to you and me 祝你我

this is the cutest song i've ever heard on my birthdays. [thank you, vivien :) ]
i smiled and smile and will smile
因為你, 我有一個快樂的生日
because of you, I've had a happy birthday



祝你快樂
祝我快樂
May you and me be happy on this day

tango on.....

Let's start to say goodbye to 2007.
I don't like this year much. But it still has happened.
Tango on and on and on and on to the next year, to the next better year~~~~

What great shoes, Damian and Julz! And of course, what awesome performances!

Keeping moving on has been a very important element of this year.
Every now and then, I tell myself "Everything's gonna be alright. You can do it. Move on."

Last night, however, I hit the bottom of depression.
If you've known me for more than three years or if you've read my old Chinese website about the car accident story, you may understand my terrified mood last night.
Right, Bungbung got out of my control and hit the curb on the passenger side. Very similar story line except that this time the culprit is the snow, which does not make any better mentally because my horrified driving-in-and-on-snow experience earlier this year.
That is, my mentality got double shot at one minor hit-the-curb accident.
The accident led to ... I don't know yet. I'm waiting for the bodyshop to give me a quote. The steering wheel and the wheels are not quite talking to each other normally.

My hands were shaking last night.
I hid in bed from nothing but reality.
No tears. Just my cold body. I don't know why I felt soooo cold.
After probably an hour, I convinced myself that I was calm enough and I had to move on with my life and I needed human contact.
Thanks to Jason and Nat. I met them online. They brought some of my confidence back.
And again, my dear mama, who is always there for me. I couldn't help but cry when hearing her voice. This was the first time I felt so lonely since living alone.

Friends are throwing me a birthday cozy party.
Milongas are happening more frequently than usual because of the end of the year.
I will feel better. I am already feeling better.
A gift was delivered when I was sitting home this morning waiting for the tow truck.
Nice things were written on my Facebook wall.
Important documents were sent to me by my co-worker.
Life is not so bad. I can still breathe and smile. And tango :)

My list of top ten wishes? Yup, I promised to make the list.
Let me make it personal so that means something to the selfish me.

10. To sort out the entire car thing with little effort (well... much effort has been taken for the past two months actually)

9. To lose weight (haha.... it's always on my wish list. I want my face to lose weight especially. Ask me again about my email address? You may if you don't laugh.)

8. To be involved in the HR department (this is not very likely to happen, but I still want to make a wish to hire some real cool and smart geek into the IT department)

7. To receive an award (I have been working hard and I think I may deserve something)

6. To write people who rarely reply (there are two people particular in my mind)

5. To meet dear best Taiwan friends and Mika in March (yes, girls, I am talking about you. If my budget is not eaten up by the car fixing, this wish should be able to come true.)

4. To know that mama is in great health and happiness (she prefers me to be physically closer to her, which is only thing I cannot promise her. But other than that, I will do anything possible to make her happy.)

3. To see a/the sunny boy again (I need sunshine in my life.)

2. To get a real job, not a fellowship ("real" means an H-1 visa)

1. To move into the city (anywhere with a great tango community and a great public transportation and diverse cultures)

Tango, yoga, movies, and making friends are not on the list because they are not wishes. They are on my to-do list. Things that I don't have fully conscious control are on the wish list.

I'm almost ready to welcome 2008. Just give me 4 more days. And I am tangoing and moving on to it.

merry every day to mothers

I'd like to dedicate this entry to Dominique, a Bulgarian mother who visited the city, a.k.a. Manhattan.
I was lucky to meet her. She cooked a very nice traditional meal on Christmas Eve. The meal was purely vegetarian and fully flavored with the vegetables and herbs. After the meal, we had a traditional bread, eating in a traditional way: The eldest breaks the bread into a number of pieces. The number is decided by how many people in the family. Pieces are distributed in an order according to age.
There is a coin in the bread. The person who finds the coin in his/her piece will have great luck in the new year.

There were four people in the dinner. The bread was huge. We decided to break only half of it. The other half was stored high up close to the ceiling, for a reason that Dominique does not know but follows her mother's mother's mother's rule.
None of us found the coin in our pieces. It must be in the half stored high up. Which is good. It means that the luck of God is high up there overlooking the household.
(I say this is very Chinese. Anything, everything can be translated in good terms.)

Dominique was very patient listening to us discuss various topics in English. She always wore a smile. Her eyes told us that she was paying attention. Sometimes when she wanted to join the conversation, she changed her facial expression or even raised her hand. She would say it slowly in English or quickly elegantly in Bulgarian and asked her son to translate.

Dominique reminds me of Catherine, a French mother, and of Nikki, my mother.
Their smiles and their manner in front of their children's friends are one of the most beautiful human things. No matter what status of their children to me, their loving appearance makes me want to be loved by them and earns my full respect.
That generation of women is the gem of historical events, is the fruit of traditional conservative virtues and modern revolutionary independent thinkings. Political wise, wars and dramatic change of ruling power happened in these mothers' parents' generation or during their own childhood. Gender-awareness wise, these mothers were career women and career housewives, and currently their children's fathers are not their life partners.
These mothers know well. They educate their children with tradition and with untraditional encouragement that has allowed us to be free in seeking what we want. We flew away from them but they are always on our minds.


I was sitting in Java Girl, a cozy coffee house on 66th St b/w 1st & 2nd Aves.
I leaned into the cushions by the window, enjoying the warm sun light. Suddenly memories came. My "so-called" childhood came to mind.
During that period of my life, Nikki was learning about the cruelty of life and I was the witness. It was harsh.
I am proud of her for her transformation out of that period of time. She was tough. She is tough.

She would like this coffee house as much as I do. I wish she was there with me, smiling at me.
The tradition between Nikki and I is an afternoon in a coffee house, followed by a walk in a city, Taipei or Manhattan. I will try my best to hand down this tradition.

what a good connection means and looks like

The title of this video is "EL PAJARO y MECHA take one Tango milonguero nights 2007" on YouTube.

I like it (thanks Cal for sharing) for it is what I mean by tango: connection, connection, and comfortable feelings.

Keep on dancing or join me!

newlyweds

A co-worker went back to India for 3 weeks and brought back a wife.
Let's call this Indian Avik, which is not his real name, and his wife Sil, whose real name I have no idea.

Avik met Sil 4 years ago.
He liked her. She liked him.
That was a short visit for Avik. Soon, he came "back" to the States for his continuing education and work.
Avik and Sil kept in touch via email and phone calls. In the meantime, their parents were looking for their future spouses. In the meantime, they were negotiating with their parents to marry them.
Sil's parents gave permission at some point, but Avik's had not. So a few months ago, Sil's parents decided not to wait for Avik anymore and started again to look for a husband for Sil.
Avik was afraid that Sil's parents would get her married before Avik could convince his parents to allow him to marry Sil. Therefore, he flew back and sorted it out and brought Sil as his wife back to the States.

We were not totally surprised or offended by the fact that Avik had not informed us beforehand about his newlywed status.
All of us have a friend in this kind of story or at least have heard about this kind of story: Usually it happens with an Indian or a Chinese. They go back home and come back to the States with a spouse whom none of their friends in the States were aware of.

"How was the wedding?" A co-worker asked.
"No, we did not have a wedding. We simply registered. I believe in marriage, not wedding." Avik said, "It hurt our parents, but I also believe that I should decide for myself who would be my life partner and how I would celebrate my new married status."

I had never heard him say that much.
That was a great speech.

The lab manager came from India too. Her name will not be revealed until next January. She is leaving the company! Good for her! Let's call her Nyla.
Anyway, one day she asked me whether Taiwanese people have the concept of dating like Americans.
Well... sort of.
Taiwan is very Americanized in many regards because a lot of people get higher education or grow up in the States, and because the mainstream media has been following CNN as the only source of international news, and because Hollywood movies are always playing in most of the cinemas and on cable TV.
However, Taiwanese dating is not as casual as American dating. After a certain age, Taiwanese people date for possible marriage, not for fun. Americans seem to date and keep options open for long until they get "engaged". Taiwanese people usually skip the step of engagement.
Basically, in Taiwan if a couple's parents meet each other, the couple is likely to be a married couple soon.

Nyla has lived in the States for many years. She and her husband are about my age. They got married from their parents' arrangement and approval. They have two lovely boys.
Nyla never dated. She sort of had some romantic feeling to a guy years ago in one conversation. But her parents did not like him so she did not keep in touch with him and she felt heartbroken afterwards.
"I don't understand dating. It must be hard. I could get heart broken just after one conversation of emotional involvement. How can people keep dating and heartbreaking so many times before they get married?" Nyla asked. I smiled and did not even provide a short answer. I don't know. I like falling in love and dislike heartbreaking. But heartbreaking experience does not stop me from falling in love again. Dating is a door open to falling in love, which I like.

Nyla told me that she will match her boys with nice Indian girls when the time comes.
I was like... wow. It may not be easy for Nyla to keep her boys from the American culture if they keep living here.
Nit is a second generation of Indian American. He is a postdoc working in the company. His family is much cooler. His brother married a white girl. His parents are not pushing him to get married. I wish Nyla's boys would be like Nit one day -- free to think and to act.

I am happy for Avik and Sil. Their parents eventually will forgive them. Parents want their children to be happy. Kim said they will definitely forgive them when grandchildren are born.
Congrats, newlyweds!

what a cool year 2007

Continuing with the similar topic to the top-10 lists by TIME, I have been amused and amazed by the last issue of New York Times Magazine: The 7th Annual Year of Ideas.

I don't have a chunk of time to read the whole issue during the past week, but piece by piece. And I have been piece-by-piece-ly impressed by people around the world who generated cool, creative, or not-so-ideal ideas this year.

For example, the route-generating software employed in the delivery company U.P.S. helped reduce CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons. How? The software tells the UPS driver to avoid making left turns! It is called Left-Hand-Turn Elimination.

Another example, a Japanese architect Shigeru Ban used cardboards to build an actual bridge over a river in France. The bridge could withstand at least 20 people. You think it must have looked weird? No, it was a beautifully artistic design. It was functioning for 6 weeks before dismantled for the rainy season. Click the cardboard bridge to have a look.

Other cool ideas include cool thoughts.
One truly touches my heart, all cognitive psychologists' hearts. It is called Neurorealism. This term, according to the journalist Hutson, was coined by Eric Racine.
Beautiful brain imaging data do not prove or tell us anything new about human mind. It does not verify anything what has been known either. New technology should help us with new knowledge instead of giving scientists credibility such as "Oh, I can see it in the brain picture, so what you say must be true!"
Let's say visual attention, the topic I have been studied. Definition: it is a mechanism selecting relevant or salient information into our visual system so that the selected or prioritized information can be processed further or quicker than other information. This definition has not changed since more than 100 years ago, and has not changed since PET or fMRI was invented and used in cognitive neuroscience.
You can say that imaging data help us to "localize" where visual attention is in the brain. Well.... yes and no. Take the people whom I am studying right now for example. Most of them have brain lesions in the right hemisphere, and they have impairments in visuospatial attention. However, as said 100 years ago or longer ago, etiology does not guarantee symptoms. Vice versa. Not all right-hemisphere lesioned persons have deficits in visuospatial attention. Not all persons with deficits in visuospatial attention have lesions in their right hemisphere.
Don't believe what you read about the brain in fashion magazines, please. A friend asked me whether it's true that using your non-dominant hand can give your brain a workout. She asked about it because she read it in Vogue, in which a beautiful brain imaging picture was shown beside the text. I told her, as long as you do not stop thinking, your brain is working out.
Don't get me started.

Let's move on.
There are also very geeky or boring ideas (boring at least to me). For example, a physicist wrote a model to explain why strings (such as a computer power cord) tend to form knots. His first "discovery" was not surprising: the longer the string, the more likely it forms a knot. I did not stop reading because I wanted to know whether he actually discovered something interesting. Luckily, the review section is short and followed by Lap-Dance Science that wiped out the boredom.

Other topics that caught my eyes are God Effect and Suing God. They makes me smile. Humans are so cute :)
God's existence has been emphasized too much in the States therefore I just cannot help but doubt it. I'm glad that some persons research on it or play with it. God does not made humans. Starch did.

Some makes me frown. For example,Vegansexuality. This is just too much.
I respect vegans in terms of their persistence and incredible will against delicious seafood, red meat, and real Chinese cuisine. I respect vegans in terms of their increasing influence in the free marketing world where vegan dancing shoes are now available.
But vegansexuality is just too much. "I couldn't think of kissing lips that allow dead animal pieces to pass between them." Quoted in the NYTimes Mag review.
Oh, I couldn't think of kissing lips that have actually say those words.
Can they be even more extreme? Do not use anything made by non-vegan workers. How about that? They probably have to move to the moon. Oh, they can't because spaceships so far are not veganized.
When did vegans become meat-eater-haters from peace-loving-makers?

Well... You go read by yourself. I have to rest. Too overwhelmed by ideas.

no no no rehab

I cannot embed the videos of Amy Winehouse. But I highly recommend you to watch them. You can type her name and the key word "rehab" in the YouTube or Google Video search.
My favorite ones so far are her MV and one of her live performance

All my colleagues and I are singing this song every morning.
Especially this morning for me, I just cannot stop singing "no no no".
Rumor said it's gonna snow today. I have anticipated a huge snow storm that covers my car and the roads. So I can sip my hot chocolate in bed while writing the grant proposal in a better wood.

But now, 8:33am, no evidence of snow falling.
I am not very happy about it.
What if I drive out and I cannot drive back at the end of the day because snow starts later? Who is going to be responsible for that?

The sun is not showing up. Greyish sky. Cold air.

I fell asleep while listening to James Blunt's new album last night. Very comforting.
I had a dream of a garden and a garden house.
I tried out one of three bottles of perfumes. I liked the smell of it.
I even remember the shape of the bottle. The smell probably too if I could smell it again in reality.

And the alarm set off.
No. No. No. I wanted to stay in the warm garden.

See you later, sunshine, I have to go to rehab even though I'm saying no no no with Amy Winehouse.

top ten lists

Please allow me to distract you to TIME's 50 top 10 lists of 2007.
This means you can read 10 x 50 = 500 important things of 2007 chosen by TIME. It is kind of too much to read? You can pick the topics that interest you most for a start.

Guess what I pick for the start? Science? No, I am geeky but I pick Top 10 Quotes for my first click. Science-related top 10s are picked after I laugh at some of the top 10 quotes.

Top 10 Man-made Disasters are really depressing so I have to do Top 10 Green Ideas to be cheered up. Oh, I am impressed that Walmart is trying to do some good things finally. Gore should be happy about it too. Today he gave a speech asking China and US to do something about Climate Change.

It's not the end of year for me actually. Lots of things have not sorted yet. Can't decide what will be at my top 3 or top 5 or top 10 list of importance.

Here are some candidates that will be on the final list:
(Not going to give them numbers to mislead about the degree of importance)

- PhD program finished

- Postdoc life (the stress and confusion and frustration and the ITs) has started. Several blog posts this year are directly related.

- Regularly tangoing in Manhattan and around Manhattan

- Living alone finally

- Heart broken by Goodbye My Lover

- Heart re-found in Masochism Tango

- Mika was born on Nov 26, 2007

- Horrible snow storm struck my heart

- Empire closed

- Name switch (My official name in the US is very confusing. It's not a change. It's a switch.)

- Met ex-BFs and a sort-of

- Stepped into a pink, totally pink, inside out pink cupcake place twice in 5 hours

- Bro left home for the army, and other family stuff

- James L. and Judy back to my life :)

- Alex and Zabeth have to live far away from me :(

- New friends cook for me :) Thanks to Yang, Javor, Kim, and Cal.

- Self-discovery physically and mentally

- Able to finish more than one beer or wine! Without help!

- Acknowledge how poor my sense of direction is. Especially on the terribly designed roads in NJ.

This is really tough. A year ago, in a girl's farewell party, she gave me some words with tears. She said "Life is tough." She was a postdoc in Penn State. I can never forget those words and the moment of connection.
I have gone through a tough year indeed. I am going to draft a very nice wish so that I can say it when blowing off candles in three weeks.
Basically, toughness is not what I want and not what I want to be.

I am going to generate my top 10 list of wishes! Stay tuned.

接受事實

我站在三個女人面前，突然覺得好想逃跑。因為一種慚愧又矛盾的心理。

慚愧來自於我一直對這樣的女人有偏見，一直覺得我覺得不可能跟那樣的人成為朋友。
矛盾來自於我真的不能認同她們，不過她們都是好人，也是朋友。

她們都是我的同事，一個是聰明能幹的醫生，也是我在紐澤西的第一個朋友。
一個是聰慧美麗的研究助理，另一個是典型的會大聲說 oh my god 的金髮妹。
三個都是美國土生土長的。
三個都不能有婚前性行為。
三個大概都不會去嘗試阿根廷探戈或是瑜珈。

醫生的老公是牧師，醫生是義大利後裔，也就是說她是頗虔誠的天主教徒。
研究助理的媽媽是虔誠的摩門教徒，她從小是在摩門教的教義下長大。
金髮妹來自極端傳統的猶太家庭，只能吃赦免過的食物,，使用赦免過的廚具。特定日子裡不能使用電器。

會開始談起這些，因為醫生說她去參加她一個猶太朋友的婚禮，婚禮上是新娘新郎第一次接吻。
我的反應是 Wow, how awful!
她們的反應是 Wow, how sweet!
金髮妹說猶太人有一種類似進入洞房的儀式，大部分的新人選擇在洞房裡接吻，而不會在賓客面前接吻。我心想都沒用過就結婚了，不滿意怎麼退貨啊？怪不得他們的外遇多。

我老闆是基督教徒，她說她覺得人要有信念，不管是信奉哪一個宗教。
我聽了點點頭，沒跟她說我最受不了的就是基督教徒，尤其是美國所謂的新基督教徒(政教不分的一神論者，他們在美國錢幣上寫上 In God we believe 這樣偏頗的教條)。

很久以前，一個唸社會學的學長說過，其實走人文科學類的學者比自然科學類的人不信神，因為人文科學研究人，知道是人創造了神，是人編寫了人想要相信的故事。
這是他的論點，我有一些同意，因為從我認識的人裡面，的確是這樣，隨便抽樣就隨便符合這個說法。

就是這樣吧，來自歐洲的移民，到了美國之後，都自己跟自己人混，越混越保守在自己舊有的文化裡，離開祖先文化的人變成美國開明兼容並蓄的先驅，而守著祖先文化的人變成極端的保守，比現在的歐洲人還要保守。
就好像亞裔美國人比現在的亞洲人傳統保守很多。

為什麼他們要這樣的畫地自限呢？
是不是生活在教條下比較有安全感？
我想是的，有些人必須要遵循外在的教條，不質疑的遵循著，才感覺自己的渺小，才感謝自己的存在，才感恩其他的人事物，才感受到生命的意義。
我告訴我自己，這樣的人還滿多的，這是事實，就接受吧，嘆氣也沒用。
不是所有人都適合自力自強自動自發的生活，不是所有人都能夠定下目標就自己獨立的往前衝，不是所有人都聽得進去＂get a life!＂
太多人要為別的人才有辦法繼續有目的的生活下去，即使不為別人，也要為神。

胚啊，是有這樣的人，太多這樣的人了，要接受他們。

我微笑不說話，不問諷刺性的問題，三個女人繼續比較著她們的傳統，我心想，也好，我不用費唇舌說服她們跳探戈，舞池裡多個女人，我就少個機會跳舞。
我也很開心她們從來不費唇舌來說服我她們的信仰有多好。

她們快樂自足的生活著，我也是。

no connection

(Picture from Threadless.com)

Connect my brain to the computer, please, so that I can have access directly to the machine and install anything I want and everything in my head.
I need Adobe Acrobat to edit the grant proposal.
Getting grants is essential for the career of academia.
This means that to stay strong and last long in academia, I have to chase money. The line of research usually is actually formed by the grant source, not my original research interest. This actually is not big deal.
The big deal is the part of chasing money. I can talk about the dislike of chasing money in another post, not now.

Now the issue starts with my need of Adobe Acrobat, which is absent in my desktop at work.
Technically I am employed by the medical school. Physically I am working in the rehab.
Meaning: my funding comes from the medical school. But things I am using for work usually stay in the rehab.
I need to buy Adobe Acrobat for work. What should I do?

IT of the rehab says: NO, you cannot use money from the medical school to buy software and install in a computer of the rehab.
IT of the medical school says: NO, you cannot use money from the medical school to buy software and install in your personal laptop.

"Cannot" = not allowed

All the IT can do is lawfully not install software for my work but not to help solving the problem. It's not a computer problem! It's a human problem!!
What's in their heads? Messed-up wires?

I am not installing Adobe for leisure. It's for business, serious business.
An advice comes from the medical school. It says: "You have to justify why you are going to use your funding to buy software and install in your personal computer. I mean, the justification is like kidney transplant. I don't see why you really want to go through it." The advice is very convincing that I should not try to tell the IT about the whole thing. Justification is not allowed.

IT of the rehab comes to my desk and asks me to ask questions by filing tickets even though the IT department is simply 10 steps away from me. Well, he should have talked to me by e-ticketing too!
Oh, he adds: "Don't check email." He means gmail. They block gmail and any other free web mail to protect the company and also ignore my right of using the best email system in the world.
I am not shy to say that I love gmail. Sue me, IT!
And I like firefox. You are stupid that you cannot figure out how to safely and conveniently let the whole company to use firefox.

If my brain could be directly connected to the network, I would generate viruses to loosen up IT's computer, which basically is their real brain.
But the thought of connecting with their brain yucks me.
No. No way.
You IT stay in your boring heaven. I will keep tangoing away from you. I refuse to have connection with you.

As to Adobe Acrobat, fine, I figure a way to do it.
Because it's a human problem, a human solution will work: don't fix it but go around it.
They keep playing their policy card straight. I will keep dancing around and try to have fun.

If it's a computer problem, my experience tells me: IT in my company does not know how to fix such a problem. So actually I am lucky that I am not dealing with a computer problem.

love

Where is love?
It's in the airport.

I was totally sold as these lines starting the movie "Love Actually".
The stories of the movie were not surprising at all. Pieces make the whole surrounding the topic love, which is not a new style of romantic films.
The first of this kind that caught my eye is an HK film 新同居時代 (English title is "In Between"). Oh, it just so happened that my favorite actress Maggie Cheung was one of the leading roles. Wow, that was 1994. My memory of Chinese movies stops at the year of 2002. Can't blame me.
By the way, my all time favorite love film is still 甜蜜蜜 Tian mi mi. This 1996 movie made Maggie Cheung my favorite.

Back to love.
Last night, I saw "Dan in Real Life", which is surprisingly good!
Surprising point number 1: I was surprised by Juliette Binoche. I did not know it was her who played the female leading role. I went to see the movie simply because I saw Steve Carell's head lying on a stack of pancakes for the past whole month at every bus stop booth in Manhattan.

This is called obsession.
Once someone gets my attention in one film, I probably will see all the future films that he/she plays in. I had no idea what "Dan in Real Life" was about. I did not even see the trailer. I simply thought it could be good because of Steve Carell.
Obession example number 1: Maggie Cheung. After Tian mi mi, I saw films made with her acting.

Steve Carell got my attention in "Little Miss Sunshine". His performance in the TV show "Office" is also good but in a disturbing way so I stopped watching the show after the first DVD of the first season.
(Disturbingly good means an actor plays a disturbing character or plays in a disturbing story with a great great great performance that enhances the quality of the film or the show and also facilitates the purpose of the film. Usually, in this category, the purpose is to disturb the audience. If the purpose is successfully accomplished, I am disturbed and I will not see it again.
Disturbingly good movie example number 1: Boys Don't Cry)

Oh, right, "Dan in Real Life" discusses about love.
It's humorous and witty and laughable and touching and .... scrumptious :)
There was a weird moment when a young guy said "Love is not a feeling. It's an ability." and Steve Carell's character disagreed. The moment was weird because that was almostly exactly my definition when I was probably 10 years younger.
I believed 愛是動詞, literally translation: Love is a verb. That is, love is to make someone feel being loved. If that person does not feel it, there is no love.
The believe came from my desire of being loved.
I wanted to feel being loved by a certain person who told me he loved me but could not act as if he loved me.

Now, I don't agree with my old belief anymore.
People change because people meet people who change their perspectives toward things, even fundamental things such as belief of love.
I met another person who acted as if he loved me (i.e., made me feel being loved) even though he did not feel love.

So at that weird moment in the movie, I shook my head.
Love is a feeling. You don't need an ability to feel it. You just feel it.
You are confused?
Let's try again.
Love is a feeling, not an ability. You love because you feel it, not because you are able to make people feel being loved.
You cannot control the feeling emerging through your cells and surfacing on your skin. Every time you resist the emerging process, you get confused and question yourself about the feeling. The more you question about it, the more you get confused.

When I am confused, I frown.

Steve Carell is great at laughing at difficult moments and making those moments from a frowning me to a smiling me.
He made my night a good smiling one.
Recently I have smiled much much more. This is a sign for feeling happy.
Perhaps it is because the feeling of love is not reflected as a single easily assessable facial expression, it confuses people who actually feel it.

And I met Dan in real life :)
Dan, a white-haired and white-bearded man, who works in the movie theater.
He asked which movie we saw. I said Dan in Real Life. He said hi, I'm Dan. I shook hands with Dan. Cal, as usual, started the conversation. Dan started talking about movies coming soon, his grandchildren, and his neighborhood.
Cal always makes strangers the center of attention, and strangers will tell him anything. So amusing.
Somehow I enjoyed that moment. Dan the stranger and conversations. I felt warm.

I have started developing an ability to initiate or to continue a conversation with totally strangers met in non-social occasions.
My heart has been lightened.
I am ready to feel again.

why I cannot make food

Thanks for Vivien's sharing. I love Japanese food TV shows.
That looks like something green-tea... yummy.

thanks giving

It's getting cold.

The weather was getting into my bones the other day. The weather managed to enhance my mood of not feeling well. My legs were reacting in a way that eventually I had to call Mama for more Chinese medicine cream.

Empire Dance is history.
The day before Thanksgiving was the last day the dance floor crowded with tango dancers.
I danced til the end with a smile and a bit of sorrow. The first time I danced there was ... probably July, 5 months ago from now. My first Nocturne, Robin Thomas's milonga 10pm to 5am.
I took Robin's classes there.
I met great dancers there.
I met old and new friends there.
I observed people there.
I wish I could make a movie of the studio. It'd be in the color of red and in the texture of wood and full of classic tango music with pretty legs and caring embraces. It'd avoid those arrogant attitudes of Manhattan. It'd be sweaty with people saying "excellent!" and understandable Spanish. I'd be sitting in the leather coach with my laptop.

When goodbye is inevitable, you just have to smile at it and move on.

I moved on to the best turkey dinner ever in Judy's new home. Home, yes, it's called home physically and emotionally.
Note: if you want a good turkey dish, do not trust the so-called traditional American Thanksgiving dinner.
(Sorry, Jenny, I remember the first "real" American Thanksgiving dinner you invited me to, but the turkey was as dry as paper. I just cannot be a fan of it.)
Judy did a great job feeding eight people, meat eaters, vegetarians, and vegans. And the night was fantastic. The weather was kept well outside of the house whose doorman warned us not to step into the unenclosed air.

The day after Thanksgiving, the wind was killing my legs and cells in my other body parts in Newport.
I was thinking how to face an inevitable goodbye yet again and how to smile at it and move on.
I don't know how the story goes yet so I'm not going to say much about it.
But I know I had been anticipating a miserable face of mine and now I suddenly am content. Human emotion is mysterious. What are you saying? Prefrontal or amygdala? No, no one knows.

It's not the head.
It's the weather.
The sun has given temperature yesterday and today and probably tomorrow.
The sun may be going to live in me. Well.... I wish this wish can come true.

Many years ago, I was in the most happy stage of my life. Not because I was much younger then. It was because the sun was living in me and around me.
After the sun left, I was not sure whether I actually needed it for being happy and smiley.
And after several Thanksgivings, I am sure I do need it.
Especially one Thanksgiving, my wisdom tooth was removed, and I was alone, and I wished I was removed with the tooth. Black Friday shopping did not help much because my face was so swollen that nothing could make a smiley face from me.

What' wrong for admitting that you need something.
I need coffee. So? Got a problem?
I need tango. Yeah, I do.
I need the sun. The moon is beautiful but beauty is not enough for me to smile.

Alright, go back to the title of this post.
Thanks are given to Empire Dance where nice memory had formed for me.
Thanks are given to friends who have made food for me.
Thanks are given to the sun that always makes me smile.

man movies

超熱血的啦
Han would say so if he saw the movies.

Recently Russell Crowe played a traditionally considered bad guy in "3:10 to Yuma" and a traditionally considered good guy in "American Gangster".
These performances remind me of the time when I started to notice him as a good actor. No, not "Gladiator". It was "A Beautiful Mind" that caught my eye.

After a childhood of Hong Kong martial-art movies and Hollywood hero movies, it becomes harder and harder for me to enjoy new man movies.
It is, firstly, very silly to define a movie by its audience population or the major characters in the film. But it is what the silly Hollywood has done. For example, gay movies and woman movies and chick movies and child movies and animal movies.

So I say "3:10 to Yuma" and "American Gangster" are man movies. No important female role in both movies. They are based in a man-only world. Men kill men. Men chase after men. Men befriend with men. Women are simply objects for sex or care-giving to men's children.

As a woman, I am not offended. If that is what the story is about, it's fine with me. I was not offended either when seeing "Brokeback Mountain".
I cannot deny that those two new man movies are well made. I cannot deny that I enjoyed both movies although I was very hungry when watching them. Never watch a 7-ish movie without a late lunch.

When will I see a well-made and well-accepted movie with a great female gangster or a great female cowboy featured in Hollywood movies? No, I am not talking about porns.
Hong Kong has already done so, except that cowboys are not universal.

Interestingly, even in a woman movie, men are not often simply regarded as objects for sex or hardware-fixing.
Cannot think of one.
Perhaps in the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie, some male characters will be objects.

Now I want to hug a huge barrel of popcorn.
Have a good weekend, you all. See a movie with some objectified human characters. And you think about it. Thinking is powerful. Your mind needs some workout.

beautiful season again

My yard, well technically it's not "my" yard, is covered with golden leaves. This makes me happy.
My smile makes me even happier. I am happy that I can feel this pure kind of pleasure again. Feels like being reborn. Feels like the world actually does not abandon me.
And my smile makes another person smile, which is the best thing in the world.

The first time I found my smile could affect a person was when I sat down under a tree ten years old. It would've been perfect if that tree grew golden leaves. Season changing is the best thing in the Northern East of the States.

There is a tree at the heart of Penn State campus. That tree gives a golden blanket like the tree in my yard.
I liked to visit the tree everyday in the season of Fall for 5 years. It was just plain beautiful. It was just a smile maker.



For the past couple months, I have had conversation with this sunny boy, who often times gives wise comments. He is weird and calm. Totally. So I like him.
He reminds me of people I met when I was 19 and when I was 25. He is not mere a mixture of characters, but quite a character.
He is beautiful. And I like to stare at him. I want to stare at him before the season of him ends.
I am wondering if he disappears too, when does the season come again? Or ever again?
How long can I stare at him? Measuring by year or by month?

He questions me.
All the time.
Which makes me think.
When I think, he questions me more and makes me laugh and I think more and I feel happy and I think more.
The conclusion often is I think too much and should have stopped when started laughing.
This kind of thinking is quite healthy.
This kind of thinking is to give myself an illusion of being grounded instead of make myself a unhappy whiner.
Feeling grounded is awesome!

Suddenly I am afraid that I am not going to see him again. So I stare at him more. Perhaps therefore I think even more and too much more.
But the sad truth is the nature of my life is unstable, is ungrounded, which really upsets me.
All these years, seeing people come and go, in and out of my life, tires my soul and slows down the process of me getting excited about new things.
Somehow, new things won't stay long enough to be old.

What can I do?
When the beautiful season goes, just wait for it to come again.
May I just bravely make it stay?
But if it has to fade, I cannot do anything. I have to live in a place where I am sure the beautiful season will come again.

make you learn

conferences

Hey, I did attend to the conference ...

(see the badge?)

.....with humans .....

(finally, after graduation, I start my Taiwanese network)


and animals :)

(just click on it to see more and more pictures)

Wild Animal Park - Nov 6, 2007

art at this moment

It is not a museum although it claims it is.
It is called the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. It is even not as good as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.
Of course, neither can compare the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

However, I find myself enjoying the MCASD because of the building. The design of the museum, which is rather a spacey gallery in my opinion, captures the light.
And turns the sunlight into rainbows.

I stare at them on the floor, hesitating whether I am allowed to use a camera there.
And it occurs to me that the "museum" does not display or own the rainbows, the art at that exact moment.

San Diego is artificial.
It feels like a huge theme park. The "historical" part of it does not attracts me because of its undetectable age. It is nice and cute in a way that provides travelers food, drink, and window shopping memories.

Little Italy is not Italian for me. It is not full of loud people. It does not smell like coffee, wine, bread, or fish. It looks pretty and clean.
Old Town is not old for me. I pass by at least three times before I notice it is there because there is a sign saying "Old Town".
Downtown is where hundreds of thousands of conference goers play. Oh yeah, we play pretty hard. Almost impossible to get into the parties thrown by MIT, for example.

But I encounter arts from Tim Cantor.
If you like Cirque du Soleil as I do, you will like paintings of Tim Cantor.
I was supposed to go to the party of UCSD, but his charming art caught my eyes. I stopped and entered the gallery. I was amazed by how lights are represented by his artistic sense.

It is like after a show of Cirque du Soleil, I need to be alone or be in a quiet place to settle my thoughts and to move on with my thoughts with new inspired thinking.
My mind is suddenly overwhelmed. After a day of neuroscience, after a weird experience in a social event, and after Tim Cantor's artificial lights, I went back to the inn.

Some art is so transient as the rainbows on the floor of the museum.
Traces have to be consolidated to be remembered.
Or just sleep on it to release myself.

not just play hard

You will not believe how I worked last week. That was a new state of stress in my academia life, which is different from memorizing not-very-useful words for GRE, and different from the first year of graduate school, and different from preparing for the comprehensive exam, and different from writing the dissertation.
It was new. My body reacted in a pretty bad way, which produced even more stress.
Being a postdoc is tough. I have only been one for less than 4 months, and I have been questioning my goal of life for half of the time, which is the past 2 months.

At 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon, I dropped dead. I refused to do anything more to push for the Monday deadline and went for the farewell party for Andrea the IRB officer.
She's leaving us for going back to school. Yes, for getting a graduate degree. I was almost saying to her "Don't get a Ph.D." But I did not because she and I are not close enough. You do not discourage people from doing certain things unless you are close to them.

I fed myself with potato chips and cookies, and listened to Matt complaining about a stupid American kid who discouraged a China girl from applying for medical school.
Matt calls everyone kid. Matt also is American. He basically is a good-natured easy-to-get-angry-and-physically-aggressive kind of guy.
The stupid American kid, according Matt, was telling the China girl not to bother for medical school application because of her poor English. Matt was angry because this is America.
I am serious. That really was Matt's reason. This is a free country. You do not stop people from doing things they want to do as long as they work hard.

Yeah.... I figured I would not tell Andrea not to go for a Ph.D. right at that moment even if I was a close friend of hers. Matt would smash me or pronounce the perfect accent for F-kY-u! with a finger pointing me twice for emphasizing the F and Y. This is a free country. She should pursue her goal.

So I kept smiling and nodding and soon turned to Peggy.
Peggy is another postdoc who has been here for two years. She is finally another girl in my generation going with this name.
I told her my frustration with the project proposal. She has been very good at giving useful advice to all my requests.
She confirmed what I'd wanted to do for some hours and comforted me what I'd wanted to do is a right thing to do.

Therefore, I postponed the proposal for one more month.

And, more importantly, I left the office at 5pm.
It was pouring outside, wet and cold like a winter day in Taipei. But happiness came.

It started with singing in the rain. In the leaky subway too.
Cal and Jon did it.
Followed by accidentally tangoing in DC for 7 hours after 4 hours of happily singing driving with potato chips and cookies. Cal did the singing part mostly. I was simply being happy and eating.

Followed by a fabulous sunny day with my ritual imitation of human-form sculptures.
And it's Monday again. Inevitably.
Another week of hard work.
I'm gonna fly to San Diego for the zoo and milonga in 6 days :)
And for presenting a poster on "spatial bias induced by monocular patching" seriously.

so what?

It does not change anything of the plotlines in the book.

If you have liked it, and if you have not explicitly showed acknowledgement to homosexuality, are you going to dislike Harry Potter as a story or dislike Dumbledore as a character?

Does it matter?

I am actually glad that J.K. Rowling "revealed" this "fact" or the fact that she was writing with Dumbledore being gay in her mind.

I rather think she was sharing her writing process to her fans, not deliberately wanting to ruin their "perfect" image of the great master of the magic world.

If his sexuality played a role in the story development and was essential to certain decision making, his sexuality would have been revealed and printed.

It is like a stage performance or a movie, everything is meaningful if the audience can see it.

It is like a science report presentation, everything carries a point if it is put on the broad.

I went to see a off-broadway musical "Walmartopia".

I paid attention to actors who were not under the spotlight in a given scene. They were doing a great job. Even though at the moment they were supposed not to be noticed by audience, they were still on the stage and they were still in their characters. And audience like me who had some stage performance training way back when would appreciate their staying in their characters when they were "invisible" outside of the spotlight.

Nothing is meaningless in a story-telling presentation.

Nothing is meaningful if it is not presented.

So what?

He's gay. Simply a piece of demographic information that does not determine anything.

face on the book

Seriously, I am seriously thinking about the possibility of putting myself out there on the FaceBook.com
Sarah asked whether I am on it. She's gonna add me on her network.
I had thought about it, as you read on one post here back in February.

There again was a white hair appearing on my face. This time, it was on my forehead, instead of my cheek.
New moles have showed up rapidly and stayed up for the past two years. I never wanted to be a perfect doll face, but density of moles makes my face less baby-like.... meaning my face now is plainly fat instead of babyfat.
Even my poorly developed eye lashes have been multiplying themselves recently in a fashion that I can definitely see the difference.
Oh... and I have no idea what the hell at my age there is no stop to acne. I am old enough!!!
My body parts work independently of me. They have their wills at the timing and at the rate of growing.

New York Times on Sunday is huge. Four dollars for yellowpage-weighted book-like paper.
I love it and read it for hours. I have not finished it yet. I want what I have read to stay in my head longer before what I am going to read replace the memory trace.

The above random things now occupy me.
And I am thinking... perhaps I do want to join the great Web2.0 revolution to an even greater degree. Mumbling on my blog is one thing. Partying on Facebook is another. Do I want to party?

Do I want to subscribe Sunday New York Times?
Do I want to seriously start taking care of my aging skin?
My hands are not drinking water, which has been worrying me for months. It gets worse and worse since summer ended. Vaseline application plus gloves is a routine now.
My toes ask for the same treatment especially they have suffered every day and night in the cold office and crowed dancing shoes.
So I spent big, from my poor postdoc standard, money for my face last weekend. And I feel great about it.

Do I want to subscribe New York Times, Wired, or Economist?
The subscriber of Time finally found out that he/she had never received the magazine, and terminated the subscription. I knew it because the notice was again mailed to me.
I reckon (oh geez... I use this word! After reading 3 books of Happy Potter in 3 months) this is the question I cannot give a positive answer yet.

As to Facebook, if you are my reader here, and if you are on Facebook, and if you want to be in my network, perhaps you can email me or place a comment to this post. I will seriously consider your friendship and party with you.

morning choice

I'm drinking coffee and watching the Colbert Report.
Again he interviewed a person who has changed our life.
So I decided to change my Friday: Go to work late.
It is now 9:06am according to my computer.
And I am posting the interview here so that you can also watch it to delay some daily routine.

tango related

You gotta listen to this.
I was hitting my head, reading and thinking and analyzing data while listening to an online jazz radio. Nothing could really enter my thoughts except for this moment when the song was playing. Yes, you gotta listen to it and feel it, especially if you dance tango like I do or crazier than I do.
Gary Burton, this is the first tango musician's name that I remember because his Libertango electrified me in that headache-inducing morning.
Three days later, I was in Princeton Tango Festival, listening to tango music with my body and soul without distraction of work.

Staying up for tango is not news. Like staying up for singing in college life is basically the college life.
By staying up, I mean until sunrise. And I know you know what I mean.

But staying up drinking and having fun with people I just met less in 20 hours is news.
I love Europeans.
I do. I love their jokes and laughers and taste in wine.
My host during the Princeton Tango Fest is culturally European. Sarah and I clicked right at the moment we met. She was born in Lebanon, growing up in the States, and had lived in Paris for many years, and teaches Voice. She's an artist. Her mom too. Almost everything I saw in her spacey townhouse was made by her mom.
Nino is one of my European friend coming from Penn State. He'd given me cheese and coffee when coming back from Italy weeks ago. Good stuff. I don't mind taking care of his car again in my neighborhood.
Maud is Nino's Princeton host. She is full of energy. Small person with huge laughter. She came from a tiny country named Luxembourg. Normally I don't like British English. But her British English is a plus to her super cool personality.
Quentin is from another tiny European country, Liechtenstein. He took many pictures while we were laughing together. Hope I could get the pictures sooner and put them online to share with you people.
Robin stayed with Sarah too. Technically he's European too. Ireland is. But he had worked all day and had to work on the other day, so he did not stay up with us. For you who do not know, Robin is my tango teacher.

And, Zabeth, you'd be surprised that I drank wine for 4 hours.
It's not much. Five people finished three bottles of good wine.
I know the wine was good because my body did not react like I was poisoned. Believe me, I could've not drunk more than half a glass before. I would've been so sick if they were not good.
So I found my favorite wine! It's Italian.
Nino told me that name meant "review". The brand started with "z". I don't remember the exact name and brand now but I will remember it when seeing it in a wine store.

And I thought I could not dance after that fun night.
Well, I had the best practica ever. My body was in a perfect state.
Skills and the feelings of tango had all mixed in my blood. I felt like I was breathing out a sense of tango too.
I was so connected to my leaders who are good leaders. And the music too.
Alright, this is too tango-ishly geeky now. But you get my point.

My butts hurt. Meaning I danced in the right way.
My feet hurt. Of course.
But my heart is happy.

Oh, by the way, the coffee was good. Small World coffee really is good.
Tango, friends, and coffee. I will go to Princeton again. And again.



BTW, I wanna promote this website of the tango teachers Murat & Michelle.
Robin is still my favorite teacher. But I find Murat & Michelle great too. They are a lovely couple too, beautifully loving each other on the dance floor and in life.
Two people, one from Turkey and one from Hawaii, become one via tango.
Oh, no, I was not being romantic. Tango is not magic. When two people become a couple and stay together, tango can glue them together and can also tear them apart, like any other couple activities. I was just happy to watch them dance on the floor and interact in a class. They were and are one. Tango just an expression or extension of who they are as one couple.

lust & love

If you like Ang Lee 李安, please go see "Lust, Caution."
If you like Eileen Chiang 張愛玲, please go see "Lust, Caution."
If you like Tony Leung 梁朝偉, please go see "Lust, Caution."
If you like the era of chipao 旗袍, please go see "Lust, Caution."
If you've seen "Lust, Caution.", please read the interview of Ang Lee on CNN.

The tagline running in Taiwan for the film is "Lust is easy to reject. Love is hard to avoid." 色易守, 情難防
24 hours after seeing the film, I finally totally agree on the amount of sex pictured in the film. I had argued that the first two sex scenes were necessary but doubted the rest. Now I feel the rest was also necessary for the whole tension development in the story.

Lust, Caution is not as easily understandable, romantic, or agreeable as another film -- Red Rose and White Rose that was also adapted from one of Eileen Chang's novels.
(Joan Chen played a important role in both film, actually.) Chang was a superb writer in describing women's mental world. Red Rose and White Rose was one of the great examples.
On the other hand, Lust Caution has never been recognized well or accepted widely by Chang's fans. Perhaps it is because of the taboo of explicit expression of sex and desire in women. Perhaps it is actually because tension within a highly secret relationship, rather than women in a secret relationship, is highly focused in the story.

Lust and love can be separated, of course. Practically it may not be the case for everyone. But it happens. And quite often. People do have sex without a passion called love. Some people are lucky (or unlucky?) that they make love out of sex.
That's why sex is risky. You can never be sure whether it will change something in you or whether that change is good for your current status.
And they, the two people in the film, eventually could not help but fall deeply and painfully in love.
I felt pain when seeing Mr. Yee's face or great actor Tony Leung's acting at the end.
It reminded me of the last appearance of Maggie Cheung 張曼玉 in In the Mood for Love 花樣年華. So heartbreaking. So so so heartbreakingly painful.

I have to say, Lust Caution is a disturbingly great film. Because it successfully disturbed me, it is great.

follow the breath

Beautiful, right?
I am not able to do it yet. It's the king pigeon pose. My basic pigeon pose is still not perfect yet, especially when trying it on the left side. My left hip somehow is tighter.
Don't know who this beauty is. I saw her on the latest Time issue. The article is titled When Yoga Hurts. Good points in the article.
If you are trying to be a yogi, you have to practice daily. Don't be a weekend warrior.
If the goal is to look like Madonna, you're better off running or spinning.

Weekend warrior. I like this term, but I am not a weekend warrior.
It's a shame that I do not go to a studio every day.
Anusara teachers in South Orange are all very nice. I like all their voices. I like the classroom too. I like Jenny's music that she plays before a class begins. I like Emma's strong confident teaching personality. I like Joe's gay quality. It's just my laziness. I go once or twice now.
Bikram is a weekly thing when I go to Manhattan.
But I am not a weekend warrior, which I have to defend my practice now and when reading that Time article.
My avocado-colored mat is always on the floor. I stretch before breakfast and after work. I do warriors I, II, and III everyday.
My goal is not being upside down, so I am perfectly fine with not practicing hand or head stands.
My goal is to feel good about my body. I reach the goal everyday.

So I do not understand why people hurt themselves in yoga practices.
It's a very personal thing even when doing it in public.
It's not about looking pretty, either.
Some women keep their jewelry or makeup on. Perhaps they have very low self-esteem and need those external materials to boost their spirits even in a yoga class.

But I have to confess. I do not subscribe Time, but it comes every week for 5 weeks now. The subscriber's name is not my name, but has the same family name as I have. And the address is my address. That's why the post officer put it in my mailbox.
Should I call Time and ask about it?
Nah.
I thought about it several times. But no.
I am not wasting it. I read it cover to cover every weekend. The fact that I do not pay for it does not make me down. Whoever the subscriber is, I thank you.
And it should be that person's responsibility to call Time.
I breathe in and out and feel not guilty.



Oh, by the way, it's New York Tango Festival.
Dance with me. Lead me with your breath.
Let's do partner yoga on the dance floor.
Oh, I love it when the leader leads with breath.

her blog is better than my blog

It is Confucius's Day today, which is just a coincidence. People who know me, the real me, know that I am not a big fan of Confucius, even though I was able to memorize all his words for exams (of course I forgot them all together at the moment handing out my tests).

But the date is relevant to the topic.
Rose started appearing in my photo albums three years ago. Yes, it was Sep 28, 2004. Amazing how time flies, right? I did not know it was exactly three years ago until three minutes ago I had found her first image on my hard drive.

The reason why I wanted to find her image because I wanted to promote her blog. She was the sweetest girl in the coolest sense among Americans. She is the reason why I do not dislike all Americans. I say to friends "See? Rose is a great example that there are cool Americans. There is still hope for the country."

Her debut in my albums was of course not ordinary. See it?

Yes, she was the only one who was looking at the camera. She was so supportive that she even passed the blocker Nina in order to show her smart blue head.
I have to smile. I have liked her at the moment I saw her when she was just visiting PennState before becoming a grad student, because blue is her favorite color. Because blue is my favorite color too :)

Just recently, I was personally informed that she was a blogger too. I always like her writings, the David Sedaris type of humor plus Rose's semi-cynical accent. You can find the link on the right column. If you can't (because you're lazy or you don't know where to look), click here.

Another reason that I want to promote her blog is that it makes me happy. Call me selfish.
I like smiles. Rose's smile makes me smile. Her blog is better than my blog, which is literally said when you click the link.

You don't know how her smile makes me smile? Here's an example.

Mairead and Kieran, since then, call her Tigger.

(Oh, btw, that was a VIP Lab party for Zabeth's departure. Zabeth was a visiting grad student for the summer. Now all of them, Toby, Cathleen, Mairead, Kieran, Rose, Teresa, and Zabeth are in Iowa. The VIP Lab was no longer existing. But they are still and will always be VIP for me.)

looooony 嚕嚕嚕

月亮節過了,但是月亮一直都會在
小時候的時候,以為月亮會跟我回家,坐在車上向窗外一直看著她
現在,月亮在我家
都肥肥圓圓笑臉迎人

小月是幾米的作品
跟著我從台北一路飛來美國,搬了幾次家,還是笑得很燦爛

餃子頭是多明尼加的月神小像
當地早已經沒有土著了,不過還是靠土著的崇拜物生財
我在紀念品店挑了好久才決定要她的,其他的 luna 沒有她可愛

中秋啊,對我來說不是鄉愁,是傷感
那天剛好又染上傷感的病毒
連了好幾天昏昏沉沉
不過臉還是肥
笑容還是在
所以日子繼續過啊
讓大家擔心了,胚沒事啦

不再見

就在現在這個時候，一場告別式正在進行，我們機構的總裁在五月過世了，所謂的告別式籌備委員會終於喬出一個大家似乎都有空的時間，而所謂的大家包括總裁先生的老友、同事、學生和家人，大概有幾百人之多吧。

不包括我。
我見過他一次而已，那天我來面試，他是唯一一個讓我覺得不太想雇用我的人，他拿著我的履歷咄咄逼人的說：你的投稿都還沒有刊出過。還一邊說一邊搖頭。
不過我沒有不喜歡他，因為以他的地位和角色，給我下馬威是他的工作，他的職務就是要確保我們機構的研究水準和成績，成績就是以刊出多少論文來定論的。
總之，我覺得他跟我說再見的時候不很誠懇。

結果就真的沒再見了。
聽說是心臟手術後的併發症。

不想去他的告別式當然是因為我跟他一點都不熟，不是因為我覺得他不想再見我。

另外一個原因是我有一種快要陣亡的感覺，好像哈利波特故事裡的 dememtor 來親了我一下，快樂全然消失，覺得沒有能力再有單純愉悅的微笑，一切都失去溫度，我在大太陽底下穿著皮衣卻還在發抖，難過生氣失望絕望全都一起來。
因為他又犯了錯，這回是莫大的錯。

不再見，我說不出口，氣我自己說不出口，為什麼我對他依然有憐憫的心呢？
因為我的臉上有他的影子。
誰可以救他？誰可以讓他看清他自己然後覺醒呢？
好久以前，當我下定了不再主動跟他聯絡的決心時，我很樂觀的相信著「佛渡有緣人，無緣人自有人渡」，而我肯定不是他的有緣人，但是我希望他會好起來，他的心會好起來。
現在我發現是他不讓渡啊！
行不正，心不直，又不自量力，這樣子的努力不會有好結果，努力的過程中也很難遇到貴人來渡。

再見不再見呢？
我一直在等他的表現，結果等到這樣的結果。

頭痛喉啞眼乾，沒辦法裝出「節哀順變」的告別式微笑，連昨晚的探戈也讓我快樂不起來。

american flags

This is horrible.
Yeah... the more flags the more you are likable. The more flags the less likely you are going to be attacked by anti-American people. Yeah, you keep believing it. I wish there actually is a God trying to help those embarrassing Americans.

PDA creater's theory on the brain

I like his enthusiasm and the topic of the talk.
I like the way he points out how little we know about the brain in terms of how it works.
Neuroscientists have to work with psychologists, please.
One day I dinnered with a friend's friend who happens to be a wet neuroscientist ("wet" means that he wears a lab coat for protection from wet things coming out of his experimental subjects such as mice or a mice's cells.) (I many times wear a lab coat because the AC is so strong that I cannot type) That neuroscientist insisted that eventually we would understand how the brain works when we know every detail to the molecular level of the brain. I simply shook my head and smiled.

This good TED talk (all TED talks are good, but I pick my favorites to be posted here) proposes a theory or a framework for how we can understand the brain better. I do not agree with him on his theory that intelligence is defined by prediction. Intelligence is defined by much more processes and outcomes, mentally and neurologically, besides prediction.
You can condition a pigeon so that it can predict if it is going to be fed when seeing a light.
Intelligence is defined by .... It depends.
How connected brain regions are may be the key. Which may result in how one connects events around her. Which may result in intelligent behaviors such as wise decision, creative action, and socially favored sentences.
This is my theory today. Tomorrow if I learn more, my theory may change, theoretically.

vogonism

After only 5 hours of sleep (for tango and other stuff worth my time), I ran 4 subjects. Ok, for people who have no idea what I mean, a "subject" refers to a human participant in my study. When writing journal articles now, we are encouraged to use "participants" instead of "subjects" because "participants" sounds more human-like and more respectful. However, in lab or in this jargon-filled research field, we researchers still call participants subjects when talking to each other.

Alright, I sat in the room, running 4 subjects from 10 am to 3 pm. I did my best to keep my eyes open without help from coffee. Well, it's Friday, meaning I want to sleep well and long tonight, suggesting coffee should be avoided.
Anyway, finally I finished today's duty of running experiments.

Millie the lab secretary came to me, telling me I should have booked the room before I ran experiments. She was nice and helpful. She taught me how to book the room.
I know it's necessary since our lab does not own the room. This kind of bureaucracy is very mild.

And then I started making copies of all the consent forms.
Yes, formS.
When I was in Penn State, there was only one consent form with 2 pages max.
Now my subjects have to sign 6 to 8 forms and fill out questionnaires, taking 10 to 20 minutes before actually doing the experiment. And I have to photocopy everything for them.
I have taken it as well as I could. No complaint. At least not this moment.

I was sitting in the room doing 3-holing and filing. Kristen came to show me how to send checks to subjects who had participated in the study.
I thought it was as easy as enveloping the check and mailing it.
No, in stead I wrote down 8 steps for the whole procedure. My head was aching. I missed my bed.

Many photocopies have been made since I started my job. Each copy of the same information goes to different departments for almost the same purpose. The same evidence has been scattered to the entire research center and beyond for the purpose of "protecting" participants and ourselves.
If A is not done, B cannot be done. If B is not done, C will come to yell at you, and no one will notify you which step has gone undone.

I had advertised my study through email and many listservers and by posting flyers.
Now I cannot do that. Everything has to be proved before hand. As if I was going to inject illegal drugs to subjects. As if I was going to wash subjects' brains with my boring visuo-spatial tasks. As if I was going to lure more people with thirty dollars.
Yeah, 30 bucks sound good for an hour of participating in simple behavioral experiments. Back in Penn State, we only pay at most 12 per hour for time-consuming psychophysiological experiments. However, if you paid me 30 bucks to drive away from my home or work, I would have rejected you.
Campus is always the best place to get healthy participants. But I am not on campus now.
So my point is why the IRB restricts me so much now!

Paperworks slow down progress.

Yet another real example happened these past two days.
I wanted to go on the website of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but found it blocked.
I was like WHAT? WHY? It is a government website!
Immediately I emailed the good geek IT person (not Mr. M) and complained. Mr. B told me to send an evaluation of the website so that the IT consultant company could unblock it.
How could I evaluate it without seeing it? So I wrote on the evaluation page that CDC.gov is a government website with information for the public and I have no idea why you think the website is not appropriate for people who work in medical research institutes to have access to it.
Well, actually I did not write the words after "and" in the last sentence. I was being nice.
After one day, it was unblocked.
After precious 24 hours, it was unblocked and I had forgotten why I wanted to go there in the first place.

Vogonism!

Yes, I invent this word from the vogons in the movie "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". Vogons do not do anything without paperworks.

I spent one hour doing paperworks after running experiments today. Unbelievable.
I could have read a paper, written a paper, or gone back to my bed for that hour.

Ugly fat vogon!

cute butts

This is the first time I acknowledge this model is cute. Or it is cute because it is parked right there with the contrary color to my bug.
Normally I call it the ugly car. Yes, scion xb is ugly.
It is like a TV set running around. How cute a TV set can be? Never as cute as a beetle!

I call it ugly in a proud way every time I see one of this kind on the street. I never miss the chance to call it the ugly car because it is ugly. Even when I am not able to say it out loud, I say it in my head.

Or sometimes I rephrase it as "the uglily cute car" for Jason.
Jason had one ugly car. I have written something about it in my old blog.
When he had the ugly car, I was using a nickname "xb". He thought I knew the model of his car. It was just a coincidence.
Jason only owned the car for a little while because he moved to China.
And I was never called xb by the person who had nicknamed me.

xb did not last for long.

Well, it sounds kinda sad now.
But when I took this picture I was smiling and simply enjoy the scene of these two cute butts. They were so innocently located there. Nothing was upsetting. They did not have emotions, either. They were alive only because of my smile of acknowledgment. I was only a bit sad when linking the past to the present view. Everything was in my head.

Being sad or happy or purely enjoying this visual input onto my retina is just an option.
I decide what I feel. (Cognitive psychologists rule over affective psychologists)

Do I?
No, of course not, and luckily I cannot decide what I feel. So all my smiles and tears are genuine.
(Of course, cognitive psychologists and affective psychologists are both equally interested in how mind works. And I have to say that affects many times rule over cognition. Humans are more emotional than intellectual.)
I cannot help but smile almost everytime when seeing my bug's smile. Can't fake that. Can't hide that.

This is how I know I truly like something or someone.
Yup, something or someone with a cute butt.

mashimaro

Someone (I know this someone is reading this) has said I look like Mashimaro. One day, pei will be beautiful as a grown-up. Wait and see!

I was searching this video for a friend, and realized how far away the mashimaro era has been.
My first mashimaro stuffed toy was given by Lyndsey. See? Even you cannot believe it, right? I had mentioned it to her before my first Psychonomics meeting, which was in Vancouver, where Asians are everywhere in town. We went to the meeting together. She bought the little toy without telling me until my birthday. I was very moved.

In two months, I was in Taipei for the New Year. I had my first shooting game in a night market. (Yeah, I know. Normal Taiwanese have played this game since they were 10. My childhood was difficult.) I was very good at shooting! I got the target 10 out of 10. So I won a prize. I picked a mashimaro.

It is like why I like Garfield. These characters are so honest. They do not hide their dark sides for being popular in the society. Isn't it ideal? You being you and I being me and we are all happy without offending anybody. No. The happy part actually is offending somebody as shown in the animations. The ideal part is that people who are offended are able to take nothing personally and be forgiving.

Too ideal to be true. So enjoying the animations is good enough. In the real world, I shall be nice most of the time.

Ang Lee and Eileen Chang

American media have not given it a good publicity.
Good that I can read news from Taiwanese news sites.
I found Reuters gave it a nice report

I believe Ang Lee is not going to disappoint Eileen Chang if she's been alive.
Ang Lee did a great job on the originally short story of Brokeback Mountain. This time is an originally short story again, from my favorite writer. I am actually nervously looking forward to how he is going to make it on the big screen.

Sex scenes have been highly emphasized in all the media who cover his new work. But I've seen all his movies. Sex may be more important in this new film than others, but the subject matter should be beyond sex. The intriguing question may be: What does sex do to people who participate in it?
The answer is in the title: Lust, Caution.

I like it that he always names the English title literally equal to the original Chinese title if the film is Chinese-speaking.
(For example, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Eat Drink Man Woman", and "Pushing Hands")

Even though the US rates it NC-17, only Taiwan will play it without trimming it.
Sex is a weird subject in the States. I just learned that many Americans of my generation did not have formal sex education when they were in grade school.

Is it a rebound? I just saw Factory Girl. Americans in the 60's were very wild. Now they "believe" in abstinence-only sex education because sex is not "safe" if you do it before getting married. This belief is so not educational.
They are so afraid of not being safe and dying of sexually transmitted diseases.
Also previously people smoked like crazy. Now ads make smoking like the worse sin.Or if you smoke to death, you'll definitely go to hell. Or if you sell cigarettes, you are the enemy of the human kind.

If they want to live long and healthy, they should simply change their diet and lose a loooot of weight. Take a look at this chart on Heart Disease and Stroke.
Americans really should lose weight, and ... enjoy sex with informative disease-preventing education, and also watch good non-English-speaking movies.

in print

Dear Mama, your dear girl is kind of carried away at this moment.
Call me when you see this post. If I am busy tangoing, leave a message and say you're proud of me.

Two weeks ago, I got a package from Penn State. I was like "what do they want from me?"
Well, this reaction was because a greater number of weeks ago, Penn State had sent me a survey, which took me good 15 minutes to complete. Yeah, I was being nice and thought I should be nice because I was a Penn Stater, right? After 5 minutes, I just wanted to finish the survey and hated the idea of quitting it because I had started it for 5 minutes.

I opened the package that arrived two weeks ago while Zabeth was visiting me.
There was an issue of Visual Cognition, the journal that I did not subscribe. I do not subscribe anything by mail.
And almost immediately I saw my name on the back cover!

Thankfully Zabeth was with me so I had someone who could totally understood it and hugged me :)
Hey, Zabeth, I love you.

And I sent Mama, Toby, and Dr. Anna of the Visual Cognition link that showed my name. And Toby's name too.

Three weeks ago, as usual, I tangoed in the central park. I was unusually early.
I sat down and changed my shoes. A woman sitting besides me started talking to me. She, who was like all other tourists who had asked me the same questions on the same bench, told me her husband was an NY Times journalist and interviewing people right now.
She led me to meet her husband. The journalist jotted down my words for two pieces of paper. His speed of taking notes was impressive.

Today, Bryan, who is happily tangoing with Sophie in Germany now, forwarded me an NY Times link.
Before I even clicked the link, Alexa chatted me that NY Times quoted me.

So Dear Mama, click here to see your dear girl's name again.

rose, umbrella, and fear

Here was my mentor, Dr. Anna, chatting with a patient.
I, standing in a nonthreatening distance, observed everything.

Actually I do not have the eye to observe everything yet.

Dr. Anna attended to each patient with great patience. It felt like that she became another person.
Looking at the patient, she was nodding and speaking slowly and smiling a lot.
Suddenly turning to me, she was commenting on the syndrome with her usual my so-called Toby-like speaking -- extremely fast, sharp, precise, with much more information than any listener is able to digest.

After four hours and four patients, I was totally wiped out. Even my stomach was too tired to cry hunger.

Each patient was unique of course. Dr. Anna had had to give up doing case studies in order to concentrate on the big picture of research on disorders.
However, there was one thing shared by all the patients we saw today. None of them could recall, after about a 10-minute delay, all of the 3 words.
When Dr. Anna asked whether they remembered the words, I repeated them in my head.
Somehow, I deeply wished them to pass this test. I was like "Come on, you can do it."

None of them could substrate 7 from 100 correctly, either. But math is always a different case. People in this culture somehow have very low self-esteem on math problems. Although this problem was as simple as 100 minus 7, they did not try to do it.
They did not have the motivation to pass a math test.
They did, however, often succeeded to tell Dr. Anna how much change would be correct when buying a 63-cent with a dollar bill.

But they did have desire to pass the word memory test. None of them passed.
The side-effect is that those words are now imprinted in my whatever cortical area.

In order to get rid of something, I write about it.
Bad idea this time.
I tried playing them into sensible and non-sensible sentences, which just made them more rooted in my head.
When my time comes, I will say the words even before the doctor asks me to remember them.

One of the patients was a holocaust surviver with a series of number marked on his arm.
Dr. Anna asked him what she could do to help him today. His answer was "the number".
If the number was so deep in his memory, no other life-irrelevant, unrelated, isolated words could occupy him.

I cannot do case studies either. Individuals are painfully fascinating.