interesting issues meeting as usual, michelle. =) this one was about asian american body image issues, but the speaker (ashwini from the women's center) did a great job of showing the big picture...body image problems span so many ethnic groups, class divisions, genders, and so many other categories...it's just a tough subject. i was so surprised when ashwini said that 70% - 80% of the people who came to be interviewed for her research who had or do have eating disorders were asian women who had just come to the united states. there are always so many problems...and so many social stigmas in asian culture.

i'm having this huge mental block right now. i feel like i want to say something and it's floating around somewhere in the mess that is my brain...but it's not tangible at all. must be the good food in my stomach....it's confusing my brain since it's not used to un-crappy non-dining hall food anymore.

oh, tonight at the meeting, one of the activities ashwini asked us to do was to write down three things we thought we "should" do and three things we "want" to do. my three "shoulds" and three "wants" look almost exactly the same. it's just so difficult for me to distinguish between the two--is that necessarily bad? i feel as though this vagueness between what i feel i should do and what i want to do should be negative, but knowing what i should do determines what i want to do. or maybe they're just impossibly intertwined in my mind...i should make my mom proud, but i want to anyway. i should get into med school, but i want to be a doctor. i should be happy, and i want to be happy. well, i had another "should" but i don't want to put it here =)