the move

seems that everytime i leave someplace it gets harder and harder, because the older i get, the less i want to uproot and start over. so i am sitting in the middle of the mess that is my apartment, enjoying some of the last quiet moments in my building, listening to the raindrops patter against the window and the leaves rustling on my lovely tree outside. i'm saying good-bye to chicago, the only place that has been home to me since my father uprooted us from miami. i have been here 7 years, and although the winters were always a struggle, this city took me in and treated me well.

i'm packing up my life and driving out to california. i'm moving to seal beach...orange county, where i will live in an overpriced 1BR apartment half a block from the ocean. i'm hoping this proximity to the water will make it feel like home, even though the water out there is cold, and the breeze coming off the water isn't thick and salty like the tropics...it's still the ocean. to be honest, i'm scared. i'm scared of being so far away from everything that is familiar to me. i hope my proximity to the ocean will comfort me...i hope when i leave the windows open i can hear the waves crashing, cause it's going to be a tough year, for so many reasons. i start surgery internship...without the comfort of knowing i have a permanent place in the program. i will have to prove myself. prove myself while i am learning how to take care of really sick people. people sick enough to need to be opened up with a knife. i am excited about it, but i know it's going to be hard. and i'm glad to be getting away from chicago, but it certainly is a big move. it doesn't feel like i'm going home...it's going to take a while to feel like that...i still barely know the difference between northern and southern california.

anyway, i don't know if it's the jetlag or the butterflies in my stomach, but something is keeping me up at night. i was up until 6:15 in the morning last night. and i am exhausted, but i have to pack. i spent last night googling my college boyfriend who cheated on me. he has written 3 or 4 books since college...on economic development in southeast asia. he's a visiting professor at all of these universities. before all the nasty shit went down with us (i.e. before he slept with someone else multiple times) i told him that he better not ever lose his passion for education in the 3rd world, he better not sell out and just be a drug rep. he was better than that. all this time i have been hoping that he was a complete sell-out in every aspect of his life cause he totally sold me out, but he's not. he's doing amazing things, and he's an expert in his field...educating stuggling economic and educational systems in vietnam and singapore and laos. and for some reason that makes me feel like shit, because he's doing something great with his life, and he's not a horrible person. but what he did to me was so horrible so after all these years i still struggle to reconcile these truths.

leaving chicago means leaving all of those memories i have with him...and that to me is a huge relief, because i still think of him everytime i pass certain streets or restaurants or stadiums. and i won't have those associations anymore.

life just moves...and some things just stick, no matter how hard you try to let them go.

the good and the bad.

better than nothing sticking at all.

almost forgot

the title of medical doctor was bestowed upon me. and i was surrounded by everyone i love. my best friend from college even flew in to surprise me all the way from boston.

my aunt nancy did a special ceramony for me at home cause she couldn't make the graduation.

my best friend ami watched the webcast from japan.

my aunt barbara gave me my grandfather's framed diploma from the 1940s.

my dad seemed overwhelmed by how proud he was. i have never seen him that way.

my dipti wrote a personalized, very special oath for me to take, which i recited in my living room.

all of these things nearly brought me to tears. it was a day to celebrate not this title, but accomplishment and perseverance. because i honestly never thought i would make it.

terracotta soldiers

yesterday was perhaps the craziest, but the most rewarding day in china. this is the first time in my life that i have been just a tourist...on an organized tour...following guides with little flags and wearing a name badge. at first, i really didn't like it, but these guides can arrange things that you could never do yourself in the time that you have. yesterday we were in 3 cities. we started in beijing, flew to xi'an, and then ended up in shanghi. i couldn't believe we pulled it off.

we spent the day at what will most definitely be the 8th wonder of the world. during the ming dynasty, the emperor decided to create a massive tomb for himself. this was pretty normal behavior for an emperor...but this man went the extra mile, literally. from what the tourguide told us, the chinese believed that when they died, the took with them everything they were buried with to the afterlife. so, in order to protect himself emperor quing-something (can't remember his name at the moment) decided to be progressive and people his tomb with terracotta warriors. this is progressive because most emperors just buried themselves with live soldiers...and they were alive when they were entombed, traditionally. he, like us, thought that slightly cruel, so decided instead to devote 36 years to building and army of terracotta warriors to take with him. their existence or location wasn't known until a farmer happened upon them in 1974 when digging a well.

since 1974, the chinese people have uncovered thousands of life size terracotta warriors, each handmade by individual artisans. it's amazing because each soldier is different, not just in dress and rank, but in facial expression. it is quite a thing to see, probably the most impressive single thing i have ever seen in my life. the figures are so life-like, and there are so many of them. there are arches and cavalrymen, officers and charioteers. there are animals, horses, chickens, dogs. it's amazing. there really aren't enough adjectives to describe what this monument is like, and the amount of work that not only went in to creating them, but the work that has been done to restore them.

the tomb was actually discovered by farmers after the ming dynasty, but they didn't care much for them, because they were only made of clay, not gold or bronze or anything of value. so the farmers burned the support beams of the tomb and destroyed all of the warriors. since their discovery, chinese archeologists have, been excavating and putting these guys broken fragments back together by hand and then moving them back to their original spot. it's absolutely amazing. there are more than 8000 soldiers and thousands of horses and other animals and carriages. what a job they have. they said it will take 200 years to completely finish the excavation and restoration.

i'm not going to lie, i saw the whole thing as if it were a big puzzle. i wanted to jump over the fence and join in the digging and the putting back together. i love that kind of thing. i could sit there happily putting soldiers back together for eternity. i guess i will have to settle for putting real people back together.

anyway, there are so many other stories that we were told about the tomb and the restoration and the emperor, but i will hold off cause i'm tired. i was just enamored with the place, i wanted to stay there forever. if you have the chance to go to xi'an to see the terracotta warrior museum, please go, it's really worth it. it is one of the most beautiful creations i will ever see.

the rest of the trip has been great. i have been pampered, staying in 5 star hotels, everything taken care of. i've been eating great food and been shuttled around in massive air conditioned tour buses. very very spoiled am i. i still say that i would rather stay in hostels and eat on the street bumbling around with a lonely planet and a good friend, but i'll live in my parents' world for a little while and be gratful for the experience. i will be so grateful, because who gets to do this? hardly anyone.

SimCity China

China is a crazy place. We got here and after driving from the airport to the hotel, the first thing my mom said was "this is totally not what I expected. I don't know what I was expecting, but this isn't it." What she meant was, she wasn't expecting to see huge highrise after highrise lined up like perfectly planted rows of corn. She didn't expect to see traffic jams of brand new cars, VWs, audi's, hondas, bmws. China is truly in the process of developing, and it's doing so at lightening speed, right before our eyes. and the developing has been accelerated by the upcoming 2008 olympics in beijing,which, by law, forces all construction to be done by 2008. and it will be done, because things get done in china. the tour guide said "for the chinese people, nothing is impossible." and that's true.

it seems that two things have helped erase a lot of the historical parts of beijing: progress and the cultural revolution. for practicality's sake...thing have had to be torn down...the hotung style houses and the old city gates torn down to make way for wider highways and taller buildings. and back in the 80s a lot of things were destroyed by the cultural revoltion, which even the government-hired tour guides will admit was a mistake. i have been searching for culture. i told my dad i wanted to get a better feel for beijing. his response was "how can you get a feel for beijing...it's too big for that." i have never been so overwhelmed by the expanse of a place. it's not dense like new york...there aren't people crowded into every corner. it's spread out, but because there are so many people...it's REALLY spread out. it seems like it goes on forever. there are very few quaint parts of beijing, it's all monstrous. picture yourself as one of the characters in "honey, i shrunk the kids." that's what it's like.

everything is new. cars, buildings, roads, even the ancient temples have all recently been restored. this is what gives it a disneyland feel. today we went to the "temple of heaven" which is where the emperor use to go every summer to pray for the country, etc. we walked in and the guy standing next to me asked "what's that smell?" I said it smelled like fresh paint...and it was. they had just finished restoring the temple 7 days ago. the chinese removed every single tile from the roof (and there are a lot of tiles) re-glazed them and put them back. it took over a year. everything was bright and colorful.

another thing i've noticed is there is a separate job for absolutely everything here. there's a guy that gets paid to post the morning paper on these huge bulletin boards all over the city. and other guy wears a red hat and a red banner across his chest and holds a little red flag. he stands at an intersection snd makes sure that pedestrians and bikes stop when the traffic light turns red. there are one or two of these people on every single intersection. not just one side of the intersection...all 8 sides. and they stand there all day. amazing.

tomorrow i'm headed to shanghi. i've heard there is so much money there i will be in awe. imagining anything more shiny and new than beijing is difficult, but i guess "new" and "wealthy" are totally different. we'll see i guess.