the perfect man =)

another weekend! they're so beautiful. weekends, i mean. sorry for the vague pronoun use.

i've been attending some immunology lectures at stanford--crashing the course my cousin's taking. some of them are pretty interesting =) and...some are completely not in my area so i sit there not understanding and trying not to fall asleep. "uh...where is that? i have no idea where that is on the mouse...der..." you know, not falling asleep takes so much effort, especially since each lecture is three hours long. i was so drained when i got back. one of the lecturers was so cool though. she's an M.D., Ph.D. who's a great speaker, is doing awesome research, and dresses well! my idol. hehe. also, i ran into vince and someone from my chinese class who's in med school when i was on campus the other day...it was sort of embarrassing. i mean, i didn't have that much time to talk to him, but i had absolutely no idea what his english name was. that's what happens when they're your language class classmate. =)

geez, amanda and her mandy moore/shane west fixation. she's making me listen to all this sappy mandy moore music. i do not appreciate it. i think that's why i like alternative music so much, in comparison to hip hop or r&b or something. all those r&b songs are too sappy and the lyrics are unimaginative. all about how much they love someone or how much they're hurt now that it's over, blahblahblah. at least alternative music does it in more imaginative ways. cuz i'm all about the lyrics. =) hm...when i'm in an occasional sappy mood though, i start listening to all that weepy mushy stuff. i can be weak and pathetic too. ah well.

ohh...happy birthday to jason. i feel bad for not going to his birthday shindig in berkeley, but uh...i think the only person i'd know there would be him. and he'd be a little too busy getting drunk anyway. =)

i think i may get red easier than i used to. i never used to blush...but my cousin convinced me to try retin-a, and i think it's made my face more sensitive. i hope i still don't get asian glow =\ i'm so vain. haha.

i need to improve my small talk skills, especially with people of other generations. it's so important in the professional world...but i suck at it. must practice. "how are your children doing? and your wife/husband? isn't the weather great today?" how's that? mrm...yeah, pretty pathetic. must work on that.

i've learned a lot from some of those immunology lectures--unfortunately, it's sort of depressing to hear how HIV/AIDS is such a huge epidemic. 16,000 people are infected each day...and only 10% of the infected individuals know they carry HIV, making it pretty much impossible to prevent further infection of others. the virus is incredibly mutable too...makes it so difficult to fight. and breast cancer...something like 1 in 8 to 10 women will suffer from breast cancer. that's so frightening...i looked around the auditorium and thought that a significant number of those women sitting there with me, possibly including me, would have breast cancer. here's a little way you can help: please email a letter.

i am happy for my michelle =D but you need to realize he just may be attainable once you realize he's human. good god, i have never heard you like that~ scary! =) have fun in london! i wonder if i will ever feel that passionate about anything.

so saturday was interesting. attempted to go to a company picnic--address on invitation was incorrect. went shopping instead. =D met up with judy, got her car washed, her car slightly broke down, went to jiffy lube where greasy mechanic gave us a discount and told us to email him to have him send free music to us from his band. er. dinner with judy and..*drumroll*...paloma! happy surprise--had no idea p-ro was visiting from socal. lovely time at miyake's and getting gelato. then another girls' night on saturday at jo's. provided mushy food for the newly wisdom-teeth-less girl. great fun with jo, cher, and deb. =) amelie good. again. smile would not go away for quite a while. a hat like a tea cozy! "i think we're into different things." hehe.

big family day on sunday. driving is the opposite of fun, especially in asian plaza parking lots. saw the little kiddies--happy first birthday, lucas! aunt and cousin enjoyed saying i'm not skinny anymore. "i guess you're done growing this way," remarked my cousin as she pantomimed vertical growth with her hands, "but i see you're growing in this direction now!" yep, hands widened in the horizontal direction. in comes family, out flies tact. =P

~

you know what the worst feeling is sometimes? that feeling after you lose something. for me, that something doesn't even have to be very valuable. any loss feels like a failure--my life is peppered with little and big failures. losing a dinky little anklet is my failure to remember where i placed it or a failure in keeping it safe. losing my temper is a failure of my self-control and composure. losing people though--you would think that is a larger failure, but the lovely thing is that in most cases, you don't have to accept blame for the loss. they lost you too. maybe it was their fault. but then you admit to yourself in a moment of truth or think in a moment of doubt that perhaps you did fail.

the trick is acceptance. once it's gone, by your fault or another's, it's lost. just move on--it isn't the end of the world.

well, unless you personally lost a couple nuclear missiles and psychos use them to decimate the world. might be a little difficult to move past that.

* * *
"One Art"

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

~Elizabeth Bishop