Year Two of Grad School.

Fun things:

1) Watching Mark Morris Dance Group last Saturday. All I could think of was, dance makes music sound so good.

2) Designing a new laparascopic grasper for class. I forget how cool engineering can be sometimes. One prof wears Hawaiian shirts with weird prints to class and he's a genius, which makes him extra cool. The other prof speaks slowly, deliberately and makes a ton of deadpan jokes and is also a genius. The teaching assistant throws balls of paper at people who are sleeping in class behind the prof's backs.

3) Anatomy class. Dissections are making me want to be a surgeon very badly.

4) Immunology class. Flabbergastingly complex! Our bodies are amazing and I bet we don't even understand 2% of what really happens yet.

5) Learning to be happily Singaporean in angmohland. It's a new feeling when I can speak Singlish over Skype in lab and feel proud of it.

Running off for a Engineer without Borders conference call! xxx.

wow2.

i'm still excited, heh.

wow.

so today i go for group therapy, and we're all talking about how we try to fit into different 'roles', and live up to expectations, and don't say what's really on our mind.

i got all excited when we talking about not editing what we say before we say it. can you imagine that? i mean, so i guess if we were a group of aggressive, loud-mouthed, obnoxious jerks that wouldn't be so great. BUT. this is a group of people pleasing, nurturing, caregiver-esque folks. wouldn't you like to know what's REALLY on their mind?

and then it leads me to think....i would really want to marry someone who is able to be himself no matter where he is, or who he is. respectful and real. not conflict avoiding, loving, totally comfortable being a source of discomfort.

omg. i'm so excited.

mirror on the wall

Today I spent some time staring at myself in the mirror, and feeling surprised that I am Chinese/Asian/Singaporean. It's funny because ever since I've come overseas, I haven't really thought of myself that way. Some of it, I think, is because I hang out with non-Singaporeans/non-Asian people for a significant portion of my time that I've kind of become oblivious to myself - it's like gaining your identity from people around you. Some of it too is just that Singaporeans have a great aptitude (I think) for assimilating into whatever environment you give them, just because Singapore hasn't really done a great job of branding itself. I don't know what to tell people when they ask me what Singapore is about. America is Hollywood. America is Macdonalds. America is Obama. Singapore is....? In my heart I can say Singapore is chicken rice, and ERP, and sheltered walkways everywhere. But how do I explain that to someone overseas? And because they don't understand it, I don't communicate it. And because I don't communicate it, I don't feel it. And I start to have this vague notion of my cultural identity.

I looked in the mirror and was very surprised that I am tan, and I have Asian features. It's a funny feeling.

Bright eyes are calling

Is it okay that I'm 23 and still feel like a bright eyed, wide eyed child inside? That I kind of want to wear orange and green checkered shirts for the heck of it? That I want to wink over the top of the novel I'm reading at someone across the table, and then laugh?

Is it okay that I don't adhere to social norms all the time? That sometimes I want to take off and run in wide open fields?

Is it okay that I want to pray fervently on my knees to the God I know rules the universe? Is it okay that I don't want my room to match? That I don't want to look elegant all the time?

I want to dance in my living room to whatever's on the radio. I want to bask in the splendour of the sun, and pick the ugliest hat to wear to work tomorrow.

I don't want to ever forget how to love with abandon. To take risks, and hurt and cry. That's what makes a heart alive.

I want to be able to do the mundane things - laundry, chores, repeatedly failing experiments - and still be able to sit down at the end of the day and praise God. He makes me so safe, so safe to be exactly who I am. Am I too passionate? Am I too fickle? Am I too emotional? Thankfully, He doesn't think so. I think He's seen me at my worst (:

When I look at the end of the road, I can see His eyes looking at me. And when I gaze back at them, I know, I am safe. Absolutely, altogether, without a doubt, safe. It doesn't matter what happens to me tomorrow, in a month, in 5 years. I can see His eyes. Eyes which are wonderfully wise, passionate, loving (SO loving), understanding, powerful. And they are calling me.

Cameras, robbers, freebie love

Today I was thinking about how owning a camera could transform my fame in blogosphere. Theoretically, with a camera, I would take stunning photographs of everyday life (grandparents kissing, babies smiling etc) and post them, so that even if I had utterly no wit that day, I had at least a picture of a toddler picking his nose for blog readers to coo over.

Unfortunately I have no camera, and this makes me slightly sad because beautiful Kodak moments in life go forgotten. Then again, it also means that if my home ever was broken into (like how my neighbour's home was broken into 2 weeks ago), the robbers' (them poor dears) best luck at stealing something valuable from my room would be the Red Bull shot that has sat on my desk for the past 3 months or so. I have never gotten round to drinking it because the healthfreak in me (which mostly comes out to play during blue moons, pig flying events and in the presence of Red Bull shots) declares it a dangerous, chemical-laden beverage. Robbers though, I feel, would find it a worthy find since most robberies, which require alertness, nimble-footedness and energy, occur at night, when they surely must be sleepy and tired like me.

By the way, in case I come off as the sort of person who makes impulsive purchases of Red Bull shots and then doesn't drink them, I should clarify that it was a free gift when I bought a microfabrication textbook at the MIT Co-op at the start of semester. One week later though, I returned the textbook when I realised that microfabrication is just 'not my thang'. Although I received a total refund when I returned the textbook, the bookstore people did not ask for the Red Bull shot back. SCORE, I thought to myself, for I have gained a free Red Bull shot! Which I will never drink, of course, but which the freebie-loving Asian me will nonetheless derive satisfaction from.

Tomorrow,

I will wake up, thank God, pull open my curtains (which I hung myself) and look forward to breakfast.

I will have cereal, with 2% milk, because 0% is disgusting.

I will go to the hairdresser's and ask for a beautiful cut, and not feel bad that I am spending $40 to make myself look prettier (at least to me).

I will go to the barbeque at my friend's foreclosed house, and shiver because there's no heat, and warm my hands over the fire. (I hope there's sausage. I love sausage.)

I will come home, rest, close my eyes.

I will dress up, and go for another friend's 30th birthday party!

And then I will come home and brush my teeth, floss (or else you get cavities), snuggle up in bed, thank God and thank God and thank God.