23 March 2014

One of the 1%

I wonder if they know how it feels, those knife-eyes on the street, the picket-sign waves of the 99%, outside my office. I wonder if they have lived my rather yacht-less, mediocre 1-bedroom apartment life. My suit tailored with bleeding, pricked hands in the middle of the night in my kitchen, next to the drip-dripping of a faucet that our landlord has promised us to be fixed but still isn't, smashed dishes strewn across the ground from a fight that left me here alone with our son, barely asleep in the next room.

I wonder if they see through me, entering the workplace in the morning in my grandfather's old jacket and changing, ashamed, in the bathroom before I begin my day on the floor. I wonder if any of the wandering subway-sitters notice me and think anything of this seemingly scruffy man getting on at the Wall Street station.

The beggars on the train plead with tears in their eyes that I spilled on the floor of the hospital, hands shakily taking the scan from the light box of my son's small body.

Leukemia, they told us it was.

Since that day, my life began to be defined by sterile white walls and the sickly smell of too-clean fluids. A new page wiped clean of joy with rubbing alcohol which only stung our eyes and hearts. The insurance company wouldn't give us anything after they learned about the condition, and then of course She left in grief.

So I look at these picketers and bitter folk, and question What was I to do? 

I bluffed my way to the trading floor with only medical fees in mind, yet they continue to make me feel guilty for the riches I have apparently stolen from them, for the weekends I do not spend holidaying away from my son's bed, for the checks I hand off solemnly and dutifully to the white-coats; they continue to spit at my ugly faux-leather shoes and scream injustice as if my life were better than theirs.

I wonder if they know what it's like, seeing their angry faces and feeling shame and embarrassment for my profession, the only thing that will put food on the table and keep my son alive. I wonder if they would trade places with me if they did.

On days where I feel soulless, I am probably twice as bitter as any of them -- and it is not because of greed.

22 March 2014

springbreak or something

Hi it's spring break!

The first half of the semester is terrible and makes me want to bury myself in a cave.

This sheep is me and the fence is CS124.


But spring break is fun! I went skiing for the first time for real (I have technically been once before but never got off the bunny slope and nobody really taught me properly so I decided that it doesn't really count as skiing) -- we went to Butternut Ski Resort in the Berkshires (Western Mass / North NY state) and stayed at Adam's grandparents' place. I learned to pizzawedge and turn and it was fun, though I move at the pace of a snow snail because I am afraid to crash into a tree. Did a few runs of the mountain over the two days, and I even did some "more difficult" trails! Though I never once made it down the mountain without falling derp. Alexpong has a great video of me falling for apparently no reason after moving a vertical distance of about 1m.

skiing success!

This was additionally an excellent opportunity to try out our cooking chops (hehe, puns). So, we took to the supermarket and bought ingredients for 4 days of cooking :3 We ended up broiling strip steak with mashed potatoes and green beans for the first night, chili and cornbread for the second night, stirfry for the third night and short ribs + egg noodles for the last night. Of course, interspersed with Josh's apple crumble and banana bread and bacon and omelettes in the mornings, this meant that we ate like kings. We wondered why HUDS could not provide such quality on a daily basis.

broil broil broil drool


We also watched the Lego Movie yesterday in our rest day. I really miss having the time to go out and watch an inordinate number of movies. I suppose it also puts some relief on my wallet but still, the time is swallowed by the abyss of CS124 and I dislike it very much.

So after those few days in the snow, we took to the van again and drove down to New York City :) Alex nearly crashed trying to parallel park, but I probably would have crashed it for real. I managed to meet up with Tony also, since his spring break coincidentally lines up with ours. We also ate more noms food like ramen, desserts at Spot, 20c dumplings with hand pulled noodles in Chinatown, and sushi~
---
coconut cheese cake with coconut + basil ice cream!

look its a tony

omg my phone screwed up this entry due to parallelism problems so i had to reupload everything :(