Jumping and Skipping and Sparkles

Last evening I saw Jesse skipping down the corridor in the basement of Clark where all the labs are located. When I commented that it was probably a lab hazard, he asked me: "when's the last time you skipped?" I laughed: "I think I skip quite often."

I'm not sure if that is accurate. I just feel like in my heart I am skipping and jumping around like a little girl these days. Even though the leaves on the trees are turning yellow, and the weather is getting nippy, I think about life and I feel all sparkly. I think it is because of all the positive energy I get from friends.

For example yesterday at Pixel. Nora and Stephen dancing like crazy. Shayna dancing with such happiness. Colwyn and Shankar dancing like themselves. And Turan trying his best to join in their excitement. I love that picture in my head. I think I will keep it there "till I'm 80".

I love them all. These people. Shayna with her ability to fill the air around her with happiness and energy. Colwyn the way he always manages to make people laugh. Turan and his terrible jokes and his considerate, thoughtful, intellectual personality. Nora who is so empathetic and noble and sweet and has the best way of hugging people. Stephen, the way he knows his mind and opinions and how much he hates musicals. Shankar who puts passion into everything he does. Kendra who can talk and talk and do research and do outreach and organize events and make great food and who I can be a girl with. And H, the dear Baloo, who is so pure-hearted and true that it just makes me want to hug him every time I see him.

There are also those friends who seem like family, that I quietly draw energy from, who see me through my troubles and trials: Yvonne who is strong, determined, and who I can call up whenever I want to rant and go out for dessert. I-Chun, who I like laughing at because she always seems to live in her own universe during conversations, but who can stay rational even when I call her and start crying and wailing. Yao who is my confidant and role model, I deeply admire the way she stubbornly and quietly works towards her goals.

And even my friend Praj who thinks she is "morbid". She actually gives me energy in her own calm (and talkative) fashion. She has a piercingly funny way of describing life and our predicament of being "27!!!". And she makes the most amazing desserts! I don't know what I would do if she ever were to move to a dream job in Boston and leave me in Ithaca.

With a life so full and rich of wonderful people how can I not jump and skip and sparkle.

10/10/10

A day of 10/10/10 happens once every thousand years. It was a pleasant Sunday just like any other, but then a day just like it won't happen ever again.

My friend Shayna told me about a "diary project" by Irene (Zee) Zahava that would collect the entries of many Ithacans, and make a collage of sorts to see what typical Ithacans did on 10/10/10. I may be late in entering, and I can't resist letting my writings be known through my blog posts...

10/10/10 was a day of hanging out with three awesome friends Colwyn, Shayna, and Stephen. In the morning I woke up rather early for myself on a Sunday to go to Yoga Club (9 am, I know, I am lame). Yoga club was formed by my three awesome friends to practice Ashtanga Yoga. As a person new to Yoga, I am still learning how to control and live with my body and breath, and to deal with my very limited flexibility. Today was the first day I joined Yoga Club since they moved to a larger space at Jillian's Corners in the Commons. I am very glad to have this awesome Yoga club to go to and share a practice with friends. Although my legs were sore from hiking the day before, I enjoyed the stretching and breathing and the meditation at the very end.

After a challenging yoga practice, we went for lunch at an "Asian fusion" restaurant in the Commons. The restaurant serves Thai, Japanese, and Korean, and then bubble tea (which I claim to be Taiwanese). Ravenous from our workout we delighted in devouring our food, and then after our hunger had eased we exchanged gossip and philosophy and childhood stories and even thoughts on PMS. Shayna and I had green tea bubble tea, and we both agreed that it is the best dessert and drink rolled into one.

We hung out outside in the Commons after lunch, had coffee and drinks while chatting about all things under the sun. We watched cute little kids run around in the open space, and Colwyn and I longed for the days when we could run around and scream without feeling weird about it. So as we were leaving for our next destination, we put our yoga mats on our heads, and did some light running around, being silly. We discovered Stephen could hold his Yoga mat an amazingly long time on his head while walking.

After a good bake in the sun, we headed to the public library next since Shayna wanted to tell us about the diary project, and I wanted to find travel guides for upcoming trips to DC and Toronto. We sat in the library, Shayna writing about her day so far, me excitedly reading about my Toronto trip that is more than a month away, and Colwyn and Stephen drawing pictures.

We split ways after our quiet time in the library, Shayna had to head home and take care of pets, and I had to go to the garden to take care of my vegetables. My garden was in disarray due to 2 weeks of neglect, but I was pleased that the plants were still alive despite the cold weather of the weeks past.

Colwyn and Stephen invited me to have juice at Colwyn's place after my short gardening excursion. And with Colwyn's fancy juicer, we made a wonderful carrot, beet, apple, orange and ginger juice, which was spicy and refreshing and just the thing our thirsty bodies needed after our morning Yoga practice.

During our conversation about cabbages and kings and Colwyn's dvd collection, the vegan Stephen asked me if I loved animals. I, the shameless meat eater, pondered the question, and asked "I don't know what it means to love animals." How do we humans who take so much from the earth, find a balance we think is right? How do I, who is a foodie, who loves the taste of meat, become more responsible for what I eat and put in my body? These were very hard questions, and our discussion lightly grazed the surface of my troubles, gently stirring what I have been pondering for quite some time.

I went home for a light dinner, and later again joined Shayna and Colwyn for a warm evening of chatter and tea, surrounded by pets. Our chatter drifted from gossip to relationships to dating to Spanish... and sleepily we concluded the evening of 10/10/10 with me driving home at midnight, happy to have had the company of interesting friends throughout the day.

Strings and Space Time and All That

I went to a talk today and it sounded like science fiction to me... spacetime doesn't exist, we are all holograms... just so that black holes emitting radiation don't have the problem of clashing with quantum mechanics. Something or the other.

The talk was about was physics too, or some people believe, the frontier of fundamental physics...

And I felt like an outsider looking in!

Makes for a good story though. Something about hidden dimensions, multiverses, and us being holograms can capture the general public's imagination. I'm imagining if I were a 15 year old in the audience, I would wanna grow up and study that stuff. Of course now I'm grown up I realize that the day to day of that is some really difficult math, and not many ways (yet!) to check your answers.

The Coolin

We sung this piece by Samuel Barber at practice yesterday, it was just beautiful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14srUr_8p0g

I love the lyrics (poem by James Stephens, this Irish guy) and Samuel Barber's chords...

Come with me, under my coat,

and we will drink our fill

of the milk of the white goat,

or wine if it be thy will.

And we will talk,

until talk is a trouble, too,

out on the side of the hill;

And nothing is left to do,

but an eye to look into an eye,

and a hand in a hand to slip;

and a sigh to answer a sigh;

And a lip to find out a lip!

What if the night be black!

And the air on the mountain chill!

Where all but the fern is still!

Stay with me, under my coat!

and we will drink our fill

of the milk of the white goat,

out on the side of the hill!

Ah...

Christine O'Donnell beats Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican Senate primary...

I understand some of the anger and energy against incumbents. Sometimes I too wish we could change all of the dysfunctional congress and put new people in their place...

But... can we have a better pick of alternatives?

Cycles

Another school year, another round of trying to juggle research, teaching and having a life.

I think I'm getting better at this time management thing. And that focus and concentration thing.

It's only been two weeks so far, but compared to the lazy summer it feels like it's been forever... I have nightmares twice a week that I've overslept and am late for my 9 am discussion section, which result in me waking up realizing it's only 6:30 am... Mondays through Thursdays are section and office hours and meetings and trying to squeeze in research in between all that. After yoga class or swing dance or tango practice in the evenings I drag myself back to the office and try to squeeze in another hour or two of work. After 4 days of such a routine, by Friday I'm usually too tired to think, and waste my day doing this and that (such as prepping for lab, or grading, or some type of housekeeping)...then 4:30 pm rolls along, and I go sing! And then after choir practice there's some fun activity in the evening. Last week it was weeding the garden with Amanda, then going to Wegmans and Greenstar to get ingredients for our pumpkin beef stew (which turned out completely amazing!). This week it was a beer tasting party, and then having dessert and gabbing at Madeline's with girlfriends. Then the weekend is a lazy combination of hiking and work(?) and swing dance class and socializing and thinking about possibly cleaning my room...

My life is filled to the brim. Yet I still want more. I want to have time to sit still and think deep thoughts and read all those books on my reading list and write better planned blog posts.

While in this week-to-week cycle, time goes both quickly and slowly. It seems slow while I'm trying to grade homeworks and debug code... yet it all seems so quick when I realize that three years have passed and there's a good possibility I'll be graduating in two years.

Seeing my senior lab mates looking for jobs is scary. This is what I'm supposed to be doing next year?! I do not feel ready for that, and feel very inadequate as a scientist- there's so much I don't know, there's so much I need to learn how to approach, how to think as a scientist, how to ask questions... and I'm getting quite used to this cycle of being busy, with school, with life, with friends...

But I will make the most of my final few cycles at Cornell. And look forward to whatever is next. Whatever exciting possibilities await.

Song

I am looking forward to this Friday afternoon! Because it will be my first Choral practice in years. I auditioned last week, and am joining a mixed voice chorus this semester!!

During the three times I went to bible study this summer, the part I enjoyed most was the singing in between reading psalms. I loved the mixture of different textures of voices around me. And the way when somebody with an especially nice voice sat behind me, I would tingle with pleasure while their voice filled my ears.

So I realized how much I miss singing in a choir.

I sang with the largest choral group at my university during undergrad, and I loved every moment of song during our practices. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. I never minded giving up Friday evenings to spend three hours singing. And even though before performing we had to go through an excruciating process of tests and extra practice time, I loved standing on stage under a spotlight, knowing that my voice was carried out with a hundred others towards the audience and maybe one song or two would resonate with them. Classical, new-age, local, international, all songs, I loved them all (well, most of them).

I never had a great voice, nor was any good at sight-reading. But it didn't matter, because singing with a chorus is a collective effort, and I like to think that over the years I slightly improved in recognizing a harmony (not so good at that either yet, but I try).

The audition process last Tuesday left me in a high. Mostly because I was flattered when the instructor asked me if I have perfect pitch after hearing me sing a few notes. But also because I was reminded of how much I enjoy the challenge of listening and singing. There was this test where you had to pick out the top middle or bottom notes from a variety of chords. For some reason, I always got the middle right, but had lots of trouble with bottom (all my years as an alto...).

Anyways, I'm looking forward to this Friday! Meanwhile, there's this piece I came across by the younger generation of my former chorus, which is simple but quite nice: