so far | explore dream discover

Grad school…

Takes a lot out of you.

Which is why you need lots of coffee.

On most days, I make (meaning I press a button) coffee to-go. But on this day I’m on spring break, so I get to drink out of a mug.

As well as eat cereal out of a bowl while, get this, taking my time.

I spent most of break on this couch. I read a lot and wrote a lot and slept a lot. I originally wanted to take a trip, but turns out being a grad student means having very little money. Just like being a professional means having very little time to spend that money.

The universe thinks it’s funny.

Being a wallflower goes against what our professors tell us. The industry doesn’t favor wallflowers, they say. We must seize the day. Say our piece. Be in people’s faces.

But I think that assumes too much. Wallflowers see the world differently. They listen and absorb, and speak only to add value. They too seize the day, say their piece and get in people’s faces. Just sneakier. And, dare I say it, smarter.

A reminder there’s life elsewhere.

This needs no explanation.

Postcards from different places, mostly New York, quotes and, ahem, manifestos, drawings by me and others, and some ad-like objects from first semester.

My apartment has become a shrine for all the things I don’t have time to read. Here lie the magazines I subscribed to back in the days I had just a little more time to read them.

I love that desk. It just sits there, looking pretty.

So there you have it, friends. I’m still alive. I still have much to tell you.

April 27, 2012

The Days So Far

Happy Friday, friends!
Hope you get some well-deserved rest and good ol’ fun times.
Oomch oomch oomch.

4 comments

February 10, 2012

The days so far

Step 1: Watch Scrubs. Step 2: Eat pizza while watching Scrubs. Step 3: Nap. Step 4: Start. #howtowriteonasaturday

— Karen (@karenmaywrites) February 4, 2012

And that’s how I spent my Super Bowl weekend.

Other than that, I’ve been so beat this week I haven’t had energy to write patent-related ramblings (Stop that. You, with the pumping of the fist).

Luckily, that’s what pictures are for. Here’s a few days in my life.

On my way back from a meeting at City Bakery, I looked to my left long enough to walk back to the middle of the crosswalk and snap this picture. If that cab looks like it’s gunning for me, it’s because it was.

City Bakery, by the way, is the kind of place where you have to be vigilant about finding a table at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday. On the upside, there’s never a need to fill awkward silences because no such thing exists there.

The roomies and I are trying to do this thing where we get together more than once every leap year.

Though I’ll always refer to them here as my roomies, one of them actually moved out months ago. Still, it’s not uncommon for New York roomies to never see each other. Which is not always a bad thing.

One Wednesday, the original plan was Buffalo Cantina for dinner, land of buffalo wings and more buffalo wings. But when I found out there was a creative nonfiction panel at Housing Works in SoHo, I dragged everyone to, you guessed it, a bookstore. The buffalo wings (and it’s not every day I say this) had to wait.

I wanted to hear about a piece I’d read some time ago that explored why Asian males, despite doing well in academic settings, usually don’t successfully climb the corporate ladder. Turns out New York Mag editors, as editors tend to do, had assigned the story to a writer with a tenuous connection to the subject matter: “You, Asian guy. You’re up.”

One night in Park Slope, a friend celebrated his birthday at Pacific Standard. Presidential debate playing in the background with very serious spectators in attendance? Check. One dude adamantly arguing about why shark fin soup is a symbol of this generation’s disposable nature? Check.

It was That Kind of Night.