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.