I did some volunteer work earlier tonight, and had a blast playing with the kids, especially one adorable little girl who leaped onto me and tenaciously gripped me with her legs as I spun her 'round and 'round until we became so dizzy that we needed to stop. Her mother asked me if I had any brothers or sisters, presumably (I hope) because I seemed to be comfortable with kids, and I responded that I had one brother. She asked whether he was older or younger, and how old he was; when I told her that he was younger and 22, her eyes bugged and she exclaimed "What? How old are you?" I responded, "Twenty-four," and she shook her head in disbelief, saying, "You don't look 24! You look a lot younger!" Well, gee, thanks. She then asked me what college I went to, and I chickened out and said "I went to college up in Connecticut." I felt guilty because in a way it is condescending to not provide a direct answer, but there have just been too many uncomfortable experiences with people who respond with either hushed awe or embarrassed insecurity. And I want to tell them, "Please, Yale is so overrated, and in any case, I'm no better than you are just because I went there," but that also sounds stupid and elitist and condescending.

I'll never forget when I took a painting class in New York City at the Arts Student League, and there was a monstrous bitch of a wommon (she looked like a bored rich wife, with a shiny blonde pageboy haircut and multicolored silk scarf around her neck and expensive black suit, who passed time by painting shitty canvases) there who began to verbally abuse the model. If I recall correctly, she was irritated because the model wasn't perfectly still as she posed, or her resumed pose after her break was slightly different than the original pose. Something like that. The model defended herself in a calm and polite manner, but this evil monster bitch (who clearly had other issues; maybe she recently found hubby in the arms of vapid young model? Or is that too cliche?) then said something like, "I pay you to pose, not talk back at me. Shut your mouth" in an exceedingly condescending and degrading fashion. I was furious and immediately told this wommon that she had absolutely no right to treat the model as if she were just a body and not a person. The wommon responded that she would file a complaint so that the model would lose her job. The model then asked me to speak on her behalf to the powers that be, and I did. Afterward, the model was grateful, and asked me some questions to get to know me a little better. I told her that I had just graduated from Yale and was going to attend medical school in the fall. She then had that look of hushed awe and seemed to withdraw into herself. She suddenly became much more conscious of her speech, and spoke slowly and with extreme attention to grammar (although she still made mistakes) and enunciation. She kept saying, "Wow, you must be really smart...wow." And in the mean time she visibly seemed to think shit about herself, which made me feel ill, and I realized that I had lost chance of making a real connection with this person, a friendship even, because she was intimidated. I suppose that's not my fault, but still, I feel like it was a loss which could have been prevented.

The moon was eerie tonight. It was full, or nearly full: a bright white egg in the black sky which was full of diaphanous speckles of clouds. It actually looked like one of those great blue whales, with all those white spots on its chin and belly, and a big white eye glowing through the inky ocean waters. Around the moon and melting through the nearby cloud smudges there was a beautiful grayish rainbow, like the interior of an oyster shell or an oil puddle in a parking lot. Sometimes I wonder if this year would have been better if I had remembered, as is Korean custom, to make my wishes on the first new moon of the year. I had missed the first new moon; I think I was on my surgery rotation, or some shit like that. But then, it's always easy to think these things in retrospect.

I've eaten nothing today but a few spoonfuls of rice and chicken, and a Cookout Reese's peanut butter cup milkshake. Ah, the joy of letting my seven-year-old-self operate the controls of this 24-year-old body. She's very pleased, because of course Mom would not have let her get away with this back when she only had her 7-year-old body to work with, and had to rely on Mom to drive to the milkshake provider and purchase said milkshake. I'm a much weaker soul, and she knows it.