Guest Post: 'At Dinner, I Ate My Third Cake of the Day.

In which former student Selina Juang recalls four rich days, backwards

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

Everyone is starting a Substack.

Well, not every one. But some former students have hung out their shingles, and I’m proud.

Are you next?

It’s both incredibly easy to write and can also feel nearly impossible to do well. Selina Juang made, I think, one of the most complete transformations I’ve seen in a ten-week class. Many students enter my courses and emerge improved. Some are already wildly talented and trained up the moment they walk in the door. They get better too. A few tread water. Does anyone get worse?

Selina was tentative at first. But she found her lane and it was astonishing how quickly she started writing diamond-sharp prose. (Remember her McDonald’s piece? I think about it every time I cycle by one of those place.)

Her latest essay is no exception. What makes it particularly delightful, I think, is the way she plays with timing.

Which four days should you write about?

Four Days, Backwards

By Selina Juang

Day 4

Today, I spent the day with a bunch of retired people. I was volunteering at a health fair, where my job was to take blood pressure and blood glucose. I don’t know if I was mentally there in the beginning, having just woken up at 5:30 AM after sleeping at 1:00 AM because of the USC game last night. We had lost. Boo.

Besides the group of five UCLA students I was a part of, the rest of the volunteers were retirees, who out of the kindness of their heart, would wake up early in the morning for these types of events. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to people several generations older than myself. To successfully become friends with them, you have to: 1) Avoid saying “low-key,” or “bruh,” or all the other Gen-Z phrases embedded in your unconsciousness. 2) Make LOTS of cheesy jokes. They eat that stuff up.

I struck up conversations with many volunteers. There was a retired nurse who used to work at Jules Stein Eye Institute. There was a retired dance instructor. Then, there was Frank. Frank kept coming to my station to chat with me. A retired aerospace engineer who spent thirty five years working on designing fuel tanks for satellites, his eyes glistened as he explained to me how the layer of titanium had to be incredibly thin (“only one millimeter in thickness!!!”) and the absence of gravity in outer space required the tanks to have a unique design. I could tell that he loved his job. I retired early, he told me. I asked him why. Stress, he replied. I can be a volunteer here, and not be stressed. Listening to Frank, I realized that at every stage of life, we are constantly seeking purpose—but it’s not always the same. How we choose to define that purpose changes over time.

Day 3

Today, UCLA lost to USC. Leni, Erika, and I stopped by the Erewhon in Pasadena to get dinner before the game. The woman in front of me began chatting with me about her favorite dishes because I was talking out loud to myself, and she thought I was talking to her. Turns out, she was a UCLA alum. I showed her my blue and gold hair clips, launching a passionate discussion about the football game that I was just about to go to.

Leni and I always complain about how each quarter goes by faster and faster. I know that it’ll only accelerate from here on out. In a few months, I’ll also be a UCLA alum, just like that woman at Erewhon. One person among the vast network of alumni our school has accumulated over decades. The world felt small, because I could meet a fellow alum anywhere, yet also big, because I’m only a tiny dot amongst the hundreds of thousands.

On the way to the Rose Bowl, Leni asked Erika and I if we thought the football players were nervous. Of course, I responded, it’s a big game. It was strange thinking about the stress that athletes face. Their nerves before games seemed different on the surface from our nerves before exams, yet I realized maybe they’re not so different from us. At least for us students in academia, we gain value as we age, whereas it’s the opposite for athletes. It reminded me of The Substance.

Day 2

Today, I watched The Substance. Annie, Dillon, Felix, Alex, and I had been sitting in a Japanese restaurant eating dinner, arguing about what movie to watch after dinner.

As a very indecisive group of people, we had previously argued about what to eat on the car ride there. It was the classic “I’m fine with anything!!!” when in reality, no one is fine with anything. I didn’t want Italian food. I had consumed an abnormal amount of pasta for dinner yesterday, way past my limit. Dillon didn’t want Chinese food. I’VE BEEN EATING HONG KONG EXPRESS THIS WHOLE WEEK, he yelled at me as I protested. I proposed Midoh in Sawtelle, but that was instantly shot down by Felix and Dillon. Apparently, their katsu was “traumatizing.” I was getting so impatient from the debates that when we passed by the cozy-looking Japanese restaurant that no one had ever been to before, I hustled everyone through the door before anyone could object.

When we entered the restaurant, the waiter informed us there was only tatami seating. We squatted down to the floor, groaning in pain, shifting our legs into different positions every couple of minutes. At some point, both of my legs fell asleep, and Dillon cackled at my pain. My friend had warned me that as soon as I turned 21, my bones would start aching. Maybe it was starting now.

The table next to us was occupied by a group of five kids. Halfway through our meal, they pulled out a cake and began singing happy birthday. The candles read “15.” So young, Annie whispered to me.

After a lengthy debate over dinner, we finally decided on watching The Substance. Categorized as “horror,” the movie was far from what I had expected. It was unsettling, disturbing, and frustrating, but simultaneously thought-provoking. The protagonist, Elizabeth Sparkle, was a successful celebrity who was fired from her position as a TV show host due to her aging appearance. She found herself stumbling across a mysterious “Substance,” which allowed her to create and live within a younger, more beautiful, version of herself. However, this caused her to despise her real, older self, leading to her downfall. The five of us sat on Felix’s couch, yelling in frustration at Ms. Sparkle. At some point, someone yelled, “why does she even want to go back to the job? Can’t she just retire in peace in her billionaire penthouse?”

Day 1

Today, I turned 21. Kyle had texted me at exactly 12:00 AM. It didn’t feel different at that time, because what difference did a single second make? Throughout the day, many friends wished me a happy birthday, some of which I hadn’t talked to in months. My lab friends surprised me with pumpkin cheesecake. Then, some friends surprised me with strawberry cupcakes at our club meeting. The day began feeling special. It was the existence of my birthday that sparked so many conversations, rekindled so many connections, and deepened my gratitude for those around me.

After our club meeting, I walked the guest speaker back to his car. He was an ophthalmologist and was thrilled after finding out that I was interested in ophthalmology. But…I’m not entirely sure yet, I had said. Medicine is a calling, he advised, it’s like the wand in Harry Potter. You’ll only find yourself in the right place if you go with the flow. I thought about Paul Kalanithi, the famous neurosurgeon who found himself deeply immersed in medicine after deliberately avoiding it for years. After being diagnosed with severe lung cancer, he still chose to endure all the pain in order to continue performing neurosurgery, because it felt like the only thing worth living for.

The right path will find me. But when? Paul Kalanithi’s life kept circling back to the question, “what makes life meaningful enough to go on living?” It was a question that profoundly resonated with me, but one that I could not answer just yet. The choices I make every day seem to be shaping that answer, even if I can’t see it clearly now.

At dinner, I ate my third cake of the day—tiramisu. As I stared into the candle flames, I remembered all my conversations with Roxanne, about growing up, about being unsure about your future, about feeling content with wherever the universe takes you. For the first time in my life, the tears welling up in my eyes were not from sadness, or frustration, or anger. They were from joy.