Sassy

@ Felix, NYC. An unforgettable brunch.

Yikes! What are little girls made of again?

Holding My Breath

I was contacted today by a HK publisher who wants to see if I would like to help in an English translation of Lung Yingtai's book Big River Big Sea: Untold Stories of 1949. I'm not sure what role I could play, but any involvement would be absolutely fantastic. I started my own translation project 2-3 years ago as a student at ICLP. That blog seems to landed on their radar, and I'm incredibly flattered that any official publisher would want anything to do with me.. especially since I'm no expert in this subject or in translation. Just a girl who had an interest.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I can actually help out on this amazing project.

[UPDATE] The publisher said that the author unfortunately granted the copyright to another publishing house. Better luck next time... !

+1 Goal in life -- get published. Somehow.

Thought Depository

It's Sunday morning and I'm brimming with energy. I just went to the Starbucks right below my apartment and ordered a breakfast set (smoked duck bagel and grande Americano), which I never do. I rarely buy Starbucks myself, and I rarely eat a solid breakfast. Starbucks is ridiculously expensive for what it offers, and for me it's more a matter of convenience rather than a matter of preference. Yet today I thought to myself, "I'll treat myself to a real breakfast and then I'll blog". And then I thought that my day could be efficient if I wrote while wearing the sample face mask that the lovely Jess M. mailed me all the way from San Francisco. By the time I'm done blogging, my face will be shiny and new! I squeezed the tube and this grey-bluish mush came out. It honestly smelled really freakin' sumptuous. I looked at the label and it said "blueberries, wild pansies, oats, grapes, vitamin E", which is very healthy... in my tummy. O_O I thought about giving it a tiny lick (but didn't?) They should really add a warning label so people keep this product away from children. All in all, these little things have made me a very happy camper today, I am an easy creature at times.

I woke up around 8:30am, sleeping 10 hours or so. But these hours weren't slept continuously, I had woken up several times during the night due to an experiment. For the first time, I slept on my couch instead of my bed. My couch is, I estimate, at least 6 inches shorter than my own body frame. My bed is 200cm x 100cm, and I always end up swimming in fabric. It should be obviously which piece of furniture is vastly superior. I did this experiment partly because I was too lazy to get up after doing some late-night reading (and dozing off), and also because I wanted to know how this couch would feel like should I have any guests over. I thought that the sheepskin cover would compensate for the lack of space, but now I know that fluffy wool is best appreciated during short sitting periods. Every responsible host should know these basics, and now I know that only tiny friends should be relegated to the couch. :)

I had particularly vivid dreams because I woke up several times in the night. None of my dreams were traumatic, but they ranged from the extremely mundane to the utterly fantastic. I know why I dreamed that I was cutting my toenails, um, because I actually need to cut my toenails (ew). Yes, I've reminded myself that I'm due for a pedicure anytime now, but I just haven't found the time for anytime. Maybe I will dream of this every night until I get it done (I will do this today)! But it is less clear why I dreamed that I was inciting a riot staged in a movie theater, where everyone was tricked into thinking that it'd be a 2 hour program but by the time we had sat there for 2 hours the show was only less than half way through. I was enraged and thought it was unjustified that the organizers could waste our time like that. Well hm, now as I type this out I can see that this is a clear analogy of certain frustrations at work, ha.... Another dream fragment that I remember was seeing an old high school friend of mine. I'm pretty sure that it was because I saw her picture somewhere on FB, and was wondering how she was doing. I'm usually pretty torn about people in the past like that -- on one hand I would love to get in touch, on the other hand I know that there's probably very little that we have in common anymore. Sometimes I wish that I had 厚臉皮 and was someone who liked to seek out and FB-friend people. I feel fine taking the initiative if I felt like we had a connection, but I'm very conservative with connecting with people circumstantially. Part of it is an awful ego thing (if I know it was not a deep connection, I don't want to be rejected), part of it is a selective privacy thing. But sometimes when I click around on FB I'll find an elementary school friend or HS friend who has gotten engaged or has given birth months ago. Even though I haven't talked to this person in ages, I feel so happy for them, and part of me wishes that I could extend this towards them. But I can't really, since we're not really friends anymore, FB or otherwise. That kind of sucks.

Ok that was a warm-up.


On a completely different note -- 

Recently I read an article on New York Times' Magazine about how Target compiles customer data and then makes predictions on their consumer habits based off certain buying patterns. The most fascinating topic of this article wasn't how ridiculously smart Target is on growing their customer base through consumer behavior, but the dissection of consumer behavior itself.

Researchers have figured out how to stop people from habitually overeating and biting their nails. They can explain why some of us automatically go for a jog every morning and are more productive at work, while others oversleep and procrastinate. There is a calculus, it turns out, for mastering our subconscious urges. For companies like Target, the exhaustive rendering of our conscious and unconscious patterns into data sets and algorithms has revolutionized what they know about us and, therefore, how precisely they can sell.

Now I've always wondered why it seems like I've become more and more unable to concentrate on one task for an extended period of time... with what seems like everyone in the modern world being diagnosed with some form of ADD, it wouldn't be too far to assume that there's something funky in city tap water these days. I remember in AP Biology I could spend literally half a day writing up my lab report, which usually spanned at least 20 pages long. Flash forward 10 years later, I can barely finish reading an article before finding myself scanning the subject title of another news item. And my brain doesn't multi-task well, so this habit is really no good. Despite how fascinating this NY Times article was, I had to remind myself multiple times to stop mentally skipping around just so I could freaking read this material to the very end. As I tried to understand the article's points on the formation of habits, I was simultaneously struggling to fight this ridiculous tendency to mentally wander... and then I reached this passage. Click.

Our relationship to e-mail operates on the same principle. When a computer chimes or a smartphone vibrates with a new message, the brain starts anticipating the neurological “pleasure” (even if we don’t recognize it as such) that clicking on the e-mail and reading it provides. That expectation, if unsatisfied, can build until you find yourself moved to distraction by the thought of an e-mail sitting there unread — even if you know, rationally, it’s most likely not important. On the other hand, once you remove the cue by disabling the buzzing of your phone or the chiming of your computer, the craving is never triggered, and you’ll find, over time, that you’re able to work productively for long stretches without checking your in-box.

HOLY SHIT. My shortened attention span is the product of bad habit!!!

Um, maybe you guys knew that all along, but I certainly didn't. :)

According to this article, habits are formed through a three-part process: cue, routine, reward. As social animals, humans generally enjoy receiving new information or feeling involved. Any series of actions that leads to such ends can become a habit, irresistible urge, or worst of all... an addiction. These days the reward of processing information comes at a very low cost, and the routine of doing so has very low barrier to entry. What do I mean by this?

For example, you're reading something. Say it is in newsprint and we're in the 1990s. Surely there questions will pop up as you encounter new information, but in the past you'd have wait until you could access resources to answer your questions. These resources could be your teacher, the library, your friends, or the internet... using your very modern 56K modem. Although questions are essentially cues for people to start searching for answers, the timelag or inability to reach such answers forms a routine that is only triggered for the most essential and urgent questions. Flash forward 20 years later (holy shit, am I really that old), we have super-duper fast internet speeds, Google, Wiki... the human natural tendency to ask questions may not have increased, but the ease of receiving immediate information satisfaction has promoted the habit of addressing each of these "cues" whenever they pop up. Perhaps too indiscriminately. Modern technology has commoditized data, and instead of carefully weighing whether certain questions are even worth immediate exploration ("Do I really want to wait 5 minutes for this damn webpage to load?!", circa 1995), we can just ask Siri. And if Siri is in a foul mood that day, at least we can quickly type keywords into the Wiki app on our smartphones. Boom -- there is your answer, the reward. However, surely this relief is quite fleeting because another question will pop into your head upon reading the answer... and before you know it, your original purpose and mission has been carried away by a strong current, a hyperactive habit loop stimulated by technology.

That is my hypothesis on why my attention span has suffered through the years. I know that this is a widespread symptom than spans our society, particularly those my generation and younger. We have developed this habit at such an impressionable and formative age, whereas in contrast my Mom finally uses Google at age 61 and pecks at the keyboard with just two index fingers (but now reliably sends me all the Jeremy Lin articles she digs up, yay!). 

I really really hate feeling mentally spastic. I don't think I was like this before. It seems like like instantly replying to text messages, answering emails, and even restocking my Tiny Tower is an addiction. Okay, I KNOW my Tiny Tower is an addiction!!! But I need to combat this since I'm not a very good multi-tasker... my biological RAM just ain't that big! :(

Well, I think the primary step is awareness. Being aware of the situation as it actually unfolds allows our rational selves to override the subconscious. Since habits are subconsciously processed mental loops, we must consciously go against the flow in order to form new options. The next time I really want to do something, like read a book or write on this blog, I have to minimize the involvement of conflicting cues. This stops the habit of mental wandering before it even starts. I can silence my phone, or close any unnecessary browser tabs. On the other hand, I can also work on forming an overriding habit of concentration by rewarding myself when I complete tasks that require a longer attention span. Right now I have spent two and a half hours typing out this particular entry, but the relief in being able to archive my thoughts is highly rewarding. Sharing ideas and getting feedback from my readers is also highly rewarding. :) Reaching the end these more arduous tasks really is more satisfying that responding to a barrage of random stimuli... there is a concrete reward that doesn't have you wonder what the hell you spent your time on today...!

But by all means, I'm not advocating that we all regress into cavemen and ignore the instant ease of information in lieu of more time-consuming pursuits. Employed at the right time and in the right way, instant data makes us so much more productive and happy than we have ever been (with exception to FB stalking your ex. I advise everyone to just please defriend if you cannot control yourselves). I explored this topic because I really do want to add more content that happen to require a longer mental investment. We're human, and are given glorious free will. It's awful to have to reduce a majority of our behavior down to a mere series of habits. I don't want think that I'm just a robot, doing things but not knowing why. That is why I really enjoyed reading that NY Times article, and spent a fair amount of time analyzing what it personally means to me. If you have read this blog entry to the very end, bravo! I tip my hat to your superior attention span. I also pat myself on the back writing this 2,100+ word entry, which is a big fat FU to ADD. :)

Oh and by the way, unless you want to have mayo disguised as breakfast, I'd stay away from the Starbucks smoked duck bagel sandwich. When I opened the bagel up, I found one sodden leaf of lettuce and an anemic looking slice of meat (not even 3cm long) drowning in mayo. Starbucks airball -- Mayo bagel sandwich, for 25RMB.

My skin also looks rejuvenated and smells like berries, and I didn't even attempt to eat the face mask. Another point for sustained concentration! :D

The Supers

It's that time of the year -- NYFW Fall/Winter 2012. I was lucky to get a glimpse of AW's coterie of supermodels (yes, there is a distinction between super/models) posing for a final photoshoot before the show. It's a blurry picture, but the ones unmasked are Gisele and Carmen Kass. Yes, they're amazons in real life too. :p

Neo, I think they may be looking for you.

It's so very weird to see these people in real life.

Tale of Two Hotpots

[ This post is 2 weeks late. Oops! ]

Yesterday was Chinese New Year, the first day of the Year of the Dragon according to the lunar calendar. According to reliable and generic stuff that I found on Google, 2012 is a Water Dragon year, which is just perfect for Wood Rat peeps like me... particularly for work and love (Which is more important? Can't I have it all?). I'm not particularly superstitious, but you can't help but root for yourself when someone tells you its your destiny. I'm destined to kick ass this year. #winning

My brother took us to Minni's Shabu Shabu in Flushing to celebrate our [lunar calendar] birthdays, since I was born on New Years Day and my mom was born the day after. Our family has always been rather traditional and gone by moon vs. the Western calendar, like a pack of werewolves. Anyway, because I was born on CNY, I like to think of myself as a SUPER rat. Sounds gross, but Rat people are totally awesome. The Rat beat out all the other animals in the zodiac race with its wits, which makes Rat people number one in my book. And because I'm the firstborn of the rat pack, that makes me UBER NUMERO UNO!!!!! When I was a kid what that meant was that I got a little bit more money in my red envelopes due to this birthday factor. That was awesome, too bad I'm too big to get red envelopes anymore. :(

I told my brother that I was going to name this post "Tale of Two Hotpots" (a la Charles Dickens, get it?) because after lunch we went to our grandparent's house and had hotpot again. He said "please don't?", which is enough reason for me to do it. :) Just wanted to let you guys know that I was actively thinking of cheesy post titles.

I had to coax these two prudes into SHARING one beer with me to celebrate our birthdays.

My mom told me that she felt drunk and couldn't drive afterwards, oops!

Group photo with all our spoils.

Beef, lamb, fish, clams. Pickled mustard (酸菜, my favz!), kimchi, assorted veggies.

After lunch, Andrew and I head down to our grandparent's place to celebrate CNY over hotpot again! It was so nice being home, except one has to remember that grandparents have relatively low batteries and have to recharge frequently, which means that sometimes you only get to spend a few hours with them before they start passing out. HAHA.

Grandma making me a mug o' tea.

Grandpa picking out the nuts that he likes to eat the best...

...leaving the crappy ones in the bowl for the rest of us to eat.

Andrew initiating a tickle-fest with dad.

Real men don't fight with fists.

Dad's ingenious way of ensuring that the Grands don't screw up the TV settings when they start mashing buttons. There's only 3 buttons available -- enlarge, on/off, volume.

My grandparents were quite festive decked out in CNY red. My grandma wore a really cute red-checkered headband too, and I thought that my grandpa kind of looked like a Ninja Turtle with his green puffy vest. He brought out a bottle of red wine and we poured them into any type of eating receptacle we could find -- rice bowls, mugs, shot glasses. Really classy, the lot of us!

With Big Baba.

Actually Andrew is covertly tickling dad underneath the table in this photo. The torture never ends, even at dinner.

I just realized while looking at this photo that Andrew is indeed taller than me.

I like to reminisce upon those years when Big Sis relied on raw strength and viciousness to stay Alpha Dog...

Someone (Vicki) called me a creeper for taking this photo of my grandparents passed out in a food coma, but I thought this was the cutest ever. :) Love love love. 

So yes, Vicki actually made it out all the way to Flushing after work to celebrate CNY with my family! She was nice enough to bring a ginormous mango mousse cake and a bunch of fruit. Her mama raised her right, I'm even going to write her a reference! I was really happy to be able to spend this holiday with my family and best friend. Couldn't ask for more!

Off into the wild you go, little one.

HAPPY YEAR OF THE DRAGON!!!

Hmm, how do I REALLY feel about birthday cake?

While looking through last Saturday's photos, I realized that my reaction to my birthday cake may have been a wee bit confusing/extreme...

Yup, bipolar.

:p

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Hawaiian-themed party! Figured that I had to get lei'd somehow. :)

On Being 28

This is the most lady-like pose I could find.

Because I is a grownup now.

28 is not a very interesting number, generally speaking.
It's not 1. 5. 16. 18. 21. 25. 30. 50. 75. 80. 99. 100.

But regardless of how ordinary 28 is, each uptick is worth a slash of reflection, like penciling in how much you've grown against a doorjamb. In intervals of 5 (going backward from 28), my doorjamb would look like this:

THREE: I don't have many memories at this age, but I was still living at my first house at Jackson Heights at the time. I remember having a green parrot and Rufella, my indispensable Cabbage Patch friend. I remember musty carpets and curtains with retro floral prints. I remember once reaching for scissors on the table and snatching them #winning. Obviously my parents didn't child-proof the place, but I turned out fine! My mom always says that I was the cutest baby and that EVERYONE on the street would always stop to take photos of me. She tells me this each time we see each other, and I know she's rather proud that I'm her spawn. And then she usually proceeds to tell my brother that he was not cute and that is why she did not take photos of him. (Typical Asian mom.) But I've seen my baby photos and objectively I think she's talking out of her butt. Yea I was pretty cute as an infant with dumplings (cheeks) dripping down my face, but as a toddler I looked really really strange. I was a mini Rock Lee from Naruto, round spherical eyes, bushy eyebrows, bowl haircut and all. The unsexiest three-year-old in the world. Imagine that.

EIGHT: My parents threw me only two real birthday parties in my entire life, once in 2nd (or was it 3rd) Grade, the second time for my Sweet Sixteen. Now that I think about it, it must have been 3rd Grade because I distinctly remember the pain of not being invited to some idiot girl's birthday party in 2nd Grade when most of my other classmates were. Ah, it's it funny how those things meant the world back then? When my mom actually threw me my first birthday party, it was the best ever. For once, I felt like things working in my favor. I don't remember exactly what games we played (tag? freeze tag?) or even what party favors we gave out (Lisa Frank erasers?), but my parents splurged on my gift and got me a nautical themed Swatch. It was cool and practical, and a big deal since all I had gotten prior to that were uncool practical presents like flashlights. I will always appreciate my parents for indulging me with that party. That's how well my parents raised me.

THIRTEEN: I would say that the milestone that year was that I got my very first kiss that summer (uh, at Taiwan's "Tugboat" summer program). It was a huge deal for an awkward girl like me, who towered over all the boys in the playground like a female viking. Amazingly that dude ended up being my first boyfriend and went to Senior Prom with me a few years later. Even though our relationship ended up in a ball of flames my Sophomore year of college, we managed to get over the drama and are friends to this day. Getting some action at such a tender formative age (closed lip smooch, none of that nasty hanky panky) did wonders for my self-esteem! I was also on the swim team and was kicking ass, but then my parents wouldn't allow me to swim more than 3x a week like the other pr0 kidz (who were swimming 2x a day). They were afraid that it'd interfere with my schoolwork. I guess they had a more realistic handle on my probability of making the Olympic team than I did. To their delight, I switched my goals to become a doctor...

EIGHTEEN: but that was dashed when I dissected a bullfrog in AP Bio when I realized that I couldn't deal with slicing flesh for a living. I got into college and moved into a dorm room on campus. College was an opportunity to finally take destiny into my own hands, finally unshackled from parental control. Needless to say, I did terribly unhealthy stuff, like operate under a vampiric sleep schedule, stuff myself nightly with fried foods, and drink Smirnoff Ice. I was a rebel! Oh, but then I had to go back home every other weekend (the drawback of going to college in NYC). :p Aside from learning about "being an adult", the nice thing about going to school was that I could try to avoid things at home, until...

TWENTY-THREE: everything finally imploded. Oftentimes I felt like more of an adult than the adults in the room. If you have parents who are still married then count yourself (ironically) lucky to not have to do every holiday twice. I even had one parent go to Commencement and the other to College graduation. It was horrible. Things are much better now, but I wanted to gauge my eyes out with splintered pencils back then. After college, I landed a dream job at a now-bankrupt investment bank (GUESS, it rhymes with PEEMAN). It was 2007 and I got a bonus that was 133% of my base salary, so yea I felt like a BSD at the time. I wore ill-fitting suits with stiletto heels that hurt. I bought my first designer handbag. And I started a bad habit of spending my future earnings. Yes, I was finally reaping the rewards being an overachiever! Needless to say, that glory was rather fleeting and I don't think I'll be making MD at 30 anymore.

TWENTY-EIGHT: I don't answer questions like "Where do you see yourself in five years" as a matter of principle. You can predict that you want to be an astronaut from age 8-13... or that you still want to be the most popular girl in school from age 13-18. Or maybe that you want to marry your high school sweetheart. But our childhood is contained in such a controlled environment, and this is the real world. Here, countless variables collide into each other everyday... so you're bound to come out with some really funky results. Like primordial soup! After what I've been through from 23-28, I don't know where I'll be or who I'll be with or what I'm doing within a one month span. So don't even talk to me about one year. Or five years. I just know that tomorrow I'm going to spend a little more time getting ready for the day because this lass is gettin' old!

Now that I think about it, 28 doesn't seem that ordinary anymore. It feels ripe for the picking. Expecting and pregnant. It's an age when I still feel young enough, but have responsibilities to myself and everyone else around me. It's also an age when I feel old enough, but am unattached and relatively carefree. I like it. I also liked 27 because any year that is crammed with content is a good year. I expect 28 to be even better though. :)