i went to see my doctor yesterday about my red eye (i know several people mentioned it to me on the ski trip last weekend... it looks pretty demented) and he told me i have something called ptXXXXXX. not sure. anyhow, it's an abnormal growth of the eye membrane that, if left untended, will continue to grow and obscure my vision. so, the verdict is that i need to find an ophthamologist (i almost won a cup of coffee over the spelling of that word... who would have thought the p would be followed by an h??), and get outpatient surgery.
i sort of feel that i should be freaking out about this. the loss of one's sight is a rather scary prospect, but for some reason i haven't really been upset by this news.
will continue to post updates as i hear more.
thao has many questions i can't answer... so i defer to a much wiser, and more eloquent, source of wisdom.
he and his writing are simply put, beautiful:
Rainer Maria Rilke - Live the Questions Now
...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 in Letters to a Young Poet
trip to tahoe was excellent. many thanks to the organizers and those who partook in the festivities. unfortunately, there were many injuries besides standard soreness: dislocated shoulder, fragmented bone, torn acl and mcl, and a mashed miniscus. injuries such as these have become more frequent of late amongst my acquaintances, and i am wondering if it is because of age. are we just getting older and not able to sustain our habitual recklessness?
my form was not great, but i was proud to say that i hit a blue and fell only once on my second day of skiing, and a rather difficult blue today (as well as moguls, which were just heinous for a beginner skiier). the first day of skiing was two years ago (see February 2002), and the second and third day occurred this weekend. i had to stop halfway today because of my knees hurting (edging really does a number on your knees), and also because i was feeling myself getting tired and weak, which really results in injuries and sloppy skiing. but, i have come to understand why skiing is such a great sport, and i really do expect myself to frequent tahoe more during the last few months of my stay in sf.
on that note, i told erik this weekend that i'm starting to prepare myself mentally to leave the bay area. that kind of sucks. i can't imagine having to wait another 6 or 7 years until i come back, but i guess that is the life of an academic. you go where schooling takes you. so, i have started to narrow down my field of acquaintances even more, and intend to spend as much time with them, and with this city, before i leave.
i also realized last week, in talking to jb and sliu, that people really have odd definitions of love. more specifically, many people who say "i love you," are really saying so because of their own needs, and not because of the other person. that is, they don't really love the individual for who he is, his needs or loves or dreams or aspirations or failings, but the fact that he fits into an ideal of what is wanted and needed, and because of the fact that that person lets the other feel a certain way.
i have come to this conclusion because of many everyday observations it sort of makes me feel suspicious of love. what if the person someday stops filling that role? what if the needs of that role change and you no longer satisfy the other? where do you get the idea of what these needs are anyhow? which roles are important to play and which are just societally constructed? is love constructed from cultural ideals and standards?
just makes me think. then again, i am a little dehydrated from the trip.
oh, one more thing: classmates have started getting phd program interviews. i haven't heard a thing from schools :(. poo! but hope still remains!
"oftentimes, the right thing to do and the hardest thing to do are one and the same."
heh.
i'm back in san francisco and decompressing from last term and the winter break. germany was great, but exhausting. since returning to this beautiful city, i haven't been doing much except hiding in my apartment, learning to knit, watching a lot of tv, working out and sleeping a lot, and cooking all the dishes i never had time to cook.
i feel bad primarily because:
1. i have been very lazy and have been completely unproductive
2. i have about 10 messages (not an exaggeration) on my phone that need to be checked, but that i do not have the energy to check.
3. i have friends who need to be called back - e.g., iron ape -- and who need to be seen, but who are understanding enough to know that i mean to but am just indulging myself.
4. i have hit "NO" to reject more calls this week than i ever have in my entire life (slight exaggeration)
decompression rcp-style manifests itself as:
1. obsession with tomatoes. i've been eating a lot of those red squishy buggers.
2. a desire to be anti-social and silent
3. odd moments of irrational grumpiness and participation in totally useless arguments, and a strong desire to girlie cry but a complete inability to do so
4. the oldies station.
despite how odd this is, i'm enjoying it. sometimes it feels great to play a social grinch. i can't wait to be a curmudgeonly old asian woman... i see myself with a broom beating away pesky children.
hah.
sorry. that sick humor just stems from more decompressing behavior.
i got into a pretty tense argument with someone the other day over money, or the ethical value of it. you would think that after being in a buddhist retreat for two weeks, that i would return and be unfazed by everything and anything. life is, afterall, just an illusion. even if the steak tastes good, it's just an illusion of tasting good. and even if the argument is frustrating, my frustration is an illusion. but this argument got me really angry, and i got really worked up. probably because it directly commented on the character of some close friends of mine.
this person posited that it is unethical for people to purchase luxury items such a bmws, expensive clothing, and gadgets and such. a son avis, it just isn't right to sink $30,000 in a vehicle. the more ethical decision would have been to take that money and give it to someone who was homeless or in need of it. such luxury items just weren't worth that amount. it was, however, in his opinion, alright to sink money in books, real estate, music, and housewares.
i first got mad because has no right to call these people unethical.
then i got mad because it just didn't make sense.
i'm not saying that if i had 30k that i would choose to put it in a lexus or audi. nor am i saying that i would buy a pair of $200 jeans. but individuals who have worked for their money and have overcome hardship have the right to treat themselves to personal gifts as they see fit. it is no more right of me to judge someone for spending 20k on books than it is for me to judge someone who spends 20k on a car, of clothing. i may put more value on the books than on clothing, but i don't believe it is an issue of ethics. i can no more chastise him for valuing a smooth ride (for someone who commutes two hours a day, for example) than he can chastise me for collecting books when i can easily rent them in a library, or for simply feeling the joy of seeing a book i have read on my bookshelf.
i'm not sure where i'm going with this. maybe i'm polling for a response, for people's viewpoints. i see this as entirely separate from ethical reasons -- because if this person is so devoted to the cause of ethics, shouldn't he too refrain completely from excess self expenditure and commit his life belongings to those in need?
and lastly, i felt that it was extremely self righteous of him to go judging others, namely my friends, when he had no idea about their backgrounds. as i told him, my parents sh*t in a hole for 15 years during their childhoods. they ate yams for weeks on end, and patched up socks that their elder siblings grew out of. if they choose to buy a luxury car, or treat themselves to a good life, i won't comment otherwise. their hard work in bringing us here more than paid off for their entitlement.
maybe this comment just stems from someone who has never really known hardship. because once you know what it means to sacrifice and work yourself to the bone, you feel entitled to stand upon your successes and indulge yourself a little.
stunning. i've never seen a more beautiful school. perfectly managed greens, trees flanking yards, cobblestone streets twisting into nowhere, willow trees bending in reverence over the river cam, cozy tea houses with fogged windows, stained glass windows protected by stone figurines of saints, students wrapped in plaid scarves. the list goes on.
i'm in love with a school.
i think i'm going to go, for a year at least, if i get that scholarship. the sign up list for visits starts now.
someone said cheers to me today, and i said, cheers back. the train ride into cambridge was lovely, and i think i deserve a gold star for getting myself through the tube, and the green line shuttle, and this and that without goonley being my guide. i think the distinction is thus -- i have the ability to get myself to and fro places. but if someone, such as goonley, decides to dictate where and when to go and covets the map, then i might as well be the comic antagonist and help us get lost. afterall, one cannot always be too good at getting from one place to another. being lost and directionless is necessary, at times. if not to add in self deprecative humor, then to annoy good friends, at the very least.
in any case, i woke up early this morning to come into cambridge. in about an hour, i'm slated to meet the man that i might be working with for the next three years (blimey!!). london was a bit stark and gloomy when i landed this morning, but as i went up north, the sun broke through the clouds. the british are not as frigid as they say they are. i've actually found them to be quite nice and friendly. or maybe that's because i don't have people screaming 'NEIN' at me anymore in frankfurt. anyhoo!, back to the point - the train ride here was absolutely stunning - sweeping green fields, little english huts, horses covered in wool blankets. if not for the education, i think someone ought to come study here for the romanticism of it. i'm already intoxicated.
i'm happy to be done and out of the buddhism retreat. i pretty much lost all sense of decency yesterday when they started reviewing buddhist history after the buddha died. that is, when this book or that sutra or that school of thought was created. after learning 10 days of levels of saints, the 10 obstructions, the 4 hindrances, the 4 noble truths, the 8 noble path, the 3 defilements, the 52 levels of unwholesome and wholesome beings, the N, X and K of this or that, my brain is completely inundated. i even stopped trying to keep myself up and would routinely take naps or play video games. for the first time, i have mastered space cadette pinball, hearts, solitaire, and minesweeper. when those got boring, i started dancing in my chair and singing songs, until my mother gave me the "behave-or-die" look of death.
i've come to realize that how i learn has changed a lot since college. i now sort of drift in and out of attentiveness, allowing myself to internally process things while allowing nuances and minor details to slip from my awareness. i tend to go for the big picture now, whereas the little details really are irrelevant to me. then again, i suppose if you are in class for 10 days, 12 hours a day, you sort of grow apathetic about how you reach buddhahood. enlightenment just doesn't seem that interesting after a while.
that being said, i am glad i went to the retreat. i met some wonderful people, and i managed to purge out any aggression left from the past term. last night, a few of us went into frankfurt and walked around. i managed to cull some serious chocolate for friends back home, and have even perfected my guttural 'danke shoen' with zest. i've found, most importantly, that what i am learning in buddhism is intricately tied to what i will be doing in my future. i've never considered myself a workaholic (i suppose it's hard to when you're programming retarded beta processors), but i can see now how my work has become fully integrated into who i am and how i see things.
it's a beautiful place to be.
on a side note, i saw the whole slew of tin tin comic books in a store just a few minutes ago. i haven't seen them in the united states in years. i'm tempted to buy the entire collection and give them to my brother for his birthday...
tempting, very tempting.. smeagol wants his precioussss...