Mac rant part 2

I thought I was done with the ranting, but here I go again. The trigger this time is an e-mail sent by a tech support guy in school whom I personally know. He doesn't know that I'm posting parts of his e-mail though.

"I do not know who serviced this computer before. I opened it up and found many of the screws were missing and a part near the battery compartment was broken. The functionality of the computer does not depend on these screws or broken part but I still expect them to be there."

And guess what, I expect all the screws to be there too! The only people who have opened up the laptop prior to the tech guy are people working for Apple. I wonder who left the insides of my computer in a mess. With such poor work quality, I don't think I actually expect more if I had purchased the more expensive Powerbook version (currently the MacBook Pro).

I wonder what would have happened if I had purchased the 3-year Applecare plan -- would they have accused me of messing up the insides, thus voiding the warranty? It certainly doesn't sound like they were planning for anyone to crack things open, except it doesn't matter to me coz I no longer have a service plan.

I'm sticking to PCs. Not that I think they have better tech support, but they are simpler inside. That means with the help of smarter friends, I might be able to fix my own stuff. *growl* Can't trust anyone these days.

I'm over Macs. Mac users tend to like their machines a lot, and rave about the excellent service and such. Blah blah blah. My personal experience with Macs is that they aren't so great. The service isn't stellar either. I spent hours on the phone with a tech help guy who refused to acknowledge that my hard drive was down, and made me spend hours over the phone before agreeing to let me ship it back for repairs (this was about a year after I got the computer). It took them another 3 weeks of replacing everything single part to finally get to my hard drive (written on the report sheet). My labmate was able to tell me that my hard drive was down minutes after looking at it.

Most recently, I received further confirmation that lemons do exist in the land of Macs. The dear computer (hard drive down a year ago) mysteriously stopped working. Things were whirling, but the screen wouldn't show anything. Using an external screen didn't solve the problem. Trying to boot my computer in Target mode didn't work either (can't read the hard drive as an external drive). Unfortunately, the department messed up and didn't get me the 3-year Applecare plan, so instead of having slightly questionable repair people working on it, I have highly questionable people working on it instead. It's been 2 months, and I've given up on the Mac ever returning.

To be fair, it's important to share what I found good and bad about Macs, not just rave about the good things. It makes no difference, Mac or PC. It doesn't matter to most users who just want to read their e-mails and various websites and write word documents. On the other hand, if your hardware fails and you want a cheap replaceable part, PC is the way to go.

Anyway, the highlight of my day: One thing PC users can do that Mac users can't.

Limitations of my thought experiment

Shortly after I described my "Eat what you can kill" diet, I went to dinner with a couple of concerned labmates and had a serious discussion about my dietary philosophy. They rightly pointed out that my idea of killing was limited to me with a knife in hand, and a huge animal in front of me.

There are many ways to kill an animal. For instance, I could shoot it. I have to agree that shooting a beast is as impersonal as it can get, especially when it's 50 or more feet away. I actually don't have problems with hacking the carcass up so I am actually capable of killing and eating an animal.

I could also ram a car or some equally large vehicle into a poor beast. It's a waste to not consume road kill. Another easy possibility is seafood -- if I can take it out of water, it's mine to feast upon. That said, I am not sure about tuna.

I finally saw a tuna 2 years ago. It wasn't a tiny fish; it was huge. It didn't look as cute as a dolphin though. Is that why people worry about dolphin-friendly tuna, but not about the tuna? Anyway.

We then discussed other even more philosophical and scientific ideas. For instance, instead of Schrodinger's cat, I could have a Schrodinger's cow. If the cow happens to die due to reasons I can't control, I could eat it.

So yeah, I have to admit that it's a poorly defined criteria for determining what I can consume. There are too many impersonal ways to kill an animal, and it disturbs me to think that the same methods can be applied to a human being. I don't like this thought experiment too much. It's depressing, and I've gotten nothing done.

A thought experiment

I was reading the New Yorker (as usual) the other day, an article about a guy with a private navy who hunts down illegal fishing ships. It somehow got me thinking about the food I eat (again).

Can I kill the animal that I eat? If I can't go to the grocery store to get nicely cut beef, can I go to my hypothetical barnyard and kill the cow? If I can do that, then I'll eat it. So far, I figure I can probably kill a chicken so I could eat that. I'm not so sure about other types of meat though.

I'm one meal into this new "Eat only what you can kill" diet, not counting breakfast since I never have meat for breakfast. I'm not sure how long I'll last.

I've been eating way more meat since I moved to Cambridge, mostly because I can't get excited over the sparse variety of vegetables I find at my grocery store. I wonder if it's possible to go back to the way I was.

woohoo!

My computer died on the last Thursday of September, and finally today I have a new computer of my own. I've been borrowing a department laptop for over a month, and while it was helpful, it was also annoying that I couldn't install anything. It was an older computer so everything was a little out of date, including virus protection. It was slightly disturbing.

I've gone back to a PC. It was a hard decision to make until the tech guy in the department told me that if I were to buy a Mac, I really should go for a MacBook Pro, coz the MacBooks have inferior hardware. It was a hardware problem that sank the last notebook, and while I know I probably got a lemon, I can't face a Mac again for now. That pretty much settled it.

So hurray! I can use hyperlinks in my posts again, and the first article I'm linking is The Economic Consequences of Mr Bush. I know it's great -- a Vanity Fair magazine article by a Nobel laureate.

The carbon footprint of a biologist?

Maybe I'm sensitive, but there seems to be a lot of articles on green living and such floating around recently. My roommate (a fellow budding scientist) sent me an e-mail petition (something about scientists concerned about the environment) to ask Toyota to adopt better fuel efficiency standards for all their cars/SUVs. This is all great. I'm not new to environmental issues; I've been talking about them since I was 9/10.

A list of concepts of interest (I'm not linking them, but I'm sure you can search for them):
1. small, compact fuel efficient cars get comparable mileage than hybrids, for ~$5000 less (that's a whooping 25-30% of the price of a car!).
2. Just because a company sells a popular hybrid car (like the Prius) does not mean that they are greener than their competition. Consumers and scientists have themselves to blame if they were ever deluded that Toyota is greener than any other car manufacturer.
3. eating meat is bad for the environment
4. an efficient, fully-loaded dishwasher uses less water than a person washing dishes by hand. (My problem with this is that I've been taught to turn the water off while soaping my dishes. Most people soap while leaving the water running, so I can see how a dishwasher is better. But I turn the water off, so how do I compare?)
5. global warming is for real! (those far-off ideas I heard about 15 years ago are actually true! *shudder*)

Anyway, focusing on my self evaluation, with particular relation to my current career path: a graduate student researcher.

Things that worry me:
1. I and my labmates throw away a ton of plastic every day -- eppendorf tubes, Falcon tubes, pipet tip boxes (I use the reloadable ones, but there aren't reloadable boxes for filter tips).
2. There are always styrofoam boxes, and cold packs (what's in them?) in the trash. These packing materials are necessary because we order enzymes and other perishables that need to be kept cold. Some companies (like BioRad) have a recycling program, but no one seems to take the trouble to read the form, fill in the labels, and bring the box back to shipping for return.
3. Where does the chemical waste go? We have strict rules for labeling and disposal of chemical waste, but it's still a ton of solvents. But if big pharmas deal with chemical waste, the amount put out by research institutes must be manageable.

In case someone else is reading this article, I am not worried about radioactive waste because we use minimal amounts of radioisotopes in lab, and they are properly disposed. I'm thinking back to the opening of the Molecular Foundary back at Cal, where people were protesting the use of radioactive isotopes. It's more public hysteria and misunderstanding, IMHO. Or I just have a magically higher tolerance for radioactivity than others.

So yeah, I was wondering about the environmental impact of different jobs.

Tales of Mere Existence

I was going to post links to this series of videos I just discovered on youtube before I realized that Safari (at least the version I'm using), doesn't allow me to add hyperlinks the way I used to. I'm pasting the ugly link like this (http://www.youtube.com/user/AgentXPQ) until I figure out how to make it look nicer...or until I get a new computer.

Anyway, to explain what I'm linking -- this guy does pencil and paper animation about the minute things in life. The series is aptly named "Tales of Mere Existence".

I've been a hapy Mac user for 2 years, but I feel like it's time to switch back to Windows again. Mac's software is great, but I've had 2 hardware failures the last 2 years I've owned my iBook. Perhaps I'm plain unlucky. I really like the Mac OS. The hardware is just not reliable for me. Between software issues and hardware issues, I think the choice is clear. PS. I'm not getting Vista, don't worry.

Fear

While I am really curious about all those reports that promise to give the true picture of what is going on in Myanmar right now, I'm afraid to click on those links. If you're curious and unafraid, you should check reddit out.

I think my fear stems from a documentary I saw many years ago when I was young, maybe about 9. It was about the genocide in Cambodia and it was on tv. For the first time in my life, I saw stacks of real human skulls. That, and an old faded Coca-Cola billboard is all I remember about that documentary. Cambodia and Myanmar are in similar parts of the world. It's not so hard to imagine Burmese skulls in a jungle.

I read an article linked by Reddit yesterday morning about how Singapore indirectly aids the Burmese junta by providing banking and medical services. It was disturbing. A friend later sent out an e-mail with more articles describing the Singapore-Myanmar economic/military link. I visited a monastery in Myanmar once. Is that famous monk who blessed me still alive? And if he is dead, was it before he could see the terrible things that are being done to his fellow monks?

I just want to stay in bed all day.

schmotivation

Motivation? Schmotivation. I recently decided that I needed to get a little more motivated, and thought it would be a good idea to add some motivation blogs to my google reader list. After about a week, I've given up. I chose the wrong sites, so this morning I unsubscribed.

I first noticed these blogs on reddit coz people were up-voting them, and they've appeared enough times for me to somehow get the notion that they were worth subscribing to. After subscribing to the blogs, I realized that they may upload as many as 8 posts a day, not all of which are original -- like they saw something interesting and summarized the article and posted a link. Best/worst part is that some articles were kinda old and I've actually read the originals. So much for being motivation blogs. They were just sapping up my time (fortunately not lowering my productivity since productivity was already non-existent).

There are some other blogs that I have seen on reddit a few times. I might check those out and see how the hit:miss ratios look. A general trend I've noticed is that original content works a lot better -- duh! Just like how motivation blogs tend to point out the obvious.

Since I'm whining today, let me also add that I'm getting kind of sick of reddit. I guess there will be people who delight in reading about every little Republican/authority-related scandal. Occasionally, I find myself heading over to digg coz I can't find a single thing to read on reddit. On the bright side, it's easier to find something to read online these days. On the other hand, I'm also spending more time online coz I've to sift through all that junk.

Perhaps it's time to return to books. I don't have time for books anymore. Books are actually way better because once you find a good book, which isn't hard, you can sit down for hours and enjoy it. With blogs, it's like plunging into a haystack to find a needle. I can't tell which is more satisfying though.

It's the variety snack pack argument. If you're eating everything at once, it'll be more satisfying (you get more utility) to buy a variety pack. But if you spread one snack out over weeks, it makes more economical sense to buy things in bulk.

So I guess it depends on how you like to read. I used to dislike short stories. I still do. But articles work differently somehow, possibly because of the thrill of the search. I mean, why else would a scavenger hunt be interesting? Pink shoelaces anyone?

for a cup of hot ramen!

Oh woe is me! My roommate told me a couple of weeks ago that she had a craving for ramen, and took my one and only cup (which was incidentally left here by a visiting friend). It was nice that she told me, but she never got around to replacing it. I mean, "hey I ate your __". Fine, it's just ramen, but it's the principle really.

I had a rather privileged childhood and instant noodles (or ramen as it's called here) were a rare treat. I adored instant noodles, mostly because I wasn't given it. My mom usually bought those that came in little packs, but I was somewhat aware of the other variety, those that came in cups. But it took unusual circumstances for me to finally get my first bite of cup noodles.

I was maybe 9, or 10. I can't remember. Anyway, our family was on vacation in Hong Kong. I think it was a stopover on the way back from the US, which meant I was probably 13. But it sounds silly that I was so old when I had my first cup ramen. Maybe I was 9 or 10.

Anyway, we were mostly sick, some flu or cold, and no one wanted to get out of the hotel for real food. I also didn't like Hong Kong very much coz it was always gray and grimy when I visited. My dad went out to probably a convenience store (like 7-Eleven) and bought a few cups of ramen. Sick and not very hungry, I was still excited about my first cup of ramen. I remember it was delicious.

It was a blue-lid Nissin cup noodle, probably seafood flavored since it was blue. It had little floaty bits of carrots, corn and peas in it, and tiny bits of mostly unidentifiable seafood. You can see the tiny shrimp thought, and those were adorable. The noodles were shorter and thinner than those found in packs -- cute! They were chewier (probably coz my mom usually cook regular ramen for too long). The salty broth was sweet. I probably would have drank every last drop of it, except my parents probably stopped me coz it was unhealthy. Ah, my first cup of ramen!

I'm slightly hungry and it's rather cold tonight (forecast estimated a low of 45F). Walking home, I suddenly developed a craving for warm soup and miniature noodles in a styrofoam cup, preferably seafood flavored. Despite all those years in college, I never really had to resort to eating ramen, nor did I get the chance very much. Somewhere, buried in my mind, is that cup of ramen from years ago.

I think I'm dropping by the grocery store tomorrow. Just in case I get that once in a 12-year craving for a blue-lid cup of Nissin ramen. For now, a slice of cheese (Havarti, only Havarti) on toast must suffice.

My night's random reading

Somehow, I found myself engaged in slightly heavy reading tonight.

Article 1: An article in Der Spiegel about how the war in Iraq isn't going as badly as we think it is.

Article 2: An article from the New Yorker about the secret interrogation tactics of the CIA.

Bleak. So very bleak.

There was a period of time not so long ago when I was fascinated by East Germany, the Stasi, WWII and such, wondering how life was like under those harsh conditions. Morbid fascination about man's ability to withstand physical and psychological pain. Pondering the process of dehumanizing a human being: depriving a man of sleep, of his clothes, of his freedom to adopt a comfortable posture.

"Are you human?" The difference between a man and an animal is this: caught in a trap, an animal would chew its limb off and run away. A man would wait for the hunter to come back and take his revenge. It's not about instinct; it's about mind. The fragility of being scares me.


I used to wonder about the wisdom of bringing children into such a world. Sure, my immediate environment is safe enough. I'm happy, clothed and well-fed. I occasionally get too little sleep coz I'm having fun. But the world isn't only beautiful. Then a couple of things happened, and I decided that having children isn't pointless and cruel. In Dune, the sisters had a breeding program so that they can retain and propagate progeny from a man who has something worth preserving.

For reasons unknown, humans can be so cruel. But humanity isn't an ugly thing. If I ever do propagate, it'll be to spread the good of being human and a love for the pretty things in life. I haven't done much good in life so far. Maybe I won't get around to doing that much even though there is still time. Perhaps in an offspring, I may preserve for a little longer the joy of living. All things considered, having a baby might not be such a bad thing.

To a dear friend of mine: Good luck. Teach well.

Of candy bars

I started paying attention to chocolate last month, when the New York Times ran an article on British candy bars.

A friend was going back to the UK a few weeks ago, and I demanded that he bring me back candy bars. Apparently, customs at the Heathrow airport are pretty strict, so he didn't want to get the candy bars before checking in. Instead he got the candy bars after he got through customs. The lady mending the cashier was surprised that he was buying so many candy bars. "Where are you going to that doesn't sell candy?"

"I'm going to the US." He said, and she nodded. "I understand." I didn't realize it was common knowledge that American candy bars are inferior. I only recently found out.

I have this impression that if you're traveling and you want to buy a friend a souvenir, you'd get that person chocolates from wherever you were visiting. If you happen to be someone's guest, you'd get chocolates for that person. It's incredibly boring, but somehow it's acceptable. I now have a newfound understanding of this custom. First bite into a Flake bar, I understood what chocolate was meant to be -- creamy and sweet.

I did have a couple of other bars before that Flake bar -- a Crunchie (honeycomb covered with chocolate), and a Fudge bar (I think that's the name). I've always adored honeycomb bars when I was a kid because I loved gnawing at the honeycomb. The brand I grew up eating was Violet Crumble. The Crunchie bar had a different sort of honeycomb, less uniform and softer. It was good and it didn't stick to my teeth. But it wasn't worth raving about. Everything else I had was better, more intense, sweeter, richer than the American version, but not worth crazy raving...not until that Flake bar.

Now that my eyes are open and I've been exposed to sugary heaven, I'm feeling a little more curious about my candy bar. I'm not talking about the high end stuff, just regular candy bars that people eat on a daily basis. I'm going to rediscover my Mars and Snickers bars (I swear they used to taste better, maybe back home), and everything else. I haven't actually had American candy in a while because I don't usually take candy. But the next time I get a craving, I'll try it once more.

It's not the best new hobby. I'll have to take up something else to balance it out. In the meantime, a friend of mine is going back to Germany...

a question of numbers

Interesting new fact that I found out today: 11% of the United Arab Emirates population is native. What does this mean for national identity?

Sure, the remaining 89% is somewhat like the native population in terms of religion and they are learning Arabic and all. But my experience with 1st generation immigrants (not specific to UAE) is that they are different than the native population. It's not just one city overflowing with immigrants in a large nation, it's the entire nation. How does the South Asian population (57%) assimilate into the nation's 11% population? Hurray for diversity and all, the face of the nation is totally changed. What does this mean for national identity?

I've been thinking a little about national identities recently after I did the math and realized that a nation of 2.5 million people with an annual birth of 50,000 cannot become 3 million in 10 years. Someone must have died. I have no idea how the math works out.

I have no idea how the dollars and cents work out. It's for the economy, for the livelihood, for nation-building. But the nation is changed. I have no idea if the price is worthy. Something grew and changed. While change must happen and is good, I have suddenly lost sight of how having changed the handle three times, and the blade twice, the farmer's favorite axe is still the same. I'm missing something in the math.

Looking for my reader

It's never good when you have to start a blog entry by asking your readers if you've already written about something. I know that I can go back and read all my posts since it is sort of my responsibility to ensure that I don't repeat myself. But you can clearly see that I'm trying to make excuses here, and that I never got around to doing basic research. Well then, let me know if this post reads rather familiarly, and I'll be grateful if you could tell me in which entry I've already mentioned this problem.

My problem is this: I don't have an audience. I enjoy writing, but I feel like I don't have an audience. Maybe it doesn't really happen this way. I imagine that a writer knows who he's writing for, and caters to his audience that way. I know that here, I am writing to my friends and I can just be myself. But what happens when you want to sell real short stories and books? Who are you writing for? The man who enjoys horror stories, or the woman who wants to lose herself in another woman's love affairs? The young student who fantasizes about being a cook in Italy, or the just-retired grandfather who has been wondering about making a pilgrimage? Am I doing it all wrong? Is it supposed to just flow from inside of you and find its own audience?

It's been a long time since I've written fiction. Back in school, we'd imagine lives similar to ours and write about them. But if I were to write about things that I know about, who would read it? For one, it's pretty boring stuff. Another concern is that the niche market of Asian students in the USA isn't exactly the easiest audience to go for -- our backgrounds are all very different, and our American experience really depends on where in the US we are, and who we chose to hang out with. And really, if I'm to write about a life similar to mine, why don't I just write about me?

I probably haven't been trying hard enough. Maybe I'll work a little harder. For some reason, someone near me is making me want to be a better person. You can't say that I'm an awful person, but we can always be better. I'm currently inspired.

A life's lesson revisited

Did they really need to spend millions of dollars sequencing the human genome to find out that humans are 99.9% identical to each other? Well, in actuality it's more than 99.9% but that's not my point.

It was Class Day today, and the kids were fortunate in being able to get former president Bill Clinton as their speaker. He talked about a few things, but his main message (as far as I was willing to listen through my prejudices) was that humans are 99.9% alike, but we choose to focus on that 1/10th of one percent. In our need to feel special, we focus on what makes us unique and forget the bigger picture: that we are more alike than not. That last line was a personal thought by the way.

I've always had this One theory about the world. I first articulated it when I was 18, and I've not really thought about it since. That was the era before the human genome was sequenced, and I had no way of proving that humans were really all the same. It just seemed obvious -- the same emotions, the same life events, the empathy (even though we choose to ignore that because we cling on to the notion that we are unique). I'd just had my first taste of the world, and what I saw was that everyone was given a different situation in life, but we were basically the same people.

It is the same with time -- it flows through and connects us all. It's hard to remember that when you're on a little island with almost no sense of history. But even in a modern and fleeting place like New York City, it's not hard to remember and imagine how things all began. We are all one, connected through our common experiences as humans regardless of the era in which we live.

Clinton told a parable about a farmer's axe. A farmer had a favorite axe, even though he's replaced the blade three times, and the handle twice. I see the world in the same way, and I hope that the next time I meet someone new that I cannot take a liking to, I will try my best knowing that we are pretty alike.

To my little sister who is about to embark on the first of the biggest of journeys in her life, I have a message. I want her to know that the native person whose land your foreign feet will tread upon is not very different from any other person. Look for what you have in common and learn to relate to any man on Earth because he is your brother. Keep in mind though that family is still capable of harming each other.

Following your gut

I know it's glaringly obvious, but today I finally put into words how I distinguish a crush from a friend -- a crush is someone whom I really want to get to know every single little detail about. I don't really care to do the same for a friend.

I don't understand how feelings work. If I know equally little about two people, I should be equally curious about them. But somewhere along the way, my subconscious decided that one person is more interesting than the other. I'm not a guy so it's not about how hot one person looks compared to the other. You know how it is: you can tell who the best-looking person in a room is and have absolutely no interest in him/her. Instead, the quirky person who may pass for someone decidedly odd is way more interesting.

If anything, this sure explains how some not-so-hot people end up with terrific eye candy on their arms. Unfortunately, I was reading somewhere that a very unequal level of attractiveness often dooms a relationship from the start -- I'm not citing my sources here. I was reading readers' comments on a blog. I think it's popular opinion. As an aside, ScienceDaily has an article on how people often think that an opinion heard repeated from the same person is actually popular opinion. I don't know how reliable popular opinion is really. I mean, your opinion doesn't have to affect what happens to me. But it does, subconsciously. It's all about what you believe, and you can't really control that.

Going back to crushes, I think we know what we are looking for in our partners. It's easy to say that you want a funny, intelligent and nice guy/girl, but those are really subjective labels. What sort of humor? What kind of intelligence? How nice is nice? It's hard to break those down to their little subcategories but we know what we like when we find it.

So maybe it is as they say -- go with your feelings. Don't think about it. Because really, people are having a hard time explaining why humor works. And with all those different intelligent quotients...I think we should just step back and ask ourselves if we're happy. If we are, then we're headed in the right direction.

One of the professors in school is obsessed with how E.coli is capable of directional brownian swimming. Really, it's all about the happiness gradient -- where is the food? Humans aren't that different really -- which way to happiness? Follow your gut instincts.

strings of words and ideas

I'm currently fascinated by Paulo Coelho. Karl Langerfeld is still interesting, but his time is over for now. I finally got around to reading up about Coelho this afternoon, and on his wikipedia page I read this:

"Although Coelho has achieved great international success, his work has not been unanimously appreciated at home; his election to the Brazilian Academy of Letters proved controversial. Seen by some Brazilian literary critics as a lesser author whose material is too simplistic and similar to that of self-help books, criticism of his work arises mostly from his plain, direct style and borrowing of ideas from other authors. Additionally, his works in Portuguese contain grammatical errors and inaccuracies; some of these have been minimized in translation or altered in later editions." (5/20/07)

I have a lot to say in response to the first part of the paragraph, but let me just focus on the very last part, the part that says that his works in Portuguese contain grammatical errors and inaccuracies. Well, that was certainly not obvious to me since I've been reading his books in English. I'm now confused by what makes a good writer.

The way I see the world is this: many people are competent in a language and of those people, a subpopulation somehow manages to express themselves in a more creative, more thoughtful way than others. Those who don't know a language well usually don't have a desire to create works in that language. What happens if you're not comfortable in your native language, or any other language? (Sure sounds like the dilemma of the Singaporean.) What now, now that I know that Mr Coelho is a law school dropout and a world-famous Portuguese author who isn't comfortable with Portuguese grammar? And what is his editor doing anyway?

I'd always been bottom of my class in Chinese. We used to have to write stories for class, and I would often do poorly. Yet one of my stories was submitted by my Chinese teacher for the school publication. My story was accepted. It was a big deal for me because PRC students made up less than 10% of my school population but 90% of the works in the collection were written by someone from China. You probably don't believe me; I should have kept that book. Just for the record, I was not published in the collection of stories in English.

I think my grammar in Chinese is decent -- they don't really teach grammar to native speakers. My vocabulary was wanting -- my stories were written in the simplest of words. What prompted my teacher's choice of submission was the originality of idea, and a desire to encourage me. What I got out of it was that words don't matter; ideas and style do.

I dare say you'll find the same thing in my writings here. My English vocabulary is poor, but I make do with using the simplest words to express myself. There is a flow, a desire to communicate, to arouse feelings. Perhaps the simpler the words the better; the simpler the words the more easily understood and universal my writing becomes. Alright, maybe I am just lazy.

A writer is ultimately a word smith -- he takes what he has and puts it together. The skill lies in being able to string words and ideas together, not in owning a large collection of words. As for the grammatical part, leave it to the editor. We can't be good at everything.

Prost!

I don't know why it's taken me so long, but finally finally I have come to my senses. There is no future for me in wine. I'm going over to beer. Yes, I'm going to learn to appreciate beer.

For the longest time, I was trying to taste the differences in wine, unsuccessfully. Sure you can tell the difference between the $10 bottle and the $40 bottle. But the differences are so minute -- is it really a $30 difference?

You may call me a boor, but I can't appreciate wine. And if truth be told, it seems that no one really knows what a good wine is. And for all that jazz about flavor and batch of crops, you really can just improve the quality of your wine by adding sugar or what not to it. As far as wine is concerned, I think it's an artificial distinction between bottles. Leave me out of it.

Now beer, oh beer. There is a real difference. There is the Belgium White, and the dark stout and you have to be pretty taste-challenged to not be able to tell the difference. It can be smooth, or metallic, or sour. And you can say what you taste and everyone will know what you're talking about. A well-rounded flavor? Whatever.

There is no such thing as the bumper crop of 2001. Beer is good fresh, not sitting around in a bottle for years. There is quality control -- you get as good a beer as you paid for all year round, all decade long.

It's taken me the longest time to come around though, no thanks to my childhood experiences. The only people who drank beer were the men in the family. They were older, and mostly out of shape. Their wives may steal a sip from their mugs, but I never met a woman who enjoyed a good beer. But the smell, oh the smell! I've always liked the way beer smells. Yet it was sour, and bubbly, and grating to the tongue. An acquired taste. Well, maybe the lack of exposure -- they drank about 3 different brands of beer when I was growing up and none of them were that great. And maybe it just wasn't a female thing.

In college, beer was something the frat boys do. Drunken and loud. Just for the sake of getting drunk. No one really cared about the taste. It was cheap and plentiful. That was enough.

Thankfully I recently met people who are serious about their beers. They tend to be rather traditional in their tastes -- blueberry flavored beer? No thanks. Yes, they are Germans. They've been brewing beers for hundreds of years, and they know how to enjoy a good cold beer.

I don't know about you but I used to think of beer in terms of percentage alcohol. Today I change my mind: that's so very wrong. Whatever the alcohol content, I now think of it as a warning label. The point is the taste -- do you like the way it tastes?

My beer tonight supposedly comes with tinges of orange peel and coriander. Whatever. I'll call it Belgium White.

PS. When you toast your friends, be sure to look them in the eye. That's how they do it in Deutchland.

What I learnt from Nicholas

I've learnt to talk without conviction, to argue for the sake of argument because no one ever takes the other side so that we can all be entertained. So you start with an idea, then you link to another idea and you try to position things across from each other so that your audience's minds are stretched. But really, it's all rhetoric.

The ideas are there as your mental medicine balls, tossing from person to person as we engage in this group activity. But no one really sees that it's a medicine ball. They think we're playing a game with a score. There is no score. Perhaps there is some sort of an acknowledgment of how gracefully one throws, but we get better. We should. The scores are not permanent. Your score today means nothing. It's a series of battles, each one strengthening. There is no war -- why care about the battles? We're not even fighting. I just happen to be on the other side for now.

Stream of consciousness. We are not judging. Let flow.

Perhaps perhaps perhaps

Someone asked me today what that one (or two) thing in life I want to accomplish is. It sounds like a typical enough question, but I don't think I've given much thought to it. I've thought about whether I'll regret my entire life if I didn't do something, but not what that one thing I really want to accomplish is. Anyway, it didn't take too long for me to figure out what I want to leave as my legacy -- a good book.

It doesn't have to be a great book, just decent and semi-insightful enough such that someone somewhere down the road will think that it makes a decent read. I would actually rather have this good book than be a famous scientist.

I could get lucky with my first book, but I wouldn't count on it. I read an article a couple of years ago that said that with the number of books being published today, the easiest way to become a published writer is to make your mark somewhere else first. I usually link articles, but I have no idea where this particular one comes from. I agreed with that opinion, but it somehow feels unsatisfactory tonight. If you can get what you want directly, why are you going on a detour that may lead you there? I'm sure it's hard to take the direct route, but the indirect route is just as improbable. I don't want to be a famous person with a book. I want to be a person with a good book, and part of that probably comes from having writing experience.

For now, I can't even write on a regular enough basis. I did think that I would attempt short stories, fables, existential anecdotes. Maybe they'll build up to a book. Murakami actually thinks that short stories are more challenging (read the intro to one of his recent short story collections, or maybe an interview about it). I like how short stories can be like haikus -- a scene that implies more than what is being described.

Let's try it again, another resolution. Maybe I will write.

In phases

No thanks to certain books, I've grown to mistrust best sellers list. I've learnt that just because something sells doesn't mean that it's any good. Thanks to this notion, I totally missed out on the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho when it came out. Fortunately, I read about Paulo Coelho in the New Yorker (yes, I seem to keep refering to the New Yorker these days), and I decided to check him out. For the first time in a long while, I sat down and finished a book from cover to cover. Sure, it wasn't a long book. It was a good book -- I think that's my point.

I tend to read in waves, by authors. The last author I checked out was Calvin Trillin. Before that, Haruki Murakami. I'll be reading Paulo Coelho for as long as I can find an unread book in the library.

I'm not sure if its wise to read only a certain author. But that's how I function, by obsessing over one person, one idea, one thing, and never really coming back again. Literally, the phases of my life.

P day, part II

I've decided to post more stories about Paul. Don't get me wrong. I don't intend to make fun of him. I really like him actually, and he's just awful about expressing himself.

Paul gets a complete post in my blog today coz he's really a pretty great guy. One of the first things Paul said to me when I saw him this afternoon was "You don't smell anymore." Thanks, Paul.

Later this evening, I tried to get a new bottle of water onto the water dispenser. Those bottles of water are huge and I was going to ask for help but the guys were having a work-related conversation. The postdoc stopped and suggested that Paul should help me, and I said that it was fine and the worst I could do would be to spill some water. Paul kindly told me that he envisions me twisting or breaking my back and being out for a few months. Funny thing was that I started laughing even though he was deadpanning. Oh, Paul.

Earlier this week, Paul caught me skipping dinner.
P: Have you had dinner yet?
me: No, I'm not hungry yet.
P: You're going to grow fat.

A fellow labmate agrees that Paul really knows how to talk to girls.

To be fair, I left out the mundane parts of the conversations when Paul tried to defend himself (I usually point out that he's being mean). But hey, those were the mundane parts. How else am I supposed to tell a story?

P day, part I

Not to be mean or biased about action stars, but I never thought that Bruce Lee was quotable. I was reading an article in the New Yorker about parkour, and one of the guys interviewed cited inspiration from Bruce Lee.

"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. A man must constantly exceed his level."

It doesn't sound that fantastically cool, but in the context of the article and in light of some advice I received from Paul the Sage, it makes a lot of sense.

What these guys believe in is that we can't remain stagnant -- we must challenge ourselves. Yes, it's a platitude. But to see people taking such advice to the physical realm makes this idea extra amazing. Parkour, if you didn't read the article, is what that man at the start of Casino Royale was doing: free running through a concrete jungle, leaping off the sides of walls, cranes, running over obstacles. Here's a video of David Belle, founder of parkour.

Parkour is like martial arts -- you practise in little steps and maybe one day you'll finally get to use it. But the discipline and courage it takes to practice parkour..ah...the folly of youth. Parkour is a sport only for the young. It's probably too late for me.

In any case, Paul does not do parkour. No, I was refering to what he said to me one day when he caught me reading stacks of papers.
P: So what did you learn?
me: not much
P: You have to learn something everyday, otherwise it's not worth doing anything.

Maybe I didn't capture it right.

I have this strange feeling that I could probably fill this blog with Paul stories. So much for funny ducks.

the PBJ difference

As a sort of follow up to the entry on organic eggs, here's a site explaining why we should all have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. 16 PBJs=1 chicken!

my latest muse

I think Karl Lagerfeld is a fascinating man -- erratic, whimiscal, in denial, in the current, charismatic.

Sticking to what's right

I sometimes think that I would lead a better life if I weren't the one making all the decisions. Choose exercise, a healthy diet, good work ethics, real friends, nice guys. It's so much easier to enforce such decisions if all you can do is carry them out. Instead we make excuses.

I chose a pack of organic eggs last week at the grocery store. I didn't really care if they were healthier coz the chickens were fed a vegetarian diet, or whatever they did to make them give healthier eggs with omega-3 oils. I just wanted a cage-free bird, a bird that didn't have its feet trimmed so that it would fit better in a cage. Organic eggs cost twice as much as regular eggs, and they don't taste any different. But an extra $1.50 doesn't really make a difference either does it? It all depends on how you choose to think of that $1.50 -- twice the usual price, or just $1.50? I told myself it was just $1.50, and bought the pack. My true view of things though is that they are expensive eggs. But will I continue buying organic eggs? Yes, I think I will. I don't consume eggs very much, so it's not much of a cost difference. But that leads to the next questions: how about organic milk? Or vegetables? Or meat?

I guess a little research is in order: I just read an article on organic milk and I don't think it makes a difference to me. I do think that it will make a difference when I have children that I don't want to feed growth hormones to. I might head over to Whole Foods for vegetables when it's warmer. I knew someone whose family owned a farm. She buys organic coz it's better for the farmers -- no pesticides and such. I recall some people saying that organic things taste better, but I doubt I'll be able to tell the difference.

I have sorta made a decision, but will I stick to it?

Can I really make a difference?

I was playing this game online last night, and it was rather addictive. It's about managing the cost of living of a family of 5 from Haiti. You want to keep them healthy, give them education and a way of of the cycle of poverty. Noble causes that are exactly up my alley. I can't seem to find a solution. They get sick so easily (perhaps it's the poor working conditions), healthcare is so expensive, and they keep starving. I've killed the parents twice, and I've completed the game once as of this morning. Even then, it wasn't ideal. Sure they are surviving, but things aren't great. If not by some stroke of luck (no hurricanes, free reading programs, bumper crop and such), they probably would have died. Family fortunes fluctuate a lot: one year they are saving lots, and the next year they are in the hole. By the time I was done with the 4 years I had to care for them, I wished I could have continued the game to make everyone finish their education, and see what happens to the stall they just bought. Then again, it is only just a game.

I'm reminded of how I wanted to do international aid work before I started college. Then I got sidetracked into science and kind of decided that there were better and more devoted people out there doing good. I didn't really think about it much till over a year ago when I saw The Constant Gardener, and realized that I may just be on the other side of where I want to be. Aid workers versus big pharma. I wasn't exactly with the big pharma, but I am in the same part of the world, in the same town. I don't believe that they are doing bad things, but I sure don't think that they are making things easy. Looking from my side, I do realize that discovering new medicines and all that manufacturing stuff are expensive endeavors. Yet I feel like we aren't serving everyone as well as we can.

Not that I am in a position to do much international aid work right now. I do know that I could be doing more for my community in general. I should. It'll be good for me. I don't know if I am going to make a difference. I don't know if it's enough to know that I seem to be doing something, goodness knows how effective or useful I may be. Perhaps I should ignore these doubts. There is no point in examining things too closely.

That book on happiness I'm reading? There is a story inside about someone who was shot by an arrow. Instead of examining the arrow and seeing the details of every splint, the more important thing is to get treatment and remove the arrow. The details and introspection don't matter. But it's so hard to keep that in mind.

The paradox

Sometimes you're alone and you feel lonely. Because of conventional wisdom, you know the right thing to do is to call up your friends and go out. And you do that and often enough it works.

Sometimes you're perfectly happy with yourself, and you're alone. And you join a group of people and hang out with them and you feel terribly alone, during, after, at some point, sometimes.

Your friends are that group of people. Why do they make you feel lonely?

People who read self-help books are people who have taken the first step in the right direction, admiting that they have a problem. I am currently reading a book on happiness. Am I lacking something in my life? I've been told that I either look really happy, or I look really sad. Laugh because you'll cry when you stop smiling. How extreme.

No, I'm not in the darkest of abysses. But gloomy thoughts permeate me always. Is my life half-empty or half-full?

About words and sounds

I would like to see Chasing Amy again. I saw that movie years ago and I remember that I didn't like it. But I would like to see it again.

I first heard of the movie when driving with friends on a dark sky observation trip. One of the songs from the soundtrack, Kiss the Rain, was playing on the car stereo, and it had the most heartfelt love confession I've ever heard, complete with pouring rain and slamming car doors. Pardon me for being female. In any case, my curiosity was piqued and I wanted to know what the movie was about. Amy said that we could watch it some time, and the guys joked about her wanting to see it coz it was Chasing Amy. We somehow ended up concluding that it wouldn't have worked as well if my name was in the title. We did end up seeing the movie -- a messed up love story about a guy and a lesbian that didn't work out. It was sad, and confusing.

I saw Big Daddy last night and it's an okay film. It was playing on tv, and I didn't have much going on. Then I heard the voice of the girl playing Layla, Adam Sandler's love interest, and I was intrigued -- who's that girl? I suspected that it was the same girl from Chasing Amy, except I couldn't remember her face. But her voice was unique, special, and very alluring. I wish I had a voice like that. Thought about her voice all night, and decided that I had to watch Chasing Amy again.

Words and sounds are all very powerful, but I usually remember scenes from movies visually or emotionally. The few exceptions are Chasing Amy, Mulholland Drive, and Chungking Express. Mulholland Drive is a mess of visuals in my head, but Llorando plays clearly. Chungking Express is unique in that I remember both sounds and visuals -- the "I like pineapple" scene, and California Dreaming. I should write about Chungking Express someday. And you should see it someday if you haven't already done so.

Carpe diem, so they say

Ever wondered why you've never been able to "seize the day" despite having watched Dead Poets Society about half a dozen times? Well, tonight, I found out why. Instead of watching DPS, try Zorba the Greek. Watch it once, and never again.

Zorba gives the good man, Basil, some good advice. Says Zorba the wise, "God gave you hands...so that you can grab." "Grab what?" you say? Precisely. You aren't desperate enough. You don't know what you want. How then can you grab?

It's not hard knowing what you want when you need it. Fast forward to somewhere near the end of Zorba the Greek. See those poor Cretans? They know what they want.

Youth is wasted on the young, precisely because they have youth. You'll never be younger than now. So go out, and find something to grab. No, don't seize the day. The day is already yours. Find something real. And forget that silly bit of Latin.

a new word!

I learnt a cool new word today.

Anatidaephobia: The fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.

thoughts about friendship

I was thinking about fatherhood recently. Yes, fatherhood. Not parenthood. But this post is not about parenting as the title already tells you. I am thinking about friendship tonight.

My question is who makes a better friend? The person who respects your views, or the person who actively looks out for you? That is how I am stating my question for now. Perhaps it requires some restatement, but for now it works.

Both people do care for you of course, but they show their concern in different ways. Would you prefer the girl friend who tells you that she doesn't like your boyfriend, or the girl friend who doesn't say much and still says nothing when you break up? Perhaps it is hard to decide.

Would you prefer the friend who tells you that you're heading down the wrong path, or the friend whose opinion you can sense but who doesn't say a thing? I think it's hard to decide. What if you are not headed down the wrong path? What if something good did come out of it?

I never figured out how to deal with such situations, but if you know me, I'm the one who says nothing. Most of the time, I hate to jinx anything in case it does work out. I trust my friends to take care of themselves as best as they can. I hope my trust is not misplaced.

Smells like Teen Spirit

I finally saw the MTV for Smells Like Teen Spirit today. I've always liked the song, but I heard it years after it came out and I've never been an MTV person. And I discovered another thing that makes me smile. Not the attractive face of Kurt Cobain (it's okay), but the very slow-moving janitor swaying to his music. Whoever casted that old man, that was genius!

I'm sorry

I was hanging around the exam room today in case the kids had any questions, and there she was: smart, blonde, black-framed glasses and pink ear plugs, writing.

I don't mean to use stereotypes. It's rather unfair to be blonde and have people take you less seriously. It's unfair when anyone has to go the extra mile to prove anything. But I couldn't help it when I noticed the bright pink ear plugs in her ears. An excellent exam strategy.

I looked back down to my copy of the New Yorker, and smiled.

Filing a Link

I can't help but notice that a certain article has remained in the top 10 most frequently e-mailed on the New York Times. You know which one I'm talking about -- Questions Couples Should Ask (Or Wish They Had) Before Marrying. It was first published Dec 17, 2006. 3 weeks is a really long time for an article to stay on that list. I am tempted to read more into why such an article stays on the list for so long but it would be inherently misleading -- news about events and happenings have a limited amount of time before they turn stale. There is little chance of those articles staying on for a long time.

There are also lists for the most blogged and the most searched items on the site. The most blogged articles this morning are recent news, mostly relating to the president. The most searched list is a mix of current and perennial topics, ranging from Iraq to college. Saddam's name comes up twice on this list.

It's all well and good to have most popular lists, but do they tell us anything? Before this morning when I committed my thoughts to paper (and in the process thought about it more), I was inclined to make something about the most popular e-mailed article list. I usually read the articles featured on that list first, because they are likely to be the more interesting articles. I was tempted to read more into what people find important and interesting to them, until I finally saw the most blogged list. Why don't the lists coincide at all?

I've seen at least one opinion about talking about politics, how it's becoming harder to talk about it with family and friends. I guess by extension, you wouldn't want to e-mail such an article. And since news is news, one also assumes that people have access to the same news whatever newspaper they read. Editorials, fashion and health articles don't usually show up simultaneously on all major newspapers.

Yay. I've spent my morning pondering the most popular lists on the New York Times. Time to get out and do some actual thinking that matters.