This is definitely one of the places I want to go this winter.  I am not a heights person - I wonder if I could really do the hike down through a mile deep canyon.  But it's exactly this kind of thing that gets your adrenaline going.  Plus this article was great - I loved the description and the names of all the places you'd be able to stop at and see.  And I think this is the only way to really see and relive the Grand Canyon and be able to do justice to it.  

Walking Into the Earth’s Heart: The Grand Canyon

Don't you hate it when people steal your shopping cart?  You would expect adults to be a little less lazy than that but maybe like a Chinese saying goes: sam shui ding bah sup which we like to say with a disappointed shake of the head meaning 3 year old will determine 80 year old.  Anyways, this was in the summer when my parents went to Kroger's to purchase the last good watermelons of the season.  And of course being the Chinese that we are, we are selective and picky - I guess Chinese standards are high not only of their students but also of their vegetables and fruits.  Although I find it ironic that standards become very murky in food regulation and manufacturing guidelines.  Ethics or money.  That aside, they pick this gorgeous watermelon (at least so the 30 minutes of picking it claims) and then this middle aged Chinese lady walks past nonchalantly and starts shopping ... with my parents' cart that is.  Unknowingly innocently of course - right.  

But here's the joke on her.  She picks out this gorgeous head of lettuce and walks away from the cart.to continue her perusal.  Parents come back and Dad doesn't like the lady in one glace, gets pissed.  *insert cartoon imagination* tosses the lettuce into the sushi department and drives the cart out of sight.  The expression was priceless on the lady.  Funny thing was there were other carts with watermelons in them so she was really confused what just happened to the cart she stole.  So she lost her beautiful head of lettuce, our watermelon and another good 20 minutes to pick out another lettuce and 10 minutes for the watermelon.  I jest of course.

Found this in my sketchbook and the story where this character was from remains one of the best mangas I have read.  And I fondly remember a good friend of mine who introduced me to the anime at the beginning.  Anyways, the expression here is beautiful and so well captures the emotions..  What is it that you see in his expression here? 

Oh well what's ironic about this is that I lost my tool of trade, my Canon Elph camera so no macro zoom for a long while - but hopefully not much longer?  so please excuse the crappy resolutions.. well as if you really want to examine some of these crappy sketches anyways right? 

I was on my work break when I just started looking around and I notice all these men around me.  Haha, it's true - old folk on the left reading a newspaper (does he come here every morning?  Is it boring or calming habit for him..) his white wispy hair is fluffy and soft reminds me of cotton candy - maybe he should dye it purple and pink then his grandkids would get a kick out of it but who says he has grandkids right? And this middle aged guy reading a thin large book, some big colorful pictures in it - reminds me of a picture book for a kid he's a regular customer and his absent right forearm does raise questions I mean we're all curious about stories.  He always sticks the plastic cup under it when he counts out change.  Then there's this grayed hair guy in the middle of it all buttering something also reading.  Must be a library in here practically.  And finally the father and son.  Gosh, even the kid is a male.  But oh here comes the brave woman and her daughter.  And the little six or seven year old tries to steal a sip of her mother's coffee and the mom comes back to tell the cute little warning lie "dear this isn't for you, you shouldn't drink it, coffee will stunt your growth."  Oh really so mother is that why you're a midget?  Maybe it'll be proved by those godly researchers one day.  Then it'll not be your mother telling you but the news telling everybody.

Observing people has always been pastime of mine.  But I have my favorites about how to go about doing so.  There's plenty of ways and I think people must do it all the time.  I guess you can say gossip is a form of it even.  That's likely the easiest way to put observations into action and most primitive form.  Anyways, it's pretty primitive for me too I suppose.  Pencil, ink, paints, and paper is probably all I need.  My second choice is a camera to make things stay still - although sometimes too still and not enough lee way to fudge the details.  In a good way of course.  Like the old woman's radiant beauty whose varicose veins you overlook, a mother's instinct.  Or the old man's wrinkled hands you emphasize as he wraps it around his lover's.  It's things you see and you don't see that makes up an interpretation and a statement.  I love the camera because of its objectivity and know-it-all snobby attitude and I dislike it because of its objectivity and yea, that snobbish attitude like it can tell everything.

All that aside, I had forgotten the old friend.  Of drawing out of necessity but the good kind.  I used to hate drawing people.  Maybe I just hated people, envious of the closed off lives that I could never enter.  Maybe out of spite and envy.  But also a sadness if I couldn't completely capture them as how I wanted them to be.  And maybe that's just it.  My inability to capture people is possibly a measurement of how much I understand this world and its inhabitants.  The separateness I feel from all that is alive.  

All this essay writing (pointless this time around) has me thinking a little.. and it has me returning to what was a salvation, an escape.  Just like the heroin shot is for the addict.

Arrowsmith was awarded the 1926 Pulitzer Prize, but Lewis declined the award. In a letter to the committee, he wrote:
"I wish to acknowledge your choice of my novel Arrowsmith for the Pulitzer Prize. That prize I must refuse, and my refusal would be meaningless unless I explained the reasons.
All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous. The seekers for prizes tend to labor not for inherent excellence but for alien rewards; they tend to write this, or timorously to avoid writing that, in order to tickle the prejudices of a haphazard committee. And the Pulitzer Prize for Novels is peculiarly objectionable because the terms of it have been constantly and grievously misrepresented.
Those terms are that the prize shall be given "for the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood." This phrase, if it means anything whatsoever, would appear to mean that the appraisal of the novels shall be made not according to their actual literary merit but in obedience to whatever code of Good Form may chance to be popular at the moment."^[1]

I really admire this author.  It's very true what he says and not many people have the guts to refuse such an award.  You must truly love what you do and believe in it entirely to forgo the adornments that may really should not have anything to do with.  Is he essentially saying that the Pulitzer prize is a popularity contest which is at best a measure of conformity?  It's difficult to be objective in reading and picking one author or novel is sometimes really ridiculous.  

What he says is applicable to a lot of the materialistic society we have become and endorse.  Even though there are instances when we deny we're working for anything other than the joy of the issue at hand or that we actually pursuing the benefit of humanity, in the end when we reach an achievement - are those who deny it called out of the world idiots, an outcast who is foolish not to become recognized by others?  By accepting the award, isn't it possible the recipient condone this kind of thought.  

Sometimes awards for philanthropy is ironic and maybe at times, contrary to its own principles.

Plastic Roads Offer Greener Way to Travel in India

This is neat!  Talk about innovative - I wonder if there's any side effects to it but still, this is pretty cool.

When I think about what to write, about myself at least I draw a neat little circle.  I can only define the blurred edges, traced and retraced unsure and shaky.  What's inside though is blank and I'm unable to fill that void it seems.  There must be something wrong with me to be so shut up and closed.  Me who thought I had so much to say.

But things aside, maybe collecting the odds and ends isn't such a bad way to start.  Perhaps someday I'll be able to gather all these and write a story that belongs to me.  Seems like though it's not such a waste then to put the things and people in my life into words.  There are a lot of things I don't want to forget even though it's difficult to write about.  I'm not as good as words as I used to be.  Maybe growing up muddles up the truth that the youth can so easily describe to you.  Like Picasso said, it's much harder for the adult to envision things and draw them as they were in childhood.  Growing up is a slow descent into a hell you wish to understand but find it harder than ever to do so. 

So why not start with the stories you hear in the passing of the everyday?  Seems like the direction people are headed is more sure than mine, more than ever.  Shall I even begin to hope to find myself then?

Life is a bus ride - and nothing else.

In itself, life is like a bus.  You make stops along the way - sometimes, you let the bus go ahead and you catch the next one.  Sometimes you feel like you can't stop yourself and you just let go and let the bus take you wherever it will take you.  The bus contains only you.  Everything that's inside is yours and inside is a haven where you're in control.  It's your reprise and the requiem the rasp of the engine and the lurch through roads unknown.  You see people come into and step off the bus- just as  you do in life.  Sometimes you don't know where they will go after they disembark.  You look after them as they become lost in the crowds, swallowed by a countryside or a sea of people.  Whether there's a destination or not, you can't be sure.  The number and signs in front of the bus is everchanging.  6 turns into 968 and turns into 264M into 4.  They're just numbers that keep turning and turning - its identity is like a ghost.  There's times when you look outside at the scenery, at the roads passing, at the throngs of people below you who can brush past you without knowing you even exist. 

Before you open that laptop.. would you kindly think of the pen?

Well, I was just listening to some ad about handwriting and such.  It seems like it's such a dead practice now and what has been the most basic and intimate form of communication has become a second thought.  The speed of conversing by e-mail, text messages, and instant messaging in such an accessible form tempts all of us to cast aside the fountain pen and stationery and even claim that by making communication such a easy practice that it can actually connect humanity faster and better than before.

But as with any object, there may be at best two sides to a story.  Still there is something definitely lost in choosing the technology over the old fashioned penmanship.  The patience, attention, and care signed and sealed into a letter and envelope, down to affixing a stamp on that familiar upper right hand corner is a ritual to me.  It's seeing the imperfection (and perhaps perfection) in the faltering verse of a lover's writing that makes communication human.  Writing is a form very unique to the human species.  

What lies at the center of communication, of simple basic human connection is the values humanity holds important.  The changing modes of communication, the reliance on electronic transmission reflects the changing generations and the values we hold. 

I guess it's time for me to start a more exploratory blog in addition to the little odds and ends of a journal I keep.

I'm still thinking on what to write about but in the end, I guess it's important just to write about something and keep on doing it in my life. Who knows, maybe it'll become something important to someone else as well, whatever that thing may be.

Connections. That's the first thing that comes to mind right now. At this point, I'm a student in limbo. I find that in all the years I've been a student though, I haven't tried hard enough to make connections with people. I think it was a way to protect myself but connections are important. They really are what changes you. It's a paradox too. You find so much different people but also, you can point out things that are universal. It's fun to think about it and muse over these similarities and differences.

As a student, I haven't done enough of the "student" role. I don't question out loud often enough. But I think it's essential now, especially in a rapidly globalizing world. It's difficult to raise enough voice and even harder still, to develop a voice you can call your own.