Compared to the last two weekends, this one should be fairly relaxing. Well, it can be. I'm finally going to have time to run out to Costco and stock my fridge and pantry, and I can catch up on the reading I neglected last week while studying for my physiology exam. I'm actually not as far behind on things as the old-me would have been at this point in the semester. I must say, I'm impressed with the new-me, who is quite like the older-than-old-me--with the grades and the awards and the work ethic. There is one thing I miss about the old-me: getting drunk and having fun with a bunch of friends.

While it isn't really a substitute, my Advanced BCMB presentation group is going out for booze and nachos on Monday night while we discuss the stuff we're going to present the following day in class. It sounds like disaster, but it really isn't that bad. Instead of presenting a whole paper, we'll be presenting one figure in the paper, so all in all we'll only have to speak for about 5-10 minutes (1-2 minutes each). Chances are we'll talk about what each of us is going to say for like 5 minutes before we start drinking copious quantities of beer and watching Monday night football. Truth be told, I'd rather watch Chuck and Heroes, but I've been somewhat of a social ghost lately and it will be nice to bond with people I hadn't known previously to moving down here. Fortunately, the bar we're going to is 5 minutes walk from a trolley station, so I don't have to worry about driving. I love public transportation.

What else? We're one third of the way through October (time seems to fly when you're constantly doing something) and I still haven't heard about the fellowship. I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not going to get it because I realized that my personal statement probably wasn't what they were looking for. I followed what they stated on the application itself, but I neglected to put in stuff like: I'm the first person in my family ever to get a higher degree; I come from a background where people just don't become scientific researchers/professors because there's a pressure to become a professional like a nurse or physician or dentist or engineer--you know, the money-making occupations; I come from a mostly immigrant neighborhood--and not the Chinese-software-engineer type of immigrant, but the Vietnamese-hairdresser/Mexican-mechanic kind... you know, bullshit that shows that "I come from the wrong side of the tracks" (even though our neighborhood isn't actually unsafe and isn't blighted and doesn't have a higher-than-usual concentration of drug pushers and crackwhores) and therefore am somehow more deserving of this fellowship than other people. The bullshit that those people live for because it makes them feel like they're doing a good thing by giving some unfortunate kid some money.

Whatever. I guess when writing it, I didn't want to make it seem like it was some giant miracle that I made it this far. It wasn't. My parents sacrificed a lot of things to send me to the right schools, and I was naturally smart enough to excel in them. That's it. Big fucking deal.

In other news, this week marks the halfway point between the time I moved to San Diego and when I'm flying home for Thanksgiving. I really miss my family and old bedroom (as small as it is compared to my apartment) and my cats. My mom sent me a letter the other day and it made me cry, though it wasn't a particularly tear-jerking letter and it was fraught with immigrant grammar mistakes (which you would think would bother me, but when I read it, I could hear my mom speaking the words and fucking up the English just a little bit and it made me miss her greatly). The fact that she actually took the time to write a letter and actually wrote the words "I am proud of you" are what got to me.

I think that's a good place to end this entry--on a high note. Well, let's take it a bit higher: this weekend and all next week, meteorologists don't see it being stiflingly hot. It's going to be gusty and cool this weekend, and the highs next week shouldn't break 80. Well... maybe that's a good thing only for me.

I get the feeling that most people don't care about other people, but they think other people actually care so they pretend they care to look good. Just an opinion though. At least there's some sort of incentive for rich people to help poor people sometimes...
» randomjunk on 2008-10-11 12:34:56

being away from family can be hard at times but with such statement of encouragement, it will feels like home.
» AlexisNg on 2008-10-11 12:54:37

awww... I bet your mom's letters sound like what the house-hold help's letters would sound like if we had ever taught them to write.

I'm going home for Thanksgiving too! Hooray! And it only cost me $10 instead of $500! Yay, Southwest!
» Zanzibar on 2008-10-11 08:07:34

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