-this afternoon my thoughts were that i am not cut out for surgery. i already knew that. the feeling that my arm was gonna fall off this afternoon just confirmed it again. amusingly, i got a pamphlet in the mail today about penn's omfs department and program. ha.

-felicita passed away on friday night. m, j and t, have had to miss a lot of work during her 2 month time in hospice. ehc is somewhat of a family business. there are pros and cons. it's a blessing to support one another. but it puts a strain on everyone when we are short-staffed. anyway, my prayer is for peace in their family. felicita's legacy is that she lived a life of faith, prayer, praise and worship, in spite of a hundred novellas' worth of hardship. i asked t if she thinks that her grandmother was fighting for life because she was waiting for someone to see her or some reconciliation to happen. t responded with 'she wants to see all her grand-children saved.' perhaps the faith to believe that would happen was granted and she was able to finally go home.
this experience has led to a lot of reflection on family, bereavement, cultural expectations of caring for the elderly and duty. also thinking about emotional management in the context of daily life management.
and of course, whenever a grandparent passes away, i remember my own grandparents (biological and anyone else i called 'ahmah/ahgohng') and their passing, and how my parents responded, and how they expected me to respond, and how our expectations differed.

-i've sorta come to terms with why people can't stop calling me chinese, even though they say that they understand when i tell them i'm taiwanese. and that they relate because they are from islands like puerto rico, and the dominican republic. and they get upset when people call them mexican. so that last part is key. some people just can't stop calling them mexican. like how some people can't stop calling native americans indians. as if 'chinese', 'mexican' and 'indian' were races. or thinking that "africa" is a country. or asking indians if they speak "indian", rather than hindi. or that time when i was in preschool and someone asked me, "are you chinese or are you english?" and i went home and told my mom about my confusion because, as a 4 year old, it didn't make sense to me why someone would ask such an illogical question. (i guess in canada, there are a lot more british immigrants. but, i only had one childhood friend with a british mom.) kinda like how i was confused in kindergarten why my classmate would confess, "i didn't do nothing!" because it wasn't a good way to plead innocence, because if he didn't do nothing, then he must have done something.

i had to dig deep on this one.