On Dreams and How You Should Pursue Them - Medical Illustration

To anyone in the future who might be reading this,

            This is a late-night rant about me. Somewhat narcissistic because I’m at the centre of everything, but I can’t help it -- it’s the way my life is narrated in my head, therefore I must be the protagonist. And honestly, it’s good to reflect on what you have done to better prepare yourself for the much, much more you have yet to do. No pressure or anything.

            It might be a stroke of good fortune or a convoluted curse that I found out about medical illustration so early on. I was 13, and this is the love story about trials and tribulations, tantalizations and turmoil, turning around and turning up. It’s an interesting story, so far only lived and not recorded. So here is my fate with the love of my life.

            You know those stupid health days that is somehow required for all junior high schools? Usually it’d be a day of running outside, doing some form of group activity tackling some topic like bullying or sexual health (accompanied by lots of immature giggling). You get the picture. These things usually take place on Fridays, and those are half days so kids can’t wait to go home. With acne-covered faces and gawky posture, we thought we were the coolest. Nobody gave a rat’s ass what the teacher had to say about the far future ‘cause it’s simple -- we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I was 13, several months younger than most of my peers, and held similar cynicism towards health days, but taking my future more seriously than most. That is the precise topic on this day. The teacher was talking about our future careers, and I was in the midst of my existential crisis. No, I am not joking. I’ve had this stupid crisis since I was 12, and cannot seem to shake it off. Of course I have not read literature on it and did not know how to name it, so I generally called it “The Pointlessness of Life”. The truth is, at the tender age of 12, I can already see far, far into my future:

I would finish junior high, go into high school, enrol in the International Baccalaureate Diploma program, get into a good university, graduate, possibly pursue some form of post-grad (or not, doesn’t make a difference), and then work a 9 to 5 job until I retire, wonder where life has disappeared to, and then wait to die.

There may be some small variations from time to time. I’d marry someone different; I’d become an artist on the side and sell some of my paintings at those art stores in a mall... But the prescribed plot is killing me. I had too much time to think, and I can’t think of other options. At this point in my life I’ve been academically successful-ish, in the sense that I took over teaching my math class, I got the top grade of my math and science courses, my art teacher loves me, and everyone looks at me with expectation and a sparkle of promise: This kid’s going to be so successful. No. I was ready to die.

            If I knew what I was going to do when I’m 15, 25, 35, 45, 55...what’s the point of actually living it? Might as well save some resources for the other kids and off myself now. I’m smart, I’m intelligent, but I don’t want to be a doctor or be one of those people who bend over their microscopes everyday and don’t see the sunlight. I’m good at math but I don’t like math. So this career day was really important for me. Some people might say it’s premature for a child at 13 to decide what she wants for the rest of her life, and they may be right, just like how Romeo and Juliet ended tragically because they fell in love too quickly. But if you’ve ever seen the beginning of the movie Up, you’ll know that it doesn’t have to end that way.

           

            We filed into the library and opened up a website called “careercruise”, it’s a straightforward and underadorned html site. We created our profiles and clicked into a career-matching personality test page. I began to answer:

I consider myself to be a logical person.

Strongly agree

I consider myself to be a creative person

Strongly agree

I like science

Strongly agree

I like art

Strongly agree

I like organization and filing

Disagree

I like to observe everyday things

Strongly agree

At this point I was mentally and physically grinning: “Yeah take that you stupid adult system. I don’t fit into anything so I’d like to see you try”. And, readers who inhabit in the future, you know the results already. Hanging above doctor, artist, designer, music composer (yeah), were two giant words: “Medical Illustrator”. I have never seen these two words put together into a noun. I have never connected the concepts. I have, however, always complained about the quality of our textbook illustrations, sometimes even putting sticky notes over them and doodling my own, but I never thought that somebody would specialize and be paid for this stuff.

I began to read. It was a lot of reading for a 13-year old, with a job description, requirements, and three lengthy interviews. By the time I got to the first interview the teacher was calling out to us that we need to move on to the next activity. I stared at the words some more, not realizing this is love at first sight, but it struck me and stuck.

I know this all sounds cheesy, and you may feel free to think that, but this is the thought that kept me going through the latter half of high school.

Fast-forward a year to the beginning of grade 10. A lot has happened, and it has put some distance between this dream job and my dream. Mostly people just tried to convince me that I’m better than that. They told me that I’d be better off just focusing on science, and try to become a doctor. Do art as a hobby, do it on the side. It’s not important and art cannot pay your bills. Go study something more practical, something that would give you a good future... and I believed them. Even now, six years later, as I’m typing this, I feel a mild revulsion at these words. They’re mean and sick in the darkest sense: The speakers don’t know how deep the words cut, so they keep on repeating them like a cursed mantra. I understand where they’re coming from, because they have lived through an age of deprivation, an era where pragmatist meant the difference between an empty and full stomach. I’m sad because these people are the ones making today’s decisions, and they’re the ones who tend to set the paths for our generation.

I’m glad they did what they did, because without them I wouldn’t realize how much I’m willing to fight to keep art inside my life.

At that time, I read books on neuroscience and psychology, I was fascinated and hooked on it. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat? Daniel Tammet who had Asperger’s, synaesthesia, and has a photographic memory? Autistic savants? It was sci-fi come true, and that is exactly what I had in mind when I filled out my IB application.

For those of you who don’t know, IB is a gruelling 3-year program where the students get no sleep, write a 20 page lab report every week, for every science course they’re in, write separate exams from the ones given by the province, and read lots of books for English and other languages. I knew I was going to do a diploma program, which consists of six courses -- a primary language course (English), World History, Math, a second language, one of biology or physics, and the last one of chemistry, computer science, or art. I filled out everything else on that form except for the unchecked 6^th course. I know science is important to pursuing a degree in neuroscience/psychology. I’m not stupid. So I checked off chemistry. Afterwards I was deflated, and spent the next month mentally preparing myself for a full 3 years of artlessness, sometimes regretting my decision, sometimes thinking that this is like ripping off a Band-Aid (when in fact it’s more like ripping off a limb).

But alas, this is one of those instances where the stars aligned and everything clicked. To this day I do not know what I did in my past life to deserve this kind of luck, but our Chinese IB teacher decided to retire that year. Which in turn means that the Chinese IB students must take this course on the weekend, with a local Saturday Chinese school. Most students groan at the loss of half a day of weekend time for the next two years, but I jumped up in joy. Why? This change frees up the exact amount of time in my schedule for me to take another IB course. The courses are not limited by number, but by your schedule. For me, my schedule was packed full including summer school, taking physics because I do not have the room to take it during the year. I have never enjoyed a spare class in high school and I was more than happy to sacrifice it.

I race to our IB coordinator’s office and told her about it, and after I finished, she just looked at me like I’m insane.

“You know this will be a lot of work, doing all these courses? Will this even fit?”

“Yes I know, and yes I checked, the time frame fits.”

She just flashes me her signature fake smile and told me to submit another application come May. I was so happy to be delving into the arts again that I didn’t really care I had to write another essay, fill out the same forms, or talk to my art teacher for a reference.

It turns out that the timeframe fitted, but the specific period didn’t fit. So I had to go to my counsellor, who had to go to the IB coordinator again, who had to talk to both art teachers at my school, and then I was enrolled into an art IB class all by myself. Well no, I actually sat with art classes of all different grades, I just did my own thing. Did I feel overwhelmed? Yeah. Did I feel lonely sometimes? Yeah. Did my art teacher hate me because she never really knew what to do with me? Hell yeah. But did I care about the other people? Not particularly. I got into the best scenario possible, and I made sure I didn’t complain a peep. 

Sometimes at 4:30 am in the morning after writing a lab report and sketching the next assignment, I would weep quietly to myself. Sometimes I can’t finish a reading for English because I had projects or workbook pages due, but I made sure to at least read sparknotes, and never used art as an excuse. I know I have earned the right to use the lack of time as an excuse for my other assignments, which were overwhelming even to those with the standard 6 courses, but because of my pride, I didn’t. I talked about art always with flying colours, with a spark, even though my art teachers did nothing for me and I learned nothing in that class. Even though she frequently marks me absent and never checks up on me. I ask her for a material and she would forget. I write down the title of my piece for her three separate times and she would still type it wrong. She told me I will not succeed in starting my own art club. It was infuriating. People frequently treat anomalies this way, and oftentimes without good reason, and their immaturity and inertia really pissed me off.

The best support for my art came from my chemistry teacher. The irony is astounding. But after 17 years of my life, he was the first person to tell me to “just go for it”. Unprecedented relief washed over me when somebody acknowledged exactly what it is I wanted. To hear, for the first time “I think that’s a terrific thing you do” rather than “no, your dream shouldn’t be this way, it should be this way”. Everyone is always quicker to give advice than they are willing to take responsibility, and the young mind is especially susceptible to influences and easily injured. I pick up my trampled dreams, dusted off the footprints, and hug her tight. 

Like someone who is dating the love of their life, and people pointing out “her hair is too curly” “she’s too skinny” “she doesn’t powder her face”. I don’t care. I don’t give a single fuck what you think about the love of my life, because it’s my life, and because she is perfect. I will stroke her hair every day, curly or straight, hold her body close, fat or skinny, and brush her powdered or unpowdered cheek and tell her how perfect she is. Sometimes we will have our falling outs, sometimes we will get frustrated and want to rip at each other’s throats, but at the end of the day, I am the luckiest person on the planet if she’s willing to take me, to accept me and acknowledge my efforts. She makes me a better person, and I’m only human, so I will make mistakes. I might not be good enough for her, but I’m making goddamned sure that I show up well dressed for our first date with a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolate.

Re. TED Talk Why Google Glass

 For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

Now they’ve done it. They’re literally shoving it into our faces. We are going to become cyborgs who are powered by machines.

This video is more than product placement. If TED talked about the iPad Mini, that'd be product placement. This is promoting a new lifestyle. One where all the cheesy 80's sci fi movies come to life, us in the future, we become a weird cyborg thing and listening to the automated voices against our better judgement.

“We don’t need this”, you might say. But when the iPad was born just a couple of years ago, we all made fun of the name said "we don't need this". Look at us now. What about cell phones? In 2000, would we, in our wildest dreams, have imagined that a cell phone could replace a camera, video recorder, gaming consul, mp3 player (which weren’t even around back then), TV, and can even surf the internet – wherever you are! No, we didn’t. As a kid born in the early 90’s, I saw the changes first hand. I remember the windows DOS system, and thought it was the best thing in the entire world. I used to hold my dad’s Nokia 3210 and wonder how it can do so much. I loved that windows 98 laptop, we spent a small fortune on it too. Floppy disks, VCR, Walkman…and now fastforward to today: I hold a 32GB microSD card in my hand speechless.

I remember flipping open my first cellphone and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. I remember when 1TB is unthinkable to purchase, and 1TB being portable is something the next generation may get around to inventing. But here we are, 10 years later, arriving in the future and staring at the second axial age in the face.

What is this Second Axial Age you ask? Well I’m quite fortunate to have the privilege of listening to Dr. Vervaeke speak at TEDxUofT this past Saturday. He explained the primary axial age to be a time in ancient Greece, when humankind first discovered thought and philosophy, math and science. These concepts completely changed human thinking for the upcoming thousands of years. And now, we are seeing a shift in our thinking yet again. With the rapid changes in the ways we communicate with each other, the ways we learn, obtain information, the way we work, the structure of society…It’s all based around the computer and the internet.

So, back to the future.

The Google glass marks the beginning of the end of this revolution. 20 years ago, we were pretty much electronics-free. We had radio, TV, maybe a Walkman. Those are used for recreational purposes, maybe some news. Not even remotely close to what we have now. But growing up right alongside technology is scary. You never know what the next big thing is, and what you were once familiar with is now null and irrelevant. Think about it. We are the last generation that would use a floppy disc or teach our grandparents how to use a computer. And eventually, there won’t be another person on earth that isn’t reliant on technology in their daily routines.

After electronics become body jewellery for us (Google Glasses, Blackberry concept phone Empathy), I hope humankind is smart or mature enough to draw a line. I like to keep electronics on the outside of my skin.

A couple of days ago, my flatmate complained to me about being stuck in traffic for 40min after the Victoria Day fireworks with no phone signal. I itched to roll my eyes and say “Oh NO, whatever shall we do” in a sarcastic voice but stopped myself. So this is what a lot of humanity has come to? A little black (or white) device that we cannot last for an hour without?

Well I feel myself draining away. My mind is ebbing away from me, my thoughts less sharp. That is what you get when you have the luxury of capturing everything yet revisiting nothing. Your days become a blur in front of a screen, as the world outside the window look duller and duller, whether that’s from the pollution or the brightness of the screen I cannot tell. Welcome to my generation. They say that only 90’s kids remember the 90’s. Yeah, we grew up with the change, we don’t take the 90’s as granted. We take the history seriously, and the future even more seriously. That’s because it's our past and future you’re talking about. 

Loss

No pains, no gains. Loss is a part of that. A part of the pain.

Loss is ingrained into us. We lost our wings, tails, claws, and fangs through our long journey of evolution. We shed them and traded for bipedalism and opposable thumbs and larger cranial cavities to hold larger brains. We lose as our species goes through time and as each individual travels through time. We lose therefore we gain.

It is easier to observe loss than experience it. I for one have a very difficult time giving things up. My room isn’t messy because I don’t clean. It’s because I refuse to clean, and I want to hoard everything and lock them up so these memories don’t slip away through my fingers. Many of us do the same thing. We store little pieces of string or bottles. We treasure the broken, physical fragments of the past, dreading any possibility of it being taken away from us. But loss is a way of moving on. It’s a way of gaining.

By losing my determined childhood dreams of being a Kung Fu master, I realized I could become a medical illustrator.

By losing the time I could’ve spent with my cousins, I excelled in school instead.

By coming to Canada, I lost my best friend. But I made new best friends, right here.

By moving to Vancouver, I lost my buddies I’ve known for 8 years. And that was when I realized how alone one can be.

By coming to UTSC, I realized I can have a crew of guy best friends and still be okay with it.

With my decision to come to St. George, I realize how far I’ve traveled and how independent I can be.  

To me, life is about losing what should have been lost. Instead of drying and preserving the dead memories, they should be buried in their rightful place along the path. If everything has to be carried on my back, eventually things get to heavy and I will no longer be able to pocket new experiences.

And of course we never stop losing. Will today’s goals have the same fate as the once indestructible dreams of childhood? Loss is one thing people like to remain almost unrealistically optimistic about. We never anticipate it happening, and we take ages to recover from it. As the Dali Lama once put it, “[we] live as if [we are] never going to die, and then die having never really lived”. Same goes for other things in life. We live as if we’re never going to lose anything, and then regretting what we have not done. One day we’re going to lose our grandparents, our parents won’t be around to support us and our friends might drift apart.

I am not being negative, these are real things that will very likely happen to each one of us, yet we go on never acknowledging the possibility. Are there people who never said “I love you” you their parents? Are there people who waste away at a job they hate, only to realize they never made an effort to make the real dreams happen. Rather to have lived and lost than to missed and regret.

Once upon a time, when I didn’t understand loss, I was afraid of it. I was afraid of losing a toy, a bracelet, a friend. But as the world flows around you, as the apathetic people on the streets pass you by, you start to realize that loss is not a big deal. Many things you have never owned, but to progress is to let go of the attachment that is holding you down.

Reminiscence is nice, but as I round the corner to the end of my teenage years, the things I remember most about life so far are my losses. My losses and things I have gained in return. So I never want to stop letting go of things I don’t even know I’m grasping. I wish that I never stop losing.

Harry — yer a wizard

The decision to reread Harry Potter has not been an easy one. To pick up a book that was put down a decade ago, and still expect the same magic is, to say the least, unrealistic. On one hand I simply want to leave the magic alone. But I simply can’t. It’s too fascinating, too tempting.

I am scared that my 19-year old brain is not going to appreciate it the same way my 9-year old brain once did. I’m afraid that the magic disappeared years ago when I was busy growing up. I’m afraid I’ll ruin the magic by re-reading it. I’m scared my sick, fanfiction-ridden brain is going to skew this children’s series.  

I picked up the book with utmost hesitation. Several sleepless hours later, Harry left Diagon Alley, and the thing I thought about most was how woefully inadequate the Chinese translation of the book was. Honestly. The subtlety and the flow of writing…well it’s not completely lost in translation, but many things suddenly made sense. Her puns, stalagmite and stalactite, and all these little things had to be footnoted, because they simply don’t work in other languages.

Throughout the first 4 chapters, I had the weirdest sensation that I am cross-referencing two books. All the nitty gritty things I’ve never understood. I can pinpoint all the details that were poorly translated. Well, once you read a book 14 times, you tend to remember things.

It felt like meeting a friend you have not seen in 10 years. You’re unsure if you grew up differently, if the friend is still the same. Or maybe your own misconceptions are altering your perceptions of said friend. Whatever the case, you really wonder if you guys can remain as friendly and close as before. You pray that the friend matured the same way you did. And that is the magic of literature. It’s not simply a preaching of whatever is on the page. There is a deeper interaction that is a combination of the readers’ minds and the characters’ actions. Interpretation is half of a book’s content, and you can definitely read much, much deeper into Rowling’s characters the second time around.

It’s only been 5 chapters into the book, and it’s still as good as before, if not better. So I simply smile and hope that when I revisit this book in 20, 40, 50 years, I’ll still love it as if I was 9 again. 

Come What May

Yes, come what may. That is the kind of balls our Glee writers need to grow. And soon. Yes that was a very negative comment against the “OMG we love everybody of all races, sizes, and sexual orientations” show. But please allow me to elaborate.

After Season Two, episode 16, the episode depicting the first “Kliss” (Kurt + Blaine kiss), the US viewing on airdate dropped by 2 million. Two million viewers followed my several million more in the subsequent episodes. Why is that? Well first of all, the data is obtained from Wikipedia, so they may not be reliable. But also, watch this video and you’ll see.

Kurt and Blaine has a perfect relationship just like any other individual having a difficult time getting over their ex. And a comment so kindly pointed out if it were Rachel and Finn they would’ve most definitely shared a kiss. So Murphy? Are you afraid? And this is the reason why you are displeasing both sides. Say if the world was, hypothetically speaking, split into homophobes and homophiles. You have lost your homophobe audience the second you introduced the potential of having homosexual couples on the show. SO after you weed out the homophobes, you are left with the people who stuck with you for the sweet couples who have been through hell and back. We want to see the couple happy, and of course, some conflict is required, but generally we all want to see these two poor souls finally getting the heaven they deserve. But time and time again, you have disappointed your viewers.

Christmas episode of Season Three, a Klaine (Kurt + Blaine pairing, for those of you who don’t speak the language) scene was cut out. And upon viewing the footage, we see a sweet gift exchange and then a friendly hug afterwards. A HUG? Seriously? That’s what a couple shares after receiving a RING? Granted it’s made out of gum wrappers, but it is a sweet, sweet gesture. 

Last episode of Season Three, after the group successfully secured their title as national showchoir champions, every couple shared a kiss. We see Finn sweeping Rachel off of her feet, we see Mr. Shuster and Emma, we see Sam and Mercedes, hell we see Brittany and Santanna gave a peck on each others’ lips. I know this sounds feminist, but honestly, this world tries too hard to please men who have to little blood to power two organs. Nobody thought that the majority of people who watch Glee would be GIRLS? And that GIRLS, like guys, enjoy certain things like a homosexual couple of the opposite gender. C’mon, use your brains will you?

So from this day forth, I will stop watching Glee altogether, because it is clear that by trying so very hard to please everybody, they end up pleasing nobody. And I am finished putting up with the congeries of mindless drama just for a crappy Klaine scene. And a Santanna song. Santanna is cool. 

Glee found its niche by wiggling into the hearts of the misfits, the ones bullied, the outsiders who can only watch social interactions from far away. But they then left the motto and navigated to another place. A place where the daughter of a poor lunchlady can afford pink dresses and matching heels for a choir performance. A place where flat characters like Sugar and Joe (the spoiled girl and the guy who won the glee project) exist because the directors cannot be bothered with a little more development. A world where people randomly teleport back to Mckinley because they have to sing a number and then fly back to Yale, because that makes sense. The “accepting” world where the lens of the camera filters for an audience not watching. The place where misfit teens once found solace is indirectly discriminating against the very people they “accept”. Does anyone else see a problem with this logic?

I started watching Glee because it delivered well. It embodies what I believe in, and the build up to the Kliss was climactic, orgasmic, and sensational. But maybe that was just the climax. Things fell and eventually flatlined. Now what I see is not Glee. It’s another high school musical with too much drama to handle and too many characters to keep track of. It's indirect judgement, indirect censorship, and subliminal messages for our morals. Save some money and call it off will you? Donate the funds to the “It all gets better” foundation or something. I’m sure that’ll get you better press and you'll at least finish in a positive light. 

I'm not going to lie. I love Glee, but the show finished after season three. It's now a new show, called Plastic. With plastic faces and plastic feelings and artificial stories and fake relationships. Plastic does not bring about glee. It just feels dead and cold and cliche.

So. Goodby Glee. Come what may, but I will love you until my dying days.