Teeth, Love, and Growing Up

I've been avoiding writing this blog post because, as clichéd as it sounds, it'll mark the "end of an era." My trip to New Orleans with my mom was my one last bit of frivolity sputtering out before it's time to get serious. NOLA is such a special city and I definitely want to go back in the future. From watching alligators glide through the swamps and bayous to visiting the Pharmacy Museum (where I got to see an actual trephination drill from 1850), I could write a whole blog post about each experience I had there. Instead, I want to synthesize some of the most interesting and unexpected things I learned, mostly just in the hopes that they'll stick with me. Let me start by saying I doubt I'll be able to do this city's history justice. I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't even know New Orleans was considered the birthplace of jazz before I went! I'm currently reading a biography of the blues singer, Bessie Smith (the last book I picked up in Bo...

Alternative titles: disgruntled owner of a dozen new mosquito bites, yet another blog post about the weather, why didn't anyone prepare me for how loud cicadas scream at twilight Dear EN502, Forget everything I said about it being hot in Montana because Beijing is worse. All last week the daytime temperatures were in the high 90s, with a humidity of between forty and eighty percent. Going outside in Montana feels like the air is trying to rob me of all the water in my body; Beijing feels the opposite. The air here is dense, wet, and hot, like a sauna. Or the inside of someone’s mouth. It’s a physical thing, crowding up against my skin and leaving me slightly sticky whenever I’m outside. It saps my energy like nothing I’ve ever known; I’m terrified of getting heat exhaustion. During my first week here, I biked to the Old Summer Palace historical site (the main imperial residence of several emperors during the Qing Dynasty, now mostly ruins). It was cool, except the park requires a l...

My high school required reading list was not your standard affair. I never had to read The Outsiders, Animal Farm, or The Lord of the Flies . I read The Catcher in the Rye because I wanted to, but I never had to take a test on it. We read Shakespeare, but not Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet , instead focusing on A Winter’s Tale and King Lear . My high school education has simultaneously left me with great gaps in my literary education, while also providing me with a vast knowledge of works in translation and international authors. It is a unique experience compared to my peers, but not one I regret. However, it does sometimes land me in comical situations.  Like last week, when I watched Gatsby: An American Myth at the American Rep Theater in Cambridge. I had been looking forward to the show for months; a soundtrack by Florence Welch? Nick Caraway played by Ben Levi Ross? I was sold. My high school best friend and I got tickets as soon as we knew they were available. Despite my excit...

I got back to San Diego two days ago. Mostly, I'm relaxed. I don't really know what things to unpack since I'm going to be moving again, to LA, in less than two weeks. I've never moved anywhere within driving distance before, so I might've been overzealous about buying things for my new apartment ahead of time. I was so excited about being spared the hassle of tallying every ounce of weight in my suitcases and boxes to ship across the country, but did I really need a dish rack right now ?  I'm trying to hype myself up about the fact that I'll be driving everywhere soon instead of taking public transit, but the truth is I'm dreading it. Even though the T and the bus could be exasperating to deal with, there was something so comforting about the abdication of responsibility that came with them. The instant acceptance that I'd be late to work if I missed the 8:30 med campus bus, since there was really nothing else to do about it. The many, many naps I t...

Books , in order: 1. The Burning God , R.F.Kuang – the third book of the Poppy War Trilogy (I read the other two in 2023). It’s dark, and violent, but was the first series I ever read about early 20th-century Chinese history, written by a Chinese-American author, featuring all Chinese characters. I felt seen and understood by a book for the first time. 2. The Secret History , Donna Tart – good to finally read it and know what the hype is all about! Tart is a brilliant writer. Accurate depiction of pretentious New England old money. Chilling character actions that stuck with me.  3. Tell Me How It Ends , Valeria Luiselli – an essay. If I were to recommend anything I’ve read this year it would be this one. Luiselli is a translator for undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation. Eye-opening, thought-provoking, well written.  4.  Babel , R.F.Kuang – Great stand-alone novel. Kuang is incredibly knowledgeable about linguistics, the art/violence of translation, and ...

Dear EN502, Now that it’s July, daytime temperatures in Missoula sit solidly in the high 90s, and will continue this way until late August. In the morning, once the sun rises over the mountaintops and its searing rays beam down into the valley, every moment outside feels like biblical hell on earth. The dry heat makes me feel the moisture getting sucked right out of my skin. This must be what it’s like on Arrakis (from Dune). Or like when Rango (from the movie Rango) falls out of the back of the car into the desert, and his skin immediately dries out and cracks and flakes off him in a little blizzard, and the little paper umbrella in his drink bursts into flame. Too hot to even sweat. The little reprieve I have from the sun’s fiery gaze is to flee into the cool basement of my house or fling myself into the river. How lucky I am that my home has not one but three wild and beautiful rivers flowing through it, and is only a few blocks away from the best swimming hole on this side of town!...

  alternate titles: i hope that email didn’t find you, and that you found this instead, coming out of my egg and i’m doing just okay—this wasn’t a coming out joke, stay with me here (happy pride month), what boiled eggs do to a mf, my dreamscape hellscape (personally customized!!) Whenever people ask “What kind of animal would you be?” I always want to say I’d be a bird, but I know I’d never fly. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I would be a flightless bird like a penguin or a chicken or a shrimp-dyed flamingo, what I mean by that is that I’d always see others go, grow, shake their wings, jump, skip, and stop before learning how to take off, to taste the freedom that comes with learning how to leave the nest. My feathers, a soft unburnt tawny, ever-so-justly hidden from the sun would atrophy and shrink, and before I knew it, would turn into vestigial muscles that I could live my life having and soon forget what they were made for, what I was made for. I’d be flightless be...

It is July and I am twenty-three and a half years old. My mother’s garden is full of wildflowers, butterflies, and bumble bees. My hair is mostly dirty blonde, but its dyed pink in places too. I have just had my heart broken for the first time.  I wish I had the freedom of an empty summer. I miss reading a book a day, jumping into the ocean at any hour, seeing friends without scheduling them a month in advance. I am most reflective on open, beautiful summer days. I am able to be creative and ambitious, inspired by the terrain that raised me and the smell of sunscreen. As June was a mess I am currently choosing to ignore, I am focusing on making my July and August as full of empty days as possible. I still have a full time job and adult tasks I despise to manage, but I want to be a summer kid too. I have such a specific nostalgia for sitting with friends in my backyard on a summer night. If I could capture that laughter and tension and bring it with me all season, I would. Although ...