brilliant

South Orange is an old village.
The Town Hall is titled "South Orange Village Hall", written on an old entrance of an old cute movie-setting-like building.

When driving, one can feel the oldness of the town: roads are going different curving directions. That means I got lost many times. It could be as horrible as driving in downtown Boston.

It was raining when I arrived. The supervisor of my near-near-future apartment suggested me to walk around in "the village", naming downtown, which is the area including the town hall and the train station.
I walked in. I was suddenly placed into a romantic aura. The buildings were in earth tone. No neon commercialized billboards. Trees here and there. People looked friendly and casual.

My stomach asked for food. My eyes found a movie theater, first.
Turning to the other side of the train station, I found a bakery right beside Starbucks.
Great! I know where to get my coffee and good pastry. This bakery looks like sincerely producing good pastry.


I walked in. Music was playing in the background.
"My life is brilliant." James Blunt's voice filled the space. It is the first song "You're Beautiful" in his album.
I looked into the display. They had various sweets. The non-sweet pastry was on paper boards, which required my imagination to convince me which one I wanted. I picked tomato mushroom mozzarella quiche.
This choice took me about 5 minutes, during which James Blunt started singing his next song in the album. This indicated that it was not radio playing in the background. It was Blunt's album.

Oh no. I shook my head in my head. I told myself:
Calm down. You gotta to be out of this store before "Goodbye My Lover."

I was not calm. Even the thinking of avoiding "Goodbye My Lover" when waiting for the cashier, my eyes were wet.
But I had told the cashier that I was eating here, meaning I had to eat fast.

At the time I sat myself down, music stopped.
Voice of chatting, ordering, and... wait a moment... the rain stopped too, I looked out the window.
It was like someone sensed my anxiety and poured silence and calmness into the space.

I enjoyed my lunch.


I am gonna miss State College, the little town in Happy Valley.
I am gonna like South Orange, the cozy town in a timeless village.

Even though most of my State College friends are moving away (Marc, Zabeth, Rose, Yang, Bryan, Andrei, Florian, Cheng, Mohamed, etc.) and State College will not be the same in two months, the memory of it remains dear to me. I will miss my time being a graduate student, learning yoga, salsa, and tango, partying with Europeans and anthropologists, and transforming from a strong old soul to a childlike young spirit -- everything is possible.
I am excited to say goodbye.
Tears will tell a mixed feeling.

Today I discovered what I can do in South Orange:
There was a Cold Stone! There was a Japanese restaurant! There was a brewery (oh, I'll miss Marc & Zabeth a lot). There was a salon. There was an outdoor pool and picnicking park.
The train could take me into Manhattan in 30 minutes.

"My life is brilliant. " Blunt's voice singing in my head.

地球生病日

春天終於來了, 趕在今天的藍白大賽前, 春天的太陽春天的暖風和春天的花栗鼠.

適合練習走繩索的好天氣

停車場停滿車, 草地上都是人, 空氣裡瀰漫著大學生的興奮叫囂, 我已經過了看美式足球的歲月.

今天四月二十二是地球日, 胚胚很傷感.

六天前, 33人死於非戰區的美國校園.
八年前, 當趙承熙還是高中生的時候, 12人死於高中校園.
昨天, State College 市立高中停課, 因為在學校裡發現一封恐嚇信.

地球的氣候在詭變
人心也在詭變

酒吧又開始在戶外開桌, 大學生又開始在晚餐前喝醉, 拔掉滅音器的車又開始在街上奔馳.
賣舊書的咖啡店裡展示著當地藝術家針對環保議題的創作, 路人的 T-shirts 上除了 Penn State 字樣外, 還可以看到 Virgina Tech 或是 "Penn State, We remember 04. 16. 07"
我只想閉上眼睛.

沒想到我早已經到了憂國憂民憂世界的年紀, 這禮拜卻強烈的想要表達, 在 Helium 上寫了幾篇文章. 人心, 壞了社會環境也壞了自然環境.

看著在街上 party 的大學生們, 和跟計程車司機互罵的男生, 和差點連續被兩輛車撞上的女生, 和在兄弟會前大鳴喇叭的車底螢光跑車, 我懷疑這一切所謂的教育都是浪費.

如果你是念教育的, 你的理想是什麼, 如今理想還在嗎? 還是嘴巴上說說而已?
如果你跟我一樣想著到底我們可以為社會為地球為自己為下一代做什麼, 你會跟我一樣開始在網路上宣導, 開始跟身邊的朋友討論你的憂心嗎?

(picture from www.vanityfair.com)

我要開始發表宣言, 希望你我在承認和自許之間, 漸漸的為這一切找到答案

我沒有槍
我不打算擁有槍
我反對槍支可以合法買賣

我回收可利用資源
我使用省電燈泡
我隨手關燈
我的車用油量低於美國平均
我的下一部車要是使用有機燃料的車

我儘可能的購買有機食品
我不吃連鎖速食店的食物

我不以膚色取人
我支持非異性戀者享有異性戀者的權利
我支持女性有選擇的權利

我尊重宗教
我不聽從任何宗教的教規

我要試著關心週遭的人
獨行俠的心只會越來越窄, 當大錯發生時, 覆水已難收


政客在玩弄的議題都是生活裡人與人之間相處的元素, 政客太遠了, 不如我自己開始做, 不如我試著勸你開始做.
這不是行善, 這是做對的事.
希望一年後的今天, 我會開心一點, 地球上的所有生命都開心一點.

the bread

As mentioned in my last post, I baked a bread.

The recipe came from http://www.thimble.ca/?p=132, and I modified a little.
Here are what I put in the mixing bowl:

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 maple syrup
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 ripe bananas
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp allspice
3 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
some walnuts

mixed raw material


60 min later

This particular recipe is different than many others that I have tried. The difference is that this one requires both baking powder and baking soda but no eggs. Marc suggests that the amount of baking powder here is too much and gives the bread some bitter after-taste.

It turns out the 3 table spoons of grated ginger are not enough to bring out the ginger flavor. (According to the original recipe, 1 to 2 Tbsp would do)

So I am going to bake another one with more ginger and no baking soda and less baking powder and two eggs.

The bread itself, regardless of the above evaluation, is good. We almost finished it.
It is great by itself, or dipping into hot woo-long, or dipping into iced soy milk.

projects to kill time

As you may have known, I had been bored since my PhD defense until several new projects started in my new life routine.

1. Tango at least 3 days a week. This is why mama has difficulty reaching me these day. During her morning, I am always dancing and not hearing my phone ring. During my morning (meaning 10 am to noon), mama is not awake.

2. A follow-up line of research after my dissertation project. This is why I force myself to show up in school by 9:30am. Again, I found something interesting. Hopefully this will become a successful project and paper writing with Zabeth.

3. Movie catching up. I am seeing at least one movie every week, which was a standard before I started doing my dissertation 1.5 year ago. DVDs or film fests are usually better choices than what is in theaters now. What I really wanna see in a theater is almost always not playing in State College.

4. Writing a lot on various subjects excluding visual attention. You can find a link on the right side of this post. It is titled "pei's other writings". I write at Helium. It is quite fun for me. I write one to five articles a day there.

5. Reading newspaper. It is an old interest of mine. When I was in Taipei, I loved to sit all day long with three different papers, reading page by page. Magazines are good too, but my favorites are issued monthly, meaning that they cannot fill my daily reading needs. Therefore, finally I take advantage of Penn State's reader-ship: free New York Times, USA Today, and Central Daily Time.

6. Baking. I do not cook, as you know and as I promote myself. But I like baking. My most proud baking products are banana bread and chocolate muffins. I just found a blog post on banana bread with ginger ( http://www.thimble.ca/?p=132 ). I am gonna make it on Wednesday. Stay tuned.

7. Doing laundry. I am not obsessed with laundry. It is hard labor. But I have to do it.

german-ish movie thoughts

It has been more and more difficult to find my kind of movies as I am aging.
Even though as I am aging, my kind of movies are changing, I expect that movie makers are creative and ahead of time so that there should always be someone who makes incredible arts on the big screen.

At the beginning, I liked 85% of the movies I saw. I saw at least 2 movies a week in that phase.
The next phase, I became picky. I decided whether to see a movie based on the actors who play in it. Although I did this screening before hand, the proportion of the movie I liked decreased.
The next phase, which is the present, I follow my instinct of how I feel when seeing a trailer or preview. If I like the trailer, I will pay attention to what a critic says in their first sentence of their criticism. If it gives me a good impression, I will see the movie.
Or I listen to friends' conversations . I know my taste is like someone and is not like someone else. If this someone else says he likes a certain movie, then I will not see the movie. Simple as that. Usually it works very well.

Recently, I want to develop the ability to memorize the names of the directors of movies that I like very much. I have this skill when it comes to Chinese-speaking movies. But I watch way more English-speaking movies than Chinese ones, I should have started memorizing names way back at the age of 12.
In particular, many young directors have made me fall in love with movies in a whole new different level.

Let me list 5 of my favorites. These are movies I saw after I left Taipei. I put them in a random order.
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind --- by Michel Gondry
2. Thank You for Smoking --- by Jason Reitman
3. Little Miss Sunshine --- by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
4. Before Sunset --- by Richard Linklater
5. Something's Gotta Give --- by Nancy Meyers

Brokeback Mountain is not on the list, not because it is not one of my favorite, but because I know Lee Ang's work very well already. His name is easy to remember too because he is a Taiwanese Chinese-speaking film maker.

Today I am gonna remember another name, Marc Forster.
Actually "Stranger than Fiction" is not the first movie I saw from him. I saw "Finding Neverland" but was not so impressed.

"Stranger than Fiction" is a piece of Modern Art. It is like an afternoon walk in MoMA. If you know me, you know how much I love MoMA. (I also like the floors of MoMA. Tango on it makes me romantic.)
The story is novel.
The acting is just perfect.
The music is just right.
The visual effect is a bonus, not distracting at all.
I had expected seeing a light just-seeing movie. It turned out that this piece was so tasteful and I hated to turn off the TV. Visually, auditorially, and mentally, it was a great treat for a cold pre-spring Saturday.

Of course, I watched the special features too. They called it "extra" in the DVD.
Then I saw the image of the director.
He is a nice-, smart-, attractive-looking guy. He gives me a message that I will like his work. Period. His appearance is sincerely telling people that he knows what he is doing and that people trust him.
Of course, I imdb it and rated it. On imdb, I learned that Marc Forster is German with New York English accent.

I like Germans, I have found.
German men are handsome in nature. They also know how to present themselves in a not too gentleman and lightly humorous, witty way.
I like to see, or rather, observe them. How they talk, walk, shake hands, use hand gesture in talking, dress themselves, and attend to a conversation are so my type.
Most Germans I know are blond with blue eyes. But this does not mean that I like blond hair and blue eyes. It is what those eyes give forth that is attractive. They listen to you with eyes. They speak with their body figures. They nod with a sincere smile.

Well.. I lost my train of thoughts on movies.

tango or not

On Easter Sunday, I was sitting in this Attcus place, where my housing-host Emily had recommended.

This was my first time having brunch at a diner bar that was in a bookstore. By a diner bar, I mean that you can see how food is processed and how dishes are cleaned in front of you. Your order is taken from a person behind or inside the bar. Forgive me if I am not using a correct American term to describe it. I am too lazy now to check it on Answers.com

Anyway, I was sitting there, having my sunflower-seed croissant and coffee, and enjoying my memory of last night's milonga. This Yale Tango Festival was so good not just because of the good teachers but, most importantly, because of the good dancers coming from New York, Montreal, Boston, D.C., Philly, and many other places, and local Yale people.

By exchanging dancing experiences, usually agreement will come easily as to who is great to dance with, who is difficult to build the connection, who is impossible to practice with, and who is admirable for his willingness to learn. Yang and I, after the festival, exchanged great dancing experience after three nights of milonga. We agreed with each other mostly. I am going to eye the eyes of the good dancers, whom I did not dance with but Yang did, in my next milonga in New York or Princeton Univ.

When my sweater was absorbing the smell of the diner, some names came to my mind. Names that are after people who are not nice to dance with. I wish I could tell them why I do not like to dance with them. I wish they were in Nick and Tara's classes. I wish they were rejected by Jennifer or Tova when asking for a dance. I wish they could feel what a clear, natural lead is like from Robin or Tomas. I wish they could understand their bad habits are not going to make me to do beautiful, comfortable Sacadas. As my thoughts went, I felt upset for my inability to encourage all Penn State dancers to come out to be shocked by how great Tango should be. I may be considered an advanced dancer in State College, but I am actually an advanced beginner if anything.

I found a desire to write. An avocado-colored little notebook was convenient to find in Attcus. I was happy to eat alone in a bookstore.
I paused with my pen. I found no clue in terms of how to tell all my wishes to those people.

It is much easier to tell someone how much I like him/her than how I dislike him/her.
It is way way way harder to tell someone how much I dislike his/her skill in dancing. Because they take it personally. They would think I don't like to dance with them because I don't like them as a person. Actually I don't like them because they suck as a dancer.
This is getting worse when I have tried to say something in practica and they did not listen.
When my partner does not listen to me or takes my feelings as my mistake, I found it impossible to communicate with him. Hence, I shut up. Hence, I resist to dance with him in any occasions. Hence, I resist to befriend with him.

Things build up quickly, especially negative feelings.
If someone cannot make me tango with him on a dance floor, I somehow cannot tango with him out of the floor.
No connection at all.

Yeah, you wish I was a nicer person.

the pursuit of reasons

Oh, that ... actually those, not just one, are flags of Republic of China. The abbreviation is R.O.C., but it is known as Taiwan. I want to know where they played basketball in the film. Some top of a building in San Francisco.
That's a little distracting for me when seeing this greatly moving movie "The Pursuit of Happyness"

If you have not seen it, I recommend it, and thus, I will not tell you what is going on.
If you have not seen it, I recommend that you rent a DVD or buy a DVD to see it.
You'll like it more if you see all the special features.
I watch special features. I rarely like all special features. I do like all the special features of this movie on DVD.

It is based on a book, a book of a true story, a story of a man, a man who had to take care of his son and himself by himself.
You'd say "Big deal. A lot of women have raised their children by themselves. Their lives are not less difficult or less inspiring."
I'd respond "Sure. I respect those women too. But I was so touched because I have been told that most of the time it was the father who left. This time, the father insisted staying by his little boy. He kept his goal and worked hard and went through all those humiliating situations and still maintained his dignity and role as a respectful father. He cherished the role he's playing: a father."
I am glad to learn that Chris Gardner is a real person. He actually briefly appeared in a scene. Of course I did not know that until watching every second of the special features.

What else do I learn from the special features?
1. It is a movie directed by an Italian, whose name I do not remember. But I can imdb for you. His name is Gabriele Muccino. The producer and the actor of the movie, Will Smith, decided to invite him to direct the film after Will Smith saw two movies directed by Muccino.
2. Will Smith's son played his son in the movie because Muccino could not find the right actor during the week of audition.
3. The homeless were actually homeless. They were paid for appearing as who they were in the film.
4. And the pursuit of the world-record-holder of speedcubing!!!!!!
5. And the blindfold speedcubing!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(alright, i got too amazed by those geeks.)

The footage of the speedcubing makes me want to own the DVD.
I had one Rubik's cube in Taipei. I believe my parents bought it during the 80's. It was the time when the cube had created and become popular from Hungary to the whole world.
I did not play it like crazy. I gave it up easily. This might have hinted something of my personality. Usually I stared at it and thought who would waste their time to twist the cube. Why couldn't I just paint a side of the cube in the same color and call it a day? Oh because buying paints and painting and painting it nicely waste time too. So why should I bother myself?
This is why I cannot bring myself to be very enthusiastic about sudoku, either.
I am good at reading during my free time. I am impatient at playing puzzles when taking a break.

Why am I so impatient? Why doesn't a Rubik's cube or a sudoku puzzle interest me?
Because I am not a geek? To some extent, I am. In some fields, I am.
Because I cannot be obsessed? I can be very obsessed in many things other than puzzles.
Perhaps it is like the fact that I don't like the color pink. It is a simple fact without deep reasons.

Why am I so excited to see the R.O.C. blue-sky-white-sun-red-all-over-the-ground flags? I don' t know.
I also get excited when seeing "Made in Taiwan" marked on products. I bought my leggings for that mark.
It just makes me smile and proud. A surprising feeling is generated when you see something so familiar in a foreign setting.
Suddenly, I am afraid that this movie may be banned in China. If that's so, what a big loss of Hollywood. Well... or not. Movies can be bought easily in super cheap prices in China, actually downloaded easily even, because pirates are kinda not so illegal in people's mind over there.


Why happyness ?
It was explained in the first 5 minutes of the movie. Go see it. Do see the special features too.

worms between words

Technically, it is called the tilde, a symbol that does not exist in the Chinese standard writing system. But we use it. For example, I would write "Hello~". For me, it means a casual tone. I do not use it when writing to a stranger or a tax officer.

Recently, I see it quite often. For example, http://www.wretch.cc/blog/chon1990&article_id=11808170
I suspect the age of this blogger. People in my generation do not write like that. We prefer to use comma, period, colon, semicolon, exclamation, and question marks within and between sentences. A tilde at the end of a sentence is okay if it only appears once in an article.
But tildes everywhere are not standard.
I understand that language evolves. You prefer to write in this way, and I prefer to write in that way. One day we will write in a similar way that both of us agree as a norm in writing. Not that I am preaching a mark-using method or even a writing style. It is that I am not approving tildes replacing all other marks.

I am also okay when knowing that New Zealand has decided to allow the use of text message speak on its NCEA exams. A test-grader has to know a lot of abbreviations in order to understand a student's essay. By the way, NCEA stands for National Certificate of Educational Achievement, which is New Zealand's national qualification for secondary school students. Students of course will not risk their grades by using some abbreviations that only they and their friends know. Of course, not just abbreviations are in texting language. Some standards are ur (for you are), 2nite (for tonight), cuz (for because), 4gt (for forget), and zup (for what's up). Slowly, I believe, more and more people will accept the use of them. X'mas is okay and printed on cards. Xing is okay and painted on roads. And younger generations eventually will be the main stream or hold the ruling power of the society. You cannot stop the evolution.
Chinese is also changing. Phrases such as LKK or 881 are seen even in news reports. I am following with the flow as best as I can.

But I have to say the "~" mark is difficult to pass my acceptance. I prefer a circle (in Chinese) or a dot (in English) to mark the end of a sentence, and a comma (interestingly the same shape in both languages) to mark a rest in the middle of a sentence. Worms between words are just bugging me.
And the pronunciation symbols! Sometimes I use one or two for sounds that are not represented in characters. But pronunciation symbols are used often among people who are 6 or more years younger than me. I assume it is a way to prevent people from China to read. But it is annoying even for people like me who learn those symbols at the age of 6.
We don't have a Chinese character for the sound "A", so I usually write "ㄟ", which is a pronunciation symbol used in Taiwan. We do have "的" (sounds "de") and "了" (sounds "le"), which do not need to be replaced by "ㄉ" and "ㄌ" respectively. However, many youngsters use them. Is this really a generation gap or am I too meticulous?

Am I?
Two spaces or one space between two sentences?
Space between a header and its following paragraph?
Parentheses or double dashes?
Tell me if you don't have your pickiness of details.

aging sign

Programming is a bitch.
Seven hours after I sat down with it, it still refuses to produce what I want. How stupid can it be? I am speaking its language, Matlab, and I am offended by its wasting my precious youth.

Oh my youth.
Even though I have been taken as a kid because of my firm, chubby cheeks, my body is showing signs that I am not young anymore. For whatever godess’s sake, I am 29 by Chinese standard.
I am not saying a 27-year-old person should behave like a 27-year-old because I have no idea of what a 27-year-old should behave like.
I have no idea of what a 32-year-old or a 14-year-old should behave like, either.
I am saying that I feel pain when I bleed monthly, and that I feel terrified when I see lines around my eyes.
Programming for seven hours is not helping the situation. So I am complaining.

The good thing after graduating from a university and moving to the States is that people around me are in different ages. Age difference is never a problem of being friends. No one introduces him/herself as “Hi, I’m a 27-year-old.” Same as in sexual orientation, marital status, weight, and height. You make friends because you like these people as they are.

But friends frown at me every time I say “Oh I am getting old.”
Take it easy, my friends. I am simply stating my feelings toward myself. I am not sarcastically tricking you into telling me your actual age. By the way, I know how old you are.

Prospective students are visiting recently. Some of them are seniors in college. I would say “Hi, I am senior in the graduate school.” There I feel old.
I went to some parties and got tired before midnight. There I feel old.
A friend talked about her choices on lipsticks. There I feel old.
These are easy to overcome. I am excited to get out of the graduate school and become a freshman as a postdoc. I expect to go to new parties and meet new people and experience new atmosphere, so that I will not get tired before midnight. As to a boring, too-girly subject, it never is my types of subjects to talk about. I will take it even lightly next time.
But a physical change inside or on the surface of my body indicates the fact of aging. I have to live with it.

Women with their periods should not do head stand. Well… I have convinced myself that I am able to learn how to make myself up-side-down. But this news is not encouraging.
Last year, if I did not have a phobia of being up-side-down, I would have said “oh come on, it doesn’t matter. I want to do it.”
Now I cure myself from being afraid of lifting my whole body on my arms and head. But I have aged. Aged women can feel cranky in their stomach once in a month. The crankiness worries me. I pass the opportunity to be trained as a head stander. I have to wait for a few days if I am reminded of the enthusiasm of practicing difficult yoga postures.

The crankiness not only worries me but also makes me sympathize with many friends of mine. They always take a day off or show up moody once a month. I was like “What a drama. Don’t fool people. You can function normally. You just choose not to.” Now I understand. I only want to stay in bed and drink hot chocolate.

Instead, I sat in the lab and stared at the computer for seven cranky hours. Programming irritates my irritated feelings of getting old.