It Was The Best of Times #BehindTheBlogger

When you hear, “It was the best of times,” what comes to mind?

My first thought?

COLLEGE.

More specifically, the last 2 years of undergrad, and it boils down to 2 simple things:

• The company you keep
• Doing what you love
  • Sub-category: My super-awesome majors

(That’s not to say that I’m not currently doing what I love–but that’s where I lay the groundwork for where I’m at now, and it’s where it all started!)

The Company You Keep

If you’ve ever glanced at the cast of characters in my life, you might notice that I met/got to be closer friends with most of them in college.

I lived with my best friend for all four years of undergrad (we added 2 of our closest friends to the mix during our last year–collectively known as 6F), and it’s a huge proponent to why I say that it’s the company that really matters to me–we could be anywhere doing anything, and it’d still be a blast.

We’d also make a whole lot of food together, because people who love food are the best people. <3

Doing What You Love

You may already know about the committing academic suicide part in regards to the “hey, let’s take every class under the sun and do all the internships and get all the jobs and be in a bunch of clubs!” mentality that I entered and left college with.

I started volunteering as a medical interpreter and patient advocate at Paul Hom Asian Clinic, which is what ultimately led me to realize that I wanted to become a family physician, with a focus in working with under-served populations.

I love this place. It’s where I get my weekly fill of Chinese baked goods, and of Chinese food in general when I’m in Davis. It’s where we spend 8 hours per Saturday during the quarter, where we do med refills, assist with blood draws, interpret for patients and sit (stand) with patients through pap smears and/or tests for STDs, where we convince patients to quit smoking, to eat healthier foods + to exercise, where we stay up til ungodly hours scratching writing off mugs for our annual health fair because the company we hired failed at life when they were printing…and where I spent last night counting a couple thousand pills and pre-packaging 81mg aspirin. (It got to the point where, when I went to Rey and Nadia’s afterward, every time I closed my eyes, I’d see little yellow pills with the letter “L” on them.)

Despite how much work it was, I loved every minute of it, so much so that after I graduated, I used to sneak back on the weekends so I could keep volunteering there. (I paid for gas by being a research subject + keeping my piano-teaching job in Davis.)

I also volunteered at the Equestrian Center, which consisted of walking the rehab horses in exchange for free riding lessons! (I also cleaned water troughs and all that goodness, but I loved getting to hang out with the horses! Even if one of them accidentally pushed me into the fence and got me zapped. ;_; )

And I could never forget Na Keiki ‘O Hawai’i! <3 (They were the only reason I ever stepped foot into the gym during my first two years there!) I learned how to lift weights late in my junior year, and the rest is history! <3

My Super-Awesome Majors

In my totally unbiased opinion, I had the coolest majors ever (Exercise Biology + Music Performance). <3

Where else would you get to do crazy labs where you throw students (uh, me) into a tank to test the effects of hypothermia in a subject at rest + a subject who’s exercising? Or draw your own blood to see what happens to it when you’re submerged in warm water or cold water? Or choose your motivational song (Eye of the Tiger!) and exercise to the point where you want to puke (hello, Wingate test!)?

My music class was largely what kept me sane when I was slaving through my first two years (especially ochem). Our professors would always tell us about how they’d never had such a tight-knit class with such camaraderie. We toughed it out through many an audition/jury, and whenever possible, we’d show up in full attendance at each other’s recitals and performances.

Our chamber trio, composed of piano (me!), French horn (Rachel!), and oboe (Jaclyn!), would often have team bonding sessions that would invariably include a whole lot of food. <3 Here’s us looking…semi-normal. I guess I ruined it. Sorry guys.

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Thank you for reading a story from #BehindTheBlogger Hop. Every 2 weeks a group of bloggers is given a writing prompt. These prompts are very open ended, so our bloggers can write about whatever they desire. The main rule is that their blog post directly relates to the topic of that week. The point of this hop is for our readers to get to know us on a personal level. 

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