Read Valentines Day Part I

I realize that today is Pi Day, 3.14, which means it’s been exactly one month since Valentine’s day, 2-14. Nevertheless, perhaps the long wait for the next installment has made it all the more exciting. Like when I read one chapter of Detective Conan Manga and can’t find out the solution until next week (>.<) but the wait makes the actual experience all the more pleasurable. Or maybe not, but I’ll update you all the same. Mostly because I just finished studying for my biochem final tomorrow, and I need a study break before embarking on a 14-page book review of How Doctor’s Think by Jerome Groopman.

If I could have nine lives, one of those would be as a competitive figure skater. Watching the Olympics this past month, I yearned to actually be really good at something. One thing. I’ve even taken three months of classes in high school. But instead, I’ll just content myself with being moderately more intelligent than average and a moderately better skater than the average person who sort of stumbles onto the ice and figures things out.

My first time ice skating was on Christmas Day in Washington D.C. with my family when I was 14 years old. It was nighttime; other than yellow Christmas lights strung on the trees, you couldn’t see much else outside of the ice. So despite the bustling city surrounding us, the illuminated ice rink and seemed like a haven in a dark ocean. The soundtrack to this memory is slow, jazzy Christmas music. There were only a few others on the ice. One boy about my age, or maybe a little older, was really cute and just skated around and around the circumference. He seemed to be thinking very deeply about something, hiding his face in his large green jacket and scarf. I tried to skate as well as I could, to impress him. I don’t think he was even distracted.

“What? You’ve never been ice skating before?” I was shocked.

“Nope, I prefer to snowboard.”

“We’ll have to go sometime.”

But almost the entire winter passed and we never went. We were both busy, and ice skating didn’t really seem like something you just did when you wanted to hang out. It was one of those things you said you would do sometime, but never expect to getting around to do it.

That’s why I really was surprised when he told me, “We have to finish brunch, because I have a surprise for you. I’m taking you ice skating!”

Hieu trying to ice skate for the first time