Tea and Fire

Bullshit

2009-09-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg5AAy1ojtc

I'd encourage all people to watch George Carlin's "It's Bad for Ya", as it expresses many of the ideas that I hold near and dear to my heart and I believe some of his best work. In particular it deals with the identification and calling out of bullshit. This ranges from outright lies (God is watching) to somewhat vague fibs (you have rights).

As I return to campus, I am left with a continually ambiguous situation as must confront not only the nascent offer of renewal and the old threat of repetition and ritual. Basically stupid bullshit. Few wish to return to a den of differential equations and few wish to remain in limbo indefinitely. I believe that most students, on some level, feel a kind of ambiguous, vague terror. I am not intellectually better than my peers and I must believe that I am sufficiently normal mentally to not be considered "crazy". True, we deal not the monster under the bed, for such a beast has a concrete place. It is fluid and elusive. It deals in shadow and confusion and behind walls and masks. I believe that most students choose to avoid a world that is simultaneously confusing and terrifying accepting what I call bullshit and getting into little groups to corroborate their bullshit. For what is a church, but a means of perpetuating what would otherwise be an insane story? I pick not only on religion. Universities are full of group sessions of people getting together to tell each other how right the other is. True, life doesn't seem as harsh if you have a seamless, safe and sanitary narrative. But I choose to differ. To strip bare the inner workings our world; to grab hold lies and bullshit in both hands and strike back is to stare back into a world in which rules are not fair, anying goes and everything doesn't work out in the end.

The Sage of the Chaparral

2009-08-31T22:50:00.000-07:00

I spent the afternoon at the beach flying kites with the prevailing winds. The trip hearkened back to a long and enjoyable tradition of going to the beach and the various activities associates with those trips. In particular, I think of falling asleep to the serenade of the waves and pouncing upon sandcrabs in the surf. I took advantage of both during my short trip, though an unfortunate timing of tides ensured that I caught no small crustaceans and thus has no life forms upon which I could exercise my somewhat sadistic will. Though given that past generations of Shinzaki’s used these guys for bait in fishing, a little poking and brooding with my finger seems hardly cruel.

The main motivation of this trip was the somewhat jarring observation that I return to school in less than two weeks. And along with fish tacos and sleeping outside, at least one trip to the beach seemed like a necessity in my rejuvenation of my inner Californian. My roots in this area run deep and will not wither under pressure from a little (or perhaps a lot) of snow and frost. It is days such as these that I wish that I had chosen to attend UCSD, where I could enjoy flip flops and sunshine all year around. I blend in better into the chaparral landscape of the natural San Diego landscape, where the shrubs grow short and sturdy. San Diego may be dry, but it is no desert. Life grows in its independent paths. The plants eschew extravagant shapes and showings of foliage, but save their strength against an unknown and potentially dry future. They plan, scrimp and save. Wait, hope and then prosper. Green leaves are saved for the brief spurts of rain that the heavens may bless us with. It serves to make these botanical emeralds even more stunning.

Native San Diegian plants such as sage wither when moved to a place like New Jersey. The constant rain rots the roots; the underground tendrils are used to dry frugality. When it rains, God may as well pour salt upon us. The leaves grow pale and sickly with the lack of sunshine and cold weather. The native trees grow tall, flaunting their usage of the massive rain and constant cold. The flowers grow vibrant and vivid in the garden. And life continues on a constant binge of water and room. The sage must be kept indoors, perhaps in a greenhouse, for most of the fall, all of winter and parts of spring. The sage remains shielded from a dizzying and staggering abundance. It inevitability remains a kind of novelty or oddity that has wandered far from home. True, sage forms the tumbleweed, a rolling ball commonly seen in movies moving in desolate and isolated areas. The tumbleweed keeps moving from place to place, learning the knowledge of other lands. The wisest of plants know how to survive with simplicity and frugality. So the sage’s home remains in the hills of Southern California.

A Spoonful of Sugar

2009-08-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

I've been told by those with more wisdom than I of the virtues of being considerate when speaking. In short, that while one may have offensive, controversial or somewhat abrasive opinions, it is, in principle, possible to coat, massage and otherwise alter these ideas into a form that is palatable for the mass of men to inject. Folk wisdom recommend a spoonfull of sugar to aid in the consumption of bitter medicine. However, what is one to do with opinions that are offensive and otherwise uncomfortable just by their very nature. I consider an opinion that challenges others in such a profound manner that sugar coating the idea would alter its very nature. Am I to cease to hold such opinions? To stop speaking them? How I am condemned to speak my mind. For it is a tonic that still causes pain even when taken with a sweet chaser.

Coming Problems

2009-08-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

In continuing with troubling problems deals with a short study that I read today:

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/iju/vol2n1/sperm.xml

This is among the most terrifying things that I have read in recent memory. And mind you, I just wrote about the increasing influence of a for profit mercenary army in the most powerful armed force on the planet. And at first blush, this seems fairly random. In the past 50 years, sperm count in industrialized nations have dropped dramatically. Very dramatically:

This is from a study done in Edinburgh. Similar trends have been seen in the United States. This drop is much too dramatic for genetics to be the cause. The most likely cause is environmental changes. And the implications hit upon the very survival of the human race. For as people, our most valuable resource lies not in the mountains or water, but with our DNA and it's ability to create copies of itself within ourselves and other organisms via reproduction. If there is no reproduction, then the human race has no future in generation. And if male fertility continues to drop at this rate, then we will be looking at infertility becoming an increasing problem as more and more men will have rapidly decreasing sperm counts. This may seem a weird problem given that we are often concerned about overpopulation and problems associated with high populations, such as pollution and degradation of the environment. Perhaps less people would be a good thing? It is important to look at the proposed causes of this trend.

Given the scope of the problem, it is unlikely that a single, simple cause is responsible. However, one of the main hypothesis has to do with the industrialized world's staggering and sometimes indiscriminate use of pesticides, hormones and antibiotics in pest control. Consider agriculture. Most agricultural practices in the United States are mass production efforts that make heavy use of pesticides to kill off insects, antibiotics to control diseases that run rampant in agricultural efforts that grow only a single crop or product and hormones to stimulate quicker, larger plants and animals. Unfortunately, these toxic compounds get into the food we eat, the water we drink, the oceans we play in (and get fish from), the soil we grow our food in, and often the air we breath. It gets everywhere. And these tend to be quick persistent and quite toxic even at low concentrations. Especially hormones. Hormones' purpose is to control large changes in an organism, such as when a child goes through puberty. These are not the kind of products you want floating around in your food indiscriminately.

And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. The biggest problem is that there is a considerable "lag time" between the increasing concentration of these products in our environment and their most powerful effects. It is easy to overlook the changes at this time, but these effects tend to snowball. Once the effects are visible, we will have so poisoned our environment that we will be powerless to protect ourselves. This is not a problem of a meteor hitting the earth, this amounts to the progressive stripping away of our ability to create a next generation and live in a clean, safe environment. Once we have lost our home and our future, we have nothing.

The Blackwater Still Rises

2009-08-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater:_The_Rise_of_the_World%27s_Most_Powerful_Mercenary_Army

This is a very interesting book that I would highly recommend to anyone living in the US. I thought that if we were going to bomb a sovereign nation with lots of oil and effectively no defensive capacity, we would at least be using our standard military. But it turns out that is not true. A sizable fraction of our guns on the ground are held by mercenaries, so-called “private contractors” and the largest contracting company currently is Blackwater (they changed their name to Xe Services). Estimates put Blackwater involvement in the current Iraq War between 20,000 and 100,000 mercenaries. To put this into perspective, as of July 2009, the United States had about 130,000 official troops deployed in Iraq.

This concerns me. Blackwater mercenaries are not accountable to the Judicial or Legislative branches of government. During the Bush administration, the Executive branch took steps to shield Blackwater from prosecution for allegeded murders of Iraqi civilians. Even with the election of Barrack Obama, prosecution of Blackwater crimes remains extremely slow and a subject Congress remains unwilling to touch. Traditionally, issues such as war and military funding well partly to Congress and the expansion of mercenary force overrides many of the checks and balances that should allegedly protect from abuse of power.
Blackwater is thus allowed to operate largely away from public scrutiny. The government learned after the Vietnam War that if it wanted to conduct a war, it had to sufficiently control and indoctrinate the public to avoid unrest. The draft will never to implement again, partly because it would equal political death for any political party that supported it. But the other reason is that it puts the military into the public sphere. If the country relied upon a draft to get soldiers, the public could effectively stop the war by refusing to serve. This is no good for companies and governments that wish to perpetuate war. In a sense, a private, mercenary army represents the opposite of a public, drafted army. The expression of an allegedly free republic would be an increase in the range of decisions within the public sphere. An army like Blackwater assures that the public has no say in war, as they answer only to their payers, the US government. I have no need to elaborate the fascist implications of a company that controls the military. A contracted mercenary army is obedient and willing to carry out any and all required missions regardless of the moral and ethical implications. By definition of a company, it is all about the bottom line.

It turns out that making war is a very, very lucrative endeavor. Between 2000 and 2006, Blackwater won a half billion dollars in government contracts. I always get concerned when power, military and money come together, as horrible and bloody have been done with and to obtain these things. It also means that such companies have an economic incentive to continuing perpetuate war. This is not limited to mercenary contractors. Companies that make guns, bullets, vehicles, or the supply the army all gain from wartime spending. This is something best explained in President Eisenhower’s farwell address:

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.”

Though it has been said that “in time of war, laws are silent” (Inter arma silent leges.). If laws are silent, I suppose I should not.

Juniper Order (Ranger)

2009-08-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

I spent a good part of the afternoons hacking through the green tendrils of the juniper bushes outside of my house. I cannot fully explain my compulsion to keep work on these plants. Living in a San Diego summer and in benign neglect, these plants have thrived in spite of our perpetual refusal to take care of our plants. These juniper bushes are a hardy bunch that lives on the heat of the afternoon and an occasional sprinkling of water when we remember. The cutting and shaping of these plants could easily be done by one of the many gardening services available to people in our position. Perhaps my parents never fully adjusted to paying for landscaping. It would have been of relatively little notice if I had chosen to ignore our frontal plants and let them overtake the garden.
In the past years, the shaping and maintenance of these plants fell to my grandfather, who used to work in gardening. However, as he as grown older, the bushes returned to their natural, if uncontrolled, state. Plants that should be neat little green balls unfurl their long fingers, grasping for new lands to tame. It has been much time since I can remember spherical juniper bushes in front of my house. I dragged out a menancing pair of clippers and a few other necessary, though less theatrical tools. The first plant I worked on did not make the neat ball, but instead a misshapen oval, a Baroque pearl in our midst. The long neglect of the plants had made hacking the plants down to a manageable size a handful, not to mention even shaping them into the appropriate spheres. I suppose given enough time and desire, recreating the ideal shapes of the past would have been possible. But the sun was shining. And the newly hacked bush was cut with a nice bend that followed the path of our walkway. The new shape seemed to better harmonize with its environment. And so I went on carving Baroque pearls into the other plants in our front yard.

Punch in the Gut

2009-08-10T21:39:00.001-07:00

Ever since I was young, I have studied martial arts. The style has changed from time to time, but many of the central principles have remained the same. Many who learn of my background instinctively ask “What would you do if I tried to punch you?”. It’s kind of an odd question as a complete answer requires an understanding of the circumstances and environment. They expect an answer such as “block, punch back, kick your ass, etc”. And these are legitimate options. However, martial artists in general will usually choose options such as “evade, run away, problem solve, etc”; if you can safely get away, why fight?

People usually view this as a cop out. They refine the question to “What would you do if I tried to punch you and you couldn’t run away?” or an even more silly version “What would you do if I punched you and it was 1in away from your face and you didn’t have time to get out of the way?”. The answer is quite obvious, I’m going to get punched. However, I would ask a counter question “Why would you put yourself in a situation when a fist is 1inch away from your face? In fact, why would you put yourself in a situation where someone would be willing and able to attack you?” Perhaps the choices you made prior to put yourself into a situation where a fist is 1 inch away from your fact constitutes a kind of failure in and of themselves. This is a question of circumstances and environment. Are you trapesing around a dark alley in a bad part of town while chatting on your cell phone? Has that guy been following you for 4 blocks? It is often said that karate begins and ends with courtesy. It is not that you will ever knock out an opponent with a polite word, but that consideration and kindness for others can prevent many fights before they happen.

When approaching self-defense, perhaps enemies come from a larger range than merely thugs off the street. In fact, the leading causes of preventable death in the United States are so-called “diseases of affluence” such as heart attack and cancer. You are infinitely more likely to die from an obesity related disorder than to be murdered in the street, and we should address this concern with proportional consideration.

Questions over healthcare continue and I have discussed this in the previous entry. American health care, things like hospital visits, drugs and treatment should be seen as reactive treatment. Drugs are incredible inventions that have saved countless lives. However, anyone knows anything about the pharmaceutical industry knows that drugs are complex, expensive and difficult to make. Decades of research and testing go into creating just one pill that may or may not treat some ailment. To me, this is also the philosophical equivalent to waiting until the fist is 1inch from your face. We should know how to handle such a situation, but we should focus more on knowing how to avoid such a predicament.

Questions over diet and personal health rarely enter into a discussion of healthcare. However, one’s effect on the rest of the healthcare system is considered an external cost. And Congressmen are tepid make political unpopular recommendations on people’s personal lifestyles. I know of no person who enjoys being told what to eat and how to live. As a result, politicians mutter about personal health, but do little to act upon it.

It is odd since it is infinitely cheaper and easier to eat well and exercise than to get a pill to treat obesity. What constitutes a good diet and good lifestyle is worthy of discussion, but beyond the range of this entry (perhaps another day). We know that in American society, health is a problem. While we have spent lots of resources on working on reactive treatments, I believe it is important to consider proactive work in health is more important. I will not wait for the fist to strike; I will start moving now.

Death and Taxes

2009-08-08T23:20:00.000-07:00

The United States has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the only industrialized nation with no form of universal health care. It's very odd. We rank #1 in the world in terms of spending (we spend the largest share of our GDP), yet we are ranked "37th in overall performance and 72nd by overall level of health". You know when people go around parading that "America is #1!!"? Rankings like this make me severely question such patriotic ramblings.

Most people understand that must be done. Medical expenses is a leading cause of bankruptcy. And despite paying so much money for health care, the country does not get particular good care. Though all this means is that "change" is necessary, while failing to provide a concrete basis for your catch word. As I have always said, it's better to vote for a policy, not an abstract noun.

I always laugh a little bit when right wing protesters get all bent out all of shape with these protests against health care reform. It's not that I have anything against dissent or voicing one's opinions. In fact, I warmly and heartily encourage those with opposition to speak their mind. However, I sometimes question where these opinions come from. Sarah Palin wrote about "death squads" on her Facebook and conservatives are rallying against the specter of "socialism". But reality can sometimes be very different.

You know, in other countries, there are actual socialists. By more global standards, the people working on health care reform in the White House are far right of being socialists. In countries like France and Italy, they have actual socialists. Obama isn't even very liberal. But the other point is that we already have socialized medicine. The goverment already has Medicare, Medicaid, health care for federal workers and low income children. It already covers about 27% of the population. Universal health care is just a matter of extending existing programs that already exist.

Many people are rightly concerned about the goverment reforms of healthcare. People who tend to agree with my political views, especially those towards health care, tend to caricature the opposition to reform as a bunch of crazy right wing nutjobs. Not me, I'm not one to be particuarly trusting of the goverment. I'd prefer a goverment that does not govern at all. And, "when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have". However, there is a 3rd player here besides the "people" and the "goverment", insurance industry.

The insurance industry makes a literal and metaphorical killing off of health care in the United States. Anyone who has tried to deal with getting health care benefits knows that insurance companies hold lots of sway in the creating and utilization of loopholes to deny benefits whenever possible. While this may sound heartless, this is the logical and necessary consequence of a capitalist system. An altruistic company is a contraction in terms, as such a company would inevitabitly fail in lieu of one with a more cutthrout mentality. The insurance industry loves the current system. They have a level of goverment welfare and nearly free reign to screw people out of their money.

In a system in which corporations wield dangerous power (literally the power of life and death) over consumers, the best (and perhaps only) guard against abuse is the goverment. We have seen this before. For example, we have anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws to keep companies like Microsoft and Standard Oil from abusing the market.

However, there is legitimate concern. In many ways, the goverment is but a paid arm of corporate interest. We find that the insurance industry has paid off many elected officials in order to get a more progressively watered down bill, a bill so weak it will either do nothing or inevitably fail. This is what has been seen in Congress so far. With no reform, we will be stuck with the status quo, a situation that benefit those selling private insurance.

Many alternatives exist from other countries, and perhaps we can adopt a variation of those. You know, swallow our pride and listen to other countries for once. However, politics are often made to seem more difficult than in actually is. It is how professors and writers of political theory can justify their careers. If you look at the actual text and background of health care in America, it is a confusing mishmash of different systems and funding and rules and requirements. I have difficultly making many judgements about the system, and I suspect it is made that way. It keeps the public view out of the laws and keeps us focused on those "crazy" people yelling outside the town hall meeting. No one has time to read the law's text, instead debators are forced to stick to predefined (and usually very biased) talking points. Perhaps we would be better served by removing the confusing parts and keeping something simple and easier to understand. Maybe something like this:

"The country does better when people are healthy. It shows our superiority without need for arms and bombs.

Everyone pays for health care as part of taxes. Everyone gets healthcare."

New Site

2009-08-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, this is a different site. I figured that it becomes increasingly difficult to move sites after more posts have been created. So, if I want to move to another site, I should do it as quickly as possible. I like blogspot's archive feature and it looks more oriented towards writers, while tumblr looks better suited for small blurbs and pictures. So I'll give it a chance. It's not like its any different for the readers.

Fruit and Females

2009-08-03T10:20:00.002-07:00

Originally posted August 3rd, 2009:

The other day I made the mistake of bemoaning my lack of girlfriend and general female companionships with two friends of mine. This qualifies as a mistake as it gives them license to voice their well known complaints about my general preference towards females. It also gives them a chance to point out that I am, in fact, a mean, cynical asshole, which, to most people, is not a trait conducive to creating friendship. While life does not generally rewards honesty and sincerity, I feel that it creates a smaller group of closer friends.

However, one of them pointed out that girls are currently “out of season”. This evoke images of peaches growing on trees and cucumbers ripening on the vines… in season? I was tempted to make some sexual reference in connection to produce and dating, but I decided to allow him to go on with his comment. In his view, the availability of datable girls varies by time of year, in the same way that fruits and vegetables go in and out of season. Just as one would look for blueberries in the summer and butternut squash in the fall/winter, one has best wait until the proper season to find a girlfriend.

He pointed out that the beginning of the school year (the fall) is one of the best times. Students are often lonely after ending summer flings and just lonely from not having seen college friends in a while. Seperation can add a new found outlook and just novelty that can act as a catalyst for relationships. Plus, the weather is getting colder and Christmas is coming up, all good incentives to find yourself a partner. As winter approaches, your quicker and more aggressive competition will have claimed an increasing large proportion of the target female population. In a sense, girls are going “out of season” as they become more difficult to find and generally lower quality when found. Things do get better after Valentines Day, as winter ends and people realize “oh shit, I have finals/other school work”. If you don’t believe me, look at the attendance of the eating clubs in the winter vs. the spring. At that moment, a spring full of blissful frolicking must take the backseat to studying. This disrupts existing relationships. However, the spring also introduces the prospect of summer. While more existing relationships will be broken, people will be resistant to creating new ones as time in the current year runs short. The summer comes, flings fly and the cycle begins again in the fall.

While somewhat entertaining, if also cynical, he takes a very cyclic approach to relationships. The flow of females is tied to the growing seasons. It seems more effective for someone trying to “play the field” instead of a committed relationship. I have to complement him for his unique reasoning and strong use of metaphor. It’s actually quite funny, because I have my own produce based metaphor for relationships, though it is quite different, perhaps more linear.

Instead of annual crops that grow and die in one season, consider a fruit orchard. True, fruit trees are still tied to seasonal change. Cherry trees bear their flowers in the spring and fruit in the summer. But trees live for many, many years, and the seasonal ebb and flow are tiny variances in the a large time span. A tree does not so much come into season, but matures over time. An avocado tree will often not bear fruit for over a decade after it is planted. To find a tree and watch it grow into a bright future is something that I can look forward.

UC's and Stuff

2009-08-03T10:20:00.001-07:00

Originally posted August 1, 2009:

The following is an excerpt from the letter signed by 23 department chairs at the University of California at San Diego. The letter was dated June 15, 2009 and was forwarded to the University of California Office of the President:

“3. Establish different budget priorities for the profiles of different UC campuses. Every state system of public education save California manages to sustain (at best) one flagship campus. Many, including such states as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, do not manage even that. We pretend we have ten such campuses. In better times, there were in reality four flagships (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and – in its highly specialized way, UCSF). Rather than destroying the distinctiveness and excellence at Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD by hiring temporary lecturers to do most of the teaching (and contribute nothing to original research, nothing to our reputation, nothing to the engine of economic growth a first rate research university represents), we propose that you urge the President and Regents to acknowledge that UCSC, UCR, and UC Merced are in substantial measure teaching institutions (with some exceptions – programs that have genuinely achieved national and international excellence and thus deserve separate treatment), whose funding levels and budgets should be reorganized to match that reality.

We suggest, more generally, that in discussions systemwide, you drop the pretence that all campuses are equal, and argue for a selective reallocation of funds to preserve excellence, not the current disastrous blunderbuss policy of even, across the board cuts. Or, if that is too hard, we suggest that what ought to be done is to shut one or more of these campuses down, in whole or in part. We have suffered more than a 30 per cent cut in our funding from the state, and we can thus no longer afford to be a ten campus system – only a nine, or an eight (and a half) campus system. Corporations faced with similar problems eliminate or sell off their least profitable, least promising divisions. Even General Motors, which for decades resisted this logic, to its near-fatal cost, is lopping off Hummer, Buick, GMC, Opel, Saab and who knows what else.”

It looks as if I chose the right time to leave the state. Ha, I’m kidding of course. Though I must admit that, to an extent, Princeton bought me off. In many ways I would have preferred UCSD. It has better weather and much much better fish tacos. But going to a University that has an obscene (if rapidly shrinking) endowment has its advantages.

In analyzing the hypothetical closing of smaller UC campuses, it is useful to consider which groups of people would benefit from the implementation of this proposal. By closing the smaller UC’s, the UC system would have fewer spots available in each year’s classes (unless they implemented plans to expand the size of the remaining universities, an idea not endorsed or even mentioned in the letter). The campuses would enjoy more funding/student. But, there would be less spots available. In a more competitive application environment, which students are most likely to be rejected? An alphabet soup of factors go in to making such a judgment. Surely, there are SAT’s and AP’s and IB’s and so on. The easy answer is poor students. You know, the students who don’t have access to expensive test preparatory resources. Students who don’t enjoy good college counseling and other advantages students like those from Westview and Torrey Pines do. Scores on standardized tests are strongly tied to socio-economic status. If you look how the UC considers eligiability in application, scores on SAT II’s and SAT’s weigh very heavily, thus aiding the rich students who would do well on standardized tests. :

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/educators/counselors/resources/materials/e_index.pdf

In light of what I wrote yesterday, this proposal concerns me. The reasoning is fairly simple. Having a smaller student body in so-called “flagship” universities would benefit students of higher socio-economic status. Perhaps creating economic elite happens at private universities. However, I am not convinced that this is not the proper role of a public university. The UC system exists as a means of educating the people of California. And I do not believe that the public benefits from a narrowing of the students who are educated. The state as a whole benefits when more students have access to learning.

There near a 0% chance this letter will amount to anything. There is substantial support for most of the UC campuses. Eliminating any of them would be a long, painful and difficult process. However, it useful as difficult economic times force us to question what is important, to question the role of the University of California system. Perhaps it is not Merced or Santa Cruz who are out of line for not being “flagship” Universities, but Berkeley and LA for betraying their role. Instead of broadening the scope of state education, they have sought to emulate private institutions.

Economic Elitism

2009-08-03T10:19:00.002-07:00

Originally posted July 31, 2009:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/college-and-meritocracy

I was reading this afternoon. I do that occassionally. A friend of mine recommended the above article to me. Probably because I attend Princeton (mentioned in the article). Or maybe because he knew that I enjoy immflamatory opinions. The main point of the article states that while major universities (especially so-called “elite” universities) have made steps at improving racial diversity, they have done little to improve socio-economic diversity. While universities happily boast that they have so many African American students, so many Eskimo students and so on, they ignore the socio-economic statistics that state that their univerisites primarily serve the upper middle class, basically giving the shaft to poor students.

“In 2004 –2005 one-third of students at all four-year publicand private colleges received Pell Grant aid. Yet only 13% of the undergraduates at the country’s 50 wealthiest (and most selective) private colleges were Pell Grant recipients.v In 2004–2005 Pell Grant recipients comprised less than 10% of the student body at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania”

http://www.princeton.edu/teacher/pupp/PUPP_GSF_White_Paper_Opening_Doors_02-09

It gives me a good feeling. I get fairly tired of hearing the administration say how happy and diverse the campus is. Its the same old speech of “look we have more black students… hooray! look we have more Native American students… hooray!”. When really, it is giving lip service to what is a very hegemonic and controlling system. It seems like a system of affirmative action that looks primarily at race would benefit students who are both underrepresented minorities and of middle to upper middle class. I mean, if you grew up on the mean streets of Rancho Penasquitos (the upper middle class community I grew up in), then there’s a good chance you were not facing the social and racial hardships that affirmative action is supposed to correct for.

What concerns me greatly is the worldview this generates for students. I see students who come from every corner of the world. So and so comes from South Korea, so and so comes from Jordan, so and so comes from France, so and so comes from Alaska… Aside from fairly superficial cultural differences, these international students are essentially like us. They primarily came from well off families, went to good schools and go their way into Princeton using a smattering of test prep and other application aids. While we are lead to believe that interacting with the apparent diversity of colors and practices is providing us with a stimulating and varied intellectual environment, instead we are just mingling with the elite of different countries. It’s fairly homogenous. Money wants to protect money. And I would expect the same from students who came from well off families and good schools. And it would be reflected in the political, social and cultural views of the student body. And if the student body has a similar economic background, you would expect a similar range of opinions.

In a system run by and sustained by the economic elite of a country, one would expect that the policies and activities of the system would be geared towards bolstering the interests of that elite.

Varsity Wisdom

2009-08-03T10:19:00.001-07:00

Originally posted July 29, 2009:

The other day my mom provided me with an eye catching article in Vanity Fair about Harvard called “Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard”. A link can be found here :

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/06/harvard.html

Honestly speaking, most of the article wasn’t that interesting. Whoever was writing it was more concerned at the finger pointing of the various executives and leaders of Harvard’s endowment, which I do not give a flying fuck about. The jist of the article is as follows: 1) Harvard is losing a lot of money in its investments 2) Much of its investment are illiquid 3) Harvard has to cut back, such as stop offering hot breakfast to undergraduates. Princeton has the somewhat arbitrary distinction of not getting as butt fucked in the current recession, a distinction for which I cannot take any personal responsibility. My dad recommended that we should start the “Food for Harvard” program because poor students in Cambridge are starving because they are unable to get a hot breakfast.

Jokes aside, understand that I am not one of these mindless “School Spirited” drones that rabidly attacks anything dressed in crimson and blue. You know, I refuse to put on my swastika and march along with my classmates. To me, there is no significant difference between schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Stanford and Brown. The students come from the same circles, go to the same schools and join the same clubs. The only differences seem to be aesthetic. Hell, I’m color blind, I can barely tell between the school colors of some of these places.

Apparently the Orange Bubble is more potent that we originally thought. Princeton’s endowment is in slightly better condition than those of its peer institutions. Yet the world’s economic climate seems hardly stable and it would seem prudent to consider taking the proper precautions against future losses in the endowment.

You know, maybe this is a good thing. Tough economic times force the students to clearly define what the University’s purpose is and what activities, groups and clubs contribute to pursuing that end. Just as in people, when the money is plentiful, the students grow fat and indulgent. This is a chance to slice away what is not important. A University’s primary goal is to promote learning the student population and the world at large. Anything aside from this is a waste of University resources.

On this basis, I believe that we ought to immediately and completely cease University support for Princeton University’s Varsity Sports Program. We, as the student body, gain very little (if not nothing) from paying for the recruitment, training and continued maintenance of a small, unaccountable elite of Varsity athletes that supposedly represent us at other Universities. When I signed up to attend a University, I expected just that, a University. If I wanted to join a sports franchise, I would have done so. If I wanted to watch people play baseball or basketball, I could do that at San Diego at a much lower cost. I don’t want to get lost in the crowd; I don’t want to support the team; I came to learn.
Why do we pay for the recruitment of brawn when we should be paying to recruit brains. This is not to say that all varsity athletes are dumb brutes. But recruited athletes are chosen first for their muscles and athletics and second for their intellectual promise. Why do we pay millions to support our next quarterback, but hope that the next Nash or Einstein just shows up at our door? The latter have brought infinitely more pride and light to the world.

We now face a crunch of limited resources. And we all must ask ourselves what is important to us in a University. If you believe that Princeton ought to be a glorified sports franchise with its loyal mass of followers ready to pounce of the enemies of the black and orange, by all means, let it be. But if you, even naively, believe in the promise that a University supports the intellectual life and promise of its students, then you call for ending support for Princeton’s varsity sports.

Side note: In 1968 UC San Diego voted down its football program. The school has yet to fall into a heap of ruin. I respect a school with the courage to take a stand for learning shut down expensive distractions.

Tend Your Garden

2009-08-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

Originally posted July 27, 2009:

I got a small bonsai tree today. I know fairly little about the art of keeping such a tree. My prefered type of plant to keep are cacti and succulents. Even during the hottest part of the San Diego summer, I can keep my aloe vera in full sun being generally ignored except for occasional water (and I emphasize occasional). One pot I planted about two years ago currently is attempting an escape as green tendrils creep over the walls of the vessel.

I generally dislike overly controlled/high maintenance forms of plant life. I really dislike the people who keep lush green lawns in arid environments. There isn’t much water in this area, note the naturally occurring shrubs on the hillsides.And yet some people keep and water their green, green lawns. Is your extra piece of vanity worth the extra hours of watering, trimming and feeding? No, I would prefer a rock garden or at least more better suited plants in my front yard. There is beauty allowing nature to take its course (plus you save a huge amount of water, a nontrivial effect given the current drought and population growth in southern California) I believe that my job in gardening is to provide room, water and sunlight. Other than that, my job is to leave the plant fucking alone.

When you let a plant grow on its own, uninhibited by your own desires, wants and rules, it can also be free from my inadequecies, weaknesses and limitations. And I have many. I need not a minor clone of myself in plant form, I want a different influence upon my life. Perhaps then I can learn something anew from the trees.

Many times when writers end a story with a moral, a prepackaged lesson condensed for the reader’s easy consumption. However, such a method traps the piece in an analytical cage. It cannot mean anymore than the writer puts in the picture. Many times when a parent raises a child with certain rules, a prepackaged lesson that seeks the generate a clone of the parents. The child is shackled and cannot grow beyond the limitations of the parents. I take each endeavor in life as a chance to cultivate a new garden in the backyard and minds of others.

Weird Dream

2009-08-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Originally posted July 11, 2009:

I had a weird dream last night. Weird by my standards:

I had just done ocean fishing with my dad, but we hadn’t had very much luck. We had only caught 1 fish and it was the fish that you catch right at the beginning on the trawl line. But we had a fish, so it wasn’t too bad.

We were cutting it up at home, and we cut off it’s head and it’s meaty insides looked like bread. It was kind of white-ish and instead of vessels, it looked like blood was being carried through the air holes in the bread. We cut some more, and we opened up it stomach and we found a ear of corn. But it wasn’t just in the stomach, it was mounted against the stomach wall sticking outward. And right below the stomach, my mom pointed out that you could see the kideny and could tell that the fish hadn’t gone to the bathroom before it had been caught. Which is weird, because the kidney perform that function in the body… and that’s not where the kidney is located in a fish…

Playing with Fire(flies)

2009-08-03T10:16:00.002-07:00

Originally posted June 25, 2009:

I spent a few hours this evening reading a book in the lower branches of a favorite tree just outside of my room. When the light finally became to dim to read, I headed back to dorm, finding the constant luminance of my room a more conducive environment for reading. Yet while I was making my way through the grass, I noticed a faint spark among the darkened blades of grass. As a natural pyro, I immediately thought to a fire spark. But now, the ephemeral burst came from a lonely firefly, an aptly named insect indeed.

For anyone who has betrayed their parents warnings and played with matches understands the process. You strike the match against the flint and hope for the friction to spark into a small flame. This is never a sure process. Even with new matches and a good striker, even with years and years of experience, each match must past through a fateful moment, a turning point. It decided whether the spark will catch into a fire or fade into nothing. It is the difference between light and dark, day and night, knowledge and ignorance.

People to this day understand the metaphorical relationship between a spark and an idea. Many of us have had “flashes” or “bursts” of insight. But these are rare. We spend most of our days artificially enlightened by blubs or flames already set up for us. I flip a light switch with no suspect as to whether the light will turn on or not. And so we are caught in an inescapably determined future.

I enjoy my fiery nocturnal friends. In each of them is the flash of insight or moment of genius towards which we all ideally strive. It is a moment of completely uncertainty, as the spark perchance leads us somewhere new. And how can unknown be certain to us? At the moment they shine through the dark, they junction between a failed attempt or a moment of insight. While they invariably fade back to darkness, I chase them anyway. It is an uncertain leader, but I know, respect and admire the potential of a spark.

News: News sux

2009-08-03T10:16:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 24, 2009:

I keep a feed on my home page that gives me what they believe to be the top headlines of the day. I must stress “they believe”, as I am wary anytime an outside organization does such explicit and blatant filtering of the news. I did this because at one time I believe that it would provide a font of wisdom into the workings of the world at large, elevating my view of the world.

That was an epic fail.

There are a number of reasons that I do not take the most popular news sources very seriously. For one, they tend to be owned by large conglomerate corporations. And large corporations, by definition, have one goal: make the most money by whatever means possible. And if this means manipulation at the expense of journalistic integrity, then so be it.

And this doesn’t have to be an explicit lieing. One of the most annoying, yet effective, strategies is for news organizations to focus on completely idiocitic and distracting issues. I swear, in the last 4 hours, I have seen about 3 different stories come up about the sex scandal regarding South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. You know what, I don’t fucking care if he sodomized with dozen prostitutesa hot poker while snorting cocaine off the horse’s nutsack. It’s not a political issue in any shape or form. It doesn’t affect policy, and it doesn’t affect stated role of goverment of bettering citizen’s lives (I must stress “stated role” in this context).

I strongly suspect that news organizations focus on distracting issues such as sex scandals and the break up of “Jon and Kate” because it allows corporations to continue to get along without public scruitinty. If everyone is crying because of some side issue, if news reporters are too busy trying to ask why a govener would have sex with a woman in Brazil, then these people don’t pay attention to issues that matter. Stop asking President Obama why he smokes. Fuck, you should be grilling him on health care, on troops in Iraq, on troops in every other part of the world, on climate change, on worker’s rights, on renewable energy, on corporate influence in the goverment. Why is the richest country in the world unable to help its poor, educate its young and care for its old? He should be reaching for something stronger than tobacco.

Summer Rain

2009-08-03T10:15:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 23, 2009:

Summer rain makes my day, the really hard stuff bombs the ground and drums the window. I spend my time indoors, not dancing among the puddles. But I still appreciate summer’s song, for it is a catchy tune.

Soul-stice

2009-08-03T10:14:00.002-07:00

Originally posted June 22, 2009:

June 21st is one of my most favorite days of the year. Fuck Christmas. Screw Thanksgiving. It’s today (I guess yesterday by the time I post this). June 21st is the summer solstice, or more commonly known as the longest day of the year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice#English_names

I thrive in such prolonged sunlight and warmth. I was born in the sun and have lived in the sun. I remember playing outside deep into August nights, when the air is warm as bathwater and the light burns crimson in the west. As long as I can see the sun and feel its warmth, I know that I am still alive. I have spent many months in the cold and dark. I look forward to this time of year, if for no other reason but to regroup and prepare and reflect.

Dear Prudence

2009-08-03T10:14:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 19, 2009:

(Copied from an email dated 6/15/09)

Dear students,

Over the past several semesters, students have expressed concern about professors who have not correctly followed the grading policy. The most frequent complaint was of professors saying that they would have liked to have given an “A” for a particular assignment, but that they were prevented from doing so by the grading policy.

To address student concern regarding the grading policy, I have spoken at length about this issue with Dean Malkiel, and she has agreed to draft a letter with USG representatives to the faculty explaining student concerns and clarifying that it is never acceptable to give “A”-caliber work anything less than an “A”.

We would like to extend an invitation to all students who would like to be involved in the writing of this letter to join us in this effort. If you would like to share your input and help write this letter, …

Sincerely,

-Connor DY

Dear Connor Diemand-Yauman (Princeton Undergraduate Student Government President) and everyone else who has been complaining about the Princeton policy of grade deflation,

Please stop sending me emails regarding your protest of grade deflation. I get enough idiotic shit from you during the school year. Can you at least leave my inbox unmolested for a few months every year? I don’t want to support your crusade against grade deflation. I like grade deflation. I like that its proceeding to give you and much of the campus a kick in the ass.

I have a very hard time respecting a student that wants to return to the old grading policies. I interpret complaints to return to grade inflation as essentially a student’s way of saying “I want to get a higher grade for doing the same amount of work”. I understand that point of view. It represents the college student’s dream. Most college students would be perfectly happy in a world in which they would get an ‘A’ by virtue of having a pulse and internal body temperature in the vicinity of 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grade inflation fosters a very unhealthy mindset in students. It’s an obsessive, compulsive entitlement with obtaining top grades. See, most of us come from backgrounds in which we were constantly coddled and reassured about how talented we are. We got the highest scores on all the tests. We lead the right clubs. We got the best grades in our classes, often without trying. It’s no surprise that a student emerging from such a background would expect this to continue receiving top marks.

And I don’t give a flying fuck that you or any other student on campus is dissatisfied with his or her grades. Look I understand that kids got cranky because they stopped getting straight A’s when they started taking classes at the University. I understand that some kids got upset that the universe, in fact, does not revolve around them. In fact, I think it’s a good thing. I think it is good that Princeton students don’t have inflated grades. Inflated grades lead to inflated personalities. And God knows there are plenty of those around without even considering grades. I think that a graduation requirement should be to have at least one “F” on your report card under grades. A good intellectual kick in the ass (and sometimes a physical one as well) does a large good for character building. Learning to survive a setback is as important to building character as learning to succeed. And if students go through their academic careers constantly getting good marks, then they miss a vital part of growing up.

Some talk about post-graduation endeavors such as law school and job hunting. These self-absorbed corporate climbers complain that “we won’t be able to get into law school/med school/grad school because Harvard/Yale/(Insert other school here) students have inflated GPA’s”. I have zero sympathy for these people. None whatsoever. These are students who have been given, from an academic perspective, everything. They have received one of the best educations in the world at one of the best academic institutions on the planet. They have boundless opportunity to do anything they want. And the most profound subject on their mind is a few points of GPA. It’s pathetic, and I am embarassed to call these people my classmates.

So what if other Ivy League schools inflate grade? Whatever happened to individuality and free thinking? When I was little, I was taught that you shouldn’t do an action only because other people are doing it. That’s why I’m studying at Princeton instead of doing pot in my friend’s basement. If you accept that grade inflation fosters an unhealthy mindset that actively interferes with a student’s maturation, then it doesn’t really matter who else is doing it. Just because all the other schools are doing grade inflation doesn’t mean we should do is it as well.
Sure, our GPA’s might not be as large as those at Harvard or Yale. And this may mean that some students are going to have trouble because some employers don’t know about grade deflation. I was lead to believe by some naive fool that an education is more than a summation of post-graduation opportunities. It is better for us to learn from an honest GPA than to continue to persist in this delusion of grade inflation. The thing about inflated objects, whether bubbles, grades or girlfriends, is that sooner or later they pop.

Man with a Hoe

2009-08-03T10:13:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Amy for pointing this one out.

Title of the painting…. ” Man With a Hoe” (L’homme à la houe). Being mature here.

Originally posted June 17, 2009

On Tea

2009-08-03T10:13:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 15, 2009:

I have just returned from a short trip New York City, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. And while the city has a kind of restless energy that acts as the dynamo for its cultural development, I found myself continually uncomfortable by the situation. I must concede that I stayed in Manhattan, only a few blocks from Time’s Square, it is one of the most busy areas of the city. However, as a mass concentration of people, the streets are always moving. The lights are always on. The subway is always on schedule. Such a way of living divorces itself from the earth’s daily heartbeat. A day begins not with a feiry eastern renewal. Each day is just like the last. In fact, each day is the last for there is no way to separate the two. We humans live and die based upon the steady beat within our chest. If we lose the beat in the sky, do we not perish in the same way?

My temporary dwelling near the University cannot compare to New York City in terms of population density and movement. By comparisons, the University is but a country hamlet with a few farms and nothing more. However, I still operate upon a clock with delegates 1/3 of my day to the office, 1/3 of my day to sleep and 1/3 of my day to every other endeavor imaginable. As expected, such free time is if great value to me, for it is the time when I eat, bathe and reflect upon the busy happenings of the day. Perhaps there are small islands of so-called freedom among the week’s work. But to live upon an island with no other support is to be stranded. I would rather strap together some planks and take my chances against the ocean’s wrath. For perhaps I will sail to more habitable waters. I have crucified myself upon the moving hands of the clock.

In light of the unnatural comings and goings of the normal day, I feel that it is appropriate to set aside a short portion of my day in reflection of a different perspective to this dominating and rigorously timed regime. A culture of work is most powerful if it can convince you that there is no alternative to the daily toil for a piece of bread and extra coin. A revolution begins with an idea. Perhaps it is not well defined. It begins as a thought, a intuition, a feeling.

I wish to take a few moments to reflect upon tea. Other cultures have created their own practice and ritual around tea. I will not attempt in any way to imitate or emulate those practices. It is not that I do not respect such ideas, on the contrary, I have much respect for the dedication and attention to detail paid to tea by these people. But this meditation requires that I consider alternatives. And if I am to arrive as at the same conclusion as others before me, than it is of no positive or negative consequence.

The wisest of men do not brew tea, but capture steam. Many have tried to sell me so-called iced tea. But such a beverage is but a bastardized spin off of the original form. Hot tea shows dedication and preparation, as it must be consumed almost immediately after being brewed. In days prior to electric and gas stoves, a hot cup of tea showed immense effort and work. Even in this trait, the best cups of tea force the drinker to slow down. Iced tea can be chugged while at half trot to the next meeting. I sit down and watch the white fingers of emerge from the tea cup and grab upwards towards the air. I cannot help but see my own soul grasping for something better in the sky.

Unlike its more vulgar 2nd cousin-twice removed, soda, and its more corporate brother coffee, tea retains its searing purity. While most spike their morning coffee with cream, sugar and other ingredients to attempt to make their caustic brew more palatable, hot tea is best consumed uncontaminated. The warmth slips through your throat and leaves the mouth warm and crisp. While sugar lingers around as an unwelcome guest, hot tea offers redemption as it leaves no trace of its presence. The only other beverage I can think of with this trait is water. And while water and tea are very similar, at least to the chemist, hot tea is more than the sum of its chemical ingredients. For if it was, tea and coffee would be but different vehicles for delivering the same jolt of caffeine to the oppressed masses.

Tea is one of the more transparent of drinks, perhaps only behind water. In that way, we may see the insight behind it. Such a lens is best when it is simple, for it offers the best view of reality. For tea does not ask for complicated recipes, expensive ingredients or complex flavors. It can be made by any poor student with some heat and some leaves. A man need not rent his life away for such luxury. The simple warmth of humanity is but a teacup away.

Social Control

2009-08-03T10:12:00.003-07:00

Originally posted June 11, 2009:

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”

I often rail against how dumb and obedient and useless “people” are. And in there lies the potential for cognitive dissonance. Because if I truly held disdain for every single person, I might as well go back into my cave and pine away with nobody else for the next 50-80 years (hopefully). In such a case, there would be no hope for humanity and really no worth in trying.

The fact of the matter is that I rather like individual people. In its usage, “people” is kind of a large, homogenous, undefined mass of humanoid figures, metaphors and ideas. It is something I have to carefully explain to friends when I talk to them, as they often assume that I hate their guts and do conversations to humor them. The confusion of usage between “people” and “individuals” is an unfortunate ambiguity of our language. I love talking and doing stuff with individuals. They have the potential to be unique and nuanced and truly a refreshing encounter. The biggest problem I find with “people” is not so much that the individuals comprising them are bad or stupid, but that “people” exert very strong control of thought. They are told what to think, how to act, what is acceptable and what questions you aren’t supposed to ask. This is by no means a comprehensive list. But the point is that these are attempts to control thought. And when you control thought, it is fairly easy to control action.

When I think about the extent to which information and ideas in the United States are controlled, it’s like pulling weeds. Everywhere I look, there are more weeds. And the more you dig, you find the weeds go far deeper than you ever imagined. Remember that almost all forms of mass media is founded upon advertisements. TV shows are just the entertaining parts between the ads, telling you that you NEED this handbag or tennis shoe. Radio and newspaper are almost always supported by corporate funding. This poses a problem. A radio station cannot have anti-business opinions if its purse strings are held by other businesses.

As a result, I don’t take very seriously any story that is in the media. For example, today the only story I could find on CNN.com was about swine flu is now in pandemic stage. Now, I understand that swine flu is an actual illness and people die, but it doesn’t need this much coverage. Honestly, nothing has really happened yet, except that the WHO changed the classification. When people start dieing in the streets, then maybe it’ll merit this many stories. But, if people get into a huge frenzy about swine flu, then drug companies can and will exploit this to help their bottom line. People are afraid, they demand the government buy drugs and suddenly their stock prices jump 50 points.

I like the Internet. It provides a way to communicate ideas, thoughts and to organize with relatively little influence by business interests. Compared to TV, it’s very easy to organize I group of like-minded individuals on a place like facebook. It’s easier to post your radical thoughts on a blog. However, I see this fading fast. If anyone has gone to Youtube lately, you can see that the user posted content is strongly deemphasized. Instead, they feature videos made by corporate groups. Instead of seeing keyboard cat, you’re more likely to see National Geographic video on making your room more environmentally friendly. It’s sad, but a common trend. The internet, in the end, is another advertising ground. To save it from the same controlled fate of radio, TV and newspapers, it’s up to us.

Survival of the Fittest (University)

2009-08-03T10:12:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 9, 2009:

When I was growing up, I used to think of the Ivy League schools as bastions of intelligence and brilliance. A school like Harvard or Yale or Princeton or any other was a of beacon of light for the dark and unenlightened rest of the world. I would like to say that this illusion has effectively and completely broken down into rubble, but I feel that rubble would be too close to the original delusion to adequately describe the transformation. Perhaps an image such as dust or obliteration would be a more appropriate comparison. Hyperbole aside, it is very tempting to categorically label all such students of such school as intelligent. And that works if you narrowly define intelligence as the ability to make full and completely darkened circles in the correct order or subjugate yourself to a respectable group of other followers to imbue yourself with the benefits of their collective reputation.

Most of us understand on some external or internal level that things such as grades, tests scores, ability to play certain sports and certain instruments only represent a narrow slice of a person’s intelligence, though many internalize or simply ignore this insight. Selective blindness to this thought is very useful if you are one of those people who can get good test scores and do the sports well as it provides a justification for your feeling of superiority over others. However, actually being around so-called high achieving individuals, especially at a University, does a fairly good job of shattering any such hope that ability to be admitted equals intelligence.

I see plenty of people who are “intelligent” by the aforementioned standard. I see drunk idiots staggering around campus who got a 2400 on their SAT and routed every AP test known to man. I’ve sat next to people willing to spend 3 days in the library, take a shot of Red Bull and do 7 more. And the “handbag to book” ratio is still pretty bad here. The longer I’m here, the more I realize that many, if not most students don’t care about thinking in any large or open sense. You know what they’re interested in? Being accepted. Getting ahead. Doing well. Making the right grades and getting into the right clubs. I find there is no significant difference between this and the clamor to finish college applications. This has only the thin veneer of dignity painted in orange and black. They don’t want to be the next prophet or start a revolution. You know what they want? A safe place to live. A house with neighbors like them and money flowing through the garden. It’s why Princetons, nay most Ivy League students, spend most of their time trying to bubble into their own little groups.

You realize that in the end, none of this is about being smart in any broad form. They don’t want the next Jesus or Einstein. They want the CEO who will punch in, punch out, and likely do the same to his wife. Because in the end, any research University with an reasonable endowment is not interested in training people who can think for themselves. Fuck, the last thing they want is some annoy son of a bitch roaming around campus and asking awkward questions. First off, there’s no way in hell he’ll willing go along with the myriad of ridiculous, yet time honored traditions. I sometimes wonder why we so readily reject traditions such as slavery and the denial of woman’s suffrage, but heartily endorse singing “Old Nassau” and parading up and down campus. They all were pretty much started by the same rich, white people. And if this student doesn’t buy into the campus traditions, he might inspire other students to shun such frivolities. There’s nothing worse for social control than people who don’t buy into your assumptions.

But the worst thing of all, is that this student isn’t going to donate money as an alumni. Hell, he might not even have much money to begin with. Even though we think of evolution in terms of biology, the same principles can be used to look at institutions. They survive and fail depending on their ability to survive in different social climates. A University with any sort of interest in protecting its endowment needs, nay thrives, on a constant supply of alumni donations. More money = bigger endowment = better school. More money for buildings and research and professors. Our educations system is set up to define the fitness of a University directly and indirectly as a result of money. In such a case, a research University must train people who are set up to make the most money. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, but the logical result of the circumstances that we have found ourselves in. The very fact that a University thrives today iplies it has survived by obtaining large sums of money. And this necessitates a money generating alumni. So as much as we would like to support philosophers and thinkers and artists and free thinkers and revolutionaries, these people don’t make much money. The University needs obedient, efficient, young professions. It needs engineers and lawyers and doctors and CEOs. People who are willing to do 100 hours a week, make a ton of money and funnel it back into the University. I look forward to disappointing them.

An article that I liked on this subject: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200104/brooks

Short Complaints

2009-08-03T10:11:00.003-07:00

Originally posted June 6, 2009:

Things that I am tired of hearing about:

1) Information regarding the fate of Air France flight 447. Yes, it crashed. Yes, everybody appears dead. I don’t see the need to belabor the point. But I understand to an extent why the original story would be noteworthy. The idea of a big heap of metal crashing into the ocean does sound pretty interesting. I don’t like all of this stupid shit afterwards. Everytime something like this happens everybody goes completly hysterical over safety and neglience and other self-righteous causes. Look, facts are facts. This people are dead. This kind of thing happens, don’t worry about it too much.

2) Reactions from President Obama’s speech. I keep getting newsfeeds about how some groups “appluad” or “reject” President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo. If the people of the Middle East are half as cyncial of life and human intentions, I believe that they do not give a shit what some American says. Because much of America’s foriegn policy history has been based upon the great American double standard. We say one thing, and do something different. I, and probably most rational beings, am not at all impressed by a political speech. In fact, I expect abject lies and untruths from politicians. The reactions should be towards actual actions, which I early await, but an not hopeful for

Flash of Nocturnal Thought

2009-08-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 6, 2009:

I write right now in a time when a few moments ago I was about to go to sleep. Three minutes ago, I thought I preparing for a peaceful night of sleep. But sudden bursts of insight make for poor bedmates, as they contain a sort of restless energy. Ideas strike when they wish; and the job of the observant writer, nay the observant human, is to catch them in a medium of choice. And so I write.

We are compelled by nature into a need for sleep. Despite the copious consumption of caffeine and other energy inducing chemicals, people usually will go to sleep. This should be a natural cycle like any other pulse or beat of the world. We measure the days of our lives with the beating of a heart, a movement of a sun or the cycle of sleep and awakening. I too enjoy a good sleep in so far that I wake up refreshed and renewed.

Yet in sleeping, we are essentially dying, for a limited time. We set ourselves in a comfortable place and lie there, more or less still, for a couple of hours. It offers a quiet escape from the normal hustle and bustle of the day. Perhaps we may dream, but I rarely remember such vision and instead remember a veil of black. Scientists will readily point out that the brain is anything but dead during sleep cycles. Brain waves, heart beats and other vital signs can be detected during sleep as evidence that the person is not dead. But I am thinking of death on a more personal level. For even if my body still had strength and my heart still motion, what good would life be if I was not conscious to enjoy it?

The overworked student will sometimes brag about how is going to sleep a large amount of time on a given weekend. I have heard many such students sleeping more than 12 hours than waking up to sleep another 12. Perhaps part of this is purely physical recovery from their obsessive weekly behavior, though I feel health can be more easily protected by a more sane schedule during the week. I cannot understand such pride in sleeping so much. To be asleep is to simulate death. And in this slumber, you miss out on life. A normal sleeping person will sleep 6-8 hours per night. This means that a person’s age should be reduced by 25% or 33%, depending on their habits. For a 40 year old man has only been awake for 30 of those years ( or perhaps 0, depending on thoughts and emotions.)

I enjoy the feeling of a new dawn, but I enjoy even more is the moment before sleep. After completing my chores for the day, I can curl up in my dark bed and momentarily reflect on the day’s happenings. I feel I am able to do my best thinking at such times, as I am, in that moment, most isolated from all other people. The daily clamor and prejudice slip away into the inky abyss. And all that is left is myself. In a sense, that moment before sleep is the entry point to a new day. Many people make resolutions on a New Year. I make every evening my New Year (though with more dedication than most other New Year’s resolutions). For when I consider all the detail, energy and life of a given day, I remember how incredibly long those 24 hours has been. I am reminded of the things I have sped past in my hurry on a normal day. For tomorrow I will be more conscious of the falling leaves and more amazed at the ancient stonework that I overlooked yesterday. In that way, each day becomes a year and each year stretches for centuries.

Balance

2009-08-03T10:10:00.003-07:00

Originally posted June 3, 2009:

Despite 13 years of Tae Kwon Do, I took up Aikido last fall as a martial art to study. The philosophical basis of Aikido stems from the idea that strength comes not from muscle, but from balance. The key to any takedown is to first assure the opponent is off balance. Actually, the key to any takedown is to first make sure that you have your own balance. I have heard the advice “take their balance” so many times that I now find myself waking up in the wee hours of the morning repeating that phrase. A person is quite easy to throw when she is off balance. Think of friction. A frictional resistance is proportional not only to a body’s weight, but its coefficient of friction. If that number is small, then even a large object is relatively easy to move. I think of taking balance as reducing the mu. No wonder Aikido attracts so many physicists.

Like any worthwhile martial art, the moves of Aikido mean more than the physical motions. I sometimes think of Aikido as a metaphor for myinteractions with people daily. There is no battle, but non-violent resolution. Do not fight or struggle. If you decide move, then your opponent has already lost. It’s too late. I start by staying in balance and looking at the balance of otherse. If some rambling fool wishes to bother me with their reckless prose, I hope to be able to see where he is weakest and exploit that at minimal effort to myself. When I consider how I want to be, I want to be balanced. A balance inevitably evokes the metaphor of a scale or measurement tool. Perhaps the symbol of justice? Of trade? Of rule of law? I don’t see those things in my life. I see it as standing balanced, a natural stance. How does a person live balanced? Literally speaking, one could keep 1 jar of peanut butter, 1 jar of jelly. She could keep 1 unicycle, 1 bicycle, 1 tricycle. No, no, no.

To be balanced is to see every action, every person, every event, every idea in the context of our entire life. It is so that one aspect of our life does not grow fat while others atrophy. It is to keep each facet of ourselves with equal shine. I believe the mantra that we are most strong when we are balanced and relaxed. When I watch masters at any endeavor, perhaps a master musician or a math prodigy, they do not strain, or jitter or rock back and forth. They are calm and in control, as if their task was as natural as waking up in the morning. To make an action natural, smooth and relaxed is to find balance in your calling and your life. A balanced life calls upon this natural strength, stronger than sinew or steel. What better ally than Gaea herself to have on your side.

I cannot sympathize with my peers who live in the mountains and canyons of life. Each day brings a new tragedy, a new thrill, a novelty to scream over or a passion to laugh on. It is but daily hit. Though the drug of choice is not weed or coke, but of gossip and chatter and mindless banter. In such a case, each day is a battle, not a source of renewal. I see Dox Quiote fighting the windmills, not spirits finding themselves. How much breath have I heard wasated over a bad score on a problem set amount or angry talk over a judge’s bad call? If my life turns on such a detail, it is not worth living. My soul is not bettered by talk of the weather or gossip in the hallway. And after a cute joke, I only find that my heart is more empty and alone than when it began.

I try to see what does not matter. One could argue that I may be missing out on an aspect of life. Many people, books and ideas glorify living for the moment, for living the empassioned recklessness of youth. They long for the ability to do what they want, when they want, how they want. Perhaps it is because they are so restrained on a normal day. And I agree I am missing out on a part of life. I have one life to live, and cannot live 1,000 lives in that lifetime. My only job is to make my life as best as possible. I reject a life of the surface, the life of aggression, the life of chatter and distractions and seek a life of balance. I want to go to my bed each evening that I have saw something truly beautiful today. I want to feel each day that I have been renewed.

Many people I know say many words, but speak little. I know many people who see many objects, but do not really view the world. The daily trudge to class is but a sleepwalker dressed in different garb. The world is filled with sleepwalkers. In each fleeting moment of the day, there are infinite colors, shapes and sizes to see the world. With each second, there lies an world of different meanings in different combinations and comparisons. For you see more when you know to look for more. The more you look, the more you see. I look at my desk at this moment. I see a laptop. But look closer, I see discarded pens and pencils worn dull. I look closer; I see scrap a paper, a note to a forgetful mind. I look closer; I see a specks of dust and hair from hours of writing, reading and idling. I look closer; I see a dull shade of gray. Or perhaps green. Small valleys and canyons run almost invisibly along the grain. In each crevice, a Grand Canyon. Mount Everest lies right below my elbows and in front of my eyes. No need to go to Asia to scale a mountain. How sad it would be to be alive and not see such things. To live as a blinded horse, eating from a bag and literally walking in circles. How sad it would be to miss the infinite opportunity that lies in each second that flows through us.

Reuniting With My Blog

2009-08-03T10:10:00.001-07:00

Originally posted June 1, 2009.

I haven’t been writing much as of late. I have found that working a 9-5 job does stifle your creativity a bit. I find that my idle thoughts flow much more easily from an unworked mind. With each engineering and programming problem I solve, I work one half of my brain while leaving the other to atrophy and wither. I will have to do something about that. The problem is that because 8+ hours of my day are devoted to work (and I do actually work during that time), I find that I have less material to write about. My mind is dominated by work, programs, semi-colons and robots. Silly musings about the ant I saw today seem out of place. I suppose that is the sign of a imprisoned spirit. I’ll try and write more. I spend so much time doing science; at least a few minutes of my day can be devoted to one of my favored crafts.

When I was younger, I felt that the most profound way of expressing my thoughts was through complaint. It’s a very useful technique that I still use frequently in my writing, speech and pretty much any other form of communication. However, I feel I have become more calm as of late. I spend more time alone than I used to, and face an environment where I have less control over the situation. In high school, I had a dominant position in the campus’ intellectual life and I could easily assert my will and opinions on basically any subject I chose. The range, depth and sheer amount of subjects, people, traditions and ideas at University are frankly too much for one single person to fully criticize all of it. I found just in reading my past few entries a marked difference from what I would have written in the past. While they are not really nature writing, they seem to reflect a kind of peace or harmony with the elements of the campus culture I find annoying, as opposed to outright hostility (Though “Stupid Shit” if fairly hostile). I wish to spend a few moments complaining about something so obvious, it is literally right outside of my door.

When I am asked how I like Princeton, I am invariably placed into a spot where I must distill a dizzying range of events into a quaint sentence. And instead of introducing confusing and ridiculous side of campus culture, I usually reply “we are well taken care of”. It refers to dining, classes and the over abundance of safety around campus. I rarely fear that I will be mugged or raped, and I like that. While we are “safe” inside our castle, the enemy is within the walls. I like Princeton, but I do not have any more allegiance to it than I would my high school or a corporation I buy from. However, the campus is seeped with tradition and a rabid alumni base. And every year, about this time, they descend upon the campus. This is the time of reunions.

While I may seem like an antisocial asshole, for all of my complaints, I like people. I just don’t like everybody. I’m a bit more discriminating. I’m not the ho at the club willing to blow any guy for a drink and perhaps a cute comment. Not me, I have standards. If I had the opportunity to reunite with people that I liked, eat lots of food and drink copious amounts of alcohol, I would jump at that opportunity. I mean, what’s not to like? In that sense, a reunion seems like a great idea. But inthere lies the problem. After I graduate, I will, more or less, stay in contact with the people I like. And I will ignore those I do not like. Therefore, a reunion would entail me only reuniting with the people I didn’t like enough to stay in contact with. Really, it would be like revisiting my class, but only seeing the people I don’t like. And they are numerous indeed.

But if people want to hang out and drink and enjoy life, I’m not one to judge. They should enjoy themselves. You know what I really don’t get. I saw people around reuniting from the Class of 2008… last year. What the fuck are these people doing here? They have nothing to reunite about. They were practically here just yesterday. What kind of empty and pointless life do these people lead such that an enjoyable event is being nostalgic about something that basically just happened? The alumni jokingly point out that life after graduation sucks… a lot. Reunions are a chance to relive the carefree days of drunken revelry of University.

Reunions provide an excellent learning opportunity. It concentrates many elements of the University that I like least into a small confined area. I get to enjoy loyal brothers of some collection of Greek letters yell about how great life was and how their company is doing. Perhaps the alumni have learned that the life they were endlessly prepped and readied for really suck. That perhaps the success and money that they have obtained have not really made them happier. Instead of facing that reality and making it better, they regress to a younger state of alcohol and pre-arranged social networks. I think that is why so many alumni come back. The life of ambition and material gain they have chosen… really sucks. It’s really the social equivalent of trying to crawl back into your mother’s womb. I think it’s completely pathetic.

I’m 3 years from finishing my time at Princeton, and I already don’t want to attend graduation. I have better, more interesting and more meaningful activities to do than to prance around in weird orange and black outfits while people drink too much. That is what Halloween is for. I don’t want to deal with the crowds of people singing stupid songs, making stupid gestures and doing these ridiculous things because their lives are empty without them. I don’t like “Old Nassau” very much and feel I am fairly close to a Nazi pride gesture than any profound love of knowledge. I seek to make my life stand upon its own. It does not need the validation by connecting itself to a set of beliefs and rituals created by a bunch of dead white guys.

I will probably only attend reunions under one of two cases:

1) I am beaten over the head repeatedly by a large metal object, grabbed by several large burly men, stabbed several times in non-vital areas such as the leg and hand, and coerced at gun point into the campus

2) To show my future wife why I dislike most of my classmates so much. It’s easier than trying to explain and would answer so many questions in just a few short hours.

Cooking Victory

2009-08-03T10:09:00.001-07:00

Originally posted May 25, 2009:

Moving heavy boxes from Whitman to Mathey is tiring. Doing is about 7 times is more than 7 times as tiring. At least I got a good night’s sleep last night. Yuliya still owes me dinner XD.

Have you ever gone to a Japanese restaurant and be the only one of the group to not order sushi for dinner?

While a summer long orgy of Hoagie Haven, Panera, and other take out food sounds like a good idea, I think that after a few weeks of their congealed, processed greasy, I might get a little bit tired of fast food. I spent some of the Memorial Day afternoon getting groceries and other supplies necessary for cooking. It didin’t help that many of the stores were closed for… well Memorial Day. I honored the holiday by exercising my only inalienable right, buy stuff, lots and lots of stuff. Who would have thought it would had been so hard to find a frying pan. But I succeeded, and found sufficient number of ingredients to cook. I fried up some vegetables and eggs and put it over cooked rice. Mmmmm tasty, and I didn’t have to order it from a counter. It’s quite interesting work cooking with only 1 pan, 1 spatula, 1 (very small) knife and 1 bowl. It does strip down the unnecessary tools of cooking. Who ever thought you could cook rice in an frying pan? I must admit, however, my style of preparing food is hardly considered sophisticated by any concievable stretch of the imagination. My meals are generally just named by a long list of ingredients that I have thrown into a pot or pan and cooked in their own juices. And usually this includes an excessive amount of onions. But stripping away the extra parts of preparing a meal reduces it to something more simple. I had less pots to clean. And my ingredients were (relatively) simple. Rice, egg, onion and asparagus (plus shoyu to taste). I’m looking forward as the summer goes on. While this is good, and I’ve prepared a tasty bento box for tomorrow, I will not eat this same dish ad nauseum (or I’ve just replaced take out with this one dish). Different and limited sets of ingredients breed creativity, desperation and sometimes coaxes the bent of brilliances.

Perhaps its like solving a puzzle. Each new day is a challenge to make something new and delicious. Or perhaps the fact that I find this event exciting enough to write about actually my complete idiocy of the subject, which would actually constitute a cooking Fail…

"There is more day to dawn"

2009-08-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Originally posted May 24, 2009:

“I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”

-Henry David Thoreau in Walden

I am quite excited to move into my new room. After stripping away the superficiality of my old room, it has returned to being a box with white walls. And a quiet box is nice at times. There is a simple purity about the room without trinkets and decorations lining every corner. I find that such changes inevitably bring new opportunities. I find that I make new friends, meet new girls and learn new things at the highest rate at times of change. It was why going to the University was initially very exciting. The shot of social and academic adrenaline that kicks life in the groin and marches forward.

There are problems. In such cases, I am not genuinely excited by the activity, but by the novelty of the activity. I do not appreciate the experience for itself, but because it’s new and different. But that is a natural way of thinking. A simple thought experiment: is it possible to imagine anything that you would want to do forever? I can’t say I could. Perhaps I really love, like laying on the beach, would be fun at first. But 2000 years in, I might want a change in scenery. I feel like part of maturing is making peace with this boredom brought on by lack of novelty. Like, as I get used to undergraduate life here, the days will become less novel. And yet, I believe I can still find fulfillment in making peace with the extra-ordinary events of the ordinary day. But today that is not on my mind. I have a new job, a new room, new neighbors, new challenges, new access and a new day.

Perhaps each new day, each rebirth of the sun, is a chance for our own renewal. To find everyday a chance for wonder, excitement and novelty, perhaps that is what I seek.

Stupid Shit

2009-08-03T10:07:00.002-07:00

Originally posted May 22, 2009

“Apparently, in this country, the Stupids are an extended family. And besides wearing them T-shirts, every one of them families have got on a backpack, strapped to their back, so that they could carry around lots of stupid shit. And the reason they need to carry their stupid shit strapped to their backs is because their hands must remain free at all times to hold food. And to get that food up to the mouth where it gets shoveled in with all the rest of the disgusting shit they ate that day. And another reason for the backpacks is these people are going to buy even more stupid shit. They haven’t got enough stupid shit at home, they just had a stupid shit sale and they are going to buy more.They are going to go out in the parking lot and stuff this stuff into their big fat ugly oversized SUV, that’s got plenty of room in it for stupid shit and lots of room left over for these big fat ugly motherfuckers to get them home. Stopping of course for jelly roll and fried dough“

-George Carlin in “Dumb Americans” from Life is Worth Losing

One of my heroes. I wish I could put it better, as this is my blog. But whatever.

I can’t say that I’ve done much productive in the past few days. Despite my old pledge to learn how to program, speak Japanese and learn to do everything else in the span of this free week, I’ve made progress on almost none of those things. Actually, I’ve spent more time cleaning out my room and packing my stuff up. I’ve gone to calling me stuff “stupid shit” more than anything else. I believe such a title is much more fitting given that this past week has been the first time I’ve thought/seen many of these items in several months. And I’m not just talking about the winter coat hanging in the wall. There’s lots of little odds and ends of trinkets that I thought would be useful at the beginning of the year, and turned out not to be. Like, I had a box of 500 paperclips. 500… I had used about 1% of them. At the current rate, I’ll need a new box when I’m 118. And I had a lot of extra clothing. I’ve found that I wear a small band of comfortable clothing repeatedly. My 2 pairs of tennis pants have gotten lots of usage. Plus, black shorts match anything, which means less thought when I get dressed in the morning. It has been a steady stripping away of all of the so-called necessities that I needed in my room. Down come the photographs. I’ve put away my clothing, jackets, winter coats, boxes, books, water bottles, coins, CD’s, paper towels, and my kettle. And I’ve used many of these things once. Just once. I’ve spent more effort moving, transporting and storing this stuff than I have actually using them. All I have left (besides the boxes and duffles of stupid shit) is my laptop, my bedding, some clothing, my comb and my teeth cleaning stuff. I still choose to maintain personal hygiene. Oh yes, and some books.

I got 2 books from the book store the other day. I guess I figured if I wasn’t going to be learning stuff for my job, I might as well learn something that I enjoy. I got In Defense of Food by Michael Pollon and Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. They’re closely related. They’re both non-fiction books that deal partly with the industrialization of food production (though Deep Economy is more broad, with food being one aspect of the book). I ended up with the second book because it was 1/3 the original price. That either means a good deal, or a shitty book.

They found a fairly receptive audience in me given that I already care about food and attaining it in good quality. I agree with the idea that production and consumption of processed foods both negatively impacts the people’s health, but also the economy of farmers and communities. And the idea that perhaps we could do without tomatoes in the wintertime instead of flying them in from Peru. There are many more things I could say about these books; however the simplicity of any such explanation would betray the central ideas of the books. I found I especially enjoyed these books because they propose something fairly simple and straightforward, and yet these ideas present deep and profound problems for our current way of living. You only have to go to a supermarket to see how many additives and strange foods there are. What the hell is this “high-fructose corn syrup stuff”? Or Deep Economy poses the question “Is More really Better?”. Our society is dominated by individuals trying to get ahead for a better job, more money and more “stupid shit”. Perhaps our current system of achieving, working and producing may be making us less happy and less well off in the long run.
Genius can make the complex be easy and the easy be complex.

Princeton's Teachers

2009-08-03T10:07:00.001-07:00

Originally posted May 19, 2009:

I woke up this morning and looked out my window. There was a white stuff covering almost the entire lawn. For the briefest moment I thought “OMG SNOW”. I turned out to be a white tarp in preparation for reunions. My first thoughts of the morning move slowly and rarely represent a coherent picture.

The beat of the campus moves at a different pace these days. The rushing mass of students flowing about the campus has been reduced to a mere trickle. The daily surge of people into the dining hall has all but dried up. In a way, I have been savoring this unique time. It is (and remains) a time for friends to leave, but time alone is the best time for reflection. I tend to enjoy situations that include small numbers of people. The conversation in the coffee shop, the nighttime walk. It provides an ideal time to think without the hum of other people invading your meditation. I find it difficult to really enjoy myself if a group of 20 other people do their best to shout as loud as possible about some trivial (if not humorous) detail about monkeys, clubs or school. I find that such groups and “conversations” (if such shouting matches can qualify as talking) are an active hindrance to my long term happiness and well being. I’d sooner listen to the voice on the wind, for it has a much deeper wisdom to tell.

I spent the evening walking around campus. The campus at night (given that it’s not the weekend and drunk idiots are wandering to their watering hole) is generally desolate and quiet. Exploring its nocturnal secrets is always enjoyable. I feel I have not learned anything profound in the daily grind of students, pressures and noise of the campus. Perhaps I can find Princeton’s wisdom hidden in the night. I passed several trees, each bearing the new growth of spring. Even with color blindness, I found it easy to compare the difference in brightness of the new green leaves. Nature painted them a different color to mark their youth and innocence. These trees have waited all winter to sprout this new growth. I have not such patience. While I shivered within my heated dorm, each tree stood as a silent guardian in the snow. They have seen generations come and go and laugh and cry. Trees do not move, but their knowledge of their Eden is full and deep. If only the students would listen to their rustling voices upon the wind. They could find a whole new set of teachers literally waiting outside their door. I am no tree hugger. I have had much more sophisticated (and non-physical) relationship with these trees. How many of us have marked the memories of our childhood with a favored tree that we would climb or sit under or watch grow. The pulse of a tree moves slowly and carefully. Never moving, never rushing. Waiting for the moment of new spring. Waiting as the students and squirrels and wind rushes around in the daily grind. Such things and people come and go. I wish to live up to the calm demeanor of a tree.

Finals = Over

2009-08-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

Originally posted May 16, 2009

I had my last final yesterday morning. I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7AM and, for once, saw the Princeton morning in all of its sunrise glory. I made my way over to the Friend Center, took the test and walked out of the building. I am now a free man. All of the pressure, weight and strain have been banished for another semester. I am done. And yet, I feel exactly the same as earlier in the week. It’s odd. Perhaps it’s a sign that my finals were nothing more than a small hole in the road, successfully maneuvered around. To me, the main difference is that half my friends are preparing to leave and half are teetering on the brink of their sanity. I’ll leave them to their stresses; I’ll be engineering and calculating plenty of stresses and strains next year. It’s weird to think that right now I could be heading home with nothing more in mind than the warmth of dogs and family. I could be gone and away from here. And yet I’m grounded here for the next few months. I’ll have a front row ticket to the campus slowly emptying out. With each passing day, more and more people prepare to take off. They carry boxes around of stuff and reminisce about the year’s memories. By choosing to stay here longer than most of my peers, I’ll be able to see the campus life slowly die for the summer. It is an experience of life. It’s like growing old and watching all of your old friends die off, one by one. The speed is the worse part. The cycle draws itself out over weeks and weeks and weeks. Each day becomes a new puzzle to feel who or what is missing.
I am enjoying this new weather. It’s been hot and a little humid lately. Not too humid. But the day is so warm that the evening air is cooled to an ideal temperature. When I was little, days like this in late August were our favorite time of the year. The longer days allowed us to play late into the evening. And the warm air made it such that we could act as if it was the day. This is one of my favorite parts of summer. It is the time when the warmth and life of the day meet the darkness and mystery of the night. The summer presents the best time to explore the night. You can travel through its darkness uninhibited by coats and other cold weather apparel. The night becomes the day. And the day becomes the night.

Rain!!!

2009-08-03T10:05:00.002-07:00

Originally posted May 15, 2009:

It’s a bad sign when the first thought of the morning/afternoon is “Shit, I’m going to miss lunch”. I was up until 4AM last night. I wasn’t up for any reason. I didn’t have reading to do, papers to write or tests to study for. I just got wired on tea, so I didn’t get really sleepy until about 3:30 AM. I’m gonna be screwed when I have to get up at a “decent” hour to go to work or do anything productive during the day.

In other productive thoughts of the day, I now know of an animal that has worse survival skills than my dog Oscar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGz97dxGHV8&feature=related

It started raining a little bit today. I have to say, consistent rain has been a refreshing difference from home. The idea that it may rain several times in a month, and perhaps even for an entire week is something strange and new for me. Enjoying the rain has been one of my favorite hobbies as of this early spring. A few weeks ago it rained off and on for an entire week. Twice in 24 hours, I was caught without an umbrella walking somewhere far from my dorm. It was lots of fun, though Meg almost damaged her laptop because we were caught so off guard. It seems like there is more rain coming, thunderstorms to boot. Every time the rain clouds come, there is a nervous energy in the air. Moist air moves in and areas of high and low pressure power out strong winds. Nature creates her own foreshadowing for such displays of power. The lights in the sky go out and hopefully all hell breaks loose.

And each time it happens I hope that the rain will completely flood out half of campus. That would be a lot of fun. Normally walking to class can be a mundane chore, but imagine boating to your first class in a makeshift canoe. Hell, if you were in a class like engineering, you wouldn’t even need to go to class. The very act of constructing a sea worthy boat would be more applied engineering than you could ever hope to get in a classroom.

It’s more of a dream/ideal than anything else. Each time the winds come rushing through and the Nature promises rain, it only lasts a few hours or days. Perhaps it’s good. I’ll always have something to hope for. And getting my literal wish of months upon months of rain might get boring after the 8th week of more rain.

Wikipedia Adventures

2009-08-03T10:05:00.001-07:00

Originally posted May 14, 2009 on tumblr:

I love looking at random articles on Wikipedia. It gives me the feeling that I’m doing a constructive activity by learning new pieces of information. However, I greatly (and rightfully) question the worth of knowing the year “Pickpocket” was released. It also gives me the chance to fulfill intellectual whims. Like today, I was looking at the Wikipedia article for pyromania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyromania. And there are actually some interesting bits here, like that the World Health Organization has a formal classification for pyromania. However it had a bit that concerned me a little:

“A type of mania, is an impulse to deliberately start fires to relieve tension and typically includes feelings of gratification (like sex) or relief afterward.”

It also drew me to another article on pyrophilia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophilia. Most notably:

“[Pyrophilia] is distinguished from pyromania by the gratification being of a sexual nature.”

Perhaps this should be a moment for personal introspection as I should look at the broader psychological ramifications of my actions. Or perhaps it a moment to go find a lighter. Oh, the things that you can learn of Wikipedia.

In all fairness, I haven’t started any fires while I’ve been at Princeton. I didn’t bring any lighters or matches with me and I haven’t sought any out (honestly). I guess as much as I love fires, I also enjoy not being expelled from school. I suspect that I’m not really a pyromaniac, and just someone who loves watching/playing with fire. Admitably, this is a fairly small distinction. I feel I am more a metaphorical pyromaniac. I enjoy setting fire to people’s ideas and institutions. That kind of arson is, in its own way, constructive to the intellectual foundation of a person’s mind. And I will happily (attempt) to burn down many sacred cows and established ideas.

This talk of fire and potential psychological manias reminded me of a story. I told Bonnie, and she said that it may show I’m a sociopath. When I was in high school, I took AP Biology and one of the so-called labs included a study of behavior of animals. It entailed taking a roly poly (pill bug or pill woodlouse, apparently ‘roly poly’ is one of many terms) and placing it into a Petri dish with sulfuric acid one side and a base on the other. The experiment sought to show that, lo and behold, the roly poly didn’t like the acidic areas and it didn’t like the basic areas. It preferred a wet, neutral environment. Fairly standard, and fairly boring. So thought it would be funny to put a few drops of sulfuric acid on the roly poly. I sort of imagined that its shell would rot away in the same way a slug sizzles when you put salt on it. It tried it out, and it died in a fairly unremarkable fashion. No sizzles or sounds, just a pill bug that stopped moving. While I giggling to myself, I didn’t notice that several of my classmates were shocked and appalled. Students in later sections were explicitly told about some idiot put the sulfuric acid on the roly polies. I’m glad I left a positive mark on campus.

I had a weird dream the other night. I was at a park on a hill, sort of like Hilltop Park, though it was much darker and more menacing. My mom was yelling at my sister because she left the dog out, and I was tasked with bringing him back. I went down the hill and looked around, and I found a dog plant in a pot. It basically looked like a large sunflower with the head of Oscar or some bearded dog. It looked droopy because it had been out so long, so I watered it, and he looked perfectly happy. I carried it back and everyone was happy. Yeah, I have no idea why I thought of a half plant, half dog.

Dean's Date

2009-08-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

Originally posted May 12, 2009 on tumblr:

I have had a remarkably boring Dean’s Date. I had no all-nighters to pull or papers to complete. So I went to bed as any other night and spent the day relaxing. I almost feel a little let down, as the time honored college tradition is to completely lose your sleep and sanity in the days before a major project is due. I may have lost my sanity long ago, but for a completely different reason.

I derive a kind of sadistic pleasure watching other’s frantically complete their projects, essays and other works at the last minute. And there is no shortage of those people around. It’s almost a sigil of honor to state how little sleep you have gotten/are going to get on a given evening. Somehow saying that you aren’t going to sleep tonight is not a sign of hard work, but a mind that is slowly crumbling away under the weight of too much work.

No, I spent my afternoon walking around enjoying the Farmer’s Market and other Dean’s Date celebrations around campus. It’s the last Farmer’s Market until next fall, and I had a chance to get some fresh apples. Living has made me more aware of the concept of a “growing season”, which is more flexible in a place like San Diego. Growing up, the main way I could tell the seasons had changed was that we got off school for the summer.

And because there will be no market again until the fall, I’ll miss out on getting berries and cherries and other summer fruit. It’s odd. Students spend the darkest and coldest parts of the year living on campus, and just as life returns, everyone leaves for home. I suppose it’s for the best. If students have books to read and equations to study, they would be more likely to complete their work if it is 15 degrees F and snowing outside. (It wouldn’t for me; it would actually make me more likely to go outside. But I still consider snow a rare jewel of winter, not an annoying reality of winter). The days on campus when it’s 80-90 degrees are possibly the most fun and/or disturbing. Hundreds of students, pasty from a winter indoors, go out to enjoy the sun. Those are the days I suspect the least amount of work is done.

"I make my first entry today"

2009-08-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Originally Posted May 12, 2009 on tumblr:

“‘What are you doing now?’ he asked. ‘Do you keep a journal?’ So I make my first entry today.”

-Henry David Thoreau

So at long last I begin to keep a blog. I’m not quite sure yet why I’ve decided to do so. I hope to find that in doing this writing I find the meaning of why I write. My potential motivations are mixed and many and worth dissecting in their own time.

Part of it comes down to the year ending right now. Inevitably, this time becomes a reflective time, as students evaluate their day, their year and ultimately their life. I’ve done, for better or worse, many things in the past year. In the time that I’ve been at school, I’ve taken new classes, interacted buddies and other related college activities. And I realize now that I have liked very few of these things. Don’t get me wrong, hanging out with fellow students in the dining hall can be mildly amusing. And studies of writing techniques can have its ups. But it is but a temporary high, a kind of drug taken to numb deep seated longing for freedom and joy. I try to avoid such things when possible. I prefer a deep breath of air over a shot of cocaine any day. I have found that a few surprising small things have made me happy. As my title suggests, tea and fire both bring me a kind of joy. But perhaps I feel I would like something else.

Writing has brought me some joy. Not the vulgar scribbling for essays and class. But thoughtful, random and mildly entertaining musings or aggressive and crass tirades against an established force are best, despite what certain editors and publications may think. My main regret from the year is that I did not take enough time to put down my thoughts.

I feel like I will not have many other opportunities in my life to be simultaneously miserable, happy, reflective, introverted, critical and hopeful. It would be a pity to let my these thoughts float away into oblivion. Even now, it can be difficult for me to recollect how it was to move in. Sure I can remember putting big events like the first time I saw my room or my RA. But my life is also wrought from the infinite moments between now and then. How did I think a week after classes began? Was I scared/hopeful/happy? How did I interact with other people? Did that change over time? What did I think of that tree outside of my window?

In each of these forgotten moments is me. Who I was, who I am and who I may become. It seems that to not document or remember such details is to lose a bit of one’s identity. The peaks and valleys of our lives reveal the deepest, most hidden caverns of our personality. Perhaps there is treasure, perhaps there are monsters.

I live in a place where others constantly trying to tell me who I am, what to think and what to believe. I would prefer to define myself as much as possible. To first step is to know and understand myself. I have found that other endeavors have brought my little success in that realm. I have emerged from this year roughly where I began a year ago. Perhaps writing can help me out.