California, California Here I Come
My post-bac year was rough. I was working at the Joslin Diabetes Center in the mornings and taking Biology, Physics, and Organic Chemistry at night. My only night off from class during the week was Fridays, but every other Friday night, I had to sleep early to get up for Saturday morning Organic Chemistry lab. Most days, I'd only see Lawrence awake at 10PM, after I returned from class and he from lab. We'd finally start making dinner together then. Tired, but happy to see each other, we'd labor over the food on the stove and the dishes in the sink, listening to music. We kept telling each other this would all be worth it. I was going to make it to medical school next year.
Every night, I'd turn to the fridge to get the onions or garlic or soy sauce, and I'd see this random postcard my co-worker had sent me that I hung on the fridge door. On it was an aerial view of the Bay Area, taken from the Pacific Ocean. From a distance, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge connecting Marin County to San Francisco. The water you were over continued under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the distance, where you could see East Bay and the Bay Bridge. I felt calm looking at the sunny landscape on that postcard.
As I would start to chop the garlic or add the soy sauce to the wok, I would dream of making it out to the city on the postcard, and to that most ideal medical school in that city. But I was an out-of-state candidate who probably didn't stand a chance. I would sigh, and Lawrence would know exactly what had gone through my mind. He'd play the cheesy song "California" by Phantom Planet (the theme song of the TV series "The OC"), and tell me that if I made it into UCSF, we could play this song as we crossed the state line into California, lugging in our car all our stuff with us to start our new life in San Francisco. We'd then sing the lyrics at the top of our lungs, almost as prayer to help us make it out there.
Yesterday, one and a half years later, Lawrence played the song again in the early afternoon. But this time, we sang with it in celebration. And instead of my usual onion chopping while I belted the song's lyrics, I danced around the apartment, holding my acceptance letter over my head with both hands, like a trophy.
Every night, I'd turn to the fridge to get the onions or garlic or soy sauce, and I'd see this random postcard my co-worker had sent me that I hung on the fridge door. On it was an aerial view of the Bay Area, taken from the Pacific Ocean. From a distance, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge connecting Marin County to San Francisco. The water you were over continued under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the distance, where you could see East Bay and the Bay Bridge. I felt calm looking at the sunny landscape on that postcard.
As I would start to chop the garlic or add the soy sauce to the wok, I would dream of making it out to the city on the postcard, and to that most ideal medical school in that city. But I was an out-of-state candidate who probably didn't stand a chance. I would sigh, and Lawrence would know exactly what had gone through my mind. He'd play the cheesy song "California" by Phantom Planet (the theme song of the TV series "The OC"), and tell me that if I made it into UCSF, we could play this song as we crossed the state line into California, lugging in our car all our stuff with us to start our new life in San Francisco. We'd then sing the lyrics at the top of our lungs, almost as prayer to help us make it out there.
Yesterday, one and a half years later, Lawrence played the song again in the early afternoon. But this time, we sang with it in celebration. And instead of my usual onion chopping while I belted the song's lyrics, I danced around the apartment, holding my acceptance letter over my head with both hands, like a trophy.
posted by Christina at 3:38 PM
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