double effect?

it...kinda sucks when people make a remark that hits you right in a sore spot.

its even worse when they mean it in innocently; that is, while unaware of...complicated circumstances.

on a side note, alcohol and sight reading on piano do not mix very well.

movin' on out

moved to tumblr. simpler to post and such, and nice, clean layouts. see you on the other side!

its the small things

that make life wonderful, that screw you over, and that i always seem to take for granted.

walking out of colonial on the way to lab this morning, i crossed the lawn, feeling the heat of the sun on my arms, breathing the nice, crisp, grassy air. to be honest, i miss playing golf; i truly love the sport, with all its joys and frustrations. in retrospect, golf has made me who i am - every aspect of my personality could probably be traced back to lessons i learned the hard way at tamarack golf course.

im glad those sudden sensory inputs reminded me again of those thoughts, that regardless of the things i have to worry about, regardless of whether i've been successful in lab, with girls, or with cooking, as long as some of those little things fall into place each day, i can and should be a happy man.

life is good =]

its gettin hot over here

so throw the water on 'em!

for some reason, my room at home is consistently the hottest in the house - two fans on 24/7, windows open for optimal circulation, electronics well ventilated, but still, the heat persists. i managed to escape this suffocating heat one day by going out to play diabolo with my friends. twas good fun, and here is the fruits of our labor:

and the hilarity inbetween is here.

in other news, i'm moving back to colonial in a few days. i found out two days ago that what i thought were my research funds were in fact a stipend for me to use on housing, food, whatever i want. to save myself from waking at 6 or 7 and fighting rush hour every morning (and that labwork could extend to really quite bizarre hours), i'll be living in the good ole club. unfortunately, this room is...even hotter. i've spent half a semester purely on heat transport in all forms; if only that'd help in these kinds of situations.

as for the lab work, i'm kinda scared. each year, i've certainly learned more and more, but at the same time have realized the increasing scope of what are 'known knowns'. the former is perhaps linear, and the latter is...some ridiculous exponential. regardless, the net result is humbling. i've always been at ease with my own insignificance in the big picture (i mean, my internet name is n3mo, or nobody), but working with all these unbelievably bright people is like putting the island of taiwan next to jupiter and going "hah, you're small, n00b. GG."

at the least, they all seem to be really nice people. i'll be working alongside them all summer (and perhaps for years), so that is certainly a good start.

its going to be another summer of new things - labwork, the AFM, cooking (oh teh horrors), etc.

lets do this.

last night as i lay thinking here...

its an odd thing - finals are over, soph year is done, my mind should be at its most relaxed, and most devoid of random thoughts and distractions. but in spite of that, im finding it hard to sleep. normally, my thoughts just fragment and lose all cohesiveness until i fall asleep, but lately they stay rational. too rational for my taste. instead of greek letters and orders of magnitude, i get replays of events and conversations that happened in the past days and weeks.

perhaps it is simply that my brain has nothing else to exert itself on, and so its amusing itself by playing through all the possibilities - had i turned left instead of right, said this instead of that, raised an eyebrow or laughed, what would have happened?

I hate these WhatIfs.

i had long ago convinced myself that such thoughts serve only to drive one mad (if i did this for every shot on the golf course i would probably have went off the deep end ages ago), but it doesn't help now. i guess the only solution is to work like mad for the entire day, so that there is no choice but to sleep out of exhaustion.

your laughter.

take bread away from me, if you wish

take air away, but

do not take from me your laughter.

next to the sea in the autumn,

your laughter must raise

its foamy cascade,

and in the spring, love,

I want your laughter like

the flower I was waiting for,

the blue flower, the rose

of my echoing country.

laugh at the night,

at the day, at the moon,

laugh at the twisted

streets of the island,

laugh at this clumsy

boy who loves you,

but when I open

my eyes and close them,

when my steps go

when my steps return,

deny me bread, air,

light, spring,

but never your laughter

for I would die.

pablo neruda's love poems are just...well, i've never seen better. i wish i was better with words, but alas, as prince hamlet said, "i am ill at these numbers."

waking moments

it is those times where my mind is at its least collected (the semiconscious post-7:50 am-alarm state, the 3 am pset sessions, etc.), when i begin to ask, 'why'.

they're pretty boring questions, i suppose - why am i awake, why do i go to class, why does it all matter?

but even then, i am able to answer far less of these than i'd like.

nemo.

“I am Nobody – who are you?

Are you Nobody – too?”

-Emily Dickinson

In an almost hidden corner of a page, these short lines caught my eye, in that same, oddly insignificant way that I first laid eyes upon a golf club, the same way I first set my hands on a piano; it is the same way that a pebble in an ocean has negligible effect. I flipped onwards to my assigned reading, but these short words nudged at the edge of my mind, dormant still.

It took me a few years; it was in fact four years later when they resurfaced in my mind, when they pulled together some random vectors of thoughts and resolved them into one, creating, finally, one coherent idea – I am nobody.

It is a term that engenders much confusion, and not a few raised eyebrows. As the self-termed “cripple” Nancy Mairs noticed, others wince when we use such odd terms to define ourselves. It is an odd attitude, I grant you, especially here in an ivy league college where everyone seems out to establish their name in the field. But then, I am neither a burned out, unmotivated teenager, nor an unsuccessful student trying to hide behind a comfortable curtain of anonymity. To be nobody is not to be apathetic, but to be free; Captain Nemo, for example, and the Count of Monte Cristo, realized the freedoms of such a self-image long ago. Under the knowledge that one is free from the complications of fame, pride, and reputation, if one can continue to work simply for the sake of curiosity, then this work is worthwhile.

And thus, from this ideal, my goal – I hope in the future to be able to accomplish that which transcends personal achievement, so much so that a personal appellation is unneeded; I hope that I will someday be worthy of the title – Nobody.

(for those wondering, nemo is the latin word for 'nobody'.)

a field

There is a field somewhere, softly sloping and covered with grass. Not the kind of grass one finds in front of perfectly manicured mansions; this grass is healthy, real grass, neat and messy in perfect disorder. It is neither sunny nor overcast – slightly cloudy, so that the world is softly glowing even when my eyes are closed – that is the most illuminating light. A slight breeze steps by, with just enough motion to make its presence known, just enough so that I know that it is there, yet not quite enough for me to feel it. I do not disturb, and am not disturbed.

There is, in a slight rise, a tree; it is wholly unremarkable, but smooth and comfortable – I can lean at its base, I can perch on a trunk, I can swing on the branches. Its shadow is cool, the bark having a firmly yielding surface. Sometimes the hardest pillows feel the softest; perhaps it is a birch.

There is water somewhere nearby, and with the wind, refuses to let the air remain stagnant. They ask my mind to wander, while keeping me lightly anchored to the field. The birds beat out a light snare with their wings, the crickets fiddle away, and the tree shapes a harmony to match. I hear it all and hear nothing - it is the final resolution of the scattered vectors of my thought.

There is such a field somewhere...but I have yet to find it.

(side note: sketched that at least four years ago...written a different version of this 'there is a field somewhere' at least three or four times too, but the idea has been the same. funny how some things never change, hm?)