adjusting

how ironic that i post about the ephemeral nature of friendships made from this point in my life on out...only to get most attached to the people i've had the least amount of time to hang out with.

my flight landed in san francisco on monday morning...typical crowded, cricked-neck UA plane ride complete with turbulence and technical difficulties with the movie. it was the most depressing ride of my life. i cried in the taxi to the maglev station, at the gate waiting for the flight, and while we waited for the plane to take off, until i fell asleep from exhaustion. only reason i didn't cry in the maglev is that it's pretty awesome: 8 min ride from pudong to the int'l airport at 430 km/h. by the time the train's accelerated to its max speed, it has to start slowing down...weird design.

so my mom picked up up at SFO and i forgot to put on my seatbelt in the car, accustomed to the ways of shanghai taxis. looking across the baby blue skies, breathing in the familiar green scents of the pennisula hills, i actually missed the skyscrapers and neon lights of the city. i've hung out with some uni friends who live in the area the past couple days, which has helped to get me back in the groove. it was good to catch up with them, hear their boy stories, laugh about the past, contemplate the future. one of them is going off to PT school at usc when i leave for pittsburgh...life just won't be the same after this summer.

yet i can't help but miss life in shanghai. maybe it was best i left at a high point, so all the memories i have are of the happiest days there. i honestly believe i'm going through shanghai withdrawal. i enjoy my mom's cooking, but i miss deciding which restaurant to meet at and taking the metro with my flatmates forever to get there. i miss eating street food at 3 am. i miss anne and arpen, mike and christoff, gemski and agnieszka, ron, jerry, ian, scottish chris, catherine, and the many other people who helped shape my shangers experience. i miss watching house in the flat, buying fan tuans on the street, singing numanumayea with michael, being gangsta with arpen and ron, learning british, cramming onto the bus, being the wonder of shanghai that is an english & mandarin speaking chinese, dancing in the rain, beers from the family mart, excursions in the sweltering heat... even after cal graduation, i wasn't as heartbroken as i was on monday. you feel like you'll definitely see your college classmates someday, somewhere. shanghai was like first year uni packed into one month and instead of knowing you'll see them next year, it's over. pbbt. and because you know you have such a limited time, you make events happen. memorable events. that stay with you. i left a part of my heart on the other side of the pacific...

so now i look toward the future. new people, new places, new life as a medical student. still have to get through the next month, seeing all the friends i can, securing a place to live, tying up loose ends here, and shipping my life across the country. better enjoy my last days of freedom...

ma vie en images

my last week!! still so much to say and reflect, but let's have some visual aids shall we?


yu yuan with agnieszka and arpen


hangzhou


the flatmates...awwww...

ta-da!

of all the bars in shanghai, he had to walk into mine...lol.

moving forward

after reconciling with the end of college, moving away from the world i've created for myself over the past five years, i'm struck by how fast people come in and out of life. cal was four years of relative stability...every year, a few older friends left berkeley, but for the most part, the people that i was closest with were never far. during this last year in oakland, there were new people in my life all the time. it was the first time i had coworkers to get to know. i had three distinctly different roommates throughout the course of the year, each of whom allowed me to take a magnifying glass to a particular part of my nature. great thing to do while working on med school apps. ironically, the more people i met, the lonelier i felt ( as my previous posts demonstrate). i never felt completely satisfied in these new friendships. why? because there wasn't any history there? or because i just didn't find a kindred spirit in the bunch? in any case, the likelihood of seeing these people from the past five years again once i move away is minimal. just like how i haven't seen most of the kids from high school since graduation. even with the advent of myspace and facebook, it takes effort to keep up with the numerous people that walk through a person's life. i learned this the hard way, spending much time having late night AIM chats that i can't even recount, trying to consistently email old friends, even making random phone calls, which i neVer do. it's been scientifically proven that a person can adequately know about 250 individuals without getting mixed up. count up all your close friends, your coworkers, family members, lover(s), neighbors, old classmates, etc. and see if you can fit that 250 in your head. and imagine how much time and effort it takes to keep up with those 250.

now that this has become a tangential rant, my point is that i'm getting used to the idea of people NOT being a permanent fixture in my life. i've been spoiled by attending uni close to home, best friends from high school attending the same college, an extension of the first 18 years of my life. i will always marvel at how much influence one person can have, regardless of time spent with them. i have friends from all over the world now who have touched me in one way or another. yet as i grow older, i don't expect to have meaningful long-term friendships with every person i meet. it's a moment in time that two people were meant to share. future encounters will happen if we intend it.

six degrees

do you believe that your life is shaped by every person you meet? it sounds very cliche chick flick, doesn't it? maybe i'm just easily influenced, but i often feel affected by even a single encounter with a person. in simple conversation, i'm struck by how many times i'm reminded of a high school girl friend or that guy in my bio class at Cal, the professor at extension or the art teacher i haven't seen in 10 years. even more amazing is how people make friends in the first place. dorm mates are forced to interact. classes provide opportunites three times a week at a set time for you to talk to someone new. but the guy who walks up to you at a conference and teaches you something that changes your outlook on life...how do you explain that?

so here i am, in shanghai, on the other side of the world. i was totally expecting to be here with 5 other nerds. instead i've met guys and gals from all over the world and having the time of my life. it's kinda like freshman year where you get to know people very intensely because you live and party with them. i get to do it again in a month when med school starts. =D i'm going to miss every single person i've met here, including the doctors. the cynical side of me slightly doubts that every single person who does tpa can be so fantastic. but they are! especially my flatmates. chris is the sweetest guy, michael's hilarious, and gemma's so lovely, inside and out.

speaking of moments in time, guess who i saw at a bar last friday night?? guess. just guess. it was too crazy to believe. i'll put up a picture when i get around to it.

life is great besides. i lost 50 yuan to arpen when i bet on argentina in the germany v. argentina game. i won 20 of it back when england lost (just playing devil's advocate), then promptly lost 50 more when france actually beat brazil. maybe i should pay more attention to football.

time for street food!!