Go Oh!

So Sandra Oh won a Golden Globe last night, which was well-deserved and historic and inspiring and completely void of any racial bookmarking of the moment. Why is that? I am personally THRILLED that my Asian -- and KA! -- sista got recognized for her tough, wisecracking character on Grey's Anatomy, but there's little in the way of celebrating this as a victory for Asian Americans.

Oh doesn't play a demure Lotus Blossom, which is fantastic; she does play a hard-hearted, non-patient-friendly female Asian surgical resident, which is a type that Ming-Na pioneered (?) on ER several years back. But! This hard-hearted, non-patient-friendly female Asian surgical resident has a hott thing going on with a hott black surgeon, and is unabashedly non-committal about it. Which is fantastic.

It really should be a moment of celebration for KAs and Asian Americans, both in terms of wider recognition of roles that As-Ams can play, as well as a personal recognition that we, Asian Americans, can do this. We can do the acting thing, we can do the creative thing, we can be who we want to be. It's a shot in a million that we can make it the way Oh has, but it's possible.

I remember watching Oh back in college, when the Asian American Women's Group put on a showing of Double Happiness, where she played a Chinese American woman struggling to become an actress despite her parents' opposition. Apparently, Oh came up against that in her real life, and has reported that her parents are now just coming around to the idea of her acting. She's said that she's going to give the Globe to her parents.

And though I didn't see it, I can imagine how her phone call to her folks went:

"Mom?"

"Yah."

"I won! I won the Golden Globe for best female actress!"

"Oh. Golden Globe? What's that?"

"It's like the Oscars, but for TV as well as the movies."

"Oh. Not the Oscar, huh?"

"No, mom. Not the Oscar. That's for movies. But the Globes are like predictors for the Oscars."

"But not the Oscar?"

"NO, mom. There are no Oscars for TV."

"But the Golden Globe."

"Yeah. The Golden Globe."

"That's good, huh?"

"It's very good."

(Dad gets on the phone.)

"Sandra, you play a doctor on TV, and you got a Golden Globe for that, huh? Too bad you didn't go to med school."

"This is way better than med school, dad."

"Huh. Yeah, that's good. So, are you eating right?"

"I'm eating fine, dad."

"You better eat some vitamins. Your mom will send you some."

"Okay, dad. Love you."

"Bye."

(And after they hang up, the parents go off and brag to all their friends about Sandra's accomplishments, having intimated none of their bursting pride to the actual recipient of the award.)
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I've been working pretty hard on this research and for my class the past two weeks, and so I'm pretty tired. It's 9 pm, and I'd like to go to sleep.

Today, which was pretty typical, went like this:

8 am -- wake up
8:30 -- run for half an hour, do some sit-ups
9:15 -- shower, eat breakfast, read
10:30 -- class
1:30 -- shoot the shit with Joiner, take care of some email errands
3:30 -- walk over to the undergrad library, start research
7 pm -- dinner, while reading for class
8:30 -- back in dorm, tired
9 pm -- back to reading for class, til I fall asleep

It's satisfying to have such a full, productive day. But I am ready for a vacation. Which I will not get, as I'm headed right to New Orleans on a volunteer trip the MINUTE I turn in my exam on Monday afternoon.
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Friend has reappeared.

You remember Friend -- I had a weird flingy fling with him last year which finally ended last term when I told him, yo. The window has closed, you're too late, and I can't reopen it.

We've gradually been reestablishing contact -- he called on Thanksgiving, and during the winter break -- but today he showed up at my door. I missed a gathering of last year's dorm mates yesterday, so he thought he would drop by.

I didn't mind too much. He very sweetly gave me a bag of tangerines, saying that, "last year, you used to mooch these off me all the time, and since you can't do that any more, I thought I'd just bring them too you."

Shot the breeze for a while, then headed over the library, thinking, "Gosh! He really must miss me."
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And in the Not-Gay Boyfriend news, I got an email not from him today, but from the friend he wanted to introduce to me last week at the pub. She's in the same class I'm taking (which is partly why he wanted to introduce us, I guess), and emailed today that she'd left class early, missed the assignment for tomorrow, and that she was sorry to bug me, but she'd gotten my email from Not-Gay Boyfriend. Oh, and that we should do the trivia thing again next semester, since we almost won last week. Which was not true (the almost winning part), but was nice of her. And hey, an email from the friend is almost as good as, right?

Heh. I amuse myself with my delusions.

Slightly related non sequitur memory -- last week, the day after I felt so disappointed about the awkwardness of going to the gathering of Not-Gay Boyfriend's friends, I had to read an article by someone with a name that eerily mirrored Not-Gay Boyfriend's. To wit: if NGB's name were "Ali Baba Treaclehopper," the author's name would be "Ali Baba Treaclehand." Ah, fate! You keep me laughing.