Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The beauty of poetry
W. left me an offline message (about the news), and concluded it with a link to Rupert Brooke's "The Hill," which was stunningly beautiful. When i was reading it earlier this afternoon, it froze the time.
i told him i never thought i would fall in love with poetry. In college, fiction was my favorite genre; i couldn't really see why people would want to read or write poems. They were riddles to me - beautiful riddles at most. In my senior year, with a strong passion, i turned to literary criticism. i stayed up at night, read, read, and...read - Foucault was the caffeine that kept me going. Now i realized it was because i was young, and possibly because of the need to hold on to something concrete.
Over these years, though, i began to appreciate poetry and its condensed elegance and subtlety. It seems that somehow, in the process of "middle-aging", my perception of the world (or the texts more precisely) has also evolved, not necessarily for better, but the difference was there. i am now attracted to the charm of stillness: a moment, a glimpse, an image, an emotion, things that were unsaid but present.
To those who bring the world poetic catharses, i salute you!
i told him i never thought i would fall in love with poetry. In college, fiction was my favorite genre; i couldn't really see why people would want to read or write poems. They were riddles to me - beautiful riddles at most. In my senior year, with a strong passion, i turned to literary criticism. i stayed up at night, read, read, and...read - Foucault was the caffeine that kept me going. Now i realized it was because i was young, and possibly because of the need to hold on to something concrete.
Over these years, though, i began to appreciate poetry and its condensed elegance and subtlety. It seems that somehow, in the process of "middle-aging", my perception of the world (or the texts more precisely) has also evolved, not necessarily for better, but the difference was there. i am now attracted to the charm of stillness: a moment, a glimpse, an image, an emotion, things that were unsaid but present.
To those who bring the world poetic catharses, i salute you!
Friday, September 4, 2009
Crossing over
i never thought this was gonna happen.
Long, long ago, when S switched to Firefox and advised that i do the same thing, i kind of laughed at the idea. But at some point of my life, i, a faithful (a euphemism for "stubborn") IE user, seemed to have gradually "crossed over" to Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, or...should i say, to...non-IE.
Yes, gradually. (My resistance it was, the italic pause.) Obviously, i wasn't resisting something better; i was simply afraid of change. A static mind, and mental laziness, that's what it was.
No questions, no challenges - no transcendence. Lesson learned.
Long, long ago, when S switched to Firefox and advised that i do the same thing, i kind of laughed at the idea. But at some point of my life, i, a faithful (a euphemism for "stubborn") IE user, seemed to have gradually "crossed over" to Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, or...should i say, to...non-IE.
Yes, gradually. (My resistance it was, the italic pause.) Obviously, i wasn't resisting something better; i was simply afraid of change. A static mind, and mental laziness, that's what it was.
No questions, no challenges - no transcendence. Lesson learned.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Be daring
Life is, in most cases, truly not as complicated as we thought it would be. It's just that the clues are not always obvious.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Some quick notes on burning calories
Turned out that the Stairmaster, exactly like the name says it would be, is the master. No, even beyond that, it is the KING!
Imagine this: When you go at Level 40 for half an hour (which is easy), you lose about 230 calories. Nothing else beats this, not the Treadmill, not the Elliptical, not the bicycle.
* (Added the next day) Newsflash: i didn't enter my weight, so the 230 was for people who weigh about 150 pounds! But anyway, the Stairmaster is still No.1.
Imagine this: When you go at Level 40 for half an hour (which is easy), you lose about 230 calories. Nothing else beats this, not the Treadmill, not the Elliptical, not the bicycle.
* (Added the next day) Newsflash: i didn't enter my weight, so the 230 was for people who weigh about 150 pounds! But anyway, the Stairmaster is still No.1.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The soothing greyness
To fall asleep and to wake up to the sound of pouring rain - that is a perfect cycle. i am just so in love with this untainted beautiful greyness. It is...
My city.
My rain.
My kind of gloomy weather.
My city.
My rain.
My kind of gloomy weather.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Facing the "unassigned"
i've only recently come to a sad realization....
You see, the way i was raised may have hugely impeded my approaching of unassigned tasks. i am good following dates, but what i really need to do is set dates. Of course, this probably has a lot to do with my personality - meaning i should not try to blame it on others :-p
The truth is, in terms of THE unassigned task, it's easy as cake to answer a question, or to solve a problem. Now, finding a problem that is worthwhile, and raising a meaningful question...that is indeed priceless. (NO, you did not just steal that tagline from MasterCard!)
You see, the way i was raised may have hugely impeded my approaching of unassigned tasks. i am good following dates, but what i really need to do is set dates. Of course, this probably has a lot to do with my personality - meaning i should not try to blame it on others :-p
The truth is, in terms of THE unassigned task, it's easy as cake to answer a question, or to solve a problem. Now, finding a problem that is worthwhile, and raising a meaningful question...that is indeed priceless. (NO, you did not just steal that tagline from MasterCard!)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Are you aware of...?
Awareness is the key; i am really beginning to believe so. It's all about knowing, or not knowing.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A Thursday afternoon
Either i was extremely weak today, or soft songs just don't get you far on treadmills.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Something funny...and something else by the way
Yes, i should be working hard on eliminating items on my to-do list (which is already two months old!), but this funny thing came up again, and i really couldn't help wanting to talk about it. Before going into details, i need to provide some background information. i (we) have been following five different shows these days, and they are:
So...earlier this afternoon, i was watching last night's "The Closer" on tnt.com, and i noticed this thing again on its Full Episodes page. At the upper right-hand corner, there is a button that says "Boss coming? DRAMATIC PAUSE". When you click on it, you'll be brought to an Excel spreadsheet so that when someone walks by, you'd look seriously buried in work. What's even funnier is...the humor doesn't just end here, if you read the spreadsheet, you see columns like "% chance your boss saw you goofing off", "% chance you'll be fired", "% chance your boss even cares", and notes such as "Data complied by a guy well on his way to being fired himself", etc. You'll have to see for yourself!
This reminded me of the humor of a shareware program i played in college, a game that is quite similar to 1a2b in Taiwan. One night, i was on the computer playing the game, and i heard footsteps approaching the door. It could only be my dad checking up on me (to see if i was really working on something serious i guess), so, by instinct, i hit the ESC button, and the scariest thing happened! A monkey showed up on the screen, jumping here and there, and then the dialogue bubble behind the monkey said "You're gonna get caught!" Gosh...now looking back, i could laugh and think of it as "humor", but back then it almost gave me a heartattack!! lol
By the way, my personal rating goes like this:
- Mondays, "The Closer" on TNT
Mondays, "Heroes" on NBC (both of us) (okay, we are officially "fading away")- Wednesdays, "Lost" on ABC (both of us)
- Thursdays, "Ugly Betty" on ABC
- Thursdays, "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC
So...earlier this afternoon, i was watching last night's "The Closer" on tnt.com, and i noticed this thing again on its Full Episodes page. At the upper right-hand corner, there is a button that says "Boss coming? DRAMATIC PAUSE". When you click on it, you'll be brought to an Excel spreadsheet so that when someone walks by, you'd look seriously buried in work. What's even funnier is...the humor doesn't just end here, if you read the spreadsheet, you see columns like "% chance your boss saw you goofing off", "% chance you'll be fired", "% chance your boss even cares", and notes such as "Data complied by a guy well on his way to being fired himself", etc. You'll have to see for yourself!
This reminded me of the humor of a shareware program i played in college, a game that is quite similar to 1a2b in Taiwan. One night, i was on the computer playing the game, and i heard footsteps approaching the door. It could only be my dad checking up on me (to see if i was really working on something serious i guess), so, by instinct, i hit the ESC button, and the scariest thing happened! A monkey showed up on the screen, jumping here and there, and then the dialogue bubble behind the monkey said "You're gonna get caught!" Gosh...now looking back, i could laugh and think of it as "humor", but back then it almost gave me a heartattack!! lol
By the way, my personal rating goes like this:
- Mondays, "The Closer" on TNT
- Thursdays, "Ugly Betty" on ABC
- Wednesdays, "Lost" on ABC (both of us)
- Thursdays, "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC
Mondays, "Heroes" on NBC (both of us)
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