...and exhale - San Diego after Bar Exam

March 1, 2010

On Monday, it was barely noon when I arrived in San Diego. The sun warmed me as I sat on the bench outside the airport, waiting to be picked up. I would have been happy if my entire week was spent sitting on that sunny bench, facing dozens of palm trees, with the gentle breeze refreshing my every breath. But, there was much more to see of SD.

After dropping off my stuff, I took a walk towards the beaches. I stopped for pho, in what was recommended as the second-best place nearby (Pho Sao Bien, second to Pho King). The bright sunny sky and the many pedestrians out and about midday Monday really made it feel like a vacation. Inside, there were few Vietnamese people. The server brought my small Pho Tai, and lingered. I looked up. "Boyfriend? No boyfriend?" I had to ask him to repeat himself. "Boyfriend or no boyfriend?" he prodded again. I had to laugh. "Boyfriend. Thank you." Seriously? Next time I am going to Pho King.

I slurped my last delicious noodle five minutes later, paid, and hit the road. I stopped in all the shops, noticed how many tattoo parlors are on Garnet Avenue, and meandered into a bar that looked dive-y enough for my liking - Dirty Birds. I felt like melting when I finally settled into my bar stool. The nonstop, high-intensity, fully internal, silent, and mental emphasis of the last two months felt very pronounced suddenly. I realized how much noise was in my brain. I wanted to silence it, and sitting at a bar, alone at 3pm on a Monday in San Diego pretty much put me in a spotlight, and silenced all my brain chatter.

"What're you gettin' into today?" asked the bartender. I felt like a deer in headlights, suddenly realizing that I would have no one to talk to and nothing to pretend to be doing while I finished this beer. "Uh....absolutely nothing." To my relief, he nodded enthusiastically: "Right on. Nice." The guy next to me was studying. Part of me wanted to commiserate; another part of me wanted to pretend I was someone completely different, who had no clue what it was like to have to study for some huge, important exam. So, I didn't ask about it. I made friends with the bartender and the studier, finished my beer, and walked the two blocks to the coastline.

One bench remained unoccupied; I propped my feet up, listened to the waves, and read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, stopping every now and then to watch sinewy surfers, charging into the chilly waters at dusk.

For dinner, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Clairemont, and ordered a family dinner for five, for the four of us. Except for the rice, it was all gone when we patted our bellies on the way out the door. Deeeeelicious.

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