愛戀十年

君傳來一則簡訊：「強辯十週年 01Jan2009 @河岸留言 西門紅樓展演館」。
強辯不是天團，但他們曾是我菁華歲月裡的點綴，標記著我跟青攸君欣星追地下樂團的那些夜晚。
我們也追小劇團、追舞團。追逐時候的夥伴到現在都還是我的夥伴，創造共同的回憶讓我們很有向心力的繼續互通消息，繼續一起出遊追逐著創造共同回憶的機會。

可是回憶有時是很累的東西，尤其是愛戀的回憶。
十年了，一路走來，總覺得愛戀是漂泊的，即使在最幸福的當時看了電影「心動」居然立刻大哭的謾罵為什麼命運要讓年輕的我體驗完美的愛情，唉，相見恨早相見恨早啊。我說，我們注定要分離，因為我們太年輕。
「你是她第一個男友喔？肯定分啦。」我一直記得第一個男友的室友的這句話。真愛果然不存在我和他之間。後來，遇到真愛，我沒有選擇留下，飛走了，心動的散場淚沒有白哭。相見恨早。

完美的愛情在最漂泊的歲月裡昇華成夢想裡的神話，每每不如意，就偽縮在夢境裡幻想著甜蜜，就躲藏在小小的駕駛座裡落著淚鼓勵著自己：我在長大，我會變老，老了漂泊就會停止，一切有可能有意義。時間總是會告訴人意義在哪裡，自己當起自己的歷史學家，後設的定義著緣分，哪些人是貴人、過客還是冤家，哪一件事取決於哪一個人物，哪一個時間點的衝動停止了徘徊卻也阻斷了可能。意義，自我說服了就算。時間若是告訴我這一切沒有意義，我也要承受住，因為我已經愛過了，愛過了，過了。那我就繼續漂泊吧， 接受「漂泊不是過程而是目的」的想法。
才發現我有多恨漂泊。
我是一座島，朋友漂進來漂出去，情人來來去去，主流文化和次文化衝擊著，硬學 科和人文科學激盪著。中文退步了，英文成了主要語言，歐美不再是刻板的標籤，被細分成英法德義、美國人分成受過高等教育的、莫名奇妙迷信的、不同地方腔調 的、十足保守的和開明的。這個世界也不再是地球儀上的幾何，朋友來自各地，千百種口音的英文跟我訴說著漂泊的美好，他們樂見我這個島，萍水相逢喝一杯酒跳一支舞學一句中文，而我默默的期待著神話裡的愛情。我仍然夢見那些年的美好，想要大喊慾望城市最後一集裡 Carrie 聲嘶力竭分手的理由。
聲嘶力竭。聲。嘶。力。竭。
那一段費力的愛，得到的回報是費力的不去愛，心狠狠的碎過一遍之後，更討厭拔剌的情歌。真愛又如何？太痛了，自虐狂才要再重來一次。

"Do you often worry about the past?" 我第一次問病人這一道題的時候，總覺得這題目出得沒有意義，過去有啥好擔心。問了十幾個病人同一道題之後，才發現我自己的答案是憂鬱的，回憶是個負擔，好的壞的都是負擔。愛上一個人一點也不輕鬆，尤其是強烈情感加持下的回憶永遠不會抹去，既然不會抹去，將來就會成為莫名的負擔：完美的那一段愛情成為神話， 心痛的那一段愛情成為地獄，兩個極端的拉扯，我似乎瀟灑的試試看這個人那個人，好像是在尋找漂泊的目的，卻是在履行的漂泊的行為，矛盾的一個人往前走不停不看不聽，最後只好定下目標：先定居下來再說。

無奈啊，活著因為有希望，希望著什麼呢？已經愛過了，也試過心痛的滋味，還有什麼可以期待的？然後忍不住在記憶裡找答案，越找越陷在回憶裡，越不明白愛過痛過的目的是什麼，越盼望著自己快點老去，古老的靈魂情願活在年老的身軀裡。

於是十年過去了，距離那第一次的心動已經十年了。
然後你問我的感想。我說沒有恨晚也不恨早，相信這是時機剛好的緣分。可又來了一場淚，愛哭鬼老了還是愛哭。

我願
你是我最後一個愛上的人
不再漂泊的是我

beautiful taiwan

I love Taiwan, not in a way how a politician claims his patriotism, but in a way how a Taiwan-born Taipei-er who now lives in the US expresses her pure love to her mother land.

In June 2007, I visited Taroko.

太魯閣 TAROKO

In December 2008, I went to the Sun Moon Lake

日月潭 Sun Moon Lake

... and Sitou.

溪頭 Sitou

Welcome to click on these pictures to see their series and imagine how awesome my trips were.
Now they are not simply existing in my childhood memory but also refreshed in my adulthood.

be merry

Superstar fixed my coat.
I don't know how people learn this kind of things. Time is the factor. Where do they get all the time for making a meal, sewing up a button, planning a surprise party, or shopping during this crazy shopping season? Is it true that I have 24 hours a day but others have 36? So not fair.

Let's talk about them one by one. First, make a meal.
One night, Superstar decided to cook. If you ever came to my place, you would imagine how clean my refrigerator was. It preserves air, basically, in case I need fresh air for abrupt panic attacks. You know, I like to be prepared for my health condition.
Therefore, in order to cook, ingredients were needed. I was like... oh no.... that would take a long time to get everything. So how about pasta? Get noodles and a jar of sauce?
Superstar: sauce? I never bought prepared sauce.
I was literally in shock and thought I met another Italian. Immediately I had a deja vu of the 30-min public scolding, led by the second-generation Italian research center director, on how unbelievable it is that I do not cook. The director even made noodles in his house.
Pei: how did you make pasta?
Superstar: flour and milk. um... do you have flour?
Pei: Do I? Can we just get a jar of white sauce? It's much easier.
Superstar: alright, I'll trust it this time. White sauce means seafood. Let's get fish. Which fish do you think better in pasta?
Pei: No idea.
He picked the fish and said that cooking should never go easy and got some fresh squids and scallops. He walked around, sniffing herbs, touching vegetables, wrapping spices. I followed.
Grocery shopping took an hour. Cooking another hour. We finished dinner within an episode of Sex and the City.

Second, sew a button.
I did take the class, in both junior high and high schools. Mama helped a lot in this domain, however. She sewed a stuffed animal and knitted a scarf for me to submit them for my grades.
You cannot blame me on my impotent skills. I don't have 30 minutes for fixing a hole on my shirt. I don't have 20 minutes for ironing a skirt. I don't have 10 minutes even for thinking about repairing clothes.
Alex, Zabeth, and Mama all fixed my clothes for showing how much they loved me or showing how much they could not stand watching me doing anything. I prefer to believe the former.
Superstar took my coat and asked why I was frowning. I said I might need to carry this long coat back to Taipei for Mama to show her love.
I can do it in 5 minutes. He said. That was one of the most romantic things to say. My body was dancing. I was free from worrying time that might be wasted. Super.

Third, plan a surprise party.
On Monday the 12th, Dr. Anna called me in the morning and asked me to be in the lab asap. What did I do wrong? Why was I thinking that I might do something wrong? Did I do something wrong? I hurried to the lab. What greeted me was an incoherent shout of "happy birthday!"
I was truly surprised.
This officially was my first ever surprise party. I had had no clue that she would plan a party for me, two weeks ahead of my birthday. Wow, it was awesome. They sang the birthday song. Paola showed up late, and I easily forced her to sing the song in Italian. I was flattered, totally.
When did they find the time for planning such a party?
Well... I myself have throwing parties for friends, and most of them were openly known what was celebrated. It was an effort for making people merrily surprised.

Fourth, shop in December.
Since the black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), every store has been on sale. I had been good and not joined the madness. Macy's was one mad place to visit now. I could not find my breath in Macy's on the 34th street in NYC. People were everywhere. Lines of lines. Waiting for waiting.
Thus, I went to Macy's on the JFK express way in NJ. It was better but still took me 4 hours to get things matching my expectation. My expectation was not easy to match. I may have tried on 10 and not taken any. I may have liked one thing, but that thing was out of my size. I may have wanted a specific item and never seen the item in the specific texture that I wanted.
I was so tired after 4 hours battling with clothing and cashers. I didn't even walk around to see other things in other stores in the mall. My left arm was paralyzed from carrying kilograms of the to-be-tried-on.
I wish the trade-off of time and money was pure pleasure.

If I had 36, instead of 24 hours, a day, I would not spend more time on any of the four things mentioned above. I might be less cynical. I may read more books. I will watch more movies. I am going to hang out with witty friends more..... so that they will take their time doing the four things mentioned above for me :)

Oh, be merry!

start santa-ing

I don't know who Susanne Manning is but I googled for minutes and finally found this sexy sandy voice for my favorite Xmas song.

Let me give you two more examples of Santa Baby, and you tell me if you agree with me on Susanne Manning's voice. Oh yeah, Kylie Minogue was physically very sexy.



This one was from 1988 (wow, 20 years ago):
This woman is a category by herself.



Last night was the annual holiday party of the research center.
I had been to the holiday party last year and bored. This year I still went because at first it was some political reason. Once I got there, I was very happy that I went and stayed almost till the end.
It was the same fancy country-club-style restaurant, the same delicious food, the same tree where we had to pose for picture taking.
More than twice of people showed up. My lab actually occupied the entire 10-person table.
For a party, more people more fun.
Moreover, there was a vocal quartet! Two pairs of man and woman with matching red and green 19th-century outfits. They were so cute. Their voice was so good and warm. The carols they sang were so lovely and joyful. I could not help but smile all the time. They hopped table to table and sang various carols on demand. I wish I knew more than a few carols!

Around 7:30pm (the party started at 5 pm), most people had left. This was about the time when the singers were more comfortable with themselves and started playing around with people and singing in a more modern jazzy way. They went up to the stage and I said I wanted santa baby.
So they did.
That was one of the best live performances I have ever seen this year. The green gal sang the main melody with R&B-kind of feel. The green guy went for the bass with a warm santa granda's hohoho. The red gal provided a higher pitch tangled with the melody. The red guy was sometimes humming like an instrument and sometimes singing along to harmonize the entire group.
Snow was perfectly sprinkled outside the window. San.ta. ba.by~

Let me share one more.
Stay tuned. I probably will post one entry a day because I am so happy and would like you to be happy too.

lack of coffee

This is the season of giving and forgiving.
I am going to blame the lack of coffee. Yes, I am going to give this abstract noun phrase a status -- guilty.

It has been raining all day. Bungbung's rear tires had been diagnosed as too thin. The technician suggested me to have them changed or to drive slowly in a wet weather. I did not have time to have them changed before my thanksgiving trip, so I made an appointment for another day.
That another appointment got canceled because the VP of the research center could only have a meeting with me that morning. Unfortunately, VP's pregnant girlfriend twisted her ankle, and VP decided to be out sick. That is, I got a good morning catching up with my work and re-scheduling Bungbung's checkup. In the meantime, I drove more carefully. The rescheduled appointment would be tomorrow.

This morning I was determined to have warm oatmeal for breakfast and consequently did not have time to make coffee. (Or because I had not had coffee, I forgot to make coffee.)
I drove to Chester to meet the most intelligent and functioning post-stroke participant I've ever had. She finished all the tests quickly and accurately. Her cat loved me. All in all, I liked the experience with her very much. But I did not have coffee.
My windshield was foggy because it was foggy out with rain or because my lack-of-coffee vision was foggy.
Carefully, I came to the office and got informed that I am going to give a lab tour tomorrow to a group of Chinese doctors who came all the way from Sichuan where the terrible earthquake killed thousands this year. They want to take a look of the hospital and the research center as their references for building a rehab facility in Sichuan.
I was like, What? this is really the last-minute notice. I am not a last-minute kind of person. I submit a grant one week before its deadline. I like to plan things ahead.
My eyes were almost closed, and I decided to have tea since it was half day and I wanted to sleep well tonight.
With tea, I called to reschedule the last session with the intelligent-cat-loving post-stroke participant, and to reschedule Bungbung's checkup again.
With tea, I gave a presentation to postdocs. What an aweful presentation. I was presenting data that could not answer the questions. Well, which is the actual purpose of the so-called pilot data placed within the grant, and now I think back, it was actually not so bad, and the data did sell the idea of a promising project that may answer the questions. Anyway, my brain was criticizing my project and begging for coffee at my presentation.

Kerline came over, saying she was not functioning today, thinking 11 am was two hours away from 2pm, and believing I was presenting at 11 am, so that she was convinced that she could not make it to my presentation as she left her place at 11 am.
Paola came over, saying she totally forgot about my presentation and asked me why I didn't call her.
Dr. Anna emailed me, saying please help Paola find a set of data that no one actually produced.
Kerline never drinks coffee. Paola, who is Italian, never has enough coffee. Dr. Anna... may or may not use coffee... I go with the may-not. (She loves using "may" instead of definite statement.)
See? The lack of coffee is guilty.
I was about to have a headache at 4pm but did not leave because I was obsessed with the power analysis, which I ran yesterday but now believed I did it wrong. By 5pm, evidence showed that I didn't have to change the power analysis. If I have had coffee, this hour would have not been wasted.

In the rain, I walked to do grocery shopping after parking Bungbung carefully.
In the rain, I walked back home.
A car hit me when I was crossing the road with all my right. It was turning right. It hit my left medial soleus muscle. I fell down with my left palm and butt hitting the ground first.
Ow! I said. My bag and grocery bag and umbrella were on the ground, wet.
I stood up. The car driving behind the criminal car stopped, and the driver came to see me. Are you OK? He asked.
I know you are not the one who hit me. Did you see who hit me?
He shrugged but asked me again if I was alright.
Another car stopped farther away, which was the criminal car. The criminal driver came over. Are you OK?
You hit me. My light was green, and you were supposed to stop.
My light was green too. Are you alright?
I stared at him. I said I am ok. What a lucky asshole.
Do you need my number?
No.
Can I buy you dinner?
No. Ow! My leg hurt.
Are you sure?
Yes. I am fine. You give me a ride home, two blocks down there.
Let me help you. Finally he was helping me. I am sorry. Finally he said he was sorry.
Man, you gotta be careful next time. I said as if I was teaching a child not to run with chopsticks in hand.
I didn't ask for compensation or anything. I just wanted to go home. I forgave him at the moment when he stopped the car and asked if I was alright. I was alright and somehow my lack-of-coffee mind was not as angry as I would believe.
As I stepping out of his car, he asked me where to get back to Seton Hall. Oh, kid, you are lucky that I did not have coffee today.

Coffee is essential in my activities of daily living. In the field of rehabilitation, activity of daily living (ADL) is some holy grail to achieve. You rate a person's ADL and determine if he/she can function independently as a dignified individual. If not, fix him/her.
I'm definitely having coffee tomorrow morning.

to move

I'm moving out of South Orange. Soon.
After the terrible thing happened to me 11 months ago, something even more terrible happened in my building a month ago. Similar kind of crime. But the recent one involved a show of hand gun.
Also, since some time ago, my buzz from time to time got ringed up after sunset, and I never buzzed anybody in because no one answered at my request. Yes, just like the 777-777-7777 caller. Oh, the caller was a woman with a non-native-English accent. She did say "hello" at the third call. Next time, please introduce yourself in detail with understandable English. You will not receive a thankyou note from me.
Right, I am talking about moving.

Where to move?
My first pick is Hoboken. It's close to the Village, just one PATH stop over the river. I heard nice things about it. Nice things that only a city animal like me likes to hear. Things like safe to walk around past mid-night. Things like crowded street with people all the time. Things like the residents are mostly young professionals. Things like Hoboken has its own social scene.

Hoboken is expensive, however.
I found a cool website hotpad.com where they show sorta 3D google-map-like resident housing map. But housing no more than three blocks away from PATH is barely affordable. Let me give a couple of examples:
1000-sqft, 1 BR with 1 full bath, plus parking space asks for $2700 per month.
1200-sqft, 2 BR with 2 full bath asks for $3400 per month.

Then I found an ideal apartment in a good location for a short walk to PATH. The apartment contains units of studio, 1 BR, 2 BR, and 3 BR, including the following amenities that I like: Dishwasher, Cable Ready, Sun Deck, Walk-in Closet, Doorman, Health Facility, Internet, Parking Garage. And short-term lease available.
Price?
Studio: $2,070 to $2,480
1 bed: $2,400 to $2,665
2 beds: $2,925 to $4,120
3 beds: $4,205 to $4,470

Hm.... I am a poor scientist.

I read in the Sunday times that some places offer a kind of deal called rent to buy. Perhaps I should look into that. Perhaps I should know Hoboken better. I am going there every other weekend until I move over there.

To start integrating my future with my present, I am going to dedicate my blog space talking about Hoboken. As a starter, let's find some cute true stories about it.

Why is it called Hoboken?
My google results immediately brought me to wikipedia, which is never my favorite place to look for causal information because wikipedia is too... too ... not me. My eyes hurt after 10 hours of work, and wikipedia worsens the symptom.
Google prioritizes its bloggers. So I was brought to Finding myself in Hoboken, and the blogger talked about the name! Some europeans named it long time ago. Now it's a brand name for its culture and people.
See? They seem like nice people.
South Orange needs this kind of spontaneous PRs to improve its image. What a shame. I liked South Orange. Now I just want to break up with it.
However, the story of the naming of Hoboken is not some cute story that I wished.
OK, next.

Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken.
But he left Hoboken in his 20s, only returned twice before he left to another world for good.

What else?
It is just difficult to learn a place without living there. I need something visual. I need something for me to imagine. Even the project by the Hoboken Museum looks marvelous, I still need to experience those locations before feel anything significant about its history.

What else?
Let's get some lottery tickets, and perhaps I will afford or even own an apartment in Hoboken earlier.

kosher

What am I supposed to do? Never get married and build a family?
We both know there is no fairy-tale happy ending for us. Marrying him would be against my religion, which I will never do.
Yardena said.
She came back from a vacation with her current love of life Muhammad. It was the worst vacation ever in her 23 years of life. She and Muhammad basically cried for three days and nights without digesting any food: Yardena threw up everything out of her stomach every night after a round of crying.

What are you supposed to do? You ask me?
Never get married and build a family. Not exactly correct answer, my dear, but you may have mine: Do not get married with him but have a happy life with him for now.

Yardena is the most respectable, likeable, strictly kosher young woman I have ever met. She follows everything I could not imagine.
She never wears pants. Even when she is driving ambulance and moving patients in scrubs, there is a skirt covering her scrub pants.
She eats kosher food from a kosher kitchen with kosher utensils. One time when Millie the secretary bought a cake from a kosher bakery, Yardena did not take the chance to try it because she never heard of the bakery and was not sure if the kitchen was kosher enough.
She takes all Jewish holidays off. There are a lot Jewish holidays last and this months. But when she is at work, she is 200%. She goes home before sunset on Fridays to prepare for Sabbath. Sunset is pretty early in winter, like 3pm. She cannot use electricity, drive or ride motor vehicles during Sabbath (Friday evening to Sunday morning), and walks everywhere. New Jersey is not a pedestrian-friendly state. One time she had to walk to a patient's place to do follow-up tests. That was a one-hour walk from her place. What a wonderful RA.

Why?
Why are Orthodox Jews so serious about these rules made by people thousands of years ago in a place thousands of miles away?

They are just rules. Rules made by people. I said to her.
No. Not in my religion. She was implying that she believes those rules were made by god. She rather suffers in this state of forbidden love than evaluates what her religion has done to her and her people so unfairly.
Other peoples are loveable too! You youself love a man of the other people. It is not wrong. No, I didn't say those but wanted to shake her hard and wake her up to the world where she is allowed to choose whomever she likes to share a life with.
I know that I know nothing about her religion. But I know there is some fundamental failure in the strict law of hers. A religion that does not allow its believer to question, challenge, and modify its law over time is so out of fashion and against natural evolution. Well... do they "believe" evolution? Go to a zoo or aquarium! You will believe and accept it immediately.

Naureen is a new RA. She is kosher too, but only on meat and does not care about whether the kitchen is kosher. I have met many Jews who are not kosher. I have met many Jews marrying non-Jews. They do not encounter problems like Yardena's. They worry about things that make me worry too: Is this cake delicious or not? Does this person like Jazz?

I did tiny research on kosher:
The only kosher flesh foods are from animals that chew the cud (really!? because it's recycling and good to the economical concept?) and have cloven hoofs, such as cattle, sheep, goats, and deer (what about giraffes? ); the hindquarters must not be eaten (because they are too fat? But delicious.). The only fish permitted are those with fins and scales (save more lobsters, king crabs, octopus, and shellfish for me); birds of prey and scavengers are not kosher. Moreover, the animals must be slaughtered according to ritual, without stunning, before the meat can be considered kosher.

Pigs have cloven hoofs but do not chew the cud, so they are not kosher.
Camels chew the cud but do not have cloven hoofs, so they are not kosher.
Horses do not have cloven hoofs and do not chew the cub, so they are not kosher.
I don't care much about these meats. But no rabbit? No goose? No shellfish? No eel? I found that eel is not kosher because the scales on eel are not removable but part of its skin. I have to say that I shall not say anything right now that is not politically correct to Orthodox Jews. I have to express my unbelievable wordlessness. Unbelievable. Kosher rules may be why it is very rare for a Chinese to convert.

Will Muhammad convert?
Yardena never asks him to. She wishes he would do it by himself, but she knows it is out of her boundary to make such a request.
I love him for who he is. I did not love him because he is Jew. She walked away from my desk with those words flowing around in my cubicle.
Oh, my.
God please help her. Release her!
Release her to free love and the entire ocean of seafood.

Woody Allen could speak for me: (For the record, I didn't enjoy much the movie "Deconstructing Harry" for Harry is such an annoying guy although right-on on religious comments.)

shout from water

No more fMRI before the end of 2008.
This is my decision.

How much can I push this project? I have priorities too, tall guy.
Alright, this project has been there before I came to the research center. I was very excited that tall guy was going to resubmit the proposal so that I might be able to see the superior colliculus getting hot in front of me. Right, I did see it. Because I pushed tall guy to scan some healthy people and to get some nice pilot data in the proposal. But the pilot project kinda died after our connection in the medical school decided to be unhappy about his career and life and everything in general and left. He left without a word to me. How uncool was that? I called and emailed him thousand times. His voice mail box was always full so that I could not leave a message. His cellphone was always unanswered so that I could not know if he ever used it. His email was as useless as his cellphone. Tall guy made excuses for him: He was really unhappy now.
So?

So I pushed again. I pushed tall guy all the way to UPenn. That was summer. UPenn doctors were lovely. They liked the project and immediately asked us to email them a proposal so that they would let us play with their scanner. They would give us money! Oh, the research center is always hungry for money. No money, no research. No research, no money.
Weeks later, there was no proposal, so I pushed tall guy again: Hey, where is the proposal?
He did not do anything. So I did. I trimmed the original 15-page proposal into a 3-page. He made some edittings and submitted it without knowing any rules from the UPenn side or from our research center side. So the proposal got puked back. He re-did it as if someone owed him something.
Finally, the proposal went there. It seemed like money would come anytime or we could go there scanning people anytime. Yeah, seemed like.
Weeks after, I popped a question: Do we need to apply for an IRB there?
Tall guy said: Yeah... we do. Can you whip up an IRB application here and then base on it to do a UPenn IRB?

What? Can I? I can but I will not. We means you and me, not just me.
I know I am capable to do things and to do things well. But I am not your b*tch. Man, this is your project. You are the PI. You have not paid me anything or recognizd me in anyway since I got myself involved for the sake that I love the idea of the project. You know, love can be killed too.
You wanna play it slow? Let's play it slow. I am fully occupied, and I found my priorities which do not include your stuff.
You say I rock. Hey, I know I rock and do not suck up your laziness anymore.
Do your own IRB. I am busy.


I am a proud little fish flying in the big ocean, yelling up to the land called reality, yelling up to the tall guy whose ears are so far away and so not receiving correct sound waves passing water and air. All I can do is to shout at him here and be passive until the next time the urge of my push comes again: Hey, are we going to do the project or not?