As overly-analytical this may seem, I always evaluate conversations I have with people, my personal “conversational style” and ways of interaction with other people. After talking to my sister and some friends, I’ve come to conclude that I am one who is “asking the questions.” I keep the conversation flowing, and mostly direct my questions about that person. Somewhere in-between, I’ll interject my own comments or my personal experiences. But more often than not, rather than being inquired about, I throw in little things going on in my life — perhaps in a subconscious effort to make up for other peoples’ lack of “asking the questions.”

While it makes for easy and non-awkward conversation, it also leads to other “consequences”: first, it leads others to become used to my “quizzical” nature, and people become used to talking about themselves (or continue to always talk about themselves in future conversations, because let’s face it — most people love to hear their own voices). Second, on my end, I learn a lot about the person I am talking to. While this is a good thing, I have recently realized that this also leads to a self-delusion: that I think I am close with someone, because I know so much about them, but that they really know not that much at all about me.

Some people don’t mind that others don’t know too much about them; some even prefer it. I wish I could say that I would prefer people not know much about me, and I wouldn’t be having this dilemma in my head at all, but then I would be lying to myself. As much as I am “independent,” sometimes “closed” or “not available” and “to-myself”, I cannot deny that I need daily interaction with people to be happy. Even if I am more introverted than extroverted, I have always had a need to connect with people or people I am close to. So when I realize that my relationships with people are sometimes more one-sided, and that I actually know a lot more about their lives or about them than they know about me/my life, it’s a bit disheartening.

My sister and I had a conversation that I’ve come back to think about quite a few times now — We were talking about our “questioner”/”listener” roles in a conversation, and I claimed that it is nice when somebody asks how you are doing, as a general question. I said that in the context of what the “opposite” would be, which is not ask anything about you (even if it’s general), and just answer/talk about themselves the whole time. My sister, on the other hand, interjected and said, “Yes — but mostly asking ‘how are you’ is a common courtesy and a lot of times just thrown out there because [the person asking] feels bad that they have been talking the whole time.” She continued to say that, “I don’t want people to just vaguely, and out of a tiny sense of guilt, ask ‘how are you?’” which I proceeded to agree with… And she helped me come to the conclusion that it shouldn’t be so difficult for others to ask about specific aspects of my life/life events/etc., to pick out those details and ask about them, because I would do the same. When somebody just generally asks “how are you?” it’s so easy for the other person to shut down and say “I’m fine,” and continue onto “well how about you, tell me about your life…” While I may do that to people I tend to not open myself up to, I also do not always shut down right away. When I talk to somebody else, I can pick out aspects or have specific incidents in his/her lives to ask about, because I care to remember these things (even if I do not have the best memory in the world) and want to know about it. But does the other party want to know about little things in my life? More likely than not, I don’t feel like they do.

So at the end of the day, what should it be? You can’t change somebody to want to ask more about your life or want to know about how you are doing, over talking about their own lives. If someone has the opportunity to talk out loud or have someone to rant to, more likely than not, they’ll take it. And as a friend and a listener, I am willing to do so. But am I willing to continue to build relationships with people under the false impression that we are such good friends, that we are so close, when in fact it’s really more of a one-way street? I’m not so sure. Do I try and tone down my “questioning” …and see what the other person does — if anything — and says instead? I don’t feel like this so-called “questioning” (although I honestly do not feel like it’s as much questioning as making conversation… am I wrong here?) takes over a conversation, because like I said before, if people do not ask me, I usually will share bits of my life too (again, I guess a subconscious effort to feel like the other party actually wants to know?). Or do I just invest my time in people (and I have, very few but there are those few out there…) who actually care enough to ask about my life and tell me about theirs? Is the world so limited to those few people? Are we all so self-absorbed nowadays that we can listen to ourselves talk for conversations at a time about our own lives that we leave no room/desire to hear about other people’s lives?

I’ve quoted this once before in my blog and I will do it again –

“He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.“ – Albert Camus

I hope I’m not a fool..

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…we will meet again in less than 8 hours.

Traveling to Hong Kong for three days with my family.

I have yet to write about my amazing, epic 3-week adventure to London, Amsterdam, and Greece. That will come soon enough. 

Until then… I will be enjoying my last days in Taipei, Hong Kong, and EDC!

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It’s hard to motivate myself to study for certain subjects in school sometimes because it feels like the material I’m learning will hardly help me in the “real world.” I think that’s a problem most students face nowadays, and I wonder: is the disconnect between “book studies” and “real world application” actually there, or is it something us students make up?

I guess I’d say it’s both – for some material taught, it really is all “book studies” and yet for others it can be very applicable. I can see students (like myself too, sometimes) using the “it’s not even going to help me in real life” excuse to get out of studying, even though in the end it probably doesn’t affect anyone but themselves…

Or, I could view this “disconnect” another way: the lack of motivation for me to study for certain subjects/classes is manifested in me spending my time doing other things, such as participating in the #SocEntChat May 2009 that happened yesterday afternoon. Let’s digress for a second– What is #SocEntChat?!

#SocEntChats is a Twitter-based real-time discussion on social entrepreneurship themed around specific issues/areas/events each month. It is designed for current and aspiring social entrepreneurs, funders, media and supporters to share their ideas, discuss the state of the field, identify the latest innovations and pinpoint areas requiring more exploration… (more information is provided here)

I spent the next hour or so reading and particpating in some really great discussion about social entrepreneurship (see my previous blog entry on social entrepreneurship) at universities and also touched upon the very topic I just talked about – the disconnect, and whether or not school/education/grad-school prepares one for going into the field of social entrepreneurship.

After the chat, I spent one more hour just reading other articles/browsing Twitter/more web stuff on social entrepreneurship instead of studying..

It seems so paradoxical (not sure if this is the right word to use here…) that I’d rather engage in conversation about topics I’m actually interested in rather than spend my time studying for a class that seems like it’s not going to help me much. But people don’t go to school and get “an education” for no reason, so I’m sure one way or another it’s supposed to help me down the line, but it’s just hard to see how in the moment…

Anyway, at this point I think I’m just rambling, so I’m going to stop.

Meanwhile, feel free to share your thoughts on this!

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It’s not that I don’t want to care about people, because obviously I do. But I think I care about people in a somewhat detached manner, partially I think from my past experiences that have “taught” me to become this way. The status of which I regard my relationships with other people around me does exist in my mind, but I think there is always that sense detachment to which I hold myself and my connections to others.

In the end, I think I may just be tired of investing so much of myself into other people. It almost seems a bit sad, because this “tiredness” is, I think, dragged over from my high school years… And I’m not sure how to pull myself out of this ambivalent regard I have for my relationships with other people (and, in turn, theirs with mine). It’s a give-and-take either way; a balance is hardly ever reached, because the balance exists independently in each individual’s mind. What I’d regard as a balance could very well be extremely off-balance in another’s viewpoint.

I’m not even sure what it is that I’m trying to say. I guess I am just openly acknowledging my ambivalence in regards to social relations, and that I think this has to change some time or another (of this I am still unsure, though), or I may never build lasting relationships with others.

But then here is the plausible paradox of them all — do lasting relationships really even exist? Aren’t they all relative as well? All of this leads me to question the point of building “strong relationships” with others when most (not all) are built based on convenience. But this is actually one fact that I am okay with. Friends of convenience are friends nonetheless, right? What is the big difference between a friend I meet at x place in my life versus a friend I met at c place in my life earlier on, besides the so-called “history” that exists/existed between us?

Alright, that is enough rambling for me. All of this is done pointlessly anyhow–

“Life has no meaning a priori . Before you come alive, life is nothing; it’s up to you to give it a meaning and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.”–Jean-Paul Sartre

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First off — my sister, a friend, and I made banana muffins, although they actually taste more like banana bread instead. Either way, they came out DELICIOUS! I made these twice. Here is the recipe, courtesy of CC:

Makes 12 servings
Low calorie, low fat muffins from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together banana, sugar, egg and vanilla. Stir in the applesauce and vanilla. Stir banana mixture into flour until just combined. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool before serving. For best flavor, place in an airtight container or bag overnight.

Notes: Instead of using plain sugar, we used brown sugar.

Next up, my sister and I made Veggie Burger Patties. The recipe (also courtesy of CC) –

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

• 1 zucchini, grated
• 1 potato, peeled and grated
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1/4 cup onion, grated
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 2 egg whites

Directions

1. Combine ingredients, mix well.
2. Pour 1/2 cup batter on hot griddle.
3. Fry 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

These were..quite interesting. I’m not sure I’d make it again, but they turned out similar to those “potato pancakes” I see in the grocery stores that I always want to buy but never do. The inside of the patties didn’t seem to get fried; only the outside did, but maybe it’s supposed to be that way? My sister and I ate them with ketchup and mustard. If we didn’t, the patties really didn’t have much taste.

Two nights ago, my sister and I made “Stuffed Shells with Red Sauce,” a recipe from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. This recipe was basically pasta shells, home-made red sauce, and “Tofu ‘Ricotta’”. We put a bit too much garlic in it though (this seems to be a problem for me..I always do this) so it came out a bit too salty but it was very delicious nonetheless. The coolest part of this recipe was the Tofu “Ricotta” — it was: extra firm tofu, garlic, oregano, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and a food processor/blender to blend it all together that actually did taste like ricotta cheese!! It’s craaaazy! I would definitely make that again, although it kind of took us forever.

My most recent endeavor with cooking was tonight, when I tried to make mashed potatoes and failed miserably. I attempted to make “healthy” mashed potatoes (see recipe here)  but it definitely did NOT turn out yummy. I think it’s most likely because I didn’t use butter as you’re supposed to in actual mashed potatoes..instead I just used chicken stock (?!). Maybe I don’t cook enough to know the actual recipe of mashed potatoes or whatnot, but anyhow, my mashed potatoes turned out too dry and again, I put too much garlic. Dammit!!! I think I was probably supposed to add more chicken stock to make the consistency better but by then I gave up since we ate KFC and had mashed potatoes anyway. Mission failed!!

Alright, well there are my most recent cooking adventures (if you could call them that). At least they all mostly succeeded!

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View from the hotel in Papeete at 6am in the morning.

My family and I went to Tahiti for vacation this winter break…we got back on Christmas day; a 5-day vacay. It was definitely relaxing and very nice to have some summer weather! We went to two islands: Tahiti Nui and Moorea. Moorea was a 30 minute ferry ride from Papeete (which is in Tahiti Nui). The beach was beautiful (as you can tell) and the water was quite warm..and the waves were perfect to play in!

We spent 2 days in Tahiti Nui. We went to a museum to look at some cultural aspects of the Tahitian island. The Tahitians were mainly polytheists but were also influenced by the French with monotheism…The museum also introduced the history of coral reefs and volcano/lava (which is why there was black sand in Tahiti) as well as Tahiti’s main exports– vanilla, coconuts, and pineapples. Everything in Tahiti was EXPENSIVE as hellll because basically everything was imported. All meats are imported; they have cows locally for the milk and that’s basically about it!

Botanical gardens in Tahiti. Beautiful!

We spent the next two days in Moorea, which is a very tiny island as I said just a 30 minute ferry ride from Papeete. Moorea seemed more touristy but at the same time had a very small-town-like feeling. I’m sure those who live in Moorea all know each other. There honestly wasn’t much to do in Moorea except stay in the resort and play in the waters…Well, they have some pearl shopping but I definitely cannot afford that! I wished we had gone to their local shopping markets..they looked like flea markets, but we didn’t get to go since they are closed on weekends and everything closes down on Christmas eve!

The bungalows we stayed in. There is a ladder to get in the water!

These bungalows we stayed in were absolutely amazing! This is what I imagined when I thought “Tahiti.” You are basically free to go in the water whenever and snorkel. These bungalows are in a lagoon so the waters are quite shallow. But let me tell you: there are sharks, eels, stingrays, and other dangerous fish that come out at night! Definitely creepy and scary. There are TONS of fish in the waters, especially since there are mini coral reefs everywhere. We would take back bread from the restaurants and feed the fish. Once you drop a couple pieces of bread in the water, all the fish come rushing. It’s pretty cool.I only snorkeled once becuase I tend to get scared of the too many fish…but my dad and a family friend found tons of sea urchins and oyster-like clams! Pretty cool!

All in all, my trip to Tahiti was really great. Here are some interesting things I learned –

1. In Papeete, there are almost NO traffic lights. Everything is traffic circles. But, there are tons of auto accidents that happen. Some roads are right by the waters but have no protective wall/barrier so when people drunk drive and cause a car accident, cars fall into the ocean..quite scary.
2. According to one of our tour guides, the population in Tahiti–about 50% of them are under 21, so there is going to be major problems with their form of “social security.”
3. A large portion of the population there is also obese..why, we don’t know. My dad guessed it was because they used too much coconut oil. Don’t know if that’s true..haha.
4. Moorea seems to have no waste management system implemented. Those living by the resort in Moorea burned their trash. Every. single. day. It smelled like shit and it is so damaging to our atmosphere. THANKS A LOT!

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“The thesis proposed is that the formal qualities and characteristics of the object – whatever it is – are crucial in that they provide a common basis for the construction of meaning. Equally critical to this discussion is an acknowledgement that (while acknowledging minor evolutionary adaptations) in general terms humans share common sensory and perceptual processes, although their experiences are, as noted previously, also composed of culturally specific beliefs and expectations, learned behaviours and embodied predispositions.”

“The article attempts to show that, although meaning is a human product, the environment is not a tabula rasa, but instead provides elements whose consistent characteristics are the basis for meanings that flow cross-culturally, creating common undercurrents in culturally specific engagements and interpretations.”

“Water’s diversity is, in some respects, a key to its meanings. Here is an object that is endlessly transmutable, moving readily from one shape to another: from ice to stream, from vapour to rain, from fluid to steam. It has an equally broad range of scales of existence: from droplet to ocean, trickle to flood, cup to lake…This process of transformation never ceases: water is always undergoing change, movement and progress. Captured in a cup or pond or lake, it evaporates or escapes and runs away: it is always physically flowing from one place to another in streams, torrents, waves and currents.”

“The overarching theme, which in many ways contains all of the other meanings encoded in water, is that water is the literally ‘essential’ matter of life and death.”

“The imposition of Christianity that subsumed Pagan cosmological beliefs reframed the ‘water of life’ considerably. Biblical descriptions demonstrate a shift from ancient visions of water as a source or personification of god-ness (primarily female) to a more ‘rational’ and abstract vision of ‘living water’ as the product of a single male God…However, even with the ascendance of the patriarchal Christian God, homologous Biblical imagery retained a vision of water as the essence of life.”

“With the Enlightenment, water became a ‘fountainhead’ of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and eventually, under the weight of Rationalism, the ‘living water’ of the Bible was overtaken by a more Cartesian vision of water as H2O. However, the flow of ideas and images linking water and the spirit has not evaporated (Figure 4), and even in a primarily secular cosmos, water is still presented as the ‘essence’ of a living, functioning ecology of existence.”

“…a reality that water always contains the potential to be benign or harmful, and that the safety of interactions with it depends upon sufficient human control of the engagement.”

Source
Strang, Veronica. “Common Senses: Water, Sensory Experience and the Generation of Meaning.” Journal of Material Culture 10.1 (2005): 92-120.
Available for download (if you have a subscription) here. Or, e-mail me and I will send it to you.

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Thanksgiving dinner was quite delicious… Of course it was a mix of Asian food and American Thanksgiving food, haha. I thoroughly enjoyed the turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. MmMmmMm! After dinner at a family friend’s house, all the kids came over to my house and we watched The Departed. It is such an intense movie. It actually reminds me a lot of the movie Burn After Reading, except with less dark humor and more action/suspense.

Today, I woke up late..big surprise. I was probably hungover from my food coma. My family and I ate delicious, delicious dim sum, came back home, and went on a 45 minute walk around on the trail in my neighborhood. It was such a nice day today… It makes me happy.

Afterwards, we came back and watched Iron Man since my parents and I have never seen it (although my sister has). It was such a good movie. Yay for movies since I don’t get to watch many of them. After the movie, we went to dinner at a really amazing Italian place. (Have you noticed a trend here? Movie, eating, some walking, more eating.. life story, minus the movies!) Then my dad decided we should go to The Montage to get drinks. So we did. And then he decided the wine there was no good..and wanted to go to St. Regis for more..so we did. Haha. The music was really nice, not gonna lie. But two hotel lounges in one night? A bit much!

Anyway, after we got home I’ve been working on my Haas business school app. It’s frustrating for me to try and explain why and what I want to do with business, in so few words. Blah.

I need to finish it sooooon! But for now, I’m going to bed. Goooodnight.

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But before that, I must go to the gym with the sister, especially if I’m going to feast tonight!

I think after the gym, my family and I are going to play poker..we’re going to teach my mom beacuse apparently she doesn’t know how to play!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Now, let me say some things first: my sister hates UCR. The reason she commutes is because she thinks UCR is too ghetto and sketchy, and she doesn’t like the people there. She also hates the area, and feels like there’s nothing to do. So, that being said, I went on Monday with my sister expecting some pretty shitty things.

Now, to my surprise, I actually liked UCR. The campus itself is fairly large, and it’s new (compared to Berkeley and most of the other UC’s). It’s spacious, the architecture is nice…I’m not quite sure why she doesn’t like it. So I guess we established that the campus isn’t ghetto, but the area around it is. There’s a nice University Village just outside of the campus, and it’s got a movie theater, tons of places to eat, two Starbucks, a GameStop, and other stores. And, there is also student housing inside the University Village plaza place, and it looks nice as HELL! I said she should totally live there next year…

UCR is different from Cal because I guess people drive a lot, since it’s so spacious, whereas at Cal you can’t drive through campus!! UCR’s campus actually kind of reminded of UCSB, just because it’s got the “chill” atmosphere and has a lot of space and everything is just spread out. So…I really am not sure why she hates it. I think if that were my school, I would definitely not hate it as much as my sister does.

What surprised me though was the lack of active clubs. I asked my friends to take me to where the clubs usually would be. And all I saw were frats/sororities recruiting. This is the beginning of their quarter. This is the prime time for clubs to recruit new members. At Cal, almost all clubs (or at least the clubs that count) are recruiting like crazy. But seriously, at UCR, the clubs were no where to be found. I was a bit disappointed at that…and refused to believe there weren’t any clubs. So after I got home, I went on UCR’s website and looked it up. And for this year, there are over 150 clubs registered with the school! What the hell, where ARE they???

Universities and colleges are the breeding grounds of activism and student involvement, especially through clubs where students can bond through common interest. So why is it that only fraternities and sororities are recruiting there? I wonder if this happens on all other college campuses, or is UCR just a special case? I’m a bit confused. And a bit disappointed.

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