectations or responsibilities. What’s amazed me the most is the resilience of all of the people I’ve met at the shelter, the sense of family and community they’ve developed in the face of uncertainty. One or two of the younger children were more “troubled,” probably compounded by general developmental issues of testing the boundaries of authority and being new admits to the shelter, but overall the kids were motivated to do well in school and foster positive relationships with each other.

I’ve learned more about my own limits and prejudices, realizing that if I expect abused children to act like they’re emotionally “broken” true healing and growth can’t take place. My own academic concerns have been focused on adolescent/adult onset of psychological dysfunction and how self-destructive patterns manifest themselves, often in the long-term. Only over the course of these two months, however, have I come to really understand why early intervention is so critical. These children really have learned to look out for each other, and I find myself continually amazed by their spirit of adaptation. I can only hope that I can become as capable of moving beyond suffering as they have. laleia, do you know if it's possible to volunteer with JEP even without taking a class?

Best words I've heard all week, while playing tag:

Mark (aged 10): You're hiding inside a playhouse made for 6 year olds. Aren't you too old to do that?


Needless to say, there's great value in being humbled by someone half your age and acknowledging your own immaturity :P


Now, for something completely different:

There's a pretty interesting discussion about sex in 60's and 70's TV at cult_tv_lounge. In other cult TV news, Hulu has quite a few episodes of various hard-to-find American TV shows alongside currently popular ones; as far as I can tell, the site's totally legal. lilbabiangel888, who I have to thank for the recommendation, told me that one of the sponsors is NBC, which is why the quality of the clips is so good because they're pulling everything from their archives. Unfortunately the version of The Invisible Man up isn't the one with David McCallum, but I really can't complain about the overall variety! I just started watching I Spy, which has been surprisingly enjoyable; I finally get a glimpse of the Hong Kong where my mother grew up because of all those on-location shoots.

No thanks to the moron(s) who pulled the fire alarms in my apartment building at 2:17 this morning, I've stayed up for more than 24 hours. Scarily enough, this is the first time my brain was still just functional enough to be aware of this fact.

Lessons learned:
1. Taking an extension can end up causing a lot more pain than it's worth.
2. Procrastinating by actually writing papers due this coming week is still procrastination.
3. The most surprising things will keep you going, push comes to shove.
4. Psych textbooks don't come close to describing the reality of actually doing research - you don't realize how deadly dull it is to recruit participants for long surveys. Sirens in the background and planes flying overhead on the therapy tapes are just as likely to elicit *headdesk* behavior as are interrater reliability tests.

I think I'm going to crash on the couch now before my brain becomes too scrambled. It's going to be a long two weeks before finals come around...

I officially have somewhere to live next year! lilbabiangel888, Xiaolin and my friend April and I are living in a decently nice 2 bedroom 2 bath place not too far away from campus that's less than our current rent. And unofficially I'm the coordinator of the PEER mentoring/counseling program next year, so I'll be gainfully employed doing something that really matters to me with people I love as well :) Oh, and I'm officially going to Verona this summer! I'll be there from May 20-July 13 before heading out to New York for our annual family reunion.

It's been hectic getting a number of things out of the way before going home spring break next week, where I can catch up on more work/evaluating research tapes. Theoretically I'm organizing the TO academic conference (where I gave a presentation last year) coming up in April alongside everything else. Maybe laleia does have a point about my inability to say no. Thank goodness at least we have a committee to plan it all so that the work is spread out in a much more manageable fashion.

After much encouragement from a mentor/professor, I have a website with various snippets of writing up. Most of it is academic under the pretense that I have something to show grad schools/prospective employers (?), but I also have some more personal odds and ends there as well.

I should really stop procrastinating on a paper proposal due in a couple of hours, but once you start figuring out basic website stuff (and I mean really basic), it's disturbingly addictive.