tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56948822002859111602024-02-06T19:42:05.050-08:00Come have a drink with me.Life's better with a cup of tea on a coffeeshop table, and a friend with a listening ear by your side. Speak freely here. Just remember, behind each computer screen is a person with a heart and a soul, not a cyborg. So play nice la.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-60410168461401238992022-06-01T18:53:00.002-07:002022-06-01T18:53:18.751-07:00Here I am again [Content warning: Grief]
Sometimes a little nudge is all we need. "What happened to your blog? I read every post. You're a good writer!" Flattery can give even the laziest occasional-blogger a little gas to go a bit further, write another post.
So, 8 years later, here I am.
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What to talk about? I had a calamity happen a month ago. I went back to my hometown for a couple days, and my heart is still (metaphorically) red and raw -- jarred again and again by the neatly-organized computer files ending in 2013, by the quiet of a house that used to be filled with incessant chatter, by the wilting flowers at a fresh cemetery plot. It feels like part of me is lost - maybe transmuted? - into something I don't understand. Happiness tinged with sadness. I set my intention while trying to survive a ridiculously difficult Youtube workout. "Whole", I breathe harshly (it really was quite a workout). Not the same, not even in some wabi-sabi way - I am not a pot - but softened and hardened both at once into something fuller, more accepting of the world as it is in all its beauty and contradiction.
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How do parents love so completely? How do they give up so much of who they are to satisfy their children, the psychopaths (Daniel Levitin's words, not mine)?
I think about how I treated my mom. Looking at each visit back home as a duty, something dreaded, to get over with. How much I thought I sacrificed - building excels in intermittent wifi on the train back; saying "I'm on a call!" exasperatedly when she was talking to me, not realizing I was off mute; working at restaurants and in cars because I didn't take the day off. A little part of me was afriad that we didn't have a lot of time, that the best years were over, that it was decline from now on and we had better enjoy what we could while we can - and so spending time together was the right thing to do. But what quality of time did we have? Me, worried, exasperated, impatient. But, flawed as she was, her love for me was full and simple. How much she anticipated my coming home. How much she talked to others about me - both my accomplishments and the daily accounts of where I was traveling and what I was doing. How she prayed for me.
Part of growing up is also realizing the entire lives your parents lived, before you and alongside you. Their daring exploits, their mistakes and the lessons they took from it, their friendships, their own family sagas. For me, discovering new aspects of my mother from her schoolmates' tributes - how, as prefect, she covered for a classmate who was skipping class - and from friends is a bittersweet experience.
Whole.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-66150555199212741742014-10-11T08:19:00.001-07:002014-10-11T08:19:15.389-07:00If you can't be happy here...Some myths you have buried in your core so deep, they surface only in the liminal space between sleep and awakeness, in the moments when you are totally relaxed and mentally defenseless, when you have no plan and allow every thought to pass your mind, unfiltered, unjudged - and therefore looked at properly for the first time as a thought, as a hypothesis, and not just a fact of life.<br />
<br />
One of my myths is: I would be happier somewhere else. I would be happier in a developed country. I would be happier, not here. Not where politics rules the day, and there are potholes and traffic jams everywhere, and my standard of living seems to be significantly lower.<br />
<br />
But really, is that true? Just because it is widely accepted doesn't make it true.<br />
<br />
If I look back at the different places I've lived in my life - Ipoh, Hong Kong, Claremont, London, DC and all the shorter traveling stints in between - I don't think I've been happier anywhere just, or even mainly, due to location. Surely there were pros and cons to each place, and while living there it was always more about the company I had, the specific challenges I was facing, that determined my happiness, more than the location itself.<br />
<br />
But to be really honest, embarrassingly honest, while I was in the US I didn't really see Malaysians as having full lives. How could they, with their terrible dress sense and horrible politicians and scandals, and bad Western food, and excitement about new developments that I took for granted? I absorbed this sense of Western superiority, of being more human or worthy of interest simply because I lived in the West. A terrible way to think, but one that isn't uncommon, I'm sure (just look at how Americans view Africans and Ebola, as a 'developing world threat' that needs to be quarantined, and framing it as us vs. them).<br />
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Now that I'm back though...yes of course I compare. And in many ways I don't have as comfortable or easy a life as I did in the US. But I can't totally blame that on this country (though the low wages here do make me mad). In an absolute sense, I am outrageously privileged: I have a home, I have rich social networks and assets, I have enough hard currency to last for a while, and most importantly, I have the love and support of loved ones. What more can one ask for, such a soft landing when things don't work out?!<br />
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In so many ways, I'm so blessed: to have the time to pursue other hobbies and developmental projects, to think beyond a surface level about my life and my purposes, to give my energy to causes that I value. I only hope that I stay true to this purpose, and remind myself that I still have control over my life, and my decisions.<br />
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But really, even if I didn't have so many blessings, one thing is true: if you can't be happy here, you can't be happier anywhere else. <br />
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Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-90000518511134882162014-10-05T09:01:00.000-07:002014-10-05T09:01:14.486-07:00The bearable loneliness of the new and familiarMaybe this was why everyone sympathized when they heard the news, when they knew I was coming back, with no plans to return to the US. They knew I had to cross a bridge and burn it. I might come back the same way, but no matter what, it and I would be different.<br />
<br />
Others may have experienced this before, my trials (cost of living! find a job! a good job, that isn't drudgery, that pays well! find friends to hang out with!) commmonplace...but I still feel so alone. <br />
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Alone is bringing your toiletries back into your room after you're done in the toilet.<br />
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Alone is smiling and strength on the outside, but yearning for someone, someplace that feels right and not finding it. <br />
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I have faced alone before. I have survived, and gone on. I will again.<br />
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I only fear a lowering of standards and expectations, a shrinking of worldview, a changing of my whole self in order to feel like I'm doing well. Re-orienting the limits of my world, so I can be a central figure in it again.<br />
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I have to remember, in absolute terms, I'm still doing swimmingly. Even in terms relative to those I know (which can be a dangerous comparison), I'm not doing so bad. <br />
<br />
But to feel so absolutely friendless, so bereft of a close old soul, I have not felt this for years - not since starting LPC (which was a lot offset by the excitement of a new environment) and starting Scripps (ditto) and going to London (ditto). I think this is just the biggest challenge because it feels like a step down, not up or sideways; this is a terrain trodden and yet difficult to my unaccustomed feet, and for once in my life I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what tomorrow brings.<br />
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The tension, between futures great and mediocre, hangs in the balance, and the string is taut in my mind. <br />
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I must remember I have a choice - I can keep that string tight, worry it obsessively, never let my eyes off the goal lest it run away from me.<br />
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Or I can let it slack - remember that I am more than a job and a paycheck, that I have other dreams and self-development goals - and only ask to manage the trouble each day can bring. And for the strength to answer the call, and the challenges, of each day. <br />
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The latter way has its disadvantages (less long-term planning, perhaps?) but I think that's a better way to live.<br />
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I'll try to do that from now on.<br />
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All good things come from real struggle, and creating a new life here (or anywhere) is no different.<br />
Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-60508818154312492872013-10-01T21:02:00.002-07:002013-10-01T21:02:42.300-07:00Oceans move and the fish think they are the force that pushes it gently off its balanceMy employee portal tells me I have worked for exactly 1 month and 9 days. Wow.<br />
<br />
When I look underneath the daily frustrations, elations, and low-grade tedium which characterizes the fresh-grad office worker's day, there's actually so much to celebrate. <br />
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What I say next must be taken with a generous amount of sodium, taking into consideration my circumstances of being a 'knowledge worker' in one of the most developed countries in the world, of having oodles of free time (I work until 6.30!) and having the luxury of knowing I have more than enough financially to meet my needs. And probably most pertinently, <br />
<br />
Keeping that in mind, I say I am relieved because work isn't as bad as I thought it would be. In so many ways my life has changed, in terms of place - position - relationships - friends - family, and yet I still have the same habits. I still keep flitting from one intoxicating idea to another, I still love making plans and not doing them, I cannot concentrate on one thing without getting into a rut, and I still learn. A ton. Every day.<br />
The life of the mind has become only more interesting, more practical, and more life-giving to me. <br />
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I yearn for and dread responsibility in equal measure. Today, it hit me that my work actually goes into exhibits which goes to the very top of the managerial food-chain, and represents my company. It is so different from college, where you do in some settings represent the institution, but you are only called to represent yourself and your failures and mistakes mean little more than a grade.<br />
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I decided today (but tomorrow this goal may change, who knows) that my aim for the rest of this calendar year is to be mediocre. To be a good analyst, and even a senior analyst, seems as unrealistic as becoming the CEO in a year. Rather, I aim to satisfy the lowest common denominator, which for me will take a considerable amount of effort since the type of work I do does not come naturally for me the way writing does. In my work there are definite right and wrong answers, a quality that is not present in writing where for most of my life I have used ambiguity, with its pleasingly creative and inefficient quirk where you can say the same thing a hundred different ways, to my advantage. Now, I have to adapt to a system where that does not work. So, achieving mediocrity will be an accomplishment for me, and I'm glad I've recognized that at least. <br />
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Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-14175962898983153482013-09-15T21:38:00.000-07:002013-09-15T21:38:11.050-07:00Half liesIn this blog, as far back as I can remember, I have tried to be as honest to myself as possible, even if it meant being excessively emo. Most of the time, I try to stylize it and make my words and thoughts flow more beautifully. The writing is not a direct output from my intellect and my feeling, it goes through a medium that is meant to be heard, and in that process the thought changes as well.<br />
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<br />
Today as I was writing something promotional for a program I am very indebted to, I realize how easy it is to spin a half-truth or even a lie, and make it sound earnest and heartfelt. I have become so used to writing these half-truths, spinning progress narratives to advance myself professionally, that I don't think twice about it. Until today. How much I've changed from the person I was even five years ago, when more things were black and white, when heaven and hell were real, when I was still moving along the conveyor belt towards what? success? fame?, before I had already arrived at a destination that was the result of elimination of other options deemed unsuitable. <br />
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Those who have arrived cannot speak to those who are on the journey (both 'arrived' and 'on the road' being extremely subjective concepts) because really, nothing is the same. Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-40225949151781157782013-06-18T14:04:00.001-07:002013-06-18T14:04:32.567-07:00Loss is like thirstAt first, you don't miss it that much. It hits you in a detached way: yes, you have no water, but you're not that thirsty, are you?<br />
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You try to cope, remind yourself that you don't need water to live, you can get by on: papaya juice, watermelons, soups, milkshakes...<br />
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But at some point, you just crave, crave a glass of water. Just to remember how it tastes like, how that cool liquid feels like sliding down your throat. That familiar pleasure which you took for granted, for so long.<br />
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And you realize you cannot have water, and never will again. Never see it, never taste it. And even worse, your crystal-clear memories will soon fade like old pictures. <br />
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It gets better, maybe, as you learn to live without. But I don't think you ever forget, and remembering brings more pain than joy.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-62895999934261713092013-06-16T00:53:00.001-07:002013-06-16T00:53:03.865-07:00Father's Day"You would never get through to the end of being a father, no matter where you stored your mind or how many steps in the series you followed. Not even if you died. Alive or dead or a thousand miles distant, you were always going to be on the hook for work that was neither a procedure nor a series of steps but, rather, something that demanded your full, constant attention without necessarily calling on you to do, perform, or say anything at all...<br />
Fathering imposed an obligation that was more than your money, your body, or your time, a presence neither physical nor measurable by clocks: open-ended, eternal, and invisible, like the commitment of gravity to the stars." - <i>Telegraph Avenue</i>, Michael Chabon<br />
___________________<br />
<br />
Like the commitment of gravity to the stars.<br />
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It's almost two months, but the wound and the emptiness still has not gone away. Grief is a pain that comes suddenly and intensely; a child with a tantrum, who won't listen to reason. <br />
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As I forlornly play Bejeweled on this celebratory day, I reflect through the miasma of loss on (one of the) most important things my father imprinted on me, his life reflected in mine. In the end all that matters is who you are, not what you've done.<br />
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My father did well in his life, coming from a pretty poor background to rise to middle-classhood, with a job that matched his interests, a wife and two kids. He would have been set to work for a number more years and retire gracefully, having saved well, and spend more time with his kids. Although it didn't quite work out that way, with an early retirement from downsizing, followed by successive rounds of cancer a few years later, my father did not descend into despair or bitterness. He was kind, loving, had a quirky sense of humor with occasional lapses in spelling, and always showed us affection. Despite the physical suffering and tedium he faced, and probably fear as well, during his cancer, he remained faithful, strong, and steadfast; facing challenges hopefully and honestly.<br />
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"Everything you ask daddy to do, daddy takes it seriously!" - And he would. Files full of mundane events and the detritus of life, meticulously organized, from my SPM and IB results, to a copy of all our IDs, and a detailed holiday calendar...even after his high-wage career was over, he took the business of household seriously and loved to improve, improvise, and delight in the small and big things he could do to make all our lives better. When I came home after he passed away, I saw that he had recently put a cup into the CD compartment/middle-of-the-car storage compartment, so he could drop the house keys in there, for easy fishing out when we needed to open the electric gate. Classic daddy workarounds. <br />
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I will miss him in innumerable ways, especially for his patience, his humor, and his love. I wish so much that he could have spent more time with us, good days and years with the family he had put so much of his life into. <br />
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But not all is lost. His great gifts to me I will always carry. One of the most precious being the example of his own life, a life marked with accomplishments of the spirit and character. In an achievement-oriented world, where one's worth is determined by money and power, my father's life and words remind me to check my own desire for achievement - not to let it warp my character, and not to let the fickle winds of fortune determine my attitude to life and take precedence over the things which are true, noble, and eternal. <br />
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I love you, daddy. Thank you for leaving us with no regrets. <br />
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Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-4419574389498386472013-03-06T00:42:00.002-08:002013-03-06T00:42:59.849-08:00Restless againTonight I think I could run for a long time but my mind flitters from bright spot to bright spot, buzzing and settling on nothing. I feel no feelings except the not-being-here-ness of plugging into the internet and the aimlessness of our generation. <br />
<br />
Henceforth what I write will be stream-of-consciousness, which I hate in other people's writings generally but when I write for myself it feels like a good thing - not the best thing, but something between a photo and a portrait - not quite a crystal clear impression (which we can never capture anyways, all memories are reinterpretations) and not a portrait where every line has been considered, where ideas are formed into neat sentences and pruned into bonsai paragraphs and it does not at all capture the mixture of profound and pedestrian thoughts that run through my mind everyday ("Why does anyone keep on living when their lives are terrible?" "Do I have enough time for a nap?")<br />
<br />
_________<br />
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I think that in the end the only things that matter are what we produce and what we can give and transform from what we've been given, and I've been given so much and produced so little that I can authoritatively point to and say "mine". But maybe that is the problem of living too - that everything you create is ephemeral, that nothing is certain.<br />
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This is why people have children. They are at once something you create and something you can call your own and something that definitely could not have existed and survived without you. But all those years of drudgery...that's a lot to pay for the privilege of having some(one) you can call your own.<br />
_________<br />
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I suppose in the end we can be made happy by just having very few things: friends, good food, showers, books...but being happy and being purposeful are different things. And while I feel happy I don't exactly feel purposeful right now. People who seem purposeful don't often look happy. I suppose they cannot be totally happy until their purpose is achieved, and if that happens, they will see another cause they need to go for anyway.<br />
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Why is it that everytime I write I end up sad? I think the imbalance of sad/happy things in the world is lopsided as to be laughable. Maybe this whole writing business just reminds me of that.<br />
Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-57542527194280720122012-10-24T03:07:00.001-07:002012-10-24T03:12:02.165-07:00PitcherThe itch has come again, and I must scratch - I cannot sleep until I get this out of my head. <br />
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I feel this imperative again to write, for whoever wishes to read, but mostly for a selfish reason, for the future me to remember what it feels like to be in college and not to have only the sentimental gumbo of cliched recollections to hold onto when I recall my early days, but for a bit of that passion and nowness to be pinned it down with my words. I will do the best I can.<br />
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The college experience is like a pitcher, filling up with droplets of days, that flow into weeks, into semesters, into solid years broken up in between with summers both languid and professional (early years and later years). People tend to describe college with the taste they remember when it outflows from the pitcher - a mix of the bitter and the sweet, the common and the extraordinary, the personal and the group, whichever they chose to identify with. But what's important to remember is that that's not really how it happened - there wasn't a narrative to begin with, or a story I set out meaning to tell - every day has a routine, but it also held the promise of something mind-blowing to be learned, or a conversation to bloom into a friendship. It holds the prospect of spontaneous decisions to go to an event in the evening or eat with this friend and not another or spend all night in the library. <br />
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The memories that flow from the pitcher are smooth, well-mixed, in equilibrium, the sweet balancing out the bitter and all glossed over with the numbing taste of nostalgia. But my days are not all moderately sunny, they are sometimes blindingly bright and sometimes gloomy, some days I don't remember at all because I was too sleepy to pay attention, some days I conquer the world, some days I have no idea. And many, many days I fluctuate between those extremes. Sometimes the enormity of it all, contrasted with my small, small brain, brings me to tears - like now. Even a semester is too long a timespan to describe my emotional/mental state and growth, there are constant switchbacks and setbacks and spurts of understanding. A linear narrative of progress and growth may be appealing. It works on applications, it works to create a pretty package for evaluation. But in my experience, it is untrue. <br />
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So then...what is this time that I have been through? What is my last word, having rejected the generic smoothie-like 'best of times worst of times' version of the college story? <br />
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The truth is...I don't know. I feel dimly even as I go through my day and check off lists that don't matter a week from now (and I have kept a day calendar for every year I have been here, it's necessary) that the people I meet and things I read and listen to are planting seeds in me that may take years to show fruit. It's coalescing somewhere deep and unconscious and someday it's going to sprout in totally unexpected ways. And some things are just fun and I enjoy them intensely at this moment but will forget them very soon. Some things are not fun, and I forget them as soon as I can (this includes several of my classes, honestly). <br />
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But most of all I want to remember the people, people who have touched my life in these past three years in so many ways - teachers, peers, bosses, co-workers and those random people you meet and have a great conversation with for a while. I want to remember them crystal clear as the people they were and the hopes and dreams they had, and honestly I hope I remember the good more than the bad because life is too short to be uncharitable. But more than that, I hope to see them as more than still figures captured in photos - I hope to keep meeting them throughout my life, speaking with them, following these lives that have touched mine and see how their college pitchers overflow into the lives they are leading now - and how it hasn't. <br />
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I have hope that this may actually come true (as so many of my more lofty goals have not) precisely because we (those fortunate enough to have the opportunity to spend four years of live free of adult responsibilities in a ridiculously privileged and sheltered environment) enshrine college as that sacred moment in our lives, something fond to be remembered. I harbor hopes that these people I meet will actually want to keep in touch with me as well. My paths,even the ones I rejected due to time or expediency or laziness, continue to pulse, and they will be possibilities in some form or another till the day I die. College as a defined period of my life will soon be over, but college as a shared state of mind, a collective pitcher memory that bonds those far separated by passing years and interests, is something I can access for the rest of my life. And that's what college means to me.<br />
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Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-75877617924428709372012-10-24T01:47:00.000-07:002012-10-24T01:49:07.208-07:00My S side needs to remember concrete facts about senior yearExperiences I want to remember about senior year so far (chronological order):<br />
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1) I-place Orientation for a week (Gangnam Style! Party on the last night. New friends from all the colleges. Deep conversations. Eating in the village. Being the most experienced class of students - a strange feeling indeed.)<br />
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2) Sara/Mandy/Joanie's birthday (Shopping at the 99 cents store. Kool-aid vodka drinks.)<br />
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3) Going to the LA County Fair with Ji Su, Daisy and Ei.<br />
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4) Nocturnal Wonderland. Above and Beyond. Feeling limitless and utterly content, lying on the grass/carpet outside a tent with Rachit. <br />
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5) Halona with ISMP. Lying on the street at 3am, watching the night sky, nearly getting run over by a car whose headlights we saw coming just in time. <br />
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6) J visiting for a weekend ++. Santa Monica, movies, good times.<br />
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7) Yosemite for fall break. Great people, and majestic scenery. Realization of unfitness as proven by sore legs day after.<br />
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And all this, in the first 9 weeks of term. And with my future (almost) set in terms of where I'll be for the next two years, this year is looking up.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-24323946839147269522012-08-06T17:15:00.002-07:002012-08-06T17:15:58.461-07:00Here and NowI realize that I am addicted to the present, the here and now. It explains why my three favorite things are bodily sensations or states of being: sunshine, showers and sleep. On one hand, I derive so much pleasure from commonplace things, everyday beauty, sparkling conversations with friends new and old, music that makes me want to move, good food. And I keep seeking new pleasures and things to experience. On the other hand, it makes unpleasant moments almost intolerable. Drudgery at the office is one example, I can't just sit and do something monotonous for eight hours. I do wish I could either ignore my boredom or not be affected by it, or find a way to make even that experience pleasurable and interesting.
Perhaps everyone is like this, but I doubt so. Some people seem just so...bland. How can I engage my here and nowness in a productive way, and not wear it down to survive?Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-31691158166021162172012-08-01T19:30:00.001-07:002012-08-01T19:30:25.653-07:00Today was not half badSo interesting (and frustrating) how my emotions fluctuate wildly day to day even when there seems to be no real reason for it. I wonder if I'm going through a second adolescence, since my first one was relatively calm -- I was neither very rebellious, did not experiment with substances or illegality in any way, and generally did not indulge excessively in angst or have to deal with too many periods of social anxiety.
Since leaving home though, life has become more complicated and I wonder how some people in my position can be so settled, so SURE of what they want to do in life or even where they want to be for the next few years. I'm muddling it out, for sure, and I take comfort that the crooked paths are the more interesting -- but it does create some anxiety and restlessness, a push-pull, mental and almost physical tension that is simultaneously drawn to new endeavors and novelty and 'breaking away', whatever that may mean, and also yearns for certainty, stability and assurance that everything and everyone will be ok.
If as some claim as in songs that life is a dance, it is a very strange one indeed.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-32380306885827904582012-07-31T20:10:00.000-07:002012-07-31T20:10:14.838-07:00Long day today...But somewhat productive for me doing things that aren't exactly what I ought to be doing at work but need to be done anyway...things like replying to emails for school responsibilities, planning trips, sending letters to insurance, and so on.
I realize social contact is so necessary and yet so frustrating at times. Validation is such an important part of whatever endeavor one is part of, and at work you don't get it as much since you're paid to do things and expected to do them well. Hence the reward is in social validation and camaraderie...which I suppose sometimes takes a while to build. I realize I'm not the best socializer in the world, I gel well with a few people but am quite awkward with people whom I have no interests in common.
Oh wells, little steps...and always worth remembering that it doesn't matter what someone else thinks of you, its what you do (and how you respond to these slights) that matters.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-55115439890583453622012-07-30T22:11:00.000-07:002012-07-30T22:11:14.684-07:00Life is short.It just dawned on me, once again bright and clear like a single lightbulb hanging from a ceiling in an empty room just like the movies, how short life is and how little of it we will each remember. And how fleeting our thoughts are, coded only as neuron flashes through a heavy flesh-brain water-body.
So (to keep this post short, as I have a tendency to ramble) I would like to try an experiment...to write a post, as long or short as it wants to be, every day. I'm not sure how long this can last, but any words I can commit to a more reliable guardian, safe from unreliable memory, I shall.
A good runner looks only forward, not back at the steps she runs. But my life is not a race, it's more of a ramble, and maybe I can leave some markers on the path for the next one who comes this way.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-84585560354505113872012-05-21T08:06:00.000-07:002012-05-21T08:06:16.611-07:00The Responsibility of ElitesMy uncle (who moved to Canada as a young man and is back for a visit), my parents, and I went for dinner with my great-uncle and his wife. At first, I wasn't very interested in talking. Conversation with adult relatives is pretty boring. But as we went on, I gradually started feeling uncomfortable for another reason -- I realized that my relatives were pretty different from us (meaning my parents and by extension, me). Different in terms of education levels, financial position and all those tangibles and intangibles that make up social class. My great-uncle is a small businessman, who commutes to Singapore (10 hours drive each way) to sell the ornamental fish he raises. Apparently he's dabbled in many jobs, from selling used cars to stockbroker-ing. Wide-ranging interests? Not really. Just trying to survive.
What struck me was how uncomfortable I felt interacting with my relatives. Social class is an issue that we don't bring up among friends and family. And even within the bleeding-heart burning-passion overseas-educated crowd I know, most of us hang with others who are similar to us. It is a challenge to find common ground with everybody -- from the rojak seller across the road to the corporate lawyer in his mansion. For me I think I still feel ashamed of this unearned privilege, when so many others work so hard with less to show for it. And maybe deep down many comfortable middle-class, earned-their-way-up folk feel the same way. And that's why we don't like to talk to others who are different from us.
Every phase of life comes with its own challenge, that seems formidable at the time but once it's over, you wonder why you ever worried. It used to be getting through standardized exams, then getting into good colleges, then getting into university...but life beyond school doesn't have set phases and there are so many ways to succeed. You are both the student and the scorekeeper. And I suppose most people change the scoring metric as they go along so that they never have to see themselves as failures. Having real relationships with people who lead radically different lives from you shows you that there are different scorecards, and yours isn't necessarily better. But beyond the generalized walk-in-someone-else's-shoes message, there is another important point I think you can gain from really trying to get out of one's friendship comfort zone. The elite (particularly academics and politicians) like to think they know best for the hoi polloi, when in truth they know them only from graphs and statistics, and have no idea about their daily concerns, dreams, fears or household budgets. It's more than deigning to talk with the rubbish collector or chat with one's maid condescendingly -- it's willingly opening up one's life and treating the other as an equal. Rudyard Kipling's "If" says it quite well.
<i>
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch...</i>
That is a huge if indeed. And that is the challenge of the next however many years of my life, not to forget that beyond my close circle of friends and family who have roughly the same cultural experiences and options that I do, a whole world of people exists.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-33291406002730258942012-03-29T00:55:00.003-07:002012-03-29T01:43:22.409-07:00Everyone gets a little weird at nightA few things on my mind:<br /><br />1) I'm playing Humans vs Zombies, a role-play game played in campuses all over the US, for the first time in Claremont this year. Perhaps that, along with reading the Hunger Games Trilogy, has caused the themes of seiges, war, danger, competition to often prey (got it?) on my mind. I'm super aware of people around me now, constantly scanning the horizon for threats. I think games reveal so much about you, things you maybe subconsciously knew but can confirm for sure. For instance, my default strategy is to go unnoticed as long as possible, and avoid direct confrontation. Considering my less-than-stellar reflexes, this is a smart move; however it also applies to my life and how I conduct my relationships in general. I suppose I am more of a cohesive person that I sometimes think.<br /><br />2) It's late here, around 1 in the morning, and I slept for 5 hours prior to this. Yesterday I got about 5-6 hours of sleep, definitely not enough for me. My point in recounting all these mundane trivialities is to notice that when your sleep schedule gets a little awry, you feel rather disconnected to the world. Right now, for instance. I feel like I could be anywhere, I don't have a sense of myself or what I need to do tomorrow or in two months and all these topics that have been occupying the DO side of my mind for weeks, months now. I am just here, now. Strangely enough I feel closely linked to the female protagonist in The Mousetrap, the play by Agatha Christie. It's a creepy, psychologically disturbing murder mystery that Agatha Christie is so good at writing (to the point of being formulaic). That feeling, of being stranded in the midst of people, of having all connection to the wider world cut off, of a pervasive sense of danger -- don't we sometimes all feel that? When your car breaks down in a lonely spot on the road? <br /><br />In those cases I understand why one would feel that way, as there actually is a threat -- but I'm not sure why I do right now. It's like children being afraid of the dark. In our urbanized, technologically-advanced world we have done our best to steamroll uncertainty, to control our environment, to stem our fears with busyness. And that works most of the time. It's only in moments like these - late at night, or perhaps in a movie where one is transported into another time, another lens, or by reading a book or listening to a song (all forms of consumption, a one-way street) that we truly look into the abyss. <br /><br />3) This is connected to 1 and 2 maybe...I think I am less certain of who I am than I was three years ago. I've gotten better at hiding it, justifying my choices, charting a reasonable plan and constructing a straightforward narrative that makes my current state inevitable -- but I'm less certain of who I am. Not that I knew for sure what my mission in life was three years ago, but I knew I believed in God and I wanted to do something in public-private partnerships in Malaysia. Wow, actually that doesn't sound very different from now. That's somewhat reassuring. Even in the chaos I have now about the small things, the short-term decisions (ok, perhaps some pretty long-term ones in terms of where I want to be for the next few years), some fundamental things haven't changed.<br /><br />It's getting late, I'm going to stop being weird and get some rest.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-2161575235750152022012-03-04T02:43:00.002-08:002012-07-30T22:11:28.908-07:003 Nights of DancingThis has been a very fun few nights, and in fact did not appear that it would be that way a few nights ago when T and I went down to CMC for TNC and found ourselves rejected because we did not have a guest pass. While I had foreseen this problem, I hadn't thought there might be guards vigilantly checking each id card. It took us a while, but we managed to get passes and a pen from one person (it felt like a drug deal, doing it right under the nose of the guards), and the newly-elected president of CMC's student body escorted us in (another requirement). Slightly awkward, as I only know him from my leadership program and didn't expect him to identify me but he did. Anyways, the dancing wasn't that fun. <br /><br />Second night - started with drinks at the Brown Brotherhood at Pomona, with the incomparable R and met S and A there. I had more fun (and drinks) than expected, as well as good conversation. Afterwards we wanted to hit up CMC but ended up in Pomona Hall instead for some reason and joined a Pomona frat party. This frat was cool though, because it was almost all men of color which is a very unusual space. Had a lot of fun dancing with people who can dance (read: people of color generally) in a small space with REALLY good music. Maybe one downside was that I was too friendly to one person and gave my number away - that tends not to send the right message, and I don't think I'll do that again (or at least the bar has to be much much higher). <br /><br />Third night/tonight - Drinks at A and T's place, served by SW the awesome bartender/economic analyst from HK, and unexpectedly meet J and M, friends of my friend C at Pitzer my freshman year. They seem to be doing pretty well, enjoying the adult life, might like to not live with parents maybe, but that will change not long from now I think. I would live with my parents too if I could get a job in Ipoh with good prospects! Anyway, meeting them was the first highlight of my night. Then I made an important decision after that party to go to Underground Blues at Dom's Lounge. Long story short...SO. MUCH. FUN. Danced with a number of people, and learnt a lot of cool moves from a guy who used to be on the Ballroom Dance Company (who also said I move well and could join tour team with some training - considering CCBDC is one of the top collegiate competitive ballroom teams. He might have just been flattering me, but he didn't have to, so I'm just going to take the compliment and be very happy about it). This is a lot different from last night though, there's a certain form even in Blues, the most lax dancestyle there is, as opposed to free dancing/grinding which really doesn't require any form at all. Then went over to the CMC party at sr apartments with the same guy, but by then the party was kind of fizzling out.<br /><br />Late now, but this weekend was so great! And while I still have a lot of work to do, I did finish some already so I definitely think these few nights were worth it. After all, memories are what will last when all this academic knowledge fades away :)Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-84875025928527657152012-02-07T01:02:00.000-08:002012-07-30T22:11:41.968-07:00The Narrow World We Live InIt's been a tiring few weeks. Applications, interviews, lots of highs and lows, expectations unmet, friendships struck and friendships waning...what else is going to happen? <br /><br />It's 1am, I should go to sleep. I'm generally more upbeat than this.<br /><br />When I think though, of the choices I have in life, it astounds me...just a few decades ago it's likely that at my age, with my background, I would be a mother. Maybe uneducated. In a low-wage job, or not having a job at all. With limited access to healthcare, to new opportunities, to travel, to achieve many of the current markers of success. Possibly lonely, if I moved away from my home to marry. Probably not having much freedom to socialize, particularly with the opposite gender. <br /><br />Forget a few decades ago, women in many parts of the world still live like this today. Many women in Malaysia, too.<br /><br />It is only by looking back and forth in time can I anchor myself in today and glimpse my role in it all. Women (and their families) before me have paved the road to make MY options possible, MY future as optimistic and impactful-on-a-large-scale as I dream now. <br /><br />And so...maybe I need to relax a little. Just be grateful I am here, be thankful for these sisters and mothers who made it possible and are rooting for me from wherever they are. <br /><br />And take up my load, willingly, and use what I have to make the way smooth for others.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-54191762237132642692012-01-31T01:00:00.000-08:002012-02-07T01:02:44.731-08:00White Space1/31/12<br /><br />Change is unglamorous. Especially when you have to struggle really, really hard but pretend you've got it all together on the outside.<br /><br />Recognizing that change is difficult, is a good first step. I'm reminding myself that while I must be my own worst critic, I have to be my own best lover and supporter too. Narcissistic as that sounds, no one else can get into your head and rub the spot where it hurts. That sounds a bit like an abusive relationship, actually -- the abuser and the comforter being one and the same. But that's how change feels like to me. All day I bang into mistakes, faux pas; get bitten by insecurities; worn down by weariness; slap myself awake again -- and at the end of the night, I let myself slow down and get angry and cry and get myself tissues and finally collapse in a puddle of placated, if not blissful, weariness. And the next morning I wake up and start over again.<br /><br />When life is this open, this good, it seems almost disgusting to complain or to ever be unhappy in the slightest. But we all struggle, we struggle because there is no central cause to rally our lives around except narcissistic self-improvement. (Social justice? But how will you live on that?) In the end it circles around me, me, me. We are afraid to be our own masters. We need to be praised like children and given rewards for good behavior. FTS. <br /><br />More reflections: in the developed world, we've confused what needs and wants are. We neglect needs like sleep, good nutrition, friends, family -- and satisfy unlimited wants that are often destructive. Truth be told, we need much less to live to our fullest potential, than we say we need. All the rest, it's just window dressing and higher heels.<br /><br />(Note: Upon rereading, this post sounds like an angry, unfocused rant. Pardon the less-than-perfect writing. Hey, we all need to cut loose in our own way.)Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-52109061376356978382011-12-09T09:14:00.000-08:002011-12-09T09:16:37.367-08:00Pent UpI am so full of emotion/wonder/desire for understanding right now.<br /><br />I'm not sure whether its due to some weird hormonal imbalance, or prolonged social isolation (I haven't properly spoken to people in two days), but this feels weird.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-46322817100903368932011-11-21T16:17:00.000-08:002011-11-21T16:33:57.305-08:00Dreamscapes<span style="font-style:italic;">I don't know where I'm going, just know where I've been<br />It's been sweet, it's been bitter, everything in between</span><br /><br />Oh to exist! In a place where time and space cease to matter. To crouch in a cool limestone cave with sunlight shining through only from the mouth of the cave, and hear fresh water drip drip drip onto the glistening brown surface. Someday, maybe, a stalagmite might form there. I will be dust by then. <br /><br />Somehow this image comforts me. My generation has compressed time and space into capsules we swallow every morning, evening, night; we run and we run and we are afraid to venture off-track. Inundated by information; catching and dodging questions flung like arrows. Each byte of detail about the world around me is like a decibel, they are a torrent of sound, and my ears are ringing long after I leave the crowded dance floor of my peers' conversations and chat windows and newsfeeds. <br /><br />Sleep is merely an empty hole patched between bright glaring days of conscious experience. No true rest. No grateful escape.<br /><br />Where is truth? What should I seek? How do I get it?<br /><br />I will not find the answers here, it's not a needle in the haystack, it's not the one lottery coupon among millions whose digits match those on the television screen. It is an undefined variable in an infinitely complex, unsolvable regression. <br /><br />Drip, drip, drip.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-21234044782468747872011-05-01T14:49:00.000-07:002011-05-01T14:50:23.635-07:00ParadoxIf you were disposable, why does it hurt so much when you're gone?Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-23759569997982477432011-04-04T14:38:00.000-07:002011-04-04T15:16:32.706-07:00Thinking about Strangler TreesYesterday, my tutee and I read a SAT piece about strangler trees, these interesting floral curiousities that grow on big, tall trees in the tropical rainforest by seeding high up in the crevices of those trees. They begin as epiphytes, with roots extending towards the ground and towards the sun, but not feeding off their host. When their roots reach the ground and take root in the soil, they start growing rapidly and eventually cover up the hosts' roots. They also wind around the trunk of the host, eventually squeezing it to death (hence the name strangler trees). I picture a sort of king kong like scenario, navy SEALs parachuting down on many lines to bind King Kong and subdue the mighty giant.<br /><br />That is neither here nor there, but just one of those interesting facts - gobbets - that've been going through my mind lately. <br /><br />I've become more and more aware (not quite in a linear fashion but more like in spurts, with stagnant periods and frequent regressions) how competition has a negative effect on me. Perhaps that's why economics makes so much sense to me, its first principles are grounded on competition for scarce resources. And while the optimal outcome is an increase in productive capacity to create a win-win situation, the default mode is actually fierce competition for market dominance.<br /><br />With that kind of mindset, it's hard to override the mental belief that any gain for someone who may be even remotely considered my competition is a loss for me. A natural competitive urge that people have to be the best - that urge that manifests such ugly behavior as jealousy, envy and manipulation - justified and naturalized in the name of competitive efficiency which produces the social good, creates a very twisted mindset. One loses sight of the true goal. <br /><br />I try hard to be happy for other's accomplishments, and for the most part I can be. I recognize that it does contribute to the greater good, and that their gain does not diminish my status. I just wonder what it will take to change these feelings, to go against a world system where one's gain is another's loss. <br /><br />I think I have always tried to create and participate in non-zero sum systems, like promoting education, knowledge, community etc. But I keep encountering the hard fact that no matter what you try to do, there is always going to be a mindset and model of competition; whether through profits or through recognition. <br /><br />So to sum up there are two questions on my mind right now: How do I reconstruct my mental/emotional/physical reality so that I can push myself to work harder and improve, without the negative reinforcement of competition? And a more personal question: How serious am I about this?Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-32421115533914558552011-03-12T02:34:00.000-08:002011-03-12T03:15:13.483-08:00For those who love in doorways coming and goingTitle from an amazing poem called A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde.<br /><br />In the wee hours of the night, bypassed by solitude or much conversation, curiously empty of obligations and deadlines, there is so much space to be filled in the consciousness, and therefore I start to think again.<br /><br />Thinking is a curious activity, one day scientific man will progress beyond simple mind imaging in different colors and be able to create actual, rich, visual representations of mental activity - and find that no two people think in the same way. I am often frustrated by how circular my thought process is, I cannot explain to another why I feel a certain way or prevent recurring thoughts. I sometimes am unable even to explain what I'm thinking about, and realize then that I was thinking of nothing particular at all.<br /><br />Spring break is here (it's Friday, my last class and midterm was yesterday), it's weird to have such an anticipated moment arrive (weeks and weeks of anticipation, I tell you. Other people say "WOW time went by so fast!" and I think, "Really? Are you kidding?"). I wonder if I will feel like this on my wedding day.<br /><br />Body is running down, so I'll leave you all now...but I hope to update soon.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694882200285911160.post-2155985935264495022011-02-27T23:01:00.001-08:002011-02-27T23:20:31.789-08:00TrustWhat I have realized, (and many thoughts fly in my head when I exercise - somehow the creative fermentation process works as though in a dream, fitfully, without direction, with great emotional intensity), is that one's voice is unique and should never be compromised or sold. It is a tragedy that we must conform, shrink our natural burning brightness into halogen lamps that shut on and off on command, that produce tired thoughts and hackneyed arguments, that create efficiency but not understanding.<br /><br />Lately/all my life/ I have been struggling, stuck in a lockhold where two strong and opposite passions collide. Sometimes out of necessity one triumphs over the other, as with time-sensitive decisions such as where to study, what opportunities to take, and so on. Other times the struggle is personal, and not institutional, and I have been stuck in the lockhold for years - important life decisions like what do I believe about making a living, who God is, what direction should I point my life in, and so on. For so long I have tried, have sweated for the answer, for the simple decision that flows naturally and rings with certainty of the truth. Only then, I reason, will I be able to walk decisively towards the goals I have set, assured of who I am.<br /><br />Try as I might, it is hard to shake off the myth of linear progress, because there is some truth in it (and so much falsehood and simplification that leads to disappointment). Perhaps it is time for me to move beyond that, and reconcile myself to the possibility (I hesitate to say fact) that the patterns of life and meaning are much too dense for any one person to understand, their multi-dimensionality utterly incomprehensible when viewed through the limited prism that we operate in; but on the large scale, beautiful.Tea-pullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04790149014072413444noreply@blogger.com0