"restaurant friends"

Denee called. she is 10 days away from giving birth to her second baby.

Denee is half an "ABC "(she came to USA when she was 11), 5 years younger than me, whom I met when I had to work part time in a Chinese restaurant in SLC, while I was stubbornly studying communication for which I could get absolutely no assistantship to help me out through the program. She and Speedy, a boy I know in the restaurant also and later became her husband, are the the only two friends of mine in USA that don't have a college degree.

I don't want to say that I have rules for making friends, but most of my friends turn out to be, of integrity, kind, and above all, highly educated. I guess it is because I was brought up under the influence of mom's theory "knowledge is the highest among all". But of course I was too young to understand it, so she motivated me to study hard using her other theory that, the higher degree a girl gets, the better chances she will have to meet really handsome boys-- which later proved to be false: boys can get more knowledgeable and (maybe) interesting when they are more educated, but not necessarily more handsome, the chances are they are more likely to be bald instead:(

I didn't intend or expect to be friends with Denee, simply because she and I are so different in so many ways, and lots of things about her are around the borderline of my comfortable zone. She smokes often but refuses to drink coffee with sugar because "it is going to make her fat". She sings numerous rap songs (actually she is best pop singer I know in real life) and speaks slang that she can't spell correctly. She wears belly button ring, tongue ring and more than two tattoos on her body (In contrast, the cruelest thing I have ever done to my body intentionally was to have my ears pierced--two piercings in each ear, which closed up later because I always forgot to put on earrings). "One person's meat can be another person's poison". This old saying accurately describes our feelings toward each other's tastes in many things.

However, there are reasons that make me never disliked her. She is young and cute looking: short and chubby, with tanned skin and big dark eyes. She never treated me unfairly although her complicated family background made her "cunning" and full of little "schemes". What's more, Denee and I were the only two people in the restaurant that were able to carry on some normal conversation without having to inserting adult jokes somewhere. and before I have a car, Denee gave me rides whenever she could. and after she sent me home at night, she often proposed to stay at my place for a little while because she didn't want to go home. I didn't need to treat her any more specially than throwing her a fashion magazine. She could usually manage to be happy and excited by trying out all the skincare and fragrance samples coming with magazine.

One solid credit I gave to Denee is that, she aways manages to keep touch with me in days I close my doors to the "outside world". Like my other long-term friends, she makes our friendship live on.

Monday

None of my colleagues like Monday. In hallway, break room, or restroom, conversation often goes like this: "how are you doing?" "Well, you know, it is Monday".

I have to admit that I dread Monday myself. Besides the facts that I always wake up feeling hopelessly sleepy on this day and it is the day furthest from next weekend, it indeed annoys me when I go to my office and find a dozen of unread emails requesting more work to be done--surgeons are famous for working on weekends (and holidays), and my Mondays are famous for being full of stress .

I sometimes feel ashamed to realize I don't actually enjoy working hard as much as I enjoy the material comforts and spiritual harvest the job brings me; I feel I lied to people in my job interviews when I told them I "loved to work on every project I had done so far", and I wonder whether they would still hire me if they could see through my mind and found out that I wish money grew on trees sometimes.

Divorcing Viva

Viva called me to say "hi" while I was "multitasking": watching TV series "The romance of three kingdom", booking the shuttle ticket online for Hao's trip to MN next week, and at the same time, racking my brains to figure out what I should be wearing for my lady's get-together on the coming Sunday.

Coincidentally, it has been exactly a week since Viva's last phone call, when she told me she's getting a divorce out of a blue--it was only 6 months after she got married. (For a second, I thought "does that I mean I don't have to worry about driving 4 hours to her wedding reception any more"). I am not sure whether I was the first one she told this about, but I was touched when she chose to show up in front of my door the next evening, asking me whether she could sleep over. (I felt impressed of myself--thinking of the fact that Viva has tons of friends in town, most of whom are her Childhood buddies, yet she came to me. There must be something about me, I am still wondering:~ ). She looked a little tired and disappointed, but absolutely no desperation or fear in her eyes. I could tell that she even made sure she looked better than usual: black lace top, with black fish-tail skirt and of course her brown high-heeled party shoes. No matter what reason she is getting divorce for, I am very happy to know that my friend is not a coward: however sad something is, once it happened, the best thing to do is to accept it, hold your chin up and look into the future.

As soon as I told her I could spare my sofa as well as a pillow and a blanket for her for the night, she wasted no time to put on her sleeping wear and sank into the sofa --the way she made herself at home in my apartment.

In the three hours after I fed her with my special spicy chowmein, the incompatibility of my life style and her personality became evident. Whatever reason that brought her to me clearly couldn't last her to bedtime. while I was absorbed into the Internet and my books, she made dozens of phone calls to friends --not crying out for help though, on the contrary, she begged to help prepare for a friend's wedding shower (again, I like that about her, she doesn't overly focus on her own sadness to make other people uncomfortable). At end of 2 hours' efforts, a friend of her came to my building and picked her up.

That was the end of that night, and I was thinking hard to find appropriate things to say to her on the other end of the phone. Before I said anything, she asked "have you decided whether you are coming to my wedding reception next week?" --the last question I expected from her at this moment. and now I do have to feel bad again for not being able to make it to her wedding reception (I am really sorry, but it is 4 hours drive away! ). But I am happy that she and her marriage are happy again.

I've got mail

I just found out checking mail could be intimidating! As I approached my mail box, I could already see a few brochure pages sticking out from the small seam of the door, crying out for help, and the second I opened the mail box, the crowded envelopes popped out as if they couldn't hold on to being squeezed into the narrow space any longer. Perhaps the postman got mad at my habit of not removing mails in time, quite few letters got distorted by being pushed in with force.


I am never motivated to check mail. In contrast, opening the mail box is almost one of the most exciting moments for Hao when he gets home everyday. I don't understand it, because our communicating with family or friend is all through phone or email, nobody will send us a letter any more; he doesn't buy lottery either, there can't be anything surprising such as he has just won a brand new racing car. The most common mail we have got so far are bills, credit card applications, and some occasional sale information together with coupons. I occasionally collect coupons with the wishes that I will get better in saving money, however, never do I remember to use them for real. The only envelopes that don't go directly to trash can are bills, but they are really not a source of happiness as you can imagine. Anyway, as much as I am confused about Hao's enthusiasm toward checking mail box, I was glad and relieved that he took the responsibility for both of us when we lived together. For this reason (and lots of others of course), I miss Hao at this very moment.

Ten months of OL

Ten months ago, with a blink of eye, I shook my body and turned into an office lady (just like the monkey king born out of a rock in the famous Chinese novel, who is skilled to change into 72 different things).

To be a statistician wasn't something I had been dreaming of since my childhood, to make long story short, I majored in English, technology management, communication and biostatitics during the past ten years, and none of these fields seems to have much to do with any other one. and the worst thing is since I am never fully clear of what I want, I don't know whether I am getting closer or farther away from it.

One strength I own is that I am able to make myself happy and comfortable in most environments I am in with whatever I have. I not only survived all the math and statistics classes and tests required for the statistics degree (with GPA of 4.0 :D--I must have forgot that I started as an art student, so fear didn't get strong enough to become an obstacle), but I really have learned to enjoy the ten month's white collar life as a statistician.

I am soaked in the contents and happiness of working with world famous (and not ), handsome (and not) surgeons, who highly respect and carefully treasure me just because I am the only different one among them (besides the fact that I am Asian and happen to be good-looking). To them, suturing a human heart (and keeping the person alive of course) is a piece of cake, yet being able to punch and mix numbers in a computer then produce a p value is mysterious and irreplaceable. With this delusion in their mind, I sometimes can't help thinking highly of myself too, and surprisingly have been working very hard so they won't be disappointed. (by the way, the word "hard-working" is never a main stream in my dictionary, I always believe I can make up for my lack of industriousness with my intelligence and easy attitudes toward life).

What I enjoy most so far of course, is that I am actually closer to the ideal goal of myself: enriched with growing knowledge and feelings of accomplishments by contributing to a meaningful undertaking; being able to act for myself and independent both materially and spiritually.