SingInSac

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

2008-07-29T01:37:00.000-07:00

I had to post this. A friend posted it on Facebook. It's on The Financial Times Web site.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece

Here's an excerpt:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

You get the gist :) Enjoy!

Good Samaritans

2008-07-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a group of good people got together to help an elderly couple scammed by an unscrupulous unlicensed contractor of their life savings. I wrote the story about the scam months ago. It wasn't even front page news, but a contractor - a legitimate one - read the story and contacted me. At first I was skeptical about his intentions to help. Why would he go out of his way to help complete strangers? He made hundreds of calls, on his own time, to other builders, non-profits organizations, churches, elected and government officials, to ask them to help. The group had to clear a few bureaucratic hurdles before they could begin work on the house. The effort took months, but they broke ground yesterday.

I asked the good contractor to keep me posted on developments, so every time there was one, he would email me, which is why I knew the trouble the volunteers had to go through to make yesterday happen. His persistence impressed me and his determination to help this couple, at the expense of his own time, touched me.

We never know how God touches a person's heart, and how one man's kindness and generosity triumph over another man's evil greed.

The Bug That Wouldn't Burn

2008-07-14T01:40:00.001-07:00

This one is about an amazing, annoying little bug.

I met the bug this weekend in Butte County while covering the aftermath of the wildfire. Millions, or even billions, of this tiny bug swarmed the desolate landscape of Concow, which was hardest hit by the fire. A resident whose property was spared and who had stayed behind to defend her home remarked to me that she has never since the bug, not until now. It suddenly came out of the woodworks, so to speak, in the fire's aftermath.

This flat-bodied, dark-greenish bug bites. It flies (or jumps), and lands on you forcefully, in a willy-nilly fashion. It flew into and inside the shirt of a resident while I was talking to her. I almost got one in my mouth and another one in my eye. I felt like I was being attacked. I'm sure someone can make a horror movie about this bug too.

We met a veteran firefighter, who explained that the bug lives inside the bark of the trees. After the fire, the trees are still hot and the heat drives the bug out. He didn't really know the name of the bug, but he calls it a wood beetle.

What puzzles me most is how the bug even survived the inferno. Many homes were burnt to the ground. Material that did not turn into ashes melted. Yet the bug survived, in numbers! Where did it hide from the flames?

Fourth of July

2008-07-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

I cannot say enough wonderful things about kids. They never fail to amaze me.

Taking advantage of a long holiday weekend, I visited my friend and her family in Stanford, and spent some time in the Bay Area. On Friday morning, we visited the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, where the guide was doing his best to convince us that our physics-defying experiences on the hill and in a hut has nothing to do with optical illusions, when it has everything to do with optical illusions.

On our way back to Stanford, we stopped by Cupertino and had a delicious lunch of Taiwanese porridge with an assortment of side dishes.

In the afternoon, I took a nap, while my friend worked on her dissertation, her children played and her husband prepared another delicious meal for dinner.

If I haven't already mentioned this, my friend has a 7-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter, who are at about the same ages as my niece and nephew. Her son is curious and precocious, and draws and paints very well. He also knows how to cook, in fact, he made all of us breakfast that very morning. Her daughter is a darling, although somewhat of a dare-devil darling. And she likes to sing to Norah Jones songs and put on a dramatic performance while she's at it.

Now, the little girl has friend, a Jewish-Russian-American girl with brown curly hair about 2 months younger than she. I woke up from my nap to hear the chatter of little girls' voices and went downstairs to find my friend's daughter arranging a jigsaw puzzle with her friend. The two little girls could not be more different, if you look at them from the outside. My friend's daughter, who looks like "Boo," the little girl from the cartoon Monster Inc., has straight jet-black hair framing her Asian features. She spoke little English and even her Mandarin is hard to understand sometimes. And as I've already mentioned, the Jewish-Russian-American girl has brown curly hair. She articulated fairly well in English, but I'm not sure if she spoke or understood Mandarin. Yet the pair has no problem communicating with each other, interacting and engaging as three-year-olds would.

At first, the girls didn't really pay attention to me, but at one point, one of them looked up at me and asked that I help find a piece of the puzzle - so sweetly that I could not resist. We moved around a few pieces, and at some point, both of them decided to show me band-aids on their knees. My friend's daughter had Snoopy figures on hers, whereas her friend had a flowery pattern. I had already seen the band-aid on my friend's daughter, thinking initially that the little girl had scraped her knee. But as her parents explained, the band-aid was purely ornamental, like a necklace, or a ring. And apparently, it's fast becoming a fashion trend among three-year-old girls, as I've learned over the weekend.

The girls eventually moved outside to the play yard. I decided to check in on them and when they saw me, they asked me to put them on a harness-style swing, which I dutifully obliged. (Note: it is very hard to resist the demands of cherubic three-year-old girls.) They took turns waiting for me to swing them and I tried to be fair: if I swung one of them to a certain height, I made sure I gave the other girl equal treatment.

At some point, my friend's daughter, while in mid-air, started saying something that sounded like it was in Mandarin, but I could not understand what she was saying. She kept repeating the same phrase, and I kept asking her what she wanted. I turned to her friend, and asked "Do you know what she's saying?" To my surprise, without even looking like she was trying to decipher her friend's words, the Jewish-Russian-American girl said,"She wants to get down (from the swing)." And when I asked my friend's daughter if that is indeed what she wanted, she nodded her head.

Perhaps it was the body language, or perhaps the girls share an unspoken code, or a secret wink. They certainly share a lot in common, but they are also from very different cultural and religious backgrounds. I do not think that at three, they are aware of those differences. So at which point do children, or people, for that matter, become aware of their differences, be it their skin color, the language they speak, the food they eat, the faiths they practice. When do prejudices seep into our lives and prevent us from forming friendships with those who look so different from us, whose parents are from different continents and who have different customs?

In the late afternoon sun of that lazy, breezy Fourth of July, I saw something beautiful - the unfettered friendship of two little girls of different races, squealing with delight as they played together.

The Freaky Freaks

2008-06-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, I have had three best gal-pals. We met our first year in high school and bonded over campfire, class projects and common interests. Maybe a year into our friendship, we were chilling in the school gym and decided to make our group official. So we sealed the pact with some chant and hand-joining. The Freaky Freaks were born.

Over the years we grew up together, sharing with one another many of the normal teenage angst - boy-girl relationships, school grades, parents etc -and many of the aspirations that a young person has. In many ways, we are diametrically different people, so we have had our fair share of arguments and fights, some small, some big, but always followed by attempts at reconciliation, forgiveness and the ultimate "we are friends forever no matter what happens" pronouncement that melts away all hard feelings.

A few years ago, one of the Freaks found a cancerous growth on her wrist. I was abroad and could not be with her until after a surgery to remove the malignant cells. She was in a bandage but recovering. I realize I could not bear to lose any of them - a thought that had not crossed my mind until I saw my friend in her bandages.

In the last two or three years, all three of them got married - two of them within a week apart of each other at the end of last year. I spoke at all three weddings, recounting our childhood and our shared experiences, also our time apart as each of us sought our dreams and our careers. I believe each of them has carved out the life she wanted for herself successfully and married the man of her dreams, and for that, I thank God.

I don't see them often since I'm in the States and they are in my home country, but I miss them dearly. Of recent years, they have taken upon themselves to find me a husband. Initially, those matchmaking efforts kind of annoyed me, but when I realized their good intentions, I wasn't so annoyed anymore. I usually oblige. What have I got to lose?

Also, I had thought I would feel left out of their lives once they were all married and that I may lose our friendships. But quite the opposite has happened. Instead of losing three of my best girl-friends, I have gained three more friendships - that of their husbands, the "Freaks-in-laws."

"The family has just got bigger," one of them said to me during my trip home last year for her wedding. Having the men around is also an advantage, since they can be tasked to do certain things. Such as: When their wives instruct them to drive me home, they usually oblige. I also feel rather pampered by the six of them, who would take me out for meals and play hosts to me at their homes.

As Carrie in Sex and City has once wondered aloud to her three bosom friends, just before she left New York City for Paris, "What if I've never met you?", I wonder too, "What if I've never met the Freaky Freaks?"

Wild Fire near Fairfield

2008-06-23T01:33:00.000-07:00

More on the Humboldt Fire

2008-06-17T00:40:00.000-07:00

One of my former editors once said to me: "California seems like it's either drowning or burning." Barely a few weeks into the official start of the fire season for more than a dozen counties, parts of Northern California were already burning. One part was in Butte County, in the rugged canyons of pines and oaks that lead into the Town of Paradise, a quaint foothill community of about 27,000 residents. It was the first time I've ever covered a large wildland fire.

I left Wednesday evening, and arrived two hours later in Chico at about 9 p.m. I went first to the staging area, only to find two firefighters sitting by a parking lot. I decided to check out the evacuation shelter, and found a handful of people who had evacuated. By the time I fed some of the quotes and color to my editor, it was around 10:30 p.m. -- time to seek out accommodation for myself. The first three hotels I drove to were fully occupied, and I thought I would have to spend the night in the car or at the shelter with the evacuees and the Red Cross volunteers when I finally found a hotel with vacancies.

As it turned out, several fire departments from out of town were also putting up their firefighters at the same hotel. Around midnight, while I was sorting out problems with my key at the front desk, they arrived en masse with their trucks and engines. I chatted with a few of them, and found out that fire officials were holding an early morning briefing session at the command center, which was at a college campus about 8 to 10 miles south of the hotel.

I woke up about 6 a.m. the next day, so I could make it to the briefing by 7 a.m.

After stopping by the shelter in Chico, I decided to head towards Paradise, where more evacuations were underway and the fire was threatening thousands of its residents. As I later learned, Paradise is only accessible by three main routes from the south. I took the route called the Skyway, where I came close to the flames and the smoke, but not before I stopped to talk to some residents who live in the canyon on Honey Run Road. A woman told me how she and her family survived the fire storm that surrounded her two-story stucco home the night before. She watched as flames seared trees across the street on a hillside behind her neighbor's home. At some point, the fire jumped, narrowly missing her house and engulfing the slope behind her property. She hunkered down with her family and listened to the crackling sound of charred leaves. The fire calmed down after midnight, and she went to sleep at about 1:30 a.m. I told her she was brave, or crazy, and she laughed. "We have a house we want to protect," she said.

The Skyway runs along a ridge. I saw some firefighters by the roadside who had been fighting a flare-up. I put on my gear - a pair of oversize bright yellow pants I had to hold in place with a belt, an equally oversize bright yellow jacket, a pair of goggles and a fire helmet that made me feel like I was balancing a jug of water on my head - grabbed my notebook and pen, and got out of the car.

As it turned out, I recognized some of the firefighters, and they recognized me (even though I looked like I was in a spacesuit). They were the ones I met in the hotel lobby. One of them gave me a quick interview and described how the fire had been "skunking" around the canyon the whole morning when the winds finally picked it up and brought it out of the canyon and onto the ridge. The landscape was charred, with smoke rising out of the ground. The winds were brutal, the temperature was boiling and I was swimming in my "spacesuit" -- and in perspiration.

I would return to my car intermittently, to dictate notes to a colleague and to talk to my editor. On one occasion I was on the phone with my editor and not paying attention to my surroundings. Suddenly, flames erupted from a smoldering spot near the car. I hung up on my editor abruptly and hit the accelerator (a colleague had advised me to keep the engine running - good advice, as I've realized) to escape the flames.

I tried to continue eastbound towards Paradise several times, to an area where structures had already been burnt or were burning, but the heavy smoke and unrelenting fire that just seemed to grow bigger and bigger made it close to impossible, and dangerous, for me to advance.

I waited, along with some other law enforcement and government agencies (non-firefighters) on the eastbound lanes, for the fire to calm down. Flames rose out of the canyon, like the tongues of hell, licking the ridge mercilessly and furiously. At one point, I saw flames burning inside the trunk of a tree that has cracked open. The phantasmagorical landscape, shrouded in thick smoke and aglow in a faint orange hue, was strangely beautiful, savage and scary at the same time.

More fire engines and emergency crews came tearing up the highway to battle the flames, but the high winds continued to pick up errant embers and start new patches of fire in what firefighters call "heavy spotting."

When the flames jumped the highway to the other side, I decided it was time to go. I couldn't proceed to the turn-around point because the fire was there; I couldn't cross the median from where I was because it was a wide ditch. I couldn't go onto a shoulder because there was none. My only option was to travel west on the eastbound lanes, i.e., in the opposite direction of oncoming traffic. The roads were closed to all but emergency crews, law enforcement officials and media personnel, so my odds of meeting with a head-on collision were greatly reduced. I turned on the hazard and head lights and prayed, while I drove slowly and watched for traffic.

An intern had asked me recently what has been the scariest incident I've encountered in my career so far. I've had a few "uncomfortable" situations -- when I have knocked on doors in sketchy or isolated rural neighborhoods, when I have met hostile and belligerent news subjects, when I have driven in a snow storm, when I have walked through a rice field with snakes and when I have encountered not-so-adorable dogs (in fact, I am afraid of most dogs so sometimes going onto an unfamiliar property and hearing a dog bark is scary enough in itself, but I hate to admit that to my editors) -- but I couldn't really give an answer to the intern then. If she asks me again now, I will definitely have an unequivocal answer for her.

Almost a third of the town of Paradise evacuated Thursday, packing the shelters in Chico. I stopped by one of them, and noticed that many of the evacuees were elderly retirees. One woman (I think she was 81 years old, if I remember correctly) was worried about her kitties.

I spent most of Friday in Paradise, interviewing people preparing to evacuate as fears of the fire spreading to the western part of town grew. I stood with a woman on her back porch, which offered a spectacular view of Butte Creek Canyon, where a recalcitrant fire was still burning. Her raw timber house, tucked at the end of a dirt road amidst tall trees and shrubs, was gorgeous. Amongst her prized possessions was a baby grand piano, which she was afraid of losing if the fire came across from the canyon.

I hardly slept or ate while working on the story, but the adrenalin sustained me. I came back home Friday night. By then, it appeared the situation was improving but the damage already done. The fire had scorched more than 20,000 acres and destroyed about 70 homes.

****************************************************************

In a story that my colleague wrote for Monday's paper, the Paradise town clerk was quoted as saying "what gave it its beauty also gave it its danger." She was talking about how the stunning natural features of the town also acted as fuel for the fire. I thought it was a good commentary for some philosophical reflection, if anyone is so inclined to ponder over it.

Humboldt Fire

2008-06-17T00:17:00.000-07:00

Video taken June 12 from the backyard of a resident's home on Honey Run Road in Butte County, near the Town of Paradise. Some residents in the area evacuated, while some stayed to brave the flames and protect their homes.

My new laptop!

2008-06-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've bought a new laptop. It IS smaller, lighter and thinner than my old Dell. Not as slick as some other models, but I'm happy with it. It's still shiny and beautiful. :)

The death of a laptop

2008-06-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

The laptop I've had for more than five years is dead, or dying, depending on how you define the death of an electronic equipment. Its screen blacks out every second or so, and it keeps shutting off by itself.

The laptop is a heavy, thick Dell Inspiron notebook. It arrived in late 2002 at my dorm room in New York City, courtesy of my generous dad, who bought it online and had it shipped to me. I had just moved to the United States to start graduate school, and needed some kind of technology to do my homework, navigate the city and stay connected to family and friends in far-flung lands. It did its job. I remember turning it on for the first time in a still-barren room with unpacked boxes, hooking it up to the Internet, and being able to listen to one of my favorite London radio stations online.

It did its job again, when I moved to Rhode Island a year and half later for a job. And again, when I moved to California a year and half ago for another job. Whenever I moved, the laptop is one of the last items I would pick up, but the one item I made sure was well-protected. The equipment (or rather, it's hard drive - sorry, I'm not a tech-pro) stores pictures I've taken, prose and poetry I've written and also some programs that've (hopefully) helped me ward off evil viruses and ruthless hackers. (Although sometimes I have my doubts.)

It has served me well, lasting for as long as it did. As mentioned, I'm not a tech-savvy person by any count, but I was able to handle my laptop, for the most part, with the help of some tech-savvy friends. It had its hiccups along the way, but I think this time, it has finally drawn its last breath. But before it decided to do that on late Wednesday night, I was able to watch a few South Park episodes on it on Tuesday night, and chat with a friend online on Wednesday morning.

With the help of another tech-savvy friend, I hope to buy a new laptop this weekend. Maybe a slicker, lighter one. Maybe one that has a wireless port. Maybe one I can burn CDs on. Maybe one with gazillion gigabytes of memory space.

But I will never forget the old laptop. R.I.P. old laptop. You'll always be remembered.

By the way, does anyone know how one should dispose of a laptop in an environmentally-friendly way?

Battle in my kitchen

2008-06-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

I have always detested cockroaches. I abhor them with a passion I do not have for other kinds of similar creatures. Their long feelers creep me out and the way they crawl (and fly) irks me. I believe that creators of monstrous, goo-slobbering alien beings in all horror sci-fi movies are inspired by their encounters with cockroaches. I also believe that in a nuclear catastrophe, they will be the only creatures to survive it.

In the past two days, I've noticed tiny baby cockroaches crawling around in my kitchen. As soon as I eliminate one (by nipping it with a piece of tissue and flushing cockroach and tissue and all down the toilet), I notice more appearing, seemingly out of nowhere! Just tonight I must have exterminated about a dozen tiny ones. A bigger (medium-sized) one escaped just as I smashed the closest thing I could grab - an empty egg carton - onto the kitchen top and missing it by 100th of an inch. For all I know I may have struck it, but the "thing" just refused to die. Before I could say "die!", it scurried away to the dark crevices of my kitchen, where it now lurks, gleefully, with the knowledge that it had unsettled me. (I believe I saw it peeking out from underneath my stove, and retreating quickly when it saw me approach with a baton made out of paper.) Yes, it's now war -- between man and bug, between a superior being with intellect and feelings, and a creature that scrounges among garbage. (Although I do believe that the species have evolved to be more than that.)

When I was a little girl, whenever a cockroach entered my life, I would scream for mummy and daddy. Mum usually whacked them with a slipper or simply picked them up with a piece of tissue and flushed them down the toilet to the netherworld. Dad usually sprayed them with some kind of chemical, which didn't always work (which led to my belief that they would have no problem surviving a nuclear holocaust). I don't blame Dad for not wanting to have any physical contact with the creatures.

But now, they can't really fly thousands of miles just to help me deal with a bug. So I'm left to my own devices. And I have learned, over the years of living by myself, to battle the creature alone.

It's a master of guerrilla warfare, singularly-minded, coming out in the darkness of the night to do its dark deeds. But I will prevail. Or I'll call my property manager in the morning to bring in the pest-busters.

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-05-27T01:14:00.000-07:00

I was in the Bay area again this weekend, this time in Stanford visiting a friend who's working on her PhD. Another friend was also in nearby San Jose on a trip with her husband.

We went to the same high school in Singapore, so when we meet, we often reminisce about the past and our former classmates. Many of them are now successful investment bankers, lawyers, accountants and government administrators. Some of them have connections with the privileged and powerful in Singapore. Many are now married. Some already have a couple of kids.

Over lunch today I told my Stanford friend -- in a good-humoured way -- that I am envious of the fact that she is a mother of two children. I don't want to miss out on the love a parent has for his or her child -- something I'm afraid of missing out in life by being single. There is something about a parent's love that is different from a lover's love, a friend's love, a sibling's love or a stranger's love. It is as close to God's love as I can fathom, if I can ever fathom God's love.

A Chinese poet once wrote about how a mother stayed up all night to sew some new clothes for her son who will be leaving the next day for a long trip. The poet implies, through a metaphor, that is it impossible for the son to repay his mother's love. (The metaphor was about how it's impossible for an inch of grass to repay the rays of sunshine that gave it life.)

My friend then said to me that I will never know what kind of life it is to have no life. Yet she and her husband are happy because they love her children and everything else pales in comparison. It is an incomprehensible, infinite love I am afraid I will never know.

**************************************************

Jean, who was in San Jose with her husband, finally had her ears pierced. I noticed the sparkling studs on her ear lobes while we were shopping, thought something was different about her, but didn't register the difference until she pointed it out at dinner.

For years, Jean and I were the only two among the Freaky Freaks (the name three of my best friends and I have called ourselves since high school) who did not have pierced ears. And for years, one of the Freaky Freaks, would continue to buy ear rings that required pierced ears to wear and we would have to remind her that we didn't have pierced ears.

Now I'm the only one among us without pierced ears.

Summertime in California

2008-05-17T02:06:00.000-07:00

Springtime and summer is delightful in California. Fairs, festivals and fun. Garden tours and marathons. I visited two private gardens last weekend with a friend. The first garden was designed on the slope of a gentle hill in Newcastle. Different areas of the garden had different themes, such as a Japanese meditation section with bamboo shoots and Japanese maple trees. A slender meandering stream ran through parts of the garden. The sound of flowing water splashing against pebbles was very soothing.

The second garden was in Lincoln. It was much smaller, and was mostly occupied by a large pond covered with water lily leaves (or lotus leaves - I can't really tell the difference). Although not as breathtakingly beautiful as the first garden we saw, it still possessed a whimsical charm of its own.

This weekend I will join some friends who are participating in the Bay to Breakers event in San Francisco. For more information, visit its Web site http://www.ingbaytobreakers.com/main.html
It's a 7-mile walk across the city, from the Bay side of the city near the Embarcadero to the west end of the city at the Golden Gate Park. The plan is to wear a colorful wig and a "fun" T-shirt, a friend informed me yesterday. I have been told some participants wear outrageous costumes. And some wear nothing at all, even though organizers say on the Web site that nudity is not allowed.

Watch this space for updates on the event.

Garden Tour in Lincoln and Newcastle

2008-05-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

Some pictures from my garden tour yesterday.

A nice day

2008-05-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

hmm....to say or not to say....to talk about it or not talk about it.....ah, that's the question.

A parent's heartache

2008-05-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

I was in court last Friday for the arraignment of a man I was writing about and met a couple - a lawyer and his wife - who was there because their son was being arraigned on suspicion of drunken driving. I thought he was going to defend the case, but he told me he wasn't going to represent his son - a public defender will. I asked if it would be a conflict of interest if he were representing his son. He said no, he and his wife just wanted their son to learn his lesson. It was his second drunken driving charge.

We talked for a while. The bailiff gave some instructions, such as no attempts to make contact with the inmates when they were at the stand - no waving, or mouthing of words or any gesturing toward the inmates. The lawyer's wife turned to me and said in good humor: "Does that mean I can't throw something at him (her son) and yell 'what do you think you are doing?'" I laughed and said, "I guess not."

Later that day I went to jail to interview a mother who was arrested on a charge of child endangerment. According to authorities and some other news reports, her house was too filthy an environment for her teenage son. She admitted to me that it was dirty, but the mess was created by her children (she also has a teenage daughter) and she had been urging them to clean up after themselves. She wants her children to learn some responsibilities, but they wouldn't listen to her and she doesn't know what to do. On one hand, yes, it was her fault because it was her house and she should never have let things get out of hand, she said. On the other hand, "a person can only fight so much," she said.

It isn't easy being a parent.

So you think you can dance?

2008-05-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not into American Idol. But I am into So You Think You Can Dance, which usually airs after an American Idol season ends.

Last weekend I attended a dance class to learn Night Club 2 Steps and Salsa. Most of the participants were elderly men and women. One was a 40-something-year-old man, and only two other persons - a couple - were about my age.

But the reality TV show is not my only source of inspiration to learn to dance. Here is the other:

When I was in London recently, I attended two of my niece's ballet performances in a dance festival organized by her school district. While waiting anxiously for my niece's turn to appear on stage at one of the performances, my mother turned to me and suggested that I should pick up some dancing lessons - just as a form of exercise.

Watching my niece and other participants - whose ages range from 5 or 6 to 17 or 18 - dance reminded me of my own ballet lessons as a child. I gave up ballet in my mid-teens because I wanted to focus on my school work. Also, other after-school extra-curriculum activities were piling on and becoming more time-consuming.

As I watched the older kids dance, I felt a pang of regret. Perhaps I shouldn't have quit ballet, or dancing, for that matter. It was one of the things I had enjoyed doing as a child. So why did I quit? If I didn't, I might have been as good as some of the older kids competing on stage at the festival. I don't think I would have ever become a ballerina, but at least some potential might have been fulfilled. Also, if I had those dancing skills, I could now be auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance.

My job

2008-05-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

I took a sick day today to recuperate from my minor medical procedure. But I still thought about work, about things I have to do, phone calls I have to make. I worry too much about work sometimes and really should learn to take it easy. I can never figure out why I'm always plagued with a sense of not doing enough or doing well enough - a feeling I know is totally irrational.

I know I don't write much about my work/job on this blog, even though it is a major part of my life. The choice is deliberate. I need a space to remind myself that my job is not who I am.
I am aware that the first thing I write on my "About Me" profile is my profession. It shows how much being a journalist means to me, but also how much it has robbed me of my identity. I hope there will come a day when I can introduce myself differently.

Having said that, being a journalist is not just a job. It's a calling, a labor of love, a passion, a mission. Many of my colleagues share this sentiment. The best of them have brought the rich and powerful to their knees, exposed injustice and corruption, changed policies and laws, protected taxpayers' hard-earned money and spoke up for the underdog and victims. They have also written beautiful prose that does none of the above, but have simply informed and entertained readers and given us an insight into our humanity. They have told the stories of people whose lives will forever be recorded in history. In 10, 100, 1000, or 100,000 years, future generations will be able to dig into the archives and learn how we lived, loved and died.

Indeed, the profession appeals to the idealists in us.

But sometimes we - or I guess - I, forget that the little stories that don't make the front page matter as much. An editor told me a story of how a former reporter who's now retired, had been assigned a story that did not seem important, when everyone else was covering the biggest stories of the day. Little did he know that the story touched a woman who was suffering from depression and was contemplating suicide. About a year later, she wrote him a letter to let him know that his article saved her life.

I have always loved listening to stories and I think it's a privilege to be able to tell them.

Thank you for the ink.

Remembering London - where I used to live: Wandsworth Bridge Road, Fulham

2008-04-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

During my week in London, I visited the neighborhood where I used to live. As soon as I stepped out from the train onto the platform, I was surprised by how much Fulham Tube Station has changed. It used to be just a plain, slightly run-down station. Now it's a shopping mall, with a Krispy Kreme store, a Sainsbury supermarket and a high-end-looking boutique. Of course I stopped to browse through the boutique, but didn't buy anything since the devaluation of the dollar isn't working to my advantage in London.

It was about a 15-minute walk to the apartment where I used to live. I took a little longer this time because I was taking some pictures. The streets in the neighborhood were lined with specialty stores, restaurants, antique shops, gift and flower stores and red-brick terrace homes - just as I remembered them to be.

The trees, spaced evenly along the roads, were beginning to show signs of Spring, with young light-green leaves budding at the tips of barren branches. Even though I had lived in this neighborhood for a year during college, I never found out what kind of trees they were. Now I was curious. I stopped a passer-by whom I think looked knowledgeable enough. She was French, and told me that the tree's name in French is "Platane." (Plane tree in English.) The French woman suggested I ask someone at a flower shop down the road to confirm what she told me. The young woman tending to the shop was Polish and said in Polish, the tree's name is "Klon." (Maple in English.) I studied online pictures for both types of trees, and I could not tell which woman was right. Here is a picture of the tree. Would appreciate any help in identifying it.

Some of my happiest, most carefree and yet most challenging days were spent in the second-story apartment behind this tree. Sure, there were bills to pay, essays to write and grades to worry about. But there was time to philosophize about life and the universe, time to ponder the "Big Questions" and time to consider the future. For the first time in my life, I learned to live independently away from my family in that apartment. I learned how to do my laundry, to cook and to change a light bulb in that apartment.

That apartment shaped a part of my early 20s. I can still remember the conversations, the heat arguments and the parties inside. I can still remember my tiny room that had just enough space for a twin-size bed, a wardrobe, a small study desk and cabinet. It still boggles my mind how I was able to fit nearly all my worldly belongings into that room.

Thanks for allowing me to indulge in some nostalgia here.

2008-04-30T20:09:00.000-07:00

In case you are wondering why I'm posting so much today, it's because I took half a day off work for a minor medical procedure. So now I'm just waiting for the pizza I ordered to arrive, because I have a low threshold for pain and can't cook in my current condition. Also because I'm being lazy -- about cooking, that is. But I can definitely write.

Note: I wrote this about an hour ago but a friend called, then my pizza arrived, so I forgot to post it.

Remembering London - My niece and nephew (part II)

2008-04-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

Besides reading a bedtime story to my nephew the night before I left London, I started making up a story for him, telling him that it was a dream I had. The story was about how a little boy and little girl saved some inhabitants of an island from a giant man-eating flower by snipping off its stem with a giant pair of scissors. Perhaps not the most original of make-believe tales, but I figured he is only five, and probably hasn't heard much about giant man-eating flowers. He did figure out that the little hero and heroine in my "dream" were him and his sister.

The next day, on our way to Heathrow Airport, he asked me to tell him a dream again. I remembered a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig we saw during our visit to a small farm the day before. So this time it was a story about a giant pig (spot the trend?), or rather me being inside the brain of a giant pig, encountering "sludge-like" alien life forms in danger of extinction unless they had some tea to drink. Who to the rescue with the tea supply but the same little boy and little girl who fought the giant man-eating plant? My niece, who was also sitting beside me in the car, also listened to the story. She seemed reasonably entertained and asked me questions occasionally.

At the end of this tale, my nephew asked me: "Do you have another dream?" As it turned out, he didn't like the giant pig story too much. He said it was scary. I told him I'm sorry, but I have run out of dreams. His solution was: "Can you take a nap?"

Pictures taken from http://www.geocities.com/carniv_plants/ and http://www.britishpigs.org.uk/breed_gs.htm

It's a Sea Robin or Gurnard!

2008-04-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, the mystery has been solved -- thanks to a friend on my Facebook list. He has a friend who is an aquatic biologist.

Again, thanks to wikipedia, we can know a little more about this fascinating fish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_robin

I especially like what it says about the flesh when cooked. Firm and tender. Apparently it is an important part of Armenian cuisine. I guess my next task is to seek out Armenian restaurants in town to get a taste of this fish. Any suggestions?Alternatively, I could always go to Armenia.

SROs

2008-04-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

It is too late now to write another complete post. But I'll just briefly mention it.

This evening, I had the opportunity to visit a single room occupancy building located downtown.

Here's what the online encyclopedia says about SROs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Room_Occupancy

The conditions are deplorable, but the residents I met were warm and friendly and very candid about their situations. One man said he was just returning from his detox treatment for heroin and methadone, which he has used for 23 years, since he was 15. One woman said her small suffocating studio is preferable to living on the streets.

Thoughts about the experience? I'm refraining from saying something trite that might make me look too sheltered for my own good. So we'll just stick to the observations and skip my pontification.

Good night for now.

Remembering London - My niece and nephew (part 1)

2008-04-29T00:39:00.000-07:00

Ever since I returned from my London trip last week, I had planned to document as much as possible what happened and my thoughts and feelings about it. But as usual, work and chores have taken up most of my time - that, or I'm terrible at time management.

One of my main topics - and highlights - of my trip are two small, but irresistibly adorable human beings: my 8-year-old niece and 5-year-old nephew. They are the delight of my family.

I remember holding my niece the day after she was born, in a gray stoic-looking London hospital. She was only the length of my forearm - a tiny, hairless, wrinkly life form. Now she is a little girl with long fine hair that rolls into a bun or turns into crossed plaits on the top of her head when she dresses for her ballet performances. She devours Roald Dahl books, plays the piano and the violin (I took a rudimentary lesson from her one evening at my brother's home) and knows how to say "knowledge is power" (apparently something she learned from a teacher at school). She knows how to prepare breakfast for herself and her little brother - how to warm the milk in the microwave for the cereal and how to spread jam and butter onto her toast. She was able to correctly identify a bird we spotted during our walk in Kew Gardens, when all the adults were guessing incorrectly. We found out she was right shortly after, when we came across a display board with pictures of the birds and their names.

And my nephew, who is almost a carbon copy of my brother, is endearing, mischievous, charming, imaginative and almost always hungry. Or so he says. At a pub after one of my niece's performances, I ordered a chocolate fudge sundae soaked in chocolate sauce and buried under a mountain of whipped cream and profiteroles. As soon as the waitress set the bowl onto the table, my nephew made a dive for it, digging into the cream, ice-cream, profiteroles, sauce and all with the only spoon available, while his sister, his mother, his grandmother and his aunt looked on helplessly. One of us finally wrestled the spoon from grasp but he could not, would not, be deterred. He stuck out his tongue, leaned towards the bowl and was prepared to finish the dessert by sticking his face in the bowl. He also wolfs down chunks of sashimi pieces and clusters of salmon roe. I have never seen a 5-year-old stuff an entire slice of raw salmon so completely and triumphantly into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks.

While I was there, he also insisted on sitting beside me at every meal, in the car and at his sister's performances. He also insisted on holding my hand wherever we went and was visibly annoyed with phone calls from my friends that took me away from reading him his bedtime stories. This he showed by slightly pouting his mouth, heaving his shoulders as if sighing, and rolling his eyes. It is much cuter than what I've just described here.

I'm sure I'm not the only doting aunt in this world who thinks her niece and nephew are God's gifts to mankind. I'm sure my loving descriptions of them are incredibly biased. But they have brought untold joy (and probably many sleepless nights) to my brother and sister-in-law, immense pride for my parents and great comfort for me. Why comfort? Because their smile reminds me of beautiful days, places, things, people. Of what God has created and promised. Of how Jesus loves the little children.

I'm aware that one day they will grow up. But that will be another day. Today they are still children.

Today is my mother's birthday.

2008-04-22T01:31:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Mum!

A walking fish?

2008-04-22T01:15:00.000-07:00

I still have to find out the name of this fish, so I appreciate any help I can from readers of this blog. I saw it in an aquarium at Kew Gardens during my recent London trip. It walks on its fins.

Why this blog exists

2008-04-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

The short answer: To do some writing outside of work. The long answer: Has something to do with self-expression and other existentialist philosophical contemplation that will require more time and space to explain, so I shall not address it for the time being. Maybe later, on idyllic days when there are no more bills to pay, deadlines to meet or laundry and dishes to do. Ah, just maybe.