quote of the day

A main "Criteria of Consciousness" for the human experience is never having all you want. For as one dream comes true, another swiftly takes its place.

Not having all you want is one of life's constants. And learning to be happy while not yet having all you want (which, as you can see, is constant), is the first "Criteria of Joy." Nail it, and for the rest of your life people will be asking what it is about you.

Desire is a beautiful thing.

The Universe

- from today's Notes from the Universe daily email

a little sparrow

A few weeks ago on Saturday, I found a sparrow caught in a glue trap that my dad had left out in the yard. We had mice, you see. He caught one mouse and was trying to get a second one, had no luck, and moved the glue trap out to the yard and left it there for whatever reason (my guess is the pack rat syndrome, as usual). At first I thought the sparrow was dead, but at second glance it was alive though not struggling. Its tail feathers had come off, and the bottom half of its body and both wings were covered in glue.

I went inside and asked my dad to get it off the trap. He did and then put the sparrow, glue and all, in an old bird's nest from some years ago that was still sitting in our yard (what did I say about pack rats?). I told him, "it can't fly if we don't wash off the glue!" And he said, "you can't wash it off. Just give it some water and feed it." And what, until it dies of shock?

I tried to see if I can wipe off the glue with a cloth and some water. No luck. I went online to look up what to do with a bird caught in a glue trap (thank God for the Internet) -- they said you can get the bird out by applying cooking oil to the glue, but other than that, you can't do much besides taking it to an animal shelter.

I had some internal resistance to this -- Chinese culture is not very animal-friendly, and my family taught me that you don't waste resources on animals and don't go out of your way to help them. My first reaction was that it was too much trouble to take it to the Humane Society, which was a 15-minute drive (and Animal Control wasn't picking up the phone on Saturdays). But I couldn't just leave it and wait for it to die, so I made a decision and found some cloth to carry the sparrow with.

I picked up the sparrow with the cloth and held it in my hand. He was this little warm body trembling in my hand, and his vulnerability made me stop in awe. I loved him at that moment and knew I was doing the right thing. As I got in the car and drove, I thought, if I can care this much for a sparrow, what about the birds and cows and pigs who die for my food? How can I eat meat again without feeling like a hypocrite?

Well, shit.

commuting acrobatics

Today I tried out a different route from Pasadena to Santa Monica by taking the 134 to the 101 to 405 south. It took about an hour and 20 minutes, including the extra time I took (saved?) after having missed the on-ramp from hell to the 405. It was a one-lane on-ramp that goes from one jammed freeway to another - I drove by and was kind of glad to have missed it. I'll have to remember to take the previous exit next time and get back on the 405 from Sepulveda. If I can make this kind of time in the middle of the week (Mondays have lighter traffic), I'll be taking this route instead of the 10. Taking the 10 from Pasadena to Santa Monica (110 south to 5 south to 10 west) takes me an hour and 45 minutes.

I hate LA traffic.

Oh by the way, I've "moved" to Pasadena and will be staying there for the next 3 months, courtesy of my aunt who is traveling through Asia.

i miss being called a douchebag

...That's one of the nicknames Rocky used to call me. Only he could turn an insult into a term of endearment.

Some of his other nicknames for me:

Douche or DB (short for douchebag)
Baby Panda
Panda Express
Jackie Chan

He cracks me up.

i hate this town

This weekend, I was going to move into my aunt's apartment in Pasadena while she's out traveling. She told me I was going to need a parking permit to park my car on the street, since her car will stay in her spot at the complex. I said, OK, not a problem. So I look up on how to get a parking permit, and this is what I come across:

1. I can't get an annual permit because my car is not registered to my aunt's apartment, and I'm not going to change the address on it since I'd only be there for a few months.

2. In order to get a monthly permit, I have to not only bring in my car registration, but also my aunt's and her roomate's.

3. I have to take time off work to put in the application because their office doesn't open on weekends.

4. Because my car is registered to my father and not to me, I have to get a letter from him saying that his daughter is authorized to drive his car.

5. After I bring in my application with all the paperwork, the Department of Transportation will investigate me to make sure there's no paid parking available in my complex or within 600 feet of the apartment, or that I'm not using my garage for storage or some shit like that.

6. And then I have to go to their office again the next month to renew the temporary permit.

This is enough to make my hair fall out. I think I'll try and move my aunt's car to my grandma's house so I can use her space.

my napkin collection

I was cleaning out my closet and found a binder full of theme park/logo'd napkins I used to collect. There were piles of this stuff with a lot of duplicates. I was throwing them out and decided to take a picture out of nostalgia. They're now stuffed in the side pockets of my car, to be used at my leisure.

too close to home

My brother, of all people, turned me on to the awesomeness of Avenue Q's soundtrack. This song in particular hits far too close to home.

What do you do with a B.A. in English?
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge
Have earned me this useless degree.

I can't pay the bills yet,
'Cause I have no skills yet.
The world is a big scary place.

But somehow I can't shake
The feeling I might make
A difference to the human race.

- Avenue Q - "What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?"

I'm not (that) bitter though. Knowing me, I would never have believed it during college.

P.S. I just found out Avenue Q is on tour in LA right now. I am so there.

san diego vacation pictures

These are some highlights from my family reunion in August in San Diego. We rented an oceanfront house in Coronado, with a view of downtown San Diego.

Gorgeous, ain't it?

It has a cute yard that goes down to the water. This photo shows part of the house, the grayish 1-story building in the front. The white Spanish-looking house is the next door neighbor's. Our house is the oldest on the block and looks like it hasn't changed since it was built in the 40's (the inside too).

We left some dog poop in the bushes.

I took this one from the owner's picasa album. It shows the full yard better.

I love this half indoor, half outdoor fountain/aquarium (also owner's photo). When I have my own house, I am totally installing one of these (but with a better design). It was sadly empty when we were there, and we didn't want to fill it up and make someone clean it since we were only there a few days.

This one below is a picture (owner's) of the living room. It's spacious and we spent a lot of time sitting around here and just chatting.

My immediate family, with our 11-year-old Bichon named Jolly and my brother's new kitten named Tassadar (after a character from StarCraft).

My brother and I are standing on opposite sides because the kitty and the dog don't get along.

And here we have the whole family portrait.

downtown san diego at night

A preview from our family reunion in August. More later.

tesco is coming

I heard on the radio this morning that the British supermarket chain Tesco is opening stores in Southern California. Yay!!! Please please sell me some British food! Hey, if they did it in Taiwan, they can do it here.

some channeling on expectations

For the past year or so, I've been studying the teachings of a disembodied entity named Michael, a name assigned to a group of 1050 souls on the Causal plane. One of the Michael channels recently posted this wonderful piece about expectations in response to a question. Since I wrote a short post about assumptions vs. expectations a couple months ago, I thought this was appropriate. My comments are below the quotation.

Michael as channeled by Troy Trolley

Question: Could you suggest exercises or information that would aid with the ability to let go of expectation(s)?

[Michael Entity] Yes: to allow yourself the freedom of expectations. This is the only means you have for learning to navigate your expectations. To "let go" of expectation is about as useful as giving up your legs; yes, it can be done, but mobility is not enhanced by doing so.

Embracing your expectations is to embrace your inner map. However, the expectations that are often felt to be so compelling are simply not the truth of that inner map. To allow the embrace of those expectations can often then reveal the truth of this, and allow for more appropriate desires to lead the way.

Expectation is neutral. Your ability to use the tool of expectation is a spectrum. There is a negative form of expectation and a positive form. To expect that the sun will rise can be seen to be quite natural. To expect a loved one to conform to your ideals is quite another end of the spectrum. In this case, it could then be said that TRUST is the positive pole of Expectation and DEMAND is the negative pole. To demand that the sun rise as you will it in the middle of the night is as fruitless as forcing upon another your ideals. To trust that your loved one can find his or her own path of expression and truth despite your ideals is as beautiful an expectation as one that allows the sun to rise on its own.

If there is pain involved in your experience of expectation, it is quite likely that it is in the realm of DEMANDS. In this case, one must do the work of exploring WHY one would have such demands and then allow room for a shift of attention. In most cases of DEMAND, or painful expectation, one is in a self-karmic cycle of punishment, either upon the self or upon another. There is a perpetual investment in the Demand until there is vindication. To understand that this is a cycle of punishment will often allow room for the true inner map to be found and a new peaceful navigation to be found.

Click here for the full channeling.

Expectation is a word with a lot of negative connotations in new age teachings, and frankly Michael's answer "allow yourself the freedom of expectations" is surprising but makes total sense. We put a lot of expectations on ourselves and others, and then expect ourselves to let go of those expectations. The suggestion I really appreciate from this channeling -- if we find ourselves in the negative pole of Demand, we don't need to try and remove Expectation altogether. Just move toward Trust.

Actually, now that I think about it, Trust feels a lot like "letting go" in practice -- in order to trust you have to let go of your demands on someone or something. In a way this is just semantics, different ways of explaining the energies of love and fear, expansion and contraction. But as humans we sometimes get stuck on the language, and different explanations do reveal a broader picture.

long beach flight, march 2007

My first video post!

I registered at Youtube and thought I might as well upload this. I took this video on a Cessna flight with Rocky back in March. It shows the takeoff and a few minutes thereafter. As you can see it was pretty hazy that day, so we didn't go anywhere -- just did three takeoffs and landings and circled around the airport. There's no narration and the only sound you'll hear is the engine.

You can't tell in the video, but I grew increasingly uncomfortable after takeoff and was freaking out by the time I shut off the camera. We hadn't flown for several months, and I wasn't used to the dips and fluctuations that small planes tend to have. I didn't get used to it again until after the third takeoff we did that day.

trying to write

OK, so I haven't posted for over a month, but it's not for lack of topics. I recently read On Writing Well, a classic book by William Zinsser. Unlike other books on writing that I've read before, Zinsser's suggestions are sensible and easy to remember, which is important because I don't want to be checking a reference book when I'm writing. I've tried -- it is tedious. The book also gave me a new perspective on re-writing. I used to hate re-writing because it's always been this fuzzy process of having to improve what I've written, while not knowing what was wrong. Once other people read it, they would tell me what worked and what didn't, something that is hard to figure out myself. But then once other people criticize it, my own self-doubt comes into play and I get embarrassed to look at my own writing, never mind trying to re-write.

This book made it clear that writing is a craft, and like other crafts such as sculpting or cross-stitching, once you get a roughly defined shape (the first draft), you can chisel, nip, or tuck it into a final product that satisfies. I love sculpting with clay and tickling little details into the work. Writing is much the same, only on paper using words and ideas. There is no reason why one should be a chore and the other a joy, except for a difference in perception.

Now, that's all fabulous in my head. When it comes to actually writing though, crafting does take time, and it's not always high on my list of things to do. Then you add the desire to for perfection, which is a deterrent to writing because it feels like work. So I'd put it off. And think about it from time to time, but still put it off. I still have my notes on India sitting in a Google Document file, four months later. But enough is enough. I do want to turn the India experience into a coherent article, so it ain't getting done any time soon. In the mean time, the least I can do is write less sloppy, if not perfect, blog posts.

love without conditions

When you love without conditions, you support the freedom of others to choose their own way, even when you disagree with them. You trust them to make the best choice for them. You trust God’s plan for their awakening. You know that they can never make a mistake that will cut them off from God’s love or from yours.

- Paul Ferrini

how you know you've seen a movie too many times

Rocky and I were watching TV last weekend when a show began with the camera panning over a jungle.

Rocky: "That's Rush Hour."

Me: "How do you know?"
Rocky: "I know the music."
Me: "What?" (It sounded like generic instrumental music.)
Rocky: "It's Rush Hour 2."

Then the camera passed over the forest and a dense city emerged, and Jacky Chan's name appeared on screen. I gave him a look.

assumptions and expectations

There's a fine line between an assumption and an expectation. I expect the sun to come out tomorrow. I expect my car to turn on in the morning if I put gas in it and kept up with regular maintainence. If I thought I wouldn't like someone before I even meet him, I would be making an assumption. If I read some Internet gossip and believe it to be true with no other basis, that would be an assumption. Assumption, which in this case means "something taken for granted," has a more negative connotation than expectation.

I expected my twenty-five-dollar tent to hold up in case of rain, after making the assumption that it's a reasonable expectation from something designed for shelter. I really thought that was a standard feature. Rocky and I were camping on the beach near Santa Barbara, and it rained hard. We noticed the tent got wet -- it leaked at the zipper seams. After some deliberation and loading everything except the sleeping bag into the car, we drove to Rite Aid (just outside the camp site) and bought some packing tape and trash bags. The patch work did its job and held up until morning.

Today I browsed Amazon for a waterproof tent, and read one reader comment which said that "Almost all tent manufacturers, even for the most expensive brands, suggest that the buyer seal the seams to assure everything is watertight. A knowledgable camper wouldn't even think of purchasing a tent without applying sealant to the seams," in response to a reviewer who complained that his tent leaked. OK, so I'm a beginning camper, and I have not camped with anybody who is experienced. How was I supposed to know? This was the first time I've even heard of seam sealers, and I'm an avid instruction-reader so I'm sure my tent instructions made no mention of it. Anyway, now I know, and it was actually fun in the process, since we could've slept in the car if the trash bags hadn't worked out. And the morning was beautiful.

Our campsite

Walking on the beach

More of the beach

"fitness season"

As you may or may not know, I work for a company that markets infomercial products internationally. The first half of the year, from January through May or so, is we call the "fitness season" -- that is, when people make new year's resolutions to exercise and lose weight (people who go to the gym regularly know about this). It lasts until May or so because as the temperature warms, people start exercising outdoors, or they go on vacation, so the sales of exercise equipment drops.

I mention this now because for some reason reading this phrase today, it felt icky. I felt sad that so many people start exercising each year, fail to keep it up, and then start all over again the next year in the hopes that this year they'll finally lose those 10, 20, 30 pounds. And some people make money off of this cycle and call it "fitness season." I swear, probably a good half to two-thirds of the infomercial products out there are either exercise equipment or something that promises weight loss in some way. Not that I begrudge people making money when the opportunity presents itself, but it all just seems so pointless.

the stomach cannot contain what the eyes can see

There's something that Chinese people (or at least my mom) say when someone (usually a child) craves to eat something when they're not really hungry, which goes, "your eyes are hungry" (implying that your stomach is not). Or, when you order something you can't finish eating, they say, "your eyes are too big."

I mention this because that's what I'm feeling now that I can eat "normally" again. Today I had 3 donuts (my boss brought them to work), vegetable soup for lunch, and some trail mix in the afternoon, and I'm still bloated. It's hard to stop eating when I'm full, so out of habit I end up eating the portions (I'm mostly thinking of the donuts and my dinner at El Pollo Loco last night) I normally eat, and then get really really full. Then I regret it right after because I want to keep my current weight. Time to break some habits, I suppose.

pictures: rain on the lake

This was taken from my India houseboat trip. In the mid-afternoon it suddenly started pouring, as it is wont to do in south India. The crew covered up the windows in the sitting area with tarp when it poured hard, and this was shot after the rain dwindled a bit. I love the rain and the sense of raw elements during a downpour.

This poor guy was caught in the rain, though I imagine he's used to it since it rains almost daily there that time of year.

eating again

I reached my goal of fasting for ten days! YAAAAAY! It was really my only resolution for the new year (other than my ongoing resolution of finding a new job). I didn't feel like I lost much weight, but actually I lost 7 lbs. I'm at 137 now and I think I haven't been there in years. Energy-wise I don't really feel any different before, during, or after the fast. But admittedly I'm not all that sensitive to these things. The day after fasting, I was supposed to drink only orange juice, and move on to juice and vegetable soup the second day. But since I was allowed to eat again, I just couldn't hold back. I had some walnuts the first day (chewed really fine), and a visitor to our office gave me a box of macadamia nut chocolates, of which I ate four or five throughout the day. Also had a bag of Lay's potato chips and Trader Joe's fresh orange juice for lunch. So healthy!!! Had some vegetable soup (which I made the night before) for dinner, and I guess I ate too fast or something because it gave me a stomach ache and diarrhea. Yes, the vegetable soup did it but not all the junk I ate during the day (which I only nibbled on).

The first couple of days my tastebuds were really sensitive. The macadamia nut chocolates were sweet and just heavenly. The nuts were covered in crisp toffee and then in a thick layer of milk chocolate, and I could taste all the different flavors and textures. The walnuts, which were in the shell, were delicious and so flavorful I wonder why I even eat the shelled stuff. I got a bag of raw trail mix from Trader Joe's because I had it before and thought it was good, but when I had the trail mix walnuts side by side with the unshelled walnuts, the unshelled stuff tasted better by far. The potato chips were okay. They tasted more salty than before and stung my tongue a little for some reason, and that "potato chip" smell was strong and not quite pleasant. The vegetable soup was just vegetable soup until it gave me a stomach ache. At which time it became Unwisely Consumed Vegetable Soup.

Anyway, it's now the third day after the end of fasting, and I am still eating light and in small portions, though everything is still quite a treat. I intend to eat healthier from now -- not that I was eating unhealthy compared to most Americans, but I was eating out too much, which means too much meat and not enought vegetables. I'm going to try eating mostly vegetarian on weekdays and see how that works.

fasting again, day 7

If you read my blog early last year, I attempted the Master Cleanse (or lemonade diet) fast last February. And lasted all of two days. I was going to do it again a couple months later and just never got around to it (another reason being that we were out of lemons on our tree at home, which meant that I'd have to buy thick-skinned lemons with less juice from the store). I had been thinking about doing the fast again in November since our tree was full of lemons again (read: free and organic), but what with my India trip, Thanksgiving, and Christmas/New Year's coming up I decided to wait 'til after New Year's.

Honestly I wasn't as excited about it this time as last year, but I know I want to detox and it was a good time to do it, so I did. I warned Rocky 2-3 weeks ago that I wanted to start fasting again, since he wanted to do it with me. I went to his place last Friday, when we were supposed to start together, and on the way there he said that he had an idea that will keep us from going off the fast early. I was like, okay, we'll see. When I arrived, he told me that he had already been fasting since the previous Monday, so we wouldn't both be craving food at the same time. Aww, he is so sweet that way.

I started fasting Friday night (we went to see the Indian film Guru) and did fairly okay on Saturday, even when I went to see a showing of Tan Dun's The First Emperor broadcast live from the Met (more on that in another post) and had to smell popcorn at the theater. I had cravings on Saturday night and Sunday and could not even look at food ads or hear people talk about food. I learned from last time to change my focus when something comes up that provokes my cravings, so that it doesn't snowball from a small thought to an irresistable craving. I also played Zelda on the Wii during most of my free time, which is excellent for keeping my mind occupied.

By the time the weekend was over, I knew I was over the big hurdle because the regular schedule of the weekdays will keep me occupied enough to sail through the fast. By Tuesday, to my surprise, the cravings were mostly gone (as other people said it would be). I could look or smell food and look forward to having it when my fast is done, but I didn't need to eat it right this minute. I'm even planning a big pancake breakfast for the two of us next weekend. I also started my period Tuesday afternoon and had no cramps, only a little bit of discomfort in the evening and that was it. I will probably sail through this weekend and start breaking the fast on Tuesday if my body shows signs that it's done detoxing.

Some thoughts during the fast:

I realized that I hardly ever really appreciate the smell of food. If I smell something good, I want to follow it to the source, or I picture/imagine the food that produced the smell. It's always a lead-in to something else, a means to an end. But then we went to Walmart on Saturday, and they had a kettle corn stand outside. You could smell the damn thing from the other end of the parking lot. Since I couldn't eat and had to smell, I allowed myself to simply breathe in the aroma -- and to my surprise, found it satisfying in its own sake.