house boat in cochin, india

Here's me on a house boat in Cochin, India.

update

I've been lazy and haven't posted my thoughts on my India trip yet...but I plan to. I've got pages already written in my journal anyway. I got back the week before Thanksgiving and apparently some bad sashimi on the airplane (we had a layover in Japan) gave me the gift of vomiting and diarrhea, the latter lasting a entire week. I was in bed for 3 days -- though I think it was due to the jet-lag rather than the vomiting, because I'd sleep all day and stay awake most of the night. It was terrible. And I got my period a day after I fell ill. Thanksgiving was awesome since my whole family was here, but one week later I got a cold again (I started getting one 2 days before leaving India). Enough is enough!

The weekend I was sick was also the weekend I got my Wii. I've been spending most of my free time between Zelda and Final Fantas XII, but I will get to the India trip posts some day... :-P

india trip

So I'll be leaving tomorrow night for 2 weeks to visit my boyfriend's family in southern India. I can't wait to get out of LA!! The weather will be less ungodly this time of year than when we were there August last year, which will allow for normal enjoyment and functioning. I'm all prepared with my toilet paper this time. I might post some stuff about it when I get back.

final fantasy xii

I bought Final Fantasy XII yesterday on the cheap!! Circuit City had 'em for for $37.99 (regular $49.99) on release day, and I grabbed the last copy from my local store after enduring the 2-hour traffic to get home. It's sold out now in stores and online. I am so proud of myself.

change is good

I've converted my blog over to the new Blogger beta with brand-spankin' new features, and let me tell you it is delicious. I can add links and stuff over to the side without messing with the HTML! I got tired of the pink, so I changed to a template called "harbor". It is kind of a reference to my love of sailing, and I suppose the lighthouse is an easy spiritual symbol. I just liked the look in general. There was another template I liked, so I might switch it around some time later.

reflections on a chinese-christian lecture

Last Saturday, I went to a lecture at my Mom's church at her invitation. The topic was about the meaning of life, or what does it mean to win and lose in life, or something like that. The lecture was in Chinese, so excuse my translation. My Mom got me to go by telling that it was something about finding one's purpose in life, which is an interesting enough topic for me. That and there would be a free dinner, and I am still Chinese enough to brighten at the prospect of a free meal.

The speaker was a Chinese pastor from Taiwan who now lives in the US but travels extensively around China and Russia to minister to the Chinese who live in Russia. I was quite interested in his stories about the Chinese who go to Russia to do business or to study, but whose lives are still quite difficult as they deal with a foreign culture, lack of papers, and fear of the police due to shady business dealings. He said they all have their reasons as to why they didn't just turn around and go home – but he stopped short of saying what those reasons were, which rather frustrated me. I suppose the reasons didn't matter much to the topic of his lecture.

Anyway, the gist of the lecture was that there are many Chinese who are driven by the prospect of material wealth to go to another country (such as Russia or the US) and leave their spouse or their kids behind. They make their money and return home, only to find that their spouse is living with someone else or their kids don't recognize them. They gained material wealth, but lost their family. He also talked about his own experience, having studied to be an engineer (and whose classmates rose to high positions in Taiwan) but became a pastor instead. He "lost" the opportunity to be financially successful, but gained happiness/satisfaction and other intangible things.

Overall, I thought it was a good lecture for the Young-souled Chinese culture. I have felt, resented, and finally come to terms with the fact that Chinese culture can often be materialistic to an extreme. I've accepted that my parents may not ever be happy with the fact that I chose a major that satisfied me rather than something that "makes more money", i.e. law/business/medicine, and I'm thankful that they didn't push harder than they did (though I hope to someday surprise them by making boatloads of money in my own business). It was a relief to hear someone say to a group of middle-aged and elderly Chinese that one may not gain by putting material success before family, relationships, and spiritual life. Rather reminds me of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. To be honest, overall it was kind of boring for me except when he relayed a good story. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I felt like a college student sitting in a sixth grade class. It's not bad information, just something I've understood and internalized long ago, so I didn’t have much patience for it.

my first adventure game

I posted this on the Adventure Gamers forums recently. I thought it was a good story and decided to put it here as well.

My first adventure game was, interestingly, the first text adventure game called "Adventure". I was around 11 or 12 (and didn't know English very well, having just moved to the US) and played around with my aunt's computer whenever I went to her place. For some reason this game was on her computer, and I started playing it after I got tired of solitare. I was an avid Nintendo gamer at the time, and the text game really perplexed me. I kept hoping it would show me some new pictures if I went far enough into the game (I remeber it had a single still picture in a corner with directional buttons next to it). Alas, it never did. It took me several visits before I figured out how to open the grate and go inside the cave, and I never got past the green serpent. However, since I'd never played a text game before, I was rather fascinated by the way the game responded to my actions.

Years later, when I took a game design class, they covered the history of video games. That's when I realized "Adventure" was the same game I played all those years ago. I didn't really get into the genre (or realized what the genre was) until years later though.

new glasses!

If I hadn’t mentioned it before, I’ve been doing vision exercises using The Program for Better Vision as well as other books to improve my nearsightedness. I actually came across these concepts back in college, when I saw a class in the Learning Annex catalog which said that vision is 90% mental and 10% physical, and you can learn how to improve your vision by taking this class. I was a bit skeptical, since I’d never heard of anything like this, but for 35 bucks it was too promising not to check it out. The class was taught by a woman named Gloria Ginn who teaches a program called the School for Better Eyesight in LA, and it’s based on the Bates Method developed by Dr. Bates in the 1920’s but never was accepted in mainstream optometry (for obvious reasons – why cure people of myopia or presbyopia or astigmatism when you can sell them glasses the rest of their lives?). The Learning Annex class I attended was more of an introduction for her own classes and private sessions, but I came away with some useful exercises and a new paradigm about vision. The classes themselves were too expensive for me to afford at the time though.

So after that class I did the eye exercises for a while, but not having a structured program I soon gave up it for the time being. I never forgot about the concepts though, it was just on the back burner. Last June I started a vision program from a book I got online (one of many if you do a search on Amazon). I saw a slight improvement, but after 2 months I didn’t improve any further. Since Rocky and I were leaving for India in August, I stopped doing the exercises shortly before we left since I was so busy with preparations. Now that I think about it, I may have stopped improving because I was close to seeing 20/20 on my contacts and didn’t realize it. After we came back from India, my vision was noticeably worse. I don’t know if it was all the reading and gaming I did on my GBA (half the time Rocky was busy catching up with his family and had to leave me sitting alone in the living room), but I didn’t continue doing the eye exercises again.

I started this most recent program around late February, after I got my last eye exam and had to increase my glasses prescription to about -5.50 in one eye and -6.00 in the other. At that time I switched from wearing contacts full time to wearing glasses full time, remembering that all the vision books I’ve read recommended wearing glasses instead of contacts, since they’re easier to take off. The reasoning is that many of the exercises need to be done without glasses or contacts, and it’s good to keep them off whenever you don’t need them so your eyes can adjust to your natural vision. I also started wearing my older pair of glasses (which had the same strength as my contacts) so that my eyes have room to improve. Since I wear glasses all day, my eyes would not improve past the point where I’m seeing 20/20 in my glasses.

This program has a basic 8-week program with an advanced section for continuing the program past the 8 weeks. So here I was thinking I would see significant improvement in 8 weeks – which I didn’t. Or rather thought I didn’t. It did improve a little perhaps the first month or so, and then held pretty steady. I emailed the author’s office, which provides free email support, and they said that it may take a while since I have such a strong prescription. They couldn’t tell me how long it would take, since everyone is different.

At this point I was pretty disappointed, but I kept going because I couldn’t let my vision get worse and worse, because I was sick of my lack of commitment to myself, and because I hated my glasses. To keep myself doing the program, I wrote affirmation on an index card, which basically said I would do vision exercises 6 days a week (Mon-Sat), and how I would feel about doing it. This I read out loud everyday. I did my exercises every morning after I woke up, even when I didn’t feel like it. Sometimes I missed a Saturday every other week, but it wasn’t a big deal. Even though I didn’t feel like I was still improving, I kept it up for another month past the 8-week program.

My “breakthrough” came when I got a new book on vision improvement called Take Off Your Glasses and See by Jacob Liberman. It had great reviews on Amazon, so I decided to check it out. It included an eye chart, which for kicks I photocopied out of the book and taped together. I taped it up in my room and measured ten feet, which is where you can see the smallest letters if your vision is 20/20. I couldn’t see even the larges letter at that distance, so I had to step forward until I could. Supposedly I could roughly measure my sight by calculating my distance from the chart in order to see the largest letter, but I was too lazy to bother. Instead I put on my glasses and stood at the ten-foot distance to see how much I can see. To my surprise, I was seeing the 20/25 line very clearly and can make out a few of the letters at 20/20. That was my first clue that maybe my vision stopped improving because I was seeing nearly 20/20 in my glasses.

Before I talk about the results of my eye exam this past Saturday, I just have to mention how awesome this new book was. It’s different from my previous programs because it has a much more holistic approach. Rather than give me more eye exercises (which it did a little), the book taught about relaxing your eyes, using your peripheral vision in an “open focus” (as opposed to narrow focus or staring), and releasing pent-up emotions. It emphasizes that most people first start needing glasses a year or so after an upsetting childhood (or even adulthood) experience which causes them not want to see what is happening. It could be something traumatic or even relatively insignificant like having to move and change schools. This book also emphasized the importance of keeping your glasses off unless you really needed it. The weekend after I started reading this book, we took a weekend trip to Yosemite. Since I didn’t have to drive, I was able to keep my glasses off for most of the weekend, putting it on only in short spurts when eating or when I needed to see a sign or the scenery or something. I’m sure it also helped that I was in the midst of nature all weekend long. When I came home, I checked my eyesight that very night, and on the same chart I was able to see the 20/20 line quite easily, as well as most of the letters on the 20/15 line.

So, last Saturday I had my eyes checked with a behavioral optometrist in my area. Unlike regular optometrists, behavioral optometrists know how to use vision exercises to correct vision problems, and I went to one because they’re more willing to prescribe under-corrected lenses (which are needed to give my eyes room for more improvement) than regular optometrists. I had never been so excited about getting an eye exam! She determined that I was seeing 20/20 in my left eye and 20/30 in my right, and prescribed new glasses so that I can see at 20/40, which is the legal limit for driving (don’t tell anyone, but I’ve driven to and from work with my glasses off almost the entire way a few times. Under bright sunlight and in a traffic jam, I can drive fine even with my bad eyesight). So my new glasses which I’ll pick up this weekend are -5.25 in the right eye and -5.00 in the left, and I’m getting another pair of weaker glasses for reading/computer work at -4.25 right eye and -4.00 left eye. The exam and two new pairs of glasses burned a giant hole in my pocket, since my insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s worth it though, and a few months down the road I’ll only need to check on my progress and get new lenses for the frames I already have. I’m picking up my new glasses tomorrow, and I’ve never been more committed to doing the exercises. It is absolutely exciting to see results from something you’ve worked on for months. You bet I’m keeping it up until I get back to 20/20 again.

quote of the day

"Religion is not man's relationship to God, it is man's relationship to man."

- Elie Wiesel

Jewish novelist, philosopher, humanitarian, political activist
Holocaust survivor
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1986
Interview with United Press International
June 21, 2006

i have curly hair!

I got my hair permed last Saturday at the Korean salon in downtown where I usually get my hair done. The week before, I decided that I needed a haircut, and I thought, why not get it curled since I've never done it? It came out really nice and was a unanimous hit with my family and co-workers. I did have to go out and get some hair care stuff and put mouse on my hair every morning, otherwise it gets a frizzy and poofs up like crazy.

I also ran into some curly-hair issues that naturally curly-haired people probably deal with, which I have never even thought about. I cannot brush my hair once it starts drying after I wash it, otherwise it becomes a flying mess (imagine each hair curling by itself and not aligned with any other hair). I tried it once before washing my hair, and that's what it looked like.

I'll post pictures some time when I get a chance to take them.