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.