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| Hey everybody,
Rollzine Issue.03 has just been released along with my very first rollerblading profile! Rollzine is a small print zine by my good friend and fellow roller, Brandon Ballog. A lot of you may be wondering why I tagged you in this note, especially those who don't rollerblade. I tagged you because in some way or another, you've nurtured the part of me that keeps rolling and I wanted to share this part of my life with you. Maybe you showed some curiosity in what I do, maybe you've told me I shouldn't rollerblade because it's dangerous, or maybe you helped me (sometimes literally) find my bearings.
What does this profile mean to me? It's been a small goal of mine to get some coverage at some point, not for fame and fortune, but to leave my mark on what I've been doing this whole time. I've been rollerblading since my mother bought me my first pair of skates in 1997. In 1999 I got to meet a bunch of professionals (The Salomon Street Team) when my sister (Julie!) took me to the X Games in San Francisco. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I'd be rolling around with some of them nearly a decade later. I never thought I'd be getting magazine coverage either - I have a whole shelf full of magazines that I've looked over a million times. My thirteen-year-old self would be proud.
The issue can be found at:
http://rollzine.com/
A direct link to the Issue.03 is here:
http://issuu.com/rollzine/docs/issue.03
The online mag is FREE.
Hard copy: $5,
T-Shirts (+ free hard copy): $20
Please contact me if you'd like a copy. I know that sounds bootleg but that's how we roll.
Thanks for all your love and support,
Dave Tran
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| Some quick updates:
My third dan black belt test went very well. Despite injuring a nerve in my leg and training through several months with pain, I felt very confident about my performance.
I've re-registered to take MCAT courses through Kaplan. It's a lot of money to say goodbye to, but if it can help me secure a better MCAT score and a seat in a medical school, it should be worth the investment. I've re-envisioned my plan to cover my weaknesses and I should be a much happier camper this time around. I need to be happy in order to test better.
I have a girlfriend now. Some people go through dry spells or droughts. I went through what can only be described as a dating famine. It's okay, I think my patience was worth it. We've been going out for about three months now and it's nice to have someone in my life to share things with. It's also nice to have someone to complain about work to, as simple and mundane as that sounds. We take good care of each other.
And some thoughts:
I strongly believe that a person should be able to make a living doing what they love, so long as it doesn't hurt anybody. I think that people who do charitable things shouldn't have to make as many sacrifices as they do. That ideal is being put to the test right now.
As the economic crisis progresses, I realize the impact it has on our medical system. The amount of welfare decreases, healthcare costs continue to increase, budgets get cut, people lose jobs. At the same time, those who cannot afford healthcare defer going to the doctor until things get really bad and the cycle continues. Hospitals are losing hundreds of millions of dollars right now and some are even closing their doors.
I don't understand how the government can invest hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial markets while healthcare and education take drastic cuts on a local level. The same people who advocate free market enterprise and American capitalism are asking for handouts while the poor suffer. As a good friend of mine put it, the system is shifting towards "communism for the rich". I'm certainly no economist, but I understand how much we rely on the financial markets to keep things moving. If they melt down, no one has the capital to keep their businesses in operation. It still irks me that we're handing money back to the same people who got us into this mess, especially since all that money has done little to restore confidence and unfreeze the credit market.
How does this conflict with my ideals? Well, frankly, it's no longer sustainable for me to spend as much time volunteering as I do. Before, there was a better balance between making enough to get by and sacrificing the rest of that time in service to others. Unfortunately, the non-profits I work for are tightening their belts. When the economy suffers, charitable donations are some of the first to go. That leaves many places closing their doors, and other struggling to pay their workers.
I have three jobs, not counting my two volunteer positions or my time doing martial arts. Of the three jobs, I should be working about fifty hours a week. I've been working about twenty, and the only steady check I've been getting is through the job I have the least hours with. I bring in about a hundred and fifty dollars a month - that's not even a net gain; my savings account is getting slaughtered right now.
I cannot help but feel the indignity of being desperate for hours. I am simultaneously over-employed (too many jobs) and underemployed (not enough hours). I'm willing to wake up at 5 in the morning and commute an hour and a half to get to work and move dead bodies around. While I find the bodies fascinating, I don't like putting up with arrogant surgeons on the rare occasion that I have to. It's the job that pays the best, so I'll bear with it for the experience and the pay. When I do get hours, I can't help but feel like a dog eating scraps.
Of the places I enjoy working the most, I can't even get paid. Either there's no funding or no jobs available as many organizations are down-sizing. I have no shortage of opportunity - for those who live life in service of others, there is no end to the work that needs to be done. The best opportunity I have coming up will involve actively helping find a cure for ALS. I'll do it for free because it's a cause I believe in and a dream that needs to be fulfilled. If I can make money doing it - all the better, but I understand that right now, many sacrifices need to be made.
But I know that I can't complain. I'm not struggling to pay rent because I have enough to sustain me for a while. I am still comfortably fed and housed, with much stability on both aspects. The downside is that I'm hermorrhaging funds until I can get that situation under control. When it comes down to it, I am grateful that I have a place to live and food in my belly.
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| I've been absent lately due to the large number of activities I have going on. Right now I'm working three different jobs in three different cities and preparing to test for my third dan in taekwondo. Which means that at some point I was working 50 hours a week, volunteering 5 hours a week, exercising 10 hours a week, and falling asleep on BART about 10 hours a week.
Since August I've started working at San Francisco General Hospital in Orthopaedic Surgery. I'm not going to say too much about my work here because it's bad blogging-karma. I'm just going to say that I spend a lot of my time cleaning things and working on dead people.
I also started working at Children's Hospital Oakland as part of a non-profit. This position is largely similar to what I did over the summer, except now I get to work more directly with high school students from disadvantaged neighborhoods. It's satisfying to know that I'm a part of a program that is going to help diversify the health sciences in the coming years. As our cities become more diverse with growing immigrant populations, we need more people who can communicate and be a part of these communities. People don't listen to doctors they don't trust and we need people who are going to be more culturally aware of the issues facing non-English speaking communities. These people are Americans, but more importantly, they are human beings just as we are, and they deserve the same right to healthcare. Change begins within the community by helping our youth become more educated and giving them the competitive advantages they need to move upwards.
I am also working as a care attendant for the disabled. I started working there three years ago, and my night job has allowed me the flexibility to work for one hour a week on Sunday nights. It isn't an enormous amount of time, but it's nice to have that continuity and Scott helps keep me grounded when life gets too busy.
On top of these jobs, which can take up to 50 hours a week, but typically take up about 30 hours, I am also volunteering at the ALS Association and in the Asthma Clinic at Children's Hospital. I spend most of my time in hospitals these days, trying to get the clinical experience I need to apply to medical school as well as getting a better feel for how healthcare works in this country from the provider-side. Frankly, it's about tiem I got my clinical experience, and I'm doing it in every way possible, on as many levels as I can - from the hospital to the home.
Lastly, I've been preparing for my third degree test in taekwondo. There are high expectations for this test and it's time for me to move on. I've been practicing for nearly 14 years and I've had my second degree for 7 of them. I've trained on two different continents in three different countries. My martial arts resume (required for the test) is nearly as long as my job resume. It is time to advance.
With so many activities going on, I've ditched my paper calendar for a much sleeker (and expensive) iPod touch. It's a nice luxury to have and now I can check my email from anywhere as long as there is wifi, as well as sync my calendar every morning before getting on the train. The good news is that I don't have to lug a laptop around or pay any monthly service fees; I use the device as a remote extension of my Mac at home.
Forthcoming post: the soul-sucking nature of office culture.
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| I've been going to bed at 5am every night.
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| "Any schoolboy can do experiments in the physics laboratory to test various scientific hypotheses. But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion (compassion) or not."
- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I've been spending more time reading lately, allowing myself to dive into good literature and tie up loose ends with books I never finished. Today, I started reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being and I find myself fascinated by Kundera's writing. Much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing, the book reads more like good prose than dense literature. It's difficult to read because it takes so much focus, but there's so much power in his words that things start to flow together with a powerful sense of imagery and in some cases, digressions into the narrator's neuroses.
The best part about good literature is that it often inspires us to be better writers. In my case, it mostly results in terrible run-on sentences and neurotic rants.
While the quote above seems rather transparent, it speaks to a greater theme in the book which describes how repetition results in meaninglessness. Human beings are affected by their decisions because most of our actions and consequences occur only once, not to be weighed down by endless repetition. In other words, we only get one chance to live, and our indecisiveness is the result of unknowing.
What comes next?
I suppose this quote struck me because I don't know which of my passions to follow - I haven't figured out my next big step yet. It keeps me running all day and night, it stresses me out that I don't know what to do now that I've graduated and I've finished most of my summer projects. I'll continue doing the things that I do, working and volunteering in the communities that I know until the opportunities I'm searching for land in my lap. I'll know when things are right, but it might take a little time.
It's difficult to be so close to a goal such as getting into medical school, but at the same time be totally lost in the process. My mind is most peaceful when I'm working hard on something meaningful. What Smile Group taught me last summer, and what I recognized again this summer at Camp Breathe Easy, was that children are great motivators for me. I enjoy working to make the lives of children better because it's almost instantly gratifying and the long-term effects are greater than working with someone who's already terminally ill. A friend pointed out to me that I looked truly happy in my pictures with the kids I worked with; she said I never smile with such lightness around anyone else.
The pitfall I'm trying to navigate is understanding how I could work in such a field without carrying the burdens of their suffering. I am, for better or worse, drawn towards the suffering of others. I want to know about the difficult parts, the pain people experience, and the hardship they face in their daily lives. I carry in myself an enormous amount of personal suffering, but somehow I find that things are eased by helping others. Is it possible to mend a personal wound by mending the wounds of others? Is it possible, with great compassion, to experience the joy of watching others heal as well?
The flaw in this reasoning is that I cannot fix the past. I can't change things that have already happened, lives that have already been lived. I can only move forward.
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