i went to see the "passion of the christ" movie, as directed by mel gibson, and as protrayed by james cazievel, this morning with a friend's church. right before they started the screening, the pastor led the entire theatre, nearly 250 people i'd say, in a short prayer. it's the first time in nearly 15 years that i've said a prayer or been in the company of those giving thanks or speaking to god.
it was an interesting sensation. i attended church as a child but dropped out because i didn't feel suited to the group with whom i attended. they were good people, but i felt disconnected from god and the bible, and it was probably due to the fact that i was too young to understand the deeper themes of christianity. in the end, it's all about sacrificial love, compassion, and faith in hope. the themes aren't to different from the ones buddhism espouses.
the movie has been lambasted as being anti-semitic. mel gibson has been assailed as an extreme catholic, insane, proselytizing, presumptuous. other things i've read have accused him of: having exaggerated the violence that christ suffered to further the nefarious nature of the jews*, being too religious in the screenplay, adding unnecessary blood, etc etc etc.
okay. so i think people need to wake up and face the reality: it's a religious movie. therefore, it's going to be about christ. that entails god and the bible, and inevitably, a religious message. it's based on a compilation of stories that were passed down by word of mouth for 60 years after christ's death before they were captured with written word. so, the storyline had to be reconstructed from different bits and pieces. there is no one authority on what exactly happened. and, like all movies, one theme, one vantage point had to be conveyed. and people are furious about this.
i get annoyed sometimes with the holes people poke in movies. it's the same with lost in translation. i'm asian. did i find the movie racist? no, but i probably would have if i was seeking evidence of anti-asian sentiment. maybe, deep down inside, mel gibson is anti-semitic. he'll deal with that when the time comes for him to face his sins. in the meantime, i'd prefer to assess the artistic qualities of the movie. this movie may not be pc, but it's a hell of a lot more intelligent, moving, and demanding than some of the other crap that's out there being hailed as "good cinema."
the passion of the christ is very bloody. it's a difficult movie to watch. it almost matches thin red line and saving private ryan w/ the amount of blood shed and violence. it wasn't with bullets and artillery, but the cruelty inflicted by mankind is still of the same form. it hasn't evolved to a more humanistic state. i cried through a good portion of the movie. at some points, i was too afraid to watch and hid behind my hands. it's an intense, intense movie.
but it's beautifully orchestrated, from each wince of pain on caviezel's face, to the colors, the music, the tears that slide down the apostles' faces. everything fits. as the story of jesus has been told many times, it's hard to reinvent a portrayal. but, i don't think that's what gibson intended. this one is about pure, raw, naked emotion. faith, love, hatred, fear, desperation, determination.
i'm not christian. i don't pray to god. i don't necessarily accept everything the bible says but i felt that the movie was beautifully done. (it somehow seems odd to say that you liked a movie that depicted so much suffering and pain). it represented, to me, more than just a story about one man's suffering and a few other men's betrayals. it's about the human condition. and it was worth seeing.
*- i say this at the risk of sounding anti-semitic. i'm not. i grew up in jewish town, i attended over 15 bar and bat mitzvahs, i observed sabbath with my jewish friends and ate matzoh with them during passover so as to not make them feel uncomfortable with my yeast-ridden food, etc. i have a profound respect and understanding for the jewish culture.
the first time i ever heard of the concept of pink elephants was when i started dating my first real boyfriend. we had been chasing around the topic of being interested in each other for a bit when he said, "how long are we going to ignore the pink elephant in the room?" i ddin't get it. chinese people don't talk about pink elephants. we talk about "qing ren" or "tan lian ai."
that's how our relationship was. we always referred to things significant and of serious consequences, but never directly addressed them. we danced around the elephants. and there were many.
my life is filled with elephants. there are the two who live upstairs. heaven only knows if they have a secret obsession with wrestling or moving furniture. there are frequently loud thumps above us. as if they are dropkicking each other or oops-- suddenly negligently decide to drop say, a 100 pound weight. it happens several times of day. at least. thud. thud. clunk.
but there are other pink elephants in my life. some that i've been forced to face when i became incredibly unhappy (law firm life) or the fact that yes, i just wasn't going to grow anymore despite all the chinese herbal medicine i had taken. (it was sincerely nasty).
more recently, the pink elephant in my life has taken the form of medical school.
it's always been there, this particular elephant. it's been there since high school, when i fell in love with biology. it continued through college when i took premed classes. i wanted to go to medical school. a life geared toward helping others through suffering seemed to fit me. and i was fascinated with the human body and the surgery shows. don't ask me why, but watching people remove livers and spleens excited me. but i was scared. scared of the sacrifices, scared of the long hours and costs, and what death would do to me. i was scared of not being good enough to make it into medicine. scared it would preclude me from having the family i always wanted.
but i've been facing this pink elephant now. i left boston for san francisco for a new start, and timing has just about worked itself out that i can apply to either a phd or to med school for fall 2005, but it's one or the either. it's the mcats, or the gre psychology test. it's cell bio or social psychology classes. it's volunteering in the psychiatry department at ucsf or doing research in a physiology lab.
i need to pick. and i think i'm ready to finally face the hard question. am i cut out for it? should i do it? i know enough now to know that it's foolish to plan on contingencies such as a non-existent family. and i have renewed faith that i can do just about anything i *really* want to do, if i *really* want to do it. a part of me so sinerely wants to do it. i'm ready to take those classes, to do what is necessary. and a part of me wants to continue ignoring that pink elephant.
so that's why i wrote my entry the other day about taking a leap of faith. i'm standing over that precipice unsure of what to do. i get different signs everyday. the lady at the cafe who works at the ucsf er and said to me, "doctors are miserable people. i've never seen such unhappy people." my college roommate, who spoke about the sacrifices she's already made for medicine. my friend who recently got accepted and is going. when he speaks about medicine, i hear the way i feel about it. or my anesthesiologist from my surgery. she fought her way too and is quite happy now as an r2.
i'm wading my way through this thicket. it's confusing and it's a damn hard decision. but i figure that i''ll eventually come to a conclusion with which i'm satisfied. and at least i can say now that i'm facing the wretched thing. it was about time.
is my new name. i don't know whether to be insulted or to feel godly.
i want to see the new movie with james cazievel by mel gibson. don't ask me why. i do. and everybody knows i hate gore.
i've been listening to a great deal of classical music lately. i'm getting old, i tell you. this weekend someone told me he thought i was 28. despite the fact that i was slurring my speech. 28. does that mean i look old? maybe i just act as if i am older. mature, let's call it.
hah. i'm not kidding anyone.
i went to college 7 years ago. i started high school 11 years ago. that's messed up. over the next 7 years i'll probably grow 0 inches, get a phd, move around some more, and finally learn how to make quiche. i predict that most of my close friends will get married, and happily so, some will produce little 'uns, and i will finally grow a grey hair. i'll stop feeling like i have time to buy back my youth, and instead develop a sense that responsibilities are increasing in number and that the best years in my life, oddly, are yet to come.
if worst comes to worst, i'll grow into miranda on sex and the city. even that's not too bad.
so go to kazaa, download lark ascending, or be legit and use itunes. if you choose to do the former and get fined or slapped with a lawsuit, i'm not responsible. this is a disclaimer.
i'm that lark ascending. into what? i dunno. ask me in 7 years.
oh god.
let's talk about age and alcohol.
the amount of the latter you can take is inversely proportional the first. and today, i am feeling just how little alcohol i can take. i'm still dizzy. but i think i knew that was going to happen around the 3rd time i vomited last night and then suddenly realized that my dress broke.
the story behind it is this: the roommates and i decided to have a girl's night out (GNO) with dumplings last night. what was slated to be a small gathering, however, turned into a big event because doctor roomie wanted her lab to attend. hula roomie and i swung that. about 30 people attended, and if we measure a success of a party by the number of people who actually sang on our karaoke machine, it did quite well.
now i haven't had a drop of liquor in well over a month, and one of my friends happened to find a lovely bottle of pinot grigio. i sequestered it and consumed about 7 glasses in 4 hours. the birthday party i was supposed to attend (sorry, pomme!!!) became an increasingly elusive goal with each glass i consumed. needless to say, when i went to bed at 3, the fun part of being drunk had long passed.
now this GNO phenomenon is something quite interesting. i've always had a good number of male friends because, well, there were simply more males in eecs at MIT, and also because i tended to understand the male rationale better. women didn't like me. the few that really did were far and few in between, but extremely precious to me. so i find it so interesting that, upon moving to a brand new city, i was fortunate enough to find a gorgeous apartment with two really great roommates. we're really close. we do girlie things all the time. we watch sex and the city together and whisper about each other's prospective interests when they come over. we indulge the other's bad habits when we need to, and give healthy doses of "stop that" when required.
last night, we all kind of got drunk together and toasted to our romantic failures and successes. i like where i live.
i don't know what to say about my school.
it nearly broke me when i was there, but i miss it and love it for what i gained and the people i met.
i'm feeling really tired today. i'm confused, cranky, and a lot of people around me seem to be suffering through crises.
when do you take a leap of faith and try something you've always wondered about, or just chose a safer, steadier path? is it an issue of ability, having what you can't get, or realizing a dream?
most of you don't comment, but today would be a good day to do so. i'm in a quandary about my life.
i don't frequently drink coffee because when i do, seriously adverse effects can be observed in my behavior. it usually includes, but is not limited to: insomnia, a sudden burst of energy, odd and extremely goofy behavior, regression into 2nd grade antics, and a mind that thinks at an even more uncontrollable rate than normal. what is *normal* for me, anyhow?
despite the fact that people hate starbucks, i have to say that i prefer their coffee the most. over the years, i've developed a preference for lite whipped mochas and frappuchinos, and for the most part, there has been a great consistency in the coffees i've ordered.
i think, however, that i really prefer starbucks because of the many trips with friends who have accompanied me there over the years. as was the case with me, their preferences for coffee haven't changed over the years. erik, for example, likes mint mochas in disgustingly large quantities. during the holiday season, he drinks 3 a day. his preference, too, is relatively stable, and there is something perkingly fresh in his personality to match his choice of coffee. then there is the odd coincidence of goonley, who himself is a halfie, and has always ordered black and white mochas. tuxedos, they call them, in case you are curious.
i tell you, the parallels in my life are earth shattering. (note: read with hint of sarcasm)
but it's interesting to go to a starbucks with a friend, 3 or 4 years after you first went, and find yourselves drinking the same types of coffees, having the same interactions and crazy conversations that you've always had. coffee isn't a staple in my life. i don't need it everyday. but like my friendships, i can rely on it to perk me up, or give me a shot of craziness when necessary. and just one cup of it can bring me back to a conversation over coffee i had with a good friend years ago.
life is good, i tell you. especially when you mix a little whipped cream into it.
i got stood up last night. really. that's the only time i've ever been stood up on valentine's day. 23 of them lovely and the 24th to be stood up by a woman.
no, i haven't switched sides. i should have known better to make plans with a doctor on valentine's day =p.
i had options to go out (thanks pomme and mhao), but even after i realized that i had been stood up, i opted to stay in. my evening consisted of:
5 hours of oil painting. a foot.
2 hours of star trek the next generation movie.
15 minutes eating saltines and vanilla ice cream
2 minutes reading an email from an ex
7 minutes eating cold fried rice in between dabs of paint
30 minutes looking for a lost pair of glasses (grrrrr!!!) and realizing they are gone
17 minutes scrubbing the oil off my brushes
4 minutes inhaling turpentine and feeling dizzy
in the end, someone might have thought it to be a sad valentine's day. but all that time alone seemed to heal me. i woke up this morning, happy and hopeful. being single ain't so bad. especially as it means that a myriad number of possibilities lay untold before me.
happy belated v-day. i was thinking of my friends last night. to those who don't have valentines yet, be patient. one will come.
nope. that's not the sound of anything pleasant. not the beating of the heart of a beautiful man who i watch sleeping. THAT MAN DOESN'T EXIST, now does he? no. i'm not bitter about love. never. not the wagging of a dog's tail as it beats against the floor. nope.
yah, that's my head you hear. it's pretty damn loud.
there's something wonderful about having time to lie in bed and do nothing. first, you explore depths of your mind that you never realized existed. then you find yourself tracing the threads of your bedspread through suddenly intricate patterns. cloth becomes compelling and fascinating and strangely enigmatic. just how do they make these patterns? and you form a new appreciation of those darn cotton commercials with pliably odd dancing ladies. you drift lovingly in and out of sleep, and like time lapse photography, the sun moves speedily across your day and illuminates stretched patterns of stars and leaves on the carpet. boredom can be magical, if you know where to let your mind reside.
if you are me, you get to read long lost poetry from frost and write about random ponderings for the satisfaction of no one but yourself and a few ardent readers of aimless thoughts you expel.
and so today i'm going to expound with a litany on love. it was brought to my attention this weekend that i'm "fickle" with men. that declaration first made me laugh, and then it silenced me.
i may be fickle with careers, majors, my palate de l'heure, but i am most definitely not fickle with people. like everyone else, i'm seeking something meaningful, poignant, significant. i meandered through many careers until i found a field that meant something to me. before that, i was lost in a maelstrom of possibilities. with people, i'd like to consider myself a steadfast and loyal friend, a sentimental being that clings to those she loves. but you see, with love it's no different as with my career. i'm not seeking the flavor of the month, a companion to eat dinner with me, someone for whom i'll serve as lovely arm candy. you can always find companionship, lips to kiss, hands to hold. but what meaning do those things hold if there is no strong foundation beneath?
i know exactly what i'm seeking. the secretive glance that moves the world. a silent moment that freezes your breathing and makes you feel suspended in happiness. the feeling that no one could commiserate more deeply and profoundly than the person who holds your hand.
the truth is, i'm a diehard romatnic and idealist. i know what i want and need in a person i'm going to be with. i could date in the meantime, and live through momentary and superficial relationships. but that kind of satisfaction would only last until i looked at myself in the mirror and felt the deception i was weaving for myself. so, i'm not fickle. i don't play with people's feelings. i'm seeking *him*. he's out there. i'm just going to keep myself patient, occupied and single until we find each other.
after some movable type fiasco, i'm back up. and i'm feeling great. thanks to tina, jp, and warren g for moving me around, tying my shoelaces, feeding me and reminding me about my medications and friends who are putting up with incorrect usage of my vocabulary words. special thanks to everyone who called or visited to make sure i was okay. the abuse of vocab words, tho usually frequent in my behavior, is much worse the past few days. it is as if my physical incapacitation has been accompanied by a mental degeneration.
going to give myself one more day of inactivity and tomorrow it's back to research, classes and normal activity. the weather has helped, as it has been so beautiful. i can't wait to taste some of it again.
the procedure is done! the bone marrow is on its way to asia. i'm drugged up, but alive and blogging =).
thanks to everyone who called to wish me well and spent hours allaying my fears.
so here it goes. i propose a scenario to you. you tell me what you think. my friend and i can't figure it out.
boy meets girl.
boy is friend of girl's best friend.
boy gets girl's info. writes her. invites her out to club with friends.
they go.
they have fun.
they giggle at the end but don't talk too much. it's a club.
they go home.
they play email tag.
she expresses how nice it was to see him. he says the same thing.
he calls.
they talk for 1.5 hour.
a connection is established.
they talk about personal things.
he discloses that he's ready for a relationship. she says she is too.
she pauses. have they crossed the "threshold of no return" into friendshipland? or is he interested and subtly hinting?
rcp, despite being the psychologist she is, cannot interpret for her friend. what think ye?
