The Songs that Changed my Life

Hi Readers,

For some reason, I woke up today and thought that a cool post would be to write about the songs that have profoundly impacted my life and made me into who I am today. None of these songs are my favorite songs now, but they've all had a concrete impact on me. It's weird to think that some band somewhere far away was able to write a song that was able to influence your life, but I'm glad they did. Without further ado, here are the top songs that have influenced my life in chronological order of influence.

1. Numb, by Linkin Park.
This was one of the very first non-classical songs I had heard (the very first was Usher's "Yeah", in 9th grade)., and it resonated with me a lot. It very accurately laid out my feelings of growing up under the pressure of Asian tiger parents, and feeling like you're not in control of your own destiny. Before this song, I had always known that my parents were very controlling people, but I had always thought that it was for the best. Funnily enough, the song was such a big influence on me because it made me really depressed about life. Its non-conformative message made me into a more independent person later on, and also caused me to resent my parents for their controlling ways. Ultimately this song made me realize I didn't want to live life, being dictated what to do by other people.

2. Everybody's Fool, by Evanescence.
This was the first song by Evanescence that I heard, and I think it's one of their best songs. For this song, it was actually the combination of the song and the music video that did it for me. Watching Amy Lee live a fake life and be miserable in the music video was scary for me. It painted a picture for me, of what it would be like to go through life pretending to be something you're not, and keeping a facade to fool other people. In the Chinese society, that's essentially what you do. Whenever people get together, you always have to put on a facade to fool the other person into thinking you are superior than they are. You must look down from them on your fake pedestal and make them feel bad about themselves. That's a big part of the "pleasure" of these interactions. I always hated it - eternally being compared to other people who are supposedly "better" than me, never being good enough for anything, or knowing that your parents only want you to do something so they can brag about it to other people, not because they really cared about it. This song made me realize I wanted to live life as a genuine person and present my true self to the world, instead of living some facade and being internally miserable.

3. What If, by Coldplay
Oh... where do I even begin with this song? Probably the singular most important song I'd ever heard. I first noticed this song during the depths of my depression in my sophomore year of college, and it's a tremendously big part of how I became as happy as I am now. The important parts of the song talks about the "what if's" of life, and how we cannot know how things will turn out until we try them. "Every step that you take, could be your biggest mistake. It could bend or it could break, but that's the risk that you take...Oooh that's right, just take a breath and jump over the side. Oooh that's right, how could you know it if you don't even try?" The song really helped me to see that there is no "set path" in life, and led to my acceptance of my sexuality. When I finally mustered up the courage to come out to my parents, the lyrics "take a breath and jump over the side" were with me. It's still inspiring me, to base my beliefs and values upon experiences, and to try as many things as I can in life.

So there you have it. Three simple songs that helped shape me into who I am today.

-FCDH

Viva Las Vegas!

Hi Readers,

So some of you may know that I went to Las Vegas for the first time this past week. It was a 4 day trip and I went with my labmate and some of his friends. This blog post will talk about some of my observations about the trip and Las Vegas.

Observation 1: California's Central Valley is boring as hell.
We decided to rent a car and to drive to Vegas. (Sub-observation here is that it is very affordable to rent a car through Enterprise at Stanford. It's only $58 a day and we don't get charged the over-25 surcharge or insurance because we are students!) Anyways, because I was the only one who had a valid American license out of the 4 of us, it was up to me to drive us all to and from Vegas. Oh boy, Interstate 5 through the Central Valley was as boring to drive through as most of the Illinois highways. It was pretty much all flat and everything was a brownish yellow color. Even with enough sleep, I had trouble staying alert on the road. Thanks Starbucks, for making Frappucinos. On a side note, 10 hours of driving after 4 hours of sleep is not a good idea, especially during the stretch from Bakersfield to Barstow where all you get on the radio are country music and people reading the Bible.

Observation 2: California drivers suck at basic driving etiquette.
Illinois and the Midwest has really spoiled my expectations of highway driving. In Illinois, if you are driving on highways, you mostly stay in the right lane and only move to the left in order to pass a slow vehicle in the right lane. In California this isn't true. People love staying in the left lane. It's fine if they are fast drivers, but when someone is driving below the flow-of-traffic speed and insists on staying in the left lane...let's just say I don't usually get mad, but this is one of the things that get me worked up. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I will talk about GPS systems in a later blog (one of my pet peeves).

Observation 3: Las Vegas feels like Disneyland.
That is, if Disneyland replaced Mickey Mouse with people soliciting sex and offering you free limo rides to strip clubs. Other than that, this description is pretty accurate. The architecture is so blatantly extravagant it's mind-boggling. Walking down the Strip, you are greeted by pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, a giant bronze lion, canals with gondolas, and pirate ships. You see people in costumes walking down the street and kids in strollers everywhere. There are a surprising number of kids in Vegas. A number of casinos have amusement parks with roller coaster rides. There are buffets literally everywhere you go. The entire place feels completely artificial. In a good way or bad way? That's debatable.

Observation 4: The recession hit Vegas hard.
We managed to get hotel rooms for $14 per room per night. This wasn't somewhere far away from the main area; it was at a casino on the strip, right next to Caesar's Palace and Bellagio and all the other casinos. Vegas has a huge oversupply of hotel rooms and the prices definitely show it. Every single thing costs money at the casinos. Internet's $5 an hour, there are no complimentary toiletries, and no free meals. It was even sort of hard to find cheap buffets, until we discovered the far-flung casinos that cater to the locals. Hello, $7 buffets!

Observation 5: Great architects. Horrible interior designers.
Every single casino we saw was an architectural masterpiece. Most casinos we went into felt like a crypt. Why would they make the casino floor so dark and gloomy? It was depressing just to walk through most casino floors. Why use carpeting when you KNOW everyone is smoking (so your carpet eternally smells like smoke)? Why put so many redundant steps? I saw so many people trip over little half-steps in front of the bathroom or bar or something similar.

Observation 6: Slot machines are a joke.
I initially wanted to try slot machines because I believe they were of the kind that you yank and the physical force you use would determine how much they spin. But I found out very quickly that everything was computer-determined. You press a button that said "Spin!" and the computer determined how much it spins and when it stops. What's the point of the spinning then?? The computer might as well just flash "Win!" or "Lose!" as soon as you press the button. We were baffled by the number of people we saw who were hooked on slot machines. For me the slot machine lost its appeal as soon as it went from being stochastic to deterministic.

Observation 7: Engineering guys and Vegas don't really mix well socially.
We went to Vegas as a group of 4 guys. 4 international citizens, 3 grad students in engineering, 2 Indians, and 1 gay guy = not a very good group for clubbing for either gay or straight clubs. I didn't press the gay clubs because I didn't think they would have fun there, and they didn't really want to go to the straight clubs because then we'd be either the 4 creepy dudes not dancing, or the 4 creepy dudes who are dancing with each other. It was nice to wake up early and without hangovers though!

That's really all the major observations. Overall Vegas was a fun experience! I lost a net total of $2 at the slot machines before I grew bored with them. Perhaps when I'm rich, I'll try my hand at some of the card games. For now I need to save the money for grad school first!

-FCDH

Best Christmas Gift Ever

Hi Readers,

Last night my mom and dad called me. We hadn't spoken to each other for more than a month, not because of any concrete disagreements or anything, but just because we've been so busy. Anyways, we chatted about various things. Mom and dad updated me about their health and how things were going in Taipei, and I told them about finals week and about going to Vegas (will post about Vegas later).

And then my mom told me, "You remember that cup you got dad last year for Christmas? The one that said 'World's Best Dad'? Well, he uses it every single day now. It's a good cup for coffee." It was pretty much the last thing (within reason) that I was expecting to hear, and I was so taken aback that I couldn't speak for a moment.

I've always felt that, very deep down, my dad blames himself for all the wrong things that happened to the family. Being in a patriarchal nuclear family, he is essentially the captain of the family and charting a course for us. I'm always afraid that he looks on any 'failings' of individual family members as a failing of his leadership of the family. He's a very stubborn guy, always going for the "what-if"s and never allowing himself to accept failure.

Ever since I came out to him, I've suspected that he was wracked with guilt for not being there during my bringing up in Canada. He probably blamed himself for pushing me too hard academically, discouraging me from dating, for having to work in Taiwan while I lacked a masculine role model in Canada, or for any other potential "what-ifs" that he could think of that could've helped me become a heterosexual instead of homosexual.


I think this is the reason why that comment from my mom made me really emotional. I love my mom, dad, and sister, and the past few years have been so taxing on all of us from a family standpoint, that the statement was almost like a beacon of hope from their side of the divide. Somehow, the thought of my dad using the cup I got him and the message it contains, gave me hope that he doesn't believe he is a failed dad. I hope the fact that he is using the cup means he is embracing the message on it. Because he definitely isn't a failed dad. He has sacrificed so much for the success of the family, that he is far from being a failed dad. I sent him the cup because I do believe that he is a great dad, and it's time he recognizes that.

So my mom and dad may have inadvertently gave me the best Christmas gift they've ever gotten me: The hope for a stronger and happier family.

-FCDH

How I Fell for Linux

Hi Readers,

So I've recently made the complete transition from the Windows OS to the Ubuntu Linux OS. After being fed the Windows propaganda for most of my life, I've finally taken the Linux plunge. It all started more than a year ago, when I first installed a Ubuntu guest machine on Virtualbox, running on a Windows host.  Sure, that brief tryst only lasted 2 days until I gave up (mostly because I couldn't ever figure out how to get the screen resolution to work and actually show something on the screen). But it put a seed of curiosity in my mind, about the weird malleability that Linux offers. Then about 3 months ago, my Win7 began to act up. It would occasionally fail to wake up from sleep. Then it progressed to taking 10+ minutes to start up and shut off. I began to hate using my computer, because everything would take so long. Eventually I just got so fed up with it that I decided to reinstall the entire OS. But I thought: what about dual-booting Win7 with Ubuntu, just to try it out? I've thought about using Linux for awhile but never made the concerted effort to do it; it was as good of a chance as any.

So I reinstalled my OSes by dual-booting my Win7 and Linux, which was an adventure all in itself. (Creating all the bootable USB sticks were already an adventure enough). Then the true fun began. I quickly noticed that Ubuntu was faster than Win7 in a lot of regards, such as startup, or waking up from sleep. It was also much more reliable. It never had "blue screen" moments, and it would never fail to wake up or go to sleep, whereas Windows did sometimes. Eventually I drifted towards Linux, so much so that the only time I would use Win7 was to use either Mathematica, Matlab, Word, or Powerpoint. The Linux terminal began to feel really exciting to use, when I started experimenting with using the terminal to control my files. About 2 months in, Win7 began to act up again. It would fail to wake up from sleep, forcing me to power it off manually. And then the past week, it completely crashed. I couldn't get it to start in any mode (normal, safe, or recovery). What's worse, it crashed during one of my homework simulation sessions, so not only did I lose everything I was working on, but I couldn't even redo it because I couldn't access the Mathematica program on my Windows.

In a fit of rage, I wiped the entire HD clean, and told myself that the next installation I do will be completely and only Ubuntu, with Win7 running on Virtualbox in my Linux host. Or so I thought. Turns out, Virtualbox can't install virtual OS'es from bootable USB sticks - only from CDs. I tried mounting the .iso image on a virtual drive and loading that into Virtualbox, with no success. So in another fit of rage, I decided to put the thoughts of Win7 aside, and to focus on getting my finals stuff done first before tinkering some more.

And then Wine for Ubuntu popped up on my radar (because who can keep procrastination away?). This awesome program (actually more like a platform) is a Windows emulator for Windows applications and programs to function on the Linux OS. I had previously used a program called PlayonLinux, which is a no-frills attached derivative of Wine, to run Spotify on Linux. I clicked (someone dubiously) on my Mathematica setup.exe file, and voila - it successfully installed it. I wrote some basic Mathematica code and pressed compile, and out popped a beautiful graph of f[x]=x^2. Of course, the actual course was a smidge harder than that, involving extracting an .iso file and using the "sudo chmod -x" command to change the permissions of the file.

It's hard to describe the sheer satisfaction that emanated from me when I saw that graph pop up. The rest of the night I had a huge smile on my face. Yes, nerds ftw.

My next project? Getting Matlab to install successfully on Linux. So far Wine has failed with a cryptic message about being unable to find a file called dir.exe, which I am assuming is an incompatibility issue. But I've seen some clues online that it may be possible, so I will attempt it and hope it works.

But so far I love Ubuntu. It's absolutely awesome. =D

Cheers till next time!

-FCDH

The Music Cultural Revolution

Hi Readers,

Can you recall being moved to tears by a song? Not by the lyrics or the message, but by the actual melodies and harmonies themselves? It's a rare accomplishment when it happens, but when it does, it is magical. You don't know how or why you're crying, you just know that there are tears in your eyes.

When I listened to Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand during a concert at the U of I, I remember sitting there during the flute and piano interlude and having tears stream down my face. It was literally that beautiful. Others may listen to the same thing and say "meh", which saddens me because they are not able to experience a slice of heaven.

It is weird to think about how much music has changed in the last century. Traditionally, music has undergone leaps roughly every century. You had baroque music (Bach) in the 17th century, classical music (Mozart) in the 18th, Romantic music (Chopin) in the 19th, and Impressionism (Ravel) / minimalism (Satie) in the 20th.

However, in no time during history has music undergone such a revolution as between the 20th and 21st centuries. The piano and violin became overshadowed by the guitar and drums, and the regular musical structures that were established in history became obsolete as repetitiveness, arising from musical minimalism, became the norm. Operas are now movies, chamber music are now rock bands, and symphonies are now giant music festivals.

Has there really been such a radical change in people's psyche, that "classical music" (a modern term commonly used to agglomerate the music from the 17th century all the way to 20th century) has so fallen out of favor with the public that it is now looked upon as an "elite" symbol?

I personally feel that the cultural revolution that has stemmed from the availability of technology has completely destroyed the vertical hierarchy of the institution of music. If Tchaikovsky or Mozart lived in the modern world, they'd likely be penniless, with no ability to find a record company willing to take their songs, and no clubs willing to play their music. In technical electrical engineering terms, the signal-to-noise ratio of composer quality has degraded so much in the past century that the signal peaks are all but drowned out in the white noise. All we have left now are mediocre bands who are catering to our tastes and not caring about the foundation of music - the development of the melody, harmony, and rhythm.

Musical exceptionalism has disappeared from the vast majority of music. With the democratization of supply and demand for music, future generations will see the current era for what it is - the lost era of music. It's so sad.

-FCDH

An Autumn Blossom

Hi Readers,

Here's a short poem to reflect on my recent relationship. It's only been a month but I find myself falling for him - hard. This feeling is something I can't control. I've never felt it before. I won't lie - but I'm scared shitless. And excited. Exalted. And a billion other things at the same time. Let this poem represent it.

---

An Autumn Blossom

Has it only been three months

Since I felt as Lewis and Clark must have

As I began conquering the West

Absorbing new sensations

Building them into my soul

How could I have seen

Your warm embrace

Those piercing eyes 

From which I cannot escape

Infected by that smile

Now that I have been drawn

Inextricably as if by the Siren's call

Neither work or anything else

Feel complete without you

The cure for my daydreams

I don't know what to do

My walls have come down

Am I just naive to believe

That you may be the one?

Is this the path everyone must walk?

Even if it is a fleeting blossom

May this snapshot preserve its state

So when I look at it in the depths of winter

I will remember treasured times

When I felt truly complete.

-FCDH
11/23/2011

The Free Food Bible

Hi Readers,

I am taking a break from my homework on noise processes. Because even though I've spent 5 hours on it, I have made nil progress. As in, I still have no idea how to approach the problem. Blah. The white board in lab is littered with my equations, each of which hit a dead end. Nope, no idea.

So here's one interesting note about how I eat here at Stanford. Most of the dinners that I eat during the week are free. This is because Silicon Valley companies and startups love to flood Stanford with info sessions, each of which comes with free food. At the U of I, it was (comparatively) very hard to eat for free; if you did get free food, there was a 99% chance it was pizza.

This is not true of Stanford. Here, our info sessions have a smorgasbord of food. In a short span of 2 months, I've seen the following appear at info sessions: Thai, Mediterranean, Chinese, Mexican, American (sandwiches), Italian, pizza, and burgers. Most of the time, you can stuff your face and not have to worry about the food running out for other people. It is quite a luxury. But there is an art to free-food hopping!

Though the frequency of the sessions have been dying out as the recruitment cycle slowly comes to an end, throughout the first month and a half of classes, you could predictably count on at least 2 meals a day. There was always a lunch session at noon, followed by 2 afternoon/evening sessions at 5pm and 6:30pm. There would be a million emails sent out about the sessions, so everyone on the mailing list knew  about them.

There are two types of people that hit up these sessions. The first type is people who actually want a job or internship. These flood to the high-profile companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. The second type is people who want free food. These flood to the lowest-profile companies they can find, where there is always guaranteed to be food no matter how late you walk in. I am a type 2, and as many type 2s, I hate going to a type 1 situation because the food will always run out super quickly. Then you're stuck between a rock (staying and being hungry) and a hard place (loudly shuffling out of the room during the presentation to dirty looks from people).

Here are some tips and basic etiquette for free food:

1. Leave your dignity at the door. If you're still hungry after one plate, stand up during the presentation and get some more immediately! Since grad students are characterized by bosons and not fermions, you will notice that you will create a domino "bunching" effect as others will see your audaciousness and copy you. Better yet, load up on a huge plate of food your first round. Just don't accidentally spill it everywhere. And if you do spill, CLEAN IT UP.

2. Free food "etiquette" dictates that if the food is almost out, you should take less and leave some for others. Please feel free to blatantly ignore this rule, since you will never see it applied to yourself when the person in front of you takes the rest of the food and leaves you pissed off and hungry.

3. For type 1 companies, get there 10 minutes early. For type 2 companies, get there on time. The earliest you should leave a session can be determined by applying the minimum function to "halfway through the allotted time" and "first person leaves the room."

4. If the food is discrete and fungible (sandwiches, burritos), feel free to wrap some up and take it to go if it is convenient to do so. Again, check your dignity at the door. Food is your priority, and the dirty looks you are getting from other grad students are actually tinged with admiration because they wish they had the balls to do what you just did. Company reps actually admire students who do this, because it shows they are not afraid of making themselves look bad in pursuit of a goal. (Being serious here - I've gotten compliments before).

5. If there are lots of food leftover and you are not in a rush, stay until the end of the session and take the rest of the food trays home. If you go to the session moderator and ask confidently whether you can take it home, there's a 99% chance they will say yes. Voila - that's more free food to tide you over when you can't find any free food for the day.

That's all for now. This was actually one of the most fun blog posts I've written in awhile. And I'm completely serious with these 5 rules. If you want to eat freely and well, commit these rules to heart.

-FCDH

The Problem with Overthrowing Governments

Hi Readers,

With the election of a moderate Islamist party to power in Tunisia, no doubt many in the Western world are breathing a sigh of relief that the Hamas scenario didn't repeat itself in Tunisia. But with the upcoming elections in Libya and Egypt, what will happen there?

Better question: what can we do when the results are not to our liking?

America preached self-determination when it allowed the Egyptian regime to fall, and even provided the political ammunition for the Libyan rebels to overthrow its government, in the form of NATO. Now that these people have seized self-determination (and lost much stability at the same time), it is unlikely that they will consider being puppets to another foreign power. The desire for self-determination and human rights may be a commonality between American culture and other cultures, but the it is important to consider that both are a spread spectrum rather than the parochial black and white.

The overthrow of US-supported Shah of Iran in 1979 led to the democratic creation of the Iranian theocracy. This is not unlike the situation that occurred in Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak has been supported by the US for decades, in order to suppress Islamic extremism and give Israel some breathing room in the Middle East. Now that he is gone, the Muslim Brotherhood are poised for major gains in the government, a notion that already has many Americans worried.

America, along with much of the western world, lacks foresight in their decision making. They assume that just because something worked here, a one-size-fits-all model will work for everyone else. There have been many similar failures in history, where the Western heavy-handedness in treating less-developed countries has resulted in failure.  The Green Revolution actually decreased Africa's agricultural output, as countries abandoned their traditional successful crops and tried to grow "better" crops without success. 

The problem is, when there is no quantifiable result to measure the outcome, who is to say what is "better"? We can say that the Green Revolution failed Africa, but can we say that Egypt is worse off if the Muslim Brotherhood is elected? Are Libyans more satisfied now that they have democracy, even though it came at a price of widespread political chaos and violence?

Sure, to the people who are actually fighting and dying for a cause they are passionate about, such uncertainty is a trivial price they pay for their desire for positive change. But Americans seem more akin to computer gamers who are not actually affected by what goes on in the game. We live in an insulated society and have a relatively naive viewpoint of how the world operates. From that viewpoint, it doesn't seem like we should be dictating how other countries govern themselves unless people's basic rights are being massively violated without their consent.

-FCDH

Perfect and Amazing Stanford

Hi Readers,

So I have been slightly lagging in Stanford updates because things have been so busy here! The last few posts have been kinda depressing, but don't let that fool you. Things have been going splendidly here, and I will proceed to tell you about all the great things of Stanford.

I will start by saying that I was actually very worried about Stanford when I first came in here. Before I came here, some people were very negative about Stanford. Combine that with the horrible EE grad school visit, and I really had low expectations for Stanford. But I couldn't have been more wrong about Stanford.

I am living in a quad room, in a graduate dorm. This is one of the best decisions that I made with regards to Stanford. I knew that I would be lonely and bored all by myself if I was just in a single/studio, so I aimed for max impact when I applied for housing, and just aimed for all the high-occupancy rooms (quads, triples, etc). My roommates here are awesome! There's JN who is also gay and lives a fabulous non-stop life; RK who is chill and always down for whatever is happening; and AG who is well-read and claims he never wants to leave grad school. Out of all of them, I bond the most with JN because we have similar backgrounds. He's also extremely hot. Kudos to housing committee on roommate selection.

In only a month here, I have done more outdoor activities than in all 4 years at Illinois. Already, I've visited both Yosemite, the Ventana Wilderness, and I'm planning on hitting Lake Tahoe next weekend. This is all thanks to Stanford's hiking club, called the Redwood Club. The weekend trips that RC plans are really amazing and cheap! The Yosemite trip was a little bit of a letdown, because a week of snow closed down Half Dome, which meant we were not able to summit it (although we still saw Vernal and Nevada falls and hiked both the Mist and John Muir trails).

This week has been a completely whirlwind of amazement. On Wednesday, I headed up to San Francisco with some friends, to an LGBT mixer for students and alumni from Ivy League schools / Stanford. There, I met a Stanford professor who had an extra ticket for a German film festival on Friday, and who invited me along. I accepted, and so on Friday the four of us went to see a German film at the Castro theater (Joschka und Herr Fischer). After the movie was finished, the reception was held at the German Consulate in San Francisco. So we tagged along and got to visit the magnificent consulate, eat amazing German food, and drink German wine and champagne. I met a bunch of entrepreneurs, the film director, and even the German Consul himself. I got home at 1:30am and packed hurriedly, and tried to get some sleep before the trip tomorrow (I got 2.5 hours).

This past weekend's trip to Sykes Hot Springs could probably count as the best outdoor backpacking/camping experience I've ever had. The 12 of us woke up at 5am on Saturday morning, piled into cars, and drove south along the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway 1 down from Stanford to Big Sur. We then hiked 10 miles (mostly uphill) to the hot springs itself. The weather throughout was amazing, with nary a single cloud in sight. We arrived at the hot springs at around 5pm, and set up camp very close by to the hot springs. "Setting up camp" entailed laying down two large tarps and putting our sleeping bags and mats on it, because there was no forecast for rain at all. We then went for a long dip in the springs, cooked dinner, and went for a late night dip again.

For the late night dip, the others didn't want to wait for people to vacate the hotter spring, so they traipsed off to a cooler spring. VM and I waited for about 15 minutes until the people left, and we jumped in the hotter springs by ourselves. It was well worth the wait, and nobody else came by for the rest of the night. The entire soak, we just looked at the clear starry sky and talked about life. Despite only having met her 15 hours ago, we talked and confided in each other as if we were best friends. We left the springs after everyone had already gone back and went to bed. The sleep I got that night was the best night's sleep I've ever gotten outdoors. My new sleeping mat felt as good as a mattress, the temperature was perfect (60), and there were no bugs whatsoever. In the morning we woke up early, cooked breakfast, and then took a soak again. Afterward we hiked back down the mountain and returned to civilization.

Right now, I am considering signing a ski lodge lease for the winter/spring ski season at Lake Tahoe. If this happens, which I am 80% sure it will, I will very probably be heading up to snowboard at least twice a month. I am very excited and hope that everything will turn out perfectly.

My jubilation and infatuation with California has been akin to an exponential increase. The events that happened in the past week seem unreal to me. California is abound with opportunities that Illinois can only dream about. I am in love with Stanford and California. I can't believe I ever considered staying at Illinois for graduate school. I am seizing life right now as if there is no tomorrow.

Life is amazing.

-FCDH

Reflection on Last Post

Hi Readers,

So after taking some time and cooling off, I realized some important things. One, that I blew up the situation too dramatically in the moment. Two, that I was not giving my dad enough credit. And three, that I am being a hypocrite in the situation.

I am basically saying to my family, "look, this is who I am. I won't change for you, so you'll have to come to me." And I whine like a baby about the fact that they won't come to me. When I look at the situation from their eyes, it's the same thing. They are saying, "look, this is who we are. We aren't going to change for you, so you'll have to come to us."

Why should I expect that they will ever come to me? In my opinion it is a very self-centered viewpoint. Our priorities are completely different, and so are our beliefs. I am sure that both our sides look upon our arguments as if it was immutable truth. Their "righteous" rage is on par with my "righteous" rage, and this conflict may never resolve itself.

In any case, in the last communication I had with my mom, she expressed that she didn't mind the way things were going. She didn't mind that I was lying to her and to my dad, and to other people. She didn't mind the fact that she didn't know this side of me. In fact she doesn't want to know this side of me. It's simply the way she has been brought up, and the same holds true for my dad. In the Asian culture, there simply lacks this kind of openness in family relationships. Me bringing up this topic over and over again is simply anathema to them in many ways.

So I shall stop! I tried hard to get them to accept it, because I thought that everybody would be happier once that happened. But I guess I didn't think about the fact that the happiest they might be is just when they can just ignore my sexual orientation and treat it as if it didn't exist. So I guess I will continue doing the status quo and keep them happy, because I can't actually do the thing that will actually make them happy.

The whole coming out episode, starting from when I first told them last April till now, has been one long lesson in American vs. Asian cultural differences. I've lost a lot of my Asian-ness, and this is just another reminder that people don't think the same way as I do. Just because it works for me doesn't mean that it works for them.

That's all for now. Toodles.

-FCDH

My Father the Alien

In the same way that my dad has never understood me and never gotten to know me, I found out yesterday that I have no idea who he is.

If he actually goes through with the plan without my mother's approval and acceptance, I will personally pay for the divorce proceedings and move her to America.

Dear sister, please keep a close eye on mom for any signs of suicidal thoughts. I'm counting on you. Please be her beacon of light through this time of darkness, as I cannot physically be there for her.

Dear mother, please think about everything you have on this world before you make any rash decisions. I will never forgive dad if you do.

Why oh why must things be so complicated? Why is it that those I love the most are the ones hurt by my decisions? By something that I can't even control?

Dear father, what happened to the man my mother fell in love with? I wish you would set your priorities straight and look at the extremely fragile ties you have left in this world. Please stop being blinded by the irrational rage and come to your senses.

I'm so fucking ashamed of my dad for even considering it. I cannot believe we are related in any way.

If you are reading this post please do not ask me about it or even bring it up. I am serious.

I need to believe this story can have a happy ending. Life is so fucked up otherwise. 

I need to believe that I didn't fuck up the entire family.

It's Over

I just tried one last time to get my parents to come around on homosexuality. As of this post I am forevermore giving up on my quest to have them come around. Let them come to me, if they ever do. The disappointment lies heavy in the pit of my stomach.

There's nothing else I want to do. It's over. My family is in shambles. One more blow and it'll disintegrate.

Mom, please be strong.

In the end, the only person you can really trust is yourself. 

Sky Mall Amusement

Hi Readers,

In the past week, I've taken three flights. Even though many people dislike flying, I love the entire process. It is incredible to think about the vast amounts of people and resources that move through our airports, and the entire TSA security apparatus system that is set up to (try and) ensure the safety of the passengers. When I was young, the airport system used to boggle my mind. I didn't understand how this "passport" could get you past these people with these machines, and why you needed it to go to this lobby where people wait around and look bored, before going through some more halls and boarding planes. Airports seemed massive and daunting when I was young; as I grew older, they began to shrank, and now going through an airport is almost second nature. One thing that has changed is the enjoyment of the actual flight itself. On a future post I'll talk about my fear of airplanes when I was young.

Anyways, on every recent flight I've been on, there is always a predictable source of laughter: the Sky Mall magazine. Though I'm pretty sure that most people know what these are, these are basically magazines from which you can buy items while you are on a plane. What makes these funny is the stuff that they sell. There are always predictable items, and the logic behind the items is quite clear.

For example, there are always "spy" items. These always include hidden cameras that you can put around your house (who's coming to your house while you're not there?), hidden microphones which are sound-activated (what are people saying behind your back?), mobile and easy-to-mount GPS tracking systems (where's your spouse's car going while you're not there?), to name a few. These obviously draw on the fear of infidelity on the parts of spouses or friends, from the point of view of a frequent traveler who may not see his/her significant other for long periods of time.

Then there are the "outdoor furniture" items. These are the garden gnomes (...to spice up your garden?), the fake rocks that you can cover other stuff with, fountains, patio furniture, etc. These are funny because they are probably the definition of impulse buys. I wonder how many people actually go on a plane with the intention of buying a set of garden gnomes while they are on the plane.

The "pet" items really rounds out the list of the three most common items that you can find in the Sky Mall magazines. This is stuff like indoor pet fences, pet potty-training material, and various pet furniture. These are probably aimed at the people who have no significant others but have pets instead. So instead of worrying about their spouse cheating on them, they are worried about their pet's comfort while at home all alone.

The interesting thing about the Sky Mall magazine is that a lot of the items in there seemed to be playing from the idea of guilt and mistrust. It does not really seem like a good reason to purchase stuff, but I guess Sky Mall is in it to make money. Besides, there's really nothing that can assuage businessmen who are away from home that they can somehow replace their presence at home with the merchandise. I guess if I ever have to do a lot of traveling during work, my home may pile up with these junk items as well.

-FCDH

Exploring My Gay Side

Hi Readers,

While hanging out with my newest gay friend AO in Austin today, I realized something disturbing. It is the fact that we are both so similar and yet so different. We are both proponents of living life to its fullest and exploring as many activities as we can. We are both Asians (half-Asian for him) and grew up with similar Asian cultural beliefs about family and the way to do things. Both our families have rejected our sexualities and cannot accept that their sons could be gay. We both love to travel, and we both love to run. He's ran two half marathons, while I've ran a half and a full marathon. Even our running pace is the same. We both rock climb, and we've both skydived before. He's gone backpacking through Southeast Asia, while I've gone backpacking through Europe. We are both trilingual, and both of us have spent our childhoods in various different countries.

But, he's flamboyant and flaunts his sexuality openly, while I don't (according to most people). He's explored the gay culture scene wherever he has gone, while I haven't. He has loads of gay friends, while I don't. It's not the fact that he's a few years older than me, because he has already been like this since his college years, when he was the president of the gay Pride organization on his campus. It's not the upraising, because we have lived similar lives. I think it's the people that we surrounded ourselves with. He chose gay people as his support group, while my support group turned out to be mostly straight people. I thought that maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm an engineer, but I know some other engineers who work around that. It's probably my judgmental nature showing its ugly teeth.

I realized today that there's a giant hypocritical hole in my life. I proclaim to everyone that I love to explore new things and experiences and have no qualms about it. But when confronted with the evidence, it all points to the fact that I haven't explored the gay world and lifestyle at all. Through my previous posts, I've stood on the high altar and looked down upon the lifestyle of the people like AO. I thought (for some unknown reason and rationale) that the gay lifestyle was incompatible with the type of exploratory lifestyle that I want to live. Perhaps it was the fact that I hadn't seen any gay people to act as an example role model for me in how to live this type of lifestyle, but I outright rejected it and considered my lifestyle to be superior.

That myth is shattered now. I can't believe that I didn't see this inconsistency in my rationale earlier. How did I justify exploring every aspect of the world except for the part that I belong in? The gay culture is my culture now, yet I have never explored its depths. I guess I have always been afraid of rejection, either by the unknown-as-of-yet gay culture upon my approach, or by my current friends if I do embrace the gay lifestyle. It also didn't help that I am still self-conscious about my looks, even though people have told me that I shouldn't worry too much about it.

I am actually quite excited about this discovery, and a little bit ashamed at the same time. I wish I had spent more of my undergraduate experience exploring the gay culture. But at the same time, it is exciting to see someone that is living the life which I had previously deemed impossible (or improbable at the least). He has struck a balance between the gay lifestyle, and the active outdoor athletic lifestyle. I feel like a whole new world has been opened to me. Better yet, there is really no better place to explore this new lifestyle than San Francisco, which will be so close by to me!

Even if AO and I don't work out, which is likely, I will have him to thank for having motivated me to explore a brand new side of myself.

-FCDH

Leaving Illinois

Hi Readers,

First, a short update. Before my internship started, when I was deciding on when I should end my internship at NI, the internship coordinator gave me several choices of dates. Because of the whole visa issue that international students have to face, I guess there was some misunderstandings between me and the internship coordinator on the end date. I understood it to be that I was ending my internship on Aug 26th, while she thought I was leaving on September 9th. So I got a pleasant surprise the day before my internship was supposed to end. My supervisor said, "um, according to HR, you're not supposed to leave for another 2 weeks." HR offered me the choice of leaving now or on Sept 9th, and I decided to stay a little later in Austin to work a little more. As Stanford starts in mid-September, I didn't see a harm in doing that.

I had originally planned for this weekend to be my moving weekend, from Illinois to California. However, as I didn't have enough time to change around my flights, I settled for buying 2 extra tickets in order to fly back to Austin after I move my stuff into San Francisco. My itinerary was extremely packed, and essentially I only had 20 hours in Champaign to do everything that I needed to do. This included consolidating all my luggage, some of which were scattered around with several people. I also had to meet up with so many people that I couldn't manage to meet them all, which was a shame.

I was so worried about all the luggages that I had. I managed to pack all of my worldly possessions into three suitcases, and three carry-on luggages. But I was so stressed about getting all the luggages on the plane. Even though I had brought 5 suitcases with me when I first moved to Illinois, we had three people at the time, and the suitcases were nowhere near the weight they are now. This time, the three suitcases weighed 60, 70, and 80 lbs, respectively. But thank god I chose to fly Virgin America. I don't think I could have found a cheaper alternative to get my 5 luggages across the US. The extra baggage fees that I was charged came out to a grand total of $175, and this was for 5 checked luggages, with 3 of them being over the weight limit. Of course, this was only possible thanks to the help of Virgin America and their friendly staff. Their great service and flight amenities are incredible; I have never taken a domestic flight as good as the VA flight I am currently on.

It is still so weird to consider that I am leaving Champaign, most likely forever. All the good friends that I made in the last 4 years will all be so far away now. Sure, I'll be able to talk to them over Gchat or Skype, but it just won't be the same as the human physical interaction. The same will happen to the friends that I made in Austin this summer. Yet it still hasn't really hit me yet, not really. I feel like it will just be a short time until I can see them again. Somehow, the large distance that separates us doesn't seem that large anymore.

Perhaps I am finally maturing enough to accept the fact that life comes with change, and that we cannot fight it. We should embrace the change, and look forward to those moments where we'll be able to reunite with those that we have lost touch with. Though sometimes it will be sad to think about the past, it should always be exciting to start laying down roots in a new place, and to explore even more what life can offer us.

-FCDH

Expect the Unexpected

Hi Readers,

So this post will touch on a personal observation that I've made. Every single time that I have had any luck with guys, it always has been when I did not expect it. When I don't plan for it, things just seem to happen. Whereas when I do plan consciously for it, nothing happens. It is pretty weird, but I guess it kind of makes sense. Perhaps I tense up and get nervous when I do expect something to happen, whereas if I am not expecting it then I act more relaxed and enjoy myself more. Or perhaps it is a mental block that's developed there, I don't know.

This past weekend, I was suffering from slight withdrawal because most of my friends here in Austin have left. My last remaining roommate was, as usual, playing video games. As he always does. Usually I have other the other roommates to turn to to distract myself from his constant yelling at the other players. But for some reason I just couldn't be around him that day. So I packed some water, and set off on the bus towards downtown Austin. I didn't really plan for anything, I just thought about walking around. And so I got off at Barton Springs and walked through Zilker Park. I got mobbed by a friendly cute dog there, who ran away from his owner toward me, tail wagging at full force, and would not stop following me as I tried to keep walking without tripping over him (his owner had to come take him away while apologizing profusely). Things just got better from there - I guess it was a good omen.

After souvenir shopping for what I thought was my last weekend in Austin, I invited my friend CL out for a drink. She came out and we went to this place that had $10 Long Island pitchers. We split a pitcher and each had about 6 glasses, and in the meanwhile she ascertained from me that I had never really seriously checked out a gay club. So, armed with the fuzziness from the alcohol, she proceeded to drag me to a gay bar and then to Rain, another gay club.

The entire time I felt ridiculous - imagine, me wearing my flip flops, sweaty from the roughly 5 mile hike I did earlier that day, carrying a pack full of postcards and other souvenirs, going to all of these places. It didn't help (initially) that she kept trying to initiate conversation with other guys for me. She'd go up to people with her conversation starters..."what's that drink?"..."you have toilet paper on your shoe"...and then she'd introduce me. There were times when I just wanted to disappear into the ground. I was literally that embarrassed.

But at Rain, the guy that she initiated a conversation with (with the toilet paper on his shoe) turned out to be conceivably the most interesting person I have ever met in my life. He's half Japanese and half Puerto Rican, is fluent in English, Spanish, and Japanese, and is attractive as hell. =) He grew up in a military family and has lived in Tokyo for much of his life. We ended up dancing together for the rest of the night, and then before I left we exchanged numbers.

I went out to dinner with him yesterday. Had coffee afterward. Many hours passed in a flash. He is a good kisser. =)

2 more weeks in Austin. Who knows what the unexpected will bring in this time?

-FCDH

Loving the World by Yourself, Part II

Hi Readers,

Last summer when I was in Japan, I wrote about being self-sufficient in living a social life and doing the activities that one could do. This summer, armed with a cellphone (versus last summer when I didn't have one) and located in a city with a plethora of activities, I set out to explore a little bit more details of being by yourself vs. being with friends.

I am sure that most people grew up being around other people, whether it be family or friends. My hypothesis is that this makes us reliant on others for the activities that we do when we have the free time. But how this affects our psyche and our potential range of activities is an important consideration. This is why I want to explore this issue - because it may be a factor in our quest in living a happier life.

To explore this issue, I combined a host of activities this summer, both group-based and solo-based. I noticed a couple of trends.

The larger group activities were mostly about socializing, while the solo and small group activities were mostly about exploring. Both were fun, but I got a strong sense of limited-by-common-denominator when we hung out in groups. I would say that, through the group activities, I had more fun but developed almost no additional skills or new knowledge. We visited the Oasis as a group, where we watched an amazing sunset over Lake Travis. We went rock climbing together, which I guess developed the skills of other people but not of myself since I planned it. I also planned a group trip to go bungee jumping, which was really the only activity this summer that gave me a new experience in life.

As a person constantly in search of new experiences and knowledge, I found myself trying to put together various trips and activities that excited me. However, I had a difficult time trying to find groups that would be willing to go with me. It was for this reason that only one major group success - bungee jumping - emerged out of the summer. No visits to the Schlitterbahn Waterpark (the best waterpark in the US), no jet skiing or water skiing on Lake Travis, both of which were big losses for me. One question lingers in my mind though - why didn't I just go by myself? What was holding me back from doing that?

At the beginning of the summer, I though it was easier to embark on solo trips. Which I did - exploring downtown Austin's scenery and food scene, the rural Texas areas surrounding Austin, and hiking at Enchanted Rock. However, whenever I do go alone, why is it that I always think - I wish others could be here to see this? Why do I feel a slight tinge of sadness at being alone by myself when I am exploring these new things? As the summer progressed, it became harder to do things by myself. When many of my intern friends began leaving, it became even harder, and things just seems a little bit duller.

Being with other people in a group just seems right. It is probably a social norm that's been instilled into me by the culture around me. So I think that I will ultimately settle for doing things with other people. It doesn't have to be gigantic groups of people, but I think I need to be with at least one other person in order to have fun. I will probably end up doing what I did this summer, which is to plan events that I personally want to try out, and find some people that are willing to go with me. The problem is - what if nobody wants to come? Who will I go with for outdoor climbing at Yosemite?

A bigger question - as me and the people around me grow older, I'm positive they will all become more tied up. Responsibilities galore, essentially. Will I be able to find people to try out stuff with? How will I find my experience/knowledge fix then? My current supervisor is a good example of this. He used to be a daredevil with paragliding, rock climbing, base jumping, you name it. If it's wild and dangerous, he's tried it. But now? He has a wife, two kids, and he says he can no longer do any of those things. When I ask him if he misses it, he always smiles wistfully and says "a bit, but my priorities have changed."

Perhaps that's what being with someone does to you. You are no longer by yourself in the world, after all.

-FCDH

A Primer on Austin

Hi Readers,

After spending an entire summer in Austin, I thought I would write a blog post all about the awesome city that is Austin. So here goes.

The first thing you need to do is to decouple the words "Austin" from the "TX" that follows it on the address labels. Apart from the constant "y'all"s that are heard around town, I have heard from many Texans that Austin is very different from the rest of Texas. Politically, it is known as the blue dot in a sea of red that is the rest of Texas, and this is very visible all over Austin. The city has adopted the unofficial slogan, "Keep Austin Weird," a prominent sign of its progressive nature. The city is extremely liberal, from the environmental viewpoint with recycling, to its stance on gay couples (i have seen many gay couples holding hands and walking around town.) Unfortunately the Texas Legislature is trying its best to disenfranchise the Austin voters by dividing up the liberal Travis county's political influence among its conservative neighboring counties. However, it does not diminish Austin's star power by much.

In terms of entertainment and recreation, Austin is unparalled in the breadth of activities that it offers. Among all the cities in the world that I have visited, I would rank Austin in the top 3. Tourists can stroll around the beautiful Texas State Capitol building, and watch the daily flying of the bats, as the millions of bats emerge from underneath the Congress Ave bridge and fly off into the night. The awesome Barton Springs allows people to jump in a cool natural spring just minutes away from downtown Austin. The Lady Bird Lake is right smack in the middle of downtown Austin, and it is a great place to go kayaking or boating. All along the lakeside and Zilker Park lies beautiful nature and miles of trails that run all along the lake. You can even stop by the Center for Performing Arts, where they will usually be having an outdoor concert on the vast lawn.

For a great shopping and dining experience, all that one has to do is to walk south along Congress Avenue. The South Congress area features many eclectic shops and boutique stands, as well as food stands and trucks that remind me a lot of the fun chaotic shopping experience that one can find in Asia. The food trucks are my favorite part of South Congress, as it feels like an outdoor food court, surrounded by market stands and serenading musicians. On weekends, downtown 6th street has the most amazing display of nightlife that I've ever seen. The entire road, which is surrounded by bars on either side, is closed down to vehicle traffic, and bar-goers crowd the entire road while searching for their perfect bar. Speaking of bars, Austin's live music scene really is amazing, as pretty much every single bar in downtown Austin will have a different live band playing at any time of night. It is always fun to just walk down the street and hear all the different bands playing, ranging from country music to jazz. Food-wise, there are a lot of great things to eat in the Austin area. My personal favorite is the Texas BBQ, probably one of the best foods that I've had in the US. My two favorites are Rudy's and Salt Lick, and every time I go to these places I always get at least 1 lb of meat to eat. It is somewhat excessive but I just love it so much.

But the most incredible thing about Austin is its surroundings. Drive half an hour north-west of Austin and you'll reach Lake Travis, from where you can watch one of the ten best sunsets in the US at the Oasis, or do watersports, or go to the water park at Volente beach. There are loads of swimming holes around the Austin area, which are all amazing places to chill for an afternoon when it is over 100 degrees outside. Just 2 hours west of Austin lies Enchanted Rock, a giant rock formation that juts out of the ground and makes for a great hike and viewpoint. Austin lies in the hill country region of Texas, and there are plenty of places to go rock climbing or to go tubing down a river.

Austin is such a great mix of activities that it is hard to imagine anybody running out of activities to do here, or being bored here. It should be a crime to waste your weekends on TV or computers here. I have done many things here, including bungee jumping, outdoor rock climbing, swimming, and of course partying. It is somewhat hard to see how Stanford and the Bay Area could be better than this summer in Austin. But I am hoping that California will be a lot better.

-FCDH

The Lack of Spirit for Service

Hi Readers,

I just realized that I never really mentioned in the previous posts what I was doing this summer. So I'll give a brief overview.

I am currently working at National Instruments in Austin, Texas. I am a hardware intern in the RF group, and I am currently working on validation and verification for some very cool things that are being worked on right now. When I tell people about my internship, the most common thread that comes up from other people is usually, "oh NI...don't they make calculators or something?" NO. That's Texas Instruments, not National Instruments. Even my dad said to me, "...are you sure that it's not Texas Instruments?" It is quite understandable, since NI is still only a medium-sized tech company, not like many of the tech giants here in Texas like TI or AMD.

However, even though NI is not a giant company, it is the perfect place to work. I love the people and resources that are available at NI for all of the employees, from the employee appreciation, to the culture of cooperation inside the company. I have heard from many people in different companies that foster competitiveness (such as Exxon or Intel), and I think I would not really fit in at one of those companies, because they lack the human element that makes a good team.

This blog post is just somewhat of a rant on human nature that I've been observing among the interns at NI. As I am currently the intern service committee chair, I am in charge of making sure that service activities happen. However, it is so frustrating to see the lack of desire for service in the interns. They seem just so apathetic to service work of any kind. I have heard the phrase here so often, "volunteering is just not my thing." Why not? You'll spend your precious time on Facebook or partying, but you can't even spare 2 hours to do some volunteer work? How misguided are your priorities?

The moment I fully realized that people out in the real world are selfish, despite their friendliness, was the first moment that I felt so lucky to have experienced Engineers Without Borders. I am so lucky to have been surrounded by people with such open hearts, people who dedicate so much of their lives to the pursuit of perfection, not only for themselves, but for other people as well. I feel like, through joining EWB, I have dodged a bullet. The bullet of apathy and self-centeredness. Though I understand that people have different priorities, I hate seeing time and potential wasted. If they are discovering the cure for cancer or learning new knowledge, fine. But to waste time on Facebook and then to diss service work as a waste of time, just makes me so angry.

How is it that, despite having 200+ interns, only 2 showed up to a volunteer event? And it wasn't even a boring event - it was taking apart computers and recycling their components. I would have expected engineers to jump at this chance. But instead I was disappointed yet again by the turnout. If it wasn't for the fact that so many full-time NI employees showed up, it would have been a complete disaster. That by itself showed me the citizenship that NI employees felt, and the culture of service in the company.

People are living life as they see fit. I respect that. But I pity these people who live a self-centered life, without realizing the fullness in living a life of service. In the Chinese proverb, they are like frogs who live at the bottom of a well and believe that the well is all there exists in the world. There's a whole world out there. If only people would open their hearts, and climb up the rope that leads out of the well, they will discover the joys of service, and welcome it into their hearts.

-FCDH

Harry Potter's Reality

Hi Readers,

On Monday, I went to the Alamo Draft House to watch the last Harry Potter movie. The Alamo Draft House is a famous place to watch movies in Austin, where you can order foods and drinks during the movie and then waiters or waitresses will bring them to you. It's essentially a restaurant-styled theater. I tried "Butterbeer" there, which was a weird mix of apple cider and other things (including alcohol). It was pretty good and weird at the same time.

The movie itself was visually awesome. I didn't see the 1st installment of the Harry Potter 7th movie, so I was slightly worried that I would be disappointed with the break in the plot line. However, the movie turned out much better than I had expected, and some scenes in the film were really awe inspiring. I walked out of the theater with a fresh dose of "I wish magic really existed in the world..." as I usually do after sci-fi or fantasy movies.

However, on the way home, a thought struck me - why is the book series so "perfect"? How come everyone can afford to go to school? Even the "poor" Weasley family could afford to send all their children to school. Sure, it was with hand-me-downs, but still - it's not about the haves and have-nots, but rather about the haves and have-mores. What happens to the kids who cannot afford to go to the magician boarding schools? Can they learn magic? Are they the antithesis to Mudbloods, in that they are born into a wizarding family but cannot use magic? Where are the magician homeless people? All we see in the books and the movies are people from the middle or upper class in the wizarding world. Do the less well off not exist? What about orphans who are not as lucky as Harry is?

I know that these are really not questions that are relevant to the actual story or book itself, but it does pose interesting questions for the state of children's novels, and the very nature of a book series. Harry Potter was originally intended for a younger audience, so from the very first books Rowling has made the setting very PG and moral, just like a good children's book should. The endings were happy and the messages that were in the books were clear-cut and vanilla.

However, as Harry and his friends matured, the series also began maturing for an older audience. The atmosphere became darker, good people began to die (more than usual), bad people began to escape, and the moral content began to become more muddy. Basically, things became less clear-cut, and Harry Potter turned into a much more accurate model of the real world. The Ministry of Magic began to model the inefficient governments in real life, people began conspiring and backstabbing one another, and even the very nature of the magic itself became more violent.

The metamorphosis of the Harry Potter universe from a palatable and childish representation into a mature and adolescent-based series is an amazing transformation. It is the reason why I can feel justified in asking the question that I do above - where are the homeless people, what happens to the orphans, etc? Children's novels do not usually instigate such social or political-laced commentary. The Harry Potter series represents a true Bildungsroman or character-building series, in more ways than one. The ability of Rowling to adapt her series is truly remarkable.

It really is the end of an era.

-FCDH

On Blogging

Hi Readers,

I noticed that this post is my 100th post! WOW! When I started blogging a year and a half ago, I did not expect to reach this point. I thought I would have dropped it by now, to join my pile of half-completed projects (some of which are to get buff, a host of programming projects, and other random shiznit). Instead, it's been a refreshing outlet, one that I treated as an extension of myself. Therefore, in this post, I will talk about my views on the practice of blogging.

For all the aspiring bloggers, there are probably several issues that you will encounter.

1. Time

unless you are uber-dedicated to your blog, there will be times when you forget about your blog, or simply cannot find the time to write a new entry. But it's fine! If you are just writing for your own pleasure, then there is no agenda and no schedule. You are simply blogging to express your thoughts and opinions. It's like hanging out with friends - you'll inevitably have periods of time when you say, "I need a break from this person for a little bit." But you'll always come back to it. Looking back a year or two afterward, you'll be shocked at how much you have written over that time period, or even how innovative some posts were.

2. Topics

This is my biggest block for blogging. One would think that, with all the topics under the sun to write about, that it would be easy to blog. NOT TRUE. When you sit down in front of the computer, with the blank screen in front of you, it is very challenging to hash out a topic right there and then to write about. You'll probably have to find inspiration throughout the day and record it down right away. Some people carry a note pad to scribble. Since I always have my cellphone on me, I have a draft of a text message that I use to record down all my ideas.

3. Privacy

This is linked to the important question of who you want your audience to be. If you want millions and billions of people to read your blog, you would probably choose different topics than if you want only your closest friends to read it. What links to your blog? Is it a visible but temporary Facebook status update or hidden in your info section but always accessible? You can let your privacy settings determine what you blog about, or let your blog topics determine how private you want to set your blog. Me personally, my thought process goes like this: "if they care enough to click on my blog link in the info section of my Facebook profile, then they probably want to know more about me." So I post personal stuff, but not too personal. But I NEVER let my parents or family read it.

In my opinion, is blogging worth it? Absolutely. I have lost count of the number of times that I've just sat back and browsed through my old blog entries. The most amazing part is to read it and think, "wow I can't believe I actually went through this." Writing the most recent post is always the hardest, and you'll always feel like the last post was better than the current one. But trust me, it's really worth it in the end. So give it a try!

-FCDH

The Birth of a New Nation

Hi Readers,

This week, a new nation was born: South Sudan! With its capital city at Juba and investments already pouring in from Uganda and Sudan, its future seems promising, especially with the news that it holds most of Sudan's oil reserves and that Chinese investment is already forthcoming. But in this case, we saw the Sudanese president Omar El-Bashir's willingness to accept the results of the secessionist referendum peacefully. What would have happened had he rejected the referendum?

Realpolitik in foreign policy suggests that nations always act in self-interest. The US and much of the international community has already shown that they do not care much about territorial sovereignty and democracy. This is shown by their tolerance of Israel's occupation of Palestine, the continued NATO bombing of Libya (they might as well just come out and declare open war on Gaddafi), or their rejection of the separatist governments of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, or even official recognition of Taiwan. At the same time, these same governments couldn't wait to jump on the bandwagon when Kosovo or South Sudan declared independence.

New governments and new countries are very malleable, and the western governments know this. That's why they oppose the independence of countries likely to fall under a rival influence. South Ossetia and Abkhazia were territories that belonged to Georgia, a US ally, and likely to be heavily influenced by Russia. At the same time, countries that are likely to fall into the US sphere of influence are heavily encouraged to secede. Kosovo belonged to Serbia, which has been part of the Russian influence since the Cold War. South Sudan belonged to Sudan, which has traditionally been heavily Muslim-ruled. If Taiwan had only not had the unfortunate historical distinction of belonging to China, a mega world player, it would have been accepted as independent decades ago.

For now, it remains interesting to see where South Sudan guides itself in the next decade. With a wealth of oil, it is very possible for corruption to run rampant and bring down the possibilities that come with the surge of resources into South Sudan.

Just a short post today. More later.

-FCDH

Saying Goodbye

In a blink of the eye

As if it was a shadow of imagination

Flashing across the corner of our eyes

Goodbye to our world

One hundred and twenty million seconds

Thirty five thousand hours

One thousand four hundred days

Goodbye to four years

Laughter echoing from the ether

Tears all untouched and pristine

Hugs have become phantom memories

Goodbye to my friends

The familiar beyond miles of fog

Lost with only a flashlight

Without a blazed trail

Goodbye to my compass

I once thought I knew it all

But now I finally realized

Knowing is not a substitute for living

And so I said

Goodbye

I will love you

Forever.

-FCDH

06/12/2011

The Glass is Always Half Full

Hi Readers,

This is just a quick post to remind everyone (and myself) about the importance of looking at life optimistically. It is so easy to slip into a rut or depression, and to sulk for months, or maybe years. In the meantime, life is just soaring by , oblivious to your problems.

From my own experiences in high school and early in college, I found that I always looked at life pessimistically. Situations that were not (really) that bad were always blown out of proportion. Even my homosexuality, which I regard as my biggest "issue", is not really an issue when we compare it to the global absolute. It took me so long to learn how to deal with it, and the key is to see that LIFE IS NOT FAIR. Once I embraced this fact, it wasn't a far stretch to see how good I have it in life.

So what if I am gay and may never be accepted by my family? At least I don't have hemophilia, or Alzheimer's, or schizophrenia. I have all my limbs, I'm not an amputee, or paraplegic, or suffer from Down's syndrome. I'm in college; I don't have to work day and night to pay off loans or to support my family, I don't have a drug addiction that I must pay off, and I don't need to worry about extortion or blackmail by anybody. I'm not an orphan; I have a family that cares about me and provides for me, even though they may never accept my homosexuality.

My five senses are still working, I can feel, smell, taste, touch, and see. My friends are here for me, I am not alone. I am never alone. Look at the squirrel, rabbits, and the fluffy clouds. Hear the water lapping at the edges of (somewhat disgusting) Boneyard Creek. Taste the ice-cold delicious water coming from the water fountain. Feel the wind brush by you as it continues on its nonstop journey around the world. Doesn't it make you feel so minuscule? We are such a small part of a bigger whole. How dare we feel self-important, as if we really mattered in this world? The most we can do is try, to make a difference in something we care about, or in somebody's life. And that is a quest that has no beginning and no end, but through it, our souls will live and love forever.

Embrace life. Do you see how wonderful everything is? How can we be justified in decrying our own situations when there are so many people who live life courageously, despite having incurable diseases and afflictions? Sure, there are days when we will be down and cursing at God for these problems. But sooner or later, we need to raise our heads, smell the roses, and see all the good things in life. And thank God for letting us be here to experience it. To live life as it was meant to be lived: with passion and determination.

-FCDH

An Outdoorsy Ascent

Hi Readers,

Yesterday I went with NS and a couple of other people we met at the ARC rock climbing wall to go climbing in Jackson Falls, in southern Illinois. It was the first time doing outdoor climbing for both NS and myself, and we were pretty psyched. I almost said "no" when the offer was first made, but then I thought, "mehwhatthehellwhynotyouonlylivelifeonce......" It turned out to be an awesome decision!

We left at 6am. It was probably the earliest I've been up in at least half a year, so I was yawning the whole car ride down. We got there at around 10, and it was already soooooo hot. Ditched the jackets, grabbed the water bottles, and we started our trek out to Mr. Jimmy's, which is a giant cliff with many climbs. Along the way us noobs discovered from the pros (CK and EP) that southern Illinois is peppered with awesome climbs. Who knew?!? Certainly couldn't tell from the FLAT CORN-NESS that is Illinois.

We started with a route called "Luscious Babes" (5.8), moved on to "Venom" (5.10a), "Chicken Shack" (5.6), "Chimichonga" (5.8), "Deetle Dumps" (5.8), and "Meanest Flower" (5.9). For those of you who don't know rock climbing lingo, the 5.x levels rank rock climbing. A 5.1 is akin to a steep hill that you walk up, a 5.4 is probably scrambling over boulders, 5.6 is vertical but pretty easy, and apparently nobody has done more than a 5.15 here before. Below are some of the routes that we did (I didn't take pictures for others), so you can imagine what the rating system is like.

5.8 - "Luscious Babes"

5.8 - "Chimichonga"

5.10a - "Venom"

5.6 - "Chicken Shack"

Since it was the first time that I had climbed outdoors, I was nervous as hell and not sure what to expect. Mostly I was afraid of failing and having others laugh at me. But luckily enough, it wasn't so bad! I guess all those hours in the ARC climbing wall paid off after all! I was able to all except one of the climbs that the others could do, and it was amazingly fun. The difficulty levels seemed easier than the ones at the ARC, the holds were almost always easier to hold onto than on the artificial rock wall, just because they are real rocks, and I loved being able to just go up a wall and not have to worry about, "oh this rock belongs to this route and that rock is off-limits." It did make for a very interesting phenomenon, where everybody would get up a route using different methods, and get stuck at different spots because of that.

This was also the first time that NS and I tried lead climbing (in addition to top-rope), another technical jargon. In rock climbing there are many types of climbing. "Top-rope climbing" refers to the fact that your anchor rope is all the way at the top of the route, so when you are climbing and fall, you stop immediately where you are. "Lead climbing" refers to a method where you are starting your climb without any anchors. There are various anchors scattered throughout the route on the way up, and you clip your rope into these anchors as you go up. It is scarier than top-rope because if you fall, there is the possibility of you falling a longer way down, since you will fall underneath the last anchor that you clipped into. An analogy of these two styles would be the concept of respawning in a video game. Top-rope climbing would be analogous to the situation where if you die, you "restart" at the exact same spot and continue on. Lead climbing would be akin to a "checkpoint" system, where you respawn at the last checkpoint you passed. We are very thankful for CK and EP for teaching us how to do lead climbing, because we had been curious about it for awhile.

It got quite hot out as midday came and went, and it got progressively more humid until we were sweating even just standing in the shade. However, we did not let it bother us too much, since we were armed with our chalk bags. We stayed out there from 10am until 7pm, when it began to get dark out. In the process, everybody got in ~6 climbs and we had a blast. Ended the day at Steak n Shake with burgers and milkshakes. It was an awesome day. =)

-FCDH

Mammoth Caves

Hi Readers,

Last weekend I went with SB, one of my friends, to Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. We had planned on going somewhere after graduation for 3-4 days, partially because it was summer and we both wanted to relax, and partially because I will be leaving for Stanford soon and we won't have another chance to hang out like this for awhile. We originally thought about going to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but since SB left the planning of the trip up to me and I didn't know anything about the UP, I looked up the National Parks list and chose Mammoth Caves.

Mammoth Caves are the longest caves in the world, at 392 miles in length. Many geologists think that MC may contain a system of more than 600 miles in length. Most of these miles are not open to the public, for fear of contamination and of disruption of the fragile ecosystem. But there are ~12 miles of the caves that are open to the public for tours, since these are parts of the caves that have been open for centuries for tourists since the time when the caves were private. SB and I went on many of these cave tours, including

1) Historic Tour: this tour was very history-intensive, including talks about the saltpetre mining operation that took place at the caves, the slave tour guides that first explored the caves, as well as some geology. This mammoth dome was brilliant, as were the tour guides.

2) New Entrance Tour: this tour gave us a tour of the Frozen Niagara section, which was stalactites and stalagmites galore. Was great, but if we had known we would have gone through the same parts during tours 3 and 4 we probably wouldn't have done it.

3) Introduction to Caving: Easily my favorite tour of the bunch. We went caving and spelunking through tiny passages, armed with only headlamps, helmets, and kneepads. I wish I could do it again.

4) Grand Avenue Tour: Some of the rooms we passed through were humongous! We climbed 3 underground mountains that were 200 ft high each. It was awesome.

SB and I at Frozen Niagara section

Going through the caves were so fun and cool (literally, it was 56 degrees inside the caves year-round). Everytime I saw some kind of passageway leading off to the side, I had to suppress my urge to go down it and explore. If I had done that I might not have been able to get out after the tour guide leaves. I also found Kentucky to be awesome, and I especially love the sexy accent lol. It was too bad that SB and I weren't able to find a spot on the Wild Caving tour, which would have been beyond awesome. Oh well.

I also found Kentuckians to be really friendly, much more so than I imagined. SB and I went on mini-roadtrips around the Mammoth Caves area, and for dinner we stopped at a steakhouse. Needless to say we were the only Asians in the place. We were just chatting about life problems and stuff during dinner, and as the neighbouring table was leaving, the old lady stopped at our table and offered us advice on our problems. It was the first time that something like that has ever happened to me, so I was somewhat taken aback by their frankness and openness. It was quite refreshing. Also, when SB and I went hiking in the park, everyone we passed by on the trail said "hi" to us, always with a smile. One even stopped and talked to me about sushi (he was wearing a shirt with different kinds of sushi on it and I chuckled as he walked past me).

On the way back, SB and I decided to ditch the interstate and to drive back the entire way on county roads. I had a map of Kentucky so I was able to navigate through KY on county roads with no problem. When we hit Indiana we started navigating blindly, since neither of us had maps. It was quite an adventure, especially after sundown when there was no more sun to tell us which way was north. Eventually we found I-74 near Danville and made our way home. But it was so relaxing, passing through all of these small small small small small rural towns in Kentucky and Indiana.

Next week I'm (probably) going with another friend to the Cedar Points amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. I'm sure it'll be a blast!

-FCDH

Graduation!

Hi Everyone,

This past weekend, I finally graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Right now it feels so weird, to know that I'll probably never be back here in the capacity as a student in the future ever again, and to know that 4 years have passed already since I came in as a freshman.

On Thursday, my sister and my parents came over from Taiwan. Their plan was to spend 5 days in the US, including 3 days in Chicago and 2 days in Champaign. It didn't go off to a good start - I went up on Wednesday night, intending to just sleep overnight at O'Hare and meet them when they arrived on the early morning flight on Thursday. At O'Hare I found out that: the airport terminal closes from midnight until 5am, and that their flight was delayed from Wednesday night until Thursday afternoon because of the bad weather that was plaguing Chicago (I was really hoping for a tornado, as a parting souvenir gift from the American Midwest, but it never manifested itself. Boo). Thanks to the quick response of EE at midnight (Thank god she responded to my text message), I was able to crash at her place for the night.

The whirlwind tour of Chicago started on Thursday and went until Saturday. In the middle, we saw Grant Park, Millenium Park, an architectural boat cruise, and the Field Museum. I planned on doing more with my parents, but due to jet lag they were not up for doing all that was possible. Overall it was good. I took them to Giordanos, where they finally tried Chicago's stuffed crust pizzas (and loved it).

Hanging out with my parents definitely stressed me out, however. They are somewhat racist and conservative (my dad more so than my mom), which made it uncomfortable to have quality conversations with them. I swear, my dad is like the Taiwanese version of a Republican. I even had to convince my dad that Obama isn't a Muslim. Ugh. Sometimes I can't believe that I am actually their son.

On the first day they arrived, I was so happy at first to see them. Things started to go downhill as soon as my mom asked me if I had a girlfriend yet. I basically told her to stop living under the delusion that it was going to happen. And then she started to beg me to get a girlfriend. I almost lost it right there. It was hard to restrain myself, to keep myself from being disrespectful to my parents. If not for the fact that they were on their vacation, and the fact that I was trying my best to give back to them as a show of my thanks, I would have flipped out right there. She dropped it and it was never brought back up again for the rest of the trip, of which I am thankful.

I found graduation (both the campus and engineering ones) to be somewhat dull. I was yawning throughout and found my eyes wandering the crowd. In my opinion Bill Daley was a much better commencement speaker than the guy they had for the engineering commencement. I also had a lot of fun listening to the catcalls and whistles and other cheers that the audience had for different people....I'm pretty sure I heard a vuvuzuela at more than one point as well. I cheered for my friends when their names were called. It felt so weird walking across that stage, to shake both professors' hands, and to know that now it's officially over.

The last day in Chicago that I spent with my family was the best time I had with them. The weather was great, I took them to Sears Tower, and we ate Giordanos. It was a great way to cap off their trip. I tried my best to show them a great time here, so I am hoping that they had a great time here.

I took a couple of days break in the middle of writing this blog entry and my mood now is a lot better than when I had to say goodbye to all my friends. I know it will be hard to rebuild friendships and connections, but it is simply a process of life.

Next post about the trip to Mammoth Caves that I took.

-FCDH

My First Marathon!

Hi Readers,

This past weekend, I officially ran my first marathon! On April 30th, I participated in the Illinois Marathon and ran 26.2 miles! It was super exciting and it wraps up my last goal of finishing a marathon during my years in college. I can't believe that I only started running a year and a half ago. In my view, it is one of my biggest accomplishments in college, to overcome the physical barrier that had stood in the way of my running all during high school.

So to start off, I didn't put in anywhere close to the amount of training that I should have. Even for last year's half marathon, I put in a lot more training than I did this year. Thanks to the 20 credit hours that I am taking this semester, I really didn't have the time to run as much as I could. In the month and a half before the marathon, I only ran twice, and those were 13 and 6 mile runs respectively. So you can understand that I was really worried about the marathon as it approached: being able to see it coming, but not being able to run due to some homework or project that I had to work on. The only good advantage that I had this year which I did not have last year was the sleep I got the night before the marathon. Last year I carbo loaded so much the night before that I couldn't sleep the entire night because I was just pulsing with energy. This year I didn't carbo load too much (I went to a pasta dinner at Willard's house, which was nice) and because of that I was able to sleep for about 5 hours.

So the morning of the marathon I woke up feeling really worried (and tired - it was 5:30 am). Showered, got dressed, ate oatmeal for breakfast, and then I started the longggggg walk to the start line. The walk took me about 40 minutes, and I barely had time to drop off my bag at the gear check. Then the marathon started. Because I was so unsure of the time I would be around, I decided to stick with the 5 hour pace group. It might have been good because I could have started way too fast and died halfway through. It might have been bad because I could have gone at a more normal pace and not worn out my legs as much from each step. But I guess we'll never know which one.

The rest of the marathon (from mile 0 - 14) was a blur. It sounds so weird to say it, but they passed like nothing. Even by mile 14 I was feeling fine, as if I had not been running for about 2 and a half hours already. Granted it was at a horrendous pace (11:27 mile) but I was surviving! And then things started to go downhill (figuratively only, of course) from there. The sun came out and it became scorching hot. My feet started to hurt at around this point, and our pace group began to dwindle. We originally started with probably around 20 people, and by this time we had probably around 10 left.

There was a lady who really inspired me at this stretch (from 14-22 miles). She said that she had never been able to run past the 18 mile point, and that it always had been a wall for her and that she really wanted to push past it. So the entire group took it as our goal to get her past the 18 mile point. The last glimpse I saw of her was around the 22 mile mark, when I turned the corner and lost sight, but she was still running at that point! I was so proud of her.

By mile 20, every additional mile was a struggle. Each mile from mile 20-25 seemed to double in difficulty. There was a small uphill incline at around mile 24 that just killed me. But this was also the part when I started going ahead of the pace group. At this point my legs were beginning to cramp up from the slow pace that we were going (which put more stress on my thighs), while my hamstrings still felt fine. So I picked up the pace and began to use my hamstring muscles more. The last mile really flew by in a whirl, since I was running hard for much of it, to try and finish strong. If not for the strong headwinds that prompted me to walk right as I came into sight of the stadium, I would've had a much better time.

When I crossed the finish line that was like a huge sigh of relief for me. I got the medal (as everyone else did) for completion of the marathon. I finished in 4 hours and 57 minutes, which isn't a good time by any means, but leaves me plenty of room to improve in future marathons. I hugged my pace group leader for all his help to get us across the finish line (at around mile 24 there were only 3 of us left in the pace group. Everyone else had fallen behind).

I can't believe that I actually managed to do it. To me that seems like an incredible triumph. The willpower that it takes to do something like this is so hard to muster that I doubt normal people would be able to do it. Even though I say that everyone should be able to do the half marathon (and I still believe in it), not everyone can do the full marathon. But everyone SHOULD try and do the full marathon! Because the sense of accomplishment you feel afterward is so huge.

The outer arch of my right feet is still hurting from the marathon, I think because of my form. I will try to let it rest as much as I can in the meanwhile. Finals are done! Next post coming soon.

-FCDH