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Sunday, September 02, 2007

Saturday, September 01, 2007

  • tree hugger

    http://erika.fisherking.org/?page_id=271

    Every once in a while after a night of drinking and roaming nyc (and by ny i mean st marks and ktown) I like to unwind de-hangover by going through the backlogs of cuteoverload.  So in the wee hours of the morning when the over consumption of alcohol (and the sugar in it) makes me too hyper to sleep, I find myself on the couch just thinking about random things and I would not otherwise have the opportunity to explore.

    And some how this picture puts tears in my eyes. 

    it is the thought that this poor little tree in a cold and foreign world far away from anyone who loves it is finally warm tonight.  and i imagine what it would be like standing on the streets day after day ignored and mistreated, standing there to observe humanity at its worst and at its best, ultimately removed from it all.  here it stands in a concrete world, where it was never meant to be, as a final reminder of what use to stand here.  and yet in this completely human and unnatural world someone performed a very human and humane act of kindness, completely irrelevant, useless, and utterly beautiful.

    if this little tree could speak...

Thursday, August 23, 2007

  • Resident Evil and Cheeseburgers <3

    Japan&Shanghai 170

    Those who know me well know that I have an unholy obsession with zombies and the end of the world.  Movie series like Resident Evil and 28 Days Later thoroughly satisfies that need in me only slightly more than a good round of Gears of War or House of the Dead 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Grindhouse, which was everything a girl could ask for, left me salivating for more.  The old thing better is having a too-big-to-fit-in-my-mouth cheeseburger to enjoy alongside.  Last night, I had the pleasure of consuming both.  All thanks to my super boyfriend Larry Ge.  Who, by the way is one of the few who accepts this unusual side of me in a stride and even rented first two Resident Evil DVDs for me in preparation for the upcoming finale.  Hell yea.

    It was moments like those that makes me wonder, really wonder, if true love is here.  Which brings me to the point of this entry: moving in with you boyfriend is a big deal.  Stupid me, I hadn't realize that.  I assumed it would be one big sleepover, but living with someone means dealing with all the things you could walk away from before, or not had ever even seen.  You see the good and the bad and you end up disagreeing on a lot of things.  It means spending every free waking moment with each other.  And sometimes, even at night when your eyes finally close, you find him invading your dreams and into every unconscious thought.  And one moment you wonder how and when this came to be, and the next you can't remember what life was like before this.

    I have no epiphany or wise conclusive thought for this.  All I know is that at 2 in the morning, when I'm thoroughly drunk in a foreign city on the other side of the earth, there's is nothing I'd rather do than beat House of the Dead 4 in a shiny arcade with this boy, who just might be the love of my life.

    And then we'd roam the streets of Shinjuku in victory with our loot tucked in the front of my shirt

    Japan&Shanghai 010Japan&Shanghai 160Japan&Shanghai 011

Saturday, June 30, 2007

  • I’m a huge fan of snacking

    Or was, I should say.  In my house there’s a lot of rules about pretty much everything.  However, the one thing my parents had no rules for was food.  Traditional Chinese breakfasts and dinners were always available, but my mom never had any issues with pizza for breakfast or ice cream for dinner.  Some late nights like this one would find me munching on ice cream, cookies, and perhaps a second serving of a particularly delicious dinner.  My mom use to join me in these 3 AM snaking feasts until she realized her metabolism wasn’t what it use to be.  I would carry on without her, even carrying her weight as well.  Needless to say many real meals were skipped to make up for my sugary diet.

     

    Which, of course, came as a real surprise when not quite a year ago, I met my new boyfriend: a strictly scheduled eater who has no patience for chocolate or soft baked oatmeal raisin cookies.  Breakfast (or lunch) began every day, and dinner was always at dinner time.  This was absurd.  What was studying for Stimulation without a bag of chips?  Who would eat all the Pocky sticks from M2M’s snack aisle?  I was the girl known for her popcorn diet, which consisted of eating nothing but popcorn for weeks.  I tried rebellion: picking at dinner, then pulling out an industrial size bag of cheezits (my snack of choice).  This did not work as boxes of cookies, chocolate and other snacks were confiscated from my very hands.

     

    Despite a year of tug-of-wars, I only finally gave up snaking during our month in Asia.  It was especially in Shanghai, that I realized eating was so much more than just eating.  Spending almost every meal seated at a large table of family and friends, I discovered new foods I never dreamed of: like eating shrimps still jumping in their bowls of wine, or lotus pods stuffed with sweet sticky rice.  There, I realized food was only the side dish of the real entrée: love, sharing, and ridunculous anecdotes of the past.  And that was the true joy of a meal, sharing with family some special dish you’ve tried in the past, and telling stories behind it.  And somehow, this all left snaking in the dust.  After all, how can a bowl of microwave popped popcorn compare with a bowl of pre-shelled snails or a pot full of wontons made with love, anticipation and memories?

     

    Now, I finally understand how Larry can look a bag of chips in the eye and say no means no.  And although, it is just past midnight, the prime snacking time, I’m OK just the way I am.

Monday, May 21, 2007


  • It's funny how you never can tell what you will become.  It feels like I havn't changed much since 4 years ago, entering Columbia as a freshman, or 8 years ago entering Columbia for my first summer internship.  Or even 12 years ago sitting on a big swirly chair watching my mom dissect mice and asking if I can take the rest of them home, because they were so cute.

    Watching Good WIll Hunting yesterday intensified that feeling I got during graduation and class dinner.  Seeing all those awards handed out to fellow students, some I met during orientation week freshman year, gave me an odd feeling.  That these people, were quite literally, going to change the scientific and engineering future.  When I was little, I had wanted to be one of those people.  My first pets were two bunnies my mom brought home for me from her lab.  They died almost immediatly, either under my care or from whatever strange experiments they were subject to prior to my ownership.  Many many many years later, and half way around the world, I tried raising a bunny again with my boyfriend.  Sadly, this bunny who was probably created purely for my ownership, died also.  So apparently, I'm only good with animals when I'm injecting them with stuff, or cutting them up (I took a hands on seminar on this at Columbia freshmen summer of HS, along with a less hands on seminar on what a radioactive thing will do to ur butt if you put it in ur pocket.)  The point is, I was so proud when I created my first beautiful heart tissue slide.  I was proud when I learned HTML, Photoshop, Javascript, and anything else out there, by myself simply by doing it.  I was proud to be an engineer.  I still am.  I was one of the first to hurl back some applecores last week.

    My point is, again, somewhere along the way, I feel like I sold out.  But, in a way, I didn't, because it was more like I was kicked out.  Because I didn't have the motivation, inspiration, or simply brains to be something greater.  I won't be able to design the first public shuttle to the moon, or cure cancer, or build a fully intellegent robot, or even keep up with the latest trends in Javascript or CSS.  Do they even use Javascript or CSS anymore??  And in 10 years, the only thing Columbia will contact me for will be for my money not my brilliant ideas.  At least my job in bond insurance will make me useful in that aspect.

    So I walked into Columbia with my computer and friends as my most precious things, and I left with a laptop and an lv bag large enough to kill a small child upon impact.  It's weird, definitely weird.  But, I think among all the saddness and letting go of old dreams, there are new ones.  Traveling the world, earning lots of money, and of course something else I never had before: true love.  And who knows, so I can't write a code to download my brain into a computer and take over the world via the internet.  But maybe one day I'll be able to pay someone to do it for me.

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