Word of the Day

Sometimes the vocabulary on various blog posts is just unnecessary.


la·cu·na /ləˈkyunə/ n.

1. a gap or missing part, as in a manuscript, series, or logical argument; hiatus.
2. Anatomy. one of the numerous minute cavities in the substance of bone, supposed to contain nucleate cells.
3. Botany. an air space in the cellular tissue of plants.

Real Power

"According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, 'If we'd known it was yours, we never would have taken it.'"

Dang. Maybe that neighbor thing does work.

Awkward

So I am in ACA, attempting to design a Mealy circuit that implements a binary-10's complement converter with FPGAs when I notice a guy over to my left completely passed out. This, in actuality, is not a rare occurrence as many in EE and BME are often driven to complete exhaustion, even by 1:30pm. Nevertheless, I look back a few moments later and he's awake on the computer. No big deal. HOWEVER, moments later, I look again (my attention span is really indicative of how interested I am in digital logic design), and he is completely comatose again. This happens a few times and I find it interesting enough to get out my camera to take a picture of him sleeping (for your viewing pleasure). So I sneak up on him(really, no sneaking was necessary) and am about to take the picture when I realize...

DANG. he's still awake!!

oh man. awkward.

Taste of Asia

So, yesterday, I was working out at the gym when I got this intense headache. The kind you get when you haven't had enough sleep the night before and forgo naps throughout the day or as I suspected--the kind you get when you have been drinking caffeine for several days and then just stop. Incidentally, I also have been eating rather poorly the past few days and sometimes I like to misattribute these things just to engender more positive habits. So, later, I went to HEB and loaded up on all sorts of rabbit food (this is relevant, I swear).

Today, I had to pick up two of my friends from the airport. Seeing as how class finishes at 11:15am and their flight was supposed to come in at 12:15pm and the airport is a good 30 minutes away, I didn't have too much time to dawdle. I promptly walked back to my apartment and was on the way there. Only a few minutes later did my stomach remind me that I forgot the lunch I packed on the kitchen counter. Too late to turn back, I pulled into the closest food joint I saw: Jack in the Box. Now, if you've never had Jack in the Box's 50 cent tacos, you have been seriously deprived. Those things are like crack in a greasy shell. So I got 4 of them (that's only $2 for you math people). Buuuuuut, seing as how my recent dieting score has not been quite up to par, I decided to get a side salad (If you're wondering, yes, that is what the entire first paragraph was leading up to). The lady at the drive through subsequently asked what kind of dressing I would like: ranch, bacon ranch, balsamic vinaigrette, or asian.

First thought: why do you have two kinds of ranch? Is ranch really so widely enjoyed that they had to come up with another version of the same thing just to appease the attrition of repeated taste? Furthermore, is it not enough to have 400 calories in one 2.5oz packet that you have to add bacon? And really, what can bacon actually taste like after mixed and packaged together with the most pungent, creamy, saucy dressing available? Which leads me to my second thought...

What the heck does asian taste like? Is there some essence of Asia that can be preserved in one 2.5 oz packet that is marketable to millions as a sweet topper of salad greens? And for that matter, what makes me think that it's going to be sweet? I suppose it doesn't have to be reminiscent of the ultra-sweet plum sauce that comes with you fity-cent egg rowl at Panda Express. Perhaps its regional. Maybe it's spiced with saffron or cardimum seeds of certain regions in the South Asian subcontinent. Maybe it's infused with the deep red chili pepper so generously used in Szechuan cuisine. Or maybe it's a commercialized version of kim-chee in salad dressing form. Perhaps there's a big pot at the Jack in the Box factory that mixes all said flavors together and voila: Asia.

Is this what Americans think of Asia when they order it? "Well, I've always wondered what Asia tasted like--Hey honey, come over here and taste Asia." The real question at stake here is: do I know what Asia tastes like? Does anyone? Is it the mango I eat in the mornings when I walk around the streets in Singapore? Is it the papaya salad I've tried countless times in Phuket? Or could it be the my mom's western-influenced culinary creations? On the other hand, is there a taste called America (some would argue KFC--the most prevalent and popular fast food in Asia)? Or even, to continue with the parallelism, North American? Is there some fusion of U.S., Mexico, and Canada that can be packaged and sold with a cheap salad?

Eventually, in the throes of this semantic obfuscation, I order the balsamic vinaigrette. I mean, come on. How awkward would that be if the Asian orders Asian dressing? Now, I wonder what other (perhaps more authentic) Asian people say when they taste this elusive Asian dressing. Do they think "this goopy translucent substance is supposed to remind me of home?" or "Wow. dang. That's it. That's Asia in a 2.5oz packet."

Music Post #1

So undoubtedly, I will intersperse my usual ramblings with various of my favorite YouTubes or concerti, aria, etc. (Quick Factoid: The ampersand & is really a combination of Et meaning and in Latin and later French!) This week's work is by Richard (Ree-kard) Strauss. It's the finale from his comic opera Der Rosenkavalier. If you were around fall semester, the UT Symphony performed it as part of the Opera Gala concert. Although at the time, I was floundering in learning a crapload of music as well as attempting to lead a section, looking back, it's one of the most heart-felt works I've ever heard. My toes go numb in the climax (it's that good).

Strauss was a bit of an oddball when it comes to opera. Had often immediate and sustained success with several works, including this one. Nevertheless, Der Rosenkavalier was written on the tails of two of Strauss's most infamously revolutionary operas Salome and Elektra. Der Rosenkavalier is certainly a step toward the musically conservative spectrum: in contrast to Salome, specifically, the haunting tonality of Der Rosenkavalier almost has a corporal manifestation. The lush texture, sonorous themes, and delicate tone colors surge and pulse like a living, breathing, feeling organism. Of course, when I played it, the only thing I was thinking about was my 10 second unison solo with the singer and hitting the high note in the resolution. 

This particular performance is sung by Renée Fleming, Kathleen Battle, and Frederica von Stade (Octavian's part has traditionally been performed by a female with short hair--pretty much only castrati could sing this high--and well we don't have them anymore..or do we?). As any opera afficionado knows, these are among the most gifted singers in the business.

Internet Garbage

Now that I spend something like 3-4 hours a day reading everything under the cyberkinetic sun (that can be Googled), I think i need to spend more time reading things off the WWW. 

Anyone have suggestions?

Can be anything that makes you giggle, snort, rage, cry, smell your armpits or other similar activities.  

Wow

Wow. That was pretty cathartic. Feel free to skip the over-dramatized typical-college-essay type last entry.

More to come soon :)

Roads

Well, here we go. 

Sitting at a local coffee shop around campus(JP's Java--wicked strong coffee), attemping to digest the latest episode of state table creation for sequential circuits in my logic design class, I came across an interesting article by William Deresiewicz, an English professor at Yale for a few years. Deresiewicz has heavy-handed criticism for both the Ivy League education he received as well as the foundational mindset of these institutions of which he was a product. While I certainly do not possess the arsenal of nuance that Deresiewicz demonstrates nor the courage to pontificate so freely, I'll try to explain why I had such a personal connection with his (however one-sided) diatribe.  

As many know, my eventual arrival in Austin at UT was unanticipated (to say the least). Having been ultimately rejected by the majority of the schools that I actually wanted to attend and possessing inadequate financial ability to the ones that I finally gained admittance to, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. I had the choice to either one of the two major flagship schools in Texas: Texas A&M or the University of Texas. Neither appealed to me very much; the first invoked images of the students who lived next door and often chucked various cans/bottles into our yard and the latter: the school where everyone in Texas who got rejected from their first choice school went. Not much of a choice in my opinion. In my Xanga (oh man. haven't pulled that one out in effing forever), I wrote:

"While i honestly have truly enjoyed the activites ive been a part of and the classes ive taken, what happens at the end of it all, when you still fall short after keeping up the balancing act you've mastered the past four years? THIS is what it feels like to think, at this very moment, your best is just not good enough."

Interesting. Looking back, I think this has a lot to say about how I felt then. Who are you, dear Ivy League, to reject my top 2% SAT scores, my 11 AP tests, my precious musical talent? Did you not notice that we have unique ranks at our school--that a 90 is not a 97--that we output some of brightest students you have ever seen? Didn't I give you my community service hours, my Saturdays, my sleep? Now, where is my paycheck? Isn't this what I deserve? 

Ultimately, it came down to one thing. The same thing incidentally Professor Deresiewicz realized as a member of the Ivy elite: 

Entitlement.

They are just numbers. Laughable numbers. How many hours did I spend studying, working, striving to be a statistic? How did I ever come to the conclusion that my self-worth is based on how many times I choose the correct MC answer? These are the skills that I based my value on as a student, as a thinker, as a person. Of course then, don't I deserve it? Am I not entitled to that which I have worked so diligently to get? 

Honestly, even upon arrival at UT for quite a long time, I was pretty unhappy with the way things were going. There certainly were some really dumb people, some erratic liberals who criticized every known institution in the world, some close-minded fundamentalists who thought "Christian? Asian? no way." Deresiewicz recalls that, at Yale, "from orientation to graduation, the message is implicit in every tone of voice and tilt of the head, every old-school tradition, every article in the student paper, every speech from the dean. The message is: You have arrived. Welcome to the club." While I certainly don't know what it's like to take classes at Yale, I did recognize a similar feeling at UT. Only later did I realize that I was guilty of an even greater crime: I became smug at their smugness! You think YOU have achieved something? This was my freaking SAFETY school. I was accepted five days after I applied without even writing one of the essays. You think YOU came in with a buttload of AP credit? I have the most credit in the history of the College of Fine Arts. I kept quiet during regular freshmen discussions about schools, grades, friends, knowing that I was somehow inherently better. 

But it's not as if I just let things slide by, I studied twice as hard as anyone else. I counted minutes when studying, when walking, when thinking. I had to control absolutely every part of my day. I had to score higher, think faster, be better on everything. After all, that's how all my friends who were invited to the Ivy Club seemed to have done it throughout high school. If I couldn't stand out from the pack by where I go to school, the LEAST I could do was be better at them in everything. One day, a close friend once asked me why I studied so hard. Why I worked harder than everyone else did for a seemingly easy test (it always turned out to be easy as well). After thinking for a second, I responded, "it's because I hate this school so much."

I hated it for its lack of prestige amongst my friends. I hated it for opening its doors to people I thought below me. I hated it for being a vehicle to achievement rather than achivement itself. 

And that's when I woke up. 

This summer I started running down at Town Lake. There are (obviously) two sides to the lake and several bridges one may cross, determining how far one may run. Crossing the first bridge approximately equates to 3 miles. I remember the first time we ran was possibly one of the most painful things I've done in a while. But I thought, "Well, it can't get any harder." WELL, it did. The second time sucked more. The third was hard as well. The fourth and the fifth. But something else got easier. Every time I thought about stopping, I thought, Is this the place you want to say you got to before you gave up? Or will you decide to go a little farther than you are sure you can go? Will you work a little harder than your best? 

And that's where I found achievement. How idiotic was I to think that I was ever working to make things easier? When did I turn admission into a university into a trophy, rather than a stepping stone into humanity? When does the preparation for life as thinkers, workers, changers, shakers ever involve entitlement, privilege, and "getting what I deserve" as the pillars of its curriculum? Ultimately, I can't be more thankful for a place that has never afforded me the luxury of sitting around, wallowing in my own arrogance. It has led me to realize that the most rewarding experiences for me are the ones that take me to a fork in the road and ask me if I'm willing to push myself to unseen levels. And for every time I chose the road less traveled by, that has made all the difference.