My home from Sept. 2007

Earlier in the week I received an email from LSE informing me of my residence assignment. It feels great to know where I'll be living next year! It is located in the southeastern part of London, and is about a 35 minute walk to the school. Being near London Bridge, there are many buses available nearby, and upon further research I found out that used bikes are around 50 pounds. So I'll be taking the bus on rainy days, and the bike on fairer days.

This is what my bedroom would look like, minus the ugly curtain. The picture only faces the window, but the room includes a mini-fridge, a full closet by the door, and a personal bathroom (toilet, shower, and sink). I would be sharing a kitchen with 2-7 other people. I don't know where I would keep my rice cooker and my dishes, though; I hope there are separate storage places for everyone to keep their food and belongings in the kitchen area.

A step closer to London.
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Homemade gnocchi

Ingredients - Serves 4
250g potatoes
60g flour
0.5 egg
salt
6 asparagus stems
300g shaved parmesiano cheese

Gnocchi:
1. Mash potatoes: boil peeled potatoes until soft and evaporate all water.
2. In bowl, add some salt and egg to potato; mix evenly.
3. Add flour.
4. Knead dough and roll out to 1 cm thickness.
5. Chop into bite-size.
6. Boil gnocchi and chopped asparagus in slightly salted water. Strain water when gnocchi rises to surface.

Sauce:
1. Boil cream in saucepan until half its amount.
2. Add salt.
3. Add gnocchi and asparagus.
4. Throw in shaved parmesiano cheese, mix quickly.

Picture courtesy of A.M. Volpi.
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Life is a moving image.

...life is a moving image, unfolding and changing beyond our control. Despite our desire to freeze a moment or to go back into the past and alter events, time presses us forward.

Thus states in the afterword to The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The book was a grounding one, telling a story of how little control we have over ourselves and the world that we live in. Yet at the same time, this story of life's uncontainable chaos was also a story about the things we do have control over, and all the consequences of our momentous decisions.

Selective moments of the book left me in a restless unease, because Edwards is so emotionally vivid. Essentially she tells the story from the perspectives of all parties involved: their reasons, their feelings, and their logic. Told in this matter, everyone's actions and words made sense in their own ways. Many a times I caught myself thinking, "Oh, but s/he did that because..."

Several characters in the book fear life's unpredictability, and despise those who are so sure of everything because it makes them uncomfortable. Part of me stood in constant empathy with these characters, who expect the worst-case scenario all the time. To them--and to me--life is indeed about the difficulties and agonies rooted in its inconsistencies. Too often we turn a blind eye to all the goodness and beauty that prevail around us, and thus fail to take into account that hardship is but only half of life and never its entirety.

These characters are hence balanced by others who revel in life's perpetually changing nature. Needless to say, these characters were always ones to point out that things need not be so sad and difficult all the time. The relationships between these two types of characters varied. Some played off each other so that both parties grew stronger and gained, in the end, a greater and fuller perspective. Others, on the other hand, only made it difficult for each other. Fearing the worst, a reminder that life can only be only underscored worries, while these endless worries simply drove the other to wonder if there was even a joyous future awaiting them.

I was moved. Reading the book gave me a glimpse of things I knew about but did not acknowledge, like the consequences of dwelling in a single event for a prolonged period of time. This thing we call life is so uncontrollable, inconceivable in its greatness, and filled with unpredictability. One can barely call it organized chaos. But to be stuck in one moment that inevitably passes by means we shut out all that is beautifully changing--the key element that truly keeps us going--and we forget how to move on. Emotions are powerful--in its best moments they are uplifting and make us feel alive; and in its worst moments they are simply blinding. And none of this is probably within anyone's control.

So what do we do? We just keep on truckin', don't we? We try not to get too caught up in the details and try to give various forms of sadness a positive spin, so we can stay sane, at peace, and as content as can be. There just isn't an answer out there to the question, "How should we live life?" I mean, I haven't found any and no one that I know has, either. We just do. And it just keeps going. It changes and moves and we change and move with it, sometimes against it, other times completely separate from it. Vivacious time just pushes us along, in its most merciless, graceful way.

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"Japan is a weird country."

More than once I have heard these words spoken. It is understandable: this country's people are known for their apparent kindness and politeness, as well as their efficiency. Its capital city is a host to buildings soaring high above the clouds, and its culture encompasses everything from ancient Buddhist shrines and gold-tinted pavilions to easily accessible porn sold side-by-side with morning newspapers. This country places on the fringes of society, men and women of all ages who obsess over anime figurines and have thus created a super-subculture of otaku that transcends national boundaries. Some--well, enough--are so caught up in living apart from their real lives, that "Maid Cafes" and alternate economies in the cybersphere (using real currency!) have found a huge market. While the country's infatuation with ethnic homogeneity has been criticized by the international community as being fundamentally racist, paradoxically, it is indeed this homogeneity that has fertilized its rich culture, beckoning flocks of foreigners to its land every year.

Japan is a weird country and there is no denying it. In the eyes of the rest of the world, it is weird in an eccentric way. It is weird, they say, but rich and beautiful and totally unique. They think of geisha girls and extravagant kimonos, the large, red torii gates, the samurai, sushi, endless cuisine, and uber-advanced technology on the one hand, and the Shibuya/Harajuku girls who stand at the forefront of international fashion, on the other. Unfortunately, most do not stop to observe the rotting elements of Japanese society. There is no birth-rate to be spoken of; it simply does not exist (actually, it has improved, but still). Young adults and children are thus seen as the hope of Japan's future, and yet one by one they are disappearing because of brutal bullying (ijime) that take place in schools and end only with the victim's suicide. Its education system is in shambles, with kids learning less and less kanji every year because their parents believe it is "too hard for them." Students who continue on, but fail entrance exams take their lives, believing that no happy future could possibly await them after such a failure.

Japanese society itself is rotting from its very roots; it is sickened and slowly dying. The by-products of this disintegration--horribly unaccounted for, too--are people who know no limits, who believe that their fucked up family and upbringing, or all the familial and societal pressures that they feel, can justify any immoral act.

But all of this is not so apparent to the world beyond Japanese boundaries. Everyone sees that this country has few petty crimes--at least what is noticeable--and therefore conclude it to be safe. In many ways, it is--you can be in the city without being mugged, things you lose in the city will almost always be found without anything being stolen, and you can walk around the city at night and be at ease. Yet, anyone who now lives in Japan will know that Japan is dangerous in a very different manner. As witnesses to extensive cases of murder of the most extreme kinds on a daily basis, one should be encouraged to think twice about what Japan really is.

A 22 year-old British girl was murdered this week in Chiba prefecture. She worked for NOVA, one of many English-conversation schools established in Japan. The man who killed her was a 28 year-old man and he is still on the run. You can read about her story on IHT and BBC. Needless to say, her family and her boyfriend are all devastated.

I cannot but be completely struck by this case. Partially because we are of the same age group, partially because her long-distance with her boyfriend parallels my own, but mostly because so many of my own friends are currently working as English teachers throughout East and South East Asia. "We though Japan was safe, a good society," said her father in last night's press conference. Indeed, Japan's safe environment was certainly something for the nation to be proud of. But, it should no longer be taken for granted. No, yellow fever and hepatitis may not be rampant in this country, and your wallet might not be stolen while you walk in its streets, but you make connections with the wrong people and they will end up killing you. "Wrong people" doesn't necessarily denote people with drug addictions, people involved in drug trafficking, or people involved in gangs or the yakuza. These "wrong people" are barely identifiable as such; they are immersed in their own world and believe that all their actions are justifiable. They are the unaccounted by-products of Japan's recent social disintegration.

I am thoroughly ashamed of this place whose apparent politeness and cultural beauty has masked everything that lies beneath. This place is not much safer than any other place in the world; perhaps it is a lot worse in some ways.

My deepest condolences lie with the family and friends of L. H.
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At the heart of Japan

And it begins!

It wouldn't be an understatement to say that every Japanese citizen looks forward to this moment when all the cherry blossom trees throughout the country begin to bloom in light shades of pink. You can literally feel everyone's energies beginning to rise, as people of all ages stroll through parks and narrow roads just to view the flowers. People are so excited about the bloomings, in fact, that parties will be organized amongst workers of every company, every office, and every establishment. These parties, called ohana-mi (litearlly, "flower-viewing"), take place under blossomed cherry trees--mainly in parks, but the occasional, desperate party might take place on roadside--and are accompanied by exorbitant amounts of food, liquor, and portable karaoke machines. As you can imagine, this is serious party time for the normally workaholic Japanese.

Since many of you reading this will not be able to experience first-hand this wonderful time of year in Japan when everyone turns into a calorie-consumptive, beauty-stricken diva-alcoholic, I've posted below some pictures of cherry trees near my parents' house. Perhaps you too can join the Japanese population and take in this great beauty via cyberspace, and of course, indulge!

>The main dish: the cherry blossom.





For those who are interested in seeing this 'live', check out the Hanami Webcam!
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I want a cat!

>Courtesy of Heart of England Cat Club.

This morning a sudden desire to have a cat came over me. Not just any cat, but the Russian Blue. I met one once, and she was a very calm, chilled, and friendly cat. Typically it has a blue coat and green eyes. Nice.

Maybe I'll get a cat in London.
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Earthquakes!

It's spring break and I am currently in an NHK studio filtering submitted comments on the webpage of the Spring High School Baseball Championships. Around 9:45am, the live baseball programme cut out and was replaced by an emergency broadcast of an earthquake in Ishikawa prefecture of M7.1. This earthquake was followed immediately by a tsunami warning, telling citizens who were near the coastline to evacuate immediately. What was most impressive was that within seconds, they showed on TV the estimated arrival time of the tsunami, and its size: 9:50am, 50cm.

Thus, residents had 5 minutes to evacuate, and could expect a maximum rise in tide of 50cm. How crazy is that!!

Ever since the Kobe and Hokkaido earthquakes in the late 1990's, Japan has buffed up their earthquake notification system, as well as strengthening all its buildings. They take it so seriously that architects and real estate agencies who fail to follow the earthquake-resistant building codes have been punished stringently by the Supreme Court. Times like these Japan impresses me.
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Cream stew: the Japanese version

Best served on a hot bowl of rice, or if you prefer, a toasted piece of french bread. Stews and curries are relatively easy to make here, because the main ingredient--the sauce--comes prepackaged, and all you really have to do is cut up the veggies and meat. A simple recipe for cream stew, Japanese style, follows:

Ingredients - Serves 2
Half a box of stew sauce 'cubes'
1 small onion
Half a carrot
2 small potatoes
1 Chicken breast (or sliced pork, etc.), bite-sized
2.5 cups (500 cc) of water
0.5 cups (100 cc) of milk

1. Find the sauce packaging in an Asian food store (see photo).
2. Cut carrots, potatoes, onions, and a choice of meat.
3. Stir-fry carrots, potatoes, onions, then meat, in that order.
4. When potatoes are half-cooked, pour in water.
5. When potatoes are cooked, turn off heat, and throw in sauce cubes.
6. Let cubes dissolve, turn on the heat, and add milk.
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Hot and REALLY sweaty!

Last night, I stepped into my very first session of Hot Yoga. Being a newbie, we participated in an 1 hour 'short-course' that slowly took the yoginis through pranayama (breathing) exercises and a little under 20 poses. The studios are normally just below 40 degrees Celsius, but I don't know if this one was that hot.

But really, don't get me wrong, it was HOT! In fact, it probably was around 40 degrees in that room. My friend and I arrived at the studio about 30 minutes before class, and were allowed into the hot room 15 minutes before class. By the time class actually started, sweat was beading on my forehead and all over my arms and legs. 10 minutes into class, I was sweating and sweating and sweating. We were encouraged to drink over a litre of water during the session, but it was literally as if I were a water container with holes all over. If you could imagine that (I know, it's kind of gross; apologies for the details).

The good sign was that I wasn't struggling at all. Due to knee surgery last February, my right half of the body is totally tight, and I know better than to force it to become flexible right away. The lack of flexibility, however, has caused by pelvis to be crooked to the point where it is causing some painful problems in my lower back. Recently, with my routine solo Ashtanga-yoga in my room, the pain has slowly ceased. Yoga is about letting that ego to be 'great' go, listening to what your body 'says', and just letting things be. Really, that is my favorite part of yoga.

I came out of the studio drenched, but I felt so good afterwards that I took up a 5-class membership at the studio. For some reason yoga classes here cost a lot of money. At my yoga studio in Vancouver, it was $15/week for unlimited classes. Here, it cost me $140 for 5 classes (you can choose what classes to take). In London, it looks as though a monthly pass costs between £85 - £100 (don't be fooled; that's about $200+), depending on the studio, so about the same as here. My favorite so far is Yoga Junction, which is a bit on the pricey side but looks nice, and Sivananda Yoga, which offers an unlimited monthly pass for £63 (closer to the Vancouver market price). I wonder why the prices are so different between Vancouver and Tokyo/London.

In any case, hot yoga is great. I am totally hooked.
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"An encyclopedia should be radical."

> Mr. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikimedia Foundation.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and Wikia, started his presenation in the new theatre with the statement, "An encyclopedia should be radical." This statement was indeed the founding statement of the free encyclopedia that more than a billion users all across the globe have access to today.

He spoke about how the Wiki Foundation works, the functions of the Wikipedia, and how much it has grown over the past few years. What interested me most about his presentation was the growing and expanding connection between languages, cultures, and the global(izing) network. Wales suspects--and on many levels, I agree--that in the next decade we will be witnesses to a radical, "cultural shift," where an additional billion people will come online to join the internet community. These people are the people in current developing countries who do not have adequate internet access to make use of what Wikipedia (or what the internet as a whole) has to offer. In the next decade, 'these people', whom we only hear about in CNN and BBC when a catastrophe occurs, are exactly those people we will hear directly from--in their words, of their thoughts, of their lives.

> Wikipedia as a radical encyclopedia

Wikipedia today boasts 1,000 articles in 128 languages, and its aim is to have 250,000 articles in over 300 languages worldwide. I didn't even know 300+ languages existed, but hell, Wales dreams big. He dreams of free access to knowledge on the truest standards, where people are free to copy, modify, and redistribute information commericially or non-commericially. This is "free" in every sense of the word, and it is great, but it also brings to the forefront those who question Wikipedia's contents for its accuracy. Even here, I often hear teachers placing an unofficial, but definitely outspoken, ban on the use of Wikipedia, and in fact, the school's IP address has been blocked by the Wiki administrators for our students' perpetual, adolscent vandalism.

"Vandalism of articles don't last long on the Wikipedia," Wales laughed. His adminstrators are constantly monitoring changes of all types--the useful, harmful, humourous, and the scandalous. To show how accurate Wikipedia could be--and in fact, how inaccurate other well-accepted sources could be--Wales gave a telling example of a project that British magazine of scientific prestige, Nature published on 29 March 2006. The article (access to subscribers only) titled "Britannica attacks (...and we respond)" concluded that, according to 50 experts of various scientific fields who surveyed 50 articles of similar length from both Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia, Britannica articles contained an average of 3 errors per article, while Wikipedia articles contained an average of 4 errors per article. Statistic shmatistics, but that should still say a lot. Viva free knowledge! I say.

The Wiki Foundation, indeed, runs on a sort of motto that questions how information today is distributed by whom, and it is now seeking to manifest this political statement by launching "Wikiasari," a wiki-search engine, this year. Labeled by Fast Company in its most recent issue as Google's Worst Nightmare, Wales challenges the editorial statement made by modern search engines that 'hide' how their searches were produced. He, in turn, seeks to bring some transparency in the searching process itself. As The New York Times recently stated,

The Wikia search engine would allow users to see how the results were generated and modify those rankings using their own knowledge of the Internet. Any changes could be reversed by a different user, and, as in Wikipedia, long discussions could ensue over the decisions.

Today, he revealed his initial forecast: "It's going to suck, at least for the first little while." But I think the demand is definitely there, considering the cult-like following he had in the theatre today.

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Residence!!!

LSE!! Where am I living?? Why won't you tell me!
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Now, the sunshine of my days here..

My 7th grade girl's basketball team!

Sorry, I've been meaning to write something here for a week but I just don't have anything to write about. I have yet to introduce to you the girls I coach, so here it is..

The girls arrived at the first practice fully pumped; understandably, as they had just finished two days of their first-ever try-outs. I don't think there was much drama, but I could've cared less anyway, considering you have to draw the line somewhere! And boy, were they excited, because they ALL came in with a new pair of basketball shoes. I was so impressed, both by their spirit, their enthusiasm, and their quality shoes.

They are just beginning to learn the game: how screens/picks work, how to shoot with the left, how to play their position, how to handle the ball... all the necessary basics of basketball. It is so much fun to show them how it works, although sometimes frustrated, because you just have to keep telling them over and over and over again. This team stands right on the fence, however. The 8th grade team is fully serious, and their coach is getting them ready for high school basketball; the C-team, on the other hand, are drilling the basics and the coaches make sure it is enjoyable. My team sits between these two extremes; some girls are ready to work their butts off, and others, still unsure about their personal potential as a basketball player. Plus, they are still 7th graders at the end of the day, and can be airy and unfocused at times. I tell myself it is all about trying to strike a balance.

In other aspects of life general, I'm preparing for a 6-class module on terrorism that begins after spring break, in April. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, will be visiting the school next Thursday because his wife is an alum of this school. So, more to come on that later.
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Lack of energy..

I don't have much energy. I wander aimlessly through the halls at work, in hopes that something exciting pops up in front of me. Or if I'm in my room sitting, I stare into computer screens, at the scattered papers on my desk, or into a book and twirl a pen. If I'm not doing either of those, then I'm purposely piling jobs and tasks onto my days and very quickly filling up my daily schedule, down to every minute from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., sometimes 8 or 9. God knows if I'll ever be motivated to do any of it, but I don't care - I don't care if I succeed or fail anymore, and the only thing that matters is that time is passing, however slowly it may be. Then I sporadically think, This must be what it's like to be dying, to feel the draining of both will and energy from the body.

Twice I am caught staring into space, and with someone standing beside me, asking questions. All the readings that I'd said I'd do, all the pre-research tasks I've assigned myself, all the self-teaching I scheduled for myself, I have not done. I don't want to touch any of it because I feel like they are tainted by a time I don't want to be reminded of. If I touch it, it will take over me and then I will really be unfunctional. And I have to function, to complete the minimal amount of tasks. It has almost been a week and all I can get myself to do is breathe.
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Re-reading with hindsight

In a recent conversation with Al, I recalled my thesis defense in April 2006. It was not very good. My thesis, titled Bodily Stones: The Human Body, Architecture, and Urbanism in Fascist Italy, examined the Fascist conception of their ideal human body through built environments. The examiners (one of whom didn't like me at all the whole year and held quite a strong jurisdiction over my final grade; and my thesis advisor was not present due to family matters, which definitely sucked) stated that it would have been better and definitely better-suited for publication if 1) I came up with my own 'definition' of Italian Fascism and not used Roger Griffin's; and 2) I had gone in depth about the body politic.

Having experienced an hour and a half of trauma, I put away my thesis and even thought about deleting the files off my computer, forever gone and extinguished from my hard drive. I touched the word files only when I really had to, like when one of my referees for my graduate school application wanted to read it. I cringed at the request, suggesting that it was much too long and implying that it wasn't very good. He insisted, and I gave in. I later received a copy of his recommendation letter, which stated that my thesis was "an impressive piece of work for an undergraduate. It is the equivalent of a master's thesis in terms of the amount of work that went into it. The arguments are complex and nuanced. It is not often to have an undergraduate who can master theoretical literature on a topic like fascism and the body and have the courage and persistance to write at such length." It was very nice of him, but I hesitate to accept his compliments whole-heartedly. I remember that by the end of the writing process I was desperate to get it done and have that thing out of my hands. My brain was fried and I could no longer piece together any more arguments. I wasn't even sure if my conclusion, which even in hindsight seems quite half-assed and weak and not to mention cheap, made any sense at all.

Well, it's been almost a year since my traumatic experience in the defense room, and I decided that despite my irrational fears of reading a horrible work written by myself, I would take up the challenges posed by the defense board. To be accurate, just one of the two, because I didn't think their first one was fair, considering that numerous academicians and theorists over decades and decades have attempted (and often failed) to define accurately the nature of Italian Fascism, and there are probably a whole slew of Ph.D. students out there in the world now trying to come up with a workable definition. I might be a keener and a nerd but I know my academic limits and so I refuse to take up that particular challenge.

I went online today and looked up what they meant by body politic. Turns out, it is an old analogy used before the advent of the Scientific Revolution and Darwinian evolutionary theory that views the human body as a microcosm to the state. A good example is the Leviathan by Hobbes, in which the functions of the state are explained through the metaphor of a human body. At the end of this particular encyclopedic entry, the author states that the analogy was pretty much destroyed by the development of the new sciences, and the materialization of the social contract. How would I have made use of a destroyed analogy?

This question led me to grab my printed thesis and re-read the massive thing. Having read the introductory chapter and the first chapter so far, my conclusion is that it's not half bad. There are a few formatting mistakes, and I don't really like the font. I can also see how it could have been a little bit more clearer, but I do insistently drive my argument home, to the point where it is almost redundant. But, at least the argument is clear. And as for the application of the body politic theory, I can also see why the examiners would have mentioned that idea, because I claim that the Fascists saw importance in defining the individual body--the 'building blocks' of the Italo-Fascist civilization--because its definition underscored the nature of the entire civilization. Indeed, the Fascist human body was seen as a microcosm of the whole. But really, that's all the idea of the body politic would have taken me and it serves no further analytical purpose. I thus justify my non-use of the body politic analogy. Phew.

My abrupt desire to re-read my undergraduate thesis was also motivated by my anxiety over what I would write for my graduate thesis. The Department of Government at LSE is hosting an online discussion forum to faciliate friendly discussion with would-be classmates. Our first postings were introductory, and everyone else seemed to have an idea of what they wanted to focus on. I, on the other hand, am still trying to catch up on international relations theory, the primary functions of international law, understand why the UN doesn't work the way it ideally should, and fill in the numerous gaps to my 20th century world history. I'm interested in how multiethnicity and multiculturalism can be negotiated and made a part of international society without always causing violent conflict. I'm interested in the issues revolving around global environmentalism, and how, in the course of building an international society, it can also be built to be environmentally sustainable. I'm interested in how the roles of diplomats can be innovated to meet the requirements of this globalizing world. So basically, there are so many things I'm interested in, and I can already tell that my vast and still-expanding academic interests are going to be a gianormous problem when I have to finally decide what to write for my graduate thesis, because it was a gianormous problem when I had to decide my topic for my undergraduate thesis.

I have to focus. And yet, I do not know how or on what.
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