About Me

Hi! I'm Kathleen. I grew up in beautiful Southern California, when Sanrio , Care Bears, She-Ra, and the Smurfs were popular. Back then, I loved Monopoly, roller-skating and biking to the beach. I used to collect stickers (and to some extent, I still do); I've read all of the books in the Nancy Drew series, and I adored and still adore all things Disney, especially my well-worn Mickey doll which I've had since I was two!

My little sister is four years younger than I am. We used to play "make-believe" all the time when we were little. Our favorite "make-believe" game was called "arcade." We set up carnival midways in our rooms - knocking-over-cans-with-beanbags, ring-toss, bowling... and as prizes, we exchanged belongings that we knew the other person wanted. (All of this sounds very amicable but we were actually pretty competitive� and I, being the bigger, 4-years-older sister usually got the best of the spoils. Now I'm trying to make it up to my sister for being such a bully back then... of course it's always easier to be nice to someone you don�t live with day-in and day-out.)

Our quiet, middle-class neighborhood was the suburban dreamland... California sunshine� ocean winds (the beach was only five miles away)� neighbors who let us swim in their swimming pools� two cars for every house (one sedan and one mini-van/station-wagon/TV-equipped van)� There weren�t many children in the immediate neighborhood my age. Most of them were my sister�s age or younger. This either made me the "monkey king" (as my mom used to say) or very lonely when I was young� but as I got older - business was great as a babysitter!

My father is an engineer and my mother is a housewife. My parents, although they seem rather dull now, actually have a really interesting history. My father was raised mainly through his older brothers. There were seven brothers in all, with my father being the sixth child. His mother passed away when my father was only three, as she was giving birth to her eighth child. My grandfather, unfortunately, was overly fond of alcohol, and the role of earning income fell upon my uncles' shoulders. My father pushed himself in school, and was able to enter into the best education that Taiwan could offer: Tai-Da University (National Taiwan University). Upon graduating with a major in math, my father emigrated to America for a master�s degree at the University of Illinois. His studies led him to receive a full scholarship with the University of Iowa, where my father earned his Ph.D.

At 32, my father met, fell in love, and married a young, slender and beautiful woman - a recent emigrant from Taiwan. She had been raised in the countryside, where she�d helped raise chickens with her mother, three older sisters and one younger brother. Her father practiced as a dentist. She'd completed high school, and then professional school for nursing. She'd then emigrated to America to join her older sisters, and began practicing nursing in Baltimore. She later became my mother.

My parents followed the Asian-American recipe for raising ideal kids. Rule #1: Be safe. Rule #2: Stay healthy. Rule #3: Get a good education. I was expected to get no less than straight A�s. I was started on piano lessons when I was 7. I was home by ten, even in high school. The life story of every prodigy in the local and Chinese newspaper had to be read to us: kids with perfect SAT scores, kids who won national championships, kids who were accepted into Harvard/MIT/Julliard. I was so well raised that I even came home from my senior prom by Cinderella�s midnight.

Asian-Americans everywhere can reiterate the same stories. Somewhere, someone had written the recipe for perfect children in a Chinese newspaper, and the information in those Chinese newspapers are always taken as genuine fact. Yes, I do love my parents very much, and yes, I can understand that all my parents want is for my sister and I to be healthy, successful and happy� and in fact, one can almost claim that the recipe worked because here I am, a happy, healthy medical student who graduated from U.C. Berkeley (GO BEARS!), and my sister - a happy, healthy graduate of U.C. Berkeley as well. To some extent though, my sister and I really needed to have been given more freedom to learn more about ourselves, and to determine what we ourselves wanted out of life. After all, the recipe almost failed when I applied to medical school.

At that time, I was confused about what I wanted to do in life and whether I truly wanted to enter the medical field. I'd tried to do everything that a good Chinese daughter was supposed to do. I'd run for leadership positions; I'd volunteered in the community; I'd majored in science. I'd sent applications to all of the schools in California, but I was unprepared and unsure, and rejected by every single school I applied to. It took me a long time to recover and to reflect upon what my strengths were and what kind of goals I wanted to reach. I re-applied for medical school the following year, this time applying to schools that reflected my interests. I wrote essays that were brutally honest and was rewarded with a medical school admission. Yet, it was only because I had time to figure out what I wanted out of life, and still had my friends and family supporting me all the way.

I recently graduated from U.C. San Diego School of Medicine. (I empathize with all of you who are in the process of applying.) Honestly, it was one grueling experience, but I survived it and I made it to my top choice for residency. I have the most wonderful friends and a great husband, and I still have a very close relationship with my family. Things are turning out as well as one could ever have hoped for. When you look back on my life and think - well, of course it turned out all right, she had the perfect childhood. It definitely wasn't perfect and it definitely wasn't without a struggle... but as far as I can help it - this story is going to have a very happy ending.