Major pain

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
31 August 2009
0
The selection can be daunting, what with thousands to choose from...

The selection can be daunting, what with thousands to choose from...

I got a call from my cousin today, who is settling in to start college in Boston.  She’s a bit concerned about choosing classes, since she has yet to settle on a major.  The pressure is high for her to choose a major that she will excel in, which is no easy task, given her unfamiliarity with the language she will be taught in.  Additionally, because of the huge cost to study in the states, she’s under a time limit to complete a degree in the standard four years.  It may not be a huge problem if she didn’t want to double major.  But of course, college always presents itself as a major changing force in a person’s life, whether they have trouble choosing what to study or they need to adjust to life away from home.  It’s never easy, is it?

In my faltering Chinese, I advised her to try to find classes that she needs to take anyway to satisfy requirements.  I didn’t know how to say “general education” classes, but I described classes that overlap with needs and she mentioned she does have certain types of classes like science and math that she needs to fulfill no matter what.  I also explained to her how my dad and I don’t believe the major really does that much.  What it comes down to is the skill sets you learn from each type of degree – in the sciences, the scientific method and critical thinking; in the arts, writing and critical analysis.  From there, there are many directions you can go.  I recommended that she go talk to the professors in the areas she’s interested in to ask them about possible career paths and insight into their respective fields and she mentioned a dean, which is also a great idea.  Too bad she doesn’t remember his/her name and isn’t sure where to track down said dean…

From personal experience, I also encouraged her to take advantage of that which I never really did – office hours and tutoring.  Those resources are readily available to her and that extra effort and commitment can really go a long way.  Sometimes I wonder how I would have fared if I had gone to use those resources, but I don’t exactly regret not.  I got through my double degree just fine without, with a few minor stumbles along the way when classes got tough.  I’m still working on not always being oh so independent in certain areas, like studying.  It’s one of those things that you really have to train yourself to get used to though.  I hope she does better in that arena that I ever managed.

It’s funny how people get so worked up over what to major in in college.  Haven’t we all gotten the memo?  Except for highly technical jobs, a major is no sure indicator of employability or knowledge and skill set.  So why is that people still feel it is so important to choose the right one when you’re only 18-20 or so?  It’s one of those unfortunate myths that people are well aware of, but still choose to believe.  There’s so much more than taking an exact set of classes to learn the skills truly needed to be a good worker.  I think employers are understanding this more and more, but parents don’t always get news, I guess.  I hope that my cousin can choose a major she really enjoys or at least is interested in and that my uncle will understand that it’s not that decision that matters most, but what she does with her time while studying for her degree.

Southern California drive

laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: , ,
30 August 2009
2

There has been a huge wildfire raging in La Canada the past couple of days and I believe the smoke I’ve been seeing is from that fire.  It’s hard to tell though, what with a handful of fires burning throughout the area.  I generally get the best views while on the road, so this is a chronicle of the images I saw driving around town, as well as a random strange encounter on the highway.

Experience a drive in Southern California…

Wildfire smoke battles fluffy cloud.

Wildfire smoke battles fluffy cloud.

Creeping upon the neighborhood.

Creeping upon the neighborhood.

Darkening the horizon.

Darkening the horizon.

A shocker in the mirror: fleet of cop cars. Rather intimidating.

A shocker in the mirror: fleet of cop cars. Rather intimidating.

Ok, so I guess I would suck at the one photo a day deal.  I tend to get carried away with picture-taking.  First I’ll start with storytelling through photos, then perhaps I will venture into the challenge of one picture (and only one picture) per day, every day.

Pictures

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
29 August 2009
1

Pictures tell a story.  Pictures capture things that the mind may never think to include in writing a novel.  A picture’s worth a thousand words, as I’m sure you’ve heard.

photo credit: kidstechreview.com

It only looks like a toy. photo credit: kidstechreview.com

To me, pictures are a way of life.  I am ever grateful for the advent of digital cameras and the ever-growing memory capacity their chips can hold.  I still remember my very first camera, which I got on my birthday when my parents and I were in Florida visiting Sea World and Disneyworld.  It was a pink rectangular wind-up thing that looked more like a toy meant for Barbie than a functioning camera, but it certainly did work.  Rolls of film were precious to me at that time, over a decade ago, so I took pictures sparingly and carefully.  After that came a more professional-looking black camera complete with neckstrap and nice fancy buttons with a digital display screen to indicate photos left.  No more of those little numbers rolling by a magnifying glass (except on disposable cameras).

photo credit: dphotonews.com

My current camera model. photo credit: dphotonews.com

At some point in high school, I began to use digital cameras and never looked back.  From that point on, I felt the freedom of taking pictures as I wanted, pretty much whenever I wanted and as much as I wanted.  It was liberating.  I don’t think my picture-taking obsession hit full swing until college though, when so much was going on that I wanted to document.  I generally go for action shots that tell a story, but I’m a sucker for some good food or just posing with friends for posterity as well.  Mostly I try to get a candid shot, probably a little goofy if there are people in it, and definitely one that explains why it was taken.  My observation skills got put to good use as I documented all the little things I would find, from the insects around us to the odd sign or cool building.

Perhaps the influx in college was also due to the birth of Facebook, which became a great way for me to share the photos I took for myself that most people never even saw.  Now I had a way of showing them as well, which just encouraged me to continue capturing all the action around me.  Soon enough, my friends knew they could always rely on me to have a camera at hand for any occasion that may spring up.  In fact, it is well known that I have well over 3000 pictures tagged of me now and certainly thousands I’ve put up in the dozens of albums I have.  I used to go through and delete it all every few months, but at a certain point about three years ago, I decided I may as well leave them up – after all, there are no limitations on storage!  It’s a pity I didn’t keep everything up though; it would be a fantastic chronology of my life starting in the fall of 2004, as I embarked upon my years at UCLA.

Because of the significance pictures have had on me, I am drawn to photo blogs (phlogs?), where a picture is posted each day to depict a certain moment during that day.  Marylin kept something like that, meant to chronicle her life in a year picture by picture.  I don’t know if she ever got to 365 before stopping though.  I am tempted to do that here and let the images of my life do the talking.  I have been considering whether I should finish up an entire year of writing an entry per day and then do another year of photo blogging, or just start integrating it now.  I’ve been trying to use images as much as I can to help illustrate my entries for many months now, which I find is a nice break amongst all that type.  I suppose I could try doing one of each for awhile, or switch off every other day, or just do whichever whenever I feel like it.  It might be a slight challenge to have an interesting picture every day, what with my policy of not including people I know in the shots.  Guess we’ll just have to see!

Posture

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: ,
28 August 2009
0
photo credit: made-in-china.com

photo credit: made-in-china.com

I have some pretty terrible posture, especially when it comes to sitting.  I tend to hunch my back and lean in a lot, usually over bent knees drawn in to my chest.  If I’ve actually got my feet on the ground, they’re probably not flat and at nice 90 degree angles as ergonomically recommended, but more likely to be crossed in strange twists or off to the side.  Recently people have been noticing how I cross my legs, then wrap the ankle of the top leg around back behind the calf of the bottom leg.  I guess not everyone is able to intertwine their legs quite so much, but it has been a pretty standard sitting position for me for years.  Then there are couches, which absolutely were not designed for people to sit well in.  There’s nothing that encourages a slouch quite like a sagging cushion.  All of this doesn’t do much for my poor weak and sore backside.  As of late, even short amounts of standing or walking leave me in slight pain and rather sore back there.

photo credit: rei.com

photo credit: rei.com

One of the solutions I came up with for this dilemma is a yoga ball.  A few years back, my roommate had a yoga ball in our room that we started off using as a guest “chair” but quickly began to use ourselves.  We discovered the benefits of just sitting on a yoga ball, which requires a certain level of balance.  Plus, it was low enough that we had to sit straight to be able to type on our computers while sitting on one.  The perfect way to “work out” and work at the same time, isn’t it?  Well, after that experience, I decided that I needed a ball of my own.  For quite cheap I got an entire set at Costco, including the ball and some other equipment to use with it.  I haven’t stuck that well to using the ball, but when I do it really helps.  It’s no wonder they’ve come up with this new chair that takes that very idea and makes it into a so-called product so they can mark up the price like crazy.  I guess it’s fair enough to say that their model really does look a little more professional, though I still don’t know if it’s acceptable office furniture.  Personally, I still prefer a good old normal yoga ball.

Maybe I should look into a back brace to keep me from slouching the way I do.

Trouble with electronics

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
27 August 2009
0
Last time it needed fixing.

Last time it needed fixing.

I seem to mistreat my electronics quite often, cycling through cameras and cell phones every 1-2 years.  My first laptop lasted me three and a half years and this one is already in pretty bad shape after a year and a half.  I must admit, my klutziness plays a huge factor, causing me to drop the smaller items regularly and occasionally mishandle the laptops too.  Right now I’m dealing with a problem that apparently Katana’s having too (an unhinged hinge), which pushes up against my speaker panel and bends it.  The screw seemed to have made its way out again (the first time this happened I also needed to replace my keyboard because of spillage, so the problem was solved when Doc fixed the more visible issue).  I have the screw, but absolutely no recollection of how to remove the appropriate parts to get it back in place.  I don’t want to call up a friend just to ask for help with it, so I’ve been dealing with it for quite awhile now.  It gets annoying when the screen gets beyond a certain threshold and just falls over backwards because of the lack of support coming from that hinge.

I recently got a new phone that has been faring pretty well, but then again it has only been three weeks.  The last one I had to use only on speakerphone because I couldn’t hear the other party if it was the normal speakers.  Don’t know how I had to drop it to do that, but I guess it’s not an uncommon problem.  Unfortunately, it was out of warranty and not worth it to pay for the repairs, so I just had to deal with it.  Thankfully I don’t really have personal calls that need more privacy.  I don’t remember if my phone before that was having functionality issues, but you could obviously see the wear and tear from the chipped paint and scratches it had accumulated.  Similar issues arise with my cameras.  Plenty of nicks to show they’ve been places and they usually go out of commission when they won’t turn on anymore.  At that point, I get a new one and the old one is sent to China to be fixed up for others to use.  I believe each and every one has gotten splashed and encountered its fair share of sand (though they always survived that part of the abuse).  What can I say?  My devices are well-loved and very well-used.

Unabashed

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
26 August 2009
3

I got a chance to meet up with Gimp today.  He’s in town for a few more days before returning to Texas to be an EMT and potentially go to law school or something along those lines.  We’ve always had a strange relationship, being the respective best friends of a couple who have since split.  I never would have known him otherwise and hanging out with him started off as a necessity because of overlapping social circles.  He’s the kind of friend who you never take too seriously and typically are ready to slap at a moment’s notice.  He’s a super cheeky fellow and likes to think of himself as a stud, yet at the same time he’s got a big heart and is well aware of his ego.  It’s always interesting hanging out with him.

One of the most unique things about him is that he brings out the insults in me.  Whenever we hang out, we diss each other like nothing else.  We call each other fat, point out all the minor flaws (many of which don’t exist), exaggerate every little mistake to be a bad character trait, and relentlessly battle each other with words and (controlled) hands.  I’d imagine this is how siblings fight each other as they’re growing up, with a certain immaturity and a he-said she-said mentality.  It’s quite fun though, and playfully abusive emotionally and physically.  It may not sound that great, but there’s nothing like a dose of unabashed insults thrown at you to make you question if you really deserve to think of yourself as so great.

Reminds me of when these two duke it out with words on the Black Pearl. photo credit: magicmountain.net

Reminds me of when these two duke it out with words on the Black Pearl. photo credit: magicmountain.net

I’m sure everyone has that friend who is candid to a fault and has absolutely no tact.  Take that to a different dimension and you get the friend who is completely candid, but will even make things up to poke at possible insecurities.  If you learn to deal with that, there’s a lot more you could handle if it came your way.  I guess it comes down to trusting that person enough to know they don’t actually mean those mean things and trusting yourself enough to know that you aren’t those bad things.

Talk about a reality check.  A friend like that can keep anyone grounded!  Though perhaps there is the danger of pounding someone into the ground too hard if they can’t take a harsh joke or two.  Personally, I appreciate the little dose of a “beating” I get every now and then.  It’s a fun and lively banter for me and keeps me on my toes.  After all, I can’t always be the one getting shot down, now can I?

A leisurely stroll

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
25 August 2009
0
photo credit: Olof S on flickr

photo credit: Olof S on flickr

I think everyone should spend more time walking around the places they often drive by.  You notice a lot more when you’re on your feet going at a slower pace, whether it’s stores you never knew existed or hidden pathways you never went down. Plus, when you see things from much closer, you’re more likely to notice things that you wouldn’t have ever caught otherwise.  It’s an entirely new way of appreciating the very same place you always thought you knew so well, or exploring a foreign place.

My mom and I took a nice little walk when we were waiting for the car to get fixed up at the body shop last week.  As we casually made our way down the quiet neighborhood, we noted all kinds of cool plants that she may want to plant in our own yard.  I noted that there were a lot of the same brand two or three brands of cars around there and that each stand-alone house actually housed two families.  We saw a squirrel hanging out in the shade of a tree and trees with spikes growing on the trunks, which inspired us to think of a solution to prevent animals from stealing the fruits that my mom so laboriously planted.  We noticed the architecture of the houses and the vibrant colors of the neighborhood.  I saw the mailman delivering mail with his bag and we quickly noted that he did so because there were no mailboxes in that area.  We also saw how the first street we went down seemed to have a far nicer feel than the next street, which had more run-down houses and less shady trees to fill the space.  All of that, and we got some nice exercise too.

The same thing goes fora  lot of streets you may tend to rush by.  You may not notice that the store on the corner sells small trinkets in the midst of magazines or furniture.  You may never know that in the display case of another store, is the very elusive bit of jewelry you’ve been hunting for.  Or that one shop has amazing brass handles that are an artwork to themselves, or another is hidden so far from the road you never would have found it otherwise.  You can wander into little courtyards lined with small shops selling a variety of random items, or even find a cute restaurant tucked away in the corner.  A medicine shop sits next to a book shop that holds monthly book readings.  A map of the town waits for you at one intersection, wondering if you’ll ever discover that it will show you a history of the streets you frequent (having not been changed in a decade).

It’s amazing what you can find if you ditched the wheels and let your own two feet guide you.

Cliffhangers

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: ,
24 August 2009
1
photo credit: louisvolant on flickr

They love cliffhangers and I don't. What to do? photo credit: louisvolant on flickr

I’ve never been a big fan of cliffhangers, whether in books or shows.  I guess I like to know that all loose ends are tied up and life from that point on will be rather mundane.  I don’t like sitting there imagining what may happen, based on an insinuation or clue that was thrown out just to make you wonder.  I may not need a happily ever after, but I like closure and a sense that the story is over.  Cliffhangers keep doors wide open and that is just not appealing to me at all.  It’s ok if it’s just an end to something that will be continued in the next episode, next series, or whatever, but when it’s the last… that’s just not my thing.

What I especially don’t like is that cliffhangers more often than not are a hint that the evil overcome throughout the entire novel, movie, or what have you comes back to continue haunting the protagonists.  Why is it that the bad guy will always rise again?  I mean, I know peace doesn’t make for good storytelling, but surely people can come up with a better way?  Instead everyone takes the same formula and creates a variety of plots based on that.  Hero(ine) is confronted with antagonist, battles evil forces and inner demons, overcomes the bad guys, but right before story ends, glimmer of bad guys’ not being completely defeated comes back.  Standard for any show these days, isn’t it?  Not my piece of cake.

Perhaps that’s part of the reason I’m not so interested in modern entertainment.  I don’t have the time and energy to follow a storyline, then spend hours fantasizing about how things could turn out in the ensuing time following the end of a story.  I’m hugely curious and I like my answers.  I guess the best I can do is just not imagine too much though, since it’s pretty much unavoidable in any show I might follow or movie I go see.  People really like having more questions than they do answers, don’t they?

What you give you don’t get

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: ,
23 August 2009
0
photo credit: net_efekt from flickr

photo credit: net_efekt from flickr

Sometimes I wonder if services are a zero sum game, in a way.  Basically, it seems that whenever you’re really good at doing something for others, you don’t really know anyone who can provide that very something to you as well.  Take that person in a social circle who’s always the entertainer – the one who tells jokes that make people laugh, the one who tells stories that captivate people, the one who plays pranks that amuse people.  I know a few people like that and it seems they never get to sit back and let someone else take the reins.  Certainly everyone can be better off because they all enjoyed it, including the person performing, but I’m sure there are the times when they wish that someone else could take their place, if only for a moment.  It is then that other people win, but that person loses and it becomes a sort of zero sum game.

I was listening to yet another talk, where it was mentioned that a lot of people don’t want to know how a magician does his tricks.  It was then that it hit me that the mystery others feel when they watch magic they don’t understand is lost upon the magician.  A magician cannot mystify himself with the same sort of wonder that this audience experiences, for he understands the mechanisms behind the tricks.  Certainly it’s cool that he can do a certain thing a certain way and make people believe he did something else, but it’s not as cool as just believing he did that magical thing.  So in providing a certain type of service to others, you rob yourself of the experience of being on the other side.  I guess it’s only worth it if the pleasure of providing the service outweighs the loss of the experience.

Why do you blog?

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
22 August 2009
0

I’m sure every blogger asks themselves this at least once during the time they maintain a blog.  Why do I do this?  What is this for?  What do I want to accomplish?  I know I certainly have thought about the purpose of this blog time and again.  And mull as I might, it really is just a collection of my thoughts, observations, and experiences.  I’ve considered attempting to fit more into a theme and have sets of topics I talk about, like feminism or the Asian-American experience and whatnot, but I’ve found that those get expressed on my way to sorting out other thoughts in my head.  So though I do cover certain broad areas, there are none that I am willing to sift out of possible future entries purely to “brand” my writing.

The result is a mish-mash of my opinions and stories that vary depending on how tired I am when I’m writing, how much time I have to write, what else is going on around me at that time, and what I’m just plain “in the mood” to write about.  Many a draft lay unwritten, with just a bullet point or two to remind me to write about that idea at some point.  When I get in the mood, I can achieve a certain level of flow and write a few entries to store away.  But all too soon, I get busy and use up those “back-up” entries and find myself needing to find something to write about for today, as each one comes along.  With this sort of disorganization, it’s no surprise I haven’t been able to think of a set of topics I’d deal with.  Instead, I just take things as they come along.

I saw a video today of Mena Trott talking about her view on what a blog is.  What she said helped me realize that a blog for me is not for attracting high traffic or making money, but it’s a piece of my legacy.  Assuming WordPress doesn’t go out of business and stop hosting my blog (and this made me wonder what happens if a blogging platform closes down – are all those blogs lost or transferred elsewhere?), what I write will remain there potentially eternally.  It’s a sort of e-footprint I’m leaving on the internet so that I (or others) can look back on my life, my ideas, my experiences, and even my writing style.  I can be reminded of how I was and others can learn of how I was.  It can be a really useful tool for future generations to look upon to get a better idea of who I was and am and will become.  And of course when I make an impact on the world, everyone will want to know the background of my person.  😛  Plus, it’ll be great to use to draw info from for my memoirs.

Mena’s talk also made me realize that blogosphere is a historian’s dream come true (though nightmare at the same time, having to sift through so much material), allowing them to get first-hand accounts of thousands upon thousands of people’s lives in this day and age, from all across the globe.  Blogs are great resources for attitudes, cultural norms, fads, and all the fluctuations that societies undergo.  Unofficially, the consolidation of blogs around the world is a sort of wiki project too – whereas Wikipedia captures information in an encyclopedia format for more formal records, wikiblogs capture the daily lives of a huge cross-section of the human population in an informal format.

And so, I have reaffirmed my reasons for blogging.  So what are yours?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
1234 Next Last