1 This is what happened: Stories at 15:52

[These were written on my phone over these past months.]

Intuition

I wasn't hallucinating. Hallucinations aren't real - a thick, tangible curtain superimposed on top of reality but improbable - and this was absolutely real. Simultaneous to the muffled rumbling of Oakland streets, I heard my voice, my familiar cadence and diction and slight twinge of irony, asking, "So, Dama, are you excited about the new Harry Potter movie?" and her voice, quieter reflected from the front seat, exclaiming "Yes! I'm so excited!"

But I didn't say anything and sat instead in silence for a minute, and we talked about our majors instead, perfunctory introductions among college students. We passed by the lakeside movie theater with its old incandescent bulbs flashing, framing "Harry Potter midnight tickets!", and from the front seat Dama exclaimed, "Yay, I'm so excited! Harry Potter!" playing out like a recording of my mind's premonition, barring my part.



Today

This morning on the bus, I saw a girl. She was blonde and had a dry-cleaned shirt in one hand and a cloth-sewn bag clutched in the other. Her hair was securely captive in a bun behind a pair of massive headphones.

She was running down the street as the bus rounded the corner. She was running with as much grace as one could, holding a bag and a dry-cleaned shirt. I wondered if the bus would stop for her. She wasn't even on the right side of the street, but I saw her panicked intention, and I hoped the bus driver did, too.

The bus stopped to let someone off, and this was probably the first time I was glad that an old lady was taking time to get off the bus. I looked toward the front of the bus, and although no one was getting on, the doors stayed open for a few seconds longer than they needed to, and then Dry-cleaning girl got on, and my heart soared.

She took the seat directly across from me, the only open seat. She was red-faced and panting. I was happy. I said nothing.

0 This is what I think about that: The viral facebook campaign for breast cancer awareness at 07:06

I am on facebook a lot and I admit it, so since the turn of this month I've been seeing girls post their ambiguous and coy statuses in the format of "I like it on _______." My initial reaction to these was about a millisecond of curiosity in the form of cognitive processing, as I had to race against my imagination to filter against mental associations with the raunchy wording, and shortly thereafter complete and utter apathy. After witnessing about four of these from girls that I knew who had no relationship to each other whatsoever, and one even of my close friend, I was reminded of the one-color-as-the-status epidemic last year and realized it was for breast cancer awareness. (I found that article by searching with the key words, "breast cancer i like it on".)

I would really like to meet the person or people who came up with this campaign, so I can slap them across the face and see if I can't beat some sense into them. I am assuming they want this campaign to work on the principle of 1) people seeing these cryptic but widespread messages, 2) being confused and 3) asking about them, and therefore creating an opportunity for girls (or people like me, except out of spite) to tell them about breast cancer. I mean, otherwise, people will never care about this disease, right?

But that is idealistic and idiotic. The majority of facebook users are friends with so many acquaintances that most interactions are superficial and inconsequential due to the volume, and therefore have very little incentive to ask about these statuses unless it comes from one of their closer friends, and then only slightly. Also, since the first person who thought it would be clever and artistic to apply ambiguous lyrics from some artist who already doesn't know what they're talking about, facebook users are conditioned to ignore statuses they don't understand. Heck, I already ignore most of the statuses I do understand.

Secondly, I often see this: Girls who post the status and actually elicit an inquiry refuse to explain it. I probably hate this more - but only marginally - than having actually posted it in the first place, because you are undermining the whole purpose of this campaign. Some girls are merely treating this as an in-joke among women (which I understand is important because smugness seems to be integral to feeling like you're part of a community), and therefore raising NO more awareness about breast cancer, not to mention simply letting my fellow men (and in some cases, other women) wallow in ignorance and mild annoyance.

My last point is this: Why do we even need to raise awareness of breast cancer? I don't think that's an issue anymore in the United States, or at least for anyone who even has access to facebook. For me, I admit that although I know cancer is a scary issue and has directly affected people around me, I don't know much about the statistics of breast cancer and sought to educate myself - but I am not as invested in this issue as my cohorts without a Y chromosome because I don't have boobs, and they do. I really feel like women know about it already and should get a mammogram (when you're older and more at risk), but just having awareness doesn't seem to be doing anything here to help - it's like knowing, in the back of your mind, that somewhere in the world, some group of people are starving or dying of malaria.

Awareness is still very pertinent issue and part of the battle against breast cancer, but not in this part of the world. Do me a favor, if you've read this far already, go and read this article. In developing countries, the greatest danger is that people don't know it's a problem, but here in the States, new diagnosis and treatment options become available all the time. So really, awareness isn't the problem.

At least the campaign has worked on me and I count as one more educated person on the issue of breast cancer. In the meantime, I am going to go copy and paste these links as comments in people's facebook statuses.

Post-post thoughts:

[The only other thing that has gotten me so riled up is the third movement of Preludios by Thomas Oboe Lee, who obviously hates marimba players and wants to punish them.

Thank the lord for the people giving up facebook for the Daniel fast, that's less of these statuses I need to be mildly annoyed at.]

0 Exhortation to Exploration: Tamalpais Path at 06:11

I went on a walk on Saturday in Berkeley, and just kept going. Berkeley's like the opposite of Irvine in that the more north you go, the more trees and nature and elevation you will find.

My general destination was the Berkeley Rose Gardens, even know it is fall and most of the roses will probably be bare bushes, but I had no idea how to get there and didn't really care.

Eventually I came upon Tamalpais Path:

I started at the top and made my way down, pretty much going as far vertically as I did horizontally:

I eventually came across a clearing with two bridges, and the sound of many children's voices.

 Following them, I realized I was in Tilden Park, and probably had been the whole time.

The walk getting to the path was a scenic route in itself, winding higher and higher in the hills of Berkeley and passing by the cute, cabin-like houses that probably cost a lot of money.

0 This is what I think about that: Discipline in Practicing at 15:08

The schoolyear has started again - back to San Francisco, back to public transportation, back to little girls running up and down the hall above my room.

I intentionally took a long (relatively) break from marimba after ZMF because of my injuries. There is a whole other post I can, and will maybe write about how good rest is, so I won't talk about it now.

In this past week and a half since I moved in and set up Rose again, I rediscovered how difficult it is to practice. In the first few days, I rarely touched my mallets for more than an hour or two, since I didn't feel like it.

It's a bit of an alien tenet that I have, to not practice unless I want it. Shouldn't a musician practice even when he/she doesn't want to? Well, I noticed in my growth and habits of practicing that I always get more accomplished when I have that urge - it's like an overpowering hunger to work my brain, absorb new notes and hear my marimba. And when I have forced myself to practice when I don't want to, I would come back the next day and realized I retained nothing from the day before. It is better for me, therefore, to only practice when I want to. Luckily for my career, it seems I want to practice sufficiently to continue and improve.

But in the past week, I have had to reconcile my romantic ideal of practice habits with the more unforgiving, traditional approach of constant practice in spite of dread. Most of the days I didn't want to practice at all, and I would turn my computer off anyway and go. I would spend a few hours cleaning and cooking and goofing off in the afternoon to procrastinate, but sooner or later I'd realized I had too much time and I ought to be working anyway.

What I found is that, once I got started, I would be in the zone sooner than I thought, and hours would fly by while I sight read or memorized or just did exercises. It got much easier to keep practicing after I started, like waking up in the morning, or flossing. I felt the same progression and accomplishment in these begrudgingly invested hours as those precious passionate ones that come by every once in a while.

And though I've felt like practicing perhaps only one day this past week, I've memorized three of four pages of Preludios I, Salpicao, by Thomas Oboe Lee. This is probably my favorite part of practicing - at the end of the week, or even a day or an hour, I get to look back and say, "Well, I couldn't do that when I started."

Enough wasting time - I'm gonna go finish the last page now.

0 This is what I think about that: Bach and Story at 03:49

Optional: The bachground music for this post.

Johann Sebastian Bach is considered one of the greatest composers of all time. In my mind, his music is married to the Baroque Era, which now connotes the D minor chaconne as much as any sort of architectural innovations or art styles.

Of course, it also reminds me of old, yellowed parchment with near illegible but stylistically interesting handwritten music.

It reminds me of people dancing in cute harmonious rhythms, wearing impractical gowns and white wigs, like in that scene in Pride and Prejudice.

So really, it just reminds me of boring.

But there are just some things in life that, while they don't seem to enrich your life directly, are necessary to understand in order to know other things.

When I went to the conservatory, my teacher made me play a lot of Bach's music. I studied it intensely every week, and in every lesson Jack would reveal something new about the music to me; how here, this note changes the emotion, how this note is completely unexpected yet still makes sense, how these two phrases are connected and can't survive without the other.

Bach's music is too intellectually stimulating for me to listen to casually. I feel the same exhaustion when I listen to Bach as when I have spent more than an hour at an art museum. When I am witnessing the work of a grand master of a brush, my eyes are learning and teaching my brain at some subconscious level. And when I listen to Bach's music, I now parse the harmonic movement and appreciate the functional melodic line at a subconscious yet taxing level.

But one of the most important things I learned from Bach is that music is like a story. It has always come from somewhere and is going somewhere. It is harder to understand this concept with modern music and minimalism and pop music, with such repetition and randomness that I become quickly bored and often stop being engaged with wondering where the music is going.

Bach was a genius in this aspect. I learned that every note on the page was necessary, and removing even one would fundamentally alter the piece and be a heretical error.

Below is a copy of one of Bach's violin pieces, and it has been analyzed by a professional violinist. It's pretty boring,

And yet it is a great story; He introduces it with the tonic to let you know what world you're in; it moves lightly, quicker, slower, with tension, less, more emotion, resolution. Every inch of the manuscript has writing; every note has meaning in a context, and everything matters. The violinist who analyzed this said, "my teacher would not let me play this unless he could point at any note, and I could tell him the purpose of that note."

It's everything we wish our lives were. That every moment is a perfectly placed note, in its context is beautiful and supports other notes and creates harmonies. And every note that is jarring, unexpected, though it is creating tension and dissonance at the moment, has been planned to be resolved. And that there is nothing random, but everything is planned and is going somewhere.

And you know it all started from something good, familiar, safe, but somewhere along the way you've modulated somewhere else and it's somewhere dark and sad and scary. Points where you feel like an unfinished piece, when you hope things don't end here because stories aren't meant to stop with the protagonist lonely and crippled with tendinitis and pressure. But you keep going and you cadence in a different place than you thought you would, but that terrible note was actually leading to a resolution in a new key, and that night you cried and spilled your guts actually led to a closer friend.

And maybe your story doesn't end in the same key it starts in. But maybe it's just one movement of a sonata, just one part in a symphony.

2 This is what happened: Comments at 09:50

...about my marimba, in sequential order:

Person: Whoa! That thing is huge.

Me: Yes.

Person: How do you move it around?

Me: I take it apart into multiple pieces and disassemble it.

Person: How much does it way?

Me: 500 Pounds.

Person, trying to be clever: Don't you ever wish you played piccolo or something?

Me: Rolls eyes

About a Rubik's cube when I solve one: 

• Whoa! It's like magic.
• I used to just peel the stickers off and put them back on! hahahahahahahaha

About my bike, in decreasing order of percentage of comments received:

• Nice frame (80%, from other bikers)
• It's pretty (18%, from non-bikers)
• That's good exercise for you/you're saving the planet (Andrew Meyerson)

About my accordion, in order of hilarity:

• Vintage? So are your keys made of ivory?
• Whenever you play, I feel like I'm in a French indie film. Stop it.
• You fixed that? I thought you were a musician.

0 This is what happened: Summer 2 at 06:00

I am leaving to Europe in about twelve hours. Amsterdam, specifically.

I'm not sure if I'm excited. Am I? Yes, probably. No, I am very excited. Forgive me if I am inarticulate at the moment; I'm pulling an all-nighter before I go, so I can fall asleep on the plane.

Actually, let's talk about ways to correct jet lag. Since I'm going to Amsterdam, I'll use its time difference from the West Coast as illustrations.

It's hard for me to sleep whenever I want to if I'm not tired, so the avenue of going to sleep earlier the day before is out of the question whenever I have temporal differences. Let's say I want to sleep at 11 PM - 2300 in Amsterdam is 1500 here, so I'd have to fall asleep in 3 in the afternoon. It's not much of an option since I've been waking up around noon these summer days. Imagine getting up at 8 in the morning and trying to sleep another 8 hours at 1100. Even if I could fall asleep, I'd wake up after an hour, too rested to continue.

Another option is sleeping whenever and waking up when I want to wake up in Amsterdam. 0800 in Amsterdam is midnight here. That might have been a more intelligent route, to nap during the day and stay awake from midnight onward. But I had too much stuff to do today, nor did I give myself time to nap anyway.

So lastly, the option I opted for is to just stay awake and sleep when I expect I will in Amsterdam, as long as it's during my flight. My flight is at 1630 today - so if I fall asleep once I get on the plane, it will be after midnight in Amsterdam. Whenever I wakeup naturally will hopefully be in the morning hours of Holland. I also hope I will have slept away most of the long hours of a transcontinental flight.

It's almost 6 AM. To think, people on the East Coast are doing productive things by now.

Inexplicably, these days before this trip have been some of the most spiritually and definitely physically trying times this year. I don't know why. Maybe God is going to show me something exciting there... at a marimba festival.

Anyway, no doubt I will post an update sometime when I'm there.

See you on the other side.

0 This is what happened: Summer 1 at 04:39

I want to sleep but I cannot.

I have spent about twelve hours outside so far this week, either exercising or reading a book or playing guitar. Southern California has welcomed me warmly with its monotonous relentless sunshine and I do not resist.

I sit in the sun and attempt to get skin cancer. I can't help it. I have been away in gloomy, overcast, foggy San Francisco for so long that I must enjoy the presence of ultraviolet rays as much as I can.

I am convinced a stair doesn't exist. I have never heard a single step of a set of stairs be called one stair. Singular. It's either, I had trouble getting up those stairs, or I left my backpack on that step. I will attempt to incorporate the word stair into my regular vocabulary. Bringin' it back.

Mm. Look at all dem stair.

A couple as a marker of quantity means two. It doesn't mean several. How many people are in a couple? Two. Otherwise it would be a threesome or some kind of polyamorous relationship.

Pictured: A couple of M&Ms.

Pictured: Not a couple.

I watched the new Karate Kid yesterday. I hadn't seen the original, since I wasn't born when it was released, and the premise of a white kid learning martial arts didn't sound like an appealing enough classic for me to revisit the past. I enjoyed it, especially Jackie Chan's performance, which would have brought me to tears if my friend wasn't already bawling next to me and I felt pressured to 'man up'.

Ignorant of the original, however, I feel I was still sensitive to this modern adaptation's contextual translation with Chinese culture. I felt the film's representation of Chinese culture was respectfully accurate, barring the emphasis on both the violent and mystical side of kung-fu. My favorite part is when Jayden Smith's love interest, Wenwen hua, an innocent-looking violin-toting Chinese girl, kept ending their conversations with "I have to go practice." Man, if I had a nickel...

In this picture: Not practicing.

Now I am going into nerd mode for the following  paragraphs. Also I will discuss a minor spoiler, so if you want to maintain your film integrity, skip on. Highlight to read.

Jayden Smith (I will refer to him by his real-life actor name because I forgot his name in the movie) lures her to skip school the day before her big audition for the Beijing Academy of Music to have fun, saying "too much of a good thing is bad". He actually takes her orange violin case from her, which I suppose the directors thought was a cute gesture - oh, look, he's carrying her instrument for her - but I have never known a string player who took music even half as seriously as she did who would have been fine with me holding their case, and especially without their permission. Maybe you might not understand, but if my marimba were compact enough to fit in a handheld case, I would never let someone else carry it. This was the first oversight of the directors regarding musicians. 

Then, he downright trashes the case. Look at the picture - it's on the ground in the middle of a water attraction, for crying out loud. Why don't you just throw it into a swimming pool, Wenwen Han?

Their impromptu date is cut off by a phone call from Wenwen's dad, saying her audition was moved to today from tomorrow. Alright, first of all, that kind of schedule change will NEVER, ever happen - it would be blatant sabotage to force a musician to perform immediately, a day in advance. Sure, it was a gripping turn of events, but I thought that was just unrealistic.

The scene cuts to her running on stage just as her orchestra accompaniment finishes tuning, and she pulls out her violin and begins playing immediately. I don't think she even had time to tighten her bow, much less tune - and remember, her violin had just taken a Beijing tour in the hands of an ADD teenager, and suffered temperature changes from the humid Chinese summers where it averages human body temperature, overcast, into air-conditioned indoor arcades, and into her parent's car which is no doubt air-conditioned as well. I could not have been the only one who noticed that she didn't tune, and, I admit, I thought that was going to be the plot twist - her rebellious city-wide jaunt left her no time to tune for her life-deciding audition, and she would suddenly realize what a bad influence Jayden Smith was on her life.

I prepared my ears for a clashing dissonance right at her entrance... but no. The overdub of Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 washed over her (lip? bow?)-syncing, and washed away my mental image of her sudden cathartic grimace, widened eyes looking down at the neck of her instrument, realizing her fatal mistake. Nope, she plays at her very peak, even without warming up.

"Pul-leaze. The orchestra tunes to me."

(Pictured: not Wenwen Hua from Karate Kid.)

My only other gripes about the movie mirror that of my friend Chris's, when he complained that they used kids for the movie - twelve-year-olds, or so they say. He feels averse to their age because he doesn't feel comfortable with the notion of "toddlers" kissing or going on dates; I find it troublesome because I can't imagine sixth graders being able to punch very hard. That, and that Jackie Chan doesn't fight more.

All in all, very entertaining and worth the ticket. The sun is coming up soon so I will attempt to sleep, again.

1 This is what happened: The Fall at 20:55

He itches to practice. He cannot. His mother is on the phone. He decides to go for a bike ride.

He goes into the garage. He puts on his gloves, his helmet. He clips on his lights and sets them flashing. He wheels the bike out to the driveway. He kicks off.

He pushes steadily up an incline. He is not yet breathing hard. He contemplates the darkened western sky. He wonders if it's dark enough to need the lights.

He climbs for a mile. He feels his thighs burn. He shifts down yet another gear. He is going more slowly.

He contemplates blog entries he has just read. He contemplates how little he updates his blog. He contemplates writing an entry tonight.

He sees a bike path on the left. He needs to turn left.

He is certain of the turn he needs to make ahead. He doesn't know where this bike path goes.

He keeps going.

He doesn't miss out on opportunities. He turns around.

He sees Girl cyclist before he sees Guy cyclist coming out of the path. He decides to circle around them because they are barely moving. They comply and take the inside turn.

He speeds up to circle around them. He sees the dust and gravel too late.

He turns; he is going too quickly. His wheels begin to slide. He doesn't know what to do.

He brakes. He made it worse.

He is tipped too far over. He falls. His wrist breaks his fall. He feels his glove sanding the floor. He is down. His bike continues without him.

He fumes.

Guy cyclist calls if he is okay. He says nothing. Girl cyclist calls if he is okay. He says he is. Guy cyclist asks if he is sure.

He says he is sure. He says, that is what the gloves are for.

He picks up his bike. He notices the chain has fallen off the chain rings. He flips his bike upside down and puts it back on.

His fingers are dirty. He gets back on the bike. He dirties his white bar tape. His handlebars are knocked off center. He contemplates whether or not he needs his tools to fix it. He holds the wheel and bangs it back into position. He doesn't need his tools.

He sets off again. He sees the bike trail end shortly. He sees the familiar road he was planning to turn on. He wasted his time.

He flies along the flat road. He is passed by other cars. He tastes something salty in the corner of his mouth. He doesn't think about it.

He flies downhill. He lets gravity do the work. He sees a flashing fire truck in front of him. He braces to be assaulted by the horn. He notices there is no sound. He passes it, silent, except for the engine.

He turns up his driveway. He gets off. He wheels his bike into the garage. He takes off his helmet. He takes off his gloves. He turns off the lights.

He turns on the shower. He stretches. He begins composing his blog post in his mind. He doesn't post it.

0 Exhortation to Exploration: Mountains to Sea trail... not quite. at 21:01

After unloading and unpacking everything into my home in Irvine last Wednesday, I lasted about six hours before sheer suburban boredom set in and I needed to go on an adventure. I decided I would attempt to bike to the ocean with Elly.

Here is the Irvine Company's extremely unhelpful map of where the trail is, and where it goes. I actually found this page the next morning, although it wouldn't have helped me at all. 

I didn't start all the way from the Irvine Park, but joined in a mile or so before Newport Beach. After a steep decline down a road, the trail joins the Back Bay Loop and goes along the Upper Back Bay. It's a cozy little inlet with lots of birds and swampy stuff. Unfortunately on this ride, there was a strong headwind, and I was going much slower than I would have liked.





Keep going - Back Bay Drive is on the bottom right corner.


Then, I did something pretty stupid, though it wasn't entirely my fault - I didn't plan a route ahead so I kept following whatever road looked biggest and easiest. I made a right here, instead of going straight to Jamboree, which would have given me a straight shot to the ocean.





So I kept going west, now parallel to Pacific Coast Highway.

I even crossed this stupid bridge. I didn't know I was on the 1. There were a lot of cars going fast and not a real bike lane, so I followed a tip from Andrew, a more experienced biker than I, and rode a few feet inside the right lane to make sure cars wouldn't blow by me.


Then my left pedal and crank arm started feeling really shaky, and I decided to head back, somewhat disappointed that I couldn't go further. I stopped to inspect what was going on - the cap for the bolt had fallen off, and though I had no idea what the problem was at the time, the bolt had come loose. I made it back to Back Bay Dr before I gave up and decided I probably couldn't make it home.

While waiting for Thomas to pick me up, I called up Jack to see if he could diagnose the problem over the phone, since he is so wise in bicycling matters. My conversation went like this:


Me: Hey Jack!
Jack: Hello, Yi!
Me: Jack, I have a question about my bike. My pedal... uh, well, not the pedal itself... but what's the thing it's attached to?
Jack: The crank?
Me: Sure, the crank. Okay, what's the part that attaches the crank to the frame?
Jack: The.... crank bolt?
Me: That sounds good. So there's a thing that goes around the crank bolt that fell off my bike. I don't know what it's called.
Jack: The crank bolt washer?
Me: Okay, sure. So it fell off and my whole left crank is feeling really loose.
Jack: Yeah, it's probably that your crank bolt is loose. You need to go to a bike shop and get it tightened - and get a tune up, too, and they'll make sure everything's tight.
Me: Alright, thanks Jack.
Jack: Okay, be safe. Are you wearing a helmet?
Me: Yes, Jack. Bye!


So ended my adventure. We'll reach the ocean another day, Elly.

0 This is what happened: Chapter Camp and after at 17:35

I woke up at exactly noon today since I didn't set an alarm, and I've pretty much stayed in bed for the past four and a half hours. I am still in bed. I regret nothing.

The SF/East Bay chapters of Intervarsity had our annual Chapter Camp last week, and I am still processing. Like last year, I don't feel like Chapter Camp marked the end of the year, but rather the beginnings of many good things to come in the future.

I'd like to say Chapter Camp looked like this, but it was actually rainy for 3 of the 5 days and cold and much more indoors than this photo is letting on. But the lake and scenery was very beautiful when it was nice out.

The theme of the week and focus of manuscript study was my favorite book, Philippians.

Drawing helps me listen. My manuscript is underneath my hand  that work of art.

I felt like I learned so much and was fed so much last year when we studied John, a book I'd studied very little of and just didn't understand most of the time. But Philippians I know quite well, so I was wary that I would not learn anything this week. God surprised me and showed me many new things and raised a lot of questions that I am still seeking answers to. One thing I dislike about having manuscript study with a hundred people at once is that there is never enough time to discuss all the questions, and I hunger for those conversations.

I was in the worship track for chapter camp. When people ask me how it was, I have been responding that we prayed a lot, and I will maintain that answer. We prayed pretty much every track time, learning more about what it means to worship and to lead worship, by being in worship. Compared to last year when we did more concretely practical activities, this year was no less good.

Even though every day was pretty full and I was stressed, it felt like people were seizing as many hours as possible to spend time getting to know each other more. Every night in the boy's cabin, this guy and I stayed up talking - about our day, life, and girls.

(He is the one without the colored hair.)

I had many conversations and several good ones that just seemed to happen on their own, and I am glad for them.

Oh, and before chapter camp, I bought a djembe!

It is the small one on the right.

On the last night I cried, a lot. I cried the tears of happiness, of emotions I can't name that just well up and press on my chest and start leaking out of my eyes because I can't help it. Because God is good and answers prayers for things I have hoped for a long time, and kept praying for after I lost hope.

But I guess for the seniors, Chapter Camp did mean good bye because everybody else there was going to see each other again next year. And it meant goodbye for me for some of them.

Though I guess I could not get enough of her. So I drove down to Milpitas yesterday with some frosting in the shape of a cake, to surprise her before she flew off to Hong Kong.

Happy Birthday, mom.

0 Exhortation to Exploration: Sutro Baths and Land's End at 02:32

Today was too beautiful of a day to waste, especially since it is projected to rain in San Francisco for the next two days, so I HAD to get out. Also I've been cooped up in my room practicing all this week. But enough about that.


View Larger Map

I went to one of San Francisco's lesser known historical landmarks, Sutro Baths. But first, I had lunch at Louis' Restaurant which is just up the path from Sutro Baths; It's a little cute red house with a great view of the baths, and the ocean.That's where it is on Google Maps; It looks peculiar and unremarkable from above. So here's a picture of the pool from my point of view.

Nice!

Near that point where I took the picture it got sandy and there was this sinister-looking tunnel to my right, and it was howling. So naturally I had to go in.

Trust me, it was much darker and scarier than my phone camera shows. It was extremely windy the whole time, and it turns out the tunnel didn't lead anywhere - just a blocked off view of some seaside rocks and waves.

I didn't have anywhere to be so I walked up the path on the other side and kept exploring.

One last view of Sutro Baths!

Ugh. All these stairs. I pretty much kept to the left for a long time and kept going. At times I wondered if it was possible bringing Elly here, but I couldn't see myself biking against the wind. It's quite brutal, right next to the ocean.

Eventually I came upon this sight. Hey! That looks familiar. The trail here was smooth enough to bike, but quickly degraded into a sloping dirt path. Oh well.

If you look carefully in the right side, there's a cement semicircle outcrop with benches that you can sit in and enjoy the view. I am about here, now:

Hopefully, you get the idea. Okay let's keep going!

Somewhere along the way I came across this sign:

Mile rock beach? Sounds good. Let's go there! Oh wait:

Stairs! My mortal enemy. Hm, the lens flare makes that path look downright heavenly, but at the time it was so dark it looked like steps leading to the underworld. After stairs, stairs, and more stairs, I got to:

A really neat little beach. I wonder why there are no rocks in that big spot on the beach? Anyway, there was a path up the cliff on the side, so I climbed that.

At first I approached the Land's End point not expecting much. I am here now, by the way:

At this turnaround there was so much wind I was mildly anxious about getting thrown off the cliff. But then I came across a curious bunch of rocks, definitely placed by hand - and I recognized the pattern excitedly before standing over it. (It's curiously cut-off in the google map aerial image. A shame.)

Can you figure out what it is?

It's a labyrinth!

By the way, I risked my life to take that picture! I climbed on another rocky outcrop above the labyrinth, and at this point was completely and fully exposed to the wind in all directions. I felt like my phone was going to fly out of my hands, and then I'd have lost all the pictures I took today! Oh no.

Then I needed to pee, so I went home.

0 This is what I think about that: Things that make life worth living 1 at 23:11

My friend and small group leader V tagged me in a facebook note a while back, of a "list of things that make life worth living. She blatantly admits to plagiarizing the idea from the movie Manhattan by Woody Allen. I haven't seen that movie, but I'll trust that she has good taste in culture.

Here are a few things that make life worth living to me, apart from God's eternal purpose. This is not the first, and will definitely not be the last time I count my blessings.

-Standing at the highest point of a city
-Animal style cheeseburger from In n' Out
-Reading the last line of a book
-Successfully making a delicious cup of coffee
-The silence of the audience after finishing a piece
-Golden Temple's Blueberry Flax Granola
-Dinner with (fake) mom every Monday night
-Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, especially the 4th movement
-David Crowder* Band
-Biking faster than moving cars

Sights I saw, like at this moment:

0 This is what happened: Dream 1 at 02:27

Bliss is a perfect word for this.

At least, just awesome.

I stirred the water a little with my legs. The water was so calm. No breezes around to disturb me. No wind carrying dust between me and the sun.

No responsibilities, nowhere to get to, no plans. It's just me and the water. And this inflatable flotation pad.

Should I put on some sunscreen? I'll definitely get a burn.

No.... I'm too lazy to get up. This feels too good.

I shifted my weight enough to tumble into the water. Wait, I can't swim!... Or can I?

I started swimming, freestyle. I was moving forward. I didn't have any trouble breathing - no sudden panic of water filling my open mouth, no automatic gag reflex, no urge to stop and immediately thrash about until my head was clear above the water again. I am swimming.

I swam and swam.

0 This is what I think about that: Selective Memory at 01:55

My selective memory is pretty amazing.

To me, at least. A few minutes ago I suddenly got the feeling that something happened today that I was supposed to forget.

Someone told me to forget/never mention again something. I guess I forgot it pretty darn well, because I just couldn't remember.

I then tried really hard to remember what it was that I forgot.

No, not that repressed memory, no... keep going. It happened today.

Ah.

It took me a while but I remembered what I forgot on purpose.

I don't know where in the world I got the ability to repress memories so well. Once, J told me her password, and then to forget it a half hour later. And so I did. I don't even know what letter it starts with or what color it was.

I wonder what else I have forgotten on purpose. But I wouldn't know, would I?

0 This is what I think about that: In the Wonderful Month of May at 01:18

I am studying this song, Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai, as part of preparation for my music history final exam tomorrow. I'm certain he won't test us on this, though, because he used it as an example in the review session today.

The words are taken from Heine's poem of the same title; they go like this:

In beautiful May, when the buds sprang, love sprang up in my heart:
In beautiful May, when the birds all sang, I told you my suffering and longing.


Listen to it, really. It's a curious piece. The piano is sad and full of longing and regret and sadness and could almost be a nocturne. Then the voice comes in. He sounds so sure and happy and sincere, so dramatic, and as he sings his happiness and passion he even brings the piano with him to a happier place. But it falls back into the pain and longing as soon as he stops, the background becomes uneasy and unsure without his thoughts. It ends that way.

He confesses his love and all the suffering and longing this spring. Perhaps he is rehearsing these lines in his room in front of a mirror and the uneasy background is his thoughts. Are his feelings reciprocated? Will he be rejected? He fears risking his heart.

Or perhaps the uneasy piano is reality. At last he has mustered the strength to request a rendezvous with his love interest, and confesses, I imagine, in the shade of a tall, old tree, in a field; though the skies are blue and cloudless, and it is a bit uncomfortably warm, the beautiful day has turned bitter by rejection. She doesn't give a response, but he already knows the answer; she hesitates a little too long, her face is frozen too long in surprise to express happiness. She opens her mouth at the final cadence, but it is not going to end happily.

0 This is what happened: Theater Rice, Aged to Perfection at 02:52

I'm still awake at 2 AM, and that's entirely my fault. I had a pounding headache for most of the day, rendering me mostly ineffective whenever I was on my feet, or moving. I thought it was from caffeine withdrawal, so I had some coffee in the late afternoon, and since it didn't help I had a mocha at 8 PM - so, here I am. I took an aceptominophen pill which seems to be working quite well since I feel better, but I can't fall asleep to save my life.

I went to Theater Rice's show tonight and was well pleased. There were plenty of laughs, but this time around I was close to tears. It was the act about a couple, and one of their last moments as the man is on his deathbed, having slowly lost himself to Alzheimer's.

Maybe their acting was just too good. But I didn't like what his wife did - she yelled, screamed angrily, pleaded for him to say something, please. "Just say something! Let me know you're in there, somewhere. I want to talk to the man I fell in love with."

And in a flashback scene, his monologue: "I'm going to lose long term memory, motor coordination, and eventually be unwilling or unable to communicate."

It all hit pretty close to home.

I think about death a lot. Maybe I'm morbid, but it's a topic that keeps my mind occupied. What if I died? What if I died suddenly? What if I got cancer? Would I have time to go skydiving? Do skydiving companies accept terminally ill customers? Would I rather be in a coma for years, hanging onto a slim chance of recovery, or jump to the afterlife as soon as I get a chance? I'm not morbid. I just think a lot.

(In a tangentially related note, I died over 5 times this week in my dreams. In one night.)

But I thought of two things tonight when I thought about death. First, my grandma, and her slow succumbing to dementia and Alzheimer's. I remembered how in the span of an hour of talking to her, she'd have probably asked me the same questions at least five times. Over the course of the summer, I thought some things stuck by the time I left - that I was in college now, and H had already graduated, and no, I don't have a girlfriend but he does - but when I call her now, she still asks what year H is in, and if I was in high school yet. Any updates on her condition I could only rely on my parents to relay to me - she still says she is set on staying at home, by herself.

So that's what I hated about the wife's acting in that One-Act Troupe tonight. No, she acted very convincingly - but it's nothing close to what a wife would feel at the end of a long battle with Alzheimer's. After so many years, you'd have no energy left to be angry. It took me weeks and weeks to run out of patience, and I snapped once and for all - literally, the last time I will be angry. I know that by the time she has to go, I will have no anger at the fact that she can't respond, or if she doesn't know who I am. And by the deathbed is no place to hope for a miraculous recovery, for a sudden clarity of mind and recall of all the years that have gone by in a haze. It would be wrong. (The Notebook, I'm looking at you - you are guilty of getting people's hopes up.)

Second, I thought about how I'd feel if/when I am diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and I begin to lose myself, in pieces. According to wikipedia, the disease is not linked to genetic causes (though some genes are risk factors), so just because two of my grandparents had it hasn't automatically marked me.

I think I would be scared, if I ever had a moment of clarity. I know that's why my grandma lashed out quite often. I will, too. To only 'wake up' once in a while, and the first thing I'd know is that I've just missed out on weeks or months of my life, unable to control myself, or really exist.

Well, damn it, I'm crying now. So good night.

0 This is what happened: Lady at 18:07

"Well, thank you, Yi. That was very good."

I smiled and picked up my backpack. At last... Lunchtime!

I left the conservatory to beautiful blue skies, with no hint of rain.

"What? No performances?" I heard a lady mutter.

An Asian woman was standing in front of a blue, now blank poster. It usually had a large white list of "upcoming performances" at the conservatory, but it was gone today. I noticed yesterday that it was outdated, anyhow - the last performance listed only went to sunday, the 11th, and I wondered when they would put up a new one.

"It's April," the lady muttered, protesting.

"You can go inside and look on the wall." I said. "performances are listed there."

She looked around and smiled at me, saying, "Thank you, thank you."

0 This is what happened: Invisible MUNI at 12:04

This is the bus I take to school.

I was late to class this morning because this thing didn't show up when the bus stop said it would.

I hate being late. I hate things that make me late, and one of those things is what I have dubbed "Invisible MUNI". There are several ways one can find out the next coach's arrival; by text, Nextmuni, by calling 511, or lastly, at the bus stop itself if it is equipped with the orange LED marquee. With all these resources for planning one's commute, how can one be late?

I admit this morning I woke up later than I had intended - I was having a very pleasant dream which contents escape me and I will probably never recover, or perhaps feel its familiar murmuring under my fingers if something today triggers its memory. I digress. While I made my coffee, I went on nextmuni to look up how many minutes I have to get ready. This is my system; I know now, by experience, that I must allot myself five minutes to leave my door and get to the stop; any less and I will miss my intended coach.

The options were coming in one minute, and the next in 8; after that, the next coach was coming in 17 minutes, and I'd definitely be late. 8 minutes it is. I have 3 minutes to get everything ready and leave. Not a lot of time; I'll have to eat breakfast once I get to school, again.

I can see the bus stop as soon as I exit my door, and I see another 71 just pulling up. Too bad I'm down the block, because it won't wait for me to catch up once the light turns green, so I took my time getting to the stop; another woman was already waiting for the next coach; I joined her and plugged in my earphones. The marquee confirmed what nextmuni had said; 71 in 4 & 12 minutes.

5 minutes into the first movement of Nielsen's 3rd symphony, I looked up at the marquee again. It had been, for the past three minutes, insistently displaying the next bus was 'arriving' in 1 minute; the other woman waiting kept anxiously leaning into the street, looking down the gently sloping road for the telltale orange lights of the 71 bus. I really hoped it was just hung up on some stubborn elderly people with walkers.

Two more minutes into the allegro espansivo, the marquee gave up the ruse and displayed only the next bus, coming in 8 minutes.

Another problem with invisible muni is that the longer the interval between coaches, the more people build up at each stop; consequently, a bus that is late will be later and later as it needs to stop at more stops than usual, to accommodate* people getting on and off at even more locations.

I ended up being 17 minutes late to class. Damn you, invisible muni!

*Who knew accommodate had two M's in it?

1 This is what I think about that: Stage at 23:59

Once in a while, I feel like I belong on the stage.

Sometimes I feel like I belong on the stage. Usually I feel like that when I actually am on one. I don't know if it's because I want the attention. When I think about it, I really don't. I get nervous and anxious like everybody else when I have to play and people are watching. I get terribly self-conscious and I can hardly focus and my hands forget what they're doing. Sometimes I feel the most terrified when I'm on stage.

But at other times, such as this weekend, I remember what it feels like to exist on a stage, to own it. The sudden clarity of existence and mission; when time stops dragging me around like a whirlwind, and instead I am the master of consciousness, of being. Seconds, instead of being minutely immeasurable, are huge, thick, ripe plums, and I can enjoy each one or toss it away.

And the silence. Oh, the glorious silence when I know the whole room's eyes are fixated on my hands, each ear tuned so expectantly, including mine, and the silence fills the room. There is nothing louder and more resonant. One of those moments when a watch would tell me only five seconds have passed, but I have lived an entire chapter of my life in that long, drawn breath.

The audience is there, but I don't feel them anymore. Once I start playing, I'm not sure if anyone else exists. It helps that I'm usually playing music so difficult I'm always thinking about the next notes, the upcoming physical gesture for the next passage, the phrasing, and I don't have time to think about anything else. I don't know what it would take to interrupt me. At times, even thinking about breathing takes too much bandwidth. So I make do without oxygen at times.

Once in a while, I feel close to God.

0 This is what happened: Practice at 00:59

I had a good four hours straight to devote to practicing this evening, which is quite rare so I decided to make the most of my time. Showered, turned on the heater, comfortable clothes, slightly hungry; prayed, and got down to it.


I forced myself to do at least 10 minutes of warmups, which quickly evolved into doing the hard passages of Merlin II very slowly, attentive to every position, every note quality and balance of each chord. Careful sixteenth notes up and down. Careful transitions into the next passage to make sure I memorized it correctly.


Usually when I practice I block out thinking about anything else. It is blissful in a way to be so focused and in flow that I know nothing can bother me. Many times last year I'd start practicing, and the next time I look at the clock two hours have passed, though it felt like no time at all. It's a trance-like state, almost similar to the rare momentary blissful blankness you get when you wake up perfectly rested from a great dream. That's when I love practicing, and I get a lot done.


While I've been learning Merlin this semester, though, I've noticed something in the learning process. I've been tackling the hardest passages first and working them over and over to get them familiar, before I learn the easier, more repetitive bits (though I'm discovering that only about 5% of Merlin is easy and repetitive). I guess sometimes I can never fully tune other thoughts out, because I'd be thinking about something else simultaneously, perhaps another scene or memory as I drill a section, and when I go back to run it the same feelings or memories play in my head. So I've associated other mental processes with some sections as I learn them.


But for some reason, dark thoughts poisoned my head tonight. I didn't find it any more difficult to practice and learn new measures - in fact, I learned four measures in and hour, and was feeling very encouraged by my pace to keep going. I noticed, though, that every time I painstakingly inched through the new measures, testing the accuracy and strengthening my new neural associations, the same painful scene played through in my head, taunting me. I didn't anticipate that I could have also imprinted bad thoughts into my passages.


I took a break to eat some food, and watched funny videos to distract my mind, and went back to the same passage i was working on, now in hopes that I could imprint happier thoughts onto it. No such luck; perhaps I was thinking so hard about coming up with new associations, or I had already learned it too well, but the same sequence of notes triggered the same unhappy thought.


I set down my mallets for the rest of the night.

0 This is what happened: Impeccable Timing 2 at 12:00

I suck at timing the drive home. I had made it all the way without encountering hardly any traffic; but of course, once I hit Los Angeles I hit the sea of red. The Red Sea, if you will. Of traffic.

Literally crawling along, I started texting people to announce my arrival - What are you doing tonight? Hey, I'm gonna be home in three hours. Are you busy?

K texted me back. Come over at 9.


It was 1900. I'll try. Do you have food?


K: Yeah, we have food.


Without traffic this last leg would only take me forty minutes. That's never happened, though, and the average time it took me to drive back to Irvine from Northridge, where I had lessons, took me an hour and a half.


At 2030 I, impatient at the Jamboree exit, decided to get off the freeway rather than wait another 10 minutes to travel a mile to the exit that would take me home. As soon as I was on the offramp, however, I realized I'd never navigated to K's house from this direction. It was somewhere to the east, and north. I went down Jamboree and turned on familiar neighborhood street names. With every solitary intersection I encountered and waited for the light I regretted more and more getting off the freeway an exit early.

Finally I pulled into the neighborhood and circled around, looking for parking - the streets were unusually full. I quickly parallel parked and walked up to K's house, keys still in my hand. As I knocked I checked the time on my phone.

2100.

0 This is what happened: Impeccable Timing 1 at 01:07

I was woken up by a soft kick at my feet.


"Let's go," said Z.


"Showtime," I said. I sat up on the percussion studio hallway - it was five minutes to four. I walked out after Zach, down the hall to where A and J were waiting outside the Salon doors.


Okay. Pre-concert check. Shirt, check. Pants, check. Shoes, check. All set.


We lounged around patiently, staying quiet in case the double set of doors weren't soundproof enough. The small elevator arrived with a ding, and two elderly ladies came out. I shifted to the right to give them a straight path to the door; one of them smiled at us before she went in.


A few minutes pass. "How do we know when we're supposed to go in?"


Oh. Hm. We never went over that with the coordinators when we set up an hour ago. This entrance was also the farthest from the stage - perhaps we should wait at the rear entrance?


We joked about completely missing the performance because we never walked on stage - perhaps they announced us and are waiting awkwardly in there right now! Haha.


A ten second pause of silence. The anxiety quietly poked at me, so I suggested we go to the rear entrance just in case. I pried the door open quietly - 


The second door was open, and I could hear a woman's amplified speech echoing. "...have just performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C...." Hey, we performed at the Kennedy center last month.


The sound guy looked at us and said, "Good, you're on."


"...I will read their names. Well, their first names. A, J, Z, and Yi." Applause.


I never stopped walking since I opened the first door, and walked directly on stage to my vibraphone. I smiled, looked at Z to make sure he was watching as I bowed, then picked up my mallets. Showtime.