When my family first moved to the tiny house on Orinda Drive, my sister and I had nothing to do over our vacation. I don't remember the exact date we moved in, but I remember it was a weekend, and I was worried that the fish would die in the moving truck. They didn't. It was summer, one week before the end of the 7th grade (the 5th for Betty). We didn't know anyone, and the neighborhood was new to us. All summer long, we went to the same liquor store to buy snacks and junk food. The owner always remembered us. It's strange, sometimes I feel like I just moved there, but really, almost 6 years have passed. After that summer, Betty and I hardly went back, but when we did, the owner still remembered us.
I remember I had a terrible day once. Friends were no where to be found. Family pissed me off. I took a walk.
I eventually found my way to that liquor store. The owner told me I had grown and how surprised he was that an Asian can grow so tall. Then he asked me about Betty and about the other "little one", which was Savannah. He always brightened up my day just by having such good memory. I told him I was going to be moving to New York for school and he wished me well.
Yesterday, Betty told me she was bored and she went to that liquor store. Ah! I remember the name of it. "E-Z Market". Anyway, she said he remembered her and he asked about me. I guess he forgot the last conversation we had, but Betty told him that I'm in New York. He said that there was something about younger generations growing up in America; they just had to get away from their parents. Then he told her about his daughter and how he would have done anything for her to get into a UC, but she didn't. She still moved to San Diego. It broke his heart.
It's not like that at all, and I wish my mom knew that. She's got this notion in the back of her mind that I moved 3,000 miles away to get away from her. I guess not going home for the summer kind of sets her assumptions the right way, but I really wish she didn't feel that way.
P.S. I was reading NYUlocal and a student wrote an article about having dinner or something with our dean, John Sexton. She told her about her financial problems, how she works 25 hours a week just to be able to afford living in the city. She asked Dean Sexton if he had any suggestions for her problem. (I'm going to quote from the article without giving that student her citation rights but whatev). This is what he said: "Well, for students in positions like yours [According to Sexton himself, close to 60% of the NYU student body!], I have to really wonder if you belong at NYU. Is the debt worth being here?"
What comforting words.
Also, NYU dropped from the #1 dream school in America to #4. This "new ivy league" has been losing it's rep. I mean, with the whole NYU 2031, the renovation of Washington Square Park, and the medical center recently being donated 200 million dollars (wtf doesn't out 52k a year go to anything???), who wants to come here.
I work close to 40 hours a week. It's 5:23. I have to get up at 7:15 for work. I think I spend most of my time working and transgressing my mind from a productive and fulfilling state to a trivial one. WHERE'S THE RED BULL?!
Oh yeah, I want to see Blindness. What is better than Mark Ruffalo + Gael Garcia Bernal?
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