Expired Pineapple 【過期鳳梨】

A whole 2 months of nothingness, when my life is full of experiences and adventures!

I am inspired by Jeannie write more. Even if it’s just a quote a day. Hey, if I can take a picture a day, can’t be harder to write something down instead.

Must not let laziness take over. Here’s a quote from my book of the month to get me started:

“In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won’t get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got.” - Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Ch. 26

One of my colleagues has been expecting his first child and I had wondered whether it was about time. I finally got the email today, and in his excitement he forgot to even let us know the cute baby’s name. Only a few hours after I hit the send button to the congrats email, I heard the news – Steve Jobs died.

It came so unexpectedly – I was walking back from the microkitchen with a tea in my hand wondering how much longer this day is going to last, when my coworker suddenly raised her head and just said it like that: “Steve Jobs just died.” I took a few seconds to process the information and exclaimed something unintelligible, then hurried back to my desk to read the news, as if hoping that it was a really bad joke.

But it was true, and I was sad. Steve Jobs was one of those people born with charisma and energy and brilliance that you can’t help but admire. He didn’t say much about himself to the world. We only got a sense of who he is through the products and the companies he built. He wanted to make a dent in the universe, set out to do just that, and left a pretty big dent all right.

One life perishes and another begins. At times like this, we are reminded of how similar we all are. We are born, we grow to see the world, then we leave. Yet we each have our unique journeys, and I hope that dear baby L will have a very special one. Because as some other wise person once said, everyone dies, but not everyone lives.

The past couple of weeks have been… Interesting to say the least.

It started with a mysteriously sprained ankle. I tried the rock climbing wall in my office in 3 inch heels and had an accident when I was about to reach the top… OK, that was the official version no one believes (although I wouldn’t put it past me to try to climb in heels). The real version is, I was on an extremely long call while sitting under the beautiful sun outside, and when I finished the call I got up before I realized my foot was asleep and… FACEPLANT. Slightly less exciting but painful beyond belief. I shed a few tears.

That wasn’t greatest start to my wonderful adventure. I made it to LA for a work event and had a wonderful meeting colleagues new and old. Then came Saturday, and as I made it to the beach and saw everyone splashing in the water taking the surfing lesson I had to cancel because of my bum ankle, I was pretty bummed. So I did what I always do: listen to my heart instead of my head, and got into a wet suit. Miraculously I survived, albeit never having been able to stand up on the surf board Then I toured LA a bit. Made it to Urth Cafe and Getty Museum and Annenburg Space for Photography for the Beauty CULTure exhibit. I’m not one for remembering exhibits but I truly enjoyed this one. We all want to be viewed as beautiful, and it’s hard to feel so with society’s obsession with perfection and the technology to create the impossible image of beauty. Not that I’m throwing away my mascara and P90X, but it was a thought-provoking experience.

The trip was also a reunion for some of my work buddies that I haven’t gotten a chance to truly sit down and chat with for a while. And that we did. Over many glasses beer and wine, we talked about everything from career to religion to the meaning of life, and had our moments. The arguments themselves, while although worthy of recording, have faded somewhat along with the buzz, but I’m grateful for having friends that won’t shy away from these arguments and can share their honest thoughts and opinions with me.

I then made it to Dallas for yet another work event. Ah, I missed these company wide training sessions when you get to meet wonderful people all over the country. Some of my best friends from work have been those who shared these sessions with me, even though most of them have long moved on to bigger and better things. I’m a fan of change. They are always exciting for me and present many opportunities, and I can remember distinct events in my life that led to wonderful things. I hope this will also be one of those catalytic events.

Then, as a result of my stupidity, I missed an important flight. You know, I really don’t feel as horrible as I probably should. I missed an opportunity to celebrate with old friends, and ended up making new ones. I could have brooded about the former and never even made the effort to leave my room, but I didn’t, and I was fortunate enough to have friends who included me in their plans. I paid a hefty price, but that was sunk cost, and I managed to enjoyed myself immensely. I wish I could say I learned my lesson, but that is not very likely. Then, I just pray that I will always have the power to let go. To forgive myself for mistakes that I can’t take back, and do something wonderful to make up for them.

P.S. New favorite activity at work – lunchtime basketball!

最近中文寫得少了許多。自從離開德州，身邊就沒有什麼會講中文的朋友。週末達拉斯的朋友們來玩，才難得的講了好幾天的中文，一開始還著實結巴了幾句。語言能力怕就是這樣弄丟的，我要反省！！！

今天我想寫的，是音樂。

Spotify進軍北美，馬上便供不應求。雖然許多這種invite only的東西都只是人來瘋，過一陣子就覺得沒趣了，但這玩意兒還真不錯，什麼歌都能找到，居然還有周總和張靚穎。免費的雖然有些廣告，但絕對多不過電台。最好的是可以跟別人分享，找到喜歡的歌直接拉進別人的inbox就好，方便得不得了。我是屬於醒著沒看電視的時間都開著音樂的人，平日聽到一首喜歡的歌還要記住跑回家下載，麻煩得很。現在隨找隨聽，還免費！還合法！世界上還真是有美味而免費的午餐哪。

說起分享這事，哎，想當年某愛慕者刻了整整一CD（我還沒那麼老，已經過了錄磁帶的年代了，ok? -_-)的情歌給我，還跟我說每一首都讓他想起我，讓我感動的。。。現在CD還在，聽起來怪懷念的。可惜人家現在早就給別人錄CD了，想找他推薦幾首歌來都怕尷尬 -__-

分享這樣簡單，卻還真沒幾個人用。一開始我每天看著我空空的inbox，挺寂寞的。現在倒還真是有人發歌給我了，我又糾結了。明明是不愛我的前男友，過兩天就發首歌過來，我今天聽著you are the only dream i understand, 明天想著now i’m living in your afterglow，還真是鬱悶得很。歌是確實好聽，但他老人家是個不聽歌詞的種，那會想到我這顆細膩軟弱的心啊，聽著這些多希望是他想對我說的話，卻知道他啥意思都沒有，要多難過有多難過。恨得牙癢癢的，還什麼都不敢講，其實有時候也挺想甩自己兩巴掌打醒的。

那些情歌，沾上了一個人的記憶，就再也洗不掉了。KTV裡笑著唱著，眼睛看著他，心裡想的是誰只有自己知道。所以每一天才會有這麼多新情歌，紀念一段又一段失去就再也回不來的愛。

It took me longer than I thought. It was more fun than I thought. It’s garnered more attention than I thought. After a month of hard work, the Death Star has been built.

I impulsively bought a $400 Death Star Lego set for my birthday last month. Many were shocked: $400 for a Lego set?! Others were impressed: you are the coolest geek girl ever! Ok, so the only people who were really impressed were my die hard Star Wars guy friends. Most people are in the you-could-have-bought-an-ipad-for-400-dollars camp. But as this article I read today once again confirmed, buying experiences brings you much more happiness than things. And the Death Star building experience has been a great one that’s totally worth the price.

To give you a bit of background, I don’t love Star Wars, and I’ve never owned any other Lego sets. I love building things, but growing up in China, the toys I had were poor imitations to actual Legos. And as much as I love sci-fi, I didn’t really see what the big deal is with Star Wars. So, here’s the story that I’d been hesitant to share with my enthusiastic fans who thought I was the coolest geek girl. I had been looking at this Lego set for the past 3 years for the right time to buy it for a boy. I thought it would be the perfect present, and it would be a super fun experience to build it together. Just one small problem: there’s never a right time to buy such an expensive present for someone who keeps breaking up with me -__- But I had looked at it for so long that I have grown to love it myself, and finally, I came up with the craziest idea: why don’t I just buy it for myself instead! So yes, it was an impulse buy, but still a well thought out one.

The building process itself as been documented somewhat sporadically in pictures. The pictures don’t show what an awesome creation this is. Whoever designed it was ingenious and probably watched Star Wars way too many times for his own good (yes, I’m being totally gender-biased here, I’m going to make the assumption it’s a dude). You just have to come over and play with it to see how cool it is. What I want to talk about today is (cue Star Wars main theme) — Lessons from Death Star!

I actually started thinking about these lessons this weekend. I had almost completed the final level, and realized that I had way too many left over pieces than I should at this stage (Lesson #1: Follow directions carefully when you don’t know what you are doing). I discovered a few missed steps, and the perfectionist in me made the regretful decision to take off the top two layers of the model to replace two tiny pieces that no one else probably would have noticed missing. It was then I discovered Lesson #2: Don’t always try to be a perfectionist. Those two tiny pieces found their destined home. Unfortunately I couldn’t put the rest of the model back together properly and things started falling apart, BIG TIME. At the end of the night, my almost-done Death Star had broken into 7 or 8 big chunks with random small pieces falling all over the place. I was determined to finish it that day, and the harder I tried, the more of the disaster it seemed to become. Here comes Lesson #3: Set realistic goals, and be flexible when circumstances change.

At some ungodly hour, I finally gave up and decided to go to sleep. I left everything as is on my floor, and didn’t even touch them the next day because of my frustration. And when I returned to my project, I was much calmer and had a plan. Lesson #4: Take a break when things get too rough. I saw that my problem was trying to take shortcuts by putting whole levels together, and the pieces just wouldn’t fit snugly. As tedious as it was going to be, I would just have to break them into reasonable pieces and redo a lot of work. Lesson #5: Lazy shortcuts sometimes end up costing you more time. So I took my time, followed instructions and slowly put my Death Star back together. I told myself that there is no deadline and I don’t need to rush to finish. Lesson #6: Enjoy the experience, not just the end result. It took me another 2 days, but the Death Star is finally in good shape.

I didn’t want to say complete, because I still had some “extra” pieces. Unfortunately I don’t think I can find their rightful places without starting from scratch, and it’s probably not worth my while to do so. Lesson #7: Not everything has to be perfect, make sure you remember the lessons from the mistakes. It still looks great and I had a lot of fun in the process. My experience was a success.

My roommate’s boyfriend was visiting last night as I put together the last pieces, and the three of us constructed some hilarious scenes with the mini-figures before putting them onto the final model. Here’s one final lesson: Lesson #8: Experience is more fun when shared with others. As much fun as this journey has been, it would have been more fun if we got to do it together. I look forward to my next project, and I hope I’ll have someone to share the experience with

I hate it when people don’t reply to my emails or return my phone calls. Those who know me will know that I’m very lazy when it comes to doing either of those things. Thus when I actually go through the trouble to do so only to find my efforts wasted, I am disappointed, annoyed, and after a few times, I stop trying.

In this day and age, when we get updates on people’s lives from Facebook walls and the easiest way to find a person is on gchat, even getting an email from someone (that’s about something other than planning an event or paypal instructions) has become a rare surprise. With everyone’s busy schedules and time zone differences, a nice long phone conversation requires coordination and planning. As someone who has fully embraced social media and has probably tried every single network at some point in time, I really miss the good old days when we called people to say happy birthday, not leave a message on their wall.

The more friends I have on Facebook, the less I share about my life. I post funny videos, inspirational articles, and pictures of food, as if I have nothing worthy to say myself, but I do. It’s just that, we are all a little afraid of sharing too much of who we really are, for fear that our naivete and vulnerability will be used as weapons of ridicule. Not everyone will agree, and not everyone will understand, and perhaps that’s why we are so desperate to find a companion, someone who may not always agree, but will at least try to understand our silly thoughts and ambitions, and hopefully will still love us in spite of them.

It’s hard to tell sometimes, whether a person’s busy, in trouble, or just don’t care enough to reply. But when you have time to update your facebook status and comment on silly pictures, and won’t take the two seconds to hit reply to a personally addressed email, I tend to think you just don’t care enough. Every relationship requires effort from both sides, and unfortunately most of the time one side will try harder than the other. And it’s sad, when you come to a point where you think your efforts are wasted. But it’s good, because you can now put that effort towards someone who will perhaps try just a bit harder.

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”

That’s my gchat status for the day. It seems that the departure of Steve Jobs has caused quite a stir in the market, the tech world, the business world, the world in general. He had once said he wanted to put a ding in the universe. It would seem that he did.

I’m not a fervent fan of Steve Jobs like many others. (personally I like Bill Gates better for his philanthropic work, not that either of them would care). I was, however, very touched by his commencement address at Stanford in 2005. He spoke of his triumphs and his failures, both of which people found inspirational. Well, that is really a lie, because if he had just failed, he would not have been invited to speak that day, we would not be here wallowing about “the end of an era,” and we certainly would not be talking about how inspirational he is. As much as people like to talk about their failures and how “it’s ok to fail,” it’s really only ok to fail if you can get up and succeed afterwards.

Ah, but for you to succeed, you have to first figure out what success is. I read this great article today and found this quote by Liz Strauss: “It’s not possible for the world to hold a meeting to decide your value. That decision is all yours.” Much easier said than done. For many, we’ve let others define success for us for most of our lives, achieving one goal after another, and one day we stop to look ahead, and realize that we really haven’t made a ding in the universe. The scary thing is, we may never will.

We are not all geniuses. We can’t all build a revoluntionary product or company like the Macintosh or Facebook. We are not all saints. We may not want to live in the jungle protecting endangered species or brave the war zone to save the children. Most of us are going live completely ordinary lives, without wiki pages dedicated to us. So it’s ok to define your success as just making it to a manager level, or find value in making the perfect home for your family. You just have to make sure that decision was all yours, and not what you figure would make the world think better of you. You just have to have tried your best, not only enough to not fail in other people’s eyes.

Of the graduation ceremonies I’ve attended as a participant, it’s sad to say the only commencement speech I remember was from high school, and the only thing I remember from it was our class president’s opening joke about standing in line for Star Wars. But thanks to Youtube I’ve been able to listen to a few that were truly inspiring. J.K. Rowling gave a speech at Harvard in 2008, where she said something about failure that was very similar to the quote I shared earlier about success. “Ultimately,” she said, “we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.” She classified her failure as epic, and the world has now crowned her one of the most successful people it’s ever seen. For every J.K. Rowling in the world, there are hundreds of aspiring writers whose names we will never know. Who failed epically and did not manage to get up. For every college drop out that started a multi-billion dollar company, thousands more struggle just to survive. So yes, it’s ok to fail, and it’s ok to be afraid to fail. As long as that fear makes you try harder and dig deeper and in the end, motivates you to succeed.

I live in a Christian household. That is to say, I have three wonderful roommates who are all devout Christians and had wanted another Christian roommate.

They got me instead. Having spent most of my college weekends going to church, retreats, worship practice and Bible study, I have stepped into a church perhaps twice in the past year or two. While humbly respecting their faith, I openly profess my doubt in a benevolent God, though I do not question the existence of a superior force that set life into motion. I do wonder sometimes, whether there had been prayers made to determine whether a heathen such as I would be a good fit for the house prior to my moving in, but it’s been a fun journey so far.

As most of my friends know, I’ve spent much time pondering about God, reading books, listening to sermons, having sometimes heated discussions. I do feel that life is rather empty for those who do not believe in anything, those with no principles that they hold dear and live by. I had, at one point, turned to the Bible for these principles, and at another point, Buddhist scriptures. What I found were valuable teachings, however, I had trouble with the idea I have to take every word to be the absolute truth. I will not fall into silly arguments about specific commandments God made in Leviticus, Deuteronomy or Exodus (actually I’m personally not a fan of the Old Testament in general), as I’m sure most people will agree that killing people who work on Sundays is ill-advised. I won’t even put into question whether Jesus really rose from the dead. I have long lost interest in historical facts and figures, and the only question that remains for me is: why do you believe God to be personal and benevolent?

The older I get, the more I realize how insignificant I am to this universe. How little I know of this world, of what came before I came into existence and what happens after my life on earth ceases. What is the meaning of life then? To glorify God and be reborn into Heaven, the Bible says. Why? Because our dear ancestors chose evil over good and were banished from Eden, so here’s our second chance, to be given free will and to choose once again, so that we may find everlasting life. Everlasting life. Some might say why would you want to live forever? Life’s preciousness lies in the fact that its only certainty is death. Life is cruel, bitter, happiness is fleeting and the only thing that never fails to disappoint is disappointment itself. But that is the life that we know, and not the life that we’ve been promised. A better life, He said, reunited with God, who is all things good. Will God have more mercy for those who believe in him yet did not follow his ways, or those who doubted his existence but walked in his footsteps without being taught? I wonder about this often, especially in an age where those who call themselves devout commit the most heinous of crimes and do so with impunity because they believe it is God’s will. It is his will when it happens to serve a purpose which benefits them, or if it justifies something they want to happen. They are hypocrites and extremists, I am told. Yet are we not all trespassers in the same manner? We pray for God’s guidance in our daily lives, sometimes in desperation, for we know that we have no control. When we receive something good, we say glory to God, and when things don’t turn out exactly the way we want, we are humbled by his test and try to persevere through it. But funny, everyone’s life sometimes goes up, and sometimes goes down, whether they have faith or not.

I can still clearly remember the last time I really prayed to God to ask for something. My friend’s mom was dying of cancer. The family never lost faith, and there were hundreds of people praying for her to get better. I remember mustering all the faith that a skeptic like me had in my heart, and asking God, if it’s true that you care, then please make her well, and I will truly believe that you care. At the funeral, as I listened to one heartfelt testimony after another, I once again thought how unfair and unreasonable this world is. Some time later I had a discussion with my friend, and she told me, it would have been too easy, if God gave her back to us. It would have been such a clear example of God’s work, and that’s not what he wants. The point of free will, is to choose to believe based on faith and not miracles.

Faith to the believers often sound like rationalization to the skeptic. It does make the hard days easier, when you believe that it’s only a test, and there’s something waiting for you at the end of this life that makes everything perfect as you’ve never experienced. It does make the guilt fly away, knowing someone else died for the sins that we should be punished for. It does make the world seem a bit more fair, for although we know good and evil, we see the good suffer and the evil escape justice with their spoils. We are powerless to right the wrongs, but we still believe that good will triumph over evil. That’s why the superhero always wins in the end, and that’s why the ultimate judgment comes at the moment of death, as we pass into the great unknown. We believe in goodness, and fairness, and we attribute these as qualities of God.

Which is why I refuse to believe in a God who chooses a small group of people to love, to guide, and forsake others merely because they have not heard the message, or have trouble believing in miracles. I’d rather believe God loves us all, and gave us a set of guidance called conscience, and left us to our own journey. When I come to a crossroad in life, I will not ask God which road I shall take, but I will use the intellect he’s given me to make the best decision. When I face pain and despair, I will not pray for him to take it away, but I will trust in the fairness of time, which takes away both the pain and the joy. When I love God, it is not because he will love me more for it, but because he’s given life to this universe, this earth, and as insignificant as it may have been as part of his work, to me.

I just finished watching the Battlestar Gallactica series. I found the Cylons quite lovable creatures despite their killing off (almost) the whole human race. They were simply struggling to survive and find meaning in their lives, just like the rest of us. Life is the sum of all our choices, and no one can claim they’ve made all the right ones. No one can say they’ve never sinned, never judged, never doubted. As I choose to continue my doubt, I also choose to be good. To follow the lessons taught by Jesus, Buddha, and Professor Dumbledore: to serve others, to judge not, to forgive, and most importantly, love conquers all.

In anticipation of the final Harry Potter movie, I started rereading all 7 Harry Potter novels some time last month. Unfortunately, I overestimated my reading speed and didn’t get to Book 7 until after the movie. As I turned the final page (or, rather, clicked the Next button on my Kindle one last time), I lay on my bed feeling rather empty, tempted to go back to page one and start this journey all over again.

It’s hard to say goodbye to Harry Potter and his friends, after ten long and amazing years.

There’s a great little conversation between Harry and Dumbledore in Book 7 that goes something like this:
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

I read this essay by Lev Grossman this morning on the shuttle ride (since I had not decided on the next book to read yet) about fantasy novels. This particular sentence appealed to me most: ” it’s realist literature that pretends to be real. Fantasy doesn’t pretend.” It is amazing what men can do with words, creating a world completely separate from our own, and characters so close to us that they are sorely missed when we reach the end of the story. Sometimes we identify with them, other times we want to be like them. There are those we loathe with a hatred that we didn’t know we had, and those that inspire us with great qualities we’ve long forgotten. We may not remember every twist and turn of the plot, but it’s hard to forget the characters, who are as real as we want them to be.

We will never have adventures like Harry’s, but we all have our journeys and quests. Mundane as our lives are, we make choices everyday, looking for a purpose and a goal in life. The consequences of our bad decisions are as frightening to us as fire breathing dragons or unforgivable spells, and the elation from reaching our goal as satisfying as a Quidditch victory over Slytherin. So live your life as an adventure, and make it as exciting as a year at Hogwarts.