It's a Fun Summer

Hello everyone!

Summer break is almost over for the semester kids while the quarter students can kicked back another month before their fall term begins as well. I have to admit I am excited to go back to school and finish my senior year. I am currently eager to take some field study lab trips to some natural sites in CA and to learn about bones.

But it is weird to think about what I'm going to do post-grad and how I'm going to knock some things off my bucket list in senior year such as going to Taiwan in summer 2020, learning how to code, learn to camp, being more involved with my Christian fellowship and focusing more on my relationship with God. I want to lead prayer in my fellowship, and I am nervous since I feel I'm not up to par for the task, yet I feel it's an important aspect of the journey as a Christian.

I am also wondering how I will handle new housemates that are moving into my co-op and avoid less drama or tensions from cliques that can arise. An example is some people in my co-op called me anti-marijuana because I would plead people to not smoke indoors due to my asthma...and the request to breathe clean air (which is enforced by the Berkeley Fire Department) is disregarded because usually the group of people want to adhere to the co-op culture of smoking indoors. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that at all, but can you do if you want to live in a subsidized student housing.

Moving forward, one thing I want to share with the entire Internet (since the info we plaster online is permanent and searchable) is that connections are valuable. The type of connections I'm referring to more is people and it's amazing how the people we know can lead to opportunities. There's a word for it: networking, but I feel networking is more focused on connecting with people to get mutual benefits without really getting to know the person well. It's as if networking has more a business-like agenda rather than forming a genuine friendship where people are not bounded by a contract. I guess I can demonstrate more by a few stories I have from this summer.

Eye Research

I am currently interning at the Wu lab in Stanford school of Medicine in the Ophthalmology department, and I got to meet such amazing people there. If you want to know what I'm doing, you can check out my team on this website and the project I'm working on.
http://med.stanford.edu/wu/Meet_The_Team.html#current_team

Here are the original pictures of the drawings I made earlier that cannot be seen clearly on the website.

If you want the nitty gritty stuff, I am collecting conjunctiva epithelial cells, limbal epithelial cell and cornea epithelial cells and culturing them to obtain inflammatory and ageing markers, which can be used to understand how diseases and ageing works. It's pretty amazing to learn cool techniques and work with a lot of reagents and materials. Examples include cyrosectioning mice eyes after freezing them with liquid nitrogen, immunostaining cells and imaging them on a microscope, witnessing a rabbit dissection (well it was pretty bloody since we removed its eyes), scraping off donor eyes (well that scared a nearby lab postdoc when he peeked at my work station), and a lot more. The lab has a different atmosphere than Berkeley's. It's more free in the sense that it feels safer, more academically supportive and more resourceful since we are stationed with other labs. Of course, I'm only a rookie taking things at face value, but I do like the trust given me by my lab to make sure I'm handling my experiments well. It can be unnerving the first time, but it's fun to take my time and understand the protocol. It's not fun when I mess up or become really confused, which happens often. However to have my project idea supported about incorporating a semester project into a clinical setting is exciting. I was surprised by how positive the feedback was from my lab when I first proposed the idea, which I won't quite say yet since it's still in the drawing board. Still, the research experience is pretty amazing. The commute to there is tiring though, but hey that's the Bay Area for you. 1-2 hour commute each way everyday is the way to go. :D

People usually asked me how I got in the lab, and I always start with the fact that it was mainly through connections. It is God's grace that I got in a lab, since I was praying about it after I was removed from a lab due to miscommunication with the PI and his postdoc. I was struggling to find a lab for a couple of months of cold calling professors at UCSF and UCB in my junior year, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. The story started with my friend in high school whom I met in 10th grade math class and 12th grade AP english class. He later went to UCB a semester ahead of me, since I am a spring admit. He later advertised his medical club, which I checked out since he was in the club and I was interested in going on medical trips. In the club, I met the president of the club and became friends with him even though we were 2 years apart. He later graduated last year and was a TA in a class called Global Eye Health at UCB. I went to the class's infosession and later applied. I soon got in the class of 12 students, and it was an eye-opening experience (pun well intended). We all taught by Dr. Scott Lee who invited his friend Albert Wu to lecture for us as a special guest. After 3 consecutive quick lectures within two hours, Dr. Wu announced he was looking for a student research assistant in his lab at Stanford. He gave out his business card to those who were interested, and I took one. The next day I emailed to him, had an Skype interview with him, and later joined his lab this summer. In the meantime, my mother was fervently praying I would get in a research lab and that I would not have fainting episodes (which is another story itself). While I traced back those connections, I'm thinking it's amazing how God places people in certain places and times that can lead to such opportunities, but a part of me is warning myself to not take God for granted when He blesses us or not consider Him as someone who we get benefits from.


I feel a way to handle this kind of urge to disregard God is to be humble myself before Him. For me, it's doing community service by serving and interacting with people, people who need help yet help is not given to them.

Eye Screening

My volunteer shirt

This summer I got to volunteer at my church's eye screening in Oakland, CA as a translator and a lensometer user. I helped measured glasses on the first day of volunteering, but my job quickly turned into translating Mandarin to English and a little Spanish to English. There are a lot of elders who speak Mandarin and Cantonese (I sadly do not speak Cantonese) whom I helped translate for and filled out their forms. I was relieved that I took the Eye course at UCB because I got to explain what the medical terms and what the machines were used for to the patients. AT first, it was daunting to practice my Mandarin without a warning and to called for help by a lot of people to help with forms, questions, and requests. As the clinic got fuller, I got more comfortable with the patients as I bowed my head a bit to pay respects to the elders and how they bowed back to me as a sign of gratitude. That gesture really touched me because it is an honor to receive that kind of thankfulness. It was as it we were like family.

I remember for this one patient, I helped her with her entire eye exam from filling out her patient form to getting her checked out of the clinic. I helped her followed the optometrist's instructions as she was measured with the auto-refraction machine, the retinal scan machine, and the eye chart. At the eye chart station, she did not know how to say the English letters, so she drew out the letters with her fingers. After she was examined for bifocals or 老人眼睛, she was happy to know that she can get new glasses in a month. When she smiled and thanked me, it was nice to help be her bridge and communicate with the optometrists and volunteers around her. After I helped her, I was then called again to help another patient with his eye exam whom I helped filled out his form earlier. During the eye exam, it seemed like he had not one in a while since he was not familiar how the eye exam operates such as reading out the charts and choosing which lens were clearer than the other when given that choice. A part of me felt that I took for granted that everyone in the Bay Area knows how eye exam works when that is obviously not the case.

I displayed out the books and stuffed animals as if we're at an elementary school book sale!

I also helped out giving out books, magazines and stuffed animals to patients of all ages. One of the patients Daniel and Abby (not their real names) even accepted a Snoopy doll, two National Geography 2018 magazines about medicine and the Scripture, and a traditional Chinese book. Daniel made a comment on how he was thinking of Snoopy before he came to the clinic. The fact I pointed out a Snoopy doll for him made an unassociated association, which is a phrase he coined to described an association that was not made before yet somehow are connected after an event. Later that day after Daniel and Abbey left, my pastor and some of the volunteer were amazed by Daniel's transformation. When he first came in, he was not close with his sister and was very hesitant about giving out his personal information on the patient forms. Later on in the clinic, he was talking with the volunteers who were wearing name tags, trying to learn everyone's names, and smiling more. I did not know that he was not close with his sister since they seemed to be happier and even nudging each other. Daniel later shared to me as I was showing him books that he felt genuinely cared for in the clinic. that he was not treated as a number or according to an agenda. He confided with me that at food pantries that people there did not treat him well, but at the eye screening, he felt loved. His sister even cried at his changed in demeanor. The moment he put on his new glasses and said, " I can see again" was incredible. The light in his eyes just burst with joy as if he's alive again. I couldn't help but be joyful for him as well and his sister.

Another cool story that my pastor shared with us. One of the patients that we met had perfect vision (which I would like to have). The person already know he can see, but he wanted to check out our eye screening to see what is the true motive of the event. When he waited patiently for his turn on the auto-refraction, he was glancing around and examining the people. After our lovely optometrist checked his eyes, he was given permission to check out the rest of the clinic. It turned that he was a local drug dealer according to one of the patients. My pastor was surprised to hear that but also happy that he came to check our the eye screening to invite his friends over who need glasses or eye examinations. I feel seeing how the screening affected the neighborhood changes the dynamics of the people, which is pretty amazing to witness.

Catching Up with Friends

Because I am home this summer, I am able to catch up with my old friends. It is truly a blessing to spend time with them and listen to how they have been. From nightly walks to playing boardgames, my weekends were pretty fun (and busy at times). Of course, there were hectic times with friends such as changing my mom's car battery and crushing my family's aluminum cans and plastic bottles to deliver to the recycling plant. There were also sad times when I decided to leave a friend group momentarily since I was fed up being ignored. There were also deep times of talking with them to the late of night and being vulnerable to one and another.

I almost forgot what it was like to feel like a kid and be comfortable with myself. I admit I probably surprised my friends when I'm more open or energetic around them compared to me being at school. Usually I'm like that when I'm in a small group of people. It's nice to be more honest and rebuild those connections I left behind. I hope to continue strengthening those connections in the school year :) but I am concerned I may have overpacked my semester as usual. We'll see but I am excited to go back to school for the new adventures in store.