The Fitness Symphony

Recently, I've been starting to run regularly (weekly). Usually 5-6 miles, but my max has been 8 miles. One thing that I never do, is that I never listen to music on earphones while I am running. Most people don't understand this. They ask me how I can stand the boredom of running around and around a track and not be bored.

Yes, it is quite boring, but it isn't at the same time. When I run, I keep track of my breathing, and I pretty much just zone out the entire run. I've developed a breathing exercise while I am running. I time my breaths to my steps, and I spread out one breath cycle (in-out) to 6 steps, 3 for the inhale and 3 for the exhale. I find that this way, I don't huff and pant while running, but instead I am able to run almost the entire distance without breathing through my mouth once. While adopting this technique, I saw an improvement from 3 miles to 8 miles in a month. The day that I finished 8 miles without breathing through my mouth once, I was pretty undeniably proud of myself.

I find that music tends to interfere with this breathing pattern, so I don't listen to it. Instead, I hum songs in my head while I run, and time the music to my breathing and my steps...so I essentially act as my own MP3 player. My running song is Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto...usually only the 1st and 3rd movements since I can't remember the middle part of the 2nd movement.

Also something else that is interesting. While running around the track, I was quite fascinated by the pulsing of the rhythm of the sound inside the gym. Treadmills, stairsteppers, bikes, all whirring at different rates, but with a regular rhythm. The different echoes as the track curves around the gym make this quite a unique soundtrack. "Modern Music" being as it is, I can imagine that somebody can quite simply tape the sounds that one hears as they run around a track, and call it contemporary music.

With that said, I really don't understand the appeal of treadmills and ellipticals, when a physical track exists right there. Nor do I understand watching TV or reading books while you run / bike. When I run, I don't distract myself with other things. I let my mind remain as empty as possible, because it's really the only time that you can let your mind relax and take a break from constantly being bombarded with thoughts. In that way, I can run and not be bored...I simply stop thinking, instead of trying to find things to think about while I run around and around the track.

I'm so proud of the progress I've made in these 2 years, both for running and rock climbing. It just goes to show that the mind can conquer the body. Half marathon and 5.10 routes, I'm progressing towards you.

-FCDH

Orwell's Third Pillar is Nearing Completion

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Power. The famous quote signifying the tripartite columns propping up George Orwell's dystopian government in '1984'. The same principles that kept the Soviet Union propped up during decades of Communist rule, until Gorbachev famously knocked it over with the policy of glasnost and released Russia from a totalitarian regime. Of course, this is not to say that the United Russia party is not rebuilding these columns from the ashes.

But we haven't been standing still in the US during all these years. As we've been advancing into the comforts of the post-Cold War era, we've also been busy constructing the three pillars of a totalitarian regime slowly and silently.

The foundation of the first pillar was laid in the Vietnam War, and completed with the War on Terrorism.

The second pillar was completed with the passing of the US PATRIOT Act.

And this week, the expected completion date of the third pillar just jumped forward, with the Supreme Court's ruling on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. United States, we are poised at the gates of an oligarchy! With the floodgates preventing corporate political financing flung wide open, I shudder to think about the blatant manipulation of public opinion by corporations with political agendas.

Are we still United as a nation?

-FCDH

The Unbearable Lightness of Insubstantial Conversations

As most people know, I make my semi-permanent residence in the EWB office. I spend more time in the EWB office than I do at home, since it's where I can get the most amount of work done. There are, however, 2 significant disadvantages to the EWB office: the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Alpha Omega Epsilon (AOE), the engineering sorority. Most EWB folks who have been in the office would agree with me on this. The "gossip girls", as I call them, are just simply so damn loud and obnoxious. The worst part: they're loud and obnoxious about the most insubstantial things.

Here is a small sample of the stupidest things that I've heard from across the dividing wall:

-"Hey have you guys seen this video called 'Two Girls, One Cup'? My boyfriend told me about it and how it's so funny and I wanna watch it." - followed by a bunch of gagging noises and "EEEEWWWW!!!"s.

-"Ok omg so I was at Joe's today, and this guy was like totally hitting on me, and he wanted, like, to give me a back massage, and i was like, well, like, no. But then he was like, rubbing my back, and i just, like, let him do it, cuz i was like so drunk."

-"What? What's this 'Windows Vista'?.... OH I didn't know something had come out after XP!"

I've heard them talk about: how they're so horny, which guys are so hot / ugly, how they are failing easy engineering intro classes, how so-and-so's a bitch, personal info about masturbation/orgasms/hookups/sexual positions. I always have to restrain myself from yelling retorts like "well you're not really good-looking so i'm not sure why he would hit on you. Now would you mind shutting up while we have our project meeting over here?"

The most ironic thing that I find, is that these organizations are supposed to be about showing that engineering girls are different from regular girls, and that they can do things that regular girls can't. But over my year-long daily observation, the only thing that they've done is to confirm every stereotype about ditzy brainless girls that I've ever heard/read/seen. I'm not kidding about the "every stereotype"...I've heard every possible brainless statement from across the wall. And not once have I heard anything I would classify as "substance".

What has today's society come to that we value insubstantial conversation more than substantial conversation? When there's more talk about ESPN or MTV or TMZ rather than CNN or BBC? There's something seriously wrong here. I fear for the future generation of America.

-FCDH

Creator or Second-Hander?

Over the past 2 days I have been reading Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead". I've finished the book, which is pretty amazing, but the central theme of the book is bringing out fears that I've harbored about electrical engineering and about myself in general.

In the book, she distinguishes between 'creators' and 'second-handers' in the world. Creators are people who create works in the world, while second-handers are those who recycle other people's creations for their own purposes and contribute nothing to the world. Creators are the protagonists in the book, while second handers are the antagonists. And it's not hard to see why - she portrays the second-handers as being the leeches of the world.

I'm feeling quite lost by why I chose to do engineering, especially electrical engineering. I have not yet discovered my passion for EE yet, nor have I ever really created anything of value as an EE. When I look around me, I see so many of my fellows EE's who may not have the best grades, but who are definitely creators, and I just know that they'll do well as engineers in the future. Whereas when I look at myself....sure, my grades aren't bad, but I feel like I'll really never contribute anything meaningful by being an engineer. The worst part of it is, I'm lacking the passion to be a creator. It's not simply about not having the tools at my disposal, but it's about the fact that I just...don't really want to create anything. I'm fine being a second-hander.

This fact scares me the most, more than anything else in electrical engineering or in university. I used to make fun of people who go to college just to get a degree...but am I really any better than that? I'm glad that I'm at least getting good grades, and that's always been what my parents have taught me to do, but somehow I feel like there should be more to life, or a college education, than good grades. I've never created anything in my life, and I want to start, but I just don't know how to start it. People always tell me to just go online and look at guides or manuals, but without the mindset of a creator I just can't go through with it.

It's a similar situation, when I tell people who want to learn piano to just "pick up a learner's book and start playing". When you don't have the mindset, you won't be able to learn it. I cannot figure out if my mindset is something that I can change, or if I'll be stuck forever as a second-hander. I've been conditioned to be a second-hander my entire life, and after reading Ayn Rand's book, I feel like I could be doing more. But....how do I start?

-FCDH

Snowboarding is a Four Letter Word

Ever since high school, I've loved snowboarding. I still look back fondly upon the first memories I have of snowboarding. It was when I was in gr.10, when Bernie and Annie invited me to go on the snowboarding trip with their family. I was somewhat hesitant about choosing to snowboard, since I've only skied before in my life, but I decided to do it. And I signed up for a day-long beginner lessons, and so did Bernie's mom, hahaha. And so begun my love for snowboarding.

Granted, by the end of the first day my butt/knees/elbows were all practically black from the bruising. The first time I skied (when I was 9), I fell twice the entire day, albeit they were pretty spectacular falls (one involved me hitting a bump and literally flying into a tree). The first time I snowboarded, I had fallen 4 times before I had even reached the lift, and then getting off the lift...is one of the hardest things ever. I still haven't mastered this skill. I probably fall around 50% of the time I try to get off the lift.

On my trip to Devil's Head this past week, I did snowboarding on the first day, and then on the second day I decided to try skiing for the first time since 4th grade. In comparison with snowboarding, skiing seems so much easier to learn. By the end of the day I could go down black diamonds without falling on skis. It's probably a combination of the easy runs at Devil's Head and the relative easiness of skiing.

On this trip, I practiced and learned the following things:

-how to carve goofy style on a snowboard

-how to ski

-how to drive a manual (thanks for lettin me abuse your car, Peter =D...)

Learning how to snowboard goofy was almost like relearning how to snowboard again. Needless to say I fell a lot. But there comes a point, where your body is so bruised, that when you fall on it, there is a fleeting moment when the pain consumes your entire being. When you are incapable of feeling anything else other than pain, incapable of moving, or even to make a sound. It's almost a state of purity, when the pain cleanses your being for a moment, before the outside world rushes in again. As it happened over and over again, I became almost eager for the pain every time I felt myself lose control of the board.... For my mind to be consumed so singularly by one and only one thought. It must be what real love feels like...something I've never experienced from anyone, and something I may never get to experience.

I love snowboarding, because it takes so much focus and concentration, that I can just shut out the world for a while. It's the quality that makes me love everything that I love to do, such as piano and rock climbing. With all the distractions that the technological age brings, it's nice to just be able to dedicate and focus all my attention on a single thing, and let the rest just melt away into the background. When I'm on the snowboard, gliding down the slope, nothing else matters other than the joys that snowboarding brings. Just the slope, the feel of the snow, the wind rushing past, and the knowledge that I am in control of everything that matters to me, even if just for a fleeting moment.

-FCDH

Water in All Its Forms

Water is nature's most beautiful creation. Not only does it a necessity for life, but it is also nature's most abundant medium of expression. From waterfalls to glaciers, the fluidity of water, rigidity of ice, and the malleability of snow, all make water into nature's most abundant art form. Why go into a museum, when one can appreciate art in its purest form?

Ever since I was a kid, water always fascinated me. Whenever we went to a beach, I'd always use the sand to build a "river" of sorts, pour water into it at the very beginning, and watch the water run down its length until it disappeared. I would build "dams" across my rivers and create reservoirs of water, and then break the dams and watch the water rush down the river. I'd repeat this over and over again, for hours at a time. It was simply mesmerizing, and remains so to me even now.

When the Asian tsunami hit in 06, I lost count of the number of tsunami videos that I watched.
When typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan last year, the flooding fascinated me...it was the juxtaposition of water in an urban setting that did it for me.
When I walk in the rain, I slow down my steps and enjoy the feel of rain. The softness of it, the rhythmic beats of it hitting my coat, the sidewalk. The splashing of cars through puddles. It all melts together.

With the snow, it's a different type of enjoyment. I love feeling the physical contact of snow under my feet when I walk. When I came from Vancouver here to the American Midwest, I saw dry snow for the first time in my life, as opposed to the wet, sticky snow that falls in Vancouver. When the wind blows here, the snow rises off the ground and swirls around with the wind. I love just standing outside in the snow, and watching as the wind directs the snow into spontaneous explosions of movement. Swirling like a tornado, sweeping off roofs and forming a sail, even just looking at the snow blowing past me.

One time during the break, when I went to CRCE to run (6 miles), on my way back I noticed that the wind and the weirdly-placed barriers by Newman Hall had created a weird snow structure. It looked like a marble sculpture, so I stopped to examine it, and took a picture of it. As I passed by the parking lot, I saw the snow drift that was slowly creeping from the lot onto the sidewalk, and it reminded me of the constantly shifting sand dunes of the Sahara desert. With campus deserted in the middle of winter, I imagined myself to be in the Sahara. I don't really know how long I stood there watching the snow rise and fall from the parking lot, but by the time I left my approaching footsteps had disappeared.

Whenever I tell people any of this, they look at me like I'm nuts. I, in turn, look at them with sadness...because I feel like they're missing out on so much. And they don't even know what they're missing out on. Life is so full of tiny annoying details, that to counterbalance it, we should appreciate the things we take for granted everyday. A cloudless sky, thick fog, sunset, a squirrel stuffing its cheeks with food, snow on the ground, or when it's so cold your breath fogs up the air. So the next time you're walking around campus, if you see an Asian looking entranced at the sky, or at the gutter, or at the ground, feel free to stop and look entranced with me, or better yet, appreciate life a little bit more.

-FCDH

Suspended Crystals

Today's one of those days when it seems that the disadvantages of life outweigh the advantages. When i just feel so pathetic that i want to run away from myself as fast as possible.

I want to dream again. They are slipping away from me, sooner and sooner. My dream diary sits incomplete on top of my bedside luggages. I see Chinese soldiers invading my apartment in Taiwan, as I hide behind the Buddha altar. I see rockslides burying Hope. It feels like a theatrical play. Can dreams be cynical as well?

The binary clothes lie on the ground. White and black. Black and white. Why do I now prefer such colors? I wonder. My love for colors in between have slipped away. Blue, I feel nothing for you. If I can clothe myself in dark enough clothes, perhaps I will disappear in the night, never to be seen again. Or perhaps clothe myself completely in whiteness, to disappear beneath a snowdrift. Or to be Asian. To sink into the unyielding wave of meaninglessness.

What do you hear when a tree falls in the forest and no one is around? Nothing - when no one is around the tree does not exist. When something is not being observed, is it there? Nothing is observing me right now - do I exist?

I cannot let go of the past. I wish I had amnesia. Perhaps I will be able to forget about my sexuality. Perhaps I'll forget about my friends. Perhaps I'll forget about my family. I'll be reborn in the Arctic and learn to speak the haunting Inuit language. Snow will be my air. Time will stop indefinitely.

Let me go, spirit. Why do you keep demanding things from me? Haven't I given enough?

Everything will be better in the morning.

-FCDH

Light

Light is one of the wonders of life, so much so that it is sublime. When one thinks of light as being emissions of electromagnetic waves in the EM spectrum, then one can start to appreciate the fireworks of light that exist everywhere in the universe, including on Earth, even if we cannot see most of it.

Last summer in Taipei, I was walking with my mom on the street on our way to her friend's house. Somehow I randomly brought up the fact that I thought cellphones must be so weird for some aliens. I explained: If aliens existed on Earth and could see the wavelengths corresponding to the radio frequency signals of a cellphone, then every time someone made a call from a cellphone or received a call, the alien would be able to see rays of light shooting from the cellphone and going into the cellphone. My mom was silent for a while, and then she said that she had never thought of it in that way, and in that way it did seem really cool and amazing.

The way humans visually observe the world is limited to a narrow band of wavelengths in the visible spectrum. But if we consider light to be of every wavelength in the spectrum, then the entire universe can be considered to be filled with light. Cellphones are like lightbulbs that emit light in every direction. Radio towers can be considered as lighthouses, except with a different wavelength of light it is emitting. Satellites shoot beams of light to and from the surface of the Earth.

The sublime emerges if one tries to analyze what the world would look like if we were not limited to the visible spectrum. I think it's an amazingly fun way to think about the world, even if it was somewhat unrealistic way of looking at the world. But then, we could all learn from looking at the world differently once in a while.

-FCDH

New Years and its Dilemma

It's now 2010! Happy New Years! For my new years resolution, I want to make 2010 a better year than 2009, which will be slightly hard given my amazing summer 2009 experience. in Spain and Taiwan. But I am looking forward to having an awesome year with my friends, organizations, and new things that I've wanted to try out.

In the past few days I've been partying way too much, first with Brendan and Anthony's friends, and then with Meghan and Katrina's friends. On new years eve, I was at Meghan's party and had a blast. And I also had my first experience with a guy. The experience was slightly weird. If I thought that my first experience with a guy would reaffirm my sexuality...I was wrong. I'm now supremely confused about myself. I should've taken Lauren's advice and not made my judgment about myself so quickly.

Will follow up with another post soon. For now i'm gonna go play Civilization 4 with Don.

-FCDH