When you do start feel like it's home? When do you feel like it's your city, your people, it's your home? When you do stop feeling like a vistor, and realize that it's your time, your life, your journey to the infamous death. Like a baby open his eyes, but see and understand for the first time, when did that happen? Do you know? Do you remember?

Heard from my girlfriend in cleveland. She met her dream man, a hot gentleman who shares her passion, her view, in a hotel lounge. She is thrilled,and scared, excited but also struggle. She told me this beautiful story of an old married couple. The woman was driving down the highway, then her car broke down. The guy passed by her broken car, thought about stopping,but didn't, and then, just as if fate has decided for them, or God has arranged for their destined meeting, his car somehow broke down too at that moment, later, they can't find anything wrong with his car at all.:),and that's how they met, that's how they've been married for the past 60 years.:)..Sweet sweet story, isn't it. It is sad for me to realize no matter how hard I try, I simply no longer believe in stories like that any more, I believe by sheer random chance, story like that should happen, I simply no longer believe that it will happen to me, it's like I believe that someone should win lottery if you keep on playing, yet I stopped putting any hope, energy or money into that basket. Am I so jaded? It's like I so awakingly watch my body, solidify, concrete covers the flesh so I won't ever get hurt again, but inside, deep inside, still beat a child's heart waiting for the prettiest fairytale, wildest dream, waiting for my knight or shrek show up on his stallion or dunkey, :).

Somehow, I resent it, resent for having to work hard. For everyone else who is working hard, who is competitive for making this game so hard, and because of this resentment, I'm not at peace. I try to fight it, to slack off as much as I can, but then I'll feel guilty, I try to work, then I feel guilty for being comformist, for not taking care of myself, not having outside activities. I'm stuck in the middle, can't make up my mind, I work hard then I play even harder, i'm afraid of going to sleep, for losing time, I'm afraid of slowing down, afraind of thinking too much. In the end, I'm living in a fast forward mode, I keep on adding stuff to my plate, before I can finish anything, I keep on inventing new stuff to work on, new people to talk to. In the end, I'm afraid, laying there half awake, thinking of what has happened, and what may or may not happen, thinking of here again, alone again, in the end, i'm alone, and i'm afraid. so I stay up all night, so I can go to sleep without thinking.

:), always like the line from "Shrek", right now, it's certainly working hard, working really really hard. I don't thin I've worked this hard or intensively for quite a while, haven't been this clueless for a while. Kept on gettting flash backs from when I was in high school, but somehow, I'm still not sure how much I want it, maybe this is the key, I put myself in a competitive enviroment, so I don't have a choice but to at least keep up with everyone, at least be as good. I might accidentally become a great scientist, by then, I would thank everyone who has pushed and challegned me, rock me to the core about my ignorance.

Brand new facilities, brillant minds, hard worker. It's hard to believe that in a diverse city like this, you can gather such an intelligent yet somehow homogenous group of people. Everyone has a strong academic background, stanford, berkeley, columbia, everyone has a lot of research experience, people may have diverse background, a lot more asians, chinese, indians, but under the different skin tone is always a great scientific mind. 12 to 13 hours work, 6 or 7 days a week, life is slaving away as such, yet everyone is enjoying it. In the temple of science, the monestary of truth, we are single minded monks whose life is dedicated to something mysterious and bigger than ourselves. I am conflicted about not have a outside life, or just throwing myself into the hot, hard, sweaty, monotonous life of being a scientist? Right now, I'm hiding in my little place playing on-line game addictively, refusing, in denial about making a choice, or the unavoidable path..Good night and good luck.

 

I hasn't been back home for 4 years, I no longer remember how my folks look like, how tall my brother is. Home, is a long lost memory, sweet and far away. I waited and waited, for the one day that I vacation trouble free, for the day that I don't have to choose between leave or stay, between fun or duty..hope is a like a flickering light in the wind. Today, I was told that there is no safe way, today I was told as I progress, as the game escalates, so are the stakes, today I was told I should weigh my decisions and maybe,just maybe wait longer, say another 3 years, 5  years...I felt the anger and sadness stirring inside me. It's not fair I want to shout, why can't I leave, I'm innocent, I'm intelligent, why can't I enjoy the best of two worlds guilt and trouble free, it's not fair. Yeah, it's not fair, but whose fault is it? Isn't it me who chose to come and stay, isn't it me who grow myself up here now I have to stay? Isn't it my fault  that young naive me signed the paper work to experience the america, experience the world. What were I to do, I have no regrets, just anger and sadness.

     An hour and half drive, from Davis to San Francisco, from farms flat like pancake, to a crowded Edwardian house on the top of a big hill, from sunny sunshine day in and day out, to overcast, or clouded if I'm lucky. From summer to fall, from a 16 years old who just enter a college to a 26 year old who just get out of school. 10 years, an hour and a half drive, my life just passes me by like that. Like a marble piece in the game of chinese checker, I jumped from cleveland,via Hawai'i and Davis, finally to SF, what now? Where to next.:)

     An old city with power lines hanging ridiculously low above the street,civil engineer would criticize about the safety issues, old wooden houses that are ridicoulsy expensive lining the somewhat dirty streets, young people who dress without a fashion sense, or who are cool to care about appearance walking on the sidewalk. Compare to Chicago, to my favorite cities that are clean, modern,  that are expensive looking, San Francisco looks like a shack. If Chicago represents the glamorous sexy goodlooking guy that I'm fatally attracted to, San Francisco is like a badly dressed geeky genius science friend who has a lot of potential and is full of surprises, but is never agressive or ambitious enough to become another Chicago.  But in the cool air, in the kindness of the locals, in variety of smartly decorated and chefed small restauraunts, I start to like it, I start to fall in love with it, I kept my eye wild open to observe the fleeting facial expression of all pedestrians, kept my ear open for all the small talks, music playing..If this is the place I choose to be for the next several years, if this is the place I'll call home for the next chapter of my life, I better better start to know and love him, and I am. SF, here I am...