So, last week, I traveled to Boston for the weekend.
Yep. Weekend before finals, when everyone else is studying, I'm on a 6-hour plane ride to the east coast.

Why?




My sister, got her masters at freakin' HARVARD. Yeah.
My parents do compare me to her. -_-
Even my friends' parents compare their kids to her. haha.

But then, thanks to a little thing called Twitter, I noticed that Wesley Chan, of Wong Fu Productions, whom I've met a few times, was also in town! So I sent him a little comment on facebook, and forgot about it. Just a small, "oh, i'm in bawwston too lolz!"
So After the commencement ceremony, the family and I were eating at a vietnamese restaurant near Harvard Square. I'm bored, so I check my phone, fb, twitter, and then i notice, Wes just @reply'd me.

"wai, lay hai been doh lah? wanna meet up?"
Cantonese for, "Hey, where are you?"

So, like a giddy schoolgirl, I msg, and type as fast as I can on my phone, to iron out the details, give him my number, and sure enough, he texts me, we meet up at the Harvard bookstore (known as the Coop.)

And I get to hang out for 3 hours with one of the coolest guys ever.





Whilst it was cool, getting to talk about stuff, shoot the breeze, he did keep making me pose for these "impromptu" photoshoots. Like if we'd see a graffitied wall, or a cool moped, Wes would go into photography mode, and it'd feel HELLA awkward. But i admit, his skills are cool, and the pics do look epic.




After Boston, I traveled to my hometown less than an hour away. Manchester, NH.

And I took a walk down this lane....you might know the name.

(psst. it's memory. memory lane. get it? course you did. you're smart.)

Oh man. Nostalgia overload. I felt like I traveled 7 years in the past. Some things had changed, but mostly it'd stayed the same. I'd forgotten how small-town and rural it was. Some streets are soo effing dark at night. They need to install some more streetlights.




That was the last house I lived in in NH. Man. East Coast homes are so much better than the ones we have in Alameda. Seriously. No basement? Oh yeah earthquakes.


I went back to my old middle school (though I only attended for 6th grade.)



AND My elementary school (from grades 4-6). I tried going in, but some lady yelled at me. haha.




Met up with childhood friends I hadn't seen in almost 8 years!

Crazy stuff.

It all seemed so surreal. Puberty does weird things to people. haha.

As much as I like to distance myself from this place, I have to admit, it did feel a bit like coming "home". Sure, I don't know the city at all, since we moved before I could learn to drive, whereas I could get around Alameda super easily, 12 years in a place does something to you. Good and Bad.

I started thinking. What if?
What if I had gone away to the East Coast for college?



Back in High School, I did look at a few schools on the east coast, mostly in Boston, that interested me. While I was visting, I stayed at my sister's apartment in Boston, which was right by Suffolk University, and looking around, I really liked the campus. The whole city has this sort of classic, brickhouse, old pub style to its architecture. And I was thinking, wow, I wouldn't have minded going here for college.

What if?
What if I had gone to college in Boston? I used to think, I could never leave CA and go that far. I wouldn't see my friends for like, 9 months out of the year. Then again, I'd be so much closer to all the friends I'd missed out on for the past 7 years. Fair trade?

I wonder if there's some alternate reality where I am in Boston for college. I wonder what he'd say to me.
Then again I bet he'd be some abercrombie-hollister wearing douchebag.
Haha. I kid.



I miss that town, I miss the faces.
Can't care to erase, Can't care to replace it.
I miss it now, I can't believe it,
So hard to stay, too hard to leave it.
I could relive those days
I know the one thing that would never change.

Every memory of looking out the back door,
I have the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor.
It's hard to say it,
Time to say it,
Goodbye, goodbye.
Every memory of walking out the front door,
I found the photo of the friend I was looking for.
It's hard to say it,
Time to say it,
Goodbye, goodbye







Oh and gawd. One thing I miss so much.



Dunkin Donuts is the greatest. Period. I don't care for Krispey Kreme. It's ALL about the dunkin.
Their coffee is so good. I'd get theirs over starbucks any day.
California needs to get some more.

I saw this post via 8Asians.com and could relate all too well.
This was basically my childhood growing up.






Patricia Pham of Joplin, Missouri who produced a short segment for Current TV talking about the difficulties she experienced with alienation, adolescent issues, and identity conflicts from both white and Asian people. As to the name of the pod, called A Pale Shade of Yellow:

I tried hard to be white, and there were people who hated me to trying to be too white. And then I tried to be yellow again and there were people who hated me for being too yellow, so I tried to be a paler shade of yellow to please everyone, and there were people who hated me for being a little too white; and so I tried to darken up a bit and there were people who hated me for that too.

So all I’m left with is something in the middle; not yellow nor white, not one thing or another. Just something halfway in-between.

It’s the teenagers dilemma and a sociologists wet dream and troll fodder for the usage of the phrase “trying to be white” — but when you’re growing up as a teenager in Joplin, Missouri, you don’t necessarily care whether you’re too white or too Asian; you basically want to be accepted. And that’s what hit me like a ton of bricks about this video.