Heat Wave

Dear Virginia,

It's only May and it's already upper 90's?!  While I love the reminder to Taiwan, I also miss cuo bing (剉冰) and bing sha (冰沙)

So, until you start opening up ice stands on every corner, please return the heat to Taiwan where it belongs.  (In fact, let's trade.  Taipei is expecting a high of 81 tomorrow)

Love,
Me

Mango and Strawberry cuo bing (剉冰) with Melinda and David

First Things First

Dear 長谷部さん、

I have to admit, I was a little surprised when I read in a book review that you wrote, "Order is the spice of life."  Order is great and all, but the "spice" of life?  Now granted, this book review had been Google translated from German to English on a book written in Japanese.  But still, I couldn't quite push the idea that when your friends approached you on a Friday night with, "You up for some fun?"  you would reply in a sort of nerdy excitement, "Yes!  Let's organize our sock drawers by color!."  It was enough to send me into gales of laughter. (It still is)

But then last week, I attended a church meeting where I learned that antitheses of fear, commotion and confusion found so prominently on our society are faith, order and love.  Order as in antithesis of commotion?  Not peace?  Not meditation?  Not any of those things that indicate not moving?

It gave new credence to your mantra.

Then again, I finally reached the part of your book where you were "quoted" to have said "order is the spice of life" and found that that's not what you said at all.  (Now granted, this is a rough translation supplied largely by Google and partly by the fact that "Miregi" isn't an English word - so I've improvised based off of my understanding of Japanese and mostly of Chinese characters.)  "While in Germany, I've adopted the attitude that 'Organization is half of life'.  If you try to stay organized on a regular basis, then your life and work will have order and discipline as well.  So, staying organized is an important part of my life.  I hate the feeling of not being ready.  The day after a game is lost, sometimes you just get frustrated and do not to do anything and the result is a messy room.  But the mess of the room will just lead to more frustration and despair.  If, instead, you start to organize, then your mind will also become organized in the process and your mood will lighten."

Okay, so, pardon my horrible translation.  One day I will understand you more than the gibberish that Google spits out at me.  It made sense now why you felt the need to be organized and I started to understand how you accomplish so much.  It's because you first focus on being organized and staying organized rather than my own method of living life, which involves running around endlessly trying to do everything while the upkeep of my own self and my own life falls into such disarray that I often fail to accomplish much of anything and if I do, it's much less than I what I had hoped for.

Saturday, I got up, with a long laundry list of things I needed to do but I started first with cleaning.  And organizing my life.

It was a great start.  In the process, I got my choir piece arranged.  I found a way to charge an old computer of my sister's.  All of this allowed me to talk to my sister in Paris without being overly worried about the things I hadn't yet done.

The spice of life?  Definitely.  

But since then, I've found that I could clean day after day after day.  And have you seen my lab?  I'm not sure it's been perfectly organized since the day it opened.  Meanwhile, research is just waiting and waiting and waiting for me to do something with it.  Any hopes of adopting the phrase, "Labview is the spice of life?"

Love,
Me

No, this isn't Hase-san but I found this
image in a folder that I use to post-process
images for research.  Apparently, at one time
I used this in a Matlab program.  Hilarious, no?

Ditch Digging

"I don't know if I can help, but I want to lend a hand" - Pretty People by Monkey Majik

Sometimes, I cry myself to sleep because I want more than I feel capable of.

I wish to help, to lift, to inspire.  I want the world to be a better place because I lived in it, even if no one remembers or notices what I have given it.

I am so small, so little, and my sphere of influence so insignificant.  My abilities are limited.  Despite my greatest wishes, I have no talents that I would say ever set me apart and distinguish what I have to offer.

When I would seek to change the world, I struggle simply to change myself.  Where I would hope to counsel, comfort and cheer, I find myself stumbling in my anxiety and often hurting those whom I seek most to help.

Would that the the desires of my heart could translate to something more than just a wish.  Would that the music, the beauty that I feel inside could express itself.

Instead I look in the mirror, I look at who I am, and what I accomplish and I marvel that I could ever dare to dream so much.

Would that I could be content with this simple work that I have been given.

My Lab

My sister came to visit me a few weeks ago.  She was pretty excited to see my lab...until she saw it, "Oh, this...is...your...lab?"  That is, until I opened up a hole in the floor and suddenly she saw my lab for what it is - a wonderful jumble of old equipment mixed with new technology and research uses.  After five years here, I would still not be surprised if I found another door, another room that I had never explored before.  Scope for the imagination, indeed.

Stairwell to my office

My jumble of a lab even though I just cleaned it

As seen from just outside my office

This randomly showed up one day on my office door. 
I have no idea what it means

Your guess is as good as mine

The graveyard of old electronics.  Just stacks and stacks
of old equipment.  I go here to explore when I get frustrated
with my current equipment failures.  

The view outside our machine shop

I'm pretty sure we have the first generation candy
vending machine.
A lever lifts up and slides the candy out.  I love it.  

Outside a room that doesn't have a laser in it anymore... I think

The microphone for our intercom
system.  Isn't it fabulously old school?

Justice of the Peace

Dear F4,

It's happened!  I told you that you would fall in love with me and my roommates.  Just like in the drama, the F4, who once were their greatest bullies soon became their biggest allies.

You knew that on certain mornings for the past few months, construction workers have been outside our apartment, making a racket and keeping us from sleep at early hours.

The other day, your smoke detector went off - blaring long and loud for a few minutes.  It wasn't like I wasn't already awake - the construction workers had been hammering for an hour already. 

Just at the alarm finished, outside my window, one of the construction workers stopped and turned to his coworker with an uncertainty in his voice, "What was that?" And I laughed - it was as though you were trying to retaliate.

Thanks for the thought, even if your bark is worse than your bite.

Love,
Me


Dear Law School,

When I walked past the night of graduation and saw everything still set up and in place, especially the X taped on the stage floor - it was really the X that did it for me - I couldn't resist making the careful walk up the ramp.  I walked carefully over to the X (lest I trip of course - this, after all, is what a degree boils down to) and received my imaginary law degree from the imaginary person who hands them out.  I waved out at the sea of black chairs.  I cheered and even thanked the Academy.  And then I turned around and bowed to the bigwigs on the stage.

My friend who was with me started laughing.  "It's not like you haven't graduated before," she reminded me.

"Not from law school I haven't," I responded with a certain amount of newly gained satisfaction.

But really, I kind of wanted to see what it would be like to graduate from UVa.  It sometimes seem as realistic as my high school mascot (unicorn).

Thanks for the stage - it made my little session of 'make believe' feel a little more tangible and a little less fantastic.

Love,
Me

My Boring Life

Last week, I sat at a computer for an average of 12 hours a day where I worked on Labview examining iteration after iteration of the same computer program.  In order to have something to talk about, I would look up everything I could about my favorite soccer player who just started summer break and so fell off cyber-radar, which led to more-boring-than-usual commentary.

Meanwhile, one of my sisters started her job as a barista in Alaska.  Another of my sisters has been adjusting to her life as an avocat in Paris.  And yet another went on a week long tour through New England.  *And the last one (as of May 31) just spent a week in California.

Every day I passed the University buildings on my way home, as chairs and tents and stages were set up in preparation for the thousands of students ready to take their diplomas and start on their new post-graduation adventures.

By Friday, as you can guess, I was feeling as drab and colorless as my newly cleaned lab.

It was with some relief then that my roommate asked me to accompany her to Richmond to pick up her parents from the airport.  We were early so while she stayed in the car to finish a thoroughly gripping book, I lay on the grass, and dreamed about life while staring at the wonder that is the SR-71 Blackbird.

VA Aviation Museum

It was equally nice to have a friend call me Saturday morning and rouse me from sleep, begging for a ride in the country.  We moseyed along until we reached one of her favorite lookouts on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  And then we sat and talked as we watched the butterflies.

Blue Ridge Parkway

And then another friend convinced me to go spend some time on our friend's farm, where we alternated between doing nothing in the shade and playing sports of all kinds in the sun.

Snow Hill Farm, VA

After that, we headed down to Richmond where we got to listen to some great talks from some great people. I even got to speak some Chinese.

And that was just part of my weekend.

Thank goodness for friends who like to save me from myself.

Time Capsule

Dear Self,

Remember playing pool at Grandma and Grandpa's house?  It was the best pool table you've ever had the chance to play on with the kind that allowed the balls to roll to the front after they dropped into a pocket.  You usually never made it past the first round of the brackets since that required you to beat your younger sister who was taller and bigger and better.  

While you watched the rest of the family run through the brackets of games, you would beg Grandpa to put in record after record on the nicest record-player/tape deck/CD player that you could buy in the 80's.  

Grand memories, all of them.

Here are some of the gems in Grandma and Grandpa's record collection:

Tommy James and the Shondells -  Sweet Cherry Wine (1968)

Elvis Presley - Witchcraft (1963)

The Ran-dells - Martian Hop (1963)

I dare you to listen to these and

(1) not tap your feet
(2) not dream of playing pool
(3) not wish you are eating Grandma's monster cookies
(4) not pretend you are sitting in Grandpa's leather chair

Welcome to the summer of Oldies.

Love,
Me

This recently came to my attention: Dixie Cups - Iko Iko (1965)