From Bug,

To Mom:

Some positives!

Thank you for celebrating with me during all the positive times this year! I want to share my thoughts of some of my favorite moments this year, and how I know they wouldn’t have been possibly the same without your love and support.

• What would I have done without you when you organized the Bay Area and SoCal clans to come for two graduation parties for me? I was so impressed that you were able to find a day where a total of 17 of my closest supporters from the Bay Area could come together, and that synchronized perfectly with our road trip back from the Pacific Northwest. Do you remember devising our seating setup to make sure our guests would have a chance to catch up, like Uncle Hogan and Allen? And also that we had some select seats for us to rotate through conversations with all our relatives? Those details mattered! It feels great to be able to appreciate these subtleties with my Mom.

• For staying curious with my suggestion to do a video call during your birthday while we were both at our own happy hour dinners! Experiencing the “same situation, same time” interaction with you and Dad was illuminating for how I was thinking about my first year research project. It was heartwarming to see you and Dad share with the waiters that you were video calling me on the iPad. I’ve been really enjoying your e-notes to our family and friends, and this one you sent highlighting our restaurant video call was a public display of affection for me which you know I always appreciate!

• Narrating my biggest table tennis moments! Through your teasing about me giving my ping pong coach way too big of a hug after our doubles win against the Minnesota gals, to your exciting recounting of the epic comebacks I experienced against the UCLA teams, your voice commentating over these stories makes you feel more present.

Some downs

I remember, and am fully appreciative, of some of the times when when I was being an irritating “bug”, I might have asked for a lot of support from you, but you still gave it to me.

• Like exactly one year ago on mother’s day and my graduation day (yikes! most of the center of attention was on me, and if it wasn’t celebrating by taking pictures with my friends, it was my damn packing that I had been putting off all my senior week…).
• Or when we were in Tacoma, WA during our road trip and I may have driven over a nail on purpose in order to savor a few more hours with my then girlfriend Chloe. (No pictures of that ordeal… but we’ll show some nice photos along Oregon’s coast during our PNW trip)

• Costing us an arm and a leg because I was CERTAIN we needed a mini-van to haul all my stuff to Chicago. I know you hated driving that mini-van too, with it’s beeping sensors that would warn you when switching a turn signal on “too soon” according to it while other cars were in the blind spot. Our fast road trip though was super memorable though with the BBQ restaurant you found along the Great Lakes.
• You helped find all the resources for me to find and purchase a bike in Chicago, and after all the sweat of trying it and negotiating, I decide that I didn’t want it after all (yikes I am a real pain in the butt!)
• A whole month of nurturing life back into me during winter break after a devastating breakup. These were some snarky labeled chocolates we found in the Spectrum during some retail therapy with Kenneth which seemed to cheer me up.

Planning for the future!

I’m looking forward to having a couple days back in SoCal during Michael’s wedding. I know the extended weekend will probably be a lot of work renting the appropriate attire for the wedding, but I’m lucky for the whole weekend to be family time. Hope I can finally try the Omakase at the Japanese restaurant in Orange! Cough Cough!

And we should sit down to make more plans for your summer visit to Chicago, Pittsburgh, and beyond. I will try to come up with a plan, to make more time, for us to make fun plans for summer festivals in Chicago and beautiful Fallingwater architecture in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.

Looking forward to replacing this photo with updated ones with you and me, and/or great shots of the interior of the house!

Thank you for all that you do, Mom <3 Happy Mothers Day!