Peace Corps

When read about Peace Corps, I bacame interested and did some search. It is a volunteer based non-profit organization. The missions last for 27 months, without home visits during that. It also provides allowances for living and traveling; sounds like a pretty good experience. However, I am not qualified for one reason, that is I'm not a US citizen.

But anyway, there is still hope, as there is not upper limit on age in volunteering. Spending a little bit more than 2 years, experiencing places in greatest needs, would be a very nice touch for the life. This might well be the reason for me to apply for US citizenship in the future. (Otherwise, why bother?)

NYPL

New York Public Library is superb. Years ago I applied for a card, but didn't use it even once. Today I went there again, trying to get a new card, only to be told that my old card is still valid. Suspicious, I tried to borrow a book with it, and succeeded.

As I live in NJ, I also have a library card there. When compared side by side, it becomes obvious that the NY one is far superior in every aspect. I can request hold online, request books to be shipped to a particular branch, borrow audio and video materials, all free of charge; let alone the abundance of books; there are a long list of painstaking services, for the only purpose of making books accessible to every one. Just seeing such a well organized effort makes me feel happy that my NY state tax dollars are at work.

Train Delay

The 7:44 pm NJ Transit train was delayed for more than 1 and half hours, due to an accident near Newark Airport station involving fatality.

Wife's Job Scratched

For whatever reason, she is not going to work in Beijing. Don't know whether I should be happy or be sad for her.

Too Lazy to Find A Title

It's been several days of lazying around without writing anything; not that I don't have a topic, just laziness. However, now I don't really have a good topic. When I think of something writeable, I usually write down a title. This works fine if I pick it up soon enough, I can usually still remember what I want to write and some cue lines. This time when I have a couple of days-old titles, I don't have a clue on how to flesh those out.

One of the titles is Mike Mullane. That's the name of an astronaut, who wrote the book I just finished reading a couple of days ago. That guy is pretty good at writing. Sometimes he would resort to the accumulation of dazzling adjectives, to express some of the poetic thoughts; unfortunately that feels like too much condiments in a fine dish, which tends to spoil it. That said, I still like the book; simply because it's a book about his own life, and his life is as an astronaut.

I guess most boys once had a dream about space trips. What we have never realized is the risk incurred in this dream. The space shuttles have more problems than Microsoft software; some are design flaws, some are simply fatal bugs. If I were to take such a wonderful trip with a 90% chance of survival, would I take it? That's a very good question. I want to jump up and say yes, only to balk when seeing my wife's face in my mind's eye.

I like the narrative tone of Mike Mullane, he was telling his real stories, his joy when getting a mission assignment, his fear before the launch, and their faked smile in group photos before launch. These tiny little details are drastically different from the pompous official propaganda, morphing steely and brave astronauts into earthlings with joy, tear, and most importantly, fear. Therefore, the lives lost in the failed Challenger and Columbia missions are no more represented by weary numbers, they are sons, daughters, fathers, monthers, and friends.

The other book I skimmed through in this week is Generation Debt. The author is a beautiful girl graduated from Yale. The main topic in this book is the yonger generation are facing much more dire problems than the previous generation, listing education cost, job availability, future prospect etc in a hopeless tone; although the last chapter is named Waking Up and Taking Charge, the wake up call is dry and weary. It is true that the government, and the whole elder generation, are slowly going down a path that would result in deserting the younger and providing them a dire future by living in the present. However, it is hard to be convinced that the minimum wage here is more than three times of the daily living expense for almost half of the world population. Anyway, this is a complicated problem with intricate reasonings, I'm not going to dive deeper, so that book was put away.

The Super Gs

As while reading Riding Rockets, I did some calculations. According to the astronaut, the acceleration during launch could reach a little bit more than 3Gs. Be noted that is pure forward acceleration, which builds up the speed travelling forward. As 3G really sounds exciting, I scratched on a piece of paper, trying to see how many Gs we could usually experience, in a passenger car, or even a super car.

For that purpose, I used well publicised 0-60 mph data. 60 mph is roughly 26.67 m/s. For my car, it can reach 60 mph in a pathetic 7.5 seconds. That translates to 0.36G. If your car can reach 60 mph in 6 seconds, you can experience 0.45G if you floor the gas. Now comes the super car, the most powerful and fastest passenger car, Bugatti Veyron; it can do 0-60 in 3 seconds, still that's less than 1G. Maybe the only way to experience an acceleration of 1G in my life time would be jumping off a mountain, head first; even strapping a big rock on me won't make that more than 1G.

抚琴

There is no English translation for this.

Several days ago, I received a catalog through mail from musiciansfriends.com; a review comparing several models of Cordoba guitars caught my attention. I had noticed Cordoba a long time ago, mainly because of their relatively low price on finely made classical guitars; this review reinforced my perception. For a moment, I felt the urge to order one right away. However, given the famous admonition "impulse is a devil", I allowed a certain cooling period, then chickened out.

抚琴 is the exact expression to describe the intimacy between the player and the instrument; it gives life to this interaction. Through smooth and fluent glides of fingers, life is infused into the instrument, which in turn emanates the vibration through the air, eliciting a zen like pleasure; the sound is not only heard by the ears, but also felt through the finger tips, all the ten of them; when a harmony of all the senses echoes inside the body, a transcending ecstacy overwhelms. Damn it I could only salivate at this heavenly experience without being able to reach it.

Near Death Experience, Ross Style

When I was walking into Penn Station in the evening, many people started running towards the exit, shouting "Get out, police said get out"; a pretty scary scene. I started sniffing around, but couldn't sense any smell of exploded explosives. Soon the hallway, usually quite crowded at this time of day, became empty. I was suspicious, because obviously some military person on duty was as confused as I was. As my train was already boarding, and I didn't have any time to spare, I headed towards the track ignoring those runners. Soon announcement came saying previously broadcasted warning was only a drill; I doubt it, could be some screw-up of our dear safe-guards again. But anyway, it seems no one died of a heart attack.

Tears

Tear is a weird stuff; people shed those when they are sad, happy, excited, surprised ...

Tear, as a word, is also a strange combination of seemingly unrelated things. The salty water drops we excrete, versus the action of ripping apart, those do not look too related in my eyes, although it might make a tiny bit of sense when you say ripping hearts apart invokes tears; but that is quite far fetched.

Although tears are not so enjoyable, people love them. There have been numerous songs containing "Don't Cry" or "Tears" in the title or the words, countless TV series and books counting on eliciting as much tear as possible in order to make big bucks. Even in classic works, tragedies seem to overwhelm comedies in the number.

Nevertheless, I have been infused with "man shed no tears" ever since I could understand the first word. Obviously it was partly because of my parents' selfishness, because me no cry would give them a much easier life; only I was not a man yet at that time, sorry for them.

Grown up, I can hardly remember when was the last time I shed a drop of tear. Most recent such incidents happened in dreams, always some eternal departure with closest family member, friend etc; not too many of those, so I guess shedding tears in dreams is only a way to let out the overflowing tear gland. Further back, there was a time when I first arrived in the US for a couple of weeks, and wife started weeping with homesickness; I felt exhausted and helpless and weak, then shed a few drops of tears. Before that it would be more than 10 years of absense of tears as far as I could remember. I would choke on something really touching, like Kevin's picture I posted the other day; but no damp eyes.

When I saw men openly crying for a new baby, a new house, or even a surprise party, I got stunned. Since when tears are so cheap? But slowly, it came to me that tears are cheap; what is not cheap is the real feelings behind that, and the heartily exchange of those with the closest. Tears are cheap so that it could be easily accessible to express yourself fully, no matter what occassion. Despite that, I would not follow that path; partly because after so many years of abstaining from crying, my tear glands are more or less dysfunctional.

In Brokeback Mountain, the cowboys would rather shed blood than tears; this alone has flooded Six Crawl's eyes and noses and the whole face. I was simply envious.

Tears and cheers are close.

Polite Kid

Polite Kid is Aunt Sun; and according to Six Crawl, she is a sterotype of "heavy color light friend" (willing to sacrifice friendship for lover).

As civilized people, we surely are all familiar with the social code of conduct; however, Polite Kid gives an extra run. //find a quote in chat log

It does sound funny that a polite friend could make me uncomfortable sometimes, but that is the fact. Not only me, Six Crawl, maybe the closest female friend of Polite Kid's, also complained about the same thing some time ago. When thanked for tiny petty thing, I often end up wordless. What to respond? "You're welcome"? That's a surely correct but idiotic answer between close friends. Searching for an appropriate answer would render me dumbfounded in appearance, thus turning me into an idiot; even a 3-year-old could respond without a thought, yet I am stuck. I hate to be perceived as an idiot even if I were.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to complain, or to admonish, or anything else; I just came to this nice and perfect nick name for her, so I decided to document it: Polite Kid, a.k.a. PK.

Refuse to be Sensitive

There are some limits of my artistic taste, and some poets are definitely beyond those limits; not that they are not good, they are too good that I intentionally refuse to appreciate them; I refuse to be sensitive.

Music is mostly fine though. Even if it evokes some subtle sensitivity, it is only implicitly eliciting the finer side of my soul; given most of the time I only listen to music half heartedly, I rarely feel the aroused uncontrollable passion; even when that happens, usually there is no one around so I could go into complete ecstacy.

Despite my occassion appreciation for the infatuation, I would rather clam up my finest feelings, and keep an indifferent eye towards the world. Not that this is cool, I could be dragged too deeply into the turmoil otherwise. I have always kept this(Kevin Carter)story in my mind. Kevin Carter walked away from the torturing scene after taking the picture, without giving a helping hand; I would probably do the same thing. Then what? One thing is certain, I would not like to end up like him; but as indifferent as I strive to be, would I ever be immune to such a suicide? I have no idea.


P.S.
The linked picture itself is so compelling that could bring tears to many seemingly indifferent people. I feel a pinch in my heart every time I see it, and it only get worse as I see it once and once again.

Hot Chocolate

Before wife left, I bought a huge box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate. I knew it is tasty, and never worried about its Costco packaging. With the mellow sound of guitar strings vibrating through the air, the misty steam hanging above the sweet cocoa surely confers something mysterious.

Despite my effort to stuff my stomach with every meal, and between meals, I still don't gain much weight. For the record, I kind of improved that from 62.5 kg to 63 kg, but that's hardly out of the range of instrumental error.

Flying Quail

Have been lazy for the weekend; actually, weekends are usually the busiest for me. I get around 3 hrs ever day on week days; while on weekends, I usually none. Not that I'm not enjoying that, on the contrary, being with friends is surely one of the most enjoyable things.

After almost 1 year's dormancy off ice, we did some skating on both Sat and Sun. It was the usual process of getting used to the slippery first, then gliding through it, and having some good falls. After just one fall on the side, a swolen pelvis would prevent me from hanging my laptop bag on this side for weeks; yet it's still devilishly enjoyable.

My Sunday adventure on ice was with Quail; he is a very smart guy. When picking up new skills, he takes a very systematic approach, or rather theoretical approach: looking for tutorials, feeling it on a solid ground, then venture on the real thing. That way he could make rapid progresses no matter what he is trying; and sure enough, he was like a flying quail on the ice soon enough.

On the contrary, my approach is much more brute force, it is traditionally called try-and-error. Even after being battered by reality so many times, it's still my favorite approach; I guess that is the difference between smart and dumb; and that should be the reason people call me Daizi (dumb headed) all the time. No matter what, experiencing the struggling and slowly stewing out the taste of fun looks wickedly fun to me despite the bruises suffered from it.

A Tone (调调)

As it is Friday, I left the office a little bit earlier than usual; surprisingly, instead of darkness, the last streak of light was still cast over the beautiful city. Looking down Broadway gave me a picturesque silhouette over the dim sky. Really love the bustling city, even only as a passer-by.

Senseless Ramble

Wife always says if it wasn't for her, how would I ever find a wife in this life. I highly suspect the validity of that statement, but at least it hits one point, I am not a magnet to girls. Whether I am OK with that fact does not really matter, although I really don't mind much.

When a child, I did play with girls from time to time; while mostly boys stay with boys. There were quite some wild activites that were not for the faint-hearted parents. Most memorable ones include crawfish fishing, setting wild fire in open grasslands in winters, building floating devices and running it in pits left in construction sites, playing and being bitten by snakes ... I bet even if we tried to invite girls to join us, few would have taken the risk; besides, my playmates were usually the lowest ranked ones in the class that every parent would urge their child to avoid. By the way, I really hated when people call them bad students just because they weren't good in getting high scores, they were otherwise perfectly fine and fun playmates; they were the ones who first set their feet on a turf that was outside schools. As I happened to be able to get high scores in archaic tests, I was first warmly welcomed by the parents of my playmates, only to be later recognized as a helpless boy that only cared about having fun.

Staying with such a group really gave me a different perspective about our limited life at that time. I didn't really participate in any questionable activities of those "gangs", yet I got famous enough to be recognized by quite some stranger gangsters by face. And rumor was spread that I was a good hand in kungfu. The most impressive kungfu in that regard that I can remember would be crushing pencil boxes with my head, tens of them, of different materials. (There was a period that people got so excited about this that they handed any pencil boxes they could put their hands on under my forehead, and you could hardly find a single one made of tin sheet still in regular shape throughout the classroom.) Spreading such a rumor might be a way to protect me by one of my playmates, but I never got to know who did that and whehter that was really the intention. If it was really for my protection, it surely worked ---- years after I lost contact with them, someone I didn't know stopped me on the way requesting money, but suddenly recognized me and politely let me go. In all those years I kept hanging out with them, seeing them gang-talk, bragging about the bloody fights they picked up, money they "collected", or girls they "played". However, I experienced none myself. The only sort of "criminal" thing I did was smoking with them in the restroom in school, which was subsequently caught by a teacher with solid evidence.

That life ended in early middle-school years. The middle school was a key school in the district, so it was hard to find any gangster-ish guys in the class; at the same time I slowly lost contact with those old frieds. I still made friends with those "low-rank" students in the class, but they were not the brutal trouble maker kind any more; however, the damage power still exists, those were the years when we played wild fires every day in winters.

High school was a completely different chapter, which deserves another post by itself. One thing I would mention is, it was since then did I experience the impetus towards an opposite sex. Although we also fruitlessly drooled over beautiful girls in elementary school and middle school, that was quite kiddish when I examine it today. In high school, things were different. After all, puberty is not only about the body. However, due to my magnetlessness if not repellence towards girls, it was as fruitless as ever. Neverthless, those were the most beautiful 3 years of my life, and I keep regurgitate the sweet and bitter of it till today.

One day when I was in college, I suddenly received a Christmas card or New Year's card from a girl. On that, it said "Let the incandescence of love shine upon us in the new year, shall we?" As that was a question mark, I replied no. At that time I was really enjoying my single life, and didn't give a thought as to starting a relationship. To be frank, I passed a note to that girl years before, and got rejected for no obvious reason. But my replying no was nothing of a revenge or guarding my self esteem; I just felt like setting myself free, really free, sky-is-the-limit free, and getting a girl friend surely wasn't the right thing for the course. It was then when I started practising classical guitar. (I am such a bad student that even after more than 10 years, I still can't play a nice piece.) That mentality lasted for several years, and then I fell in love and got married.

I wouldn't say those lonely years were irresistably enjoyable, but surely they were cherishable. It was in those years the admiration towards Robert Kincaid, the old man Santiago, and Richard Feynman was planted in my mind; I started to understand the weird mixture of wisdom, tenacity and imploding passion of a real man; I started to taste solitude by licking myself like a resting lion (or cat, I don't care); I was getting ready to take full charge of my future years.

Now six years into marriage, I am set alone again for the first time for months; and even more after wife's scheduled departure in March or April. No one knows what will become of the future, but surely I will nourish in a completely different life, and appreciate as always when looking back.


The following is just a small piece that I feel really nice to be written down, but doesn't seem to fit anywhere in this post. Anyway I'm still putting it here, for the record,

A lonely soul is crouching in the corner, peeking through the darkness, trying to get a glimpse of the boisterous world.

Sound of Spring

It was freezing cold last week, getting slightly better ever since.

When wife is away, I have been walking to the train station every morning. It is a 25 minute walk across apartment buildings, little league fields, various styles of houses, and a grave yard. Not too short a walk, just enjoyable in a good weather.

Yesterday morning I was partly waken up by the chirps of birds. I used to hate that. What could be better than a sweet dream, and what could be worse than that being interrupted abruptly? However, yesterday I felt different. It felt like a long lost friend, like birds had not been around for the whole winter, and suddenly came back. Maybe that was the truth, or just my imagination and ignorance to them all along. Anyhow, I started noticing the birds along my walk.

Although it was still chilly with temperature hovering below 30F in the morning, the scent of spring was already seeping through the air; the most daring signs would be the chasing birds. By zooming through the sky, flashing their glaringly-colored feathers, their chorus of love is already in full bloom. Although I couldn't see any green buds on the trees yet, but sure enough before I could notice, it will be green with life everywhere.

I used to hate the brain-dead stupid birds; they aren't capable of communicating with people at all, not like dogs, cats or horses. However, my experience with a little sparrow changed my perspective.

That was before I had a car, I was walking to and from the train station every day. As it was in late spring or early summer, the walk was pleasant. Just as I was able to see my home, a small brown ugly moving thing also entered my sight. The crisp yellow beaks told the age, that was a baby sparrow that could not fly at all. No one would know how it came out of its nest and hit the wild journey of its own. I brought it home.

Usually sparrows are not easy to tame. However as this one was so young, it got accustomed to my home pretty quickly, and started eating. Its schedule was so crazily funny; it would eat, stay calm for 5 minutes, drop everything from its small tummy, and yell loudly for another round of food. This would continue all day long, until we got exhausted and turned off the last lamp. On the next morning, at the first sight of sunlight, it would start its new quest for food. Ever since that little thing came to our home, wife mostly stayed home to take care of it, even gave up her favorite activity ---- shopping. It was endless hassle and fun. The little guy grew day by day, growing feathers, hopping around and dropping around, finally started to learn flying and picking up rice bits from the floor. (Before that it just yelled for food and food would go directly to its mouth.)

Unfortunately, a pretty bad flu hit it. It started sneezing, became listless, and stayed put all day long. On one day, it came back a little bit, chasing rice bits on the slippery floor again, only to die on the next morning.

That was a pretty sad ending, while it showed us the magic of a tiny life, be it a bird, a dog, or even a bug. We felt the joy of watching it grow, without asking for anything in return, not even a meaningful exchange of sight. I cannot explain why.

Now that the sound of spring is in the air, a new round of chasing for life has started. After 4 years of sitting in a car over this path, I am blissful to experience this all again.

Que sera sera . . .

With the blocker out of my mind, here comes some more stuff of our lives over the weekend. Last weekend was a relatively quiet one; we played, till not too late; we ate, fine dishes, yet not too stuffed; we cracked jokes, just to entice a trace of smile. All was so peacefully enjoyable.

Monday was also off, for President's Day. Besides handing in my tax forms to an accountant, I did a little bit shopping for food, and cooked myself another enjoyable meal. After all these years with a conjoined-twin-like wife, I will learn to live alone again.

Although it's only Tuesday today, the gang is already happily planning for the weekend event, where we have 2 birthdays to celebrate. To be honest, I'm always the one who's most indifferent to birthdays, especially after 28 of my own, natural tendency is towards ignoring any more of it. Anyway, it's still a perfectly fine excuse for a fun fun weekend with friends.

Life as a Journey

There have been some never ending questions, why we are here, what we are seeking, where we should end up at. People give different factors to all facets of life. Not to say everyone is blocked in the view, life has such a gamut that wishing to see it all would just sound ridiculously ambitious. I, as a humble and mediocre voyager, will just happily pickup the tidbits along this journey of life.

Six Crawl, Milk Bottle, Pangza, even the seclusive Zhanna all have made their opinions heard, my greatest appreciations to them. At least half of them had their own experience of the matter to back their predictions, yet ultimately two directly oposite camps were formed. It is not remotely possible to say who is right who is wrong, it is just different takes of the greatness of life. In my understanding, life is experience; it is not limited to emotions, to love, to bond of blood or such. If I object to my wife's attempt to establish herself, she would likely regret at age 80, so would I. Maybe simply staying together for life is good enough for some people, yet I beg to differ, so does Milk Bottle, so does my wife.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I believe I am fully prepared to take the risk. That is not to say I won't be weeping, I cannot guarantee that; but even so, I will strive to wear a smile on the face, steer into other branches of life and absorb the beauty along the way. Six Crawl said we were putting a piece of fine china into a wind tunnel; I see this as the price of the experiences, and it is worth it.

I am glad that Six Crawl has also written down her dream about my falling off a building; that would be a fine piece for us to consume in the many years to come. Be it a mental or physical fall, I will enjoy just the same. I value the love in life, but I admire the splendor of life more.

Everything is a god given; I am optimistic, not in the sense of praying for the best, but of happily cherishing whatever comes forward. Not that I am religious or believing in the magic hand of the almighty, my only belief is in life, a wonderful journey through the eternal time.

Blocker

One of my previous posts stoked quite some interest among friends, wild guesses like life-threatening stories (pregnancy/abortion) were surfacing; and the inquisitive Six Crawl again showed her persistency by trying to trick me into a 20Q game.

It seems I am going nowhere without sweeping the blocking event out of my thought. Not able to find a topic to write about after sitting for more than 30 min in front of the monitor, I will simply type it out for the interested.

Just got off the phone call with my wife, and it's almost final. After her return on Mar 18 (or maybe earlier), she will soon go to Beijing to join a new company. This opportunity emerged during her stay in China. It is not that kind of extremely high-pay job, but definitely one that could put her potentials into use, instead of staying here in the suffocating boredom. I strongly support her taking this up, with a trace of worry.

I first got this news not too much earlier than that post in question. With 2 couples among my closest friends breaking up recently due to the hardship of long-distance relationship, I have every reason to worry about the same. This is going to be hard, but Zhanna's knock-out theory does not apply to me. No matter what happens, I believe it's for good. Dearest wife has already spent her precious years in this wasteland, I believe going to the right place is worth the risk, even at the price of our relationship. Hope I am just worrying too much.

Yet Another Blog

Six Crawl finally started her blog, with a kid's version by her significant other half.