Name:Albert Country:United States State:New York Birthday:6/27/1976 Gender:Male
Interests:Eating Out, Musical Instruments, Shopping, Video Games
Basketball, Football, Martial Arts, Volleyball
Alternative, Dance, Hip Hop/Rap, Rock & Roll
Film/Movies, Performing Arts
Current Events, Entertainment, Health, Politics
Expertise:Stanford University, Class of 98 (BA-Psychology, BS-Biological Sciences)
NYU School of Medicine, Class of 03 (MD)
??? Hospital, Internal Medicine Residency (will find out in March), Class of 06 Occupation:Medical Industry:Medical
(Okay, before y'all make fun of me...yes I realize this Xanga post is severly outdated and I haven't written in a long long time. I actually wrote this back around Christmas (can that really have been 4 months ago?) and just found it in my documents, so I slightly updated it and am posting it now. I've given up promising I will keep updating regularly, because we all know that isn't true. And I've realized everyone has moved on from Xanga and is spending WAY too much time on Facebook....it's only a matter of time before they create a blog option and everyone is just using that instead. I'll be on here as long as it lasts though...anyway, read on loyal reader!)
Belated Mele Kalikimaka!!!
(Merry Christmas in Hawaiian...I know it's way late, but I just love saying that)
Yeah
it’s been awhile…but I have an excuse. Besides working my butt off in
the hospital, I’ve been learning how to surf, and was sick for just a
little while! But I’ve been lazy enough, and since I’m trying to
average at least ONE good Xanga entry a month, I better make this a good one.
As always, I bring you another kick-ass rocking song that I’m sure will soon find it’s way to the top of your iPod playlist. It’s not quite an Emo song, but got a great feel: Time After Time by Quietdrive. Besides being an awesome tune, it’s probably the only good thing that ever came out of the awful movie John Tucker Must Die. Yeah yeah, I know, it’s just a cover song of an original Cyndi Lauper song from the 80’s (and if any of you young’uns out there say "Who the hell is Cyndi Lauper?" I’m going to
bitch-slap you so hard that you’ll personally time-travel back to the 80’s!). But the point is, it’s a great
cover song: Nostalgic enough for the old fogies, hip enough for all
those darn teenage kids, hard enough for the fellas to rock out to, but
with a sensitive enough message for the ladies. I dare you to listen to this song on high volume without rocking out to it. Personally, I believe it’s the 2nd best slideshow song besides Time of Your Life/Good Riddance by Green Day.
Anyway, on to more normal news and the 411 on A Taiwanese Guy’s Aloha Life (e.g. my shenanigans on the island of Oahu, Hawaii). Like I said earlier, it’s come down to tons of time working in the hospital, learning how to be a better surfer at Waikiki Beach,
and just enjoying the island life! There’s too much that went on at
work, with the usual dose of hospital drama. Believe it or not, life
here has been closer to Grey’s Anatomy than I want to admit. Here’s a sampling of things that happened just in the last month:
A totally drunk guy literally drove his car straight through the doors of our emergency room
A
completely psychotic lady patient of mine attacked the nurses station
and chucked a phone and computer monitor across the room, shattering
both and nearly missing a nurse, leading to security and Hawaii Police
Department being called and major drama all day long.
A young
boy without warning suddenly died in our emergency room, after a nearly
45 minute code, which is probably one of the saddest things I’ve ever
seen.
A huge Jerry Springer-ish brawl broke out between like 25 huge
Hawaiian family members, with numerous punches being thrown and large
holes being punched into the wall. As usual, security and the Hawaii
Police Department were invited to attend this glorious event.
Since Christmas and my last post I've flown back home to visit family, flown back to LA twice for snowboarding trips and a wedding, and have hosted tons of couch surfers here in Hawaii! I’m
coming to the end of my 2.5 week stint of work finally, and will have a
good 2.5 weeks of vacation coming up, which I’m really looking forward
to. And as everyone should know from reading Facebook, I'm headed off to Japan/Tokyo/Kyoto and Bali to go surfing!! Should be exciting, I'm reading guide books like crazy to prep for it and I'm actually staying in a hostel for part of it which should be an interesting experience. I'll write more later and post up pictures soon hopefully...
And as was promised, I end today’s entry with the first entry in The Top 5 Life Lessons You Can Learn From Chinese Music Videos
#5.
Never hit on you’re your hot next-door neighbor (especially if she’s a
typical Asian Ice Queen and especially if you’re a typical Chinese
lame-ass nice guy with no chick skills) because she will inevitably use
your ass first for manual labor and then dump your sorry butt.
So
it’s not just those cool and hip Koreans that can teach us wonderful
things through video, song, and dance. All us Mandarin-speaking (and
wannabe Mandarin-speaking) folk got a few lessons up our sleeves! The
above video is a break-out song by Wilbur Pan which was big when I visited Taiwan
in September. Supposedly he’s Taiwanese-American and went to school at
Taipei American School, which just goes to show you that pretty much
anyone who wants to can go become a pop-star in Asia for a little bit if you put your mind to it!
Anyway,
even though the music video is pretty much fairly boring and uneventful
compared to those Korean music videos filled with fights, sex, and
explosions, it does a good job at demonstrating the #1 Golden Rule of
Life. No, it’s not "Do Unto Others" but rather "Don’t Trust Asian Ice
Queens" You would think that by now after generations of being
doormats, nice guys would figure out how to avoid getting their heart
broken, but time and time again we see that the Dick-In-The-Jar complex
is alive and well!
And for a finishing (yet disturbing touch), I leave you with one last image which will simultaneously explain
a) Why is it that all Asian guys inherently know and feel comfortable doing an Asian boy rice squat? b) What is the single-handed most frightening thing I'm worried about with my upcoming Asia trip?
Noah Wyle, George Clooney, Zach Braff... Eat Your Hearts Out!!!
Well it took forever and a day, and ironically occurred after I left Los Angeles (which is unofficially the "Look at me, I'm important" capital of the world)...but this week, it finally happened: I'm not just a doctor anymore, but I got to play one on TV
Next step...Hollywood, partying with all the hottest ladies, and lap dances in the champagne room! Oh wait, I did that already...
(Note to self: Next time you are on TV, stop blinking so damn much!)
Okay, well you can't see it all that well...but that dude in the yellow jumpsuit who is strapped to a flying motorized tricycle tied to a hang-glider is yours truly. I actually flew this thing for a couple minutes about 4000 feet up in the air, and got my student pilots license in the process. This was something I just did last week up on the North Shore of Oahu when my brother came to visit, and this picture quality doesn't do it justice....I'll try to get the real images online somewhere soon so you can see how crazy beautiful they are.
This is quite easily the coolest and most exhilarating tourist activity I have ever done in my entire life! It puts surfing, snowboarding, zip-lining, kayaking, etc all to shame.....Granted it cost about $150 for a 30-40 minute flight, but it was totally money well-spent and I'm sure I'll go back. I highly recommend it for anyone coming to visit Hawaii!
I know I've been AWOL for awhile, but it's only because I've been super busy with work/hosting my bro on his first trip to Hawaii/travelling. I've got a lot of fun and big stories for you all soon.
Hope this old Kenny Loggins music in the background puts you all in the mood....Aah, the good ol days when Tom Cruise was still a cool hip punk and not the Scientology-spouting Cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs caricature that he is today!
Remember guys....You can be MY wingman any day!!
And I mean that in the least gay way possible. BTW, if you ever want to play a fun drinking game, I highly recommend The TOP GUN Homoerotic References Drinking Game, it's extremely easy. Just pop in the movie, and then everyone basically has to drink whenever there is any sort of veiled homo-erotic reference. After awhile, the whole movie basically seems homoerotic, including any scene with Tom Cruise/Val Kilmer together....and pretty much the whole volleyball scene! If you're not absolutely hammered after the volleyball scene then you are more clueless than a white grandma at a 50 Cent concert. A tamer version of the Top Gun drinking game can be found here but I think the homoerotic version is much more hilarious.
Until next time...and just in case you were missing all the Top Life Lessons You Can Learn From Korean Music Videos, I'm not done....coming up shortly are the Top Life Lessons You Can Learn From Chinese Music Videos
Albert Lin: Human Flaming Sambuca Shot, Flowerpot-Head Catcher, International Cowboy Doctor of Mystery ...and now Taiwanese Diplomat plus Phuket Plane Crash-Avoider
Aloha from Thailand!! I'm writing from Bangkok now...although I should be in Phuket. Which I'm not for some obvious reasons...
I stopped over here for vacation after a trip to Taiwan for the last week (a WHOLE other story) while I was attending an health care conference as one of 30+ Taiwanese American doctors/dentists/nurses/pharmacists comparing the US-Taiwan health care systems, which was fully sponsored by the Taiwanese government. For those of you who think it sounds a lot like a Love Boat program for health care professionals, you're partially right...although there was a lot fewer people getting pregnant this time. I'm pretty sure I managed to avoid getting pregnant at least, although I think I've missed my period for the last 31 years, so I'm not quite sure... I'll have to save all my stories about Taiwan (which was AWESOME) for another time. Here's one photo to whet your appetite.
But for the other big news...Anyway, as you all know, two years ago when I travelled out of the country to Europe I set my face on fire doing a flaming Sambuca shot off a women I met in an Amsterdam bar.
Earlier this year, I cracked open my head when a falling flower arrangement knocked me into the door of a van at a wedding in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
I'm extremely glad that God (a.k.a The Big Guy upstairs) found it in his kindness to finally cut me a break...the timing couldn't have been better. But my heart goes out to all those families who are going through the horror of finding out if their relatives are okay...my mom just wrote me freaking out cause she thought I had died since she knew I was supposed to go to Phuket on Sunday.
Originally I was supposed to go to Phuket on Sunday, literally when the plane crashed (and had even been recommended to fly on the airline that crashed, 1-2-Go Airline, by a Thai friend)...but being the perrenial internet bargain shopper that I am, I found a cheaper airline and delayed my flight by a day so that I could stay and party with my new conference friends in Taipei and see relatives for dinner.
So basically, being a cheap Taiwanese bastard and my desire to club/drink, combined with me harboring a fetish for cutie Taiwanese club girls (is that even possible if I'm Taiwanese I wonder?) managed to save my sorry ass.
Whatever the reason is, I'm just glad that thisisn't the way I had to say goodbye to all of you.
See you all back in the States/LA on 10/31-11/4...I better see y'all for a drink before I get hit by a meteorite or something!
If you're not absolutely hammered after the volleyball scene then you are more clueless than a white grandma at a 50 Cent concert. A tamer version of the 
I'll have to save all my stories about Taiwan (which was AWESOME) for another time. Here's one photo to whet your appetite.
