blog & collective

It’s the kind of place where you can sneeze and no one will say, “Bless you.” Some days it’s because everyone else is working from home, some days simply because no one dares disturb the silence. I spend all day with headphones in, living in my own little world filled with music and sound, wondering what would happen if I just unplugged the headphones and sent OneRepublic or Anberlin or Spoon spiraling over the quiet hum of computers and typing. But the air conditioning is cranked up so cold that it makes a fair excuse to wander outside at noon to thaw in the California sunshine over lunch.

I sit at the entrance to the pod, facing a blank expanse of whiteboard marred by the faint, unerasable remnants of protein binding interaction diagrams, reaction free-energy coordinate plots, and Big O notation. Some day I’ll bring a dry erase marker with me to work and draw a porcupine dubiously eyeing O(n²). Maybe someone will notice. Not that they’d say anything. I could take over the desk behind me (the one with an extra monitor and shelves) and face windows instead of this whiteboard, but somehow there’s a sense of security in facing the same direction as the post-doc who’s overseeing my project. He never really turns around, yet I’d prefer that I see him on Facebook than the other way around.

I start each workday the same way. Before sitting down, I stow away my keys, pull out my laptop and charger, set my work notebook and a pencil down on the desk, plug my laptop charger into the outlet in the floor then my laptop, and put my backpack on the ground. Then I spend approximately the next 8 hours wondering if anyone can see my feet from the hall, and why I’m here instead of modeling this beta-1-adrenergic receptor from home. I guess something about the silence makes me feel obligated towards productivity.

So here’s to another day at work.

Sometimes when I’m around people, I want to be alone, but nowadays it’s more often that I’m alone and wishing I could be around people. Now that I am home for the first extended period of time for Thanksgiving break, I can’t figure out what to do with all this silence but fill it by singing out loud, blasting music, cooking, wandering, and turning things on and off. My parents have been in San Francisco since I got back, so the house is extra quiet. I love it like this–the darkness I haven’t seen in months, the stillness of a night in my hometown, and the ease with which I can find the familiar constellations in the sky. But at the same time, I crave the rambunctious mayhem caused by college students living in close quarters with one another.

Another weird thing about being home is the way I have to rein in the college me just a bit. I definitely got more vulgar in the last couple months… not entirely sure why. But in any case, I’ve got to tone that down at home. Then there are the things that have nothing to do with me, but I should be careful anyway. For example, at the moment, I have Daniel’s pantry key with the rest of my keys, and it’s attached to a crappy little bottle opener that says COLLEGE TONIGHT on it. Therefore, note to self: DO NOT LEAVE KEYS LYING AROUND. I don’t use it; I don’t need it; it just came attached with the pantry key, but my parents will probably throw a fit if they saw it. Then there would be a big production of arguing and explaining that is completely unnecessary. So. To avoid such a production, I’ll just keep my keys in my pocket or in my room under a book or something.

This blog needs a green layout. I have just decided this.

Taking 20 units this quarter was probably a really bad idea, but I’m pretty sure I’m getting A’s in at least 2 of my 5 classes, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. In any case, this break comes at a very opportune time, for more reasons than academics. To keep it cryptic, obsession doesn’t suit me. A week plus lack of proximity is a good thing.

Shippo is coming back SOON. So excited!!!

A quote from some recent writing, mostly because I promised:
“His father frowned. Kenneth Simmons was an associate professor of chemical engineering at Penryn University, a leading researcher in oxygen generation, and an old-fashioned father. He expected nothing less than perfection from his firstborn, and the fact that he’d arrived to find his son flailing around on the floor of Penryn Central while his sisters watched on, bemused, was not something he would stand for.”

It’s funny how some little things start bothering me. Superficial things–things that don’t matter that much, but they bother me for one reason or another. Maybe I’m just obsessive-compulsive and perfectionist. I assure you, this is nothing serious. It’s just I really need a haircut because I can’t tie my hair up in any reasonable way without it exploding all over. And I don’t have bangs anymore, and haven’t really had them since January, maybe.

So I did sort of die after that last post. I did pretty badly on the chemistry midterm, but passably. As in, I’m hopefully still in B range. Not a good sign, but I’m working on it still. However, in pulling an all-nighter to write my entire research paper, I got sicker and sicker as the night went on and finally gave in at 5AM in favor of sleep. The sun was coming up outside though, so I took a walk to clear my mind a bit–wise choice in that I felt psychologically better, but bad choice in that it probably made me sicker. I feel like in the past few weeks I’ve been on the verge of breaking, but the good things keep me anchored.

I ended up very sick that weekend, and went home to sleep and eat home-cooked food and recover. Home pampering is so basic yet so comforting at the same time. Just the familiarity of my bed, my dog, and my books (I reread half of Harry Potter 7 while recuperating), or knowing where to reach in the kitchen cabinets or when to turn in the hallway at night in the darkness–it just makes me feel a little better. I also never realized how much I cherished darkness until Thanksgiving break when I went home and noticed the moonlight on my blinds instead of the streetlight outside my dorm window that never goes out (not even at 5AM, as I figured out the morning I got sick). I guess I’m just a solitary creature that revels in the anonymity of darkness.

Everything eventually pulled itself together. My paper got written (thanks to much on-the-fly research), my last IHUM paper ever got written (with an extension from one of the best TFs ever), my unknown compounds in chemistry lab got separated (thanks to a very helpful TA), and I actually woke up yesterday morning for 9AM chemistry lecture. Good times!

In other news, I’ve been randomly writing a bunch of Erica-Derek stuff (all on Parting Pigeons), and here’s a revision of a short I wrote after Ben Roth left his away message as, “Wake me up somewhere I recognize.” Enjoy.

Aftermath

“Wake me up somewhere I recognize,” he murmured.

Erica glanced at where he’d rolled over to face the wall. “You okay?” she asked.

He whimpered in response and curled into a tighter ball, his arm cradling his head and shielding his eyes from the brightness of the overhead light.

Sighing, she got up from her desk and closed her laptop. “I won’t lecture you now, okay?” she assured him, switching off the light. He looked so miserable in the corner, groaning at regular intervals. Softly, she knelt beside him with her blanket in her arms. “Come on, don’t catch a cold,” she whispered, wrapping it around him gently.

He shifted as she tucked the corners of the blanket under him. She slid down beside him, her camisole catching slightly on the wall. Once seated, she rearranged herself so she sat cross-legged and eased his head into her lap, her cotton plaid pajamas soft against his cheek.

“Muh…” he muttered. “Don’t ever let me do that again…”

“Shh…” she murmured soothingly, rubbing his back in slow circles. “We’ll talk about it later. Why didn’t you tell me you felt so sick?”

He didn’t reply, just sighed. They stayed there for a long while–not that Erica was keeping track of time. Even though Derek felt miserable, they were content just to coexist in that small space. Between them, so much could be said without words–she knew what he meant when he shifted against her leg and sighed, and he knew what she meant when she played her fingers down his arm and laced her fingers with his. So they stayed there together until he stopped making unhappy sounds and finally settled down. Quietly he brought their laced hands to his lips and kissed her fingertips gently.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, her hair glittering in the faint moonlight streaming in from the window. With her free hand, she stroked his hair and massaged his scalp until his breathing evened out. She tried to relax, to focus on the rise and fall of his chest and shoulders, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what she might say when he woke up again. The what-ifs and maybes kept running through her head, all the things she could say, all the things that were too strong, too wrong. And if she feared anything, she feared driving him away.

But finally, she drifted asleep right there, her head dropping to her shoulder as her worries floated away.

Derek woke up sore and uncomfortable. After a moment, he realized he was on the floor, and a moment later, he discovered Erica curled half around, half against him. In a slow series of revelations, memories of the night before came back to him. Quietly he swore to himself. Things had gotten way out of control. Thank goodness he had Erica. “I don’t deserve someone as good as you,” he murmured to her sleeping form. Shifting, he wrapped his arms around her and held her, hoping he would never have to let go. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Word Count: 514
Completed: May 12, 2008
Last Edited: June 3, 2008

I never realized that I hadn’t posted “Venture” yet. So that’s what I’m doing in this post.

“Venture” was a short story I wrote during senior year, around late October when I was starting to feel the CW: Poetry II induced exhaustion. This story is mostly autobiographical, although a few details were changed for the sake of story flow. It stands on its own, but it was intended to be an exercise in description and tone.

Granted, most of the prose submitted to Saratoga High School’s literary magazine, Soundings, was sappy writing, but I was surprised that “Venture” was chosen to be published. Looking back on it now, over a year since it was written and six months since it was last edited, I’d say it could use some revision, but here it is.

Venture

I flipped the keys in my hand for a bit, half-heartedly debating my choices. With a deep breath, I fumbled for the house key and opened the door. It had been a stressful day. Between a physics test and sorting out club elections, the day had completely tired me out. The thought of going to the library to do math homework seemed like more work than it was worth, so I dropped my backpack and books on the dining room table.

My dog, Amber, ambled up from the hallway, tail wagging in circles like a jump rope. She offered her favorite toy to me, her eyes still squinty from napping. I looked at her, watched her wiggle as she held her toy up higher against my leg. I pushed her away like I had so many other days, but then I realized that with my dad on a business trip, she had probably been sleeping all day instead of wandering outside like she usually did when my dad was working in the yard. She looked so forlorn watching me as I slid into a chair to start my homework. Her ears drooped, and her tail slowed to a vague sway. Giving in, I mustered up the energy to snatch her toy from her mouth.

I ran around the dining room table with her at my heels, socks and paws slipping on the smooth hardwood. Together, we skidded into the kitchen and out the back door to the deck. In one smooth motion, I threw her toy past the stairs, over the lawn, and into the open space beyond the well-trimmed grass, the part of the yard my dad calls the orchard. The familiarity of the game–the rhythm of paws pounding along the deck, the rustle of bushes as the toy landed in almost the same spot it always did, and the whines of frustration when Amber couldn’t find her toy–all overwhelmed me as I realized how long it had been since I’d ventured into the yard.

The crisp air seemed the same as it always had those many times when I came home from school and had to let myself in through the side gate. That was when we still put Amber in her fenced run in the yard, and I’d let her out when I got home. Just like today, she was always full of pent up energy, and I had to throw a tennis ball just to keep her from jumping up and knocking me over. Those were the days when I didn’t worry about having to stay up past midnight finishing homework, the days before I spent every possible moment trying to focus on school. I used to wander around the yard then, just taking in the sights and sounds around me.

Still sock-footed, I stepped down to the flagstone path. Amber ignored me as she rolled in some tantalizing smell on the lawn. I passed the ash tree and mentally compared its height to my vague memory of the sapling I helped my dad plant back in elementary school. My dad told me that ash trees grow fast, and before I knew it, it would be as tall as the grand pine that we had to cut down when it got infected by parasitic beetles. I still missed the rope swing that only a sturdy pine could hold, but I was too young to have retained any other memories of the big tree.

I passed the bench where I used to stand and taunt the dog next door before I got Amber. He was a sad little Shetland sheepdog named Duncan who, after complaints from the neighbors about his barking, had his vocal chords removed by Animal Control. As I glanced at the fence, I could still hear his breathy attempts at barking while he threw his small body against the boards. He scared me back then, and I used to sneak around the yard and up to the fence, trying to see how close I could get before he noticed me.

Soon, I reached the rough-hewn steps that led down to the orchard. From my vantage point, I could see the cactus my brother planted from a piece he took while running a cross country meet. It flourished in the far corner of the orchard where sunlight was plentiful and the sprinklers rarely reached. Closer, there was the tangerine tree, the first tree my brother taught me to climb. I almost lived in it during the spring, when night-chilled tangerines surrounded me as I perched in the branches. I smiled at the broken lamp beneath the tree, for it had been crushed underfoot many times when my brother and I leapt down without checking where we would land.

I stepped halfway down the short staircase and ducked under the handrail to walk along the narrow ledge that bordered my grandmother’s garden. Before she planted the space with cucumber vines and acorn squashes, I had grown sweet peas and sunflowers here. Too lazy to put on shoes to water my plants, I always walked barefoot along this narrow ledge with the garden hose in hand.

Continuing on the ledge, I passed the cherry trees too young and fragile to climb, and the spiny orange trees I only climbed when my dad wasn’t around to defend his prized oranges. I found the spot where my brother and I built an aqueduct for a short-lived garden civilization. We entertained ourselves for hours walking roly-polies on brick bridges over miniature rivers fed by the hose.

Through the foliage, I glimpsed the unfinished hut on its stilts near the back of the orchard. The deck was littered with last autumn’s debris, mixed with the yellowed leaves of this year. My brother and I started building the structure when I wanted a tree house, but with no suitable trees in the yard, we settled for a raised hut. It would have been one of our greatest backyard accomplishments, but college came and went for him and high school cluttered my schedule, so the hut was left a bare skeleton among the fruit trees.

By then I’d reached the end of the ledge, so I leapt off just as I had when I used to water the garden. The jump had been a stretch then, but now I found myself landing easily on the path. I walked slowly back to the deck, each breath of autumn familiar yet foreign to my unaccustomed lungs.

Later, as I sat down at the dining room table to start my homework, I heard Amber come storming back in through the flap on the back door. She wiggled to me again with her toy in her mouth, eyes bright this time and fur glistening from her roll in the grass. Her tail beat at my legs, and she nudged my elbow with her nose, leaving a stray line across my calculus homework. I laughed and put my pencil down. Taking her head in my hands, I scratched her behind the ears, then hugged her tightly.
She smelled like outdoors.

Word Count: 1188
Completed: October 28, 2006
Last Edited: March 5, 2007

You, my reader, have no idea how many times I’ve tried to write this blog entry. I’ve been writing it and rewriting it since last week because I never get around to finishing it. But, as a true procrastinator, I am about to hit my deadline for the last post of October (it’ll hit in about 32 minutes). Therefore, creative juices are flowing, and I’m writing that much more prolifically in order to post before this layout expires.

So I was sick for most of October, although I’m pretty much well now. I also met my first college midterms and papers head on and ripped them to shreds (figuratively). At least, that’s what I’ll be thinking until the grades come back and I found out my professors owned me in the face.

Lately I’ve been embracing college life with a spoonful of insanity, aided and abetted by my fellow insane. Hilarity ensued. I stopped holing myself in my room looking sad. Now I have lots of work to do, but I’m doing the Stanford classic of ducks on the pond: calm and chill on the surface but paddling like CRAZY underneath. Actually I’m doing a lot better than some others. But I really should learn to focus.

There are several things I haven’t done in a long time. One of them is speak in French. French hasn’t completely left my brain yet, which is a relief, but I’m thinking of taking French Language 22 next quarter, since my placement test put me there. Unfortunately that would overload my schedule by adding a good 5 units. That would not be good. But speaking in FRENCH–good GOD how nice that’d be. The second thing I haven’t done in a while is write. I didn’t have that much to do last night so I went upstairs to Gerke and Temple’s room and sat on the floor working on a little Erica-Derek stuff. It’s a relief how easy it is to write those two characters together. The scene I was working on is a continuation of that segment I started a while ago, “When One Captain Gets Sick…” The part I wrote last night is at the end of this entry.

I already finished the layout that I’ll be putting up come November. That’ll be coming Friday, assuming I blog again… Well enough of this blogging nonsense; here’s some writing. Happy Halloween.

When One Captain Gets Sick… (part 2 of who knows how many)

It was seven-thirty in the morning when Erica rolled out of bed to answer the knock on her door. Her sinuses still felt like a herd of boulders had wedged themselves in her nose, but she didn’t feel as sick as she had the day before. She stumbled over to the door and hit the open button. The door slid aside with a smooth swish.

“Morning,” said Derek, grinning.

Erica blinked at him sleepily. “Please shove some pseudephedrine down my throat if you’re going to talk to me.”

“Gladly,” he replied, poking her in the shoulder to direct her back to the bed. She collapsed into it readily, watching him with half-open eyes as he poured her a glass of water and punched out two tablets of decongestants. “Here,” he said, handing them to her.

“Classes today, then?” she asked before putting the pills in her mouth and swigging a mouthful of water.

“If you’re up for it,” he suggested, pulling her desk chair next to her bed and plopping himself down in it.

She set the glass down on the bedside table. “What am I missing?”

“More algebra you probably already know, and we’re moving on to conic sections by Friday. We had some cool discussions in Humanities yesterday–I recorded it for you if you want to listen. Oh and I brought you the chemistry homework that’s due later today, but Lux said you can take all the time you need.”

Erica groaned a vague response and moved her arms to cover her eyes. “What about languages?”

“Subjunctive in French and Spanish. Not pretty.”

“Programming?”

“You know it already.”

She lifted an arm to expose one eye. “How do you know?”

“I looked at your source code from the login fix during orientation week.”

With gargantuan effort she sat up. “You what?”

“I looked at your source code. We’re doing array lists, and you used one way back during orientation.”

“I can’t believe you hacked into my source code.”

“We’re co-head captains. I get the same level of clearance as you.”

“You hacked my source code.”

“I did not!”

“Did too. Am I allowed to eat yet?”

“Just bread. I did not hack your code.”

“Yes you did. Can you get me some bread?”

“Sure, in a bit when the dining hall opens. How would I hack your code without security clearance?”

“That holds no logic whatsoever. You must’ve hacked in! Even Major Johnson can’t see that code if he wanted to.”

“I didn’t hack in! All captain files are shared on the Platt network. Oh and the captains’ rooms are done.”

“You got my files from the Platt–the captains’ rooms are done?”

“Yeah. They told me yesterday, but you were still draining your lungs out your nose with a spoon or something.”

“They finished the captains’ rooms?”

“For the last time, woman, YES.”

“Have you seen them yet? Are they amazing? Evans promised they would be amazing.”

“I don’t know; I haven’t gone in yet.”

“Why not? Weren’t they done yesterday?”

“I’m waiting until you’re better.”

She paused. “You are?”

“Yeah. Besides, I don’t want you spreading germs all around a nice clean room.”

“That’s… practical yet sweet of you. I’m just putting that out there.”

“Well I’m going to briefing. I’ll bring you some bread and bread-like things if you’re not coming.”

“Ugh. Give me one more day of sleep.”

“Then I’m bringing you more Theraflu,” he said, getting up.

“Oh God,” she groaned. “Maybe I’ll go to class.”

“Too late,” he said as he unzipped his backpack and pulled out a folder. “Here’s the homework.” He set it down on the bedside table.

“Mmm,” came Erica’s noncommittal reply, for she was already half-asleep.

Word Count: 619
Completed: October 30, 2007