dunno why but there's nothing really worth blogging about this week... feel a bit xian. and little tired i guess, with 3 hws due today didn't really sleep that much yest. spent the longest time trying to figure out STATA and trying to complete my very long 142 prob set. even so i bet i'm prob still not half as zai as some of my classmates in this class. oh well, that's ok. at least i enjoy this class. sitting at comp now i'm suddenly reminded of the d&a dinners we used to hav two sems back and i kinda miss that. not that it was worth 'commemorating' or anything. guess just little things that made you happy that u miss now that things aren't the same anymore.

unfortunately it seems that other profs i've tried approaching so far all refer me back to the same prof who has declined to help me... one's on sabbatical... think if this happened to me say 2 yrs back i would have felt like a total failure... but now i guess i do try to not get too emotional over things, or just lose hope easily. must admit that what happened was negligence on my part too. i mean i'm kinda discouraged... but doesn't mean that without that prof's help i can't write my thesis right? =) and my history prof recommended some books for me to read... so i mean i guess i just hav to put in a lot more effort on my own...hmm but wonder if i sometimes appear too studious to my housemates? (more than once i fell asleep in middle of night with light on and sometimes they think i'm studying but obviously i conked out) because somewhat out of the blue my landlady said to me yesterday, "you need to fall in love, Shi Min"... to which i could only say, "that's not really up to me to decide, is it"... then she just laughed...not so sure getting attached for the sake of getting attached is that wise a thing to do huh?

A Fistful of Quarters

parking enforcement folks must have pissed off quite a lot of ppl, for someone to make a video like this... =P i'm sure most of us at Berkeley can empathise with the female lead? (coincidentally she's called 'squish'.. dun ask me why) i found the signboard esp funny... NB: might take few min to load though for some ppl...

braindead and upset today. need a break...
just spent whole of Sat writing a history response paper due tonight and the past 2 hours or so recovering from shock after receiving an email reply from this prof who believes that i intended to plagiarize something from a paper. sigh, perhaps i should have been more careful in writing up my research question... because it was just a tentative and early draft of what i'm interested in investigating, i didn't quote my sources and i think that's why the prof (who has apparently came across the paper i quoted from) thinks that i have the intention to cheat and warned me that that is behavior not acceptable of Berkeley students. i'm upset cos i really hav no intention to plagiarize and now he definitely wun help me... and he happens to be the prof on campus most familiar with the issues i want to look at... well i guess i can look for other ppl. but i'm just really upset that he totally misunderstood my intentions (though i can only blame myself for screwing things up). =(

ha, since when was i this enthu about sch? i just knew how to fall asleep...

i had a very good day at sch. and i just feel this sense of euphoria that i'm majoring in whatever i'm majoring in...although lotsa science majors would prob disagree with me, i feel that i am getting such a good education taking the two social science majors i'm taking... i prob would hav been really dull if i were.... say.... a Math/Engineering major or something. ok nmind, should not make generalizations like that. but in short, i love my majors lah.

sorry this is going to be long, but i really have to blog about some things that happend in class today. first, i really admire profs who sometimes have to be really patient or manage to keep a straight face even when students ask stupid questions. well, i guess i mean it's part of the job... but it also requires some skill.... so today ken chay was asked some repetitive questions by a student in class and so even though he just explained the concept like 1 min ago, he redid it without showing any sign of disgust or like impatience... and i was really impressed. well maybe also cos i already have a colored 'vision' of what he's like... like somehow perhaps cos of what other ppl have said, i get the impression that he has the potential to be mean. and then in Chinese class i witnessed another instance of the professor being really professional... (erm no word play intended) ok. so we are all supposed to each do a 10-min presentation of a city image for this class... to capture say different ways one can look at the city... and so this girl, not only did she not really do the assignment properly (cos she did a whole slide show that took up a lot of class time) she also did some self-promotion which was totally bewildering and immature in my opinion... as in.. there were 2 slides of herself wearing some flowery tank top against background of SF... which served NO purpose at all... but the prof just patiently waited for her to finish the whole presentation... then attempted to construct some meaning/ argument that could link up the somewhat random images in her whole presentation... like halfway through i already felt like laughing.... (yes i am very bad)... anyway the point of all this is that i really admire profs, or just people who can put up with such things... like i'm sure at some point in time i've also said stupid things or really DUH things... and i'm thankful to ppl who didn't like totally shatter my EGO by telling me that i'm really stupid or something...

ok i was totally carried away and forgot to explain why it was a good day at sch. so anyway, in Chinese class, we also analyzed the film we watched... and while the prof was pointing out things that i saw but didnt' really see in the film... like the juxtapositions of certain images... and asking us to ponder over the intentions of different settings and stuff.... i just thought what incredible pieces of works each film can potentially be... like these film-makers... they spend so much time trying to portray things to get a certain msg across... like it's just so amazing. but then sadly what percentage of their audience 'gets' it? i have to say that i prob didn't really appreciate half the things i've watched so far...
and i really like my history class. i've read so far, two books that led me to think more critically about Sun Yat-sen and Mao... and even though both of them kind of shattered the predominant founding father type images of these two 'cult figures'...(and as my GSI reminded me, which could also be biased since it's still say, one scholar's opinion...) it's kinda 'mind-liberating' to come to the realization that a lot of mainstream icons or things that we are so used to thinking (say, due to like general images/ideas circulated by the media) might just be totally inaccurate or distorted....

nmind. i think i'm talking too much. my 2 other econ classes are good too, though i dun really blog much about them. i think that i now appreciate my classes a lot more. a bit late, but never too late... and i've also found that doing all my readings and actually saying meaningful things in class can be quite rewarding... sadly it really takes me so much time. but somehow i feel quite happy to do all the work... so i intend to be nerdy the rest of the year and try to do all my readings... but i think it's actually worth it =)

i knew there must be loads of like-minded (and cheapo? haha) individuals out there unwilling to pay for NYT op-eds... here you go...

Cheapo Chinese?

was reading an article on Hong Kong Disneyland in The Economist when i came across the following...

The park's layout and opening date are ruled by strict feng-shui principles, but Disney may need more than this to persuade the cost-conscious Chinese to spend. Rather than buy official photographs, they tend to snap their own, even posing with shop toys which they then do not buy...

the image that it evoked just really tickled me... =P hey jun, if you ever visit Disneyland during your stay in Hong Kong, it would be really funny if you happen to make similar observations =P

i think it's infuriating we now have to pay for the used-to-be-free NY times op-eds... =( not that i read them religiously everyday.... but I kinda like Kristof and Friedman...esp issues Kristof writes about. i wonder if there's a way to read them for free?
i dunno if i have reason to be happy but i was really thrilled in Auffhammer's office when he said, hmm... this is so much better than last week.. and i think you have something interesting there... after wading around in literature broadly related to rural poverty in china, poverty alleviation, decentralization and peasant tax burdens for the past few weeks, i finally have something that i can delve into... question is still broad, but now i can finally approach ppl to ask them what they think of my question! and narrow down, if possible. so i'm excited. but i hope i'm not too optimistic though. can't believe one encouraging sentence really made me feel motivated once again...i guess it need it cos it's one long journey ahead...

I wanna gobble up the whole thing...

had a mini MAF celebration at home with my landlords and Kai, after discovering that they haven't tried mooncakes before...we weren't exactly very successful in convincing Kai that he prob shouldn't eat the whole thing at one go, but not that it really mattered anyways...(the pic above was very intentional though... i just had to get a pic of the mini cultural exchange tonite) it was fun watching him get all excited over these miniature mooncakes... which came in 4 diff flavors... my landlady liked the red bean paste one... but the date paste one was perhaps just a little too exotic for our liking. i wished though that i still had my little lanterns. happy mid-autumn festival. =)

my skin test bump seems to be growing bigger by the day. and it's achy... i'm going to die of TB...
anyway i am so confused i dunno what it means. back in p6, i would have jumped with joy cos means dun hav to take BCG... but i didn't anyways. just that bump seems even bigger now.. wonder why. am i carrier? or i have such high level of resistance? i dun really care haha. just glad that i still convinced nurse at Tang Center to declare me TB negative and so i'm medically cleared to volunteer... hehe.
i'm somewhat inspired by all the films i've been watching recently... it would be REALLY cool if one day i can make my own documentaries/ films and bring to the world issues that ought to be brought to their attention. or travel around the world taking snapshots of diff cultures/ diff aspects of ppl's lives i come across... do some form of photojournalism.... ya rite. if only... sigh i have so many "if onlies"....

Google is becoming somewhat omnipresent... so now not only is there Google Maps, Gmail, Google News and GoogleTalk, there's also Google Scholar, which has definitely made scholarly articles a lot more accessible for the general public! we can even browse content pages/ intros/chapters of more 'academic' books online... i wonder what's next?
and for ppl who wouldn't mind some free but decent entertainment on a Thursday evening, the Insitute of East Asian studies is gonna screen Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern at Wheeler at 7 pm tmr... =)

you know, sometimes actually i do feel a bit lonely. like though u have homework to do, readings to catch up on, but you just don't feel like doing them and even if you try to do them, you can't really concentrate. i wonder why this is the case. quite a few ppl have told me they feel the same way too and we wondered if it gets aggravated as we grow older...hmm better be cautious. correlation's not equal to causation! ha. hmm but i mean i'm not upset or anything... it's a self-imposed choice in a way....like i can go for random parties if i really wanted to rid myself of the occasional boredom, but it just seems really pointless. to be with people for the sake of having people around you... at the end of the day, do you feel less lonely? i don't think so.... i was just in Chinese class today and some classmates were like bitching about the readings among themselves in front of the prof (they were soft, but i'm sure they still could be heard!) if i really wanted someone to talk to i could jolly well have joined in, but i just thought it was rude to talk "behind someone's back"... esp right in front of the person some more! or compromising your own principles just to fit in... i feel like i've grown a lot more discerning or better at guessing ppl's characters... i also feel less pressured to speak up, cos i feel like i'm better at deciding whether ppl are saying smart or stupid things and not like a lot of ppl say a lot of smart things anyway... but of course i'm not going to say something for the sake of saying something lah. just when i feel like i have something useful to contribute...
i also feel that the stage of your life you do things really affect your experiences and things u take away from doing whatever.... cos in History class, prof was just talking about Ba Jin's novel- Jia1... which i read in sec sch... i was now learning its contents under a very different context and i totally felt like i wasted all my time reading the book when i was in sec sch... i totally treated it as a normal novel and prob didn't appreciate any of the important themes and issues raised in the book...
hmmm sorry for such a long-winded entry. blogging really does make a difference for me, esp when i have so many thoughts i want to vocalize but dunno who to tell... =P there's perhaps no better audience than friends who frequent this blog and derive some form of utility (i hope!) from sharing my thoughts? =)

coincidentally, the two films i watched in the past 3 days revolve around the theme of educating prostitutes' kids... Born into brothels was about how an American photographer tried very hard to help some students in her photography class (kids of women who worked in Calcutta's red light district) get a decent education... and The Goddess or Shen2nu3 (a1934 silent movie starring Chinese actress Ruan Ling-yu) was about how this prostitute tried very hard to give her only child a decent education, only to be mocked by peers prejudiced against her (and in turn her son too) due to her lowly and supposedly degenerate occupation... it just makes me sad.. how sometimes to a very large extent our subsequent paths in life are dictated by our family backgrounds... the types of families we were born into... while there are definitely cases of ppl who manage to succeed etc; how many unheard, unseen individuals are there, who work hard all their lives but still don't manage to overcome the 'natural' disadvantages they started with?

One fine day






i love the sky. and whose bei4 ying3s do we have here?







this is actually a failed picture. tried to take macro then not clear cos wind was blowing rather strongly... and gives absolutely no info on anything! ha. but i still kinda like it.
and so today instead of being sociable at Berkeley Marina i 'ran away' and attempted to experiment more with my new digicam... er unfortunately most of them turned out looking too random. =P

i was thinking about quitting even before starting as a CHAI tutor due to concerns about coping with volunteering and taking 5 classes at the same time... but a day at the center today made me change my mind. i mean i really want to stay on and see how it goes. it's not that i was particularly drawn to the adorable autistic kids; in fact, i really wasn't. it was mainly because through observation sessions today i could really see for myself that there was some 'method' behind interacting with kids. the very friendly behaviorist tried to explain the kids' behavior and how tutors ought to facilitate/encourage the kids to interact...prior to this, when i did play with kids, i was just totally random and didn't even think that there were so many cues we could pick up... the observation skills, patience and sensitivity required of a tutor convinced me that there's perhaps a lot i could learn (not for any particular purpose, but learning for the sake of learning?) but it's seriously tiring! from observing my own housemates do parenting... CHAI tutors engage the autistic kids... i have concluded that parenting really isn't an easy task, esp if you want to do it well. really pei4 fu2 all those parents out there... which makes me wonder how it was like for my parents...haha but my mum alwyas likes to 'boast' how guai1 my sis and i were when we were little.... but now that i think about it, i must have been a little mystery if i were this quiet little kid walking around, staring blankly at ppl when they ask me stuff... =P er, just kidding.

this is random but was just rereading paragraphs from the Little Prince and feel that everyone should read it =P i wonder why there aren't more ppl who appreciate or read beyond its seemingly childish conversations. it's so beautifully written...You are beautiful, but you are empty..... One could not die for you...

Excerpt from Chapter 21...

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me, like that, in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near...

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you, the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox. "Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose..." said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

actually i also dunno what these things are, but found them strewn all over the ground while trying to hike up a trail at Tilden... initially i thought someone dropped a pile of rusty screws on the ground, but upon closer examination they were actually some kind of acorn-shaped fruit! and i was so amused by these well-formed thingies that i decided to collect some of them to attempt to take a nice picture. yes, i'm trying to take better pictures, but progress is slow. but hopefully i'll get there, some day. =) and i realized that i am perhaps not really cut out for hiking... ppl just enjoy admiring trees, nature etc, but i do random things like pick up funny fruits from the ground and lag behind everyone else. or spend 3 min trying to take pic of this pretty orange flower jacqui plucked for me...
tomorrow my monopoly over the house shall end cos housemates are coming back... and within 5 days two of Kai's fish died... even though i really tried my best to remember to feed them... sigh. fished out one guppy on Sun night and there's this stationary gold one at bottom of tank lying on its side. dunno if it's sick or dead... =(

a frivolous research question

i for some reason have recently become rather aware of how many authors dedicate their books to their spouses for the support given to them throughout the whole process of writing... or words of gratitude along the lines of, "if not for him/her, i wonder if i could have pulled through this"... of course ppl acknowledge the help and support of colleagues and family members too, but i get the sense of ppl being esp grateful that there's like this ONE person he/she can always rely on/ who is always there for them...
and i'm really curious. is such emotional support really crucial? i suddenly am thinking if any study on correlation/ relationships between say, marriage and authorship has been done? like to what extent can we really be self-sufficient; self-reliant? out of those bestselling works (be it books, art, films or what not) we have, how many percent of the creators are married/ have had long-standing, happy relationships with their partners...can any meaningful and more structured investigation be done to look into this? is there even any causal relationship between 'unflinching' emotional support (which i guess can be best estimated using marriage, though not exactly very accurate also, since ppl marry for so many different reasons) and corresponding success of person? hmm...... right at this moment i realize i'm actually trying to delve into how true the "saying"--' behind every successful man there has to be a woman', is.
possible Econ thesis for next sem? or pysch/sociology project?? any suggestions/ comments out there? =P am i being totally weird to wonder...

recently i've actually had a few ppl telling me that i seem happier and a teeny bit more self-confident... and i do think so myself too... it's not that suddenly good things have been happening to me; nor did i suddenly turn smart; pretty or whatever (ha, of course i wish i did, but these really aren't the most impt things in life) but i guess i've gradually changed my mindset... well. i guess there are always things that i wish would happen but never will, things i'm dissatisfied about; but ultimately there's nothing in my life that i should be seriously upset about... so why not just treasure everything i do have. not everyone gets to come to Berkeley for college... not everyone gets chance to make some really good friends in college... guess the list can just go on.
and i'm going to try harder... and hopefully write a good PEIS thesis this sem too... well, my only fellow classmate in H195 seminar has done most of his work and has even collected all his data... and i really do feel threatened cos everything for me is still pretty much up in the air, but instead of sitting at home and fretting at least i'm trying... i borrowed all these books and shall force myself to piece up something decent to talk about next class... and while my UCDC paper really wasn't fantastic, at least it made me read up more about my area of interest last sem..and it helps that i have a lot of time to myself this sem. i'm starting to feel like i can be alone for the most part, but perhaps not lonely. perhaps also good that i wun hav much free time to worry too much either =)

yay Berkeley's screening Born into Brothels at Wheeler next fri!