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| I have also decided that I'm going to use the blogspot journals. After looking at so many of them, I think I've come to really appreciate their simplicity.
If you'd still like to read my thoughts, please go to sanlwi.blogspot.com.
I hope you're all well. :)
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| I went to watch The Dark Knight for the second time last night with Aki due to a spontaneous call forty minutes before the movie started in SF. Oh...and it was excellent. I enjoyed it just as much the second time, even though I felt it was a little harder to watch on the IMAX screen because I was off at an angle and it was difficult to visually take it all in at once. The music was still amazing (go Hans Zimmer!), and I think the IMAX version definitely allowed the watcher to appreciate the score more. I really love Batman and the ideals he symbolizes. I am obviously going to marry Batman one day, so all you ladies, please step down. Haha.
Anyway, the reason why I'm writing something about the movie when I didn't last time is because re-watching it this time allowed me to focus more on what they were saying and less on trying to keep up with the plot amidst the intensity. For those of you who haven't watched it, obviously, don't read this.
Joker: "You'll see, I'll show you, that when the chips are down, these uh... civilized people, they'll eat each other.
Joker: "Why don't we cut you up into little pieces and feed you to your
pooches? Hmm? And then we'll see how loyal a hungry dog really is...
Joker: "You just couldn't let me go could you? This is what happens when an
unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are
incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense
of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too
much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever...
There's obviously something about the Joker that makes him intensely interesting. Despite his calls for anarchy and chaos, the only way he can do what he does is because he organized. But even more interesting though, is the way he has an almost simple, commonsensical understanding of what he believes to be human nature. And most of the time, he's right. I want to be like Commissioner Gordon, who is good and believes in good. He's such a great character, because to be able to stay good and believe in people when everything around you is corrupted is rare and requires unbelievably strong convictions and an uncompromising mind. There are times though when I share the Joker's cynicism, and I expect what he expects. Watching the movie almost makes me feel weak, because I'm not sure - if I were put in those situations - that I would be able to stay like Batman when I could easily become Two-Face.
That's what makes the movie great though, I think. It shows human nature when it's good and bad, but it's really about being good, and striving to be better. It's about being mentally and physically strong, and about being incorruptible. It's about being willing to sacrifice for the people, even when they may not understand or appreciate it. I love that.
I don't think I'll ever be able to be exactly like Batman, but I too will strive to be incorruptible.
I love you Batman.
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| There were two things that I read/heard today that I wanted to note down. The first one because it struck me as very true, and something I strive to work towards. And the second one because it was thoughtful and well written, and coincided with another thing I had heard today. The second one is long, and most people unfortunately will skip over it, but it's very beautiful. I hope he doesn't mind.
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act
rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those
because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not too long ago my girlfriend called me crying.
She told me rather sorrowfully that she did not pass a certain
standardized test, a test that tells her and all the others taking it
whether or not they will be able to move on in their respective
curriculum. Not too long before the test, she expressed to me her
fearful anxiety about the possibility of not passing. and she cried when
she realized that all her years of toil and hardwork might be all for
naught. Well, the test day had come, and afterwards, it had appeared to
her that all her fears were true.
She didn't pass. She wasn't good enough.
For those of you who have taken career-hinging standardized tests,
surely you the know the feeling. I know it well, not only having felt
it myself, but also through consoling other people as they went through
their test struggles. The feeling of the weight of your future resting
on a single numerical value is extremely stressful, and for most of us,
this stress doesn't leave until we know we achieved the score that we
want. Until then, we feel lost. Scared. Apprehensive. Inadequate.
We don't feel like ourselves
because
we don't know ourselves.
And when we don't get the score we want, we see this as only validating
our worst fears -- that indeed, we are not as good as we thought we
were. We were actors merely masquerading as students, wearing the guise
of expertise in our fields, using our lecture notes as our script, and
our grades and GPA as masks and makeup, knowing all along that one day
a single test would expose us as fraudulent. We were never good enough.
Or so the score indicates.
But in the span of our lives, what does a single test score really mean?
I was always a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, that
destiny is achieved not by fate but by choice, and that life is always
there for the taking. We must merely muster up the courage to reach out
far enough and grab it.
I believe that we as humans are products of the journeys that we do and
do not take, and that one misstep, stumble or fall does not
encapsulate, in itself, the meaning of our lives. Nor do several
missteps, stumbles or falls. We are defined by how far we have
traveled, where we eventually choose to stop and whether we journeyed
as far we could or failed to realize our potential.
We are judged as the people we are at the end of our journey, not as the people we were at the starting or midpoint.
And so it is my theory that a single test score can never tell this
whole story. A room full of test scores could never encapsulate or define
our lives. Rather, it is we that define our scores.
We live in a society that is quick to affix labels to everyone and
everything. Pass. Fail. Accepted. Rejected. High score. Low score. And
for some reason we cling to these labels, and they become our new
masks, our new makeup. They become our new guise which we use to cloak
ourselves, for better or for worse, in this society. But what we fail
to see is that society's definition of ourselves is exactly that --
society's definition.
It is not the definition that we have chosen; rather, it is merely the
one we have chosen to live with. So if we are not happy, why must we
live with these definitions any further?
Why not define ourselves? Why not choose to create ourselves from the inside out rather than the other way around?
I have a photograph of a river stream displayed on a wall in my house.
In the photograph next to the stream are a bunch of rocks stacked upon
each other, seemingly structured to look like a makeshift person. Right
next to the rocks is an inscription that reads: "Life is not about
finding yourself. It's about creating yourself."
Now, I never really took the time to delve deep into the symbolic
meaning of the photo, but now that I think about it, I believe that
pile of rocks is meant to represent us as individuals -- that we as
humans are conglomerations of jagged little pieces, pieces that don't
quite fit together perfectly, but are homogenous nonetheless.
And perhaps these pieces represent our experiences that -- viewed in
isolation -- may be hard, heavy and even hurtful to carry. Yet, we
carry them nonetheless, and it is up to us to put these
pieces/experiences together -- not according to convention or some
instruction manual, but as we see fit, so that when we take a step
back, we may be able to see the outline of a person, a human being. And
maybe then we can be proud of the pieces we have put together, the
person we have created that although imperfect,
is our very own nonetheless.
There are those who shine and there are those who are luminous. Those
who shine are merely reflections of their surroundings, basing their
internal value on external sources. They require the light of the
outside to dictate the value of themselves, whether it be compliments
from others, good grades on transcripts, high salaries or even a
desirable physique. They are merely reflections, for absent this
external light they go unnoticed and unremarked.
On the other hand, there are those who are luminous, those whose light
and value are intrinsic, their worth rooted internally. These are the
ones who shine regardless of the outside circumstances, and who do not
determine their own worth based on the words and actions of others.
Much like a lantern that is able to shine its brightest in the darkest
of caverns, in the most dire and difficult situations the light of a
truly luminous person only becomes more apparent.
And so I ask you, do you wish to be merely shining reflection of the
world, or do you strive to be luminous and emanate from within?
Do you let the world tell you who you are?
Or do you define yourself for the world to know?
- Matthew Tabo
Excellence and Luminosity. My eternal goals.
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| I haven't written in a long time. I guess nothing has really changed, it's just work and lab and club all day every day. Summer's almost here though, and since I rarely write about what I'm doing, here are some of my summer plans!
Top 3 Priorities!
1)Study for the GRE
2)Take the GRE
3)Get STELLAR scores on the GRE
if you want to help, study with me, or lend me your brain (now accepting applications, please turn the completed form to me by the end of july at the latest), let me know! ^_^
Let's see... what else?
I'm waiting to hear back from my lab about the Staff Research Associate position that they're offering. My lab manager says I'm 95% in, they just have to open it to the public because that's the university's policy, and can't make promises in case they find someone better than me. The listing closes in two days though, and I haven't heard any bad news yet, so I'm pretty optimistic! I'll be running a lot of physio stuff for the dementia study, which will give me a chance to work with a clinical population. I'll also get to meet the Prof every week or more which will give me a strong letter of rec, so I'm really hopeful about this position. Plus I won't have to commute far, and I'll only have to work on specific days, so that'll give me more time to study and do things I want to do.
I'm still working at the Culture lab too, doing translating work for them because they have a lot of studies that go on in Asia. I've also had to proofread theses and stuff of people from overseas, and that was NO fun, but useful in letting me know the process of writing a research paper, and what the publishers look for when you submit one.
I hope to start my own study over the summer. I'm interested in looking at clinical and sociocultural things in general, but I wanted to look into the way peoples racial stereotypes influence their choice for potential mates, (both ingroup and outgroup stereotypes), and what the origins are. I mean, just within Asians, we have stereotypes and rankings. Chinese people normally will rank the Koreans and the Japanese much higher in their "internal ethnic hierarchy", whereas Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians are seen as much less favorable. Beyond that, we normally will rank Caucasians higher, whereas Hispanics and African Americans are seen as extremely unlikely potential mates. I'm not saying I support this, but I find it interesting. I want to look into whether it's something that's mainly taught from one's parents, whether it's just a result of pervasive cultural stereotypes, or if it's a result of stereotypes we have about a culture and their socioeconomic status, or earning ability. I really hope someone else doesn't do this before I do, haha. But if they do, than I'll at least get to see what they found. I'm going to have to read a lot of papers to see how other people went about measuring things like stereotypes and parental influence on things, but I'm hoping it'll be fun!
I have to start looking into where I want to apply. I don't really want to go to So Cal so much, doesn't really seem to fit my style, I really want to go to someplace like Berkeley: extremely diverse, things are within walking distance, nice weather, smart and mellow people.... I'm hoping, anyway. I also want to continue martial arts, so a place that has a good program would be ideal. Most importantly though, I have to look into the professors there, and what they study, and whether I would want to work with them.
I'm going to be moving soon! I'm moving into a two bedroom apt for the first time, with Aileen. It's not too far from campus either, so that's very nice. :)
Still going to do Judo and Taekwondo over the summer. It's definitely been fun, and I still meeting new people, and hanging out with the old ones. Helping TA has also been really fun, Phong and Justin are a hilarious but very good teaching team. An older teacher of mine said this, and I agree, that the longer we stay, the more we feel that the group of people around us stay the same age while we get older and older, haha. It's like a picture of dorian gray, of sorts.
I want to travel some this summer! I hope to go camping with some friends towards the end of June, and maybe to the Grand Canyon and then Vegas or something when my boyfriend gets back from South America in July. (I want to go too! But he's going for THREE weeks. Poop.) Sometimes I wish I didn't have to work in lab all the time, so I could work, make enough money, and just travel and live in different places, like my friend Katy. It's ok though.. hopefully I'll be able to do that when I'm in grad school, or after that. I can be patient.
Mm..what else. I just finished re-reading the Great Gatsby again, and I appreciated it much more, now that I'm older. I think I may try to read Catch-22 and Wuthering Heights before I get to the Count of Monte Cristo. That book is way to heavy to be lugging around on the BART.
I think that's it!
Congratulations to all the graduating seniors this year! I'm glad I got to go to your ceremonies/graduation receptions! ^_^
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| Since when have I let tiredness stop me from working?
Forgive me, for I had forgotten.
I remember now.
What Work Is
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.
- Philip Levine
Because blood runs thicker than water.
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