Crunch time

I guess I hitting a point that I have to get through as a piece. My defense is near, and I still need one last revision on the paper. I plan to do it before Friday. This means the whole week will be pretty much dead. I am putting a halt on blog until I accomplish this. But I will survive in the end.

Yesterday I was so forgetable because of all the paper ideas. I forgot my keys, ipod, everything. Even today I thought I lost my watch until I found it safely in my bag. But I did manage to get some exercise, for the sake of my own sanity. I went to swimming yesterday. I hadn't done any serious swimming since last August, so I set out a goal of 2000 meters for myself. The most difficult is around 500-1000 meters, when I felt I ran out of gas. But I persisted, and eventually hit a "high" point that lasted throughout the whole distance. I really enjoyed the feeling of water whooshing by my body. It is as if I was a fish, and fish does not need to write dissertation.

So here you go. I know I am a fighter and survivor. Despite a dim week before Friday, I know the weekend will be much brighter. BYe for now....

Some thoughts and my friend: Kiery

I sort of hate yesterday's blog. It is as if by social norm I have to do something when I know people are paying attention......
A small detour though. Now I am going to blog on.
Jegal got my birthday gift from Amazon.com. It is easy on my part, but he seems to be very happy. Oh, well, put me on the same shoes, if my friends give me gifts, I will be happy no matter what. Think about it, even if people pretend to like me, I am at least the winner among the candidates whom they can pretend to like.
Yesterday we had a surprise birthday party for my friend "Dermon". I could not participate because I had the dance performance to watch. However, I did run to safeway and get a watermelon. I put candles on watermelon and the plan was to replace it over a conventional cake. People could sign their names on the watermelon skins. Again, this is a cheap idea. But again, if I were him, I would be touched, simply because people put some thoughts on it.
Last night I had a great conversation with D. I began to think of blogging about my dad and mom. I want to use their real names, so they will be extra besides the 26 "friend blogs". The funny thing is that I do not regards them as friends. So it fits. I will write these two blogs when I feel ready.
Now it is time to blog another friend, Kiery. Kiery is an activist, probably for anything with a liberal cause. For that, he is a great friend with "Amsol". When they talk, I feel left out, probably because I envy how they can share so many common thoughts. Sometimes their conversation also makes me feel I am a conservative wolf in a liberal sheep skin.
Oh, well, I guess Kiery never think of as a good friend, but why I am blogging him. Because he confided me that he broke up with him 4-year girlfriend. I asked him whether he is all right, and he told me, "it is tough, but I am all right". It is very hard for me to decode the message. But then I promised to help him to move out from the girl's place.
I met his girlfriend a couple of time. She is small, sweet and smart. An activist too. One-time president of university student body. Powerful powerful lady. I really see them as a fitting couple, as Kiery's great ambition and his girl's street smart compensate each other. I heard they were even planning to buy a house. Sorry to hear that, Kiery. Surprisingly, I was the third person in the department to know (one is his office mate, and the other is of course Amsol). Maybe it is just an accident, or that's the plan from god all along. Ok, no more atheist cynicism.
Kiery was in the same year with me. He likes to debate on big theoretical issues, which bore me easily. His dissertation would attempt to build a grand theory. That's for sure. Sometimes I think he is a little unrealistic in imaging the whole world as composed of intellectual exchanges. Well, 90% of the world is bullshit, and I do not feel Kiery is ready to take that. On the other hand, his ideal view about the world drives him into activism. I wonder whether he would be tired, when all the bullshits about dissertation, looking for a job, network with the academic community finally hits him.
Well, shamefully, that's all I know about him. Although we saw each other a lot in the department basement, I barely know him. I guess that's also part of the reasons why I promised to help him to move. It is a golden opportunity to know a person when they were wounded, because they would be more honest to themselves and other people with masks down. Do not take me wrong as if I will take advantage of the situation. I am thinking that he must be in much need of companies to help with moving-out process, which is a painful, symbolic but permenant "good-bye". In the meanwhile, we might become good friends.

Comments!

I just found out some comments from my friends on my blog today. I did not know when they went written, but thank you so much, and sorry for ingoring it for so long. I do not think I am going to respond to each of the comments, because it will be too sentimental. (By the way, I've also kept reading your blogs, although I never happen to input my comment on yours, friend). Besides, I am afraid that I will be too attached to my blog that one day it will take over my real life.
Replying to comments of my blog is hard. Shall I give half-ass "thank you"s? Shall I adopt all the advice? Shall I just justify everything I've done and then say that no changes are necessary? I sorta want to answer "yes" to every question, but they are all so cliche. So as a compromise here, I leave all these questions open.
If everyone has his/her own narratives in comfortably talking about things, blog is mine. Especially the "blogging about my friends" series, which seems to grow on its own now and I am happen to be the one to type them in. I am happy that they provide a window for my friends to know me. In fact, sometimes I am surprised by myself how I wrote about a person significant in my life. I am going to keep on that.
BUt tonight I have no plan to blog about friends. I want to talk about Emio Greco. I loved their performance tonight. I was sitting there overwhelmed by their movement. I forgot to analyze it as a dance piece. I was just observing a group of people moving gracefully. Even Merce Commingham company did not stunt me in that level.

A dream and Happy Birthday to my friend Jegal

I usually do not write about my dreams, not because I do not want, but because I usually forget them all, despite the facts I know I had a lot of dreams.
Last night is the same. A lot of dreams, and I can remember one very well. It was in an elevator of a very tall building. No walls around the elevator, so I could look down to see how high it went. I was with a group of people, but I forgot who they were. Anyway, the elevator brought us very high, and I began to realize the steel chain holding the elevator was cracking. I had to use my hands to hold it, while thinking, "oh, shit.".... Well, that's the dream.
Happy birthday to my friend Jegal today. Now it is perfect time to blog about you, Jegal, and sorry for this strange name, but "J" does not go along with anything.
I met Jegal while in college. He was sensitive and intelligent. Maybe we are friends just because they were similar to some extent. Our conversation sorta have a formula, starting from our college experience but soon it would upgrade into very abstract talks about life phylosophy. Well, I no longer like this kind of bullshiting conversation. However, looking back, it was nice to have someone to resonate my thoughts. Maybe he hated it that time already, but he was one of the few that tolerated it and kept me unnoticed. He came to the US last year, to study sociology in a small town of Indiana. His wife just got pragnent. I visited them during the spring break.
But besides that, I hardly can think of any reasons why we get that close as we did. Yes, I directed a short play casting him with a small role. Yes, he consulted me a lot about going abroad. Yes, he helped me to deal with my university while I was in the US. But all these are quite trivial, and I will say the friendship might just a good accident. By this, I am not diminishing our friendship. Not at all, I value that very much. Jegal is one of first few who knew my depressing quarter and sincerely invited me to his small town for a vacation to shaking off all the bad things happened to me. I confided him with things I usually kept from my other friends. The mystery of the forming of the friendship made me feel lucky.
I think Jagel might be one of the readers of the blog, but I am still going to write the following to keep my blog's honesty. He has an ideal image about me (Sometimes I feel that's the reason why he valued the friendship so much). He might think I am smart, cynical, ambitious, adventuous, and open-minded. I feel a lot of times he looked up to me. It put me in an awkward position because I was led to act in a way to confirm the expectation. Maybe he is right, but chances are he is wrong. So some day he might be disappointed by my imperfections, lots of it.
Well, that's a problem I had with a lot of my old friends. I liked to perform in a way to present the best of me in the past. Now I am a more honest person in showing who I am, but my old friends, you will know I am just one of the "little people", just like you. No aura, no capacity of teleporting, no solutions for every problem, having strange dreams sometimes, confused about life sometimes, afraid of being alone, and not able to achieve as high as I want. One day you all will know.......

Some thoughts and My Friend: Irisa

Hi, it is Friday, April 15, 2005. I am at the Starbucks, trying to get some work done. I need to present my dissertation proposal to the workshop next next Monday, by which date I also need to finish a paper, which will be presented on early May. You can say I am leading a busy life. But I want to procrastinate first, as a reward for my hard work earlier this week. So I am writing this post, later to be published in my dear blog.

I began to feel my knee pain after today’s dance class. Not real pain, but just began to feel I can no longer do some movement effortlessly. I know I am near the point that I have to begin to think of alternatives to dance performance in the near future. Of course, I will do it when I am still able to, with my high spirit as always.

I saw Brey (still remember him, everyone?) today outside of education school library. He was eating a sandwich during his work break. He looked very tired, and later I found his girlfriend had broken up with him. I insisted to hang out with him sometime this weekend. He was so depressed and so afraid of being alone that he took a ride with his friend to LA last night and then flew back this morning. He also told me that he tried to make an appointment with the medical clinic. The clinic told him to call back next week. Well, I have to say that the relationship is unrealistic to begin with. Maybe I am too realistic and un-matching to his passionate pursue, but in his case, it is as if he wants to play tennis by himself but still wants to make it a good game. How possible? For me, I want to be with someone to whom I feel comfortable and from whom I feel I am needed. If I feel that I am crushed by her beauty, cannot live when she is away and cannot breathe when she is present, that is a luxury I will surely treasure, but I can definitely live without. So Brey, I guess I will try to check upon you this weekend to make sure you won’t be left by yourself for so long to play out those crazy “what if” scenarios. Maybe you are stronger that I think, but I bet you not.

I went to art gallery today. One of my housemate has an exhibition, so I have to go see. She is one of the cool bunch, but I seem to have troubles even talking to her, because, of course, I am uncool. What’s why I am curious about her art. Well, how should I say? Her art of painting was so depressing that I could sense the air of death. She “little people” are very lonely in the painting. Even if they were together in the same frame, they were surrounded by different shades colors, as if they were living in different worlds, communicating but never touching, talking but never caring. This world is so intolerable that death almost seems to be a very peaceful thought. Well, at least that is my interpretation. It could be wrong, but at least her art is thought-provoking.

Ok, it is time to bring another installment of “my friends”. Irisa, okey, that’s her name. She has been my modern dance teacher for at least 3-4 years. How should I describe her? “A warm heart beneath cold appearance”, it is. If you just started to take her class, either you like her professionalism, or you hate her to be so impersonal. Some inside-information: One girl told me that after the first class last quarter, some girls were crying in the locker room because of Irisa’s toughness. As a guy, I never felt I was crushed like that, but I did feel uncomfortable sometimes. Irisa, why cannot you smile more?

Well, I guess a person is like a product. When it is extraordinary, it must come with some flaws to make it unique. I believe that’s what happened to Irisa. When you begin to know her, you have to believe she is extraordinary. I never see any faculty members so devoted the way she did. She tried very hard to reach out to students and tell them all the performance opportunities. Twice, she drove us to some dance festivals to participate performing. What’s more, she made the performance happen. When some lazy-ass choreographers cannot come, Irisa is always available to sub. Over the holidays, she will arrange to open the door of the studio. Of course, she used to dance with Merce’s company, which further put her in the cool bunch.

I doubted I would’ve gone that far in dancing without her. She always told me that I did a great performance, even though I was not. Ha, you know what, I loved her sincere lies. Typical human flaws, I know, but that’s my problem of being so superficial. She even told me that I did a great job in rolling the dice for Merce’s performance. Are you kidding me? How hard is it for a Ph.D. student to roll the dice and announce a sentence? But I love Irisa so much because of that!

Ok, up to day, it is 10 friends already. ABCDEFGHIN! Twenty-six more to go, Mmmmmhahahhaaa!

I will write more later...

Tonight is the night. I am going to finish the third draft of my dissertation proposal. I was so pre-occupied by the dissertation thing today. I couldn't get it off from my mind even when I went to bathroom, on the road, or while eating. Sometimes I appreciated this working style, very concentrating and very devoting, but sometimes it pissed me off, because it took all the joys of human interaction away from me. I felt my head had a different weight and my focus was loose..... Anyway, a dance rehearsal an hour ago gave back my sanity. I am going to finish the thing and write more in this blog tonight. Work my ass off please.
.....
It is three hours later, and I did it! Self-congratulation first, since nobody else hung out in the department that late. However, I still cannot figure out why some people find it fun to write a dissertation. For me, it is quite stressful. At the beginning, it is full of procrastination, as if the work will go away if I delay it again and again. In the middle, I began to worry how I am going to finish it, because so many good and trashy ideas floating around for revisions, but I cannot tell which is briliant and which is worthless ideas. Finally, I sensed the clock ticking, so settling down and gluing my ass to the chair. It proved to be totally doable. And now it is over, and I hope my self-confidence has been recovered by now. Now I only hope my advisor wouldn't say,"Such a crap. No defense this quarter!" Well, partly kidding, and I know it is not gonna happy. But thinking of this scenario is amusing, as if my life has degraded so that I am not the one in control any more.
Well, control, that is a topic unfinished in the last post. I blogged about the reason why I did random things is because I want the experience. Well, part of the whole answer. The other part is that I want to have a sense of control. You see, everyone needs to do something on their own will. Take the looking for example. Some people tried to lose weight and I tried to gain weight. the direction of the trial does not matter; what matters is that we want a sense that we can control how we look. By the same token, make-up does not necessarily make people more beautiful, but does give girls a sense of self-esteem because they can decide how they look.
So Why do I dance, take low-pay jobs, do painful jogging? Partly because I want to do that. It sorta tautological, but that's the whole point. I do what I want to do, and that's why I am not insane by now.
After writing down the above analysis, I decide to quit. Why always psycho-analyzing myself? Lighten up, dude. Ok, next blog will be about another friend of mine. Stay tuned.

The point is.....

Sometimes I will have the impulse to ask, "what's the point of doing this and that?" Very difficult question to answer, because if you dig deeper and deeper, nothing has a point, unless you have some religious or spiritual beliefs that can relieve you from pushing yourself too hard on reasoning. Days go by without this sort of question, but it hits me once a while. Why am I doing dance? Why I take the shitty job in Tressider Gym in 7-9am shift? Why I want to be House Manager for my co-op next year? Why I want to be the Safeway Runner? Why I go jogging once a while? Why I write this blog while I can do some required readings instead? Why I do small talks with my good friends? Why do I hang out with people who I am not fond of? Why I ..... have to be me?
I guess the only answer I can offer right now is that I want the experiences. I know, it is the last resort: if nothing has a point, then non-pointness itself has to have some meanings. For example, with dance, I experience my body in a unique way; with the shitty job, I feel i am experiencing college as those students from blue-collar families; With House Manager thing, i hope I can experience managing a big family, sort of; With jogging, I experience the great agony while running and great relief afterwards; with my friends or non-friends, I experience the mystery of being in a community-while everyone is alone deep-down, people interact to deny their ultimate loneliness; with being me, I experience joy and sadness just like I will experience.
I do know why I am writing this blog. Everything is triggered after I came back from the early morning shift in gym. I am tired and have to have some tea to keep me afloat (Still, I have been resisting coffee in the past half year since the autumn depression), and began to question whether it all worths it? I do not really care about the shitty salary, but what for? Well, my tentative answer is that it is, but for no reasons other than an unfalsifiable proposition that I need the experience. And that's the closest thing I can come up with to secure my self-esteem, adn I am happy I can shut out my rationality in answering this question.

That's all right. And Niangniang.

I feel like shit today. Something is messed up, and I guess I deserved that, except that I am not sorry about what I did. I finally planted the lavender on a big pot this noon. I want to see how amazing when the beautiful blue flowers blossom. I totally forgot the house job too, the first time in my two years of residence in the co-op. Fortunately, my mind did not totally lost so I remembered the House Meeting. Get a safeway runner job this quarter. Anyway, I have a good and busy week to look forward to, and I guess everything will be all right.
Last night I thought of my grandma, who is living currently in senior center. I am going to blog her right now. I call her Niangniang in Chinese, so she will be called so here. She is one of the most influential figures in my life.
I grew up with her since I was a baby. My parents were working class professionals, and they were not rich. So they did not have much time to spend with me. So I grew up with Niangniang. That's why I never had attachment to my parents, who I only felt a biological linkage conceptually.
With Niangniang, I felt safe. She is kind, generous to protective to me. When I was a kid, I was very easy to be intimidated. I still remember one day I broke the key to the classroom and totally freaked out. Niangniang just calmed me down and took charge of replacing the key for me. Until today, I am still not sure whether her protection really served me good or just spoiled me, but I would forever appreciate and never complain about her full-hearted love.
But I used to be anger about her protection, especially in my teenage years. She kept track on my friends and even had their phones number in case she wanted to know whereabout of me or what happened in school. She tried to especially monitor my female friends so I would not slip into romantic relationship in young age, which she thought would ruin me. One day I was so angry that I almost hit her (not really, but my palm did slightly slap on her face). I felt really bad afterward, but I never admitted to her because of my stupid teenage pride.
Niangniang is very proud of me, my strength or my flaws alike. She said I used to cry a lot in order to get what I wanted. Oh, my stubbornness. She said once I was eating beans. One bean was dropped into a pile of charcoal. And I insistently asked her to find it and wash it so that I can eat it. So she secretly took one bean from my bowl and pretended that's the one from the charcoal to stop from crying. I had very vague memory of that, so I guess I was about 4-5 years old that time. She is also proud of me now, even though I am thousands miles apart. She will appreciate every small things I do for her, even though they are no sweat on my part.
When the time flashed back, I would saw her aging, from an able body going shopping in farmer's market every morning to a thin body that even 30 meters of walking seems like a stretch for her. I am scared evry time I think of her incoming death. As an athiest, I get no comfort from an illusionory faith, which I wish I could have, so that I will be at peace with some inevitable life cycles.
I think of Niangniang today. I hope nothing is wrong. The last two times when I dreamed of her getting sick, she was actually sick when I later called her. There are some unexplanable connections between us. I wish today's thinking of you means nothing bad. Although you probably forgot of the incident when I almost hit, it was always here in my mind. I wouldn't mentioned that to you, so that you can maintain a perfect image of me and feel good of boasting my achievement among your senior center neighbors. But I want to say sorry here. And that's my entry for "N". Niangniang, you will the only one with a real meaningful name in my 26 blogs.

My friends (7): Hrend

Hrend is a decent guy. If I have to use one word to describe him, it will be "loyal", a virtue I value the most in friendship, and I myself try hard to live up to for my friends.
Hrend is so decent that he has a hard time to find a girlfriend, and for this he is always pissed off. Although he never said so, I want to complain in his name, "why girls like 'bad' guys?". Well, you can argue that guys also have the complex of saving whores. But from my point of view, I feel the former complex is worse, well, if you real want to push me hard, worse for me and Hrend. Anyway, back to Hrend. He had a bad love story two quarters ago. And one night, he was in such a bad mood, he drove out to a nearby hill to look at star (shall I say he is romantic here?). On the way, he totalled his beloved car. He told me he cried badly afterward, although he was lucky to be alright himself.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people. But good people also grow in bad events. Hrend does not emerge as a totally different person, but he is much more assured about himself after the event and even more decent to people. I always want to hug him or pat his back to let him know how amazing he is to pull that off, but I know it would be too condescenting. So as an alternative, I made a fake cake for his birthday of April 1st, and he really appreciated that by saying it is his best birthday ever. He actually cut the cake with a slow knife with much effort, and then tasted it before he realized the prank. Then we all laughed like babies. What a wonderful night!
Hrend is leaving the university this year for another California university. According to his words after druck last night, he was "stupid in dealing with relationships with his advisor" at this university and believed his life will move on by pursuing a degree in another institution. I know he will (here I pause about 5 minutes, trying to come up with some fancy words to conclude this blog. I failed. He is just so normal and humble that you can hardly spot him in a crowd, but there is something within him beyond typical talent sighting. His strength is silent and stay low, but he will reach high some day, with a loud appauld from below, probably me included). Good luck, Hrend.

The fake cake. Made out of foams. It is tasty! 

Finally, one week is over

Hi, Finally one week of no-blog is over. I guess I am a quite disciplined person in the end, just sticking with my promise, even though the promise might be a bad idea to start with.
So where do I start this blog since I have so much to say?
Ok, anyone remember my blog of "Honesty" a couple of weeks ago? Well, the two secrets are no longer secrets to one person (let me call her D. here). I am still not sure whether confiding her with the second one is a good idea. Before I hed out for the coffee place with her, it was still a big "maybe". I myself have so much confusion on that, and I was afraid that no explanation would help. All my selfish actions have selfless excuses, and all the selfless actions contain a selfish motives (This applies to my disclosing of the secret. Now my burden is lifted, while leaving D. to interpret what this all means). Anyway, if D. is reading, I hope you will just take it as its face value.
I almost cried today when I talked to D. I has been a while since the last time I feel safe or ok to cry. Too many half-assed comments in the real life. They are numbing my heart and increasing my cynicism. But once a while I will get touched by my own words, which resonated in my mouth and hit some vulnerable strings in my chest. Just for the record, I almost cried when I talked about something like that: "It hurts even when you expect it, as if human rationality is no rival to emotions. Sometimes caring starts with a half-assed commitment, then you are just taken by surprise." The words here are fancier, but the meaning is equivalent.
Having a good time with D., I know I did badly to another friend. He called during our conversation, and I prmised him that I would call back soon. But it happened very late, and in the meanwhile I missed several of his other calls. I wouldn't say he is my friend, because a lot of times I took pity on him. He is unpopular and sometimes weird, but he is sincere and a good guy. I say this in a condescenting way. Yes, I know. But that's the way it is. I went out with him for dinner today more out of sympathy than friendship, but hey, at least I made him believe we are friends. Anyway, he has the virtue of forgiving me immediately for not calling him back soon enough. Thank you.
D. asked me whether I always do things like that to make other people feel better. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I do. But a lot of my friends do the same things to me all the time, and I feel great when I can spread their virtues to the people least cared by the mainstream. I am in a good position for them be feel less condescenting, because of my natural advantage of being international, being minority and being a loser in love life (the last point is really important, I found, because they also tend to be losers).

Yesterday I made a fake cake for one of my friend birthday on April 1st. The photo of the cake will be uploaded soon, because I am so proud of it. He will be the friend with the initial H in his name next