What do you say to someone you will never see again? I only had the few minutes it would take for the elevator to come to the tenth floor of the hospital to think. There was part of me that wanted to cry and hug her and never let go, and another part of me that wanted to curse at the injustice of it all. But I swallowed both parts with excruciating effort, because you see, my grandmother didn’t know that she was dying of gall bladder cancer.

A long-time sufferer of gallstones, my grandmother consistently rejected our pleas to undergo surgery. Instead, she spent years trying various traditional Chinese medicine regimens that got her nowhere. Eventually, the pain forced her to give in. When the surgeons opened her body, they found a tumor that had already spread to other organs in her body. The surgeons discussed the situation with my grandfather, and my mother and her siblings. They decided not to tell my grandmother.

She is only sixty-nine. I don’t know who her killer is, whether it is the tumor or the stubborn faith in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The doctors say she has about a month left to live. Every morning and night she receives nutrients through an IV because she is too weak to ingest food. Every day her body is weaker, her hair thinner. She often lays in bed moaning because of the pain, but she refuses to take painkillers — she believes that pain is the body’s way of communicating to her. My parents call her stubborn; I call her strong.

We haven’t told her, and we never will. But she knows. She knows that her time is running out. When we visited her parents’ grave I overheard her praying while kowtowing. She said to herself, “Mother, father, I will be joining you soon”.

So there we were, in front of the elevator, my grandmother, my grandfather, and me; all aware of the fact that it was the last time we would all be together, but suffocated by the necessity to pretend that it wasn’t.

She removed the gold ring from her middle finger and slid it onto my hand.

I said, “Waipo, I will come to see you again and when you are better I will take you to America.”
“Yes, Waipo will get better.” She smiled reassuringly.

The elevator doors opened. I exerted all the energy in my facial muscles to force a smile as I waved goodbye. As soon as the doors closed, the tears fell.

—- To spread support and awareness for cancer, I started a poll fundraiser. Answer the question: how has your life been affected by cancer? either in the comments or on twitter, and I will donate 10 cents for every response received by tomorrow to the American Cancer Association in the name of my grandmother. I will also synthesize the responses and post them for all to read.

Me with my grandmother this summer

My grandmother during Spring Break, well into the disease

I’ve been in England for about two weeks now, and unfortunately have not had the best experience with the British from the start. I had been warned that the British generally are not as outwardly friendly as Americans, and I’ve heard that British complain about the insincerity of American chipperness. But I didn’t expect to encounter just plain rudeness.

I’ll provide below a few snapshots of the people I have encountered. A caveat: these are only my observations after a very limited exposure to Britain. I’m sure that I will be able to meet lots of nice people here that will turn my view of the Brits around.

Restaurant service: One of my favorite hobbies is restaurant and cafe hopping, so even though I’ve only been in England a short time, I’ve visited quite a fair number of the eateries in Oxford. In general, the service is sub-par, probably because there is no tip. While I don’t mind lackadaisical service, I must say that I’ve encountered a much higher frequency of rude service in the UK than in the US. The service is mostly marked by impatience; the waiters hurry you through the entire process (ordering, paying) so that they can get new customers seated. Last night a large group of us went out for a birthday and the waiter asked us whether we wanted the food all together or starters first. While we had some internal table discussion (that admittedly might’ve taken longer than usual), the waiter told us, “please make up your mind”. There was only one other table in the otherwise empty restaurant. But I can’t make a completely negative judgment against them, because the Indian food was delicious and they gave us free desert.

Customs and Immigration (from an earlier post): I arrived in England to the warm welcome of the customs agent lecturing me:

- Why are you coming to the UK?

- I’m studying here

- When did you start to study here?

- I am just starting now

- Then you don’t say ‘I am studying here. That means that you already started and are continuing. You should say, ‘I will be studying here’

I didn’t realize this was immigration and grammar control.

Hospital volunteer services: I mentioned before that I contacted doctors at the hospital to see if I could shadow them. A received a fair number of responses inviting me to join them, but saying that they would first have to file paperwork.  I received this email from volunteer services:

Dear Crystal
I have now received 10 emails form departments and doctors that you have asked for a placement
CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SENDING EMAILS TO DOCTORS

You have a placement with Dr. T__

If I receive any further emails from doctors regarding a placement I am sorry they will be ignored
I do not have an inordinate amount of time to keep emailing one person about work shadowing

Here is the response I would like to give:

Dear Obviously Professionally Frustrated,

I contacted many people at once because doctors actually are busy people and I know some of them would just ignore my email. Perhaps it’s not standard procedure at your hospital for people to approach doctors themselves (I guess you’re used to people coming through you first). But that does not excuse your rudeness and disrespect; everybody deserves some courtesy. Can we think back to first grade when we learned how to communicate? I don’t think yelling via email was one of the suggested methods.

Is this how you get a power kick, by asserting your authority in angry emails to lowly students? Or maybe you just like playing with the capslock. I would love to see you say this to my face. Volunteer services is supposed to be the face of the hospital to the public. I hope, for the sake of the hospital and the community, that you learn to improve your attitude (and to stop complaining about your very difficult and demanding job).

My actual response:

Dear Ms.,

I’m sorry if there is a protocol for arranging shadowing that I was not aware of. The hospital I work at asks us to contact doctors individually. I  contacted multiple people because I was hoping to have the opportunity to visit many different departments for one day/short term placements. I had contacted all the doctors before I received a response from Dr. T_.

I have not contacted and will not contact any more doctors. Please go ahead and ignore any new emails you receive concerning my placement. I appreciate your help with the arrangements and will return the paperwork to you as soon as I can.

Sincerely,

Crystal

Does anyone have experience in the UK and can offer some advice about interacting with the British? My sour view of British social interaction has completely ruined my mood and set the tone for the remainder of this trip. I desperately want to be able to write a post by the end of the term with three portraits of great people I’ve met here.

That was my friend’s response when I asked him how he was feeling. After hearing him out for a little bit, I suggested that he write about it and to publish it on my blog. I told him about how much blogging helped: to be able to write my feelings and thoughts down and share them with others, and then to receive words of comfort, support, and advice. Please read his thoughts below and share what you think.

Last year I broke up with my girlfriend of one and a half years. It was very much my fault, and I wanted to make it right. I could not believe I had let things get to the way things were. I needed to do something about it.

A lot of things kept me back. Jealousy, paranoia, the fear of losing someone were all present, especially since I was away from her for six months without having the slightest chance of meeting up. It was extremely difficult for me because of the potential to meet other guys (which she already had, prior to us breaking up). I just wanted things to be the way they were again.

I wanted her to love me again the way she had. Back then I would know that her interest was solely in me, that she would want to most of all hang out with me, and that she had the most fun with me. I have no problem with having other friends or anything, but at the end of the day I felt special. I miss that feeling. I miss having that. Will I ever be able to get that back?

I realize I probably don’t deserve any other chances, but I still do love her very much. I wish it were mutual. I really miss a lot of the things we’d do, even if they were silly like playing the Sims or Text Twist, or throwing pieces of fruit at each other, or some more crazy things like running around the halls chasing each other. I know that to her it was a different feeling breaking up than it was for me. For her it was more of a relief. Maybe she was right about me though. Maybe I haven’t changed and only care about myself.

I’ve been ignoring her because I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll never see her again and that nothing will ever happen again. But by thinking this, I’ve been ruining my chances. In less than a month I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again, but if I had done everything right starting from a year ago, maybe things wouldn’t be the way they are now. But it’s too late to look at the past. I’ve ruined everything. On top of all of this I keep caring about her hanging out with others and having fun. It’s no wonder she does though, seeing as I never ask her to hang out and don’t initiate any conversations online. Again, it’s because of the feelings that resurface when I do.

Should I even care anymore? Why do I care about the stupidest things? What should I do? I feel like I’m running out of time. I feel lost.

It is 12AM. After only sleeping three hours, a two hour rowing practice, and a formal dinner, I thought that I would go home and zonk out around 9pm. That’s what my body was telling me to do anyways. Three wasted hours of laying in bed later, I am still awake.

I retract any hypotheses I made earlier as to the cause of my current bout of insomnia. I know now that the inexplicable stress, stomach queasiness mistaken for hunger, muscle tension, can all be explained by one reason:

Subconsciously, I didn’t want to sleep because I was scared of having the same nightmare again.

A week ago, my most recent ex-boyfriend appeared in my dreams. In my dream, he had a new girlfriend, who I not only met but had to become friends with. She constantly asked me if I was ok with their relationship. She was white, which brushed some of my social insecurities and innate feelings of inferiority when interacting with that racial group. That night was when my sleeping problems started. I went from sleeping at 10 and waking up at 6 to sleeping at 3 and waking up at 12. Last night I dreamed about him again.

I thought I was over him. I hadn’t given him the slightest thought for months. Why is he coming back to bother me now? I can’t afford to have this continue so early in the term. Does anyone have good suggestions? I’m going to try sleeping to music so I can think about other things.

6:56 AM England

I once heard someone describe jet lag as a blank slate, a new chance for your to set your sleeping schedule to what you want it to be. When I first arrived in England, I was going to bed at 10 and waking up at 6 every day. I figured, great! I don’t even need to deal with jet lag, I can just maintain this schedule.

When I go home from college, I often wake up after lunch time, sometimes even closer to dinner time, and stay out with friends until the early hours of the morning (around 7 am). My mom would tell me that I was not really an American because my natural schedule seemed to be consistent with China. That seemed perfect, considering I wanted to work in Asia after graduation.

Yet, it seems that no matter how often I switch time zones, whether I am in the US, China, or England, I will always be a night owl. I woke up today at 3pm, and still have not been able to sleep. I have the first rowing practice of the season at 12:30 followed by formal dinner, and the pressure of getting enough rest is making it even harder to sleep. Although insomnia is not new to me, it usually only happens around finals and comes with stress. Right now, I’m not experiencing much academic stress, but rather am experiencing a new kind of stress; a stress that comes with feeling uncertain and socially excluded.

The night hunger comes right when I think I might be able to ignore it if I fall asleep; a few hours of lying in bed with my stomach growling and keeping me awake until I finally give in and cook some soup. I also think that I am developing a tolerance for sleeping pills. I took a sleep aid, which I believe just has melatonin, around midnight, and did feel extremely tired. However I still could not fall asleep. Now I just have the queasy side effects but without the benefits of sleep.

Now my muscles are randomly spazzing. I think I might have no other choice than to stay up all day, go to my rowing practice, go to formal dinner, and pray that I have enough energy to make it through the day.

3/3/3

I found a great new way to run and I swear it works so well for me! I warmly welcome – no I blazing hotly welcome – you to try this out and tell me if it worked for you.

My biggest achilles heel when I run is my short attention span. When people advertise the draw of running (getting in touch with nature, getting time to think for yourself), those solitary and lengthy qualities of running are precisely what turn me away. After a quarter mile, even if I could run more I get so bored that I stop. I’ve tried running with a buddy, but even though your are very enthusiastic about that at first, eventually you don’t have the energy to coordinate your schedules and one of you drops out. I’ve tried running with music, and that gets boring too because you’re just passively listening (also my headphones keep falling out).

Now I have finally found a way to keep myself interested while running! When I was little my mom taught me a Chinese nursery rhyme:

One frog, one mouth, two eyes, four legs.

Two frogs, two mouths, four eyes, eight legs. and so on.

I started repeating that while running, timing the counts to my steps. Even though it was the most mechanical mental activity, it sustained my interest enough to keep my legs going after two laps. I realized that if I channeled this energy into memorizing something productive, then I could have a rather large repertoire by the end of the term.

I printed out the Gettysburg Address in huge font. Clutching it in my hand, I started jogging and reciting. Each time I took a step, I said one word.

Four.

Four score.

Four score and.

Four score and twenty.

After two laps (I usually run two laps around the meadow a day. Don’t ask me what distance that is, I’m guessing .75 miles?) I had managed to make it all the way to the end of the first sentence. I think I’ll finish the whole thing in about a month’s time. That might be painfully slow, but the exercise isn’t really about the memorization. It’s about the motivation to run. Now I really want to run so that I can continue playing this game, and while running I am motivated to keep in rhythm rather than slow down. Also, I bet that if I memorize the entire speech in this slow but paced manner, it will escape my mind much less easily than when I had to memorize it by rote in elementary school.

Maybe when I go back to America, I will be able to recite all the important speeches!

One hour ago, I sat down eager to write a new post with the most interesting updates about my time here. At 12:52 AM, I am still sitting in front of a blank document. Instead of viewing this as time wasted, I thought I might turn it into something productive by making my filler time the subject of this post because it gives quite valuable insight into my daily life.

I finally sat down and got around to answering (almost) all of my emails. Ever since I arrived, I have been flooded by emails, most of them advertising events on campus which are immediately archived without a second glance. The next group comprise a fair number about Oxford that need reply. These come from people I’ve contacted to see if I can join their club (Competitive Ballroom, Croquet, Cricket, Crew, Board Games Club, Choir, etc.), take their class (immunology, economics), or observe them at work (doctors at Oxford hospital to ask if I can join them at work for a day). During the week these emails are starred to deal with later, and since the weekend has come, I’ve finally managed to clear them.

Finally the most treasured yet most painful emails are from friends asking how I’ve been doing. For obvious reasons, treasured because they come from friends actually interested in how I’m doing; painful because when I receive them, I can only star them to mark for later reply when I have the time to give it the full and proper response it deserves – then that day never comes. From setting up activities and classes, to researching new activities to join, to actually doing homework, I have managed to leave my old friends behind in the dust.

I wrote before about the troubles I have with my email. Someday I’ll be able to break free of this constant struggle to maintain a clean inbox. In the meantime,  please be patient, a response will come and it will be well worth the wait!

I also uploaded the latest video diary and a recap of my spring break (I tried to condense it into 27 seconds so it won’t take long)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiloNZZSo1Y[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiqx_QsqAIo[/youtube]

5/4/3 Feel very bogged down, with so many things on my to do list, and let’s not even mention school.

My friend and I started a competition to do nice things together.

Here are the rules: We set a schedule of tasks and do them. The number in parenthesis is the number of days allotted. Harder tasks get more days. Every time you complete a task, you must document it by sending an email. If you fail a task then you have to come up with a new task to add to the list. Anyone who wants to join us is welcome to, simply post a comment on this blog on the day that you completed it! Oh – and if anyone can think of a better name for this game, please share!

Here are the tasks for the next two weeks:

Friday: April 24 send a card to someone (cannot be a birthday card) (2)
Sunday April 26: give food to a friend (1)
Monday April 27: talk to someone about something they like to talk about. And you don’t. (2)
Wednesday April 29: leave someone a nice note (1)
Thursday April 30: give food to a homeless person (3)
Sunday May 3: eat at a new venue, (1)
Monday May 4: Ask someone out to coffee (2)
Wednesday May 6: cook a meal for someone (2)
Friday May 8: learn how to say hello in a new language (1)

Part of the Oxford experience is the academics, and trust me – in at least this one respect I can be confident that I will have had my share of Oxford culture. However, I’m not so sure whether this one class can be considered reflective of Oxford academic life. Every term, a Stanford prof teaches a class at Oxford to the Stanford study abroad students, and this term the class is called, “Smallpox: Lethal Legacy, Forbidding Future”; a wild and crazy class taught by an equally wild and crazy (though lovable) professor (safaris in Egypt, sky diving in volcanoes). Part of the course component is to post current events about related material to a “New and Hot” blog. Since my “New and Hot” is an issue that I am  passionate about and hits quite close to home (literally), I want to share it with you all.

-Enjoy!

As a lifelong Washingtonian (having been born in Crystal City), there is no lack of material for me be proud of. We believe that the whole world revolves around our demure, yet dignified, city, and I am constantly finding myself holding my nose up when surrounded by the less politically cognizant. Sometimes the Redskins have a pretty good season too..

However, while doing reading for my New and Hot, I stumbled across some surprising news in the New York Times that forced me to retreat in embarrassment: Washington D.C. has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the country (I always assumed it was San Francisco). According to the D.C. 2007 Annual AIDS Report, 1 in 50 D.C. residents are living with HIV/AIDS; compare that with 1 in 7000 nationwide. Heterosexual transmission, especially among adolescents, is increasing, underscoring the need for for effective sex education. Meanwhile, MTC (mother-to-child) transmission has increased as well, which is especially disconcerting considering that these cases are easily preventable with routine testing and drugs. Even though blacks account for 51% of the DC population, of the 12,400 PLWHA (people living with HIV/AIDS), 81% are black.

Concurrently in the Times, Tom Friedman laments racial disparity in our schools and economy (link). The disproportionate infection rate among blacks is a sad and brutal reminder that in a city with the most powerful people in the country, racial inequality still plagues its neighborhoods, and the consequence is life or death. It also warns that the problem is not as easy to solve as the superficial “Free Condoms for Everyone!” approach, but that much deeper social issues need to be resolved in order to truly address HIV/AIDS.

Changes need to happen and they need to happen fast. Fortunately, HIV/AIDS has become a more pressing item on the political agenda;  Obama’s first days brought some sorely needed change to this country’s AIDS policy, including allowing federal funding for clean needle programs and comprehensive sex education. We will see if America can clean up its act — for my hometown and for America, I will keep my fingers crossed.

5/4/3 Updating my blog right before time to sleep is such a great way to end and reflect on the day. However, I have  never felt more tired in my life.

Hello!

My technologically challenged self has been playing around with i-movie and finally managed to upload a clip to youtube about my life here in England! Check it out!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Ej1rVWJuI[/youtube]

6/4/4: Meeting a lot of people, classes getting underway, yet for some reason always feel very drained (perhaps the energy of a new place, perhaps a cold)