One of the tacky activities my med school requires of us during orientation is to describe our core values. As it turns out (and this is an off-topic preamble) I apparently didn’t think it was worth my time to complete beforehand. During the summer, I was swamped with work for my internship that I flagged the initial email and completely forgot about it. I figured they would send us a reminder as the time got closer. During the entire summer, I received no emails from my new school. Absolutely zero. I had to look up what day I was supposed to show up. “Wow, they don’t do a good job communicating with their students,” I thought.

Upon check in at orientation, a staff member asks me for my Core Values assignment. I hadn’t done it.

“Why not?”

“I must’ve missed the email”

“You mean you missed every single one of the FOUR emails I sent you?”

I had no clue what she was talking about. She hands me a pen and paper and asks me to write an essay about my top core values on the bus to the orientation. “You’ll need it today,” she explained.

It wasn’t until the end of orientation week that I realized I had a new school email address, and that all of the communications from my school were directed there. When I signed in for the first time, I encountered mountains beyond mountains of email. Among those were these two from the staff member above:

—–

Hi

As of this morning, we have not yet received your core values and/or your retreat consent form.  We must have these in had by noon today.

Please make every effort to send us these documents ASAP.

——

Then a few hours later…

Hi again-

We REALLY need your core values within the next hour.  (we have some administrative work to do with them before tomorrow).

Please make every effort to send them to us ASAP.

—-

Other emails I had missed included multiple notices of social gatherings of my classmates with subject lines “Happy hour tonight!”. And here I was thinking the whole time that everyone else was invited to these events but me.

In any case, that was a long preamble. Let’s return to the core values.  Of course, everyone groaned at this activity, but I actually found it insightful. Then again, I am into introspection. Here are my core values as written in 20 minutes on a bumpy bus ride:

1. Acceptance: to whole-heartedly accept another person with their positive and negative aspects. To withhold judgment. To really look past the exterior of a person and see their core values that narrate their life. To give all that I can to another. To forgive others of past wrong-doing. To accept that I am unable to influence others and that they ultimately make their own decisions and are responsible to themselves.

2. Diligence: To strive for excellence in anything I set out to do. To put my entire attention and effort into an endeavor, no matter how small. To have a high standard for my actions, so that if anyone entrusts a task to me, they can be sure that it will be done and done well.

3. Accountability: To be responsible and trustworthy on the issues for which others depend on me, and to be responsible for myself. Don’t be late. Complete tasks on time. And strive to the best extent possible if otherwise. Take care of personal needs, including health and social. Addendum: Strive for excellence but maintain a minimum standard of competency.

—-

It’s ironic that my last core value is to complete tasks on time and I clearly did not do that for this assignment. This beautifully illustrates the fact that my core values describe the person I aspire to be, and that is still a work in progress.

This Thanksgiving, I would like to give a shout-out to those things that make my life complete. Thank you for being such an integral part of my happiness!

Gchat: Thank you for being my main vehicle of communication with friends. Thank you for  importing my aim contacts so that I don’t have to open two chat clients, or rather, even launch one at all.. Oh, and thank you for adding people automatically, like my professors and TAs, so I can always know when they are ignoring my emails.

Good Chinese food. Thank you! It’s so hard to find a good place to eat these days. I usually hate going to other Chinese restaurants, but that’s because there are so few good ones out there. That’s why I am thankful that places like the Hong Kong seafood bistro on Castro Street we ate at tonight exist; thank you for not drowning every item in soy sauce, for not having a signature dish of hot and sour soup or General Tsao’s Chicken, and for serving peanuts with MSG (much to the distaste of health conscious Americans). Usually you can be indentified by the predominantly Chinese makeup of your customers, and to the few patrons of other ethnicities, you have my props.

Gummi coke candy. Have you ever tasted such a perfect fusion of taste and texture? Miniature shaped cola bottles that fade from dark brown to clear. Perfect to leave in your mouth and melt, suck along the length of the bottle, or chew impatiently and immediately pop another. Caution: 1 pack may not last as long as you would like, but multiple packs may result in binge popping. Thanks!

Roommates: Thank you for putting up with me while I had swine flu, for protecting yourself from my virus hacking coughs, for always letting me in when I forget my key (like today), and for being faithful company to weekly senior pub nights. Thank you for letting my boyfriend crash on our couch when he’s too drunk to drive home, and letting your own drunk friends crash in our room.

Verde Milk Tea: Thank you for being probably the only other perfect combination of food and texture; for the perfect amount of frothiness with the perfect flavor. Thank you for the free wifi, unlike starbucks, so that I can bring my homework and thus not feel guilty about driving 40 minutes just to have you. And thank you for always running out of my favorite flavor, rose, and for always closing right when I have my late night milk tea urges. Also, thanks for keeping my wallet empty.

My Levi’s Skinny Jeans: Thanks for being the perfect companion to a night on the town. Whenever I’m in the mood for a little booze, you’re always there. Along with some pumps, you make all the guys stare and buy my drinks. Thanks for keeping my wallet a little fat.

and YOU! I know this is cheesy, but its true. Thanks for reading my pointless ramblings and thoughts about my life. Thanks for caring. And thanks for being the amazing people who have touched my life.

This week is my final week in Oxford, and what am I doing? I am not studying for my final exam on Thursday, I am not writing my research paper due on Tuesday, I am not spending my last few days exploring the city in which I will never again have the chance to be a student, I am not taking my last chances to hang out with my Oxford friends, I am not bonding with my Stanford housemates….

I am spending all day holed up in my room feeling sorry for myself. Crystal, you never get enough sleep, take a break today, you can work tomorrow after you’ve gotten a nice rest. That’s what I told myself yesterday. Crystal, you should call your ex-boyfriend. I know you feel worse every time after talking to him, but this time it will be different. Maybe this time he will actually care about you. In fact, he probably misses you a lot more than you think.

If someone else were born instead of me, that person would be so much more productive, well-liked, and prettier. She would actually do something with herself. She wouldn’t be me.

I signed up to participate in a Mood Study conducted by a Stanford undergrad. Each week I get emailed an online survey to fill out. What would your answers look like? Here are mine:

1. How many hours did you spend on homework this week? 11-15
2. How many hours did you spend on extracurricular activities this week (including meetings and outside preparation)? 16-20
3. Did you have a midterm or a major paper due this week?   Yes
4. In the past week, how often have you laughed a lot? a few times
5. In the past week, how often have you cried a lot? a few times
6. How satisfied are you with your life as a whole? Dissatisfied
7. Compared to other people your age, how intelligent are you? slightly above average
8. How often was the following true in the past seven days? You were bothered by things that usually don’t bother you. sometimes
9. You could not shake off the blues, even with help from your family and your friends. Sometimes
10. You felt that you were just as good as other people. sometimes
11. You had trouble keeping your mind on what you were doing. a lot of the time
12. You were depressed. a lot of the time
13. You were too tired to do things.  most of the time or all of the time
14. You enjoyed life. Sometimes
15. You were sad. a lot of the time
16. You felt that people disliked you. a lot of the time
17. You never take things that don’t belong to you. Disagree
18. Do you agree or disagree that you have often said something bad about a friend behind his or her back? Agree
19. Do you agree or disagree that you never swear? Disagree
20. Do you agree or disagree that you go out of your way to avoid having to deal with problems in your life? Agree
21. Do you agree or disagree that when making a decision, you go with your “gut feeling” and don’t think about the consequences of each alternative? Agree
22. Do you agree or disagree that you have many good qualities? neither agree nor disagree
23. Do you agree or disagree that you have a lot to be proud of? neither agree nor disagree
24. Do you agree or disagree that you like yourself just the way you are? strongly disagree
25. Do you agree or disagree that you feel you are doing things just about right? strongly disagree
26. Do you agree or disagree that you like to take risks? neither agree nor disagree
27. Do you agree or disagree that you live your life without much thought for the future? neither agree nor disagree
28. Do you agree or disagree that it is important for you to fit into the group you’re with?   strongly agree
29. Do you agree or disagree that in social situations, you tend not to follow the crowd, but instead behave in a way that suits your mood at the time? Agree
30. Do you agree or disagree that your behavior often depends on how you think other people want you to behave? strongly agree

4/1/3 4 hours of sleep total over two days

So I finally caved in to this viral chain mail. Here goes…

1. I was born in Crystal City, Virginia, where the Pentagon is. I must admit I’m pretty flattered that they named the city after me.
2. My first word was “fei”, which means “to fly” in Chinese. I would excitededly point at the sky, clap my hands, and yell “Fei! Fei!” each time an airplane went by.
3. I went to one year of preschool in China, but the only thing I remember about it is having three teachers named Ms. Sheep, Ms. Cow, and Ms. Pig.
4. When I came back from China to enter school as a first grader, I couldn’t speak English and was enrolled in ESL (English as a Second Language). My parents also decided to enroll me in the optional French Immersion class, where we learned all our classes in French.After six years of French schooling, I can’t remember a single word.
5. Whenever I watch a show/public event/am in a situation where silence is expected, I have an urge to break out into song and sing really loudly. I once stood up from my desk during silent reading period in first grade and started belting out “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. That was the first time I learned it was inappropriate to do so, but I still secretly do it in my head.
6. I have an amazing aptitude for surviving cold weather. I can mentally numb myself to coldness immediately just by telling myself to stop feeling cold. This comes from years and years of training waiting at the elementary school bus stop in winter. I would imagine that I was in a place colder than where I was at the time (homeless, antarctica), and feel better than I wasn’t there. Now I don’t need to go through the imagination step anymore. I also have a lot of empathy for the homeless.
7. My dream job as a kid was to be a panda vet. My pre-med academic adviser once asked me whether I had ever considered a profession other than medicine. When I told her, she said, “Well, that’s just a childhood dream, anything else?”.
8. I used to imagine that I was the girlfriend of cartoon characters. My favorite boyfriend was Little Foot, from The Land Before Time. Other ex-boyfriends include Simba and Aladin. What happened to Nala and Jasmine you ask? Of course they were no match for me. That seguays nicely into..
9. I loved dinosaurs as a kid. I slept with my expansive dinosaur figurine collection on the head of my bed. I watched the Fantasia dinosaur scene over and over (and cried every time the T-rex killed the stegosaurus).  My favorite book was about two Dinosaur skeletons breaking free from the museum and heading to the beach.
10. My earliest email handle was mushroomgirl, because I liked (and still LOVE) to eat mushrooms. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn until senior year of high school what it could imply when during a scholarship interview, my interviewers asked me to explain my email address.
11. In sixth grade, I had the biggest crush on the guy in our school known for being good at math. I even wrote a poem called “Dan Dan the Math Man”. I stopped liking him after I won first place in the school math competition and he came in second.
12. I enjoy giving people nicknames by sticking together two consecutive syllables in their name that normally don’t go together. e.g. Zabeth (Elizabeth), Ickel (Michael), Topher (Christopher)
13. I love to play mahjong. My ideal white noise machine would play the random clacking and shuffling, followed by the more ordered stacking, of mahjong tiles.
14. I never wear matching socks, but I can’ stand having socks of different thicknesses or lengths.
15. One of my favorite hobbies is to make miniatures out of sculpy and fill doll houses with them.
16. My current desktop wallpaper changes everyday to a different picture of my grandmother. My favorite is this one when she bought all the balloons from the balloon man for me.
    
17. I have an irrational fear of surfaces collapsing from weight. While I can usually control it enough to stand on higher floors of buildings, I absolutely freak out (i.e. mini panic attack) when things “land”. I don’t do well with jumping or bouncing balls. No wonder I hate basketball.
18. I collect shot glasses. My inaugural shotglass was purchased in a hotel giftshop in Paris. Since then, I’ve bought one wherever I go and my friends also know to buy me one when they travel as well. At my wedding, I plan to have all my shot glasses laid out and let each guest toast me with one.
19. I can do this with my hands:
    
20. I really enjoy playing road trip games, even when I’m not on the road. My favorites include: 20 questions, Guess my famous person, Contact, Trivia, telling riddles, and 7 degrees from Kevin Bacon.
21. It takes me forever to tell the time from a clock face. When I ask people what time it is and they offer me a glance at their analog watch, I tell them that I can’t tell time.
22. I love the the letter “J”. I want to name my kids Jeremy and Julia, and I often write these names over and over just to sweep my pen across first the tip and then the loop of the J. The rest of the words just become scribbles.
23. If I could be any other race, I would be an Indian, because they have the most beautiful women, the best food, and the coolest movies!
24. One thing I want to do before I die is open a really unique restaurant. I’ve spent my life collecting restaurant ideas. Right now the best one I’ve got is an Indian one called, “Naan Sequiter”.
25. No matter how much I resist following trends, I always inevitably follow them; but only when it’s not trendy to do so anymore (e.g. tights, bob haircuts, and this chain letter).

Have you ever had those moments when you know that you did something wrong, you feel like a terrible person, and there is nothing you can do to make up for what you did?

Over spring break, all the students who are studying abroad next quarter had to move out by the beginning of break. I am staying in my friend’s room while she and her roommate are away on break. Another friend needed a place to stay for a night, and since there was a vacant bed next to mine, I let her stay there.

Now, I know this is where red flags should be going off and my brain (or my conscience) should be telling me: Crystal…

1)   You don’t know her roommate very well

2)   Her roommate doesn’t know your friend at all

3)   Why didn’t you just ask beforehand, you obviously have no respect for other people’s personal space. Just because you don’t have a sense of personal boundaries doesn’t mean everyone else has the same standards as you.

To make matters worse, I am an extremely messy and disorganized person. Thinking that I was the only person to occupy that room until school starts, I just lived there as if it were my own room, planning to clean up before anyone came back. I know that I wasn’t very organized about keeping my clothes properly stored in my suitcase, and I probably just threw my towels on the ground (mostly on my friend’s side of the room but its possible that some of my mess spilled over onto the other half of the floor).

I stayed off campus for two nights, and when I returned at 7:30 this morning, I was surprised to see that all my stuff had been randomly thrown onto my friend’s half of the room, including my other friend’s comforter that she had left on the bed and I had no idea who it belonged to.  Although the roommate was not there, I could tell that she was pissed by the way she returned my belongings to me. I wrote her an apologetic email acknowledging that what I did was stupid and disrespectful; she writes me back a passive aggressive email listing grievances including dirty towels on her stuff, food on her desk, and someone having slept in her newly washed sheets. She ends with asking when I am moving out.

Ok so maybe I am a coward. So maybe the only reason I care about this is the dread of having to go back to that room. I’m already chickening out; I decided to move out tonight, at least I won’t have to spend an awkward night with the roommate. If I never had to see her again, I know I would tell myself, “Crystal, you did all that you could have done. It’s ok if she doesn’t forgive you. Just remember next time so you don’t piss someone else off.” But I know that I need to go back and apologize in person. Even if she is really pissed off at me. Even if she doesn’t forgive me.

In the end, I’m a bit thankful that this happened. I need to learn to grow up, to be less self-absorbed. I made my mistake because I was not considerate of other people’s feelings. Can you believe that I am already 20 years old, and this is the first time that I’ve had to seriously apologize to someone that I don’t know very well? Realizing that you’ve still got a lot of growing up to do is not easy.

Here’s the plan: I’m going to buy her a plant (her room is full of plants that I had been watering while she was away). If she doesn’t want it, I’ll tell her to just give it to her roommate. I’ll buy a card too explaining how terrible I feel, and if she’s not there when I go back tonight to move out I’ll just leave it on her desk. If she is there I’ll talk to her about it. I hope that’s not too cowardly…

3/5/4

Dear Crystal:

Congratulations! You have successfully completed the Finals Week from Hell (FWH) program. Along with several of your accomplished peers, you have fulfilled the basic requirements to be considered an FWH scholar; over three days, you have endured two final exams and one research paper, relying on only eight hours of sleep total. You should feel especially proud of your accomplishment, as we accepted only the most diligent procrastinators into our program. Additionally, I am pleased to inform you that your exceptional performance qualifies you for the FWH honors program. Our faculty have recommended you based on your extraordinary motivation to sacrifice sleep two nights in a row. We fully believe that you demonstrate the highest virtues of a FWH scholar: unrestrained procrastination coupled with disciplined and high threhold for self-torture. As an FWH honors scholar, you will commit to upholding the virtues of FWH throughout your academic career and other aspects of life. You will also educate and spread FWH values to the next generation of promising scholars. We hope that you will appreciate and take full advantage of your exclusive membership to the FWH honors community.

Wishing you the best of luck in everything that you hope to accomplish (you will need it),

The Finals Week from Hell Committee

We are currently accepting nominations for the FWH scholars program. If you would like to nominate yourself or a friend, please leave a comment with:

Name:

School/Company:

Reason for nomination:

This weekend I have been very mean. I told someone I barely met that he seems self-absorbed, stuck-up, and artificial.

People tell me to not judge until I really know a person. Everyone makes judgments. Who is to say that after I hang out with someone a few times I can claim to know him or her anyway. At some point, we need to make a judgment about each person that we interact with, and that judgment determines the degree and nature of future interactions. What they really mean is to not voice your judgments, and even then, it only applies if it is a negative judgment. Five minutes after I meet someone, I am allowed say she is very nice; but if I say she seems like a bitch, immediately I will be attacked with snide remarks about not judging others.

Can we ever say that we can really know anything absolutely? Everything we perceive can be reduced to nerve signals in our brain, and our interpretation of those signals. Every interpretation is a judgment, for example, when I judge a collection of thin rectangular signals to be a rectangular prism. Look at it from a different angle, I process more signals and realize it is a cylinder. Watch it over time, and you realize its a melting cylindrical ice cube.

In social relationships, every experience is a signal, and our judgments are formed from a series of experiences, which can change from two dimensional to three and four.

Why do we all keep silent about our criticisms and negative judgments? Why is it better for us to verbally repress ourselves while preserving mental judgments? Verbally expressing those judgments is the only entry point for one to change his or her thoughts; it gives people opportunities to either corroborate or dispute your claims. Thus, without saying negative things about people, we would continue to harbor these negative thoughts in our minds while pretending to be a cheerful nonjudgmental person. Expressing negative thoughts is the only way for any progress to ever be made. Repressing them and only reiterating the positive results in stagnation and solidification of the status quo.

The caveat is that after voicing your opinion, you must be open to changing your opinion if presented with counter-evidence. Expect your assumptions to be challenged, since that is the entire basis for the merit of voicing them. Don’t let the first, second, third, or infinith impression be engraved in stone; rather, know that your impressions of people are only transient incomplete portraits filled in by a collection of experiences. People are like physical systems: they are impossible to study because in studying your subject, you perturb the system. People are constantly changing; as soon as your portrait is finished, she has already grown into different person.

Someone told me today to “be the bigger person”. I say: Wipe off your moral superiority and realize that we are all on the same playing field.

Mood: 4 obviously in a mood to rant + lonely after my friend left + possibly PMS

Physical Tiredness: 3 AM and have class at 9

Spiritual Tiredness: 4 Physical tiredness leaking over into spiritual + nervous about future + talked about MCAT

Full of confidence, out-going, extraverted, loud, attention whore…

It doesn’t matter what label you choose nor what connotation you assign it. I enjoy putting myself in the public eye, exposing uncensored my strengths and vulnerabilities for others to learn from, laugh at, or judge, without any concern how others perceive me. This unshakeable trait of mine results in two possible portraits:

Assertive, not afraid to put herself out there. She knows what she wants and gets it done. Other girls should learn from her. She…

• Straight-up tells guys that she likes them, asks guys on dates if she wants to go out, no tolerance for wishy washy guessing games or sad pathetic nights alone whining about how no one likes her.
• Volunteers on the spot for talent shows to perform lame hip-hop routines
• Sings the loudest in karaoke and dances when everyone else is still
• Sings in the bathroom stall and continues singing even when other people walk in
• Lets others make fun of her and likes it
• Tells embarrassing childhood stories voluntarily
• Loves to take social risks, because to her, there are no costs. Her aura is a selective membrane, letting through rewards but impermeable to negative social impacts.

On the other hand, she …

• Can be the most embarrassing girl to take on a dinner date. She will talk loudly, snort when she laughs, has the worst table manners, and most likely drop a plate or two. Everyone in the restaurant will stare at you two, then make snide comments to their companions about the degrading etiquette of young society, and probably also internally make a judgment about Asians.
• Farts, burps, and all manners of unpleasant bodily functions without hesitation
• Can come off as rather rude, because she doesn’t waste effort pretending to be cordial to people she could care less about. At the same time, she doesn’t give a rat’s ass if they do think she is rude. This results in her coming off as snobbish and cold.
• Will tell you the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it. If you ask for her opinion, be prepared to absorb a blow (just in case – she can give favorable opinions too, and frequently does!) This can result in her being seen as “mean”.
• On most days looks like a slob, and doesn’t care if you think she needs a shower.

Is Crystal really this self-absorbed force field against all social judgments?

What do onions and Crystal have in common?LAYERS! [Best joke in Shrek]

Of course she isn’t. Everyone cares about how they are perceived by others. In fact, that is probably the most important criteria for happiness. How do we balance this need for social acceptance with self-reliant happiness?

I think it is all has to do with the struggle to be independent. Although at a superficial level, it seems like I do not care about anybody’s opinion, I actually care much more than most people. I allow my happiness to depend so much on one person (usually my boyfriend). It killed me after I broke up with my last boyfriend that he was the one to stop liking me. The acceptance of others was so important to me that I could not accept myself. Perhaps how much you care about others’ opinions is a zero-sum game: you can only allocate a certain quantity of caring among certain people, and I just happened to distribute it completely to my boyfriend and zero to everyone else.

This is a trait that I am still trying to improve, and I think that this recent long stretch of being single has been healthy for me in that regard.  I am learning to like myself more without anyone’s validation. Like I said, social relationships are an act of balance – I just happen to put way more weight on one end than average.

Mood: 4 Stress + tests + concert rehearsals + going to fail because I suck at physics

Physical Tiredness: 3 Not enough sleep last night + stress induced insomnia

Spiritual Tiredness: 4 no time to think about it, must survive the week and make it to the weekend…