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?)

hindsight

what do you know, another year gone by. and almost an entire semester too! hooray for finals after break...

anyway, i haven't written anything in months, mostly because anything i try to write comes out of my head either in variables and equations, or lab jargon, and i haven't had the energy to convert it to normal, everyday speech.

i would take this chance to reminisce on the past year, except that my memory is too poor for me to remember what exactly happened, so i'll let this picture (status updates from facebook, with a nifty app to boot) sum it up.

a couple notable words/phrases in there, for example, "THERMO DIE", and "lipshitz", as they are integral to any memories of this past year. these defining moments will survive my poor memory, at the least.

anyway, enjoy the holidays and the last few days of the year - lets see what this new decade brings. gl hf dd mb.

\\edit: upon revision, i guess i haven't converted quite everything back to normal speech. have fun finding these lapses, if you wish.

we had fun...but its just begun...

so school's back in session.

three days and seven lectures in, i'm already wondering if i haven't bit off a bit too much. but hey, im still following what the teacher says, from homogenous equations to lagrangians.

an interesting side note, i think i will have no words to write this semester - the closest i'll get to english seems to be using a, b, c for variables. sweet =]

one odd thing i have been wondering during this early semester textbook buying spree. should highlighted books be worth more or less than a simple book? there is the obvious fact that a highlighted book is no longer 'new', and as such should diminish its value. but on the other hand, relevant points and key ideas are already distilled and duly noted. therefore the intellectual value of such a book has increased dramatically, and can/should surpass the material value of a brand new textbook.

anyway, thats enough random thought. back to them lagrangians.

E18

So I have a Canon SD870 IS which broke a few weeks back - the lens was stuck and couldn't close, and as a result zooming and focusing did not work at all. If i tried to push it I would get "Lens error, please restart camera" or something along those lines. As far as I can tell, it was the result of accidentally turning the camera on inside its case, so that the motors tried to force the lens open and failed.

A few days ago, having nothing to do on a summer day, I decided to take it apart and see what I could do. It was destined for the garbage the way it was, so there was nothing to lose. After taking it apart, I realized that I could - and did - fix the camera. The lens now opens and shuts nicely. These are some pictures I took with my sister's camera during disassembly to help me remember where the screws went.

A few notes: 1) I found later that the flash capacitor is sort of dangerous. Thankfully I didn't touch it, but just so you're aware. 2) The camera isn't fully fixed - the focus is still a little blurry, and I think this may be a result of my misaligning the gears inside, and/or smudging some sensors. In other words, if you try anything I take pictures of here, do so at your own risk.

To begin: the 'closed' position of my camera.

As you can see, the lens is non in a particularly good place, and is twisted at an odd angle.

Other side of the camera - this is what is behind the LCD screen (the black thing on the right is where the LCD attaches). The metal is the back plate, the black underneath is the lens assembly that I'm trying to remove, and the center metal plate is the back of the optical sensor (or whatever its called).

From the other side. In blue is the flash capacitor - don't touch that. In red is a section where there are two little tab thingies that you can pull out and reattach later; you can't open up the lens assembly otherwise since the orange ribbon is in the way. In green is a tab that you have to lift to open the thing up - there's gears inside, be careful you don't lose any.

Opened up the whole thing. What I had to fix was the inside few pieces, and you can remove them all. Just a note, the funny thing on the left side of the screen, you have to remove that and its attached ribbon before removing the rest of the lens. Its sort of annoying to thread through the hole in the lens assembly.

Screwed up part number one. It may not be apparent at first glance, but there are three ways to put this together (the little tabs being 120 degrees apart). Only one is correct. You'll know which one when it depresses all the way, hits a little spring, and closes the dust shutter, as shown below. Call the top one A, the bottom (with the lens) B.

Same two pieces together, A inside B.

The assembly in the picture previous (with the dust shutter) sits within this one. The problem was this was misaligned as well. Call this ring C, and the thing with the ribbon and the eye D.

The way this works, if I remember correctly: A snaps into the top of C, which keeps B inside. The little knobs around the rim (3 on A, 3 on B) should correspond to the 6 slots in the rim here of C. The weird thing about D is that it sits inside A. It may take a few tries to get the alignment correct. Again, this part D only sits in C in one particular way out of three - it should be able to rotate and follow the little tracks inscribed within C. One of the pieces has a smooth strip inside corresponding to where the ribbon on D is, make sure that is aligned as well.

When you've got everything aligned properly (you can use your hands to turn little knobs everywhere to test it), and if need be, cleaned properly, go and put everything back together. Make sure the lens is in the closed position when you put it back together with the outside gears, especially with the gearbox pointed out before (I think this is where I misaligned by a tooth or two). Screw everything else back, put the battery back in, and it might work =D

before summers gone

and so begins this humble blog.

so there's two days before i go back to college (yeah, we start late), and thought i'd do a few things before summers gone.

for one, i've started this blog (i had a xanga back in the day, but haven't written in years). i also just installed snow leopard (working very nicely =]), and took apart my canon digital camera to fix an e18 error.

what you can expect to see on this site:

-random stuff. not joking here, i get some really random ideas, which i can rarely resolve into a cohesive vector of thought.

-diabolo. love playing with this thing, and i'll put up performances and tutorials from time to time, hopefully.

-the occasional literary work, mostly short poems, which i toy around with every now and then.

keep going till the last day

summer sun's still moving on yet

before the summer's gone from sight

i'll spend the days with you

(in case you're wondering, thats not me. although i wish i could sing that well.)