Monday, December 31, 2007

Sick as a dog on New Year's Eve

I got a cold and started to cough yesterday. I actually felt worse today with sour throat and running nose. It is not a bad cold, but I haven't had a real cold for a couple of years and this is a real one, so it seems as if all the strength was drained out of my body. Of course, I still had to manage to get my stuffs done at the same time .

Being single and living by myself is not so great as it usually is when I am sick. To cope with such "emergency" time, I always have a stock of "the stuffs". The list of "the stuffs" starts with
Gatorade,
soda crackers,
water,
canned chicken-n-noodle soup,
... Oh well, I need to finish the list when I feel better so that I can replenish the stock. You can imagine how panic I was when I found out that I had no Gatorade at home last night. LOL~~~

P.S. I don't know why I am writing this. Probably because I feel disappointed of not being able to go not for the count-down. And yes, I am whining.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Did?! Did not?!

The past Friday night, I didn't screw up my part too much. At least it seemed to be so. That is not because I was very good (I was getting better), but because I was never given the chance to screw it up. LOL~~~

Of course, still a pumpkin, but definitely a happier one.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Friday resolution (as a pumpkin)

I am afraid that I will still be a pumpkin this coming Friday night. It is okay. If I will remain a pumpkin for a while, I want to be a cute and happy pumpkin.

>100

I just realized that my profile has been viewed more than 100 times. Given that I started the blog less than two months ago, I am really surprised. The number means that my blog and/or my profile has been viewed, stumbled upon, laughed at, sneered at, and/or applauded by a few people. I would like to say thanks to all of you, even what some of you might be accidentally stumbled upon this. Thanks for making the number increasing.

I believe that some of you have read the posts and I don't think that any of you (except you, HW, the happily pregnant lady) knows me in the real life. I find it really cool. I am picturing in my head: one day someone I know in the real life comes to me and says, "You are J, right? I read your blog". I would start to sweat and try to deny it. "Er, what J? What blog?" Oh, that would be so funny. LOL~~~

Blogging therapy

After writing the last post, I felt really relieved. I have been wondering if that is because I wrote my feeling down in an honest way. I don't like to reveal too much emotion, especially those negative ones. If I have some negative feelings, I will dwell on them for a while and try to forget them. As a result of such personality, I have never kept any diary in my life so far. (Well, of course, I will be whining from time to time about small stuffs. That's simply because I simply don't whine about the real issues.)

I always try to pretend that I can handle all the negative feelings. I guess that I have tried so hard to "brain-wash" myself that I almost believe that it is true. However, from time to time, when the feeling is triggered again, I will laugh at my ridiculous "yes-I-can-handle-it-myself confidence". Then, I will feel that I need to do "something" that will help. But what? Now, I think that I have found at least one of the things that I can do: write it down in the blog, honestly.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Thank you for being strong.

A friend/co-worker of mine, Ms. MB, was diagnosed with breast cancer this October. I was not able to really handle this until now. Now I feel like that I can, sort of, handle it, talk about it, and let out the feelings.

Since my dad died of cancer, the word "cancer" sounds like the summon from the Death. He was diagnosed with cancer when I was nine and passed away in less than a year, a couple of weeks before my 10th birthday. People might think that a ten-year-old kid would not be affected as much as a grown-up because I didn't like to reveal too much of my emotion (I don't like to do it now as well). However, I know that something has changed since then. Biomedical or clinical journals for lay-people used to be my favorite reading as a kid. Even after I got to know the diagnosis for my dad, I read, actually with fear, a lot about different therapies (especially some from the traditional medicine) and cases of cancer patients. However, I couldn't read anything like that for quite a while. Even now, sometimes I read about cancer-related articles, I still feel somewhat uncomfortable.

What is worse, after the death of my dad, I found it hard to deal with the situation that someone surrounding me is diagnosed with cancer, but I have never told this to anyone else. This year is particularly bad. A very close friend of our family, someone who witnessed my life since I was a baby, passed away in January. She was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, suffered from the recurrence of the cancer, and suddenly died of the complication of heart attack. Later, my aunt, one of my mother's younger sisters, got a tumor removed from her brain a couple of months ago. Fortunately, the pathological check showed that the tumor is a benign one. However, because of the position of the tumor, she has been on chemotherapy since the surgery and suffered a lot from it. The third one is the friend I mentioned at the beginning. She has been through two surgeries so far and cleaned up all the tumor tissues. Her tumor hasn't be spread so that she doesn't have to go through any chemo- or radiotherapy. However, she still got a couple of plastic surgeries for reshaping and will be put on close watch from now on to prevent the recurrence.

Since I couldn't handle it, I tried to run away from it. I relied on my mom to send my greetings to our family friend and my aunt because I couldn't do it. Now it is my own friend, so I have to by myself. Although we are not very close friend, she is still one of those around me and we used to see each other on a daily basis in the past. She is very nice and helpful to me, but she is a tough person as well. This actually makes the situation more difficult since I know that tough people won't be whining about what happens to them and won't want others to be over-concerned. Actually, it was already really hard for me to handle the news that she had been diagnosed with cancer. As a result, for almost two months after I knew her diagnosis, all I could do is to send her emails that didn't sound encouraging even to myself though I tried so hard. I know that, as a friend, I should have at least called her, but I couldn't.

I hadn't seen her until two weeks ago. She had already finished her first surgery which was not a big one. However, the results from the pathologists were very discouraging. The surgery didn't clean up all the cancer tissue and she would need a second surgery to have more breast tissue removed. It was a very hard time for her, or any woman. She mentioned in the email that she was crying a lot at that time. I would rather postpone meet her but I was supposed to help her with her field-trip in Seneca, so the meeting was inevitable. I was a little relieved at the first sight because she didn't look like a patient. She also said that she really enjoyed the trip given the weather giving us so much trouble because she needed a little escape before her second surgery. Naturally, we didn't talk much about her cancer, and I tried to behave as if it had never happened.

I went to visit her on Wednesday, the day after her second surgery, with a couple of other friends/co-workers (I was still intimidated by the idea of visiting her all by myself). Although she was still recovering, she was in a high spirit. She showed us the nice gifts (a lot of pink, of course) from others, talking about the following plastic surgery, and making fun of her surgery vest as "the most trendy bra". I was laughing at her jokes. All of sudden, I realized that I was relieved and laughing.

I will still have a hard time dealing with the situation of people surrounding me diagnosed with cancer, but I know I have taken my first step away from the shadow of the past. Thank you, MB, for being strong for yourself and all others who care about you. Thank you.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

What a coincidence!

In my previous blog post (yeah, the day when I finally got something intelligent to say), I wrote down my thoughts after a long day of work, "Something that starts with a stupid reason will very, very likely end up in a miserable way". At that time, it was merely the feeling towards a bad day due to my own mistake.

Now I am reading my previous posts. Ironically, it occurs to me that this sounds like a prediction of the destiny of this blog and the whole story behind it. And I dare to say that the prediction is very likely to be correct.

I forgot to mention that "the deadline" is no longer the end of this year (see here). I probably got one more semester, but not quite sure. So what? Perseverance is great only when you know or kind of know where you are heading and how far you are from the destination. Yeah, you may say, "If Winter's Here, Can Spring Be Far Behind?" Oh well, yes, winter is here, literally. However, it is only December now and spring won't come until March. LOL~~~~~~~

I should take FULL control.

I am not quite an adventurous person. One of the things that I really hate is the feeling of no control over something that I am involved in. This doesn't mean that I am trying to be bossy to others. For me, I like everything in my own world (fortunately and unfortunately not a very big one) to be, to some extent, under my control. You can imagine that I would be really pissed if I lost control of my own behavior.

As a result, for the years that I have lived, I have been practicing so hard to keep control of my own world. I won't stick my toe out of the line if I do not have some sort of idea about the consequence. After years of practice, I assume that I am pretty good at this. Although others suggest that I should let go a little from time to time, I find it hard because I know I would do stupid things if I did. Unfortunately, I found that I had tended to lose such control more frequently during the last couple of weeks. "Aha", I said to myself,"maybe I can try to 'let go' this time." Apparently I was wrong. Because I lessened the control over myself, I put myself in the most embarrassed moment since... Well, I really can't think of any more embarrassed moment than this one. I felt like and still feel like as the biggest idiot in the world.

Anyway, it seems to me that the impulsive "let-go" feeling can only bring me disasters. It may be too late to make up for the thing that has happened, but not too late to focusing more on FULL control over myself all the time. (It's hard, though.)

Behold! I brought to you, the GIANTEST PUMPKIN EVER (I mean, so far)!!!

Yeah. It was me, again. I was okay most of the time, but there are a couple of moments when I jumped to someone's face and used my movements to tell them,"I-I-I know t-t-that you don't really know t-t-this so far, but I-I-I AM a giant p-p-p-pumpkin".

Is it like what they said "once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin"? I hope not. I will take care of it.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Coming back from the coldness

I came back from Seneca Lake last Friday evening. The schedule of the trip was changing all the time, but as a whole, it was okay. I was also lucky to have the chance to take a few pictures of the lake. It is really beautiful.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Up at Seneca Lake

Yes... It is freaking cold, windy, and it will get worse later this week.

Yes... I am on a trip now and $#@&! I will miss the magic Tuesday night this week...

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

What I have learnt today

Something that starts with a stupid reason will very, very likely end up in a miserable way.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

From a smaller pumpkin (still a pumpkin though)

I just read this from someone's website. "A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

I am not sure where it is originally from, but it is a good one. It is particular good for people like me who tend to complicate the situation in a stupid yet funny way.

Oh and it is the Magic Tuesday again. I think that I was not as awkward as I had been last week, aka still a pumpkin, but definitely a smaller one. The pumpkin was turning around and around and around and around all night. Luckily the pumpkin didn't throw up. Otherwise, everyone would have noticed the existence of a pumpkin among them, because a pumpkin would have thrown up pumpkin seeds...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Tuesday night magic

Okay. The real magic tonight didn't start until after 9:00pm. However, I was not quite into it today or the magic didn't really work well today (maybe because we had a break last Tuesday), so I was still a pumpkin all night. Damn! $#%^&!!! Hopefully others didn't pay attention to the big, awkward pumpkin among them.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, J

"Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to dear J
who's getting older every day."

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Tuesday night magic

For my favorite Tuesday night: It is like magic... (Can't wait for the next Tuesday)

L.O.V.E.

Artist:Nat King Cole

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you

(trumpet instrumental)

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you


Found this on youtube:

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

baby-booming

It seems that all my friends are daddy/mommy/future daddy/mommy. Well, it is not surprising given our age. However, hanging out with new, proud parents is somewhat weird to me, especially when they are your good friends and when I am not sure if I wanna be like them, aka becoming a parent, in the future.

A friend of mine, HW, told me that she just got pregnant. I congratulated her. Yes, I DID mean it. It is a great thing for both her and her husband because they want to have kids one day and it seems to be the right timing now. However, my feeling is more complicated. HW, one of the coolest person I know on the earth, is going to be HW, the mom. Er... Oh well. Since both HW and BW, her husband, are really cool, I believe that they won't be so much like the other new, proud parents. In addition, having one more member in their house doesn't mean that they will abandon their cats, right? (They have 3 cats in the house right now.) So I guess that I don't have much to complain.

Okay. It is almost time to stop the babbling and have some fun. Tuesday evening is special for me, like magic.

Once again, CONGRATULATIONS, HW AND BW!!!! Although you guys are going to be mom and dad very soon, I am sure that you two will still be the coolest couple/parents in the world.

Monday, November 5, 2007

No common tags, please.

How do you identify yourself to others? Or how you identify people surrouding you? You use all kinds of tags. John: tall, with European accent, work for an accounting firm, a smart-ass, ... Jane: hot, blond, party girl, actually pretty brainy, ... I bet that you have used these sorts of tags all the time. I call these tags "common tags". Normally, I don't think that you are likely to use tags that says, "John is the one that has idea X and Y on issue Z and I agree with him on point X but not Y on issue Z though I am surprised that he was able to come up with point X and Y". No, I bet it is very unlikely, at least for me. I don't use it to identify myself to others or identify others for my own sake.

In my daily life, I don't use such tags simply because I am a lazy person and may be not very smart either. I am unwilling and may be unable to deal with such complicated tags. I can only handle "common tag" as complicated as "she likes cats". However, here, in this cyberspace, I would rather share my toothbrush than identify myself with the "common tags" to others, which means that I will share with you my other tags, "my opinion on issue A is B and C". Please feel free to use them as my identity. Meanwhile, I will try my best to hide my "dark secrets", aka those "common tags".

At the end of the babbling, I realize one important thing. I may refer some of my friends to this blog. It is a very risky move. I have two things to say to you guys. First of all, when you leave a comment, pay attention to what you are writing as your comments may give away my "common tags". Second, outside this cyberspace, I will accept comments no more than "Your blog is really good" (It's great to see young people appreciating the common courtesies.) , "Reading your blog is fun" (Thanks!), or "Your blog sucks" (Thanks though I am not always a big fan of the truth). Remember, in the real world, I can't handle uncommon tags attached to my blog either.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Celebration!

CELEBRATION FOR THE END OF DAYLIGHT-SAVING!!!!!!!!!!
In addition, I got my poster done in time!! Unless my boss tells me that it is all bullshit, I will get it printed tomorrow.

Why restart blogging?

The reason to re-start a blog, aka this one, is rather silly. However, it is not meaningless. It is unlikely to be the best way to get my goal done, but definitely a fail-safe one.

I don't have much time for the goal... I only have until December... If you bumped onto this blog, please wish me good luck. Thanks!

BTW, why am I writing this as I am desperate to my poster done??

Friday, November 2, 2007

Penguin fight

Click on the image to view the clip. Forget where I got it. Please let me know if you have any idea where it is originally from.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

I need PERL for dummies...

Why the first printf worked but not the second??

unless(open(OUTPUT, ">$out_file")) {die "Could not open $out_file!!\n"};
if($style eq 'v') {
@head_v = qw(a b c d e f);
$format_v = ("%s\t" x @head_v)."\n";
printf OUTPUT $format_v, @head_v;
}
if($style eq 'm') {
@head_m = qw(l m n o p q r s t u v w);
$format_m = ("%s\t" x @head_m)."\n";
printf OUTPUT $format_m, @head_m;
}
close(OUTPUT);

Oh well

First post!
No great thoughts, just odds and ends.

P.S. If you DO, by chance, find great thoughts here, please let me know.