"je suis stupide"
i'm a dork.
i just spent 2 hours playing halo and i feel soo nauseous. (halo is an xbox game where you go around shooting aliens, and driving around and moving left and right in an attempt to blast those buggers away). there was too much jarring, movement and spinning going on there. i think i got motion sickness. this after i ate a big meal. the first solid meal in a long time.
hey. i never claimed to be a genius.
"the sin of gluttony"
i ate a lot today. after two weeks of suffering from the stomach flu, the brave lymphocytes, and red blood cells decided to take arms against the nasty gastroenteritis virus and triumph! i literally ate everything in my path, which left me feeling a different sort of sick and queasy. i also went to work out today, but the two week absence from any sort of serious activity has definitely taken a toll on me. that was manifested in my inability to run my usual three miles and do my cardio workout. i could only do 20 lunges, too. sigh. alas, i suppose i will need to get back to building my strength and system.
i just got back from seeing hero again, btw. that's probably the 7th or 8th time i've seen it now. the script just gets better each time you watch it.
so, those close to me know that i am on a quest to become a psychologist. not for the glory of it, not for the prestige or the dr. label that will be slapped in front of my name, but because i might have a slight, innate ability to understand the human nature and condition. lately, i've been putting my psychological analysis skills to use, as it seems that a few of my friends have been caught in the quagmire of relationship heartbreaks. what i've noticed is that, more than anything in the world, more than a degree, or a salary, or a job position, or a city to live in, people want love. this is a huge generalization, i know. but it seems to be an universal theme in the lives of my friends. i've seen so many who have the perfect job, beautiful apartments and cars, and yet do not seem complete until they find someone to share all those things with. conversely, those who are lukewarm on other aspects of their lives seem completely uplifted and fulfilled by the prospect of a successful and nurturing relationship.
according to evolutionary psychologists, our need for love is just another trait that helps determine the success and fitness of mankind. it is because we feel a need to love that we marry and find mates, and procreate, and pass on our genes. evolutionarily, love has adaptive value, and is a vehicle through which we continue to survive and evolve. interesting. i guess the emotion, or feeling, or sensation of love, could have evolved as an adaptation to help couples stay together and raise their young. such an environment would naturally be most conducive to fit children. but then it makes me wonder, if it was just merely something that evolved out of necessity, did it need to be so consuming, so compelling, so tiring?
what i mean is, why couldn't we just have evolved a desire to share our lives with someone? i would make such an emotion analogous to a desire to not be alone. merely, an unplacatable, unsatisfiable (are these even words? ahhh.. i mean insatiable) urge to have company with one person. it would not be so difficult to biologically wire it into our heads. and, it would have served just as well for one to keep a mate as love supposedly should. but instead of just having such a binding emotion of loyalty, we all harbor the weighty and romantic notion of love and when it does arrive, it is as if our lives are undeniably geared towards it, instead of as a result of it or operating as a function of it.
methinks that was worded poorly.
i'll try to continue. in that sense, it seems to me that love just hasn't evolved due to necessity. it seems to be a much more integral part of our existence, and something we crave as more than just a contract for marriage. it seems to fulfill an emotional abyss within people, and bring a sort of contentment and fulfillment and desire for life that nothing else can. it's not analogous to the adaptive need to eat and hunt. it's not merely a physiological drive. it's emotional, cognitive, mental, intellectual, bla bla bla. all those things.
this is idealistic, i know. it's 1:30 am here and i'm writing about love. no wonder i'm such a basketcase.
i digress.
i don't know what point i'm trying to make here. i just notice that love seems to bring people to an unparallel sort of happiness and acceptance of life. d'apres moi, it would be a grave understatement to just say that love is merely a successful, biological trait for the purposes of evolution. whatever the black box of that emotion may be, it's a gift far greater than we may recognize it to be.
so then, i guess i'll just wait happily until it walks into mine.
"li lien jie and ying hsiong"
i feel compelled to talk about jet li and the movie hero, seeing as goonley decided to make a remark about it after buying it at the comicon this past week.
i love that movie. and i love jet li. he's my hero.
pun on hero.
fine. so i'm a kung-fu movie aficionado, and i love all things chinese (dumplings, fried rice, boba, especially. i think i'm i love with the great wall, too). i'll admit it. i even spent 6 weeks in beijing, suffering from mao ze dong's revenge, but am all willing to go back someday and live there.
and i *love* this movie.
i think it trumps crouching tiger's butt around the world and back again. first of all, the film plays with imagery and colors just as much as crouching does, but does it with infinitely more artistry and craft. the scenes are just astounding. secondly, the fight scenes are much better. that's what you get when you have a real shaolin-trained actor in the movie, as opposed to a hard-boiled wannabe. not only do i think the fighting is more cleverly choreographed, but it's also more artistic, and quite tastefully done. (sorry. i do love chow yun fat but he's not a real martial arts dude). thirdly, i love the script. granted, you have to understand mandarin in order to fully grasp what these robed dudes are saying, but it's a really beautifully written script and i love tony leung. i think he's my new love, actually. wait. i think i love donnie yen (star of iron monkey, 2001), too.
maybe i just need to marry a kung fu actor.
the only think i disliked about the movie is that i'm really annoyed with zhang zi yi. i'm sick of her rabid antics, always playing the neurotic, lovesick femme fatale. there has to be more to her than her clenching her teeth and running around flailing swords and being angry. actually, i suggest you see "wo de fu qing, mu qing", which translates to "my father, my mother." it's the love story of zhang yi mou, a very famous director in china. she's in it. i think it's the only time she doesn't attack people with weaponry of some sort. but she still is neurotic in the movie.
okay. that's my two bits. i've seen hero about 6 times in two months. you'd think i'd tire of it now.
maybe it's not the movie itself but just tony leung. he's an asian god.
"little shop of horrors..."
my plants are all sick =(. i'm extremely disturbed. they all have these white little bugs on them and they're all dying. i'm so sad. treloar, the white star jasmine plant that beckfat named, has numerous types of bugs on her. i can't clean them off and i'm so grossed out that there are these little maggoty worms in her soil. bugs usually don't bother me but the thought of them on my desk, in my little treloar, makes me so sad. poo =(. don't buy plants from target. they're all infected.
so i had a really fascinating dream last night. perhaps it wasn't that fascinating, but to me it was pretty fascinating and i wanted to get up and write it down before i forget it later. from time to time, i do question why i quit my job, and what it would have been like had i gone to law school and continued making the big buck at the ole' law firm. i never lamented my decision to switch to psychology, but the opportunity cost of my decision to be out here, studying my dream is pretty high. it was high for me, and most regrettably, my family and was a very big risk. i'm so blessed that it's turned out this beautifully, but it is inevitable that this is something i will question.
last night i dreamnt that i went back to the firm to visit some friends and bumped into my old office mate, elsa (names have been changed to protect confidentiality. don't you just love disclaimers?). elsa quit her tech spec position about 1 month before i did and for about the same reasons i did. she wasn't satisfied, driven, hungry for the work. we were both good at it, but not really motivated. she and i were both equally idealistic; work is someplace where you spend a huge proportion of your waking life and it should be something that you love. oddly enough, in my dream, elsa had returned to the firm and had taken her position as a tech spec back and was planning on finishing her law degree. (oh... explanation: my firm had offered to pay us full time law school tuition as well as my salary while i was in law school. this would also mean that any tech specs would start on the partner track during law school). in the dream, it was a huge shock to me because i had so firmly believed she was doing what was right for her.
in any case, i guess the firm had been having some trouble gathering the talent it needed, and with a fat paycheck, had succeeded to entice elsa to come back to the firm. as i was talking to her, the senior partner walked by and said hello to us both and said something to me along the lines of, "oh hello! how lovely it is to see both of you back here. just the way things out to be. stop by my office, wubu, and we'll talk things out." ah. so the firm was willing to take me back, despite my quitting and long absence from the banal existence of a patent writer.
so there i was in the dream. in the enviable position of having to choose between my love, no health care, no income, exams, idealism, a romantic quest, (psychology) and money, prestige, health care, my secretary who i love, my office with nice cherry oak furniture, fringe benefits, company parties, a law school education on their tab, bi-yearly raises, nice clothing, expensive haircuts, frequent trips to places around the world, etc. i was actually contemplating all these factors in my dream, and could almost feel those lovely, multi-colored paychecks at the tips of my fingers. a slight sentiment of longing swept over me in my dream.
and then i turned and left the firm. and left that offer. and the money. the nice business cards printed on high quality paper. the building with the gold embossed letters nailed into the wall of every floor.
i woke up with a feeling of satisfaction this morning. i still think i did the right thing.
"i have weirdo magnetism"
i swear, i attract weirdos.
i don't claim to be strikingly beautiful, nor am i particularly attractive, interesting looking, or worthy of catching someone's eye immediately. i'm not outrageously unique, or noticeably tall. i'm an ordinary wubu. when i'm wearing sweats, with my hair in a mess, and wearing my nerd-noculars (aka my glasses), i blend into wallpaper, at best.
so last night, i am in the state just described and i'm sitting in tart to tart studying. it's a thursday night, 11 pm, and i'm immersed in my learning and cognition book. this is a sign that i'm not cool. afterall, who studies on a thursday night, alone, wearing sweats and hair in pigtails?
anyhow, my face is stuck in my book, and i'm wearing a look of utter panic because i know *nothing* about symbol system hypotheses and such when some guy walks up to me, interrupts me and says, "hey do i know you?"
wubu: "no, i'm sorry. i don't think i know you."
weirdo#1: "you look really familiar. do you live around here? what do you do?"
wubu: "yah i live around here. i'm a student but i don't really think i know you."
w#1: "well i'm a student too! and i live here, too. i mean i feel like i know you."
wubu: (thinking.. yes, you have said this many times) "well maybe i have a familiar face, but i am pretty good at recognizing people and i've never met you before."
w#1: "but you look so familiar. in any case, here's my info (he jots it down on my notebook paper. augh! world wrong #1. DO NOT EVER WRITE ON MY NOTEBOOK PAPER! i hate that. i'm so anal about my school notes. notes are meant for information, for facts, for things to be learned. i don't want random crap on it, least of all numbers of strangers. and no one should assume that writing on notes is welcomed protocol). let's get together and figure out how i know you."
okay. so, at this point, i'm humored. i hear people in sf are pretty friendly, and okay fine. maybe i do look familiar. asians look all the same, don't we?
so i go back to studying. i'm jamming away. memorizing this. understanding that when i someone shatters my admirably intense concentration with,
"hey did that guy ask you if he knew you? if you looked familiar?"
wubu: "uhhh... excuse me?"
weirdo#2: "did he ask you if you looked familiar?"
wubu: "uhhh. yah. why?"
w#2: "because you really do look familiar to me. what's your name?"
wubu: (my jaw literally fell to the floor at this point. i was basically about to ask him, are you #$%^& kidding me?) "sorry i don't know you."
w#2: "yah.. i don't think i know you. but... yah. i feel like i do."
end of verbal exchange and i think it's over but w#2 just stands there, looking at me. i look away and return to studying. he pulls a chair up to the table next to me and sits perpendicularly, so that he's facing me. for 30 minutes this guy watches me study! i'm not that fascinating when i'm study! i barely move!
that was demented.
"ode to gastroenteritis"
i saw eight mile yesterday. it inspired me to compose a little ode to gastroenteritis.
gastroenteritis, gastroenteritis.
after you hath entered my body,
i now know how many delicious foods i miss.
whether it be sushi, kalbi or the most sumptuous - boba tea,
to have these would surely be a tremendous bliss.
but alas, as you can see,
to these love things goodbye i kiss,
for to my roommate, the doctor, i must heed,
no food, no boba lest to you, forever your health be amiss.
okay. so that was lame. i'm definitely no rapper saved from the depths of detroit. but i hate the stomach virus. it sucks. i can't eat anything, and for those of you who know me, i love eating. i can't sleep normally because my stomach feels like it's being pummeled from the insides out, and i'm tired. that's the worst. a hypoglycemic who can't eat. a great combination.
so this week. let's see. rob arrived friday. my roommates and i had a wine and cheese housewarming party at my beautiful new pad and it was lovely to see so many new and old faces show. we seriously had 10 bottles of wine downed that night, and although i tried my valiant attempt to help, i only rounded out at about 7 glasses of wine. i was trying to drink off with someone but i failed miserably. i shouldn't have even tried; everyone knows that i have the tolerance of a duck.
rob and i went shopping on sunday, snagged me a cool new shirt. and let's see... last night we went to a baseball game at the pac bell stadium - giants vs. diamondbacks. my studs won of course, but it was a brilliant night (too much time spent with the british, of late) for a game. the stadium is absolutely beautiful. one side of it opens up to the bay and the other side has a really panoramic view of the city. the area is also pretty safe, so as we left, it was a lovely walk at night by the water and we got a great view of east bay.
oh. i just have to interject something here that some of my avid readers may find incendiary. i'm sick of reading the news. in april, during the war, i had to stop watching tv and reading cnn because i was so disgusted with everything that was going on. i think i'm readily nearing that point again. i'm tired of hearing about how the us has bungled up in iraq because we haven't taken rehabilitating action fast enough. and now, as a result, iraq is slowly heading toward this irrevocable point of chaos. it goes on - how we finally managed to assassinate saddam's sons and how it's this great triumph in the war that we're blowing people up left and right. i'm tired of reading about the number of soldiers who are getting killed and it scares me to think of the soldiers there who have to fear insurgency any minute from the iraqis. it bothers me that the iraqis feel like we're tyrannists. maybe we are.
of course we knew that if we went in there and broke up the regime, we'd have to rebuild it. and of course we had to expect retaliation. 200 some odd years ago, we didn't like it when we were forced to pay taxes and pay heed to britain, even though we *were* a british colony. i'm not a political specialist. i don't claim to know the nuances of the military and political situation that necessitated action back in march. i just know that i'm really upset at seeing all these slowly climbing numbers, and i'm disappointed that, with all the technical innovation and strides we are making in the world, it seems that we are straying farther from peace and unification.
i know that what i wrote sounds really hokey. it's like i'm a tree hugger. i sound like a hippie. it just makes me wonder what the point is of all these great developments, discoveries, leaps in medicine and healthcare, advances that have totally revolutionized how we communicate. and even before we will get to realize our full potential and enjoy these leaps and bounds, we're probably going implode on ourselves.
okay. i've said enough. i apologize for the babbling. perhaps the virus has entered wubu's brain.
"happy friday!"
i wasted my entire day today. the grand aspirations of actually studying, and acquiring some of the stuff i will need to learn in order to fix people's heads, was washed down the drain and lost as i rediscovered how comfortable my bed is. it's a very nice bed. i can sleep across it in a diagonal fashion, sprawled in all sorts of odd shapes, quite comfortably. it's nice.
the weather out here has been lovely lately. the sun has been out, and the fog has decided to stay away from the inner sunset area. i actually got up and worked out today. i did tons of lunges and squats, and then did 35 minutes or cardio. aren't i just the coolest? of course, i can't walk now. my tush is all sore :(.
so i think i'm starting to appreciate san francisco more and more. the city seems to have a nurtured laziness about it because i am so relaxed and at ease here. i love how trees flank every street, and how there is boba at every corner. the other day, my roomie and i were walking around irving and we found one block that had three boba places on it - back to back. it was intense. i've never seen so many promises of those gushy tapioca balls calling out to me.
other than that, i feel like my life is uneventful and i have nothing much to tell. it consists of 8 hours of lecture a week, 40 pages of reading each night, and the stupid stamp machine that wouldn't take my dollar yesterday. i force fed it 6 times before it finally took my dollar and dispensed me three lovely stamps. that was my triumph of the week.
i had an urge yesterday morning to run across my street and give the bum sleeping in the golden gate park a bowl of fried rice. it can be dreadfully cold here in the morning and late at night, and when i woke up, the sun hadn't come in yet. i see mr. homeless there frequently, huddled in a ripped sleeping bag, trying to burrow himself into pine leaves and grass to make himself warm. his possessions consist of a shopping cart that he parks next to the cars on the street. it makes me sad seeing him there. i think i'm going to start volunteering at a soup kitchen once a sunday each month. they basically make bag lunches and hand it out to the homeless. i think that'd be good.
"the power of declaration"
today, i am a pimp.
for no real reason, other than i feel like declaring that i am a pimp.
so. i am a pimp.
yah i think i fried my brain last week. i got an A in developmental psychology, thank you, thank you, and i passed my cali driver's exam without really studying. people were failing! they have the weirdest questions on there. do you know that if you refuse to take a blood alcohol content test, they can rightfully revoke your license for a year? blasphemy!
oh. i declare that i like the word blasphemy.
words i hate - irregardless. it means the same thing as regardless, so why bother? supine. for some reason, that word just sounds dumb. okay. i digress. back to what i did.
so this weekend i went down to la with a friend to see the parental units, my big bro, and visit the monks. i actually helped out at the meditation session this time, translating from mandarin to english, and take care of minor logistics. maybe i've finally racked up enough good karma to win myself an xbox. i'm craving some video games.
and then we drove back sunday. the drive took an insane 8.5 hours, and towards the end, we swung by stanford to use christophe's bafroom. we took 5 up, and 152 west, which is an unbelievably beautiful ride, were it not for the traffic. we also ran into a moo moo ranch, and the putrid smells that filled our car as we passed the moo moo ranch sort of negated how cool it was to see so many moo moo. other than that, la is pretty big. i'm not quite sure i like how hot it is, or how glitzy it is. or more so, how many asians there are! it was as if i was in a virtual taipei when i was walking around there. people weren't even using english. when i went into to buy some peanut candy, i had to haggle in taiwanese. good lord, people, this is america! speak english! a - b - c ...
oh. i like the word dolt.
okay. i think i'm done. my parental units are coming to see me today, yay!!!!, and i'm going to be busy taking the monks around the city to see some sights. hopefully this silly fog will decide to burn itself off....
oh. anyone want to see pirates wif me?
"stud muffin"
i don't want to study. bleh. short procrastination.
this guy is a total stud. and he looks like my friend, dylan, too. how weird.
let's play "build a man" today.
if you took someone who looked like this chap, mixed in patrick swayze's ability to dance, ewan mcgregor's amazing voice and ability to belt out insanely high notes, threw in paul newman's magnanimous and family-oriented nature, the smarts of hrm... not bill gates, he's a mutant, but let's say... i dunno, one of my mit peeps like goonley or jaybear.. or maybe they're too smart. i don't know. let's just say someone who knows who camus and tolstoy and mao ze dong and stalin are, humility, a sense of humor, sensitivity, compassion, and a willingness to explore, emotional stability, i'd have the perfect guy. *the* perfect guy. oh. and he'd have to be able to operate a bicycle, maybe even drive stick. being able to handle moving bodies of mass are important.
i'm almost moved in! unpacked the artwork, more dress pants from the old days of yore when i sold my soul to the corporate devil, cookware, rollerblades. i'm so stokked =). everyone must come see the wubu apartment - i have really spiffed it up with artwork and some fancy shmancy lamps. and no, hua, they aren't phallic-looking.
oh. a vocal thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birfday (especially huru and beckfat who called like 10 quatrillion times this weekend.) i had a really great one... it's nice to be able to say that i am really fulfilling my dream out here. 24 looks like it's gonna be a beautiful year!
"it's my birfday and we're going to party like it's my birfday..."
this weekend was exhausting. a childhood friend, dylan (formerly known as dennis the dentist), came to visit me from phoenix and we spent the entire weekend running around doing crazy things. he got in on thursday and we went to berkeley and walked around shattuck and telegraph. on friday, we walked around the entire city and had sushi late in 9th and irving, pretty much missing the fireworks. we walked from union square, to north beach, to the marina. saturday, we went to napa valley and i got pretty wasted at cakebread. on the way home, we hit up ikea. which is insane. i can't even expound on how ridiculous ikea is. there is an entire warehouse filled with, basically, crap. candles in phallic shapes, cheap lights, tables that promise to fall apart. and they manage to make it look good, too! and yesterday, we went to sausalito, muir beach, ocean beach, and the golden gate bridge, before coming home to a dumpling party chez moi.
i'm really wiped.
it was nice to see him but gosh, he thinks so much. it forced me to regurgitate some thoughts i'd rather have left buried.
"dumplings wumplings..."
they have the best dumpling skins here. they are thin, yet fry-able. nifty! shahma head came over last night for dumplings and magda helped me wrap up a package of skins. the three of us ate up 55 dumplings... unfortunately, leaving only 5 for corinne. we were total pigs. and the two of them were going nuts with the hot sauce. i prefer my standard soy-sesame oil-vinegar sauce =p.
i think i need a man like patrick swayze. for those of you who may need an explanation, go to the video store and rent dirty dancing. good lord can that man dance! and he also sings. he recorded the song, "she's like the wind." not the most brilliant song ever, but he still sings pretty well. so i need a man who can both *dance* and *sing* and be really goodlooking. sigh... where to find, where to find? :)
back to studying. anyone care to learn about piaget?