The Trip to Naza Mall

Saturday, 8/16/2008

They call it a “mall”, but it's really just a supermarket on the ground floor with an upstairs level that sells some ugly clothes and shoes and other department-store type knick-knacks. I can already tell, after browsing through a few malls and street shops, that I won't be doing much clothes shopping here. 

Going to this particular market was an interesting experience. It seemed to be a central hang-out in Khanzad for friends, family, people of all ages, and had the air of a carnival. It was nighttime and the round moon rose high in the subdued sky to add to the yellowish glow of the plaza lights, so that the entire outdoor area was cast in shadows and a romantic marigold light. The air smelled sweet because there was a man selling cotton candy and balloons to wide-eyed excited kids. Another food stand selling falafels, mmm! Indoors, inside the market was another experience althogether. 

Being an Asian woman in Erbil is being on the wrong side of the cage at the zoo. Kids and grown-ups, women and men, all stared and stared, and the covered women shoved their adorable babies into my arms. It was fairly embarrassing, but at the same time, I adore babies and I was equally fascinated by them. 

Erbil, here I am!

Friday evening, August 15, 2008

I opened the door to my new single and was mighty pleased by the sight of my new bedroom- glorious, delicious splashes of bright orange and pink. Normally, such a glaringly bright color scheme might be too much even for me, but here in Erbil, thousands of miles from home in the middle of nowhere, extravagant cheeriness is exactly what I will need. With my cheery room, my music and my books, I feel quite happy, and the thought of coming adventures in exploring this completely alien terrain and culture thrills my imagination. 

There is still a lot of construction going on at the school. 

All the laborers are either Bangladeshi or Turkmen.

The Air in Dubai

Hot as an oven and wet like a sauna. Plus or minus some exaggeration. It was around 115 degrees, with gusts of hot wind blowing from the planes, and the air was so heavy with moisture that I could have taken out an empty Poland Springs bottle and bottled it up. If anyone was not yet convinced of the material nature of air, then you'd have no problem believing it in Dubai. I felt like a fish suddenly becoming aware of its watery surroundings. Now, whether fish are or aren't aware of their watery surroundings is still a contentious subject, but...'tis only a simile. 

My brother had made a request for a picture of the Burj Al Arab- the 7 star hotel built to resemble a billowing sail, sitting right in the middle of the sea. Yet, when we pulled up to the gate, I learned that you had to make a $300 reservation (minimum) just to go inside! My cab driver took me around back to Jumeirah Beach for the best view of the famous hotel that us poorer folk could afford.

...still far, far away, the unmoving sail...

I headed down the sands to dip my feet into the Arabian Sea.

The sand was different from any other sand I'd ever felt between my toes- so fine and soft it felt like I was walking on flour; and the water was unlike any other beach water I'd ever felt- it was actually warm!

Teaching Kindergarten

Finally, after a 7 hour delay at Dulles International Airport in DC, we are in the air, and boy was the sunrise amazing! It was a hushed blue-green sunrise, the color of the sea, which is a nice change from the usual red-orange-yellow ones I see in flight. I think the difference has something to do with the angle of elevation between the Earth and the Sun, but anyway.

While waiting for the flight, I befriended this little Indian-American girl named Rida. Rida was 4.5 years old and wore rectangular-shaped glasses, and she turned out to be an engaging and entertaining conversationist. One of the most interesting turns in the conversation came when she told me a story about ants:

"Once, there were ants on the tv, and I took scissors and I cut them." (She giggles.) "I like to cut things. But I don't cut people because then they have to go to the hospital. I only cut ants. And paper, and..."

Isn't it sort of frightening how much we don't know innately? Like don't cut people. I'm slowly beginning to realize that teaching kindergarten would be more about teaching people how to be people: how to not cut people, how to cross streets, how to share toys and say please, how to hop, skip, and jump- things that seem so basic to us adults that we forget they were taught to us long long ago.

Roj bash (Hello) from Erbil!

And without further ado, here are some needlessly long entries about my experiences in the Middle East so far. There is one thing that I hesitate to say here, but what the hell- the food here is totally giving me the shitz since day 3! Other than that, life is golden here- and hot, really hellishly baking hot.

Which is the more religious experience?

A) Standing in my backyard at 1:30 in the morning with my neck craned to the heavens, trying to spot a meteor, or

B) Opening the case containing my brand new ipod nano?

Good arguments can be put forth for either. In choice A, the absolute silence and stillness of the night, the lack of other (awake) human life, the soft silhouettes of tall evergreens that stretch into the sky, the imminent departure for unfamiliar lands far far away from home, and the enormous, expansive sky itself speckled with stars all make for a feeling that I can only call religious, though it has nothing to do with God. In choice B, let me tell you, there is something about the way Apple packages their products that makes opening them an unforgettable experience. The ipod nano, for example, is encased in a perfect little form-fitting glass box, and the lid opens upward to reveal the long-coveted nano, and I swear I heard an angel choir and saw divine light streaming from inside the box. Sigh...

It's a tough choice folks. Well, I'm off to the rooftop to watch for more of nature's fireworks!

Sometimes the Pictures Make the Book

Speaking of the different cultures/mentalities, thanks for those suggestions on contemporary Middle Eastern lit (and please feel free to reveal your identity in the comments!). "Arabian Nights" actually found its way into my travel library, along with a book on unicorn mythology that was on the same shelf at the bookstore. I have fairly little interest in the mythology of unicorns, but the pictures were so pretty I couldn't resist.

Prologue: Packing

It is 3 days to Erbil and way past my bedtime, but I am too excited to sleep. So I'm packing -early for once! Packing alone can be tedious work, especially if you're packing for a year-long stay in Iraq. But accompanied by Coldplay's latest album, Viva la Vida, suddenly packing feels...epic. 

What sort of items go into a suitcase destined for Iraq? Well nothing outrageous really. I'm basically transporting my modern, American livelihood from the burbs of Tacoma, WA to an oasis of modernity in Erbil, Iraq that looks something like this:

See what I mean about the oasis? Look at those brown hills! My apartment will be in the curved complex at the bottom of the picture. I imagine that each day until winter will be a constant tug-of-war between wanting to fling off my clothes because of the desert heat and wanting to keep them on to avoid skin damage from the burning sun, and also to avoid indecent exposure in the Middle East. Thus, I'm tossing a bunch of light cardigans/long-sleeves into my suitcase along with my usual tank tops. Capris and jeans as well as "teacher-wear" that I found at H&M that look professional yet trendy. A couple long skirts and knee-length dresses. Unlike Socal, it does get cold in Erbil during the winter because it's located at the foothills of the Zagros Mountains (we might even see some snow!), and so I do need to pack winter clothes.

Besides clothes, I plan on devoting a lot of time to reading, so I'll take a good number of books with me, and order more while I'm there. Does amazon deliver to Iraq? I have yet to check that out, but I think it's safe to assume that if there's an international airport in Erbil, amazon packages can find their way to my mailbox there. And besides that, toiletries, malaria/diarrhea pills, some pics and a stuffed animal, documents, my brand new product-red ipod-nano (!!!) plus other electronics, and last but far from least, my guitar Felix. That's it! Unless of course, Umma forces me to take a jar of kimchi or red pepper paste. I will make a "good faith" effort to keep those out of my luggage, but mothers are stubborn and Korean ones can't imagine letting their children go an entire year without kimchi. It's like the 8th deadly sin for god's sake. 

A word about those diarrhea pills: the traveler's health nurse wrote me a prescription for 30...That's 15 cases of diarrhea! Is that even necessary? 15 cases in 10 months would mean I'd be suffering through an average of 1.5 diarrheal episodes a month- I don't think my guts could handle that! Cross your fingers that I won't have to touch a single Ciprofloxacin pill while I'm there! 

Back to packing with Coldplay (yep, I put it on repeat). 

Rambaldi mysticism sighting in Dubai

Interesting fact # 474: the address of Burj Al Arab, the 7-star hotel in Dubai that resembles a billowing sail, is a palindrome: PO Box 74147. And of course, it contains our beloved Rambaldi number 47.

Teaching Tales

I worked with this little 3rd grader today for 2 hours, and 3 interesting things happened during those two hours:

1) He attacked me repeatedly with his markers. No joke, I came out of that room with black marks all over my arms plus a sticker (he enjoys rewarding me with stickers too). 

2) He pretended to pick his nose (it was a scratch, not a pick, for all you Seinfeld fans) and said he was digging for gold. I started calling him Golddigger. 

3) I taught him how to draw a heart. You see, for his listening skills activity, he was supposed to draw a heart inside the given heart, but I noticed that what he drew inside the given heart resembled a butt rather than a heart. "Want me to show you how to draw a heart?" I asked him. It took him a couple tries on his arm after I showed him, but the second one was markedly improved. I was proud. He went home that day with two black tattoos on his arm- one of a butt and one of a heart. 

Kids have way too much energy for their own good. It's such a relief for me during sessions when they start showing signs of flagging energy like yawning or putting their head on the table. That's when I know they'll stop attacking me with markers and actually listen, and that's when the learning begins. Am I joking? Maybe half-joking. In all seriousness though, with one of my students, the best session we ever had was when he was sick with the flu and huddled in a blanket. 

The Here & the Now, Part II: BBQ @ the Chungs

The BBQ was another great gathering of friends from all walks of my and Sarah's life. At one point the Lister elementary gang took a group shot for the first time ever- something we couldn't do back in 4th grade. We had a great time rehashing old memories and catching up and honestly I don't remember what else because that shot plus all that wine did me in. Yep, drove me right up the walls. Felix the guitar made an appearance, and I found myself singing my own version of "Sexy Candy", involving Skittles, Snickers, and Swedish Fish. Is that even a real song? Eh, now it is! The baklava turned out really well and it was surprisingly easy to make. All you need really is crushed nuts, butter, and phyllo ("leaf") dough, named so because of its paper-thin layers. When you bake it, the layers become as thin and crisp as autumn leaves. That mention of the Greek word phyllo calls for a huge tangent, but I'll refrain for now.

Later, when night fell and people were gathering around the burning BBQ grill and rubbing their hands together to keep warm, we moved the party indoors into the living room- the only room that was decorated for the party in accordance with the Arabian Nights party theme. It was very minimalist decoration (due to lack of money, lack of time, not because I wanted to make an artistic statement): gold fabric over the windows, red tulle hanging from the ceiling, tea lights set up in nooks and crannies and window ledges and mantle, and red and gold mardi gras beads placed in cheap glass jars and vases to resemble an Aladdin's Cave type thing. Oh and quotes from "Arabian Nights" posted on the walls on computer paper. It wasn't much, but when we all moved in and it was dark and Will helped me light up the rest of the candles, the effect was really beautiful- at least in my drunken mind. Hurray for alternative states of mind.

The Here & the Now, Part I: San Francisco

The last weeks before I leave, I find myself in a flurry of activities, mostly getting together with friends for lunch, dinner, happy hour, and parties. These days, I am very much living in the present which is something I forgot how to do throughout high school and college because the only things I really thought about then was all the work I had to get done for school, due date after due date after due date. There are plenty of things I should be studying right now too, but all that has been trumped by the need to just hang out with friends for the last time before I skip off to a far-away land for a year.

In San Francisco, for instance, I got to see my cousins, and the highlight of the trip was no doubt Half-Moon Bay, a beach shaped like a crescent moon, crested by vertigo-inducing cliffsides and black rocky masses. I climbed one of the rocky masses that was sitting right at the edge of the sand, and upon reaching the top and looking down at the water, my heart started racing and I was immediately seized with terror and wonder at once. It was thrilling to be looking down at the waves crashing like thunder against the very rocks I was standing on. Water is scary when there is so much of it, but its mysterious depths also draw you like the Sirens.

The eating highlight was definitely the Chile crabs smothered in sweet chile sauce that we had at the Singaporean restaurant I think in downtown Stanford. I could have done without the crab, but the sauce was to die for. But actually, the true highlight of the trip was being reunited with Sarah again. There is no end to our silliness when we are together. Mundane activities like a trainride from Redwood City to San Francisco, or rock-paper-scissors suddenly become exciting and laugh-until-your-stomach-hurts hilarious.

Booklist

I'm making a list of books to read while in Iraq, and am open to suggestions! What are your top 5 books, or even a book you heard was great, but haven't read yet?

Less than 2 weeks and counting! BBQ was smokin', I'll write about the details later.

Happy Birthday Meems and Harry Potter!

Indiana Jones & the Little Gray Ball of Fur: Part IV

Once inside, it wasn't so bad. I had to keep crouched down so my head wouldn't hit the low ceiling. I neither saw nor felt any spiders or mice running over my feet.

"Here kitty kitty kitty! Here kittykittykittykitty!" This is something I often hear my neighbors do in the evening. I always thought they sounded stupid, but I figured just then that it must work if they kept on doing it every night to get their kitties to come home.

"Meow!"

Brilliant. The meow was louder this time, which meant it was closer. I shined a flashlight around and finally spotted it above my head about 2-3 feet away, perched on top of a foam mat about 3-4 feet above the ground. It was the cutest little gray ball of fur I had ever laid eyes on. I guessed that it was no more than a few weeks old, though I really have no idea how to gauge the age of animals. Its glowing hazel eyes were staring back at me. We started meowing at each other again, but it wouldn't come forward.

"Just grab it!"

"Hold on Abba, let me try this." I continued to try to coax it forward by kitten-speak.

"Just grab it, you've got gloves on!"

I ignored my dad and continued meowing and calling, getting slowly closer to it. It was clear to me, by this time, that the reason why it was not coming forth was because it was afraid of heights. As young as it was, it had yet to learn the law of nature that all cats land on their feet, and so though somehow it had managed to climb up, down was another story. One story up feels like 5 stories down, one could say. I wanted to minimize its fright by meowing rather than grabbing.

"Quit that meowing business and just grab the damn thing!"

Sigh. There goes the infamous Chung family temper. And who was the one who had the balls to actually go in and get the damn thing in the first place? Didn't I at least deserve patience from those who remained outside? Alas, patience is not a Chung family virtue. For the sake of keeping my dad quiet, I decided to try to grab it, but slowly. I approached slowly, until I could reach out and touch it with my fingers. I let it sniff my gloved fingertips, and I was overcome with kitten-love as it ran its soft little nose around them.

"Hurry up and grab it and bring it out!"

Sigh. Spell was broken. I looked around and spotted another foam mat lying on the ground. I took it and lifted it slowly up to the level of the kitten, and the kitten hesitated, then deciding it was safe, stepped gingerly onto the mat until all four little white paws were standing on it. Success! It was just like the scene in La Vita e Bella, where Roberto Benigni's character unrolls a red carpet fit for a queen over the rainy ground so that his "princess" wouldn't have to get her feet wet. Or like that scene in Mary Poppins where Mary and Bert are taking a romantic stroll through the chalk painting and Bert gets the turtles to give them a ride over the river. Anyway, I crept back toward the opening with the mat with the cat on top, dad yelling all the while from the garage: "it's gonna run away again, just grab it like I said, just do it!"

Finally, I reached the opening, set the mat down, and grabbed the damn thing and set it onto the garage floor. It promptly ran off to hide behind family artifacts that have amassed in the garage over the years. The next few minutes was spent chasing and yelling and ignoring yells, then finally getting a hold of the little gray-white furball and snapping dozens of pictures of it, laughing and cooing and creating a makeshift home for it, then snapping more pictures. I'm going to be a terribly obsessed mother, I can tell already, recording every minute of my baby's life with a camera. Thank god for digital cameras! Remember all those bad pictures of the ceiling or a close-up of someone's knee that we were forced to pay for and get printed? Digital photography is a godsend.

The next day, during the sailing trip across the Sound, I found myself showing these pictures to my sailing companions/cat-lover friends Becky and Sarah, and relating the tale of the rescue to them, including the part where I felt like Indiana Jones on a dangerous mission.

"So what's going to happen to Indie?" Sarah asked later on.

Indie? Oh the kitten! What a perfect name. And so goes the story of Indie.

The day spent sailing ended with dinner at Luau, a Polynesian restaurant near Becky's new apartment in Greenlake, and then a ride down Greenlake Way during sunset, which was pure magic.

Indiana Jones & the Little Gray Ball of Fur: Part III

"There's nothing we can do. There's a hole in the garage that leads into the crawl space, but I boarded that up years ago to keep out the mice. Call Animal Control tomorrow, and they can take care of it." 

"Why can't we just do it ourselves tonight? We can unboard the hole, and-"

"No, there's mice down there. Just call Animal Control tomorrow morning, and they'll find the best way to get the cat."

"Fine." I went upstairs to my room and tried to forget about the poor cat. Once again, it slipped out of my mind fairly easily, until my dad came in. 

"I just thought of something: what if it dies in there tonight?" he said.

Yes, dad, what if?

"Let's just do it now." 

Sweet, a cat rescue plan was about to be put into action! "I'm coming cat!" I called out. On my way down, I grabbed a bowl from the kitchen, poured some vanilla soy milk into it and headed into the garage, where Abba was unboarding the 2 x 1.5 foot hole with a hammer. Soon enough he was peeling off the board and I oohed and ahhed as I saw the underside of the house for the first time ever since we moved in 15 years ago. It was dark. We shined a flashlight into it and looked around for the cat. The floor of the crawl space was about 2 feet down from the garage floor and its ceiling was about 1.5 feet higher than the garage floor. There were foam mats scattered about in singles and piles, for some reason. We could have easily housed a midget in this room, it was big enough, as far as I could see. The cat was too far away from the opening to be seen, and our view was obstructed by boards and foam mats.

"Meow!" I cried, setting the bowl at the edge of the hole.

"Meow!" the cat responded. We got another lively conversation going, but it still would not budge from its distant perch even with the temptation of a bowl of vanilla-flavored soy milk. I took the bowl and was about to lay it inside the hole, closer to the cat, when my mom came in. Uh oh.

"What are you doing?? What is that?? What do you think you're doing? Does that look like a bowl for cats?? Are you crazy??" Etc. etc.

Sigh. "Please just stop yelling Umma, you're scaring the cat," I said. Is it any wonder I hate the Korean language? It's such a fighting language. In my defense, we have dozens and dozens of bowls in our house and in the garage- remnants of our old restaurants- so I had figured we could spare one little plain white bowl for a hungry stray kitten. How our values differ, Umma's and mine! Anyway, I resigned myself to waiting for Umma to take the bowl and replace it with an empty tofu box. In the meantime, Abba and I tried meowing the cat out again, but to no avail. Someone was going to have to go in there and manually grab it. The two of us peered into the dark abyss full of god knows what sorts of creatures worse than cats.

"Uhhh, I'm not going in there, I just showered," said my dad, man of the house.

"Uhhh, I'll get James," I said. I ran into the family room where James was working on his laptop.

"J, can you come here for a sec?" See, I knew it would be stupid to inform him of his task while he was still inside the house. I had to lure him into the garage, and then tell him what we wanted him to do. Here he came. Here he stood in front of the hole.

"NO! I'm not going in there!" said James, second man of the house.

Damn. Didn't work. Back inside the house with the phone in my hand, ready to call for help, I gave it a moment's thought, mulling over the idea of going in there myself. At first, my imagination was suffused with images of mice and spiders and other creepy crawlies. But then I had a sudden realization: this could be a chance to have my very own Indiana Jones type adventure! Did Indiana Jones cave in the face of snake pits and caves full of crawlers? No way! Would he ever surrender his responsibilities to Animal Control Services? Doubtful. Newly inspired by this heroic vision, I grabbed the hot pink rubber dishwashing gloves from the sink and marched determinedly back into the garage.

"I'm going in there myself!" I announced, snapping the gloves on like a surgeon preparing for battle in the OR. I put on a hoodie to shelter my head and arms from spiders and slipped into the foundation of the house with the tofu box full of faux-milk.

Indiana Jones and the Gray Ball of Fur: Part II

~20 minutes later...

Mm, thirsty, I could really use a glass of water. I got up and wandered into the kitchen. Hm, why was the radiator- oh my, the cat! I totally forgot! Was it still alive???

"Meow?" I asked nervously. Silence. "Meow," I said a little more convincingly.

"Meow!" it cried. Oh thank god! I looked around and spotted a ruler on the family room table, grabbed it and stuck it down the radiator hole. C'mon, grab the ruler, Cat! But the stupid cat wouldn't grab it and just started meowing helplessly again. Hm...what I needed was something longer and more flexible, something that resembled yarn (because cats like to play with yarn) like a rope...or a skipping rope! I found my old hot pink jump rope and strung it slowly through the radiator, yanking it up and down like I was trying to bait a fish. Still nothing but meowing! Unbelievable. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to rip open the vent netting from the outside until I talked to my dad about it, so I decided to leave it there until later that night when Abba would come home. I crossed my fingers, hoping it wouldn't die of starvation while I was gone because that would make me party to a kitty killing act, and I don't think I could take that kind of guilt! Plus we would have a dead cat rotting away under our house, which could become a problem later on, so really it was in the best interest of both humans and feline to not die in there.

Q&A With the Travel Detective (Peter Greenberg)

Q: I thought it was great that you included visiting Iraq in The Travel Detective's Bible.

A: Absolutely. Because most people get propagandized into thinking you can't go. Of course you can go, to Northern Iraq to a place like Arbil. There are places in Newark where I wouldn't go, but that doesn't meet I'm not going to visit New Jersey.

Good point! On the other hand, I have absolutely no desire to visit New Jersey, even outside of Newark.

G******

I hate when I have that Blind Melon song "The Pusher" stuck in my head because I only know that one word that he repeats over and over again. I don't think it's healthy to have that repeat in your head over and over again for an extended period of time. 

Indiana Jones and the Little Gray Ball of Fur: Part 1

Earlier today, while I was going through old pictures in the family room, I heard a distressed meowing. Assuming it was outside the house, I peeked my head out the balcony door leading into the backyard, and meowed.

"Meow!" it cried back, but the crier was nowhere to be seen. Strange! Where there is a meow, there is a cat, yes? I continued playing Feline Marco Polo with the invisible cat until eventually, I pinpointed the sound- it was coming from underneath the porch- right beneath the kitchen radiator-, but still inside the house! But I was quite sure there was no cat in our kitchen, which meant that it was stuck in the crawl space between the concrete foundation and the floor of the house! All the radiator vents were netted shut, and I wasn't aware of any other openings, so how did it get in there in the first place, and why didn't it just go out the way it came in? But it was no use wondering because for whatever reason, it was just meowing and meowing so piteously, and not even trying to move from its spot.

I ran back into the family room and into the kitchen, opened the radiator vent and meowed.

"Meow!" the cat cried back. It sounded so distressed! I had to get it out. Umma had mentioned she'd heard mewing a couple days ago, but couldn't find the cat, so assuming it was the same cat, this little guy had been stuck in the crawl space for at least 2 or 3 days with neither food nor drink nor merry company. Who knew how much longer it would last before it breathed its last breath, after which we'd have an expired, rotting cat in the foundation of our house? But more to the point, how to get it out? I opened the vent and tried to meow it out (I have a very realistic meow), and the kitten and I got a great conversation going- but it still would not come out of the radiator. (At the time, I didn't know that the hole in the radiator led to the gas pipe, so clearly the cat could not escape through the radiator.) I went back to the pics, hoping that ideas would come to me as I flipped through embarrassing pictures from my youth.

Dear Diary

I am trying to decide whether being able to read people's diaries would be really interesting or really boring and mundane. Diaries are interesting because its a record of your thoughts or moods or events- all of which have a very low chance of being remembered- even weeks later. Memory is fleeting, and I would guess that 98% of everything that you think or hear others say that is even remotely worth remembering passes right through storage and into the land of the forgotten. Well, there may be a lot that is stored, but requires some sort of trigger to be shaken of the dust that gathers over it so quickly. But until that trigger comes- if it ever comes- it's pretty much gone, baby gone.

But at the same time, I believe memories make the person- a big part of the person anyway, so if memory is so fleeting and inefficient, how can our selves be stable? On the other hand, I said a few entries ago that there remains a part of us that remains eternally unchanged no matter how many years have gone by. So fleeting memories, steadfast personalities? Was Phineas Gage a different person after he got the iron rod stuck in his head?

In other news, a second tattoo may be on the way- this time designed by moi. Memory may be fleeting, but tattoos are forever!

Numbers (Not Just a Book in the Bible)

Epiphany #32: Guys have hairy asses! Men, is this true??? My god, suddenly I wish I were a lesbian. As a science-minded person, I would ask for evidence, but that would be uncomfortable for everyone involved. I'll just accept it on faith.

Musical discoveries #76 & 77: John Hiatt's "Have a Little Faith in Me", and jazz-pop singer Jamie Cullum, whose sound is a slightly jazzier version of Amos Lee.

Teaching lesson #42: Teaching kids is like being a child psychologist. I constantly find myself wondering why they behave in such ways. Sometimes I come up with some good ideas, other times I'm just baffled.

Innovative teaching idea #27: Do math with sidewalk chalk! For students who yawn as soon as you stick a pencil in their hand, you'll see a definite rise in cooperation level. Not a sky-high rise mind you, but it no longer feels like your talking to a brick wall or a grazing cow. I swear sometimes I can hear them mooing at me. And then I start laughing out loud, and then the student looks at me like I'm an alien. An alien that just landed in a field of grazing and mooing cows.

Interesting experience #32: On Tuesday, I attended my friend's church discussion group on the issue of torture. I even joined the prayer circle afterwards, and as my 3 other friends had their heads bowed in silent prayer, I had the sudden realization that I was the only one of the four of us who was not religious. How strange! I never would have expected to hang out with such a religiously-inclined group before, but there I was, enjoying their company very much.

Confession #5: I used to write to God in my diary. This was high school, 9th grade I think. My how my world view has changed! Now, I can't for the life of me imagine God being even slightly real, one you can address and expect to listen and understand- like a shrink of sorts. What was going on in the mind of high school me, I wonder? Isn't it weird how I no longer understand the mind of the person I used to be?

Random thought #87: When I'm standing at the water's edge, I feel like I'm standing at the edge of the Earth. I know there is no edge, I know the Earth is round, but that's what it feels like, and that's why I like standing at docks and seashores, or even in the middle of the ocean in a small boat.

Another Dancing White Boy On Youtube

Grand unification in motion. Here's the youtube clip.

Felix Felicis II

Today is going to be my lucky day!

It's one of those old Korean superstitions: if you dream of tons and tons- like a river- of pee, then you should buy a lottery ticket the next day. Well, last night I dreamt that this little boy approached the Pope because he couldn't piss, and as soon as the Pope heard about his problem, the little boy was pissing all over the carpet until the room was flooding with piss. In my dream, it was perceived as a miracle of God.

In nomine patris, et filis, et spiritus sancti,

Amen

Ghost Reflection

Ok, I know this is weird. But I was changing into my pj's, caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, and did a double take- because my reflection had TWO belly buttons! I checked to see which was the real reflection (it was the bottom one), and then I spent about a minute trying to figure out where the secondary one was originating from. Strangely enough, it disappeared when I moved to the right window pane. So I moved my reflection side to side a few times, trying to figure out why the secondary button was disappearing. But then I discovered that if I raised my hand up to the height of my face, its second reflection disappeared even on the left side, so then I guessed that it's just the way the light in the room strikes the window at a certain height. And that's my current hypothesis, which shall go untested and assumed unless anyone else has other ideas because seriously, I need to go to sleep. Belly buttons are not earth-shattering news. It's not even news! But anything that is not news-worthy is blog-worthy...I think that's the general rule.

Out Like a Light

Independence Day 2009 was rather bluesy. But later, I built a test bonfire with my brother-gathering large stones and feeling like the builders of Stonehenge- and talked with my sister on the phone, and still later, I watched the glorious fireworks from our back porch- exploding all glittery from the shadowy evergreens- and I could feel the bluesiness melting away. Flames are really pretty. I don't think I'm a pyro, but it's just something I noticed today as we watched our fire grow and flicker about in the light evening breeze, and the way the tiny orange sparks flitted brilliantly about for a few feet before going out with a sudden poof! Like a great disappearing act at the micro level. I wish I could suddenly become invisible! 

My Pop: A Seussian Post

Today was hot! I had to get a pop. I grabbed my keys and headed out.

"Where are you going, Angie?"

"To get a pop, Pop."

"Pop? Why don't you just drink beer? There's plenty here."

"...Thanks Pop, but I'll stick with the pop today."

My poor Pop. He needs a drinking buddy.

Mac Trouble:(

I downloaded firefox 3.0 and now my dock has disappeared and my F9~F11 functions don't function, and for some odd reason (not related I think), my external harddrive won't show up under the list of devices, even though it's clearly connected. So minus that last trouble, it's now basically a PC. Time for a trip to the Apple store!

The World is Their Bathroom

Today, for some reason, I felt like going on a loooooong run. Well "long" turned out to be about 3 miles because I had to go pee really really bad, so when I reached Alberton's, I stopped by to use their bathroom, and by the time I walked out, I had lost all inclination to run again. Motivation is so short-lived.

Anyway, on my way back home, two heavy raindrops fell from the sky and splattered about a foot away from my head. The raindrops were gooey and white with spots of brown. I was this close to getting shat on by some twittering fiend! I looked up into the sky-high trees, shading my eyes with one hand from the bright white summer clouds, and scanning the evergreens for the bird who did the crime. There it was! But as I spotted it, it suddenly occurred to me that the bird might not be finished relieving itself. Yikes! I dropped my gaze and dashed madly away from there.

Irrational Love

Ooh, I'm pretty excited about the latest Pixar project, Wall-E. They compare it to a Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton silent film (well, Wall-E is a lipless robot, after all), and above all, it's going to be a genuine love story. Sounds different from the previous Pixar films right? The human race has been transported to some other planet, and get this: they are all obese and ride around on some sort of robotic wheelchair-loungers drinking super-sized soft drinks. Har har.

One particularly interesting thing mentioned in the article is what elements they use in the movie to help audiences connect to a movie made with CG about robots. The combination of CG and robots is very heavily fantastical. Since both the story and the visual story are so laden with fantasy, this is where the importance of sound comes into the picture. They bring in sounds from reality- like a hand-cranked WWII army generator- and sounds that are familiar to us- like E.T.'s "throat-singing"- to give us a link to unfamiliar, alien territory. Here is the premise of the story in the writer/director's own words:

"...the point of my story, which was the premise that irrational love defeats life’s programming, and that the most robotic beings I’ve met are us.”

Sounds a bit contradictory, no? Well I'm sold, and I can't wait to see it! The first part of his premise is in line with my thinking that we humans are fundamentally irrational creatures. You could tell us that this is the reasonable thing to do, but time and time again, we will do opt for the unreasonable thing to do. Well, maybe not opt- it's more driven by something other than conscious choice. Why do girls fall for the bad guys? Why do men love bitches? (No, I haven't read the book.) Why does she keep going back to him when it's clearly not to her advantage (in terms of happiness) to do so? Irrational love- it's what gives us stories- books, movies, and myths.

Pinky and Obama

I'm starting to think that there is such a thing as too much imagination. Too much Pinky and the Brain, Mr. Brooks! Better oil those creative gears a little less often!

Hm, I just thought of something. The theme song to this show goes:

Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
the other's insane

It just occurred to me that Brain, the genius, is also very very insane. And who can blame him? Geniuses (genii?) don't see the world the same way we ordinary-minded folk do. Genii are aliens in their own home-planet. Of course they are insane. Of course, insanity is relative.

As for Obama, I happen to think that he has the rare combination of acute intelligence plus a good heart. Rare among politicians, I mean.

Maybe Bill Watterson Can Stay in Retirement After All

Oh man, I just caught up on reading xkcd comics. I think they might be the next best thing after Calvin & Hobbes.

Qui dara fine al gran dolore? L'ore.
(Basically: Time heals all wounds.)

Who knew this Italian echo (compare end of question to answer) would apply to such a mundane business as a bad haircut? See, a few weeks ago, I got a bad haircut. What made it bad? I asked for a trim and a layer. 30 minutes later, I look in the mirror and...damn, I'm not a baby, I'm not going to get upset over a bad haircut because I know hair grows back, but when I got home, the first thing I did was look up "layer" in the dictionary. Just as I thought, a "layer" involves a gradation of sorts- a gradual transformation from short to long, for instance. I then checked in the mirror once more, and sure enough, there was nothing gradual about the transformation. It was more like a 30-foot freefall starting somewhere behind my ears. And spikey, like those girls in Korean dramas who try so hard to look trendy. Yuck, I thought. Who can put an end to this great sorrow? Only time. Time- and ponytails, which make me look younger, true, but this is more desirable than looking like a Korean pop star.

Anyway, so today marks the first day since the Haircut I let my hair down and it looked okay.

Cheers to time and ponytails!

Babies, Slugs, & the Eternal You

Babies are so funny! Take the one sitting 2 tables away from me at Starbucks right now. First of all, she's dressed adorably with a teeny tiny denim skirt and pink ruffly headband to match her pink shirt and booties. Second of all, she's gnawing and licking the shit out of her fingers, like a caveman with a big juicy hambone. Sometimes though, her hand comes out of her toothless mouth and falls into her lap (slobber and all), but rather than lifting her hand back up, she leans her whole teeny tiny head and torso over and tries to grab the lifeless hand with her mouth. Sometimes she misses. Once she leaned over aiming for her hand, but she landed on her mother's knee instead, so she just started licking her mother's knee, while her mother held onto the back of the baby's skirt to keep her from falling. Crazy babies! They make me laugh.

Also, they will eat anything. There once was a baby named Ziyanja who lived downstairs from us at our old apartment. One day, we were changing her diaper and amidst the pile of poop lay two shiny-no-more quarters. Poor Washington. It's despicable the way we desecrate our founding fathers! I wonder what disgusting things I ate as a baby? Cal, a classmate of mine in elementary school, ate a slug when he was two. That is so gross. Why do slugs turn orange when you salt them? Hm...when you salt the slug, its body secretes slime to the outside in order to dilute the salt so it can breathe. So when you salt a slug to death, you're forcing it to secrete all the liquid from its body, and basically drying or suffocating it to death. Ok, I'm feeling slightly nauseous now. I really hope no one was eating while reading this post.

Yesterday, I met up with some friends I had not seen in 6 years. !!! We haven't changed a bit. I kid or course, but only slightly. I think, judging from last night's experience, there is a part of us that remains eternally the same no matter how much we change in other respects. Like the exuberance of one, or the genuineness of another. Our database of things we've seen and done and learned has grown exponentially, but the template on which these things were laid remains unchanged, ever since we were the size of that Ferocious Licker babe...who is now gone. Boo. I guess I'll entertain myself with a book now. I'm currently reading Oh Jerusalem, by Lapierre and Collins. It was donated to me by Tom, who urged me to read it before I head to the mideast. So many things to do, so little time!

Eternally Yours,

Archimedes

Love & Care

How blurry is the line between care and love?

The Most Surreal Tutoring Experience Yet

Today, I was supposed to be tutoring, but instead, found myself sitting on the couch while my student's ailing grandpa regaled us with Slavic drinking songs and the Baloney Song (all 6 verses of it!).

"He doesn't usually act like this," said my student, "He must still be drugged up from his hospital visit."

Yeeeeah, that would explain it. I almost expected him to bring out a hat and cane and start criss-crossing the room with his merry tunes.

Tomorrow is the deadline for sending the contract for the teaching gig in Irbil. It's times like these when I don't want to leave my comfy tutoring business here in WA.

Pacific Northwest, Down Under

I just read an Op-Ed piece in the Times, written by one of my favorite writers, Brian Greene. Not surprisingly, in his article called "Put a Little Science in Your Life", he says a lot of things that draw an amen from me, but one really great point he makes is that when teaching, there's a lot of drilling and rigor involved and technicalities to learn, but it's okay- crucial even- to take a break from these micro-learning activities to tell the students about current research, theories, and applications. Storytelling is not just for kindergarteners or English class. In science and math classes, the students may not be old enough or knowledgeable enough yet to understand everything you're telling them, but that doesn't mean they aren't picking anything up. It's really about planting seeds in their minds that they will pick up on later, when it becomes more relevant or comprehensible. In fact, that aura of mystery that surrounds abstract, unfathomable ideas may be just the kick they need to want to keep going with the drilling and technicalities.

The train ride from Tacoma to Portland was lovely. Water paralleled the tracks almost the entire way down, and lush, green vegetation surrounded either side in all forms, from wild sky-high leafy trees to tame farmlands with their freshly mown grass. The girl I sat next to was returning from visiting her boyfriend in Seattle, and when she told me that, I was instantly taken- whimsied away, you could say- by the utterly romantic idea of having to take a train ride every week to visit my boyfriend. I have funny ideas about romance, I know.

The actual weekend in Portland was just as wonderful. I went with Tom and his friend Steve, who was visiting from Australia, and Steve's friend Liz gave us a great weekend tour of Hawthorne, the hippie neighborhood she lives in. In her neighborhood, the houses and shops are unique-looking, not mass-produced cookie-cutter types, and there is even a house that looks like it is made of construction paper (because of the way it is painted, not how flimsy it is). The day we got there, we went to Bagdad cafe, and had good, hearty happy-hour food, including delicious cajunized tater tots, mmmm. Steve, who taught English in Japan for a year, would call them oishi ("delicious"), which he remembered by the classy mnemonic:

"She's delicious!"

"Oh-is-she desu?"

There was a talented street musician strumming away at his guitar just a few feet away from our outdoor seating, skateboarders rolling by on a regular basis, and pedestrians dressed as buckaneers and other strange fixings, though Halloween is long past (or long to come). The cafe was also a movie theater that showed second-round movies for $3 a pop, and they have a few of those, Liz told us, in the area. Basically, all we did all weekend was eat out, drink out, and nap in. It was quite refreshing and relaxing. We also took the piss out of* each other and got the piss taken out of because apparently that's what Aussies do for fun, and if you can't take a joke, then you can't survive Down Under.

Some things to know about Portland are: Bikes are ubiquitous. If you want to fit in, you better get a bike and use it! And also, they are known for their bridges, microbrewery beers, (Tillamook) cheese, and dormant volcanoes. The weather is very much like Tacoma-Seattle weather: mild, temperate, cloudy, and if it rains, it's really a misty rain, and it smells just as good.

*roughly translates as "made fun of"

Here Lies Nana

Guess what I was doing just now?

Driving with a banana on my rooftop.

:-D

I put it there because my hands were full and I had to open the car door, and then of course, just like I did with my wallet during the road trip 2 years ago, I promptly obliviated it from my memory and drove away. Moral of the story: Never put things down for "just a second" on the car roof. Luckily, a very kind person found the wallet and returned it, plus its entire content, to the police station.

"It got run over by a few semi's," I would explain when I had to show my bent-up ID at bars and stuff. And now, somewhere on the road in Spanaway/Parkland lies a smooshed banana, like a cartoon sketch waiting to happen.

Tions All Around

Happy sigh...I'm in a wonderfully sappy mood tonight.

Congratulations, Jess and Eric!

Felicitations!

Salutations!

Just...Tions.

The Muslim Question

Why is it such a big deal whether or not Obama is a Muslim? I think it is shameful that it is even an issue in this campaign.

"Mr. Obama, are you, or are you not a Muslim?"

They ask him that-over and over again- as if being a Muslim is like being a drug addict, or a Hannah Montana fan, or the father of Anna-Nicole Smith's baby, as if it's something to be ashamed of. Is politics nothing but a Jerry Springer show?

Is you, or is you ain't, the father?

Of course, I'm not that naive. I know exactly why it is a big deal in politics. But I still think it is utterly stupid. America has come a long way in putting a woman and a black man on the presidential nominee stand, but when will come the day when a candidate can respond to the above question with a candid "Yes, I believe in Allah", and not a single eyebrow is raised?

(Answer: when people start shaving off their eyebrows.).

Felix Felicis

Wow, I'm so lucky.

Nothing like a flood of support and advice to make you feel like you must have kissed the blarney stone at some point in your life. Or found a four-leaf clover. Or taken a swig of felix felicis. The best part was when today, I went to my usual tutoring session in North Tacoma. Usually, when I open the door and walk in yelling "hello!", I see my student sitting on the living room couch watching his after-school show, "Just Shoot Me". I throw myself on the couch and finish the episode with him, and then we go to the kitchen to do geometry for a couple of hours.

Today, however, when I walked in yelling "hello!" and peeked into the living room, there was no one there. Hm...so I wandered back into the kitchen and peered into the family room downstairs, and there he was, strumming on a guitar, but one that I hadn't seen before.

"Hey, new guitar?"

"Yup," said he. "Uncle Dave found it in a pawn shop. It only cost 70 bucks, but it plays real nice. He had to get the strings replaced because they were falling apart. But even with the bad strings, it sounded good!" He continued playing it, while I listened, wishing I was experienced enough with guitars to be able to appreciate the good-sounding ones from "cheesy-sounding" ones. I picked up his old black guitar and started strumming on that, but then suddenly, he stopped playing and handed the new guitar to me. "I'm just kidding, he got it for you. It's all yours."

Mine! I was so surprised, and man, I admit, I was like really touched at that moment. For the past couple months, after math, we'd go downstairs and play guitar together as sort of a way to unwind after a long grueling (grueling to him) math session, and I'd mentioned that I was interested in getting one, a really really cheap one, some time in the future. So his uncle had been searching all over craigslist, and tested out a bunch of guitars at a pawn shop to find one for me that was affordable but played decently. And so here I was, holding my very own guitar, new strings and everything, and chosen with care. I was so pleased that I tutored him for free today, and for 3.5 hours at that. Hey, he had a test coming, and I had to get him prepared! Ain't no messing around at Angie's Academy.

And guess what I'm naming the guitar? (See post title.)

Let's Talk About...Kurdistan

Here is Kurdistan:



Kurdistan is not a country. It is identified (by Wikipedia) as a "federal autonomous region", a region belonging to four nations (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria), and inhabited by the Kurdish people who ultimately want peace and total autonomy. Of course, none of the four countries it belongs to is willing to grant such independence because it would mean a huge loss of money for them, given the bounty of oil reserves in the land.

Erbil, the capital city, is in the Iraqi portion of the Kurdish region, and the people there do everything they can to distance themselves ideologically from the rest of war-torn Iraq. They love the West, and they love Americans because of the general peace that the US government helped to ensure in this northern region of Iraq. Right now, Erbil is ugly, brown, and dusty, but it's undergoing major development in the way of shopping malls, entertainment centers, hotels, and restaurants. It's even said that Erbil resembles the United Arab Emirates some years ago.

Well, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I may be going to Iraq. !!! ...

See, I just got this teaching gig there. I haven't said yes yet because I want to take a couple days at least to make a well-thought out decision. Originally, I applied to math teaching positions at international schools abroad as a back-up plan, in case I didn't get into grad school, but now that I've almost clinched this job, I can't imagine turning down an opportunity to travel to the Middle East. Plane ticket, housing, furnishing- even towels!- and transportation will be payed for and provided, and during Christmas, they will pay for a trip to one of four destinations: Amman, Istanbul, Lebanon, or the UAE. It's just too good to pass up, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Plus I'll be working with people from all over the world. Well, maybe mostly US and UK and local Kurdistan, but anyway.

So I'm waiting to hear back from one Master's program, the deadline for the other not even having arrived yet, and all the while being handed this amazing opportunity to see a part of the world that is totally different from anything I've experienced before. I can't help thinking, school can wait for one more year. It truly is hard to go back to school after leaving and taking a break, but I firmly believe that mid-twenties still leaves plenty of time to go back to grad school, and besides, I might have to listen to good old Einstein in this situation. It was he who said that "education is what remains after one forgets everything he learned in school". Of course, I'm traveling to the Middle East in order to teach at a school, but anyway. Isn't "but anyway" a great way to leave one's illogical statements unresolved?

!!!

Having to Explain Doogie

I was tutoring a 6th or 7th grader today, and made a reference to Doogie Howser. She stared blankly back at me. Man I'm getting old. But why is she taller than me?

Another thing that makes me feel old is when I drive down my street and see kids who were not even born when my family and I moved into this cul-de-sac neighborhood 15 years ago.

Playground Bully

Also for the record, I got kicked off the playground today!

Sometimes, when I go running, I like to stop by the local school's playground. I'm usually good about going when there are no kids around, but today, I mistook the second-recess bell for the end-of-recess bell, and headed into the school grounds too early. Dah! So a teacher or administrative chick came out and was all "EXCUSE ME, CAN I HELP YOU WITH SOMETHING?"

I dunno, can you? Would have been the appropriate elementary school reply. I don't recall what I really said, but she then responded with

"WE DON'T ALLOW PARENTS ON THE PLAYGROUND."

She thought I was a parent? How doubly insulting.

The Sound of Boston

I spent this beeeeeeautiful summery evening figuring out the piano part for Augustana's Boston. I've always liked this song because its sound is so clear and the piano part makes me think of bells- at least in the version that I have (apparently there is an original version out there with a different-sounding intro). So this evening, after an impromptu viewing of La vita e bella (*tear!*), I decided to decode the piano part by ear, and that is how I discovered that this song is chock-full of perfect 4ths and 5ths!...

Okay, so to explain, perfect 4ths and 5ths are types of intervals in music. Intervals in general can be described as having a certain sound quality- sad, happy, gloomy, threathening, jarring, to use normal language. To the human ear, though, perfect 4ths and 5ths (and octaves) have the purest, most consonant sound, and the purity of these particular intervals was recognized even way back when, by Pythagoras. In fact, Pythagoras was so taken by the connection between math and musical intervals that he became convinced that the structure of the universe had to reflect these divine, harmonious ratios in the distances between its planets, sun, and moon. His "Music of the Spheres" model of the universe is simultaneously outrageous and full of incredible forethought, in my opinion, given the whole string theory thing. I'm going to refrain from attributing any sort of divinity to these musical intervals, but it is cool to think that the beauty of Augustana's song can be explained by its containing a bunch of these especially pure-sounding intervals.

The Raging Earth and Scenes from the Homeless

Damn, cyclone, earthquake, tornado...I think our dear planet Earth has finally hit puberty.

Today, I was staring out the window of the passenger side while munching on an apple, when I made eye contact with a homeless man peddling for change. He gave me a smile, as if he could see that I had a heart underneath my cold, bitter exterior. Of course, after that, I could not for a second imagine myself riding away without giving him anything, so I smiled back, reached into my backpack, rolled down the window and handed him a banana.

His thank you came an instant before I handed him the banana, so I couldn't tell if he was mad that it wasn't money. I know it doesn't make sense for homeless people to be ungrateful for whatever free things they can get their hands on, but I also know that human beings in general don't act rationally, and feelings of indignance or ungratefulness arise even when they are least warranted. So as we drove off, I sat there wondering what the worth of a slightly overripe banana was to a homeless man.

Another time I was passing another homeless hotspot, I witnessed a homeless man and woman sharing a kiss on the lips, their ragged bodies separated only by the piece of cardboard they used to solicit money. Love and happiness can be found in the most destitute corners of the world, I thought to myself then.

One More Reason to Believe in Evolution

The duckbill platypus:



This sort of creature could only have come into existence by accident. With the bill and webbed feet of a duck, eyes of a mole, the tail of a beaver, mammalian fur and milk, and reptilian eggs, the duckbill platypus is the closest thing to a chimera that we can get, a veritable patchwork quilt of animal parts. What an odd, odd-looking creature! No wonder researchers chose it for their next genome sequencing project. The sequencing revealed that its genome reflects the patchwork quality of its physical appearance, containing avian, reptilian, and mammalian genomic features.

My Idealism Speaks Out

"Why does applied science bring us so little happiness? The simple answer is that we have not yet learned to make proper use of it. In time of war it has given men the means to poison and mutilate one another. In time of peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. It has enslaved us to machines. The chief objective of all technological effort must be concern for mankind. Never forget this when you are pondering over your diagrams and equations!"

-Einstein during an address to Caltech students, from the Peace Pledge Union site.

"I believe America may totally succumb to the fearful militarisation which engulfed Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. There is real danger that political power and the power to influence the minds of people will pass increasingly into the hands of the military, which is used to approaching all political problems from the point of view of military expediency. Because of America's supremacy, the military point of view is forced upon the world."

-Einstein, 1949-ish, around the time the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.

The Peace Pledge Union link where I found the above quotes is a really interesting article on Einstein, the political activist. I'd always known he was a pacifist, but the extent of his involvement in campaigning for peace surprised me. To the end of his days, it seems he was chasing after two dreams: a grand unification theory and world peace. Which is the more elusive goal? Only time will tell, but it reminds me of one of Einstein's famous sayings: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

If I ever become famous, this is how I'd want to use my influence! Promotion of peace, humanity, international cooperation! I sound like such a hippie. In the more likely event that I don't become famous, I'm gonna busk for charity. Almost got the first song in my guitar repertoire down- Blackbird. Add to that Let It Be, Imagine, and other Beatles songs, and I'll have me a Beatles for Peace program!

See y'all in the streets,

Archimedes

Tea kettle Post

Oh my god, my mom just smelled my breath for alcohol. I seriously get no respect in this house. What have I done to earn such distrust from my parents? Maybe I should start acting like the dick teenager that they take me for. Rant rant rant. Ok I'm done. Thanks for listening.

Party at the Snug

This past weekend, I found myself

1) Sitting in a room with a stark naked girl on the floor in front of me, beating on a djembe positioned between her knees. Don't worry, there were other people in that room. They were all boys, and I was the one blushing.

2) Dancing with a large, sticky electric blue barrel over my head. It was a 1/2-Halloween party, and I lacked a costume. Will you believe me when I say I was 99% sober during the entire party?

3) Sitting in a yard with a gorilla, a rock pile, a dude that looks like Jesus swinging nunchucks, and a Mongol pimp. Oh, I was the Mongol pimp. Imagine an Asian girl donned in an oversized purple fur coat and a hat made of a block of gray foam (leftover from the rock pile costume), and you'll see what I mean.

3) Jamming on a guitar, accompanied by djembes, an xylophone, a tambourine, and said barrel, while wearing said Mongol pimp get-up. We were like hippies in a commune, minus the pot.

4) Dozing on a rooftop.

5) Watching the sun set over the Olympic Mountains while perched on a log on the beach, surrounded by silhouetted figures and flaming bonfires dotting the sands.

6) Dancing in the Tunnel at Golden Gardens, accompanied by 3 djembes, a toy gun, a fellow dancer, and random strangers passing through the tunnel. Golden Gardens is officially my favorite place in the whole city.

I wanna go busking!

Starbucks: Coffeeshop/Chemistry Lab

I'm typing away in a Starbucks right now, and there is a strange scene going on before me. A man sits at the table directly in front of me. He is a middle-aged half-black man with short, curly salt-and-pepper hair and goatee (the kind that circles over the lips and joins to the beard). He is preppily dressed in black trousers, fuzzy gray vest over a checkered button-down shirt. Nice leather shoes and professorish-looking glasses. A small pile of books lie under his seat, next to a heavy-looking black leather briefcase. So far so normal. The strange part is what is sitting on his table: four different types of bottled water, a bottle of green gatorade, an unidentified white bottle, and a cup of coffee.

Thought 1: This is one well-hydrated man.

Thought 2: He must be on the liquid diet.

But then, the next time I looked up, I observed a few new additions to the ensemble on the table: 5 clear, plastic Starbucks cups, each filled with about 1/4 cup of liquid. He then pulled out this tiny vial of red liquid and piped some into each of the cups filled with water or gatorade. As the drops fell in and mixed with the liquids, their color transformed so that now, one cup held a pale blue liquid, another a pale purple, red, and so on. Snatches of the conversation between the man and his companion who just joined him drifted my way, words like "acid", "weight loss", "chlorine".

Hm, it is no longer a mystery, but still, what a strange sight to behold in your average Starbucks coffeeshop.

Carousel

Carousel
Lucinda Roy

For Namba Roy, 1910-1961

I often spin around with you and hear
the fragile music of a carousel;
I feel your black arms round me in a heavy sweep
of closeness, taking me up on notes which fall
like eggs through water.

I am older now
and you have fallen from the garish horse
a long time since, and I am holding on
with thin brown fingers. Do you know
it’s been a quarter century since you
(with your voice like the man who plays God in the movies)
kissed me? I don’t remember your kisses.
I remember you wearing striped pyjamas
and waving to me from the ward - your great hand
scooping a half-circle out of nothing;
how my brother almost choked on a Lifesaver
until a male nurse turned him upside down
and out came the white mint with the hole
that saved him.

I dreamed you died, and when I woke
my mother was by the bed. ‘How will I light
the fire?’ she said. I didn’t know.

It was cold in our house; our breath came out
round as balloons and dissolved till we breathed
again. We learned to accommodate spaces
as you must have learned to accommodate…
but no. Where there is no place to put things,
no place for your bones or your slippers or my words
there cannot be a place for spaces.
It must be fine to know only lack of substance -
the round emptiness in an angel’s trumpet -
and still hear music.

I have the things you made
and she has made us see you in them.
I have the ivory statues and the pictures
telling stories of African ancestors,
a birth, flights into Egypt. In your work
I find the stillness of your eyes and mouth
the stillness which is always at the centre
of the spinning ball we hurl high and long.

I often spin around with you and hear
the fragile music of a carousel.
My horse would gallop forward if I let him
but I prefer the swinging back to where
we were, slow undulations round and back
to identical place. I prefer to see
your black hands with mine on a crimson mane
which will never be swept back by the wind.

Next!

Sometimes I think Seattle is one of the most beautiful cities in the country- when it's sunny. Like it was yesterday! I spent all day yesterday at the ginormous Barnes & Noble in University Village finishing Snow Crash. There is a hilariously awkward sex scene in it between Y.T. and Raven. I mean, I don't think it was intended to be either hilarious or awkward, but damn, it was like reading about the conception of Hagrid the half-giant in Harry Potter.

Today, I will be embarking on my next reading adventure, Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. It's a fitting way to start off my 24th year. My twenties has been a time of self-discovery, and for a "long" time, I thought happiness was the ultimate aim of life. You know, life is short, do what makes you (and not some abstract dude called God) happy, as long as you don't hurt anyone. But now I'm beginning to think that purpose is just as important, if not more, than happiness. Happiness is short-lived. Moments of pleasure survive in your memories, but those memories quickly become like someone else's dreams. Did that really happen to me? I often find myself asking. And was it really only a few months ago? It seems like ages ago, another lifetime. After basking in your memories, you shake your head, waking yourself up to the present, and wonder what's next? Who's left? It's the fate of humankind to have brains built to comprehend time linearly, so no matter how amazing the present moment is, we're constantly asking ourselves, "so what's next?" only days later. Conversely, no matter how shitty the present moment is, we can look on into the future and hope for better times. Overall, it's a blessing to be able to have things over with, because that's what makes our lives dynamic and exciting. We can be filled with anticipation (or dread) precisely because of our inability to view time all at once like a typical dimension of space. But, it is interesting to think that there are other ways to view time, like the block universe theory. Many physicists are convinced that finding the theory of everything will only be possible with a better understanding of time. Trying to understand the true nature of time with the limitations of the human brain is sort of like Helen Keller learning to read and write in Chinese. When you think about it, Helen Keller was quite a lucky girl to be born blind and deaf into an English-speaking society. Imagine trying to learn 10,000 complicated Chinese characters and getting all the tones down, when you don't understand sound or sight.

Boys Are From Mars

I was telling May about how yesterday I was sprawled on my bedroom floor chatting with two male friends about our dream weddings and sharing a communal plate of late-night grubs. Just like a sleepover with my lady friends.

"Guys have dream weddings?" she asked.

"Yeahman!" I responded. "Except for them, it's more like "wooo, I wanna have the wildest craziest party of the century! With a donkey! Eating hash!" Pause. "See what I mean? Different."

"A donkey? Eating hash? So it's not at all like talking with your lady friends."

"No...I guess not."

And so much more that cannot be published on this public blog (Yeah, even I've got limits). God I miss that girl.

Stranger Than Fiction

Bull Shit.

Okay, I'm being unfair. I can sort of see why he'd write such things. I love reading about Arthurian lore- it's magical, grand, adventurous. Plus, I often look back to past blog posts and ask myself: What the hell was I thinking when I wrote that? But I know I had a reason for writing what I did; there was some angle from which it made sense.

But the qualm I have with this article is the way he views revelations of modern science as stark and demystifying and cold. He clearly has no idea about string theory or relativity, which simultaneously demystify and mystify further, somehow...they are far from cold and unimaginative. Dare I say it? There is more imagination in physics today than in all the Harry Potter books put together, what with scientists waxing poetic about the quantum world, parallel universes, dark energy, different concepts of time.

Writer Muriel Rukeyser once said that "the universe is made up of stories, not of atoms". She was right (in more than one respect since the smallest components are now quarks and leptons, not atoms), but these stories are stories of a truth that is much stranger and more imaginative than any fiction. In my non-humble opinion.

Where is the "Ursa" in Ursa Major?

How is that a bear? It looks more like a muskrat. I must be lacking a penny or two in imagination.

Things you can do to angie-fy your days:

1) Read a book while sitting in the children's section of the bookstore, with one of their teddy bears perched on your knees. Pretend it belongs to you: give it a name, a pat or two on the head, change its position every few pages. Try not to think about the number of kids who lovingly slobbered all over it before MacArthur came to you.

2) Take a ride on the swings at the local playground. Once you get a good, high swing going, stick your legs out and lean your head way back until all you see is blue (or gray) sky. Make sure your hair does not touch the dirt at the lowest point of the swing trajectory.

3) Rock out to Red Hot Chili Peppers funk. All around the World, Californication, Snow, Tell Me Baby,...Do the whole head-nodding thing to the beat. There's this funny part in All around the World where they go "Ding-dang-dong-dong-ding-dang-dong-dongggg-ding-dang-dong" ...does not get any funkier than that man.

4) Blog about nothing. Like Seinfeld!

The Last Lecture

Wow, everyone should watch Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture." A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, and founder of the Alice Project, he's dying of pancreatic cancer and delivered his very last lecture back in September.

An interesting tidbit is that he was given a teeny tiny role (an appearance- with dialogue!) in J.J. Abrams upcoming Star Trek movie, to be released this May.

Weather in WA: April 19

9:00 am: Snow!

11:30 am: Sun!!

12:30 pm: HAIL!!!

Can't wait to see what comes next. Frogs, like in Magnolia?

Wow, April 19 already! It is 10 days 'til my 24th birthday. Speaking of birthdays, I've consistently missed acknowledging all my friends' birthdays since September-ish. Is this because I've suddenly become forgetful? Or is it because I no longer care about my friends? No, the real reason is because I've stopped logging on to facebook every single day, so now there is no automatic message reminder. Hm...I guess that means that I've always been forgetful or a bad friend, if I need facebook to remind me of their birthdays. Yay, Crangie!

Happy Birthday to everyone for the next 10 years!

There, I think that solves that problem for a while, *dust off hands*.

Hillary the Angel

“You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life." ~HRC

Is that why she goes around telling her advisors to fuck off? I knew that was a divinely-inspired message.

"And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining." ~HRC

I'm sure it helped her through the various trials of her personal and political life. In fact, one could say she was "clinging to religion" in the face of hardships- perhaps not economic ones (scratch that- definitely not economic ones), but hardships nonetheless. So Obama was not wrong when he said people turned to religion as a source of comfort in the face of hardships?

Game No. 1

I just played my first Scrabble game ever! It lasted 3.5 hours. I lost to Sarah ~400 to 350. It got really interesting toward the end, when all seven of my tiles were vowels for the last 3 or 4 rounds.

UUUUU
EEEE
AIIIII
EUUUU

Scrabble is not a game for those who lack patience. I think I took like 20 minutes for one of my turns. Sorry Sarah! It's just that I really wanted to get that 10-point Z in a triplet-letter box. Eventually, I figured out that "letting go" is also a good virtue to have when playing Scrabble.

Invariance Cannot Vary...Right?

I've got this fear of becoming that workaholic parent or spouse, who invests too much time into her job, and not enough into family and friends.

These days, I find myself trying hard to finish my paper, and trying equally as hard not to build up a guilty conscience over spending so little time with family and friends.

The last couple days, however, what with Sarah visiting, I've finally caved in and set aside my paper. Now I'm back from happy hour at the waterfront, saying 'fuck you' to any sense of self-induced guilt or obligation that creeps my way, and determinedly working on this paper once again.

But I had to pause and share with my readers the sort of sentences that get typed by fingers whose veins are flowing with Chardonnay:

"...derive laws of nature from invariance* of invariance", plus countless typos...I'm a shitty typer even when I'm sober.

*That should say "laws of invariance" I think.

Phrase Heard Around the World

I've decided to patent the phrase:

"Powered By AC"

For instance, this blog is not powered by Blogger, it is "Powered by AC" because who's writing it? AC baby! And my car is not powered by gas or DC electricity, it's powered by AC. Cuz who's drivin' it? AC baby! The computer that you're using may be powered by DC, but if I'm using it? Powered by AC.

Uh-kay, you get the point. If you don't, then it's probably because you don't know that A & C are my initials, as well as the ones for a type of electricity.

Thanks for the inspiration, David.

Caught By Surprise

Today, I took my mom to the airport early in the morning, and upon returning, instead of going back to sleep, I decided to start my day. Inevitably, I guess, I found myself nodding off while reading about symmetry and decided to take a "quick" nap. I just woke up 3 hours later, looked out my window, and guess what?

It is SNOWING.

The weather never ceases to amaze me. All the signs of spring in WA are here: The pink flowers finally blossoming forth from the naked trees, and the endless days of either rain or sunny rain. Snow is the last thing one expects here- even during the winter. But it is definitely snowing. Snowflakes are symmetric. So are the laws of nature. Sigh...back to work.

Econ for Dummies

What is a depression? How is it different from a recession? How does a recession or a depression occur? What is so troubling about the whopping number of home foreclosures? What does it all mean? Now I'm going existential...but these are some questions that have been floating around in my head these past couple weeks. Why?

The state of the economy has been making headlines lately, and I have no idea what the big deal is. For instance, a couple posts ago, I mentioned something I heard on NPR: "Now that analysts have finally determined that we are in a recession..." The second half of that sentence was "should we be talking about a depression?" As in, like the Great Depression of the 1930's. The expert that was interviewed for this segment basically said that all the signs were there, so yes, we should be bracing ourselves for the grand economic slam.

Damn, Armageddon's coming, so why do I feel so indifferent? Maybe it's because I don't own a house yet. Or maybe it's because the guy on NPR was over-exaggerating. Or maybe it's because I still don't understand what a depression or a recession is or how it all works. Like how does a troubled housing market signal a recession and a possible depression?

It was not until I read this Times article today that I finally began to understand what it all meant. Also the message in this article was quite the opposite of the NPR dude. It painted a much rosier picture of our economic situation, and basically made the case that the possibility of a repeat of the Great Depression is close to nil because the government is plugging the leaks before they turn into craters- unlike during the '30s- and they've been putting up such "safety nets" as Social Security and unemployment benefits since the post-Great Depression era, having learned their lesson.

So breathe easy folks! (Not that you were going to go out and buy that big-screen or Honda anyway, right?) According to the article, the sign of a true depression is when banks start failing en masse just when unemployment levels are booming. That is when we should all join the Great Bank Run, just as Jane and Michael did in Mary Poppins. And FYI:

Recession: A significant decline in economic activity, lasting a few months;

Depression: A much more significant decline in economic activity, lasting much longer.

To be honest, I'm a bit suspicious of the overly-positive message of the Times article. I mean, the government is plugging the leaks, but the fact that there are leaks- serious ones like the near-bankruptcy of major Wall Street securities firm Bear Stearns- should not be taken too lightly. The reality of the situation is probably somewhere between it and the NPR dude.

Made in Taiwan

“I was biologically conceived in Taiwan, although I was born in Hong Kong, so technically I was made in Taiwan."

~Taiwan's new president Ma Ying-jeou

Made in Taiwan? I thought that phrase only applied to clothing and toys. Well, at least we can be assured that President-elect Ma does not contain a high-risk percentage of lead.

Also, today I found out that I'm an enantiomorph! In other words, Sarah and I are "non-superimposable mirror-images" of each other, like a pair of hands. Of course this was truer before Sarah got side bangs, so if I want to stay a true enantiomorph, I'd have to get side bangs that go the other way.

Archimedes, Evolved (Somehow)

If you ever observe an owl watching its prey, you'll notice that its neck is extremely flexible. While eying its prey, it will turn its head 180 degrees upside down or even 360 degrees around like a corkscrew- all without moving its body. I was told that this is because owls can't move their eyes- they have to move their whole head if they want to keep their prey in sight. Dunno how true that is, I mean what kind of animal survives Darwinian selection if they can't even move their eyes?