Nablah

A meaningful life.

2010-09-06T10:57:00.006-04:00

What is a meaningful life? Would only nothing less than a life filled with countless adventures and exotic experiences be meaningful? This was my misconception.

A meaningful life, by my current reckoning, needs purposeful thought. Even the dullest circumstances, when lit by a thoughtful narrative, can produce a meaningful existence and a charming story. Consider instead a fascinating life devoid of description. The participant of this life is lured from moment to moment by a desire for higher emotion that is trained on the most captivating, brilliant, yet ever-changing circumstances, yet never once examines the moment. Is this meaningful? Fun, maybe, but hardly meaningful.

I've noticed that I had been living an un-meaningful life. Almost like chasing after a butterfly: exerting to finally nab the coveted prize but uncertain what to do with it afterwards and unable to remember the chase. Have I been pursuing these phantom butterflies for 30 years?

Things are different now. I am outwardly quieter but it can be rather intense on the inside. The implications surprise me daily. For one, watching television has become impossible for me: I cannot ascribe meaning to the content or I weary from trying when content is served too quickly.

Looking back. Coherently.

2010-05-07T00:25:00.002-04:00

Ayran

If you have Beethoven's "moonlight sonata", you might want to play it while reading the rest of this post --- it was what I thought to listen while writing what follows.

--------------------

I often discover mistakes in my older posts --- punctuation errors, ungrammatical constructions, incomplete ideas, incoherent paragraphs, impulsive conclusions or unnecessary drama. I was careless; after all, it's a blog and blogs suffer such vagaries.

I often feel the urge to go back and correct these past mis-takes. Yes, mis-takes, with the hyphen: almost as though they were scenes from a movie that need to be edited so that the life that inspired the movie could become better. Or at least be remembered more favorably. I often play scenes from this movie in my head --- sometimes secretly editing details. I suspect others do too.

Of course, I don't edit my older posts. Partly from laziness, partly from arbitrary principles I impose on myself. This blog was meant to record my identity, my received lessons, my introspective journeys and, naturally, my mis-takes --- like a journal. This journal is a time-capsule: when re-read, the posts in this journal should smell like a potpourri of hurt, pain, confusion and ecstasy; held together by an aging box constructed with words.

Of course, we all have (rather than make) mis-takes. Our memories change subtly so we may re-live them with lesser pain. It is only because my posts record these memories with unforgiving accuracy that I wince when I revisit them.

Isn't it better to leave memories the way they were first created? If it is futile to question the past (focus on the future instead!), shouldn't it be equally meaningless to edit older posts?

Isn't it more rewarding to see how much I have changed by remembering my slips and falls? Life might not have an obvious destination --- one could then look back to measure one's progress. The record of my life might comprise only a string of events --- some happy; some sad; some confusing; most of them dissociated from clear emotions but, nevertheless, complex.

Because I learn slowly (or perhaps I'm being consistent?) mis-takes recur. But this, should be saved for a different post.

Assignment

2008-07-31T09:11:00.002-04:00

MK doll

How often do we assign meanings to our feelings?

I often find myself explaining how I felt after the emotion occurred. A correct explanation would justify the associated emotion. But I get lazy and do not always explain myself, even to myself. What happens then: Are these silent emotions "justified"?

I am curious because I've always had silent emotions all my life. Specifically, had I been living an unexplained and impoverished life?

Introspection did not come naturally to me, until I had to explain myself to others. This may be what is commonly referred to as "accountability". Becoming an adult may just be increased accountability, both to others and more important to oneself.

Critical events can change people's lives. How many of such instances start from increased introspection?

Explanations enrich our emotions. More broadly, we often assign meaning and project ourselves onto other people and things. Our first tinted opinion of the world would indicate more about us than the world. But ultimately, this projection and association enriches our lives even if we get it wrong.

Which makes me think: How often do we assign meanings correctly to our emotions? How does the interaction between thoughts and emotions complicate our ability to understand how we feel? Since our thoughts can influence our emotions, thinking/explaining can easily steer us away from the first reasons behind these emotions.

This is perhaps how we indulge in our little delusions, wrapping them with false assignments to our emotionally charged lives.

Perhaps this is how we distinguish ourselves from animals. Humans and animals both have emotional capacity, but only humans actively clothe it with meaning.

How do cats apologize?

2008-07-14T23:18:00.002-04:00

Petting

We humans say "I'm sorry" when we are apologetic. We say it sometimes even when we are not apologetic perhaps in proper manners or to achieve some ulterior motive. Hence, the words "I'm sorry" cannot be the fundamental means of apologizing.

For instance, cats don't say "I'm sorry" when they feel apologetic. So how do they apologize?

Well, if they can even feel apologetic. I suspect so.
Cats get into fights with other cats or their human companions and promptly resume affectionate behavior soon after these fights. Surely between the fight and ensuing affection a cat must have felt apologetic about the incident and decided to forgive and patch up? Or have they just forgotten about the fight?

Until I figure the answer to this question, my method of apologizing to my cat will have to suffice. I just hope she understands. Or forgets that I got mad at her.

Piercing Eyes

2008-07-12T22:34:00.003-04:00

Piercing Eyes

Writing relates me to the world.

Telling a story forces me to seek meaning within the facts and indulge in a romance with my imagination.

I will write again, not because I have more time now but less.

----------------------------

I walk by a red, squalid house every day. Its paint was peeling and reeked whenever the door creaked open.

Every week, different people would loiter about its front steps talking loudly, usually too agitated or too indifferent.

I didn't know who lived there. I didn't bother to find out. I usually averted my eyes as I scurried across this house, as if my feet had already decided a fear about this place.

Just this Friday, I walked by this red house again on my way home. The afternoon air was heavy. Too hot for a latte and too humid for a walk. Nonetheless I had them both.

I sipped my latte as I stepped into the shadow of the red house. Fool. You can't hurry when you are drinking. I reluctantly slowed my pace, while it cursed at me.

Someone started whistling from the house. The sudden music made me turn, bracing myself for an awkward greeting.

A black man, with graying hair, was standing on the lawn with a large green sofa. The sofa was gaudy but well kept. No visible stains,or tears. There were no ruffles on its skirt while it sat squarely in the lawn.

With a stiff brush, he gently and methodically combed off the dust on his sofa. He moved purposely across the sofa, moving the same brushing motion to a different patch, keenly inspecting the previous one.

It was as though he had already divided the task into hundreds of little steps which ensured a pleasing result which only he can appreciate. And pleased he was as he whistled to his flawless execution of each step.

I was confused.
This house looked in pain from the outside, yet in it lives a man who brushes his couch more carefully than I with my cat. Does the inside of this red house look better than the outside? If so, why? What is the story behind this house which haunts my commute?

My lips left my latte and my feet immediately hastened. Before my eyes could pause to collect more details, I had already left the house more curious but no less fearful than before.

-------------------------

A story is never over until you stop telling it.

Freshness you cannot buy

2007-12-18T20:21:00.002-05:00

Grass 27

The stars

2007-11-09T22:37:00.002-05:00

NateNAngela@Halloween 12

At my high school graduation, my teacher gave each student in my class a simple congratulatory card. On it showed a child gazing curiously into the moon, sitting in a sprinkling of stars. The message: "shoot for the moon. Even if you, miss you'll be amongst the stars."

Ignoring the obvious impracticality, or even awkwardness, those words were marginally inspiring and mildly impressive. Back then, of course. Yet sufficient for it to persist in me to this day.

Thank you SKK. Your mark, though subtle, is indelible.

Novels

2007-10-23T20:06:00.002-04:00

We light curves

Musings on types of novel-creation. It would appear, from my limited readings, that the novels are inspired by two means: conclusion-inspired or theme-inspired. Of course, there will be exceptions to these which may very well be the majority. Nonetheless, such a simplistic categorization may elucidate or enrich reading.

Conclusion-inspired writing begins with a conclusion; thereafter the author enriches the process to the conclusion. Example:
Step 1: My family bought a dog. My dog died.
Step 2: My family bought a dog, a german shepherd. My dog, died four years ago.
Step 3: My family bought a dog, a humanly-sentient german shepherd. His wonderfully mysterious sensitivity to our lives started my family's passion of pets. My dog, died four years ago.
Step 4: My family bought a dog, a humanly-sentient german shepherd. His wonderfully mysterious sensitivity to our lives started my family's passion of pets. (Insert more details) My dog, died four years ago.
Step n: "Novel completed".

Theme-inspired writing may originate from an author's desire to create a fictitious world or describe an imagined variation of a current situation. The author might then weave incidental stories, which describe the world or phenomena created by the author. Example:
Step 1: In the future, mankind struggles for individuality and integration into complex social networks.
Step 2: In the future, mankind struggles for individuality and integration into complex social networks. Jane finds herself subject to such personal conflict daily. She leads a typical life: complete with an awkwardly-functional family, image-conscious cadre of friends, hypersensitive allergies to basic food types and an incurable addiction to expose her thoughts to the multi-web. The multi-web is a reinvention of the world wide web after the "year of criticality", as termed by workers in networking theory. The web, as we know it, inevitably embedded human interactions into its transmission protocol. A user of the multi-web is no longer a user, but a key component of its functionalities, in a statistically averaged sense. ...
Step n: (story continues to a satisfying ending about Jane's story, with an extremely detailed description of the world I intended)

My point:
I lament the rarity of books with strong evidence of both inspirations.

窗口

2007-09-07T04:27:00.001-04:00

Fallen View

宁静的清晨四点半。破晓前已经从满身汗的睡眠中醒来。睁开眼；四周似熟似生，紧紧对照了目前生活的状态。感觉上似乎成为失去权力的长期旅客，时间停留在船乘离开与进港的失落。言语，笔记，手足，都无法表达目前的感受。渐渐习惯了为前途而恐慌。渐渐为目下的方便而部下无数谎言。累了吧，不想再解释了，也不见得有愿耳恭听。只有五点钟，电风扇的杂声陪伴我。

Bottling it up

2007-08-26T19:29:00.001-04:00

Bottling it up

Every once in a few months I ask myself the question I currently fear most: what have I been doing with my life?

............

Moments later I realized my breathing had stopped in pace with my frozen thoughts. The stillness condenses into a blush which blooms a sweat along my spine.

Damn. This occurred more frequently after entering an ivory tower where material rewards nearly disappear, and silence grips me whenever I find myself. Then alternately exposed, too quickly, to the fancies of the "real world", always encrusted with a thick layer of showiness.

How do you crack an rock? Alternately heat and cool its exterior with ruthless haste. Do it enough and you will find shards or crumbs. Useless knowledge about geography still mocks me after all these years.

Again! "What were the past 27 years spent achieving?" This time, much louder, followed by a decidedly painful silence. Water starts dripping down my face.

I, like most of my peers, am a multi-millionaire: I've already been given beyond 14 million minutes to decide the answer to this question. Too many gone, too few remaining. Five million were spent sleeping. Nearly two million were consumed away. With my memory probably holding less than tens of thousands of minutes worth, I wonder about the squandered remainder.

I forcefully bottle up this minute's worth of panic, suddenly resolved to act; wishing away this dread, knowing its shadow will seek me again.

Reaching for the towel, I step out of the shower and begin my promised new day.

Technorati Tags: graduate school

Friends

2007-08-25T05:15:00.001-04:00

Range - View from Sulphur Mountain, Banff.

Who do we consider our friends: people who care about us or whom we can get along? One condition does not strictly guarantee the other. We sometimes find ourselves having to tolerate our friends when one of these two conditions are starkly absent. But tolerate we do, if only to sustain a lazy habit, or subjugate to peer pressure.

I've seldom sought new friendships, even though I like meeting new people. Meeting new faces erases the tiring recurrence of bad habits and social bullying. Perhaps this is why I like traveling. It affords a temporary escape from my habits. But, I digress. This, after all, is a blog.

I've only come to realize the influence friends exert on my life. I start to behave more like them, or less like them, but never unchanged. I tend to either strongly agree, sometimes without reason, or strongly disagree, usually with unthinking haste. The latter situation is nearly always a precursor to the end of an the friendship.

It is a compulsory struggle which bears upon me. I am strangely disturbed by my inability to stay constant, or to hazard a cliche: "stay true to myself", whatever "true" and "myself" may mean to the world. If my "true self" is merely a composite of past prejudices, should I accept influence of friendships as a personality gained from my history?

If we do become our friends, or take on some of their dominant qualities, should we not surround ourselves with positive people whom we can get along? Which brings us back to my first question: what about our friends whom we care about but exhibit very negative personalities? After all, friendships are about "being there" and "support" and other terms which go well with Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe we should also grow such a positivism in ourselves, so that our more negative friends can benefit from.

Unless, of course, they are the sort who dislike optimism or constructive opinions. After all, who likes to be told what to do, in this new liberal age?

If these don't work, we can always go with what is most convenient. But to think that we spend so much of our time worrying about our career, our future and finances, should we not devote attention to picking our friends who decide the our personality?

Tough choices with no single solution for every situation.

The mountain range we have to adventure continues into the horizon, with the setting sun blinding our eyes temporarily from the discouragement of the majestic view.

Offline

2007-08-07T22:43:00.001-04:00

Microphone

....
In the meantime, I've thought about what I want from myself during this lifetime; a lifetime with an unannounced end.

I think my current answer is more specific than my first. Perhaps I am driven by my peers and mentors to seek meaningful creativity with my hands. Standing in the light of their enlightened minds, I wonder how far mine could shine.

And thus I continue to challenge myself.

Histories and Hysteresis

2007-04-24T10:59:00.001-04:00

Crying.

A tree in a city's winter,
stripped of its cover...
...the foliage obscures the intents,
wrong turns and scars.

In winter, the leaves wither to reveal the emotional supports. Only then can we appreciate the structure of our sense of emptiness, pretense and insecurities.

Old proclivities and bad memories: histories and hysteresis.
Everyone deserves a private audience with their comfortable flaws.

Confused branchings align to a moving sun. We adjust to our daily contradictions and oxymorons, spreading our attention thinly over ill-defined expectations.

Each new branch walks in air, yet thinning all the time. Its tip turns back to find a shrinking trunk accompanied by a growing uncertainty. The branch adds what it can to augment the trunk, while the trunk teaches the branch its limits.

Exposed and weak, we stand against uncaring traffic, looking at the next naked tree, wondering if our apprehensions meet.

Toughen your bark; wait for the certain spring. Then again, you may hide your branches in secret hope that you will weary of the game if the final winter does not take you.

春。雪。森本。

2007-03-18T10:04:00.001-04:00

Overwhelmed by the cold

Living through Spring is a personal confusion.

Before I arrived at New York State, I've assumed that the 4 seasons started with Spring in January, and Ended with Winter closing off December. Wrong.

I thought that March would be a great time for Birkenstocks and T-shirts. Wrong again.

I did not understand that daylight duration determined the seasons, rather than air temperature.
In Spring time, the Earth responds slowly to the increasing amount of sunlight received: almost as if she were recovering from a nasty cold.

Why does it take so long? Winter Solstice is the 21st-22nd of December: the shortest day of the year. Should it not heat up quickly after that, when the days start to stretch?

But the Earth experiences an annual hysteresis. Advancing and reversing time about the winter solstice is spectacularly different.

I can only guess why. Imagine suddenly reversing the spinning wheels while the car still charges forwards. Try as you might, you there is a lag between when the wheels start reversing and when you actually to move backwards. This is inertia.

Maybe the hysteresis comes from atmospheric inertia (land masses warms faster even if it means melting covered snow)? Heating of lower latitudes may pull colder, damp air from the north, generating snow, frost and general bitterness. This could account for the large inertia to warming up.

The higher latitudes seem to share a single snooze button. Personally, sharing a snooze button is the best way to oversleep.

Or the collective complaining of various elements of Earth slows down its recovery. If Earth were smaller, she might not complain as much. Perhaps the air temperature would better match the seasons.

What if Earth were 10 times as large, then it would make no sense to define seasons for countries in higher latitudes since one season would slowly run over the another. Much like the equator has practically 2 seasons: wet and dry.

My theory is probably wrong too. I've just substituted one approximate lie for another. But for a lazy Sunday morning, I am satisfied with my idle bullshitting.
Ah.. how I miss term papers in Humanities classes.

Come Spring

2007-02-22T20:24:00.001-05:00

Fruition in Spring

My branches may shiver and my roots rock in the dirt. My dark colors too, add age beyond my expectancy. I hide in my layers, waiting for the scent of green. It will, I am sure, come for me.

Wait for my leaves to dance in sunlight, drawing circles in the breeze. Stand under them to twinkle starlight in the midday sun.

Take these fruits I saved in winter; harvest me.
Come spring I will feed you nectar of bees's envy.

Unlikely blossoms

2007-02-11T19:56:00.001-05:00

Unlikely blossoms

I found a blossom far from home.
A flower which breeds, if you study the snow.
Tonight I sleep with its beauty in hold.
Thank you for waiting.
You have melted, 3 years of cold.

An echo

2007-01-28T16:05:00.001-05:00

The institution of marriage is founded on the same human tendencies as dating. Except the former legislates a much larger inertia against separation.

Yet in our longing for a type of perfection in another person, we neglect to look inward. For how can 2 hollow logs burn beyond the brevity of an forgotten flame?

Thin lines of truth

2007-01-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

Centered

Everybody lies, with or without intention.

It starts with harmless exaggeration, perhaps to entertain the audience. After all, we all have soft spots for fireworks. Embellish the story, enrich the experience.

Next, our incomplete memory begs creative reconstruction. None of the details need to be correct or even make perfect sense. It just needs to fool the listener.

The vicious cycle repeats with the audience, but in a somewhat the reversed order (or maybe none at all): reconstruct the story when it needs to be retold, often so that the story "feels" accurate, then quickly embellish as is appropriate. Perhaps this is why old recipes are constantly "re-invented". Or so that the word "re-invented" may be meaningful.

If only all stories needed to make a minimum amount of "sense", for error-checking. It could be as easy as making logic annotations to the story or honest self-doubting remarks. How about making statements falsifiable? Leaving little "mental exercises" for the listener to complete could start the reconstruction process earlier.

But what I seek is utopian. The world finds on interest in verfiability; it merely wants to dangle morsels of fact on the thin lines of truth, against the backdrop of lies colored to dazzle.

Simple complication

2006-11-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

Intertwined

It is an ironic struggle of man: to make life easy to understand but sophicated enough to enjoy. The brain feeds on novelty, while the heart sings only to simplictic ideals.

Perhaps this is why societies are formed from families: keep the fireworks close but the fire closer.

In the jungle of complicated human networks, our emotional capacity can only manage a small feature of the greenery. The patch of dirt that we never want changed. Yet we still secretly long for surprises, if only to be frustrated by it.

Then from our tiny patches in the jungle, we reach out to touch our neighbors with our roots holding our hands. If we are lucky, we'll find other plants to hold our hands.

The tiny connections often sleep in a larger nest of uncertain motives. The little movements cannot possibly fathom the larger influences which carry it along. Only much later can these motives be understood.

As time washes away the burdensome details, our mind slowly painting back the emotional content of what transpired. Gradually, we wrap ourselves in untruths that warm our starving souls. Stomachs are easy to fill but hearts growl forever. Armed with our imagination and brushes made from the most painful memories, we cover the world in shades of anger and joy, dipping into the palette of lies that were taught. Only the bravest ones mix their own colors.

We are all artists in a way. Painting the saddest, most complex, intricate and breathtaking mural known to this blue world.

腐朽的。坚定的。

2006-08-03T11:35:00.000-04:00

Use, Abuse

放弃的理由往往是因为外表腐朽，不及往日。可是潜在的，是不是肉眼所难察觉的坚强？

那么灿烂的外貌可脆柔，只要毅力长存，放弃的理由也就荡然无存。

We want to believe

2006-07-30T18:18:00.000-04:00

Crispy

Fools choose to believe, others just choose and believe. When is it too late to be a fool?

.......

It is a familiarity that transcends reason: you have experienced it before, although you can't possibly have. Something longing something fonder. Insert the appropriate obsession.

It has been told in movies, described within novels, ripened legends and myths, inspired songs for millennia, molded almost every adolescence with an idle luxury for imagination. Surely, you must recognize it.

Someone once told me that the first love is the only love. You'll spend the rest of your life attempting to recreate it.

An ignorant heart can paint even darkest skies with rainbows. Or perhaps novelty just sweetens the dullest gestures. A combination of both, I suppose, can create the best puppy love. But you'll only get to use it once. Time and reality are the two daggers that will murder every naiveness you have.

I still think that all this is wrong. I still want to be the fool. Even when life wrinkles my smile. For what else is worthy enough to move on to?

Finally Free

2006-07-30T02:22:00.000-04:00

Web o Deceit

From the dark lonely I flee.

Hide away, poor startled soul,
a decrepit shell powerless and cold.
A secret pleasure takes it toll,
years of solitude I stole.

In quiet pillows screams of pain,
tears clawing the violin in my brain.

Ugly dreams roused my sleep,
I learnt that even sweat, shouts and shrieks.

Fall through winter, heart's asleep,
it finds comfort in the snow and sleet.
Pure white crestfallen from heaven,
friend of mine, Melancholy,
froze the deep winter asleep.

Why clench the cruel past?
Ruler I am, in a kingdom of none.

Why shy from other souls?
I carry a baggage from which people shun.

Why fear when others extol?
Too bright a sun can be hateful to behold.

Damn the propensities! Damn the cold!

From the dark lonely I flee.
One day I will finally be free.

A distant hope

2006-07-20T00:32:00.000-04:00

5am and woken to a pulsating despair.
Yet another dream that he did not want. Not a nightmare, he's certain. Or so he tells himself. But enough anger and fear were mixed in that his emotions were stirred.

He wishes for a reality that only his mind can afford. But he always wakes up just when it starts to sweeten. He begins to think that life, like his dreams, take on this pattern. Like a carrot dangling before a famished mind.

5am. Birds always chirp at 5am. They must have a large carrot.

Silent Night

2006-07-19T02:09:00.000-04:00

Labor of the tropics

Warm air slips into the room, kindling the sleeplessness that lies on the pillow. Another lonely night in the confines of his tiny room. He consoles himself with the cushy bed.

"Hey, at least I get to do whatever I want."

He finds warmth only in the balmy summer air. The heavy air suffocates his thoughts. An uncertain reverie pulls the consciousness away from his troubled life.

Simple Pleasures

2006-07-16T23:27:00.000-04:00

Shaded from the Sun

Often experienced:
Being in the Shade on a hot day.
An email from a friend far away.
A soft pillow and the scent of fresh sheets.
The fur of a cat or dog against your shin.
Serenity of a lake at 6am in the morning.
The snooze button.
Sunday naps.

Recently discovered:
A juicy pear at the end of a run.

I think I can

2006-07-04T14:47:00.001-04:00

I think I can

I ...
am a hypocrite but sometimes I try to be humble.

am rude but I usually try to be polite.

ask questions which people don't always want to hear, only to have their offence remind me of my etiquette.

have extremely intelligent colleauges who make me feel worthless from time to time.

waste away most of my day but I want people to think that I am somewhat productive.

hate reading but I do it because I want to reap its benefits. I love to know more, but I'm lazy to find out.

never had a close friend even though I've always wanted one.

love my family but I see them only for a month each year.

cannot remember the last time I laughed because I was happy.

love my dog and the day of his death still haunts me today.

hate to lose so I avoid confrontation.

am socially inept: inconsiderate, loud, careless, irrelevant, aggravating. I think I will be my worst social encounter if I hadn't already met myself.

don't know the purpose of my life even though I think about it all the time.

But I am foolish enough to think that I can change all these.

Captured

2006-06-30T20:50:00.000-04:00

IMG_8417.jpg

We are but aged into a trap lacking doors.
The crimson rose fades unnoticeably into a sinking red.
What keeps us going is the unbearable slowness of change, and the foolishness to ignore the inevitable.

Musings on Mirrors

2006-06-25T12:34:00.000-04:00

Mirrors on a leaf

Every single drop of water on the lotus leaf is a beautiful reflection of yourself. However, the size of the droplet determines the curvature of the droplet: the larger droplets have trouble staying spherical. This in turn provides a range of mirrors to view yourself.

You know from a distance that the reflections on the drops hold detail to yourself; yet if you are lazy, these details would elude you.

Every new droplet you encounter is enthralling, if not for the different shape, then for the way it sits differently on the leaf. However, you always still see your own reflection somewhere along the way.

I like to think of the drops of water as friends of various social capacities. The larger ones would be the more generous friends who would show you more of yourself.

I am but a small drop now. The reflections of the rest of the world on me are still too small to be visible. The clear details I add to the collection are but my own: I see myself in others but others can't see themselves in me.

The dent I make on the leaf is fairly small and so I can be anywhere without significantly changing the arrangement of the droplets.

Some droplets live for other droplets. The see merely the other droplets on the leaf but not realize the leaf which supports this social network.

Others try hard to cluster into a larger droplet so that they can commandeer more mass and curve the leaf, thus dictating the movement of neighboring droplets.

I don't collect easily with other groups of droplets. I find it difficult to move around if I did. I would prefer milling about some portion of the leaf appreciating the local intricacies below me. But then again, I lead a "narrow" existence, as many others would educate me.

However, a spattering of droplets on a leaf would yield droplets of all sizes. My tiny size is but a member of the inevitable distribution.

I am not the one to reflect on the outlook and behavior of another droplet. Just like I'm not the one to tell you who you should be and how you should behave. I'm just not aptly shaped for such a task. I'm merely content in discovering my true self.

My small footprint in this leaf also makes it difficult to see myself. This constraint, however, changes my outlook: for I am constantly seeking a suitable droplet to mirror myself.

Another day of procrastination

2006-06-22T22:15:00.000-04:00

Peering through

What have I acheived today?

Learnt the nature of my new project.
Got confused about a diffraction experimental setup.
Realized I have forgotten the Weiner-Kinchin Theorem.
Argued wrongfully that fractal dimensions are useless.
Made a fool out of myself for the previous point.
Learnt random trivia about parsimony, lambda calculus, SAIDS, HPVs..etc

In summary, I did nothing at all. Things need to change.

Just like the picture: part of the goal is clear yet obscured by a foliage of procrastination.

Settle

2006-06-13T09:41:00.000-04:00

IMG_8031.jpg

Finally acknowledged a reality different from my expectations. Held to a tenuous hope threaded with ignorance and denial. Any unraveling is quickly patched by another insufficiency. Of course, I have to keep this in the abstract: not for fear of revealing a dark secret, but to keep the details from exasperating me.

Certain goals in life can be fulfilled with diligence, wit and luck. Yet there will be intangible luxuries which accepts only luck. No matter how hard you try, your desire will only be frustrated.

I embrace an impractical naviety. However this same foolishness warms the moments before I drift to sleep. I ask of the impossible. What I wish will eventually consume me and destroy the little equanimity I have regained.

The mind admonishes the gullibility which the heart cannot forget.

Perhaps there will be a solution.
Perhaps things will turn out well.
Perhaps matters will take care of themselves.
Perhaps things can only go up for hereon.
Perhaps you will receive more understanding.
Perhaps you will live up to the expectations.

Perhaps none of this will happen.
Perhaps the end of the road will be a closed door.
Perhaps my best friend lives in a pint.
Perhaps I will vanish before the emptiness gets to me.

But for now, the threads of self-deception will be stored for another time; another occassion to live in self-denial.

I have no answers to how my life proposes to proceed. Advice from another person's experiences are reference points to a prototypical life I do not want.

But I might have to give up the fight soon. I'll settle for just another grazing animal in the serengeti of life.

Slipped a little; to eventually find stability.

2006-03-05T19:33:00.000-05:00

Balance

Thank you for the encouragement.

Dire as the circumstances which find you, may you make the better of them with courage.

I know you will regain your balance and emerge stronger.

Bearings

2006-02-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

Bearings

好久没以中文书写了。试一试。
最近生活非常忙碌。研究与日文课占据了大半的时间。得到周末方能安心的睡。常常与时间赛跑；也都常常败。

因该感觉很充实的。心中却始终存有个空虚。

曾经认为生命的真谛就珍藏在人与人之间的坦诚，爱护。如今人在情薄的异乡，自立心较强，情操的幅度也得相对的减弱。空虚的感觉也似乎扩散了一些。欲强是否也就得承受孤单呢？

My world is unravelling. I hope that there would be a spot left to stand on when it's done falling apart.

Very often, I seek a simplicity which my life simply can't sustain. I suspect that is what a partner is supposed provide. I wonder how long it will last? Probably long enough to deceive both individuals to give marriage a shot. I know I am lame in thinking about starting a family now. But I'm turning 27 this year and such intermittent thoughts are inevitable.

But tonight, I will go home where an empty room, and the scent of sleepy bedsheets will greet me. Of course, that would probably be 4am in the morning again.

I am a little tired. Nothing seems to possible now. I just wish that someone would know.

Ever seen a lotus bloom?

2006-01-21T22:35:00.000-05:00

Lotus Bloom

It starts as a plump pristine bud.

You have heard of such temptation. Some call it love, others dismiss it as frivolity.

The way its pink fades into white on the bud is unmistakably seductive.

Yet you undeniably sense the sensual attractions.

The size of the bud promises a spectacular bloom.

You see visions of happiness and feel spurs of romance.

The lotus bud sits quietly in the water, proudly ignoring the garnered attention.

You find yourself coaxing her into opening up; out of curiosity.

Over a few days, the petals yawn and stretch outwards.

Your attention is reciprocated. The temptation is real and the brakes stopped working long ago.

The bud unravels from its top, undressing itself petal by petal, revealing a dreamlike white resting within.

The more you learn about her, the stronger the attraction.

The outer petals start to wilt as the fragrance escapes. Although the bloom is imminent, one should not peel or pry at the petals to encourage it. Such impatience would only taint the blossom.

This is the best part of the love which you remember. The only thing you will carry with you years after you've stopped talking to each other.

My master

2006-01-12T11:27:00.000-05:00

师傅物语

I learn 吴式太极拳 (Wu-style Tai Chi Boxing) from this great man. 陈师傅。

He came to Singapore in his adolescence, leaving behind the vicissitudes of post-war China. He never mentioned about the family he left behind or the reasons for his migration. We, his students, never asked.

He started learning 太极拳 from his master under the 吴式 family of 太极拳。Sometimes, during the rests in our practice, he would repeat stories about his master, the trials he endured as an apprentice and feats of famous 吴式拳家 predecessors. He told them to me so many times that it is nearly impossible for him to forget that he told me these stories.

Yet his story-telling enthusiasm never fades. And I always manage to pick up on some detail I missed earlier or generate a question he has not addressed before.

Only such keenness can afford a man such skill. It is a joy to watch him instruct. I can watch him perform a subtle movement a dozen times, even mimic it, but I would just be aping him.

His hands, hip, shoulders and legs move with such purpose; soft to the touch yet intimidating to behold and ruthless when challenged. His bony frame moves with such precision and efficiency: no wastage is tolerated. He unapologetically steals my momentum and leaves me panting to catch up.

He started teaching us pushing hands nearly 2 years ago.

In a typical session, he has fun shoving me around like a corpse for a while. I sometimes wonder how hilarious it must be to another observer.

He momentarily explains his techiniques and suggests countermeasures. Yes, countermeasures. A counters B but A can counter B's counter and B can counter A's counter to B's counter and so on. The counter measures grow more vicious with each iteration. But he doesn't show me past the 3rd iteration; before someone gets horribly mangled.

Then he explains how this knowledge is already accessible to me through the stances I have learnt. His way of saying "Duh."

Surprise; exhilartion. Life pays better when you start out ignorant.

He always teaches us to defend and neutralize. "Never attack," he says; but does not elaborate. "Push me here" he would then say, pointing at his chest or abdomen. "Push harder. Like you are trying to attack me." The screams of pain that follow are sufficiently clear.

Friendship

2006-01-09T12:48:00.000-05:00

Leave me Alone

Frienship is an oddity.

It used to excite, but superficially. Any keenness elicited came from novelty.

Enthusiasm bled away from the novelty, leaving am empty apologetic memory.

Used to be friends; marred by a misunderstanding. Now, we hardly talk, fearful of mentioning the tainted past.

Used to tell each other everything; separated by time and distance. Now we have only shallow conversations, uncertain of what is relevant.

Some friendships remind us of volatile bonds. How long do good things last?

Some incessantly deride our willingness to trust. "Oh, you hurt yourself? Told you so."

Some make us shudder like the essay you wrote in high school which you obviously tried too hard to impress.

I think half of my present thinks about the past.

Seriously Andrew, how can you like this writing? It depresses so much.

Pick your Hand

2006-01-06T10:41:00.001-05:00

Dealer

We don't get to pick our cards before we are born.

I like to think that we do after birth.

With the card facing down, of course, just like this picture. We learn the choices we make when we turn and assemble the cards.

How do we pick then? We assign superfluous meanings to the back of cards. Lazy? Get the Dealer to pick. Of course, the card game that is life, has an exception: you never know how many decks there are.

A single card does not make a good hand. Alternatively, it can break a good one when you are a perfectionist.

In Blackjack; Greed.
Dog. Bone. Reflection.
Should we resign to the odds?

We sometimes get tired of playing and instead share our deck with another. Compare. Share?

When everyone gets into a pair, the odds of the game suddenly change.

The strength of the cooperation depends on honesty and willingness to share cards. Will you show me your real hand? How should we split the earnings?

It was fun while we thought about the possible hands. And then there is the drama of getting your own cards back.

Secretly trading cards with a third party? Adultery? Depending on the rules you have with your "rightful" partner, they might never know.

What if they find out? Anger replies: why did you violate our trust to better your cards? What is different about the trust between spouses and partners in poker?

I wonder if I'll ever show my cards to another player again. I doubt I can deal with the hassle. At least for now.

Old man and the river

2006-01-03T23:06:00.000-05:00

Old man and the river

Once in a while, I wonder another person might be thinking.

From his or her perspective, guessing their life story and relating it to their facial expression and behavior, coalescing into a single thought at the moment.

Naturally, such an exercise is doomed to be incorrect, but more often than not, it betrays the apprehensions and anticipations that I hold.

Perhaps this old gentleman is reflecting on the extent his country has changed in his lifetime. The clash of the old and new, popular and obsolete is omnipresent.

Of course, the only thought that crossed my mind when I took this picture was how to avoid being noticed. Tendays thereafter, I realize that I too share this awkwardness.

Home, is but a memory we hold and not the place we seek.

The Beginnings

2005-12-04T01:38:00.000-05:00

Sunrise 2

It is almost always good in the beginning. A good idea, a hidden potential to tap, an exciting destination, a fiery romance. Eventually, things always sour.

Never been short on opportunities, yet there were always wasted, for various reasons. Distractions, overethusiasm, underenthusiasm, loss of confidence or interest, overambitiousness, foolishness.

Can't recall the last time I actually made good of something I had. I secretly wonder if I am alone in this regard. Then again, consolation from another person's shortcomings is the last thing I want.

The good beginnings are usually encouraging and enticing. That is why movies with happy endings only show the start of the happy ending.

I suppose the trick to making a difference in one's life is to actually go beyond the rosy start. Hurdle after hurdle. Day after day of struggling to improve.

Today, I have fallen. I've let my teammates down and shown that my mental game is fairly weak. Everyone lost money on the tournament. My knowledge of the game is also wanting.

I am also guilty of boasting prior to this defeat. At the very least, I mislead others to think that I am better than I really was. What a rotten person I am, and facing the truth is a just punishment.

The biggest difficulty I have is trusting myself. Only then can others believe me.

No more distractions. No more sorrys. No more false confidence.

Just a lot of sweat, blood and pain. Just a lot of desire.

I want a new beginning. This time it will be a bad and difficult one. And I will right it, because if I don't this life is a wasted one.

Miracles don't exist, but effort does.

I am ready to fight back.

Forever Forever

2005-10-26T22:47:00.000-04:00

Forever Forever

松居　慶子　ー　Forever forever.

After 3 months of arduous practice and intent listening, the song I've been trying to transpose is nearly complete. I have once again proven to myself that patience, persistence and some measure of insanity are necessary to accomplish the impossible.

A friend of mine told me that it would take me years to learn to play this song after she heard it. Afterall, I can barely read music and wanted to attempt this song having played the piano for a month. Oh and the music sheet I found was incomplete and moderately simplified. The composer took out the hardest yet the prettiest parts when she penned the music.

But it still burns to hear her comment.

I love to be talked down. I can then show what I'm made of: pure stubborn.

I struggled for hours. I was going nowhere for a long time. But I sat at the piano, ipod in my ear, repeating the same 5 second interval of the song for hours on end, pressing countless key combinations, played a variation of a certain segment for days to match the speed of the song then played with the song playing in my ipod to realize that my variation was unpolished and awkward, back to try other key combinations. This happened over and over again.

I tasted pure stubborn at the back of my throat, from the weight of my eyelids and the strain on my neck.

Mastery came very slowly, but its rewards grew sweeter with each tiny step. It was the happiest I've felt in a long time.

This song is a reminder to myself, that I am still capable of sustained insanity. That I can trust myself to get things done.

Shedding my lower branches

2005-10-16T22:21:00.000-04:00

Young Ones

Consider this young pine tree. It grows by adding branches to its top while shedding the ones beneath it. We also can't identify the end of its youth and the beginning of a more mature stature.

We can barely notice the growth. Pine needles pop out at a painfully slow rate, such that our minds cannot comprehend the patience needed for it.

Even with this understanding, we still won't know if it is fully grown.

I would like to think that I am like this young pine: having twisted in the wrong directions a few times, I am ready to head upwards again. Although uncertain if I will botch up again, I am equally unclear what my full height will be. With every bit of apprehension comes an equal measure of hope.

Looking Out, Incoherently

2005-05-27T01:28:00.000-04:00

Looking Out

Is it better to give or to take?

I've usually enjoyed attention, even remote interest in insignificant details of my boring existence. However, I forget to give that attention back to the sources.

So far, my life reads like a vapid emotional dialogue: Me? Me? Me? Me? Me?

26 years now, I've mostly taken. From my family, friends and lovers, I sought attention and comfort. Now it's my turn to give. Too little, too late? Sure, but it is better than not trying.

The selfish majority of my ego asks how I could be satisfied with such 'generosity.' My selfish ego enjoys mocking me. It is also amused when it asks me questions to which I obviously have no answer but are inclined to mutter something to.

Having taken from so many for many years, I know how to keep myself happy, even without asking. So I claim.

The ego guffaws.

I'll still try and even I cannot stop myself. Hold on, it is not going to be easy from here on.

I wonder how my ego keeps himself happy.

It is silent; as I expected.
I have to give it credit nonetheless. It's resilience carried me through numerous rough patches. It gave me a hand, a hug and a smile when I needed it.

Thank you dude. You are a fucking great pal when you are not a dick.
_____________________________________________

Indeed I don't know how to love. This includes myself. Much of the issue lies with detection. I don't know when loving happens. No clear sign and no confirmation when I think it happens. Hey, but if people around me can detect it, then why not try loving them. They'll know when they receive it!

Random acts of kindness. (How can kindness be random if kindness is intentional? Incomplete and inchoate phrases and loving it!) I've heard of this phrase. Maybe the person who coined it understands me.

___________________________________________

There are many people whom you simply cannot afford to love. They are too difficult to love, given who you are. But you feel like giving to them nonetheless. You claim it tickles you the right way: makes you laugh but you'd wish it would stop. Mostly, you can almost make people believe that you are enjoying it. What is the harm if nobody knows and hence nobody cares? Mr Ego can come to your rescue as necessary.

I think I've wasted enough time of people I've 'loved' already. Give them what they want the least to so that they can pretend to be happy so you can be really happy then they can be happy. Oh Happy times.

I wonder how many layers of dependent happiness two people can stack before it become difficult to tell? My silliness revealed; story of my life.
_________________________________________

At this point I've erased more than a page of writing I deemed foolish. I just want to point out how dedicated I am to making my life difficult. Can you also tell I spellcheck this blog? Grammar checking is too tough at the moment. Duanersaurus 3.0 is still in the beta phase.

You really cannot start over. I've tried looking for the 'reset my life' button many times in dreams. Video games become much less fun if you don't get to start over whence you falter.

Life is like a game; without the restart, select options/preferences, continue, pause buttons. And hacking life is considered morally offensive. WTF. This is one reason I think God does not really exist. If He/She/It did, not only would I not know what its gender is, I also think that He/She/It would make give these (restart, continue.. blah blah blah) options to make the game of Life much more entertaining to Himself/Herself/Itself. God also doesn't exist because there is too much gender guessing involved.

hfiu weaifu oipwaehfoiashd fkjhasdkl;fhja skljfk.

Sorry, I needed to let out some spontaneously accumulated frustration. Hey, but I got one word in that random keyboard crashing.

I wonder if anyone out there ever has their emotions completely sorted out. I suspect that these people have an entourage of incredible companions who can sustain that illusion of certainty. Me? I have only an unhealthy ego to conjure wisps of such illusions......eh. It sometimes works. No reason to complain.

Still Trying Not to Quit

2005-05-16T14:56:00.000-04:00

Still Trying

How many times have I given up? Too many times. This question, given to many others, would probably be answered no differently.

I forget when I first gave up trying. It happened after I was persuaded of its normalcy.

"It is alright to fail once in a while," a voice said.
"Stop being a perfectionist" it admonished.
"Maybe you should focus on what you are good at," the voice recommended.

This voice never explained why I should not try again. It led me to think it was acceptable to surrender in confusion. I would look around for company, hoping my cowardice is common. I focused on what I was good at: quitting.

Giving up became much easier after each "success", since I need not properly justify it to myself. I became proficient at making excuses and distracting myself. It became a habit too soon.

A new phase emerged.

There was once a clear line between things I cared obsessively for and things in which I do not. The line was defined by my willingness to give up: I hated to quit on obsessions.

The line progressed northwards. Obsessions were relegated to interests and then to philosophical arguments about why I should bother. For a time, making excuses were routine. Like a child learning to walk, the initial difficulty disappeared and it became inevitable. Giving up was so natural and forgiving myself for giving up became reflexive. Persistence almost felt wrong.

"Look around, people are giving up too."

I realize that I gave up too willingly. I was unaware of a better alternative to quitting. To keep on trying dammit. A dead end might not be genuine. It doesn't have to stop at a first failure.

Walking off a painful fall does not imply walking away. Stand up; think; march on.

Perhaps life is about trying and not getting anywhere in particular. A hot shower is more rewarding after a long run. A life might be worth more after a long struggle. Moreover, the struggle adds meaning even happiness.

We need reminders that anyone can laugh even in the most dire circumstances. Friends, stories or ice cream; whatever it takes to stand away and laugh at yourself, take a deep breath and dive in ready to give it your best shot again.

Gerbode. She showed me how to laugh in the most inspiring way.

March on, yes I will. This time singing and dancing I will.

There is beauty in everything, and they are not found in the usual places. Wonderment hides where their discovery might be the most rewarding.

Matt Dogg. He showed me how I listen to the words but not the story.

March on, yes I will. This time with my mind open.

Many people pin hopes on their children to accomplish what they could not. Apparently, they have already given up on themselves and the only saving grace is to transfer their dreams to their hopefuls. They know that it is impossible for them to accomplish their own goals before trying again.

I will try never to be such a father. In fact, I might even try never to be a parent since I'm not done parenting myself.

Drew and Whit

2005-05-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Drew and Whit

Drew: my apologies for not giving the BBQ recipe earlier.

Must-haves
Soy Sauce; as much as you like.
Japanese Sake; portion equal to soy sauce.
Sesame seeds: preferably crushed.
Sesame seed oil: as much as you want
Grated Ginger: or pureed ones they sell at stores.

Optional add-ons
Garlic: as much as you want.
Sugar: a little if you wish.
Onions: 1 bulb chopped finely would suffice.
Shallots: a couple of bulbs would do.

Hope it turns out great. Enjoy the grill!

Retiring

2005-05-01T20:08:00.000-04:00

Retiring Folks

My parents.

I took this picture of them while we were tourists in our own country. Singapore is a small place, so they say. Only if you have enough free time and money on your hand, they tell you not.

My dad slogged hard at work to get us through school. My mom handled about the other worrying things of life so we didn't have to worry them. Their dedication imprisoned them. They seldom see how much the Singapore has changed.

Instead, I had to show them around the places they grew up but left decades ago. I knew these places because my life, unlike theirs, was fun and less noble.

My mom grew up about a block from where she stood in this picture. My dad visited her while they were dating. I suppose they were thinking about those times in this photograph.

My mother grabbed my arm and told me about stories of her youth for most of the trip. I have heard many of these stories. She knows that. I think she might be saying them again, for the tenth time of course, for herself. She would weep if she didn't put a cheerful voice to her memories. Afterall, those were harsh times for her.

Many of the people in her memories have either passed on or lost contact. Yet she only spoke of the happy or interesting details. It almost felt like she was trying to keep me interested in her stories. I wanted to know more. But she might not be ready to tell them.

I wonder when I would be able to look on my life with such calm. Or even dare to look back on my life at all.

I am too ready to forget the bad memories. Being too ready to forget that having only good memories is as good as having only one leg: sure you'll hop around but you won't get far.

I just nodded as she spoke, asking as little as I need to understand her story. She'll only let say what she wants known. Very typical of my mother.

I usually piss her off when I ask questions. Memories are never perfect, and the details we make up to complete stories make less sense as we age. I always forget this, damn it.

Older people never tell just one story. They would weave many stories into one. They are fighting a losing battle against the impatience and distractions of the young. Let's make a Disney tale out of my miserable past so my kids will not fall asleep while I speak. So damn wrong.

We all seek affirmation. When alone, nobody has answers. But if people agree with you, you suddenly become Einstein. You'll believe all kinds of bullshit you make up.

I sometimes wonder if we really know anything at all, given the nation-loads of bullshit flying over the media.
Bullshit is such a useful word. No other word even comes close to describing my emotions when I say it. Bullshit, Duanersaurus. See?

My dad is retiring. He doesn't say it, but retiring is obviously difficult for him. He is used to 4 hours of sleep a day, crazy multitasking in the day, irregular meals and endless calls on his cellphone. Retiring isn't easy of course, when you are like my dad. I don't think he'll give in to retirement that easily. My mom agrees.

This photograph is quite an oddity for me. My mom and dad both look calm. They look like they are ready to cast aside their gloomy past and move ahead. Just like the picture.

But what do you do with yourself when you've spent 20 years of your life doing precisely opposite of what you wish so that your children can do what they wish? Perhaps it is time to hope that your children can understand what you have done.

I'm trying.

To hold your future

2005-04-27T04:08:00.000-04:00

My Ring

I made this ring when I was still with my ex-girlfriend. I think it was a day before I left for the States. I hastily told the engraver that I would like our own names to appear on our rings. My ex-girlfriend must have felt surprised. She later asked, with disappointment showing, why had her own name was on her ring instead of mine. She sounded betrayed.

Having our names switched around made sense to me too. But I did not think of it when I made the decision to have our own names on our own rings. That was sensible to me, since the names would help identify the rings in case they were misplaced. Or so I thought.

Some months later we broke up. I was devastated and cast the ring aside since I wanted to be away from the artifacts of our relationship.

One day, many weeks later, I rummaged through my messy table and this ring, buried deep under a pile of ugly matrix calculations on napkins, rolled off the table. I picked it up and stared at it. I thought: "Who is Duane? Crap. I lost myself didn't I? Is that why I feel so helpless?"

This thought grew into a deep contemplation that lasted a good hour. Partly because I wanted to procrastinate from work, partly because I really felt motivated to think about it. Part a is of course more compelling than part b.

Ironic. I wanted to put my name on the ring so that I could find it when I lost it. Back then, it felt more like it found me.

The relationship with my ex-girlfriend disappeared overnight. No goodbyes, no reasons, just an busy signal over the phone. I was in California, she was in Singapore. Nothing I could do. I knew she was seeing someone else. I was devastated and lost too. I realized I had lost myself.

I could not motivate myself to do anything besides paint and run extremely long runs. I ran 5 miles a day at 5am every morning, painted the rest of the time, ate one meal of porridge every two days. I drew away from my friends and stayed in my room otherwise. I lost 40lbs in a month. Kinda weird to see my abs again. Also kinda weird to see the bones around my shoulder that clearly.

Running distracted me and helped me breathe better. Painting was like talking to an old friend about my sadness. I was in pieces. I was pathetic.

The ring found my memories.

It reminded me of the hope I had before I arrived in US. I remembered my dreams, my family, my friends. I remembered the hopes my parents sending me off, hoping that I could do what they could never accomplish. I remembered my friends asking me to take good care of myself. I remembered looking back at the airport watching my sister's eyes turn red. She almost never cried in front of us. I remembered how hard I fought to go to Mudd. I remembered saying to myself that I have to trust that I made a wise decision even if the rest of my world could not. I remembered promising myself that I will teach myself to fail and climb back on my feet.

My ring found me.

I sat in front of the ring, watching as layers of myself snap back in place. I did not bounce back dramatically. But I knew I was ready to return.

Thank you ring. You held a piece of me that I needed to revisit myself. I'm not sure when was the last time someone thanked a piece of cheap metal for a kick in the butt. But I think, inanimate metal or not, it deserved my gratitude.

$723.34

2005-04-25T02:47:00.001-04:00

$723.34

My biggest grocery shopping bill yet.

$723. Sam's Club

2005-04-25T02:47:00.000-04:00

$723. Sam's Club

Socks, Chicken, Shirts, Bread, Eggs, Chocolate, CDRs, Toilet paper, Cheeses, Scallops, Salmon, Tomatoes, Crap for plants, Beers, Towels, Brocolli, Xbox game (!), Motor Oil ...

5 Physicists(Matt, John, Dave, Sharon, Me), 4 hours, 3 carts, 2 cars, 1 credit card. $723.

Matt was generous and paid for us in advance.

This place was enormous. A converted warehouse, with furniture, electronics, produce, food, clothes, stationery, computers, stacked 4 storeys high. It had 'distributor-sized' versions of everything, selling also at 'distributor's-price.' In more correct terms: gigantenormous portions at a small fraction of the original price. It makes Walmart look like a convenience store (from Dave). Yeah, makes everything look like 7-11.

Here are some random highlights:

A 10lb can of tuna. Yes people, a bowling ball made of tuna.
Watermelons the size of truck wheels.
An aisle with probably a ton of chocolate. I mean it, a ton. My favorite aisle in Sam's club. Kit Kat, Reeses (bought), Peppermint Patties (bought), M&Ms, Whatever the hell else.

Walking around, I thought, 'all that food here is going to end up in someone's gut. How much eating is that?' Then I look around and see the people shopping there. It sure looked like they ate that much. Hey, but they all appeared happy eating that much.

I nearly bought a bag of shrimp, thinking it was $8. I proudly showed Matt my achievement, having found such a magnificient deal. Matt looked at me, looked at the bag of shrimp, and guessed that I must have made a mistake. He said, "that's an expensive bag of shrimp." I looked closely, blanched and thanked him for saving my wallet. It was more like $35.

Nonetheless, I still ended up with a $126 bill. After paying off this debt, my checking account will read $13.77. Awesome; I managed to get broke buying 20lbs of chicken, 10lbs of salmon and 5lbs of scallops. It'll probably last me ages.

Poor John brought along his stat mech notes to study for his Qualifying exam. Well, we'll all be doing that pretty soon.

Dave drove us home in his Audi Quattro. Listened to Coldplay's "Yellow" on the drive home. The music painted the bleak rainy upstate new york forest with a wistful beauty. Saw Dave and Sharon hold hands while the song played on; while their memories played on. I don't mind crappy weekdays if my weekends were always like that.

Time slips by. Tried to stop it. It still slips by.

2005-04-23T15:18:00.000-04:00

Ooooh

No one to be happy for. No one to be angry over. No one to distract you. No one to tell, no one to reply. No one; not one.

Saturdays and Sundays are staring out the window, sounds of distant traffic, screaming silence at night. Wherever you turn, you are reminded that you exist, and yet exist alone. The weekend finally came. Yet you have another obstacle to surmount. You could sleep it away, but you'll be screwed come Monday. No where to go.

Your playlist haunts you. Long have you indulged in punctuating your life with music. You'll play a song over and over again, not paying much attention to it yet constantly feeding your subconsciousness with its melody.

Now, turning back, a familiar song might return a painful memory. Silence, though, stirs your memories even harder. Where to run to?

Can you run from yourself? Which way is that?

Looking back at yourself in the mirror is surreal. Your unkempt hair, unshaven chin, fading color, tired eyes. Who are you? Do you live for him or me? When will this droning stop? Poking yourself in the face while staring at the mirror feels strange: you see the motion, which clearly differs from the sensations of your face. You know you don't 'feel' like that image in the mirror. Surprise! You are supposed to.

You have this problem. You cannot, however hard you've tried, 'feel like yourself.' You feel like you should look differently. Not that you should look better, though improvement is welcome. Just that you feel like a different person. (Not transgender you dumbass)

No you are not depressed. You prefer contemplative. You have gotten used to this. Not much different from local anaesthesia. Look down and see people cutting you up. Look up and feel normal. You panic for a while, almost trying to feel the pain but greeted only by numbness. You sick bastard. After a while, your mind wanders again.

Do you live for yourself? If you were stranded in a lonely place, without family and friends, without TV or music, without the internet, without a care in the world yet none back from it either, who would you be? You would be just you. Oh, did you meet him?

Sorry, I forgot to introduce. I, this is me. Me, this is I.

People are excited to meet new people. Many prefer to meet pretty people. Freaks are ok, if they are exceedingly cool or handsome looking. Then they wander in a jungle of personas, none of them their own. Slowly they see behind these personalities and find themselves staring back at themselves. All this effor to find a mirror. Indeed, almost everyone in this game looks the same, on the inside.

You give up. You fucking give up. Tired of this silly game. Sick of believing you'll find someone special.

You decide to look for myself/yourself.

Flicker

2005-04-22T23:48:00.000-04:00

Flaming Cup

I like this picture. It is both benign and evil at the same time. A little devil doomed to the ashes. Reminds me a manta ray with flamethrowers for its mouth.

Drunk people lit it and left it to its own devices. The party, the flaming cup, both chaotically contained.

The stray flickers that seem to leap impossibly far away always enchant me. The dancing reactions somehow string together a path for the flame to hop along, asking it to burn its ass.

Where does the flame end? (Do rainbows end in a pot of gold or just pot?)

Enchanting, very much in a way that screensavers do. Yes fellow weak-willed humans, I too am mesmerized by cheap lines and silly whirling colors. That combination deadly; a sure invitation to procrastination.

Flames and human lives. When they flail around, they sorely seek is attention and warmth. Both thrash around violently, but neither of them last very long.

It is chaos, contained in an insignificant span of time.

Amazing where all the cup goes after it has burnt up. It used to have considerable mass. After incineration, the ashes weigh barely anything at all. Did all that mass just vaporize to make other gases?

(Disclaimer: I am not a nerd. Dammit, maybe I am.)
You know, if that cup actually completely disappeared, made no gas, just plain converted into energy, it could power Latin America for a few days. That is my ticket to paradise.

I met the crazy bus driver today. He's crazy because he drives about 50mph down the worn-out winding roads of Ithaca at 1:30 in the morning whistling, holding a (fucking hilarious) conversation with me, cursing brainless drivers who do not fear his recklessness and readiness to destroy, laughing at drunk frat boys, screeching to a halt from 50 in about a second then turns to you and says (in the nicest tone) "Goodnight. Watch your step." I mean, what can I say? "Thanks for not killing me again tonight?"

He drove the bus to the grocery store today. Snapping his fingers and whistling to smooth jazz music yet not forgetting his occassional remarks: "fucking bastard! Can't fucking drive to save your life!" and return to a polite conversation with his passengers.

Anyway, my funny German friend said he went bonkers one night and started driving in "pilot mode." He announced all the stops like an airplane captain would (maybe even commenting on tail wind and flight time ?). Then finally, before starting on the longest part of the route that has no bus stops, proudly proclaimed: "next stop, magic wonderland!" Fucking crazy bus driver. I'll miss him when I move to Dryden this summer.

If I bore you, well, this blog is really meant to entertain me.

Step Up

2005-04-22T03:17:00.000-04:00

Step Up

An old friend of mine recently contacted me through Friendster. We got together many years back and finally decided to break up for a variety of reasons. Childish, petty, disappointed, history.

I did not fully comprehend my actions back then even though I felt I was making a very serious decision. I figured it would be our mutual benefit. I left the relationship scarred; perhaps she did too. For some reason, we did not talk for a couple of years.

Then she moved to the States for a few years, growing and learning in an Ivy League school. I finished with my army service, left for a small college in science in California.

In between these changes, I realized exactly how incompatible we were as partners. However, that made me wonder what could have kept us together for almost a year. Friendship, on my part. I believe it was true for her too. She was the friend who walked with me on a new path.

We might have emailed each other a couple of times, even promising a trip to Japan. I was curious to see how both of us grew different. I wanted to meet her and myself too.

As it turns out, I got together with another girl did not keep in touch with this friend of mine. She eventually graduated 3 years back. She emailed me again before returning home, hoping we could meet again. I was home for the summer and agreed. Again, we never met.

Was I busy? Was I lazy? I mean, Singapore is a small island. A meeting would be extremely easy, especially since I could borrow my dad's car. But, yet another but.

Since then I've lost contact with her completely. She stopped using her school's email address: the only contact I have.

All along, I thought nothing of it. My girlfriend back then and I got into a terrible breakup. I was devastated. I needed my friends. Many of them answered. They have my gratitude.

You see, I don't keep many friends around me. Mostly those who shared the best moments of my life with. My best moments are not always happy ones. They are usually the thought-provoking ones.

This friend of mine shared some of these moments with me. I thought that it would be nice to meet her again. I was lost in a sour relationship and needed to find the waypoints back to myself again. My few cherished friends lit these waypoints for me.

It would be nice if she was there too. She, like many of my friends, held a piece of my history. Finding it would be akin to dusting off that old CD which you listened to endlessly when you were a kid and somehow faded away.

I searched my tiny circle of contacts to somehow get to her again. I wanted just a phone call. Maybe an email. Like a quick dose of caffeine before you are drowned with work again.

"Too bad", life said to me. You missed it.

Time passed and the chance of speaking with her grew increasing remote.

A few days back, nearly a decade after our relationship, she told me, in an email, that she got married last June (maybe?).

My occassional memories of her that surfaced over the years suddenly greeted me in quick succession. They became annotated with new meanings faster than I could understand. It was one of those situations that would take you a lifetime to appreciate. Then I considered myself, considered her, and a smile broke out. I didn't realize I was smiling until I finished reading her email.

I am truly happy for her. Not the jumping-around-drumming-everything-in-sight-and-yelling-expletives type of happy. More like the kind of happiness prononuced as mellow.

Full circle, I thought. Felt like someone somewhere put a period in a sentence that became too long, too soon.

Movies end dramatically. Not always interesting, mind you. Just dramatic and somewhat contrived. Yet stories in reality would play out in the most fascinating ways.

Boring you say? Well, not so boring if you actuallly lived through it.

Step up to the plate now Duanersaurus. Where are you going next?

I'm Happy

2005-04-19T16:24:00.000-04:00

Looking Cool

You know, I'm happy. Screw the snow. Screw the cold. Screw seasons. Summer is home. The Sun's up and life is grand.

Procrastinating Bird

2005-04-19T16:09:00.000-04:00

Procrastinating Bird

The secret lives of procrastinating birds.

Body: Did you ever wonder why birds just sit around in the sun? This bird, for example, did just that. It's just a regular bird, a mynah in Singapore.

I suppose it might be drying itself. I can't say it's really trying to get a tan. Maybe its trying to procrastinate. Maybe its partner told him/her to get some worms but it just didn't feel like it. Maybe it is thinking "why am I referred to as 'it' ?" Perhaps it is trying to remember a shopping list?

Or how about its trying to test out a theory it heard from a friend. Maybe it lost a bet at the regular "worm-bar" and had to stand out in the sun, fluff its feather pretend it is having a good time agape? Maybe its friends are about a block away laughing their bird brains out?

What I think, though, is that it is just like me. Maybe we both like to procrastinate. Perhaps whatever it is doing is secondary to its survival, but it feels good. Procrastination allows the mind to wander and consider the finer details in life. It feels like filling in the blanks in life which we create in our haste to accomplish whatever.

What if we allowed ourselves, an hour a day, moments like the one our bird-friend here is enjoying? I'm trying that out by blogging (word-crapping) to see if I actually get anywhere.