Will I be Pretty? Will I be Rich?

As cliche as it sounds, "que sera, sera" is still the best answer I can come up with.

As the semester and the year draws to a close, I find myself with some free time to contemplate where I want to be and what I want to do next year. For most graduating seniors here, it's either going to grad school, in the US, or applying to a job, in the US. For me, the real decision I have to make is a different one.

My family, as well as Vietnamese friends and acquaintances, thinks the question is whether or not to stay in the US. It's right and wrong. The decision I have to make definitely involves whether or not I will be staying in the US, but the implication of my family's question is I will instead return to Vietnam. And, you know, settle down. And stuff.

To be honest, returning to Vietnam isn't something I've considered. My mother said it wouldn't take much for someone like me to get a high-paying job and be rich in Saigon; I think it's true, even with an economy with 18% inflation and more unemployment then ever. However, it's just not appealing to me. Neither is returning to Costa Rica or Canada. You see, there is this thing called wanderlust, and I have a rather severe case of it. With every passing day, my experience here feels like it's ending, and to me, subconsciously, it means it's time to move on. To a new place.

I don't really know how it feels to have continuity in life. Nowadays, I rarely interact with those who were my closest friends when I was 18; and when I was 18, I had no connection with the people I hung out with when I was 15. Nowadays, I order everything from Amazon with an Amazon Prime account. When I was 18, books written in English were sold in a mall half an hour bus ride away from my town in Costa Rica; when I was 15, I eagerly waited for the rare occasions I got an overnight train ride to Saigon, where I could go to a foreign language bookstore, not to buy, but to sit at a corner and read the high-priced books for free.

There is something about the borders of countries that make changes drastic. Moving from one country to another sometimes means having to spend days looking for an item, rather then changing your Amazon shipping address. Sometimes it means carrying a wifi finder around looking for an internet cafe because your 3G smartphone is useless without a 3G network. Sometimes it means being extremely polite to people a year older than you, rather then calling your professors by their first names. I have never really experienced a change in social group without a change in culture. I can't speak for most people, but when I move from one country to another, I feel that avoiding spending efforts on the previous social group is necessary. I don't deliberately distant myself from anyone, but I don't agonize over how to keep existing friendships.

Many bonds were broken in that process, but there are also bonds that stay strong despite the lack of interaction. It's those bonds that shine during the rare occasions of reunion. It's kind of funny, but I think of those friendships like maxed out social links in the Persona games: you don't really spend time with the person any more, but your closeness doesn't decrease. It fits me well because I have never been the type to cultivate friendships where we get to know each other personally. My friendships are "we enjoy spending quality time with each other," and that's just about enough.

It's not something to pity. I like changes. My only high school friend from Vietnam said that when she moved from Phan Rang to Saigon for college, she felt that it was a new beginning. It was her first time away from home alone.

When I moved, I felt that I was in control of my life, because it had always been my own decisions whether to move and which country to move to, and it is not a task easily accomplished. More importantly, however, when I moved, I felt that it was a better beginning. In an environment with new people, new customs, and new culture, it's amazing how achievable personal changes feel. The social drama that felt like The Most Important Thing In The World a few months ago just don't exist anymore. No one knew me. I wanted them to see me as a particular kind of person, different from -- and, in my mind, better than -- the person I used to be, so I started acting like it. To the new people, I had always been this kind of person. No one acted like they knew me. No one demanded an explanation. Personal changes started with demonstrating new virtues, not disproving prejudices.

And so, it's only natural that as the end of this phase of my life approaches, I feel the need to move to another country. I've learned a lot here, it's time to become better. It's time to see more. It is what I'm used to. When everyone around me is preparing for the same next destination, it's only natural that mine is elsewhere completely different. After all these years, it feels strange to be concerned about the same thing everyone else is concerned about. I tend to envision myself in Japan because that's where I've wanted to be for a long time, but I'll be just happy with any other country. It will be a new experience, and few things can excite me more than that.

But what about the US? I'm not particularly attached to the US as a country. I'm more attached to the people here, and this is where I had my first get-to-know-each-other-personally friendship, which, as I found out, is not that bad after all. I won't feel upset at all about staying here. Beside being curious about the world, I also want to be helpful. A fancy term would be to "save the world"; a more realistic term would be to "make a significant contribution." Staying here, to me, would mean that play time is over, let's start right away on that path.

This somehow has become a very important decision of my life. If I move once, I will definitely move twice, and more. It's all about exploring the world, enjoying changes, and increasing wisdom stats. Staying here is all about getting an early start in my mission of "making a significant contribution to the world". I'm aware that it's possible to explore the world and making contributions at the same time. However, staying and working here in the US is the path that will advance my goal of significant contributions the fastest.

As I've been thinking about this, I often remember something my father said. He visited me on my first day at MIT, and he told a professor, "this is the happiest day of my life." Even though ultimately, I know I get where I am today largely because of my initiatives and efforts, I don't forget that I carry my father's dream and years of hard work. He wants me to decide what is the best for me, and I think the most important thing he wants for me is happiness. And so I don't take it lightly. Many people I know, many of them friends, would dismiss such a motivation, thinking that it is wrong to be influenced by the wish of your parents. I disagree, and that to me sounds like the easy path out. When someone is so emotionally (beside financially) invested in me that the highlights of his life is my success, I don't think putting a lot of weight on my mundane happiness because of him is something too much to ask for.

I didn't really know, and I still don't know, what the right thing to do is. It's good to make options available, so I will attempt to pursue both in the next few months. Who knows, maybe I'll find out that I actually don't have a short-term choice after all, and it's hard to say where that will take me next.

September in Pictures

My hedgehog, Spika.

Spika and DOS are really curious about each other.

DOS does this a lot, at this exact corner. I always thought that's a dog thing.

DOS plays with the scratch post a lot. She does everything except for scratching it.

Our air cannon to launch angry birds. Built in 2.009 lab.

Angry birds waiting to be launched.

Me and Orange Team in the after match.

Why do we celebrate deaths?

A friend of mine passed away 3 weeks ago. Yesterday was my birthday.

This combination suddenly made me wonder why people celebrate deaths. In East Asia, death anniversaries of your ancestors are big deal to the entire family. At some point just sort of became a ritual. I feel like it's not the dead that was being celebrated or remembered; it's just an excuse for an occasion to get together.

Jobs, part I

I decided to not look for a job in consulting. Not strategy consulting, at least.

Today I planned to take Stroud's reasoning test. I arrived at the door, ready and everything. Erik told me to print my resume out and include my GPA on it too, so I headed to the nearest cluster. On my way there, I suddenly realized that consulting wasn't really for me.

I'm not sure why or what it is. Maybe the fact that I've been spending a lot of time on 2.009 just showed me how much I enjoyed 2.009 kind of work more; maybe something was off about seeing Erik and Kim as consultants. Now, though, all my effort will probably go into my design portfolio.

I guess that's 3-4 companies off the list.

Design Blog?

Should I have a new blog for design stuff?

I kind of want to reduce the number of blogs I have and have every sortable/searchable.

In other news, I shot my first pistol shot yesterday (life goal accomplished +1).

How Tall is Your Balloon Tower?

Ours is this tall:

and we won the 2.009 balloon contest, getting the grand prize of a $10 Tosci gift card per person!

2.009 looks like it will be a very interesting class. If you're interested, you can read about it on the official website.

About Death

Death is frightening. Some choose to ignore this, and to them death is amusing. It is not clear what the right attitude about death would be, for no one alive has the authority and insight to talk about it.

I could only think of what someone told me about death before they died, and assume that their attitude didn't change after the transition. When you think of the dead as just being somewhere far away and not contactable, it really isn't so bad. It just isn't talked about. And after so many years of denying, it starts to feel like truth. No matter how many cryptic messages I write about it, looking straight at it is something I never did or felt the need to.

And then there's you. If I see you again one day, what will I say? "I'm sorry that this is the experience that bonds us"? In some alternate universe, we would be best friends walking alongside someone who is not dead. In this universe, though, we are friends in silence. If someday we find ourselves occupying the same space again, we will be standing together in silence.

It's been a while since we last met, and it's been a while since I last thought of you. Even though we don't interact and have no desire to, I still follow your activities online. It's almost a habit now. I don't know whether you do the same thing for me or not, but if you're reading this, this is what I want to say: my friendship with you is very unique and special. It is a friendship I value greatly and I think you do too; happiness is just not a part of it.

July, 2011

Another month! Hopefully I'll be better at doing what I planned this time.

What I'm working on:

+ Research for next step ater MIT. I want to figure out:

- what graduate schools I'm applying to (if going to graduate school)
- what companies I'm applying to (if looking for a job)
- or other plans

+ Perchance to Dream: crunch time!

+ Experimenting for the best study practice by learning some math: I'm going to review the math classes I took at MIT and teach myself some 18.06, following the practice that I plan to use for my classes in the fall semester. The math-learning is just a side-effect of the actual project, which is testing and revising by newly-made study method

+ mini-project: finish my last bits of organizing:

- figure out different email accounts
- answer emails
- reduce emails
- throw some stuff out
- time database
- clean up monthly bills
- financial plans

Saturday Morning Project: more tinkering projects (hopefully)

What I'm reading: currently I'm halting my reading on ebooks, so I can read through the physical books that I have and put them somewhere/give them away so I don't have to carry them with me everywhere I move. Moving a lot of books is very tiring. That said:

+ Switch (reading)
+ The Clean Tech Revolution (complimentary with one of my projects)
+ The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (late, I know...)

Habit I'm building:

+ This one is a lot more specific and realistic: go to sleep at 12.30, and wake up at 8.30!

Skills I'm building:

+ drawing
+ guitar

Adventure: still unknown, let's see

End of June, 2011

Another planning post for another month. But first here's a recap of how June went:

What I worked on:

+ unpacked

+ organized some stuff:

- GTD system, probably needs a bit more detail twitching
- made checklists, probably also need more modifications
- renamed computers
- sort of organized physical workspace
- evaluated phone plan

+ some work on Perchance to Dream

I did not completely organize some of my stuff :( and I also did not do anything about math... partially due to the NYC trip.

What I read:

+ Ender's Shadow
+ Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother
+ The Now Habit (did not completely finish it)

I'd say it was so-so. I did not complete everything that I planned, so it's a bit sad.

On New York City Attractions

I'm back from my NYC and (more importantly) have recovered from my mandatory motion sickness every time I'm near a bus. Here is a brief list and quick comments or trivia the places I've been to:

Harlem: so homogeneously black.

Bronx Zoo: the polar bear looked sad because it had no snow.

United Nations: did you know that the UN used to be in San Francisco? It got moved to new York because the Russian delegation said it was too far away from Russia.

Madame Tussaud: Einstein! The 4D movie is also cute, but very random and unrelated. Also why is it called 4D anyway? It's not like you're traveling in time when watching it.

Harry Potter exhibition at Discovery Time Square: they claim that the stuff in the exhibit is the original used in the movie, not the replica. It was believable until I saw Hagrid's outfit. Is there actually a person that large and tall?

Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum: don't volunteer for a submarine if you're claustrophobic. Even if you're not, it's just a bad idea in general.

BODIES... the exhibition: I wonder who all of these people that donated their bodies were.

Clipper City Sailboat: it's a huge sailboat. That's awesome.

NBC Tour: the tour guide reminded me of Jimmy from South Park. He led us to the Globe Theater and said "what a lovely audience." After we finished watching the documentary, he appeared and said "what a lovely audience." When we crossed another tour, he said to them "what a lovely group of people."

Radio City Musical Hall: did you know that stages are controlled by hydraulic lifts? Apparently it's the state-of-the-art technology. The stage is very big and awesome.

Lincoln Center: the Koch theater is nicknamed the Jewelry Box. Again, did you know that stages are controlled by hydraulic lifts? Avery Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic, is also nice. There's an upright piano outside and there is often someone playing. It was nice to sit down and listen.

The Fantastic Four

I stumbled upon this the other day:

...and it brought back memories. There is a nice story behind it (as you would have known if you understood the Vietnamese the artist wrote).

I used to play an MMORPG and made friends from there, among which were guys A, B, and C. Guy A was majoring in journalism (should have graduated by now) and wrote an article about mythologies in MMORPGs. For this he interviewed a bunch of gamers, among which were guys B, C and me. Seeing that we shared the same opinions, guy A decided to make a website dedicated to mythologies as manifested in different MMORPGs and recruited us to the team. I never interacted much with guy B. Guy C was an architecture major (should also have graduated by now) and had done a lot of drawing and CG. Known by the screen name of "flute", he drew this picture to represent us four, the would-be founder of the website, thus The Fantastic Four.

The figures are modeled after the elements and mythical creatures. Guy B is Fire, the Devil (top left), who also has those curly horns due to his screen name's reference to ifrits. Guy A is Air, the Harpie (top right) and he looks just like that in real life. Guy C is Earth, the Reaper (bottom left). I don't think either he or the painting has any resemblance to the Reaper, but I guess the element of Earth does fit his personality. Last is Water, the Mermaid (bottom right) -- me.

We kind of just abandoned the project halfway, but this picture still makes me smile every time I see it.

Salt and Sand

I was recently asked about the title of this blog. Yes, there is a reference -- although me using a random string of words (as in the case of AoNikki) wouldn't be out of character. The reference is from the song "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay:

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
On pillars of salt and pillars of sand

Next is of course the question of what this reference means to me. When I first heard this song, it rang as a strong personal metaphor for the recent years of my life. Just like everyone else, I have been constantly changing as I grew up. In the last few years, however, the changes had been drastic. Needless to say, I used to be a very different person.

To specify the type of person I used to be would be to risk sounding pompous, but this much I can say: I used to be much closer to "a king" than I am now. My "kingness" was built on my thoughts, my philosophy, and my desire to be difference in specific ways. These things are my foundations and I don't lie about them --- when it comes to them, I believe what I say, or write, as I say or write it. However, these things have been, and will be, changing drastically and often. In the context of this song's metaphor, they are salt and sand: they make my pillars, and they fall, and they are replaced.

The connection I feel with the lyrics doesn't stop there, but the rest is irrelevant in this explanation of my blog title. If you really want to know, you can start with listening to a good song and thinking more about it:

The Tragedy of Overcaring

I heard that it's hard to overwater a fig, and yet that's what I managed to do. It was rather difficult to miss this fact as a thick layer of water lied uneventfully on top of the soil. I tilted the pot over the sink so all the free water could escape.

That was a week ago. The fig had been fine during the first few days after that; however when I looked again this evening, most of the lower leaves had turned yellow and seemed like they would fall off any moment.

Additionally, there is a pot of flower that I usually tend to after the fig. After the overwatering accident from last week, I have been a lot more cautious about giving water to the plants, and thus this flower pot had received less water than usual. This evening, however, I noticed that most of the flowers had withered and fell off and only leaves remained. The soil felt dry, so I gave it about a glass of water (it's a big pot). But now I'm really puzzled. Did I underwater the flower? Or did I actually overwater it, but the water is just hiding deep underneath the soil and I couldn't feel it --- in which case I just aggravated the situation?

Caring for plants is hard, as I just discovered. My plants being unhealthy makes me really sad, and I think if the situation with the fig doesn't improve, I'll have to repot it. I've been putting off doing that because 1) it looked healthy and 2) I don't know how to do it. But, as it turned out, my plant isn't actually healthy, and saving it is a lot more important.

End of May and June

End of May is basically moving and meeting time. I moved to my new apartment a few days ago, and things are settling down. During the last several years, there have been a lot of trials-and-errors as I tried to find the organization approach that works best for me; and this time around, I'm trying a completely new thing: under-scheduling.

I did not commit to anything this summer beside working (probably part-time) at the reactor. But that's perfectly fine since this is my last free summer before I graduate and enter a world where summer breaks don't exist. Not committing to any formal obligation, however, doesn't mean not doing anything. There are many personal projects that I'm eager to start, and in the spirit of under-scheduling, I decided to pursue three of them each month (four for the last week of May and June together). My mother and sister are also visiting from June 1st-8th, so I don't expect to get much work done during that time. Everything considered, this the plan for the end of May and June:

What I'm working on:

+ unpacking: hopefully this will be done by the beginning of June, as it will be the only thing I work on at my apartment

+ organize life, which involves:

- flesh out and implement a new GTD system
- answer ALL the emails and implement a new email system
- reduce number of emails
- make check lists for various routines: daily, weekly, monthly, study sessions
- organize and rename computers, refine "Work" account, clean up computer
- organize physical workspace
- throw my stuff out
- compose a database of how long it takes me to do various tasks
- evaluate phone plan
- clean up monthly bills

+ Perchance to Dream: my Assassin Guild game, probably running at the end of the summer. I don't expect this to be very time consuming.

+ Experimenting for the best study practice by learning some math: I'm going to review the math classes I took at MIT and teach myself some 18.06, following the practice that I plan to use for my classes in the fall semester. The math-learning is just a side-effect of the actual project, which is testing and revising by newly-made study method

+ mini-project: explore the surrounding.

+ mini-project: cooking and cooking plans

Saturday Morning Project: Drawing and CGing

What I'm reading: I haven't figured out how fast I read yet, so I may read more or less than what are on this list.

+ Ender's Shadow
+ Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother
+ The Now Habit
+ The Psychology of Emotions (yeah, I read textbooks for fun)

Habit I'm building:

+ complete daily and weekly checklists on time. This is kind of like cheating, since the checklists imply several habits...

Skill I'm building: skills are something that I work on 10 minutes each day.

+ guitar (not including playing for fun, of course). I will soon come up with a curriculum.

Adventure: unknown yet, let's see what comes up. I guess exploring the surrounding of my apartment can be an adventure in itself. I suspect I'll have some other too when my mother and sister come.

Well, that's it! Fairly realistic. Let's see how this works out a month from now.

Achievement Unlocked: 350 kg

This week, I moved about 150kg of stuff (yes, I have a lot of stuff) to my new apartment. On Monday, I inspected and moved 4 boxes of silicons, each box weighing about 16kg. On Tuesday, I inspected and moved 6 sixteen-kg-boxes and 2 twenty-three-kg-boxes. That's total of roughly 350 kg in 3 days.

My back hurts, but moving that many kilograms around in such short time feels like an achievement.

Walk of Tango

To walk is typical. To dance is a joy. Tango is the dancing art of walking.

As a dance school dropout, I cannot emphasize enough how much I regret having stopped dancing. I appreciate the opportunities I had by not being heavily involved in dancing; however, not going to dance classes altogether was an unfortunate decision. I have been hesitant to attend dance classes again because after so many years, picking up where I left is not trivial.

However, when twenty percent of your iTunes playlist is dedicated to Tango, you cannot deny the urge to dance. My appreciation for Tango is relatively recent. Back in the day, I most enjoyed Swings, Jive, or Cha Cha Cha. Ballet routines were boring; and slow dances -- perfect for setting a romantic mood in social contexts -- were something the young me did not comprehend (nor the current me, in regards to the romance part). And then there was the Hip Hop hype.

Argentine Tango is different. It is by no mean lacking appreciators -- quite the opposite. But it did take me a long time to properly appreciate the subtlety and expressiveness of the dance.

Many people, me included, are drawn into Tango by watching Fantasia, also known as show or performance tango, such as the video above. Tango purists claim choreographed Fantasia is not real tango, for Argentine Tango was meant to be an improvisational dance. I think of all the reasons to not do something, "because it was not meant to be done" is a pretty lame one. After all, it takes creativity to produce a good choreograph, and then it takes a lot of techniques and weeks of practice to be able to perform. Who can deny that this Fantasia dance is not a highly refined performance art (performance starts at 1:00) ?

Here's an equally impressive performance by the same couple. I prefer the first one -- maybe it's just me, but Tango just feels more elegant when it doesn't take much space.

Of course, this is not to devalue Milonga. As a musician, I enjoy improvisation more than anything else. Although I have not explored dancing enough to tell, there is no reason why I would not enjoy some tango improvisation. And after all, who's to say this Milonga dance is not as impressive as some Fantasia performance?

It is, however, a different expression. After all, it is hard to successfully coordinate the passion and subtlety seen in choreographed performances into one like this.

Snapshot: Mens et Manus

My first design project, a solar dehydrator, for D-lab India at Avani IAP 2011. This is where my interest in engineering design started.

The most effective and healthy way to lose weight...

... is to go on a D-lab trip. Especially trips to locations whose food you don't like.

It's not that I don't like Indian food, but my appetite decreases fast when the same kind of food is served everyday. In Avani, the same kind of food is served everyday, and it's vegetarian, and there isn't much if any variety. Many members of the Avani community are vegetarians and all pay for their daily meals here, therefore really simple and low-cost dishes are used to make it more affordable. What makes me feel less guilty about sometimes not wanting this tasty food is that my body seems to be accepting it as part of the daily routines and turning indifferent instead of favoring or objecting. In short, my fondness for the food here over time is like the graph of binding energy vs distance, where the y-axis is fondness (0 is neutral) and the x-axis is time.

I have a background of limited luxury in rural Vietnam where life quality is not much different from Avani. Experiencing the same thing as an outsider, however, gave fresh and insightful perspective. It was easy to wonder how the people around here can eat the same dishes every day happily, and then I would remember how a bowl of plain white rice and fish sauce would easily last me for months.

Except for the chai. I have no problem drinking Avani chai everyday. I'll even make it frequently in Cambridge. It just doesn't get old.

First post

I am writing something here because Blogspot is unhappy with me not having any post.

That is how my first post to a blog usually goes; and usually it would have ended after the first sentence. Unusually, I kind of have something to say this time.

I am closing AoNikki, my blog on My Opera, after couple years of very sporadic new posts.  The majority of posts on AoNikki were written during the two years when I transitioned from UWC Costa Rica to MIT, and have been extremely important in the first steps in my journey of self-discovery. Now, however, I feel that they no longer reflect who I am -- which is fine -- and make me feel pressured to only write about things that are consistent with the theme of the whole blog -- which is not. Don't expect to see an update on AoNikki because there will be none; the old posts, however, will stay there because they are quite pleasant to read. Some of them are kind of silly, and that's fine too.