Wacky

Hate, not love

I'm very aware that nobody reads this blog and yet, although I sent the same rant to two friends, for some reason, having this rant in a semi-publicly accessible place makes me feel temporarily calmer. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/07/lady-chinky-eyes-papa-johns-store-uses-receipt-to-call-woman-racial-slur_n_1191434.html

With this headline and the recent Danny Chen case, my feelings that I usually keep boxed up are bubbling toward the surface.

I hate that racist things like this one still happen commonly. And I hate that people brush these kinds of racial slurs off like they don't matter.  I hate that when they are brought to headlines, individuals will still say that people are being overly sensitive or politically correct.  I hate how people assume that just because I'm Asian American, that I don't experience racism on a daily basis in different forms that are masked as simple naïveté or jokes. I hate that I can never be REALLY considered American because I'm not White (despite being the "whitest" person in my family).   I hate that my mother, despite being one of the kindest and most intelligent people I know, still gets treated like she's stupid because of her accent. 

I hate how this kind of thing is norm in medical culture and that I've become used to it and may unintentionally engage in this "culture" myself.  I hate that when I am offended because of a racial slur or comment directed toward Asians or another culture, that I cannot say anything because I am a medical student and will be a stick in the mud if I react at all.  I hate that these kinds of incidences only give my sister more justified reasons to feel bitterness.  I hate that it's becoming harder for me to choose love, patience, and grace in this kind of world.

 

Space

Where do I belong?  I do not own this room, nor this body.

(Re)Discovering Joys

I have had free time lately.  During this free time, I have collected yet another list of things I have rediscovered.

1. Literature: A barista/friend/poet at my church has taken it upon himself to give me poetry breaks.  I'm not sure what made him think that I would enjoy, much less understand poems he enjoys.  Perhaps, it's because I have mentioned that I was an interdisciplinary liberal arts student in undergrad and that I had taken more than one literature class during the best four years of my life.  But really, I think it's because my sister is a published lyrical essayist and went to the best MFA program in the nation.  (Buy my sister's chapbook here)  Maybe, he thinks these kinds of things run in the family.  They really don't.  But his insistence on my reading these beautiful, esoteric lyrical works have refreshed and confused me.  I really must read more.
2. Grace: "So then death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."
3. Fine Arts:  Symphonies!  Tchaikovsky! (Russian composers!)  Agatha Christie plays!
4. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago: Someone recently asked me what musical artists I had discovered, lately.  His question  initially perplexed me.  In my conversations with Austinites, I have never been the source of musical knowledge as I  1) am not a musician 2) do not usually discover new things but instead tag onto others' recommendations 3) am not a hipster but in fact, am one of those more annoying types that find hipster culture fascinating and sort of wish s/he were more skinny, smart(ish), and less awkward and silly to be one.   After my perplexed state had worn off, I was then sent into a whirl of panic.  One of the more horrible things about medical school is that, because I love television way too much to give it up, I no longer have the time that I had in undergrad to keep up with the new "its"  of music, if only to name drop and give myself some credibility.  So I chickened out and threw out one of those excuses about how my medical school life did not afford me enough time to keep up with the tiresome task of discovering new artists and that I much preferred listening to my usual hodge-podge of artists (Sufjan, Andrew Bird, Cold War Kids, Phoenix etc.)  I then ended it with a "I heard the new Bon Iver is good..." Bon Iver is one of those names that I had "collected" in undergrad.  True, I enjoyed listening to him as I worked on my thesis my senior year, but back then, I much preferred my collection of baroque pop and I never really did fall in love with him the way my other friends had.  I confessed this to my acquaintance and we continued on in our conversation.  But it made me remember Bon Iver.  So, this week,  I thought I might try to discover"For Emma, Forever Ago".  Again.  I can't quite express what I found in this particular collection of songs this time but my ears, which are older, worn, and perhaps wiser than before, heard things I did not hear before.  It baffled me.

03 Skinny Love

 

Simple Things

In the hustle and bustle of life and the complexities of relationships and misunderstandings, I have become more and more thankful for simplicity.  There is a kind of completeness in simple things.

• Simple Food: Bread and cheese
• Simple Conversations: Hellos, hugs, goodbyes
• Simple time with friends: over a meal, complete with jokes and laughter
• Simple joys: An infant smiling up to you, the smell of the morning, the sound of grass and leaves crackling under your feet.
• Simple songs:

 

01 Up On A Mountain

 

 

• The simplicity of the Gospel:   True, the conclusions, actions, fluff accompanying it may sometimes be esoteric and frustrating, but in the end, the message and story of the Gospel is a simple one.  I am thankful for it.

Pardon me, I do not speak your language

Clinics have taught me two things:

1) A language barrier does not necessitate the lack of  a strong, if not brief, patient-student doctor relationship.  The fact that "mi español es muy mal" and "hace muchos años que estudiaba en la escuela" does not prevent  smiles, jokes, and laughter nor impede establishment of trust as I peform my physical exams in the strangest, most awkward of settings.

2) Two people speaking English does not mean they speak the same language.

Sometimes, I think, as our society has progressed technologically, we have forgotten how to listen.

 

11 Damascus

 

A fond memory of Haiti

Good Friday: Complacency becomes Joy

In the end, I needed rest.  After three months of emotionally bouncing from frustration to tears to joy (aka internal medicine), I was ready to breathe.

And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

In my time of rest, I found solace in the coffeeshop at my church.  Despite what the other patrons may have thought (unless my computer screen was more carefully watched than I thought), I did not go there simply to study my stack of papers or stare blankly at my computer. Rather, I spent hours there watching as people greeted one another, eavesdropping on their conversation and observing the emotions that danced across their faces.  I was searching for that brokeness and beauty and rawness that occurs when two people collide, meet, and perhaps, strike up a friendship.  And through my hours of days that I spent sitting and sometimes pacing, I too became part of this dance.  But in the end, I realized I was escaping from the disguised monster that my rest had dangerously become:

Complacency:

1: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies

2: an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction

There is a danger in rest. We forget where and when we are and do not see that creature under the bed that is slowly creeping to create resignation, acceptance of unjustice, and unwillingness to change and grow and move.  Our story is but a part of a Greater one:

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

I am glad that OB/Gyn begins on Monday. I am thankful for rest.  I am thankful for Good Friday for reminding me of this story, this dance. I am glad to be back on the path of tension.

And here is my prayer for myself and for anyone else in a state of Complacency courtesy of Brennan Manning:

May all your expectations be frustrated.

May all your plans be thawarted.

May all your desires be withered into nothingness.

That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son and Spirit

 

 

...

Emilio Morenatti's Haiti Photos

A non-emo post

My sister said I am too emo in my posts.

EMO: :

a style of rock music influenced by punk rock and featuring introspective and emotionally fraught lyrics."

Thanks to Merriam-Webster (the OED no longer lets me search for words), I can now say definitively to my sister that I am not emo because I am not a style of rock music.

Also, hipster is the new emo.

Light, Darkness

You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
    Consider if this is a man
    Who works in the mud
    Who does not know peace
    Who fights for a scrap of bread
    Who dies because of a yes or a no.
    Consider if this is a woman,
     Without hair and without name
    With no more strength to remember,
    Her eyes empty and her womb cold
    Like a frog in winter.
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children,
    Or may your house fall apart,
    May illness impede you,
     May your children turn their faces from you.

~Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

 

There is darkness inside of me and around me.  It covers me like a heavy cloak that I try to rid myself of but it strangles me harder, sticking to me like wet cloth.  Sometimes, I try to forget it is there.  I try to let the light shine through and warm me, but it never leaves, always creeping loudly to dethrone me.

It was there when I met the young man at the coffee shop a few weeks ago. I judged him instantly. Punk. Criminal. Nuisance. Yet, I smiled at him when he asked me a question and used my pleasant voice, because I needed to be the nice one, the person in control.  I forgot that I am never in control.  In a few hours, I learned of his story, his history, his pain, regret, hope, and joy.  As he smiled at me with warmth and touched me with his words, the light momentarily pierced the darkness but the light was not from me.

With darkness, we are made aware of the light.  And I realize that when I forget or try to ignore the darkness, I drift into complacency or ambivalence. I forget beauty and love and truth.  I am beginning to realize the importance of recognizing the darkness inside of me and not fighting it on my own, but allowing grace and redemption to make their marks.

We must also never forget the darkness in this world and remember the darkness of history.  If we ignore it or choose to forget it, then we allow it to win.  If we do not let it make us uncomfortable, suffer, grieve, then we have lost our humanity and hope.

04 John Wayne Gacy, Jr.