booklust

I just found two books that I need to own. Now. I am in love.

Here is the first: What It Is, by Lynda Barry. It is a crazy, scrapbooky, kooky poetic collage of a memoir, and promises to be an adventure to read. Maybe I just regressed 15 years, but this is the book that will get me out of any funk I'm in.

And numero dos is called The Principles of Uncertainty, by Maira Kalman. Honestly, I fell in love with the cover first, but after reading the reviews, I was sold.

I'd buy them both online now, but since I'm so close to moving, I might at well wait till I'm back up on campus and visit a bookstore, or go into the city and find one this weekend. That way I can at least get some use out of the coupons I keep getting e-mailed to me from Border's.

(I've also added both to my Amazon wishlist, for those that really care about me. *sniff*)

(Speaking of the wishlist, this Baker's Edge Brownie pan is on there, and I am so unbelievably excited that such a product exists. Buy it for me, and you will earn my undying love, loyalty, and unlimited brownies.)

Outside my window

hard to say

What it is I am feeling lately. Graduation is looming ahead, yet I am on a completely different time schedule. My biological clock isn't set to class hours and terms and finals anymore (nor, I believe, was it ever meant to be). Instead I find myself pondering (that's such a wonderfully egotistical verb, to ponder) what it is I want to do. To really do. How I want to live.

It's funny, because I sometimes feel nothing. And I know that it's because I am lacking a sense of purpose or a sense of contentment at my present state of being. And okay, that's all fine and good, but I haven't been doing much about it. I have spent my days more or less aimlessly, wandering from free food event to free food event. I work, sometimes. I party, less frequently. And I live in a present tense so simple it is void of all thoughts of even the immediate future.

This is going to come back to bite me in the ass, this temporary lifestyle of mine.

And to think, all of this was brought about by the simple thought of what I would do for the summer.

existential crisis

I wrote this in my sketchbook today:

i'm trapped inside myself, and i can't find the way out

It pretty much sums up how I've been feeling for a long time now.

I am also praying I didn't contract poison ivy from the week-long canoeing trip I have just recently returned from. I have alternately been tanned/burnt by the most glorious weather, and become borderline hypothermic from cold rain. It will be a week I will remember for some time to come.




I've lately become obsessed with Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series (among others of Gaiman's works, for any of which makes me lust after the writer). The Dartmouth Bookstore has volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10. I have read up to 5, and started 7 today, out of impatience waiting for the 6th to appear. I may have to make a trip to a larger bookstore soon to find number 6.

I love the styles of each graphic novel, which are illustrated by a number of artists and letterers. How cool is that? To have a career in lettering? My mind reels at the idea.

Philosophy of a Sandwich

(Further?) proof that not all things are synergistic:

I was making my usual sandwich of rye bread, salame, turkey, and pickles. I munched on a slice of turkey as I was putting the sandwich together, and was struck by how good it was, and how I couldn't taste it at all in the sandwich, smothered as it was by the other ingredients. I had given that no thought when I was grocery shopping; just assumed that because I liked all these things, they would naturally be even better together. (The Reese's cup phenomenon, perhaps).

Anyway, I feel like I have been missing out on what could have been better sandwiches if I had just kept the meats separate, rather than combining. Now I know.



I also dreamt last night that I was cooking the most delectable dishes. I remember asparagus, chicken, pasta.... Oh, the tastes and smells! I seriously think being off the college meal plan has revived my love for food.

Irked

On the list of All Things that Annoy Me, what must surely hold a position in the top three is lateness, either in myself or others. So, I sit here writing this on the floor of the hall outside a classroom, having waited 20 minutes now to collect some materials from a higher-upper. Why, exactly, he isn't here yet is unknown, but with each passing minute I am growing increasingly more frustrated.

I suppose there may be a valid reason for the lateness, but it is still particularly uncomfortable having to wait in this dimly lit hallway, with the prospect of free food just outside my grasp in another building. And I think we all know the way free food calls to the college student.

Well, 22 minutes now, and no signs of life. They will find my skeleton in this position in a few years, still waiting ever so patiently for this guy to show up, even as my hunger eats away at me from the inside out. And my dusty laptop still atop my legs, my e-mail program up in anticipation of a reason, or a hope.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

parallel nightlife

It is a beautiful night out. The air is still and warm, despite the still-thick layer of snow upon the ground. I walk outside, breathe in, breathe out. Fill my lungs with the wanderlust that permeates the air around me. I suddenly want to walk, and keep walking, wherever my legs take me. I start with the gas station, down at the end of the quaint single lit street of this quaint little town, where all the stores have already closed, and the earth is saturated in pale orange fluorescence. To the 24 hour gas station where there might still be some kind of sustenance to purchase.

My heart begins quickening its beat as the blue and grey self-serve pumps come into view, beyond the flashing walk signal. Push through the glass doors of the store, and I don't register anything is wrong until it is too late. The moment of my realization is, ironically, when my heartbeat stops for a vital second. Because after the gunshot reverberates through the store, echoing off the cement, after the acrid, gritty smell of gunpowder mixes with the petroleum and fills my nose and tongue, after I can taste the blood in my mouth and realize I must be on the ground, because all I can see is the stained tile ceiling, ear to the ground listening to the thud-thud-thud of too-loud footsteps; then my heart is straining every beat, working overtime to compensate for the sudden wound and loss of pressure; pumping madly to compensate, and losing the battle.

My vision blurs, and the ceiling tiles above me double, receding and swaying sickly, and I turn my head, trying to make sense of the suddenly tilting universe. I close my eyes, and there is a flash of imagery behind my eyelids: of a dark, hooded figure, gun in his hand; eyes that could not have been older than an adolescent's staring out of the hooded shadows; bright fluorescent lights drawing lines across the ceiling; a dark lonely figure running out onto the street, receding past a swinging glass door.



}



"Let's go for a walk." We are sitting close but not quite touching when I say this. It is a catalyst.

You glance at me, uncertain. At this hour? It's almost 11. Where?

"I just want to go somewhere. To the bridge; let's walk to the bridge." Again, the uncertainty in your eyes. Before you can breathe out the question, I answer, smiling

"Don't worry. I'm not going to jump."

Now your eyes are clouded with...what? Surprise? Confusion? Worry? Your mouth forms its words carefully.

You shouldn't joke about that.

I shake my head. "I wasn't." And when you don't say anything more, I swing my legs, stand up, stretch, and look back at you. "Alright, let's go!"

The night is refreshingly warm, a crisp humid warmth that seems to form a blanket around me. I fill my lungs with as much of it as I can, and cannot take it all in. We are walking side by side, stepping in unison, skirting puddles on the soggy sidewalk that goes downhill, towards the river. The street is mostly in shadow, and better for it. The trees are darker here, safer. More personal.

I take your hand as we step onto the bridge. It is much brighter here, lit by symmetric street lamps, and I suddenly feel more vulnerable. We stop near the middle of the bridge, look out into the darkness beyond.
The landscape is a shifting of blues and greys and not-quite-blacks. I step forward, excited by what I see. I feel the physical space of you staying back, alert and wary. I feel that tension rise as I grip the railing, swing my body forward, relishing the vertigo along my senses and the heady rush in my brain.

I know what you must look like, if I were to turn my head back. Body tensed, watching my center of gravity waver over the fulcrum of the railing. Arms half raised, half-reaching out. I lean back from the precipice, to calm your fears. I know you worry; why then do I purposely do this? If not for the pure rush of endorphins.

I turn, step into your outstretch arms, suddenly tired. We stand together like this, listening to the whisper of the water below our feet sounding larger than the world, than anything I can comprehend. Finally you lift your head, and mine, your arm heavy around my shoulder.

Let's go home.



}



Some, all, or none of the above may be true.

I may or may not have been dreaming.

Fact: it is a beautiful night.

the frenetic pace of things

Back in Taiwan, Mark has been slowly recounting the adventures of his first visit to New England (here, here, here, and here, and more to come, I'm sure). Meanwhile, I am slowly trying to get back into the pace of things in the aftermath of first Mark and then my best friend from home visiting, with their visits overlapping right in the middle of Winter Carnival. Considering that both of them, my closest and dearest of companions, were visiting me at the same time, I was surprisingly productive, at least as far as computer animation was concerned.

I have to admit, the knowledge of this being my last term at Dartmouth has made it somehow more difficult to work up the motivation to excel in my final classes. It just doesn't seem to matter that much anymore. And it really doesn't. Except, of course, that one of them is the final class for my Biology major, which I have become completely disenchanted with (the major, not the class).

What else? It seems like time has wrapped itself around me, confusing my senses. I feel like I'm both moving forward too quickly, and not at all. The future is at once certain and uncertain. The Dartmouth Bubble is weakening its hold on me, and what little I glimpse beyond its frail curtains is terrifyingly beautiful.

I can't wait.

Nature's priestesses

I just found out that my good pal Dawn had bookmarked an Annie Dillard essay on her del.icio.us links; an essay called "Living Like Weasels." Now, I have read Dillard here and there since high school, and she introduced to me a new landscape of writing, and a new way of reading. She infuses nature, personal diary, reflection, science, and religion into her writing in an inexplicably beautiful way.

Reading her work was a full body experience for me, the first time. I've since moved on to other likeminded writers, most notably Barbara Kingsolver, Wallace Stegner, and Wendell Berry. But rereading "Living Like Weasels" was like recalling the feel of a cooling breeze on a mild summer day. It made me both sad, that I have become so far removed from the natural world around me, and inspired to do something about it. It makes me want to take my sketchbooks, paints, brushes and pens and hike deep into some forgotten trail.

How can one not feel that way, with a passage like this?

What does a weasel think about? He won't say. His journal is tracks in clay, a spray of feathers, mouse blood and bone: uncollected, unconnected, loose leaf, and blown.

I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don't think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular--shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail high, walk with my footprints precisely over the prints of my hands?--but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical sense and the dignity of living without bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.

To have a weasel's journal...

I can't wait for warm dry grass and tadpoles in ponds. I can't wait for the spring thaw, and the hot summer days after that. Here is another passage, this one from Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, to help you understand:

She sat cross-legged on the floor of the porch, brushing out her hair and listening to the opening chorus of this day. A black-and-white warbler had started it long before dawn, breaking into her sleep with his high-pitched "Sweet sweet!" Deanna could picture him out there, circling the trunk of a poplar, tilting his tiny little zebra-striped head toward the first hints of light, tearing yesterday off the calendar and opening the summer of love with his outsized voice. She'd rushed out to the porch in her nightgown and bare feet, the hairbrush mostly an afterthought lying on her lap. She needed to listen to this: prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came.

Can you feel that keening need? A deep, primal necessity no one truly ever escapes. The muscle memory of our ancestors.

I can feel it in my palms and fingertips and feet, aching to dig deep into the earth, to grasp tree limbs, to feel the crisp grass and crunching leaves.

Can you?

change | time

I had an interesting conversation with a professor this morning at breakfast; about trusting your instincts, decision-making, and sticking to your guns. He even quoted a passage of Hamlet to me:

This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

I have been thinking about this a lot, not the specific passage, but the subject in general, as senior year wanes and I prepare to face the Rest of My Life after June. But our conversation touched at thoughts I have been battling with for as long as I remember. It is, as with almost all things, a fine balance: between following your own path and staying true to yourself, and trusting in the advice and thoughts of those around you.

Because even though I often do feel confusion and uncertainty about my life and the choices I make, I've also often felt that I am acting out someone else's life rather than my own, and that only adds to the chaos. It's difficult knowing whether or not I'm doing the right thing for myself all of the time, what with the various influences, factors, and pressures constantly pulling me one way or another.

I don't want to have regrets. I want to make the most out of the time I have. Other than that... Anything goes.

Part of your world

Real? Fake? You decide.

Absolutely ridiculous? Yes.



Speaking of worlds, here's another YouTube video of the French "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." The participant is stumped by the question, "Qu'est-ce qui gravite autour de la Terre?" or "What revolves around the Earth?" He turns to the audience for help. Insanity ensues.

Welcome to the Road to Hell

At around 1:30 this afternoon, I finally finished packing everything and was getting ready to make the drive back up to campus. Upon opening the door to my car, which was parked outside on the driveway, in the sun, I found at least two dozen ladybugs huddled around the doorframe. Opening the other 3 doors revealed similar results. Had I never noticed this before? I know ladybugs begin to cluster and amass late into autumn, but I'd never seen them seek out the crevices of a car for shelter before.

I grabbed my camera and took a couple pictures of the ladybugs before they began to scatter, and then tried to get them off the car, trying not to think of squished ladybugs trapped between the door, or where else in the car they may have managed to hide in.

Finally, I hit the road around 2pm. And, apparently, it was the worst time for me to be out on the road. Within 15 miles of getting on the highway, I was in stop and go traffic, wondering what the hell was tying up the roads on a Sunday afternoon. That's when I noticed the crushed pieces of glass glittering on the pavement. Ahead was a pretty severely rear-ended accident, though everyone seemed alright. Once I passed the scene, I was surprised that the traffic didn't smooth out immediately. There couldn't be another incident ahead, could there?

Well, no. There were another seven car accidents ahead. One after another in what could not have been more than a 10 mile stretch of highway, I saw cars off the shoulder with crumpled hoods and cracked windows.

What is going on?

I have never seen so many car accidents at the same time. Yikes.

After passing the last wrecked car, my mind naturally wandered along to the morbid thoughts of being in a car accident myself. There are those who think best on the john. For me it is on the road. I often go through a long string of inner narrative, thinking through tasks I need to get done and how I will do them, or reflecting on events of the past week or month or year, or fantasizing about...other things. Yes, I can get deeply lost in thought while I am driving. This is not a good thing. Sometimes my imagination will take over so completely that it is like changing the input from my eyes to whatever is going on inside my brain.

Which basically means I don't see the road I'm driving on. Usually I can hold my thoughts back so this doesn't happen. But when you drive nonstop for 3 or 4 hours straight, it can be hard. And, knowing this, I could see how I could very easily get into a car accident. Not the best of thoughts while actually behind the wheel, I know.

Well, suffice to say I managed to get back to campus safely, and on the last of my gas no less. It's time to get back to work!

Unconventional Ideas

I've found this website, Unconventional Ideas, that just about sums up the way I look at life, and at my own future in particular. My first thought at stumbling upon this site was, "That's not a very well designed site." And my second thought after reading a couple of the essays was, "This is just like that Paul Graham essay a friend sent me a few months ago!"

The essays in the site are all very digestible, written in the "to the people, by the people" way that reminds me of a close friend or relative giving frank advice. And the site is filled with insightful and peppy quotes, many of which I've "collected" at one time or another (I am a packrat and collector of all things, quotes included).

A tidbit from one of the essays, entitled "Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop In: A Simple Living Primer":

Forming lasting relationships, giving service to causes in which you deeply believe, or pursuing hobbies with passion--each could give you infinitely more satisfaction than spending your energy hoarding possessions. Clear out the clutter. Free yourself for the things you really love to do, or always wanted to try.

How much more leisure time would you have if you owned less stuff which require regular repairs, maintenance and upgrades? Consider Henry David Thoreau’s insight that the "cost of a thing is the amount of...life which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run." Do you really want to obligate your future leisure time with caring for a lot of possessions? Would you rather be doing something else? Is it possible that too much baggage could keep you from doing some of the things you've always wanted to do? Could selling off a bunch of unused stuff help to make those dreams a reality?

And on a completely unrelated note, one of my absolute favorite Daily Show clips:

Xenophobic

I can feel it happening. I am hurtling downward on the social, outgoing curve, crashing after a period of riding high on it. I am tired of seeing people, and I've been in my room all day, dreading having to confront all of my residents at our weekly floor meeting. I had a birthday to plan along with the meeting as well. People have been knocking on my door all day, needing everything from a phone number to a knife to balloons to inflate for the party.

I am drained. I want to hide in my room so that I don't have to deal with anyone, and I want to escape it so that I don't have to answer the door every time someone knocks.

I've also only had one quasi-meal of clam chowder, because I haven't wanted to leave the dorm.

I do enjoy being with freshmen, but as a senior I have a lot lower tolerance for them as well. After the party/meeting, the guys started popping every single balloon we had, deafening my ears and gutting my patience. I think the last guy could feel that, because he stopped.

I just want to curl up in bed. I really can't deal with people, sometimes.

[p.s. In looking through the list of phobias, I came across Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, which is the fear of the number 666. What?]

Go Big Green

Living in a dorm situated behind the infamously dubbed "Frat row," I knew there would be excessive noise on weekends. What I did not expect, however, was to hear, blasting from someone's speakers last night, Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. That one honestly surprised me, and I felt more amused than annoyed.

...At least, for the first 3 minutes.

And now it is time to rally the spirited freshmen for their first home football game.

Go Big Green.

DDD

time lag

What a confusing day. Nothing has gone as planned. The events alone don't take much space to tell, whereas my thoughts throughout the day, while taking up much less actual processing time, are significantly longer in writing.

So, first, here is what happened:

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach when I was dropped of at the mechanic's this morning and saw that my car still had no windshield in place. I talked to the mechanic overseeing my car and asked for a time estimate on when I could come pick up my car, as my cell phone was low on battery and might not be reliable. And I needed the car before 11:30 if I was going to make my dental appointment at 12. He told me to come at 11:30.

So, it was 8:30am and I was basically stuck there. I walked up the street a ways to the local Border's, which is my fallback and my haven. Except it wasn't open yet, and neither were most stores along the road. But the town green is close by (can we get any more New Englandish?), dotted with picnic tables, and I wandered over to one on the far edge, where there was full sunlight. I do love late summer sunlight, at least the New England kind. There is something in its quality, and in the memories it brings, that is unique and heartwarming.

Anyway, I thought I'd pass the time listening to some music and taking random pictures with my camera. I don't know how long I was there, but probably around 15 or 20 minutes later, a college-aged looking guy, tall, lanky, and scruffy, walked over to where I sat, handed me flowers he'd picked from the plants decorating the town green, wished me a good day, and left.

I was...stunned. It was the first time this had ever happened to me, and it had me smiling the rest of the morning. I wasn't sure what prompted this guy to act the way he did, as I was not only closed off inside the world of my iPod and camera, but also probably looked pretty unapproachable, thinking about the delay at the mechanic. But that simple act of kindness, and whatever else it was he felt, made the day significantly brighter and more cheerful.

Thank you, kind stranger.

Soon after the event I decided to take a walk around the area, past the small stretch of road I was familiar with. When I had rounded a block and walked back, the Border's had opened and I settled in with Ender's Shadow, which I had started reading the last week I was in Taiwan but didn't finish. I was almost done reading it when the mechanic called saying the windshield was stuck in traffic somewhere and they wouldn't have it done until probably 3. Oh. Knowing I had an appointment at noon, he offered to help me find a rental car, but I didn't want to go through that hassle over a dental appointment, so I told him I'd just cancel it and wait for the car to be fixed.

Just when I thought the day was getting better. Oh, well. At least I could reread Ender's Game to compliment Ender's Shadow. So that's what I did. And when I finished, I spent the last hour outside by a picnic table again, writing in a notebook I bought from the bookstore, so I could record all the mess of thoughts whirling through my head. If I can make them more coherent, I will try to put them here.

But, for now, my car has a new windshield, from which bill the mechanic deducted a generous amount for all the time it took to get it done, I spent a day revisiting a favorite novel, as well as reading it's parallel story. Ender's Game always makes me feel sorrowful, and a kind of yearning. I am not sure why.

life update

Things have been busy these past few days, but in a quiet way. I am crashing at a friend's (and fellow blogger's) apartment for my last week here in Taipei, as my old contract ended on Friday. In the process of packing, I discovered that I couldn't find my (new!) watercolor sketchbook, nor my watch. The loss of the sketchbook is like a punch to the stomach, and I will have to ask around to see if I left it at one of my relatives' homes.

My ShiDa class also ended last Friday, and we watched Lee Ang's "Eat Drink, Man Woman" in celebration. That movie made me so hungry by the time class ended, food was all I could think about. So I stopped to get some takeout guotie and rushed home to eat it. My hands were shaking while I ate, which I found kind of an extreme response. I hadn't thought I would be that hungry.

I feel like I should have a lot of regrets now that the MTC summer is over-regrets about not getting more involved at the university and with its students, about not exploring the area more while I had lived nearby... But, honestly, I don't feel too badly. The recent typhoon and now oppressive heat have diminished my enthusiasm for taking longer walks outside. Call me a wimp, but this humidity is getting to be too much for me. Not to mention my heat rash is coming back.

Until a few weeks ago, I honestly could not wait to return to the states and, more specifically, my campus, unlike my other classmates who relish the Taiwanese lifestyle. And yet there is a part of me that wants to return once I graduate college and continue improving my Chinese. What a quandary. Now my relatives talk of my pursuing a Master's here and applying for dual nationality so I can work here as well.

For one who doesn't think too far ahead into the future of my own life, I am taking a lot into consideration. There is so much I want to do and see, but I also want to be successful, in ways that are meaningful to me, and I also want to find a companion for all of that. Maybe I already have.

Well, I am losing focus. When all else fails, I can still fall back on the wonderful addiction that is Desktop Tower Defense.

Ghost Month and followup

Yesterday my Chinese teacher notified us that it was the first day of "Ghost Month": the 7th month of the lunar calendar, when all the ghosts are released into the world for the entire month. It's the time of year when locals warn against going near water (ghosts might drag you in), changing housing (your new house might be inhabited by ghosts), and going on trips (er...they might follow you?).

There's consequently been even more burning of ghost money and incense on the sidewalk. Great for my lungs, I'm sure.

I've been surprisingly busy since last post, though little of it is because of class. Ah, the blessings of photographic memory on Chinese vocabulary. I have to wonder, though, what will happen if or when we have an end-of-term cumulative exam. Teacher has not made clear whether or not we will have one. The suspense!

I finally went to LUXY on their Wednesday's ladies night, along with every other ABC in Taipei, and some other ShiDa students. It was fun for what it was, and the bartender's fire show was definitely the highlight of the night.

Friday I had dinner with some cousins, then did the nightmarket thing with them, before we all returned to one of my aunts' houses for a late night game of mah-jong. Then we crashed there. My mom flew up the next morning at 6am, but I didn't see her at all that day. I left my aunt's house, went home, and changed for the Sunday Breeze's Saturday pool party. Although I was apprehensive about it, due to the fact that I was going alone and the weather was less than stellar, it turned out to be pretty fun. Went to Forumosa's monthly Happy Hour, this time at the Taiwan Beer Garden, afterwards, which was also a lot of fun.

Sunday was the requisite family gathering to celebrate the arrival of another family member-my mom-to Taipei. The whole lot of us (15) slept overnight at a hot springs hotel in Beitou (北投), though there were more than 20 of us eating together that night. Most of the uncles returned home due to work the next morning. What a strange phenomenon, that most of my aunts do not work, whereas my mother does.

And, finally, I have been to two expos in the past two weeks, the first last Monday to a Computer Expo at Taipei's World Trade Center, and one this Monday to a Comic Expo.

More things that set me apart

• I refuse to strike the classic picture peace sign
• I don't feel the need to deprecate friends or family upon seeing them
• I don't feel the need to deprecate myself (well...I try not to)
• I don't care about my preserving my "face"

Though, reading through some of the other Taiwan-related blogs, I can understand the possible reasons for the way Taiwanese people act the way they do. Sometimes.

I'd write more, but it's been a long day, my arms are sore, and I smell like river water (apparently...I don't notice any smell myself).

But here's a sneak peak of where I went today, courtesy of my cousin.