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agreatmisadventure-blog · 9 years ago

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FAQ: Student Life at Le Cordon Bleu

I get a lot questions, both online and in person, about LCB so I thought I'd compile a list for any prospective applicants and curious readers. If there's something you're still wondering at the end, feel free to message me.

Why LCB?

I found that most culinary programs in the US last 2-4 years*, and after finishing up my undergrad degree I just wasn't down for more years of schooling. So LCB's ~9 month program really appealed to me. It's the alma mater of chefs like Julia Child and Giada de Laurentiis and, besides, it's in Paris!

*Longer programs are more well-rounded in the sense that the curriculum typically includes the business and management aspects of the industry; LCB is strictly about learning traditional recipes and techniques. So if you're serious about cooking school, do lots of research to get a sense of what you want out of your education.

Do you need to have experience?

No. Many students come in as amateurs (i.e. home cooks and bakers looking to take the next step), although some will have had previous culinary education and/or have worked in restaurants before.

How do you apply?

Online. You provide your personal details and compose a personal statement; if you've applied to college it's a pretty similar process except that you don't need recommendations. You do not, as some people have asked, need to send in a sample of your work.

The school doesn't release statistics regarding acceptance rates, but there is a hefty nonrefundable application fee (700€ as of 2011) that I'm sure is at least partly designed to keep less serious applicants out.

Is housing provided?

Unfortunately, no. After you've been accepted, the school will provide a list of resources to find housing, but for the most part these are simply real estate agencies. This shouldn't be a problem if, like some of my classmates, you're changing careers and have years of savings in your bank account. For people like me, who have been students for most of their lives and aren't so financially endowed, agencies are prohibitively expensive.

If your French is good, Appartager, Le Bon Coin, pap.fr and Se Loger are all useful websites for finding rentals or flat-shares. It is also possible to find sublets on Airbnb. Stay away from Craigslist, though, because 98% of the ads are scams - the people who post there know that most visitors to the site are foreigners and will try to take advantage.

Just for reference, the school is located in the 15th arrondissement between Vaugirard and Convention on Metro line 12.

Do you need to speak French?

Technically no, but you'll have a much better experience if you do. Classes are divided between demonstrations and practicals, but there is only an English translator present during the former. Most of the chefs speak - at best - limited English. And trust me you'll get better marks (if that's important to you) if you speak French and can suck up to communicate with them. If you anticipate doing an internship after graduation, then you absolutely should be proficient in speaking.

What are classes like?

Demonstrations take place in a classroom-like setting, with the chef up at the front going through the designated recipes for the lesson. Practicals take place in kitchens where you must reproduce said recipes.

What is the schedule like?

It depends. If you enroll in the Grand Diplôme (i.e. both cuisine and pâtisserie), expect to have class six days a week, 6-9 hours a day. If you're only doing one or the other, you will essentially be a part-time student. Unless you are in an "intensive," in which case your schedule will be like what it is for Grand Diplôme students. Those doing a diplôme in cuisine or pâtisserie should expect to have at least one intensive, although you should be able to choose which cycle.

And if you really want to know what it's like inside 8 rue Leon Delhomme, I suggest you pick up a copy of Kathleen Flinn's The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry.

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 9 years ago

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Tales From the Inca Trail, Part 3

On the third day we had a 4 am wake-up call (a throwback to my days as a baker) with a planned departure at 4:30, but in the night one of our group had come down with a nasty stomach bug. The guide went tent to tent asking for medicine, and I gladly parted with my small bottle of Immodium tablets that I, thankfully, hadn't needed.

At dinner the night before, our guide had gone over the plan for day three many times, breaking it down into sections: up from the campsite to the ruins of a lookout point, then up to the pass, down 3000 steps, lunch at Wiñawayna, passing through the checkpoint by 2:30 pm, one hour trekking to the Sun Gate, another hour to Machu Picchu, and hopping on the last bus just after 5pm to take us to nearby Aguas Calientes, where we would stay in hostels. But, of course, nothing ever goes completely according to plan.

Shivering in the darkness broken only by the beams of our headlamps, we followed our guide single file out of the campsite and onto the steep trail, too sleepy to talk. The incline wasn't terrible; I was more concerned for the stretches to come, which our guide had described as "Inca flat" (making undulating gestures with his hand). In addition to making the last bus to town, the goal of the early departure was to be able to see the sunrise from the first ruins, but it was far too misty and foggy. Nonetheless, the mountains were spectacular, and the haze only lent an ethereal, mystical quality.

Onward we pressed to the third pass, where we'd been promised cell phone service to get in touch with our father. My brother called him, and learned that mom had suffered a combination of altitude sickness and dehydration, but was doing much better. They would be waiting for us in Aguas Calientes. I Instagrammed the first of many photos. We joined the rest of the group for a brief respite but, unlike others around us, ours had opted to set up for breakfast a bit further along the trail.

From the breakfast point to Wiñawayna, the trail* passed many other ruins that begged to be explored. Our pace put us somewhere in the middle of the pack, and even though we'd thought we were making good time, we dared not dally too long. We later learned that we had barely missed the cut off for seeing Intipata, the last and loveliest of the ruins, for the group not far behind us had been told to skip it and go directly to the lunch spot.

Lunch was a welcome yet slightly stressful affair, as the slowest trio in our party had yet to arrive and time was ticking. Our guide seemed calm but I noticed how he kept checking his watch. Indeed, for the first time, we were encouraged to eat quickly, and by the time we had all donned our packs again it was past when the checkpoint was supposed to close. Our guide used a walkie-talkie to communicate with someone at the station and, thanks to my moderate proficiency in Spanish, I could immediately tell he was trying to persuade her to keep the checkpoint open for us. It worked. But, still, we were behind schedule and still had two hours of hiking to go.

Onward we trekked, occasionally pausing for snacks, water and photos, but with the pressure to make the last bus to town bearing down every more heavily. Finally we came to a brutal set of stairs so steep it was like a ladder carved in stone. This must be it, I thought, we're at the Sun Gate! For the first time I was glad that I didn't have poles because I could go up the stairs on all fours - the only method that seemed safe when the hefty pack on my back threatened to make me topple backwards. I reached the top before my brother and his girlfriend, and therefore was the first to realize that we were not, in fact, there yet.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I couldn't help but yell at the gorgeous scenery.

Fortunately the Sun Gate was quite close and, for the first time, we caught a glimpse of Machu Picchu. But, once again, we had precious little time to revel in our accomplishments thus far - we still had a bus to catch. The anticipation of finally reaching Machu Picchu was reinvigorating; particularly the prospect of snapping photos of it devoid of tourists, as the park would be closed by the time we arrived.

It's hard to sum up what it felt like when we finally stood at the end of the path overlooking the famed city. Exhaustion, exhilaration, wonder, and pride are just a few of the sensations that come to mind. When we got to Aguas Calientes not long after, and Cuzco a couple nights after that, I found it hard to readjust to civilization. In just a few days on the Inca Trail I had become so used to the silence, the mountains, and the stars at night; the feeling of simply being engulfed by nature. Months later, now that I'm back at home in the Bay Area, which is full of traffic and light pollution and people interacting through the medium of technology rather than face to face and still saying things that they don't really mean, I long for the simplicity of myself and my backpack making our way through the world.

*By this point the trail was maybe 2 feet across, with no railing insulating trekkers from a very steep drop-off.

#peru #south america

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 9 years ago

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Tales from the Inca Trail, Part 2

The porters woke us at 5 am, rattling the side of our tent and offering a choice of beverage (coffee or coca tea). (Nothing like a hot stimulant to get you going before dawn)! We had forty minutes to get ourselves together and head to the mess tent, so that the porters could start breaking camp, after which we downed a hasty breakfast and ultimately hit the trail by around 6:30. Thus began The Climb.

For reasons relating to end-of-rainy-season mudslides, our guide had decided it best to forego what is usually the third night on the trail and condense the journey into two nights and three days of trekking. But, even so, anyone in our group (okay, maybe not the girl who caught a stomach bug on the second night) would tell you that the second day was the hardest. For the first two hours we hiked upward through "high jungle" (picture dark, damp, lush forest) before emerging onto a small plain that housed another campsite, and second breakfast. (Hobbit life ftw). It was a welcome break, but we knew that the next stretch would be even more challenging.

Ascending from the campsite, the path was steeper and completely exposed to the elements, which included alternating bursts of intense sunlight and misty rain. Recall the most difficult, burning leg exercise you've ever done in your life and imagine that lasting for hours. Oh yeah, and with a thirty pound pack on your back! Squinting ahead, we could just make out the nipple on so-called Dead Woman's Pass (by a stretch of the imagination it resembles the profile of a woman lying on her back), which is where the path descends in endless stone steps laid out by the Inca. Hearts and heads pounding from both the altitude and sheer exertion, we weren't the only ones having to make frequent stops.

Finally we made it to the top, a victory made slightly bittersweet by the overwhelming fog that ruined what ought to have been spectacular views of the valley on both sides. Regardless, we gratefully dropped our packs and snapped some pictures before setting off into the white mist. On the way up I had given myself encouragement by thinking that going down would be easier, but in some ways it was perhaps even more challenging. The steps were steep and uneven, making my legs quiver and turn to jelly. My pace outgrew that of my brother and his girlfriend's (they had trekking poles; I didn't), but in waiting for them it became apparent that stopping on the stairs was harder than continuing. Not to mention that by that point I really had to urinate. Call it an extra spring in my step.

The others reached the campsite not longer after I did, and even though we had leisure time between a late lunch and dinner, everyone was much too exhausted to socialize. I think we all slept well that night.

#peru #south america

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 9 years ago

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Tales from the Inca Trail, Part 1

Back at the end of March, my family (parents, older brother, older brother's girlfriend) and I embarked on one of our most arduous adventures yet - hiking the Inca Trail from its beginning just outside the town of Ollyantaytambo, at Kilometer 82, to Machu Picchu. At 43 kilometers, the three day journey through the Andes also comprises hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of meters worth of elevation change. I would even go so far as to say that it made our nighttime trek up to the summit of Mt. Fuji seem like a casual stroll in the park by comparison, even though all of us are reasonably (perhaps even remarkably) fit.

As per the tour agency's guidelines, we arrived in Cuzco two days prior to trek departure in order to acclimate to the high altitude. Having lived quite close to sea level for my entire life, I was concerned about how the change would affect my body. I noticed how I tired quickly and more easily, simply by going up flights of stairs and wandering around Cuzco's historic center, but other than that had no symptoms of altitude sickness. The night before we were meant to leave, as we all stuffed and zipped and tightened the straps on our brand-new 60L backpacks, it began to dawn on me just how woefully unprepared I was. From the wardrobe of performance outerwear I had tried on but hadn't ever actually worn, to the gadgets and products hastily purchased via Amazon Prime mere days ago, I had a brief premonition that I may very well soon be suffering like Cheryl Strayed did at the outset of her Pacific Coast Trail journey as humorously and viscerally detailed in her book Wild. At least my hiking boots fit and were somewhat broken in.

Anxiously we waited in the lobby of the guesthouse, until a bus rolled by at a quarter to five in the morning, headlights bobbing along the dark cobblestone street. It pulled to a halt, and a man with a clipboard came to the door, checked our names against his list and led us to the coach, where we joined a small group of sleepy trekkers and porters who would comprise our team. After collecting the rest of the group, the bus wound its way up and out of Cuzco toward the small town of Ollyantaytambo, about two hours away, and whose modest main square was already crammed with the buses and vans of other tour groups also stopping for breakfast and last-minute purchases. (I bought a sunhat that I would later regret not wearing, when I wound up with a sunburned scalp and forehead).

Re-boarding the bus, we pressed on via unpaved roads so narrow that when we passed vehicles going the opposite direction, I half-expected to hear the screech of metal on metal. At Kilometer 82, we stopped and disembarked with all our things, put on the first of many coats of sunscreen, and donned our packs. I watched the porters, local farmers approximately my size and stature, take on loads that made ours look like a joke in comparison. (I would later learn, through our guide and by observation, that the porters carry double the weight that an average trekker does yet goes about three times the speed).

In the beginning everything went well - the pace was moderate and we stopped for frequent breaks, allowing our guide to offer history lessons and, I suspect, to buy the porters more time to set up for lunch. It was challenging, particularly when the path began to veer sharply upward, but not overly so, and the scenery was unparalleled in beauty and grandeur. "I want to see mountains again, mountains Gandalf!" I thought.

After several hours of trekking in the hot sun, we reached the campsite designated for lunch. The crew applauded each one of us as we entered the site. They had erected a large mess tent with folding tables and stools, where we sat and were presented with a three course meal followed by hot tea. Satisfied and slightly sleepy, our guide granted us "siesta" time before departing for the site where we would make camp for the night. I sprawled onto the grass, gratefully removing my shoes and wool socks, feeling confident for the first time that I could do it.

Then our guide hurried up to my father saying, "Your wife is asking for you." And everything changed.

Frantically we put our shoes back on and followed him, to where my mother lay on the ground, abrasions on her hands and face, bruises blooming on her cheeks. Two women from a different group had found her, face down. Apparently she had taken a wrong turn coming back from the bathroom and fainted. One of the women was an ICU nurse, and had already rolled mom onto her back and tended to her wounds by the time we arrived on the scene. It was strange to see her so disoriented, weak and having trouble breathing, when just minutes before she'd been her usual chatty self at lunch.

Thank god for the ICU nurse because all of us - even my father, an experienced nurse himself, was too much in shock to do much. The nurse did as much as she could, but quickly found that the emergency medical equipment was insufficient; the portable oxygen tank leaked and the blood pressure monitor was faulty and failed to give a good reading. But one thing was clear: mom couldn't continue. As I knelt behind her, supporting her upper body to a somewhat upright position so that she could drink water, I couldn't help but think of the fate that had recently befallen a college classmate's father. (He was hiking in Patagonia with his wife when he had a sudden, fatal heart attack). I was scared, more so than I'd ever felt before, and I realized that I fear more for the lives of the people I love than I do for my own.

A rudimentary stretcher was produced, which the porters affixed to two wooden poles on either side, and padded with the sleeping mat mom would no longer need. Carefully they placed her body on top, covering her with blankets and securing her with the bright, multi-colored textiles that local women carry everything from babies to firewood with. By now she was cold and her eyes were fighting to stay open. It was decided that two porters and the assistant guide would carry her back to the trailhead and procure a vehicle to Ollyantaytambo, accompanied by our father. She would get medical attention, and then our parents would meet us at the end of the trail in Machu Picchu. The lead guide turned to my brother and I and asked what we intended to do.

We glanced uneasily at each other, thinking the same thing. Mom didn't want us to stop on her account, but if there were something seriously wrong with her, we'd never forgive ourselves for leaving her side. Plus, in the event of an emergency, there would be no cell phone reception until reaching the third pass two days hence. I was reminded of when I was abroad in China and learned that my ailing grandmother had decided to stop taking all her medications, essentially resigning herself to imminent death.

Exiting the campground, the stretcher bearers took the left fork, back the way we'd come, while we took the right, which led onward. It pained me to watch my parents going back to Kilometer 82, knowing how excited they'd been for this trip. I thought of the smiling selfies they'd texted in weeks prior of them training and doing practice hikes, and wanted to break down and cry. It wasn't fair. Things weren't supposed to happen this way. For the next two hours my brother, his girlfriend and I walked in subdued silence, wondering if we'd chosen the right path. By the time we made it to camp, darkness had begun to fall and most of the tents had been claimed. I purchased a much needed beer from an entrepreneurial local.

By the end of dinner, the porters who had carried mom returned, saying that at a rest stop a local had volunteered to take her the rest of the way down on the back of his motorcycle. I wondered how she had managed to sit, seeing how feeble she was. My parents and the assistant guide had found transport back to town, and that was all he knew. I thanked him, then returned to our tent and eventually descended into restless sleep.

See more of the Inca Trail here.

#peru #south america

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 9 years ago

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Tales from the Inca Trail, Part 1

Then our guide hurried up to my father saying, "Your wife is asking for you." And everything changed.

See more of the Inca Trail here.

#peru #south america

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 9 years ago

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Cusco in Photos

Some highlights from our family trip to Peru at the end of March. See more here.

#cuzco #peru #south america

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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Vanishing Acts

The Canadian author Emily St. John Mandel first came on my radar when my mother mentioned her debut novel, Last Night in Montreal. In it, protagonist Lilia wrenches holes into the lives of the people she touches by constantly leaving. Partly it's to escape the law, but she's also running away from herself - avoiding confinement and being tethered to one place and one identity. Her life is one of endless reinvention and freedom. Lilia refers to each instance of taking off to start over somewhere else as "vanishing." And, to my mother, I suppose, I have a habit of vanishing too.

I relate to the notion of being drawn to change; of always needing something new; of knowing how to leave but not knowing how to stay. I left my hometown for college in another state. Two weeks after graduation, I moved to Paris. When I was done with France I traveled the world for three months. I made my home in San Francisco for a year. I went abroad again. I came back and took a new job that I love, and yet I can't help but wonder how long it will take before I am drawn away. Every time I throw myself a goodbye party, my friends ask me if I'm coming back and, if so, when.

I am the type of person who never stops asking questions and being curious. It means that I can learn new things quickly but, by the same token, it's hard for me to be content in the place I'm in. Because I never stop wondering what is going on everywhere else. Because while most people strive to attain a tangible equilibrium, I thrive in a state of flux.

I feel more restless than ever, now that I'm 25 and more and more of my friends are getting married, starting families, buying properties and generally becoming rooted through mechanisms that are not easily broken. It terrifies me. For if there is such a thing as hell, my idea of it is not so much a specific place, but rather the understanding and acceptance that I am stuck there for the rest of my life.

Continuing the tradition of spending my birthday in a city and country different from the previous year, I spent my first several days of being 25 in Montreal, a place I'd been wanderlusting after for quite some time. Not even halfway into the five-hour bike tour we'd taken to get acquainted with the layout of the city and its neighborhoods, I found myself thinking, "I could live here."

I loved the external stairs and balconies where, in summer, people sit, smoke, drink and eat; the parks, like in Paris, that are perfect for picnics; the way people greet you with bonjour; the bike-friendly roads; the back alleys where people hang their laundry using pulleys; the patios and terraces; the lively buzz from having over 100,000 students clustered near the city center; the markets; the mish mash of cultures; the townhouses and condos - more formal than pastel San Francisco but less austere than London's brick with iron balustrades; the cafes and coffee culture; the French street names; the blanket of solitude that seems to cover Parc Mont Royal; the bring your own wine restaurants.

I can't say when it's going to happen but, one of these days, I'm coming back for you, Montreal.

See more photos from this trip here.

#montreal #canada

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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It's the Freakin' Weekend (Baby I'm About to Have Me Some Fun)

I'm still reveling in the after-glow of a glorious long weekend reunion with a few of my dearest college friends up in Marin. Since we graduated in 2012 and have been kept apart by new jobs, new schools and different time zones, there's something comforting in the way that, when we come together, it's like no time has passed at all. We slip into our old selves, filling the space around us with silly voices, wild laughter, poop jokes, semi-serious talks of our dreams and recent disappointments.

Maybe I'll write more about it later, or maybe I'll just cherish the memories for myself...

#usa #california

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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The Seaside

Some snaps from last week's day trip to Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea (talk about pretentious nomenclature, sheesh). Thoughts and reflections coming soon!

See the rest on Flickr.

#usa #california

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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The Bedside Dispatches

Around Thanksgiving of last year, my grandmother decided to stop taking all of her medications. Between the diabetes, the blood thinners, the Parkinson’s, and God knows what else she didn’t divulge to us grandkids, she had been taking some fifteen to twenty pills a day. It was a Big Deal; a decision with untold consequences for her and the rest of the family.

Had she lived 560 miles north, in Oregon, perhaps she would have opted for assisted suicide. But in California, where she’d resided for most of her life, the only option she had was to wait or, as she put it, to “let nature take its course.” It sounds poetic and dignified that way but, in reality, the last days are anything but.

***

I remember crying when the test results came back with the Parkinson’s diagnosis, several years before the present but many months after the tremors first started. (It had taken my mother and her siblings a long time to convince her to see a neurologist). We had recently said goodbye to my other grandmother, but mostly I was stricken with the sheer unfairness of it all.

Not long after losing their own mother, an older sister and her lewd husband brought my grandma from Manhattan to California thinking that their father would comp the transportation costs; he didn’t, and grandma was promptly ditched at an Oakland orphanage. Realizing that no one was coming back for her, she started working as household help and did well enough in high school to attend the University of California Berkeley, where she met my grandfather.

Married life brought grandma immeasurable happiness and prosperity, but despite such hardship early on she’d been dealt the trump card of bleak prognoses: an incurable degenerative disease. Sometimes I wished she had cancer instead.

***

“But Parkinson’s isn’t fatal,” people said to me on the rare occasion that I spoke up about her condition, as if not being able to do the things you once loved to do and, eventually, eat or talk weren’t a big deal. There is no coming back from a degenerative disease. Modern medicine can mitigate and perhaps delay the symptoms, but they will get worse. My grandmother didn’t have it as bad as some do in the early stages, but she had read the literature; she knew the hellish half-life she would eventually be reduced to and she didn’t want it.

Others seemed to think that it was my duty to change her mind, convince her to go back on the meds and prolong her life a little. But to what end? You cannot help a person who doesn’t want to be helped. (I know from the multiple false starts in behavioral cognitive therapy it took me to finally overcome an eating disorder). These same people are part of the group that doesn’t fully grasp the concept of quality of life until faced with the abject lack of it. To try to force her into staying alive longer just for our benefit would have been selfish.

Besides, I had already seen my paternal grandmother go through the motions: losing driving privileges owing to an accident covered in the local paper, being deemed unfit to live alone and then, after taking too many falls, requiring full-time care and moving from senior apartment complex to nursing home. Bedridden, wheelchair-bound, confused about which year it was and even who we were when we visited — for most of the time that I knew her she was a mere vestige of the woman she once was.

With access to advanced technology and medicine, we are obsessed with quantity over — and sometimes in spite of — quality. We automatically assume that a longer life is a better one. My paternal grandmother was 97 when she passed away, and during the last several years of her life she’d frequently say, “I never meant to live this long.” If I had asked any of the other three elders who shared a room with her in the nursing home, I’m sure they would have said something similar.

***

I was in China when my parents broke the news about grandma’s decision, and several days later I was back by her side to assist in the hospice care efforts. It was a confusing and difficult time trying to reconcile the sweet, generous optimist that I grew up with, versus the frail, withdrawn woman who dozed on the couch all day and whose routine (formerly waking early, gardening, sewing and running the household) had been reduced to watching Charlie Rose at noon and otherwise flipping between news channels.

The grandma I knew had a healthy appetite and would stock the fridge with things you liked if she knew you were coming, and so in the beginning I convinced myself that she was depriving herself on purpose. After all, with assisted suicide off the table, self-starvation seemed the next logical step. But then I read the pamphlets provided by hospice and realized that it was an inevitable part of the process.

Pretty soon she would take in nothing at all. Pretty soon, she would fall asleep and not wake up again. But in the meantime we all had to watch her grow ever thinner and weaker.

***

Whenever grandpa asked if he could do anything she’d say, “I wish there were a button I could press so I could just end it all.” She was almost petulant in her desire for it to be over. How could she know, how could any of us know, that even without all the meds it would be a matter of weeks and not days?

When, the second week of December, a beloved sister-in-law passed away, she said, “Oh, I wish it had been me. She had so much more to live for.” Tears stinging in my eyes, I wanted to grab her bony shoulders and scream, “What about me? What about us?”

I hated myself for being frustrated with her; she was dying after all. And what are weeks of difficult, child-like behavior compared to years of birthday and christmas gifts, handmade dresses and happy memories?

Whoever first said that love conquers all was, at best, delusional.

***

We all offered to help — turning her, transferring her between sofa and wheelchair, adjusting pillows, but at first she would only accept assistance from my grandfather. I get it; sixty years of marriage breeds an intimacy so strong that it diminishes the awkwardness of being sponge bathed and changed, but as I saw him don a back brace and lose his balance (not while holding her, thank God), I began to worry about him almost as much as I did her. I couldn’t imagine ever reaching that level of closeness with another person.

Who will take care of me when I am infirm and unable?

My mother often says that old age emphasizes “essential” personality traits (mostly, I believe, to explain her own father’s many eccentricities), but I preferred to think that my grandma had already departed this world, and that the figure that grandpa wheeled into the kitchen every morning (still alive, to her chagrin and my relief) was just a shell that would soon be cremated and reduced to ash. I tried to love her as best I could, but she had changed.

***

I would sit with her in the living room, almost afraid to look at her for fear that I wouldn’t see the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest. The nurse said that her heart was racing to maintain a resting rate, which we all knew wasn’t sustainable. She hardly spoke any more, and when she did it was only to ask for something — a sip of water, a change of channel.

Some days I made excuses to stay away. The monotonous blare of CNN and BBC made me more informed of current events than I’d been in months, but her complete disengagement from her surroundings stung. And it pained me to see how small she had become. With all her fat and muscle tissue wasted away, she developed a bed sore — a combination of chafing and sitting too long and her sacrum tearing through the fragile skin that caused her great pain.

***

Against all odds, she made it to Christmas, and then New Year’s. She was too weak by then to protest against people other than grandpa helping her.

What’s harder to change: a baby or an elder? Our eagerness to help, matched only by our fear of failure, led to clumsy ineptness. A frantic, disorganized mess.

***

By January her once plump figure had truly diminished to wrinkled skin hanging off the bone. And she was always cold. “I’m sorry for all the trouble,” she’d whisper as we finished up.

“No,” I found myself saying as I pulled the blankets back over her, “I’m sorry.”

She looked like a child in the XL twin hospital bed that we set up when the combination of bed sore and sitting became too much, peering over the covers at the TV. It was hard to tell if her eyes were open and if she was asleep or not, but as I leaned over she’d sense me, give a small smile and say she was fine.

Trepidation crept up every time I checked because I knew that there would soon come a time that she wouldn’t open her eyes, wouldn’t smile again, or have a witty response at the tip of her tongue. In hindsight, a sharp mind trapped in a useless body seems the cruelest kind of imprisonment.

***

I think she would have laughed to know that it ended with a bowel movement. She asked us to change her, but her stomach was still clenching, so we waited. And then she was cold, so we covered her back up. The convulsions proved too much for a body with nothing left to burn, for not long after I tucked her in she stopped responding and began panting for breath.

Truthfully, it was an awful noise like a sound effect from The Walking Dead, but my fear retreated when I realized what was happening. I worried that it would take hours, but the movement, the breath — everything — ceased about thirty minutes later.

I just hope it didn’t hurt.

***

She had tried to say goodbye months earlier, that night I first left for Asia, but I was stubborn and refused to believe that it would be The Last Time. So I hugged her and gave her a kiss — I remember her cheek being damp with tears — and I said, “Don’t worry, I’m coming back.”

I wish I could remember what exactly it was that she had told me moments prior, something about achieving success in everything that I do, because that was it. Our last real conversation.

***

I held her hand the whole time, and when it was over my uncle made the appropriate phone calls. First the hospice nurse, who came and called the time of death and filled out some paperwork, and then the morgue, who sent two men in dark suits and wool coats. What a strange job it must be to wear fancy clothes and wait by the phone for tidings of death, then give canned words of comfort while asking if the deceased has any metal in her body — a pacemaker, maybe? They filled out more papers with answers we gave numbly.

I pressed my lips to her forehead one last time, then stood back as the men lifted her onto a gurney, zipped her up and took her away.

Ruby Doshim Lai (b. July 26, 1929) passed away in her home, surrounded by family, on January 10, 2015.

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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Falling in Like (Part II)

"So while I teeter between anger with myself for not admitting how I feel and anger at him for not figuring it out, neither of us can be blamed. (Or we both can.) Without labels to connect us, I have no justification for my feelings and he has no obligation to acknowledge them." -- Jordana Narin, "No Labels, No Drama, Right?"

This is for the cumulative hours spent getting ready for first dates. (Or seconds, or thirds). For the agonizing moments between when your phone goes off and when you actually look at it; your hope that it's him quickly dashed by the press of a button. For pretending that it doesn't matter when he changes or cancels plans because you resolved long ago, even before Gillian Flynn hit the proverbial nail on the head, to always be the Cool Girl. For the algorithms designed by faceless, nameless engineers who think that they can analyze, quantify and execute a connection between two people.

This is for suppressing the butterflies in your stomach before you see him and, later, the urge to picture what a future together might be like - the places you'd go and the things you'd do. For the note (since deleted) that you made on your phone when you brainstormed potential birthday presents for him. For the book you read and the movie you watched that you know he'd like. For life's unexpected moments that you wanted to share with him, like that time that will.i.am was seated about twenty paces away from your spot on the pastry line but, oh yeah, you deleted his number.

This is for missing the rhythm of his heartbeat as you lay next to each other with your head on his chest. For taking his hand in yours during movies even though it was always slightly clammy. For his scent, and the tiny imperfections that were only really noticeable up close; the ones that made him endearing and prevented him from being impossibly good-looking and therefore unapproachable.

But memory is like a mine field. And when you eventually look back with clear eyes free of tears and something verging on objectivity, you tell yourself that the signs were there all along - his avoidance of certain subjects, the ever-increasing response times to your texts, and the way he never introduced you to his friends and roommates, as though you were invisible. Or the fact that he miraculously had tampons and makeup-removing face wash in his bathroom the first time you spontaneously slept over. How many others have already come and gone before you? It's as though you are interchangeable while he goes about getting his fix, beholden to only himself.

So when he told you, in no uncertain terms, that "things" would not "work out" in the "long run," why were you so surprised? You had been careful not to mention commitment, exclusivity, and other key words that implied any kind of recognizable togetherness, because you had thought it better to see him on his terms rather than not see him at all. Even so, you weren't prepared for this: that the demise of a non-relationship still hurts as much as an actual break-up.

After all, this is supposedly what people your age do. Go out, mingle, juggle multiple partners at once ("partner" being used, of course, in the loosest sense of the word). Dating just to date in a sociotechnological ecosystem that fosters an attitude of always being on the lookout for someone better; the promise of a good match just after the next swipe left. There are no rules any more, no guidelines or advice to follow. In a bygone era, he was expected to take care of the bill. Now when he puts his credit card on the table it feels like a transaction. (Either that, or maybe he's just from the South). Do you go home with him after? Kiss? Something more?

Your generation was spoon-fed female empowerment and ownership over one's body. Yet when you leave his apartment the next morning - you in last night's clothes, he freshly shaven, showered and ready for work, something in the dynamic has shifted. Because even before you say your goodbyes, you know that you'll be the one waiting for him to text, to call. (And, of course, you'll answer when he does).

Around and around you go, feigning intimacy while pointedly avoiding the conversation that will either make what you have into something more, or break it. Until one day, you take a deep breath, and out comes a watered-down version of the mental speech you had prepared; an automatic self-defense mechanism that shows you care but not too much.

Regardless of how he extricates himself, you will never get a satisfactory why. Maybe he's sitting next to you on his couch when he tells you it's over, or texts you, or simply responds less and less before ceasing altogether ("ghosting," we call it). Closure remains elusive (for how can you break up if you were never truly together?) and yet afterward you feel as though missing something that almost was and now never will be.

The next match comes along, and whether it's out of spite, bravado or misguided optimism hoping that you won't end up back where you started, you say, "Game on."

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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Falling in Like (Part I)

The following has been kicking around my Documents folder untouched for at least five years, with minimal editing rendered just now. Re-reading it has illuminated just how little I've changed in certain respects since adolescence.

Skinny jeans. Hoodie. Hapa. He would be the archetype to my type, if I only had one. But instead my romantic track record is embarrassingly short; too limited to discern patterns and analyze. If my love life were a map, the few guys I’ve dated would each be a continent unto themselves with oceans between them and no clear path from Boy A to Boy B. Just random and spontaneous as they each, at different times, stumbled into distinct stages of my life. A romantic might interpret this as fate, but I know better. Looking back, I can trace each one to luck, coincidence, alcohol, or some combination of these factors.

Why is it so hard for me to date someone I’m interested in considering that it’s so easy for me to pick him out of a crowd? I have a pretty good idea of what I like, what I’m attracted to, and yet… As soon as these feelings begin to rear their heads, and my mind receives the first inklings of a crush coming on, I clam up. I just shut down. This is the phenomenon I’ve come to recognize as falling in like. (It’s a lot like love, you know, and while it doesn’t usually last as long, I assure you it can still be just as painful). As an experienced victim, I can tell you that it’s a cruelly counter-productive cycle doomed to repeat itself upon recognition of a new crush, until perhaps the day that I decide to stop being so painfully shy and/or meet my hypothetical soulmate.

It begins with an encounter. Maybe I took a class from you, or we made eye contact at Starbucks, or I accidentally eavesdropped on your conversation and desperately wanted you to know that I, too, love the movie Spinal Tap. Maybe I briefly entertained jumping in with a, “You can’t dust for vomit,” but then reconsidered because we are strangers, after all, and so that would just be sort of awkward. Regardless, the point is that something about you draws me in, despite the fact that we’ve probably had little contact. I can’t pretend that I’m not above appearances, but usually this becomes secondary to Things That Actually Matter, like your professed interests and sense of humor.

After the romantic interest has dawned, next comes the fixation. This is the worst part for me, since it typically involves an awful lot of agonizing over whether the attraction could ever be mutual. (98% of the time, I arbitrarily decide that it won’t). Like most people my age, I will attempt to learn things about you via any and all social media platforms you’re using. But not in a creepy way – more like I’m preparing myself for deep conversations about things we have in common that will probably never take place.

Because here’s the kicker: if I like you I probably won’t talk to you. Trust me, it’s not because I don’t want to; it’s just that I can’t. As in even the thought of making small talk with a Person Of Interest can be enough to give my heart palpitations. Actual conversation is grounds for cardiac arrest. What can I say? In many ways I am still a child. Nevertheless, I will continue to scheme up ways in which our contact could be increased, most of which will never come to fruition. And all the while you have the easy role of being blissfully unaware of my inner turmoil.

I wish you could read my mind, ask me out, and save me from my silent struggles - a combination of a shy disposition, intense fear of rejection, and lack of self-esteem. I guess you could say that I fall in like how normal people fall in love, seeing as I’ve had crushes that reached that level of intensity and lasted about as long as your average adolescent relationship.

In other words, if I like you, it means I like you a lot. But sadly you will probably never know. Either you will be replaced by a new object of my intangible affections, or else I will inevitably succeed in convincing myself that actually pursuing you is somehow too scary or otherwise unadvisable. I will move on but not forward, and that, my friends, is the difference between like and love.

#personal

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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Sutro Baths

Sometimes when I move to a new city I'll hear about an interesting place and think to myself, "Cool, I'll visit later." But then weeks and months go by and suddenly it's a year later and I find myself thinking the same thing.

Well, here's another one crossed off the list.

I finally checked out Sutro Baths - formerly a privately owned swimming pool in the nineteenth century and now a lovely place to get away for an afternoon when you need a break from all the reminders that you're living in one of the nation's most expensive cities. Behold, some photographs.

#san francisco #usa

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Being Young

In Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, which I watched on a rainy afternoon in DC, a childless forty-something couple (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) befriends a twenty-something couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Identity crisis as well as confrontation of social pressure and expectation ensue. At first, the older couple feels inspired and revitalized by the boundless energy and free-wheeling lifestyle of the youths. But after a certain point, they come to realize that there is a limit to the things that they can do at their age (or are they just succumbing to the conventions of society...), ranging from the superficial (wearing fedoras and brogues unironically) to the practical (embarking on spontaneous trips) and the biological (having children).

Meanwhile, the younger couple embraces everything that previous generations eschewed in favor of new technology (e.g. vinyl records, VHS tapes). They're fun and seemingly free from the responsibilities expectations that befall their elders, but they also have no money, ever. And yet they have a chic industrial loft in Brooklyn. (It becomes a running joke that whenever the twenty-somethings go out with the forty-somethings, the former never even attempts a courtesy reach for the wallet, instead leaving the latter to foot the bill).

The juxtaposition of two couples' everyday lives and the unfurling of their friendship is masterful but, of course, the everything gets derailed. Stiller's character becomes convinced that Driver's is out to destroy him. Their ideological differences fissure and threaten what was once a promising mentor-mentee relationship, for those who grew up in the age of the internet regard everything as public property, good for the remixing and appropriating. To them, truth is mutable and malleable. Stiller's character cannot abide by that mentality, and for that he appears obsolete. And because both male characters are documentary filmmakers, authenticity, veracity and verisimilitude all figure heavily into the story.

Youth has luck, blind ambition and the power of reinvention on its side. And, ultimately, that's what the older couple misses - not the actual packing up and moving somewhere on a whim or doing hallucinogenic drugs, but rather the possibility of being reckless; of having the option to make decisions that lead to drastic changes while being at a point in life where the consequences are negligible. In other words, being able to fuck up and know that things will still be okay, and to not be held accountable by the world at large; to truly live in the moment with little to no regard for the future.

The film resonated with me not only because I identified with the younger couple (and on a deeper level than just having a penchant for old and vintage things), but also that the friends I visited on my east coast trip were, in their own way, trying to navigate the same issues as the characters.

"I'm glad I got to enjoy part of my 20s," said a friend who, after taking a few years off after undergrad, is heading to medical school this fall.

"Everything I'm doing right now is the result of a decision I made when I was 18; when I was too young to make it," said another, currently a second year med student.

They are wondering whether if by shouldering one responsibility they are sacrificing some part of themselves that they won't be able to get back. Not time, per se, but rather the perception that they are missing out on whatever it is that most other people their age are currently doing, and will do while they're still in school and, later, in residency. It's like youth is merely the illusion of a great long hallway with infinite doors of opportunity that, as the years pass, are more often closed than open.

The year that I graduated, 2012, an essay entitled "The Opposite of Loneliness" was making the rounds on the internet. It wasn't just that it was an impeccable piece of writing that beautifully articulated how it felt to be leaving the place you'd called home for the past four years, but also its author had tragically passed away not long after publication.

...let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They're part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn't live in New York. I plan on having parties when I'm 30. I plan on having fun when I'm old... ...We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.

We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement. - Marina Keegan

The fear. The pressure. The sensation of being stuck on a pre-determined track. While We're Young suggests that they never really go away, but that there is a solution. Both the film and the essay encourage seeking comfort in those around you. For Ben Stiller's character, it's his wife. For Keegan, it's her classmates.

We're twenty-four years old. We have friendships that have withstood cross-country moves and bad wi-fi connections. The best is yet to come.

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agreatmisadventure-blog · 10 years ago

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Dark Tourism

In my junior year as an undergraduate, I took an anthropology seminar entitled Nature, Culture, Heritage from a visiting professor whose specialty was earthquakes. Other than Skyping a documentarian and playing Settlers of Catan during class, what I remember most was my final paper on dark tourism, specifically the preservation of World War II heritage at Auschwitz and Tule Lake. I won't quote my sources (nor myself, even though it's a damn good paper), but the research I did for that project opened up a new dimension of self-reflection.

What does it mean to have monuments that, unlike the Pyramids of Egypt, which are lauded as pinnacles of human achievement, instead serve as repositories of tragedy, trauma and negative memory? What does it say about us that we flock to them in droves and take selfies? This is what I asked myself as I waited in line outside the 9/11 Memorial Museum, driven by curiosity but also dreading what I might see inside.

The museum itself is cleverly designed. Being underground and incorporating some of the remaining foundations of the towers, it feels like a tomb, but I suppose that is part of the point. Hundreds, probably more like thousands, of artifacts are grouped together to help create a painstaking, blow-by-blow visceral account of what happened that fateful morning. Everything from photos, videos and articles to audio, shrapnel and the shoes that survivors wore when they escaped the collapsing building is featured.

The main exhibition is unrelenting in practically every way imaginable - in gravity, in detail and in tragedy. Even if the curators had only half the material, the museum would still be effective because of its location at Ground Zero; multimedia displays aside, its spatial proximity to the actual event is on par with that of Auschwitz. In other words, simply being there changes you.

Arguments against monuments like these generally follow several flows of logic, one being that generating empathy is not enough; that said monuments are politically motivated and thus manipulative; that the coagulation of a collective tragedy commodifies personal experience. For me, the most poignant part of the exhibit was a voicemail from a passenger on one of the planes that hit the towers to his wife. A transcript had been printed on the wall, but one could also listen to an audio clip of the actual message. I did, and felt dirty afterward, like I had violated something sacrosanct between two people who had loved each other. Of course, it was the widow's choice to donate her late husband's last message to the museum, but I still wonder why she didn't just keep it for herself.

I think it comes down to why people visit sites like these. Peculiar souls that are simply drawn to the morbid and the macabre contribute to commoditization like 4chan users to a nude photo leak; they just add white noise rather than substance to what should be an intellectual dialogue. Live and learn, learn and live, and hope that history doesn't repeat itself.

#usa #new york

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