Another 2 ways of getting rid of change (if you didn't already know)

It's a little specific to Boston but here we go:

1. The MBTA ticket machine.
There are 2 types: the card only machine, and the one that accepts cash as well. If you don't commute often -- meaning you usually add money to your Charlie card -- this might be a good way of getting rid of pocket change. The machine will accept up to 20 coins at a time. For me, it's perfect for emptying my wallet when it starts to weigh on me. I mainly use it for nickels and dimes since my quarters go to laundry.

2. TD North Bank
Now that they are opening branches all over Boston, this has become feasible. If you sign up for an account with them, you can use their Coinstar-like machine. It sits in their lobby, and looks and works like a Coinstar machine, except the money goes into your bank account. And you don't lose a cent.

Let me know if you have other ways of avoiding Coinstar.

Independent Designer's Market

It was back in the summer that I first came across a poster for the Boston Independent Designer's Market. I was really excited and could hardly wait for September to come.

I got interested in fashion and making clothes last year around March, when I first saw Paradise Kiss. It was then I realized that fashion was something to seriously think about. Making clothes is not that easy, and textile production was a part of the First Industrial Revolution that changed everyone's lives. Before that, 90% of a woman's day was knitting socks. But Paradise Kiss was not the reason I started making clothes.

The prelude to Paradise Kiss is a lesser known manga called Gokinjo Mono Ga Tari. It's the story of Miwako's sister and how she became a designer. Mikako got her start in a flea market, and learned from scratch -- like you have to make clothes in S, M and L, not just your own size. The first thing she sold was a Happy Berry bag.

(Borrowed picture of a homemade Happy Berry Bag from some girl called redsky1978.)

Earlier this year, I attended Anime Boston, and I was awed by the little tables of people selling handmade jewelery, hats and scarves etc. Cosplayers are probably a big part of the sewing community these days. Replicating elaborate costumes from anime is no joke. With the weekly Independent Designer Market, I would have a chance to experience the vibrancy every weekend.

Not really. I was probably one of ten people who showed up to the IDM that day. It was housed in the lobby of some school, located in the South End, which really doesn't have much traffic. There were maybe 8 - 10 vendors -- a couple of stands selling designed t-shirts, one offering tailor-made wedding dresses, and some other posh looking thing. I pretended that I walked in by mistake, and left. I was disappointed.

To be disappointed means I had expectations. I was imagining something like the Harvard Square fairs, which attracted a good number of craft people selling handmade jewelery and random clothes (like tie dyes and such). Maybe throw in a fashion student eager to kick start his/her own designer line (something like the lady offering to tailor wedding dresses).

I hope the IDM improves. I really think the location sucks. I guess the price attempts to be reasonable ($100, compared to $300 for a Harvard Square table), but there is no traffic. I'm looking forward to Anime Boston 2011 for my dose of independent anime-inspired craftsters.

thinking about native languages

I recently started a language class for my 5th language (not programing). It's been a while since I learned a new language, and this time I picked a language that is readily accessible: Korean. I sometimes watch Korean dramas, listen to K pop, and I happen to have a conversation partner who kinda knows Korean but not really.

I was reflecting on all the languages I know and realized that I wouldn't know how to teach languages I picked up natively, but would have no problem teaching a language that I learned non-natively. And that got me thinking about what it means to formally learn a native language, and a non-native language. For instance does it make sense to insist on hiring native speakers?

With native languages, I speak them before I know how to read and write them. My vocabulary and grammar were learned before I could understand how I knew them. There are other definitions of native language, but for this example, it is obvious. A non-native language is a language I had to learn formally. Before going to language class, I couldn't express myself in this language. What is worse is that I have to actively search for a place to apply my newfound language ability.

I wonder if it is impossible now to learn a language using native means since I wouldn't even know how to start picking things up. The closest possibility is to learn a language while needing to use it. In many cases, people pick up a language hoping to eventually use it. It all works.

I tried to read up on how babies learn a language (see the article on Deb Roy in Wired). It seems like parents tend to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. It wasn't a helpful article. I'll have to browse around a bit more. Let me know if you have any good references.

From the Department of What Were They Thinking

Windows had a pop-up window thing morning, asking me if I wanted to install some Genuine Windows program. The point of the program? To check whether my software is real, and if it's not the genuine version, it will have periodic reminders for me to do the right thing.

Really? So it happens that my version of Windows is real, so I guess I am not installing that. And if my version of Windows were not real, I'm not installing some nasty pop-up thing either. Whoever thought of this was clearly not really thinking.

The best way out of China

I have been thinking a little more about the immigration routes of the Chinese people, an issue somewhat personally relevant to me since I am a 3rd generation immigrant Chinese. I never thought more about the fact that my great grandmother decided to go to Southeast Asia to join her family. On hindsight, there was a chance that I might have ended up being born in China or in the US. And depending on that decision, we could have suffered more (I don't think we could have suffered less).

So we took the Southeast Asia route, and life was hard, and we were second class to the British, but everyone did okay. Some Chinese people even got rich and set up schools and made lasting donations. (There is a building named after Tan Kah Kee in Berkeley.) Then there was the turbulence of the 1950's and 60's when the British left Southeast Asia. The Chinese were not well regarded by the people of Malaya, and there were racial riots. The Chinese people in Malaysia continue to be held back by racial quotas (affirmative action for the majority, who happen to be economically challenged), and the Chinese people in Indonesia have to worry during the hard times too because they were targeted. The Chinese people in Singapore are doing well, and I have to thank my dad for deciding to move to Singapore while the rest of the family stayed in Malaysia.

Now that I am reading a little more about Asian Americans, I am grateful that my ancestors never took that route. If they had gone to California to build the railway, they probably would have died alone with no possibility of wife, much less child (= no me). With the Chinese exclusion act, they would have contributed to building a nation while never receiving recognition if not for World War II. Finally they took brides. But even today, Asians are viewed with a jaundiced eye.

I have never been to China. I don't feel like I want to go there, despite all that news of economic boom and miracle. My sister tells me that it's all in my head. When I finally step onto Chinese soil, it won't be a proletariat tragedy from the movies. She's probably right.

Management lessons from volleyball

Volleyball is a big thing here in the summer. I somehow got roped in as team captain my first year in lab, and I stayed on for 2 years as captain. Handing over the team to a new captain, I suddenly had a list of things I thought he should do (also known as what I would do). This is my first shot at a team sport, much less being captain, and I have developed a few ideas that I hope to carry with me into my work.

1. Understand the players, and use them.
We were a rag-tag lab team of whoever is willing to play. Of course, the ideal team would be tall and athletic, but not everyone is born that way. I am the very opposite of tall and athletic myself. B is tall, but not athletic, but with simple instructions (angle arms downwards) he was able to block well. W's accuracy improved greatly after we pointed out that playing with both hands results in better control of the ball. And of course, planning the rotation required knowledge of who can work well together, and who needs an extra hand.

2. Play positions
I realize in a real league that people have preferred positions that they stick to. But in a summer league, no one really cares. In fact, insisting on sticking to your usual role confuses everyone.

More importantly, taking over someone's role once would result in that person less likely to try the next time. Before you know it, everyone is waiting for you to do something. Even if they don't always reach perfection, trust that they will do their best, and point out where and how they can do better if they miss.

3. Have fun
There will be the ones who want to win, and the ones who want to win but also want to have fun. Putting down your teammate for missing will dampen team morale. My personal style is to talk during the game when possible. Crack a joke, make everyone laugh and relax. After all, the point of the summer league is really to have fun and to bond.

These probably sound like rules for playing Little League, but it will probably be a good reflection of your team in real life. There will always be someone lacking experience and skills, and we just have to do our best as a team.

how not to introduce people at a party

I am afraid that this blog is heading away from funny, and entering the realm of misanthropic ramblings. I seem to have lost my tolerance for people, or maybe I have lost respect for a few of my friends, or maybe I just don't like other girls.

I was at a party last night and a couple of my friends were waiting for a girl, A, to turn up. I don't know A, but my friends seemed enthusiastic about her. They tried to prime my enthusiasm for this girl and it was like "blah blah blah....good friend of B (another girl)...blah blah blah...she often asks B what to wear over the phone...". Of course, none of it really made any sense to me. "Pretty", "smart" and "awesome" are pretty generic words to describe people that you like. Stories, on the other hand, work a lot better in creating a picture of a person in the head, and it is crucial that the story is told the right way.

Whatever pretty, smart or awesome person A might have been, the only thing that made any impression was the fact that she can't seem to dress herself without another person's opinion. A now sounds like a person with low self esteem, and a dependency problem. She may actually be smart, but it doesn't work if she doesn't have the confidence to do things. And I assume she is pretty, because the guys were enthusiastic about her, but it really makes no difference to a girl. In fact, it may work against her.

I didn't get introduced to A in the end. I wouldn't have been able to keep my face straight. She arrived, and I figured out who she was, and she did actually look like B and that totally killed it for me.

Oh, and I neglect to say that I don't have the best impression of B anyway.

How to know that you're getting old

I was catching up with a friend i hadn't chatted with for a long time, and we were talking about the dramas we were watching. Back in the late 1990's when Japanese dramas were popular, we used to discuss dramas. "These days, I don't like the high school ones anymore," I told her. And she told me that I was getting old, and it is so true. Her too. She likes family-centered dramas.

I am currently watching I am Legend (Korean drama, not the movie with Will Smith), and I like it. It's about getting a divorce, and finding a 2nd chance in life.  The last drama that I was absolutely hooked on was a Korean drama about 30-somethings resolving a half-assed love that has gone on too long. And before that, I was watching Oh My Lady!, which is about a divorced woman getting a second chance at love (with a younger man!) and life. That's about three in a row, and strangely all by SBS.

I guess I'm older now, and teenage angst is too much. It's usually all made up in the head. It's refreshing to see an older character telling someone else to be more honest with themselves; it doesn't work with a younger character saying the same thing because he just sounds like a smarty-pants. And for me, it's nice to see older actresses (especially the women) getting lead roles. So many actors disappear when their youth fades. Tragic.

Now if only Hollywood will let more Asian actors play lead  in a movie without kungfu.

backward yet a leader, oh contradictions

I've been told by direct and indirect means that I live in a backward country.

Most recently, a friend showed me pictures of her new home in Japan. The place (rented) included a heated toilet with varying temperature, and a bathtub that can be controlled from the kitchen. I asked a Japanese friend about those features, and came away with the idea that any respectable family home should have those features. I wonder if they even exist in the US.

My sister was visiting from Hong Kong for the summer, and during her visit the following happened:
1. the water in the house was problematic for 2 days due to a bad valve (initially suspected a broken pipe actually).
2. the internet was down for 3 days due to old connections that had to be replaced.
3. the T was down between Kendall and Park St, so everyone had to get off the train and take a shuttle bus to Park.

Bad luck about the first two events, but she thinks my place is hopelessly ghetto now.

About event 3, nobody in Hong Kong would even imagine switching passengers from train to bus and back. That's not how it's done (although I have no idea if it even needs to be done). Care would be taken to ensure passenger comfort, and avoid such issues. They would do it at night or something. I don't actually know if the repairs needed to be done for a continuous 48 hour stretch. But the other issue is how do you bring century old equipment up to speed with the rest of the world?

The magical 3 year mark

Many years ago, I told a story of how the shoes I wear tend to be about 3 years old. (story) Recently, I finally found out why. I have problems wearing new shoes often. I mean, I will wear them, but not on a daily basis coz I take a while to adjust to shoes. And somehow by the 3rd year, I finally get used to the shoes, and they look worn enough to be used daily. I am one of those overly sentimental people.

I'm back....I hope

It has been a long while since I last wrote. It turns out that I am one of those awful people who disappear from the world once they get into a relationship. Yeah, I am a little old for that, but I've always been childish.

I am sick and at home. I have a ton of hobbies, but somehow I got to reading old e-mails, and eventually moved on to my blog. I like my blog entries. I am kind of sad to think of all the memories I could have captured on my blog the past 2 years if I bothered to write more frequently. Some of the early stories about my bff, P-chan, I did not even recall until I read them again.

This is the 2nd time I am majorly ill this year. Like major. Before, I used to get a cold/flu twice a year. This year, I caught the stomach flu (once is enough; never again!), and now some weird viral infection that gives me a fever 3 times a day, and gives me aches all over like an old lady. The annoying part is when the fever breaks, and I get sweaty, and I have to shower. But maybe I am finally getting better. I've been feeling cold the last 3 days, and finally it got warm enough for me to bring out the fan. (It is warm outside. I just happened to need a wool blanket.)

So many things to update. But instead of playing catch up, I'll just focus on collecting the memories to come. I wonder who even reads this blog anymore.

edit: I must be incredibly optimistic to be amused that I currently have a 5pm fever and a 10pm fever. Everyone seems to think that I should see a doctor.