nineteen: sick day

There's nothing quite like your body crapping out after 8 months of intense 7 full year course workload. All I can say is I'm so happy this wasn't last week and since I'm basically confined to my room I can finally catch up on e-mails, phone tag, blogging, and watching Glee :) I can't remember the last time I was this sick (4 days and counting...), but I do remember an equally memorable sick day.

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One hot summer day my friends convinced me to go to the Morden Corn & Apple festival, a nice small town festival where you can eat free corn and drink free apple juice. Over all the experience was what I expected it to be some sleeping in the car, awful pictures being snapped up by camera happy Asians, good times with good friends. It was definitely a stereotypical festival in a small prairie town, complete with city folk leaving their confines of suburbia to enjoy the nice fresh country air.

Oh the nice fresh country air of farmers burning their crops... after many years of being asthma free and a diagnosis from my doctor telling me I had outgrown childhood asthma I could not stop coughing that icky gross phlegm-y smoker's cough. My friends were quick to dismiss my claims for being sick and the night proceeded like most nights out with my besties. That was until I got home... and all I could do was send them a quick text message saying I was going to the ER and then I left my phone at home because of the no cell phone policy in hospitals. (Sorry for the panic caused by that guys!!)

I can't say it was my idea to go to the hospital, so it's a good thing my dad laid down the law and drove me there at 2am. That's the kind of guy he is though, quiet but always reliable to do the things that need to be done. He may not always feel that he can talk to me, perhaps it's a bit of that awkward generation gap immigrants tend to face when their children grow up in a different culture than them, but he always makes an effort to try to communicate with me. Even if it means calling up my uncle to call me to see if I'm partying too much in LKF.

One of my favourite memories was one year for his birthday my mom and sister happened to be off jet-setting in Asia (as usual), and he decided to take me and my best friends out for dinner for his birthday. We had a great time introducing the wonders of Chinese tea and chopsticks to my friends, and it made me realize that my dad really tried to reach out to me even during my teenage years of thinking I was too cool to share my life with my parents.

While I can't remember the last time he verbally said the words 'I love you' I know his actions speak that every day. His unwavering support for my academic dalliances, my 'need' to travel to Europe, and all the overall struggles a kid can face trying to gain independence from her parents while still being very much dependent on them has been amazing. Thanks for always knowing when to push me and when to give me space. Thanks for always being a great example of what it means to care for someone, it is really touching that you and mom continually go out of your way to do things for others.

I will always remember this one lady I met at the hospital during the dinner rounds who mentioned you without even knowing that we were related. To her you were just the nice guy who helped describe her procedure in Chinese and she just wanted to know if I could speak Chinese as well. Well thanks to you I can!