i feel so badass right now

Howdy folks, happy holidays!

So why badass? Okay. So. In the midst of my crazy scramble-to-buy-everyone's-Christmas-present-before-flying-to-MD-this-weekend madness this week, brought on by the lack of time or mental space to think about it up until PME's holiday concert last weekend (which went great but took up many of my waking moments, between carting myself up to Berkeley by car/BART and rehearsing), I discovered that my driver's side headlight bulb had gone bust. I thought, noooo, I don't have time to take my car to the friggin' shop! I'm already taking on Christmas shopping as my second job!

But thanks to the suggestion by Catherine that I actually change it myself, and the help of these two webpages:

http://www.monkeyouttanowhere.com/thoughts/archives/2005/09/01_12_40.php

http://autorepair.about.com/library/faqs/bl197h.htm

I DID IT!!

Not impressed? Well, keep in mind that I'm totally car illiterate (while Catherine, on the other hand, used to own and maintain a motorcycle), and also that my 2004 Jetta owner's manual didn't even say how to change the bulb--it only had a small paragraph describing why I shouldn't attempt to change it myself, that I should let a professional do it, and that dire consequences including objects exploding in my face could result if I tried. Yeah, some manual.

That monkey guy (first link above) wasn't kidding; while it's doable, it wasn't easy or too pleasant. Because it was the driver's side, the battery was in the way--if my hand were any bigger, I don't know that it would have happened. And it was rather touch-and-go a couple of times. It was nighttime, and therefore rather dark, though I was able to maneuver my car around sort of near an overhead light; my keychain flashlight was still my savior. It took me a good 15 minutes to try to get one of the spring clips off of the lamp cover in the inch of space between it and the battery, and in the end I only succeeded because I said, damnit it's just going to hurt my fingers like hell and I just have to get over it and push harder. I may have let out a grunty yell, like one of those people in those action movies who does some heroic act of strength through sheer will. Okay, maybe my feat was slightly less heroic.

Anyway, at every step of the way I felt as though there were some obstacle I hadn't expected, and I just had to keep myself from getting frustrated and think calmly about what to do next. Totally channelling the guy from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I finally had a glimpse of what he kept talking about in the book about manuals only taking you so far. The actual experience of changing the bulb was much more down, dirty, and difficult, but in the end I felt like a champ.

So, I successfully avoided touching the bulb glass, which I only learned today would cause the bulb to burn out immediately. And when I turned the headlights on when I was done, voila! It worked! I was so happy, and in my euphoria started imagining myself a genius mechanic in the not-so-far future. For now I'll stay content with having avoided needing to schedule an appointment, leave my car at the shop, and pay for labor, and with having learned something significant about the so-called black box that is my vehicle.

And that's my story. :)

Powered by ScribeFire.

Interesting perspective

Just read this interesting article about the tendency for people to filter out all online content that doesn't match their own political views, and how that makes them more extreme in their opinions and less likely to remain open-minded toward dissenting views. It's the blessing and curse of having so much information at one's fingertips.

While I certainly can't claim to be as diplomatic as the man in this article seems to be, I've definitely felt the effects of the echo chamber before. At Stanford, I clearly remember the internal sense of doubt I felt while engaging in activism on campus, specifically labor activism. While I had a sense that there was good in the high-level cause, I really didn't know much about the situation beyond attending a few rallies on campus. So I joined the labor activism coalition in order to try and learn more, and to be able to help more. But something just did not click for me about it. I didn't like that at every meeting, people would make announcements about various labor-related conflicts going on in nearby towns, and without knowing any specifics about each new situation, everyone was expected to immediately jump on the bandwagon, talk about how evil the employers in the situation were and how much money they must be hoarding, and attend some rally, or make some calls, to weigh in on the employees' side.

Maybe the labor action coalition was the wrong place for me to be if I was going to want to question each new situation, and evaluate it before choosing sides. But if that wasn't the place to discuss it, where would I find a more appropriate place? The only other people who seemed to even care enough about those issues to discuss them were the Stanford Republicans, who often staged counter-rallies, and who basically considered the labor action team to be a bunch of rabid communists.

Basically, there was no such place, unless I wanted to make one myself. But for me, college was about finding my voice, finding my values and convictions; it was too easy to get sucked into the different echo chambers, and to feel as though I never had enough factual knowledge to engage in real debate about those issues. My attempt to participate in labor activism was my attempt to receive some of that factual knowledge; instead, I felt as though people were trying to brainwash me. But since I was the only one who seemed to want to ask questions, I also felt guilty, like, maybe I wasn't a true activist; I wasn't necessarily with them in every situation, so I must be against them. I must have my values in the wrong place.

Happily, I've come a long way in growing out of that self-doubt. I know where my values lie, and I believe that if they're worth believing in, they should stand up against any amount of questioning and analysis. That's why I think this article is so important. Not only was it frustrating to me to feel that I couldn't ask questions in that labor group, I really believe that the echo chamber attitude largely undermined the effectiveness of the labor action movement at Stanford. The teach-ins were littered with as many propagandist slogans as facts, and the attempts to "negotiate" with the administration on labor rights consisted of calling them names.

I recently went with my girlfriend to her Berkeley CalServe reunion, CalServe being a campus political party with the mission to promote diversity and justice on campus. They also supported many of the same causes as the groups I supported at Stanford, but they also talked a good deal about reaching out to people who didn't necessarily share their views, about strategies for educating people and persuading them to care, and about convincing the administration to agree to make changes by appealing to their sense of what is right. And the only way to do that is to first recognize that they are people too, most often with their own set of good intentions.

I was totally inspired by what the CalServe people were saying, and it is really in line with the article's idea of engaging with people and doing the hard work of putting one's ideas and opinions to the test. I really hope there can be more of that in the world.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Art Of...

...Getting Things Done is a book by David Allen that I picked up earlier this week after seeing it mentioned in one of my RSS feeds. While I like to think I've been rather out of control for most of my life, it's gotten especially bad in the last few months. I was just stressed all the time about God knows what--not even important things! Just the trash and recycling that was piling up, the newspapers piling up near my door that I only subscribed to because some kid came to my house asking me to subscribe to help fund his college tuition, and proceeded not to have time to read or even take the rubberbands off, the unread mail piling up on my desk, the dishes piling up in the sink, the music not reviewed, the practicing not done, the thing not cleaned, the task not finished. All these things that I worried about until I was paralyzed and had indigestion (not to mention the fact that this didn't get me any closer to finishing everything).

So this book, which essentially describes a system for getting organized, looked like just what I needed. The premise is that most of the stress people have comes from the fact that they have all sorts of unresolved "stuff" in their minds--things that aren't where they need to be, which weigh down on their minds, attention, and energy. (For a great example of that, see the paragraph above.) The method is just a system for organizing all this "stuff" in such a way that you can get it off your mind, trusting that your system will remind you of all the things you need to do when, so you don't have to sit around trying to keep them all in your head at once, and so you don't let anything slip through the cracks.

Apparently there is already a cult following of this method, and I have to say, after trying it out for the last few days, I already feel much better. You basically start by collecting everything you have to do, want to do, dream of doing, and everything that is physically or mentally not where it needs to be, important or trivial, big or small, into one place. That is a catharsis in and of itself. Then now that you have everything together, you can process each one, deciding which stuff needs action and which stuff just needs to be filed away as reference material. Then you organize it all into a "system you trust" so that you'll see all the things you are supposed to do, when you're supposed to do them, and review the system regularly, so you can get all those things out of your mind until you need to actually do them. And it also makes it much easier to choose which things to do at any given point, based on whether there are deadlines for some things, or whether it's just convenient to do them at the moment.

I still don't think I'm totally done implementing the system for myself; I haven't quite finished the last sections of the book, and I'm still waiting for a bigger file cabinet I ordered so I could organize once and for all the piles of papers I have in various parts of my house. But already in the past few days, I've gotten more done than I have in weeks, and I have this nice new feeling that I'm actually *not* forgetting something really important, and that I don't need to be racking my brains at every moment trying to remember whether I need to put out any fires I may have forgotten about. It's a *very* new feeling, so I still catch myself wanting to obsess about something, but I could definitely get used to living like this, and actually letting myself relax once in a while!

There are plenty of online overviews about this method, such as the ever trusty Wikipedia, or the official website, or the many, many blogs devoted to discussing its details, like 43 Folders, whose author actually came to my company to give a presentation about how to manage one's email inbox, interestingly. But the only real way to see this method in all its splendor is to read the book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. It may seem all like common sense, or even like the level of detail described in the book is a bit on the anal-retentive side. But that's the beauty of it too; it is all common sense, but just integrated into a full system that works, and it is rigid in principle but flexible in implementation. And, if you're anything like me, it could be just what you need.

Anyway, I have yet to see if I can maintain it, or elements of it, in the long term, but I really hope so. And so far, so good....

Powered by ScribeFire.

boppin' on the BART

What do Kanye West, Bjork, Puccini, Sheryl Crow, Stars, Saves The Day, and Jacques Brel all have in common (aside from obviously being musicians)?

Well, they all played a part in making my day. I won't get into the gory details of how frustrated, discouraged, and just plain uncomfortable I felt by the time I left work today to go on my typical Monday trek--driving to Fremont (30-50 min), taking the BART up to North Berkeley (55 min), PME rehearsal (2.5 hrs), waiting for the BART in the cold (15-20 min), BART ride down (55 min) and a sleepy and at times dangerous drive home (40 min). I always dread that drive home; by the time I get to Fremont it's about 11:30pm, I'm super-tired and rather chilly even when I didn't forget to bring a scarf and a jacket.

But today I gave the ole iPod a go, something I actually surprisingly haven't done in a while. Actually, it's usually hit or miss with my iPod; I find that I have so much of a variety of music that the songs that come up in shuffle mode almost never match my current mood. I don't have the patience or decisiveness to sit around making playlists for said moods, either.

This time, though, I don't know if it was my kickass Sony headphones or what, but every song I listened to brought back either a flood of memories or felt so fulfilling and exciting in its own unique way. First it was Kanye, with the usual awesome sample of some old song sped up, and really chill yet poignant message. Then it was "Hunter" and "Joga" by Bjork, two of my favorite, favorite songs. Her music has this way of making me feel heartbroken and ecstatic at the same time. I love the balance between the clever rhythms, percussion, and sound effects, and the warm, passionate string instruments, as well as her vocals, which also alternate between lots of electronic distortion and naked humanity. And the lyrics are often vague to the point of sounding almost random, yet they convey strong emotions and paint vivid pictures at the same time.

Then it was "Soak Up the Sun" by Sheryl Crow, which I still like even though it was seriously overplayed on the radio when it came out, which always makes me feel like I'm driving in Miami or SoCal or something.

By the time Jacques Brel came on with a ridiculously silly song in French, I was just in awe of how much meaning music can convey, how much variety and freedom it offers, how much history and personality it immortalizes in every song. That's when I heard a song by the Stars, talking about wanting one more chance
to be "young and wild and free." And Saves the Day, emoting with a
mixture of angstful vocals and really beautiful guitar progressions. By then, I was caught in that exquisite bittersweet feeling of being transported by music, in which I am both grateful to be there, anxious to become even more fully immersed, and in grief that the feeling is always so fleeting.

For someone who has been involved with music in some form her whole life, I often miss that feeling. There are so many times when my focus is on worrying whether I'm sounding good, analyzing music performances for technical accuracy, fretting about my improvisation skills, thinking I'll never be a good enough musician, feeling self-conscious on the dance floor, feeling guilty about not practicing enough, getting stressed about rehearsal schedules, or simply being too wound up to let myself be moved by music. It's so easy to lose sight of the raw power of music; it really only gives you as much as you can let it at any given moment.

That's totally how I feel about love in general. People who lack compassion, or who despair, are just blocking themselves off from the most nourishing thing in this world. We do it to protect ourselves, we do it out of fear, we do it out of doubt. But it's moments like these that make me remember why life is worth living, and living fully. Music is love, baby.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Gotta love open source.

Hello blog,

Well, I have to 'fess up. I haven't been sure whether this blogging thing is working for me; I think I'm having a crisis of purpose here. I think I partly made this blog for the wrong reasons--like, wanting to be able to journal my innermost thoughts somewhere on a regular basis. But, hm, maybe an actual private journal would be better for that sort of thing! That way, I won't have an urge to write something and then think, "...but do I really want to share this piece of personal information with the online world?" Besides, I think my readership (which, I believe, has consisted of a few of my good friends and loved ones--thanks people!) will get tired of all of the internal monologue, sprinkled with occasional angst, that goes on inside my head. And finally, there are other, less internal ways to examine the amount of "l-o-v-e," or lack thereof at times, in the world, that don't involve reporting on the daily (or bimonthly, as seems to be the case here) temperature of my own moods.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to attempt to shift my theme ever so slightly outward, to things that are happening out in the big wide world. Hopefully I've absorbed enough KQED, Newsweek, NYTimes, Food Network, and self-help books to have some interesting things to say here. Time will only tell if it's enough to keep this li'l' blog o' mine shiny.

Oh yeah, open source. So the Jaguar of this mid-blog-life crisis of mine is ScribeFire, which is supposed to be an indispensible aid to more efficient blogging. And it's free! So far, in the 3 minutes I've used it, I'm liking it.

Much love, my friends.

Powered by ScribeFire.

want to see a picture of me?

I was looking through some of my digital photos from the past, and I realized that I've never posted a pic of myself on this blog. So here's a lovely picture, with my "face" and all:



Hah! That picture was taken in Peru, on the 4th day of a 5 day hike on the Salcantay trail to Machu Picchu. It was...almost 2 years ago, dang. Can't believe how time flies! Anyway, being the bug-magnet that I am, I'd gotten so many bug bites on my hand by that point that it was totally swollen, and I could make dents in my hand that would stay there for a while. So I thought I'd flex my artistic muscles and make a lovely picture...

okay, sleep. i'm ready for you. no, really.

good lord. i'm sufficiently indignant to feel the need to delay bedtime in order to write that i haven't had this crazy a schedule since i was a student. i'm just waiting for a free moment to catch up on sleep...been waiting for a few weeks now.

i was going along for a while just fine with preparation for this Jazz & Pop concert PME is putting on. unlike most other concerts, this one is primarily made up of small group numbers, and people in the group put together their own small group songs, rehearse them on their own time, then audition within the group (coming April 30) to see which songs make it into the show.

i'm rehearsing 9 songs for the auditions, which means i've been going up to berserkeley literally 5 to 6 days a week, and from campbell, that's no small feat.

i was fine until this past weekend, when i flew to MD for my grandmother's 80th birthday celebration, which was basically a huge family reunion (160+ people!). i basically got a total of 8 hours of sleep the whole weekend, and came back to CA only to hit the ground running again with rehearsals, which is just not cool anymore. i have had zero time to catch up on the sleep i lost this weekend, and i'm starting to resort to drastic measures to keep myself awake on the drives home from berkeley late at night...

can we say burning out?

...and with that, i'm off to bed. thank GOD i finally have a break from rehearsals for the next 2 nights.

goodreads

I just added a new lil' section to my blog sidebar. Isn't it lovely? Actually, it's pretty ugly, if you ask me, but it is generated by a 3rd-party site, so what can I do?

Anyway, Kristy invited me to the site, and I think it's a great idea. Hopefully it won't become another one of those time sinks that just spams my inbox; optimistically speaking, at least it has a purpose other than to be social. I've always wanted to keep track of books I intended to read, and even toyed with the idea of starting a list on my blog. Now I don't have to!

wachet auf!

That's German for "wake up!" and it's the title of the latest performance by PME. We had our first show last weekend aaaall the way up in Santa Rosa, reminding me yet again just how far south I live from the group's home base in Berkeley. I did use that as an excuse to spend an 'anniversary' weekend with Catherine in Sonoma beforehand, replete with a reprise at the Trojan Horse Inn bed & breakfast, and a wine hike a la Russ Beebe. So...I suppose it wasn't a total loss! ;)

Anyway, about the PME concert, a member of the group, Nette, wrote a nice blog entry about that performance, with pictures a la Catherine, no less! The show kicked butt, imho, especially given the almost obscenely small amount of time we had to prepare for it. We've got two more shows this weekend, and then a total context switch from this classical, often German set, to rehearsing for our annual Jazz & Pop a cappella show. Wow, who'd have thunk I'd be doing a cappella again after college was over?

While I've felt pretty consistently for the past few weeks as though there was no time for me to think (let alone blog), I have to say I've been having a blast. I LOVE that singing is in my life again, and it's totally worth the countless car/BART/walking treks up to Berkeley, SF and *gasp* Santa Rosa.

I guess despite my not having been this sleep-deprived since I stopped having homework, and drowning in rivers of email, schedules, and work, I'm kinda slipping into happy niches in various parts of my life. At work, I've successfully navigated my way from 'college hire' to valued team member. At PME, more and more people (though still not all) have stopped confusing me with the other new Asian girl in the group (yeah...doh!). In general, I'm just in my zone right now--I'm 25, not 21, not 30. I like that.

Now if only Catherine were in the Bay Area...*sigh*

a testimonial

Hey y'all,

I just wrote a testimonial for my sister's website, www.drteresa.net. She's a chiropractor specializing in Network Spinal Analysis. I'm pasting the testimonial here--enjoy! It's all true, btw.

"When I experienced network spinal analysis for the first time, I was extremely skeptical. My sister had taken me along with her to her network chiropractor, and I remember thinking to myself, while being entrained, that I couldn’t feel anything happening, that it didn’t make sense that anything would happen; the chiropractor was barely touching me at all. When I stood up afterwards, he told me that one of my legs had been shorter than the other, and that they were now even. I didn’t notice anything, and left still disbelieving.

"Years later, when my sister decided to pursue a career in network spinal analysis, I decided to suspend my disbelief and give it another try, if for no other reason than to support her in her choice—what did I have to lose? Yet, over the next several visits, I had to admit to myself that I sometimes did feel parts of my body begin to relax during entraining, and that, more often than not, by the end of my entraining session, I was able to breathe fully from the tip of my head to the tips of my toes in a totally effortless manner. Being a generally high-stress over-achiever, this sense of physical and mental peace was a very new experience!

"Over time, this vague experience of relaxation evolved into a very acute awareness of my body and heart. At a typical entrainment session, my sister will gently but firmly touch a particular spot along my spine, and I will suddenly become aware of several areas of tension in my body. And having become connected with the areas of tension, I become able to let them go, to let them seep out of my body. Often I feel a sense of relief. Some days, I feel a surge of new energy as old aches in my neck, shoulders, hips, or back melt away. Other days, I feel exhausted, because I’m relaxing my body for the first time all week. A few times, I’ve even cried as some wordless, suppressed pain that I’d locked away somewhere in my body was finally acknowledged and released.

"These experiences have had a profound effect on my life and well-being. I’ve learned that there is a close, clear connection between my physical body and my mental and emotional states. While I still don’t always treat my body and my self perfectly, I am more aware of the effects of my choices on all aspects of my being. My network care gives me a chance to check in with myself, and to figure out how to take care of myself. And in so doing, I’ve discovered greater compassion for myself, and a greater sense of inner strength and security from which I can extend greater compassion to others.

"After having such life-changing experiences, and after seeing for myself time and time again that they are a direct result of the network care I receive, I’d be a fool to retain my former skepticism. The progress I make in my entrainment sessions is inextricably linked to the progress I’ve made elsewhere, in striving to live as fully and openly as I can. As a result, network care, so much more than just medical care or physical therapy, has become a part of my life."

Word.