why I hate the telephone

Until recently, I didn't understand why I dread holding phone conversations. Up until a year ago, I would actually have to work up my courage to punch in the numbers and press the little dial button. Then I'd start having a bad adrenaline rush where my whole body was in a complete state of tension. Given that my communication skills aren't stellar to begin with, talking on the phone just freaks me out. There's probably one or two people who I'm comfortable talking on the phone with, but only because I'm so comfortable in their presence.

I realized that when I talk to people in person, I rely excessively on nonverbal signals, perhaps more than the average person. Obviously, we all gauge how a conversation is going by the other person's facial expressions. On the phone, I feel like a blind person steering a car. I have no idea where I'm going. People tell me I sound robotic and unnatural on the phone. It's because I don't know how to handle the conversation.

As opposed to awkward phone conversations, I prefer email and instant messanger because the medium matches the method, both non-emotional and simply conveying information. I can't respond as actively to a voice over the phone than a face-to-face encounter, although I feel that the phone attempts to duplicate a live meeting. I can't gather all of the details that I need and I can't express myself purely through my voice. Of course, going through Excel spreadsheets over the phone doesn't work terribly well either. I really had to steel myself for that conversation and promptly went into hysterics the second it was over.

David and Goliath at the Movies

Having recently watched the Danish import "At the Wedding", it's impossible not to recognize just how different foreign film is from the Hollywood machine. One reviewer had this to say, "Danish cinema has gained an international reputation as cynical and severe. The humor is grim, the drama is grimmer, and the production values are ascetic."

Nowadays, grim is not a word to be found in Hollywood's big budget productions (no one watches the small budget ones). In fact, the trend appears to be tacking a wedding or a happy ending onto the end of every drama to provide some inappropriate and misplaced levity. The lesson learned here is that American audiences don't do tears (except for sappy tears of joy) or seriousness.

Watching "At the Wedding" was disengaging for the first few minutes because the pace was much slower and more erratic. The light seemed overly stark, rather natural. It's so easy to forget that every scene is tinted by hundreds of filters that most 'A', 'B', and some 'C' movies use nowadays. Maybe we would like to believe that the world is a melodramatic and chill blue or gray, or brilliant yellow and orange in hue, but it also takes away from the acting. Similarly, the silences in "At the Wedding" were disconcerting at first because there wasn't any music announcing the mood and emotion of every scene. We don't even realize that music and the camera angles are just as vital as any of the actors.

Movies are technology, and technology has grown unbelievable in the last century. There is an art to better cinematography, more filters, CGI, and the layers of complexity that Hollywood movies embody. It's marvelous and destructive at the same time. With more sophistication, the core of cinema, the acting, is being replaced by visual and audio effects. Cinema has reached a point where the art has grown into a manufactured wasteland of cheap thrills. When the trade is too good, the tools of the trade often cover up the fact that there's no substance.

Independent films, though "inexpertly shot" and crude, capture the human condition and some of the rawness that's missing in overly smooth blockbusters. Sometimes, when we've come so far that we don't even recognize ourselves, it's good to go back to the basics. Then we work ourselves up from there again, and hopefully don't end up at the same place again.

a tribute to amy

Here are a few from my game theory professor:

"Trembling hand perfection is almost like subgame perfection on steroids."

"We don't ask how we got to a node. It's an act of God!"

"At least one person in the room can do algebra, and it's not me!"

"Algebra by consensus. One person! Yes! Democracy works!"

"You think I should change signs randomly? Good! I feel much better now."

the artlessness of cooking

After several summers of dabbling at stir-fry, I’m still below par at making a dish actually taste good. There aren’t really good instructions for stir-frying. Of course, recipes can tell you how much oil to put in, when to put in the other ingredients, etc. etc., but it’s much more complicated than that.

Having grown up in a family that does very minimal stir-frying where pepper, salt, and spring onions are frequently the only condiments, there’s an art involved. The first step is one that I get wrong a fair amount of time: how much oil to put in. I’ve experimented, but I do think that I don’t put in enough. I see stir-frying as a balance between oil and water. You need some oil to get the vegetables jump started, then the natural water in the vegetables should take care of the rest (helped along by a liberal dose of salt). The problem with not putting in enough oil is that the vegetables can start burning before the water comes out.

After observing my dad, I see that he usually puts in tomato or tofu in whatever he’s cooking. It prevents the problem of drying out. The amusing part is that we use the same ingredients and roughly cook the same way, but his food and mine tastes radically different. It’s as if the molecules in his food are dancing and skating, and mine are just limping along.

Usually, I don’t even venture into the realm of meat because it’s so mysterious to me. Besides the standard salt and pepper, there’s the additional cooking wine and soy sauce. That baffles me because once again, I don’t know how much to add of each. Add too little and the meat is undercooked and flavorless besides. Add too much and I get something the consistency of leather. No, I haven’t graduated to the meat stage yet.

I have tried other meals besides stir-fry with varying degrees of success. Chicken pot pie is something that turns out fairly consistently each time. A few months ago, I tried spaghetti carbonera, Sicilian pasta, gnocchi, and other Italian dishes. Everything was rather heavy and not all good (especially the gnocchi). I attribute my 50% success rate to not enough experience in the kitchen.

I love staring at all of the cookbooks in my house, especially the ones with scrumptious desserts. Maybe in another life, I was a five-star chef. In this life, I can’t be bothered to invest the time learning how to cook well. For the past week or so, I’ve subsisted on cereal, whole wheat bread, eggs, bacon, and instant noodles. It’s a diet that will probably take years off of my life. Since I would have spent those years actually cooking, that’s fine with me.

breaking the connection

One of the major questions I’ve asked myself this summer is: Should I get Internet in my apartment or not? This should be a simple yes or no question, but I have created some sort of an insipid drama out of it.

The two main forces that are battling each other are convenience and time wasting. It is rather inconvenient not to have Internet at home, especially since it’s dangerous to walk around the neighborhood very late at night. Then again, is it really necessary to check email once every hour? Am I going to miss a life-changing opportunity if I only check my email twice a day? One of my greatest dreams is to follow a schedule that involves waking up at seven every morning, having an absolutely productive day including ten to twelve hours of solid work, an hour of exercise, and sleeping at eleven o’clock every night. Needless to say, this dream is but a dream. Shifting to earlier hours not only solves the Internet problem (emails sent at 3AM should expect a reply the next day) but also promotes good habits.

Over the summer, I slept remarkably earlier than during the year, typically at around midnight to 1AM. This continued until I realized that the library had a wide selection of DVDs, which brings me to my next point. At home, I typically use the Internet for four purposes: email, watching online episodes of tv shows, reading gratuitous fanfiction, and talking on AIM. I can only justify the first and the last as a means of keeping in touch with people. If I wanted to watch tv shows, I should just borrow them from the library. As for fanfiction, I could be reading much better written works of original fiction, also borrowed from the library. The problem is that I just can’t force myself to wake up at 7AM every morning and to sleep at an earlier hour.

The Internet is a huge time-waster, but I’ve become so dependent on it that I’m slightly lost without it. Since I really don’t enjoy calling people, I enjoy talking over email and AIM, where I feel that I get across more of what I actually mean. It’s also lazier and much easier. One problem is that it’s so easy to get side-tracked. I’ll be looking for an article, and suddenly reading the NYT, BBC, Independent, Boston Globe, and twenty other newspapers. Another problem is that there’s such a wide range of quality in websites. Aside from newspapers, I gravitate towards the simple ones because I don’t have to think about it. It’s easy to spend hours on IMDB and stare at pictures of actors and actresses and read random reviews.

Now as an addict of Internet culture, I’ve bought into the fallacy that ‘the world is at my fingertips’. When I can wiki almost everything and expect instantaneous results, it’s sometimes hard to remember that the real world demands self-discipline and dedication. Many people including myself see the Internet an artificial construct that spews instant gratification and removes the need to think or analyze. It’s true that there are quality websites on the Internet, but with so much floating around, it’s infinitely preferable to enjoy the cheap and instant thrill.

It’s not true that the Internet has somehow corrupted the way I think and taken away my ability to think, but I do think that it actually reinforces some of my perceived weaknesses. After wasting several hours and sometimes an entire day on the Internet, I always berate myself for not having enough self-control. Cheap thrills don’t take away the disappointment that comes later. It’s so much harder to trade the instant fun for the quiet satisfaction that results from doing something meaningful for an hour.

scenes from a sunset

where we live now

Philadelphia is a dump. For everyone who likes the ‘artsiness’ and the ‘uniqueness’ of the city, I’d just like to say that it’s hard for me to appreciate the finer aesthetics when I feel like I’m going to get mugged walking to and from campus every day. Last month, there have been gangs of eight to ten year olds racing around on their little bikes both on campus and around my apartment. Things aren’t looking up when you consider that people have been mugged on campus before. A few years ago, someone was mugged on Sunday at 5PM, before dark.

Despite the new housing projects that are popping up in Philadelphia, the streets teem with homeless people, beggars, winos, and dirt. I try to avoid the subway at all costs not only because it smells like piss on a good day, but because I’m usually the only non-African American there. When I first moved to Philadelphia, I rode the subway until I became bothered by the real or imagined looks others were giving me (probably imaginary). Now I just dish out the ten dollars for a cab ride, which is preferable to the possibility of getting stabbed or shot.

Over Christmas, someone was killed at the subway stop just twenty feet away from my department. Of course, the campus is much better than it was six years ago. Now there are restaurants, a supermarket, and a security guard on every corner for twenty blocks. I suppose that the chances are low that I’ll get mugged if I don’t walk home after 10PM or intoxicated. Sundays are the worst because everyone comes out and wanders the streets on that most holy day. I guess they work or do whatever it is they do for the rest of the week.

Nor is the danger solely from the bums wandering the cracked and dirt filled streets. Penn is aptly nicknamed the Australia of the Ivies. Last year, I was sitting in four classes with an Econ student who was a convicted child molester. In fact, he lived rent free in Buck’s County Prison every night. Having never sat next to him or spoken to him, I was still freaked upon finding out in May. I’ve had many disagreements with my colleagues, who believe in ‘forgive and forget’. I suppose I’m just a bit less forgiving, not that it matters since he doesn’t prefer girls anyway.

Of course, this doesn’t include the marketing professor who went to Thailand and came back with a massive load of child porn tapes, many of which he taped. Nor to say anything about the econ professor who is accused of beating his wife to death, and so badly that she was unrecognizable. Then there are minor cases of some Penn student putting fifteen rounds through his ex-girlfriend’s door at Drexel or something of that sort. At other schools, the largest scandal is plagiarizing. Here, we have events that are grotesquely Hollywood-esque in their scope and execution.

I’ve become a proponent of the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture argument. It seems wrong that there is indeed so much wrong in a city that was once the pinnacle of sophistication and knowledge.

the joys of las vegas

My trip to Las Vegas was mildly disappointing. Too many bright lights, intoxicated white men, a lackluster wedding, and the over-satiated gaudiness of the place all contributed to my antipathy towards returning for a second round. The entire city is a giant conceit composed of its mini-conceits. The first casino’s interesting. It’s all downhill from there. Whether we’re standing in a miniature pyramid or the Eiffel Tower, the gilt, carpeting, and ambience all blends together.

Having actually worried that I would enjoy gambling a bit too enthusiastically before going, I shouldn’t have bothered. Gambling is not terribly fun when you’re extremely averse to losing money. I lost fifteen dollars, but God help me if I had lost any more than that. Maybe I should have tried actually playing at the tables, but the buy-ins were, well…much more than fifteen dollars.

The Rockies were absolutely breathtaking, however. I spent a lot of my time staring at the mountains and wishing I were climbing them. I probably should be more appreciative that people actually built a mecca in the middle of the desert out of neon lights and slot machines, but it’s hard to feel for Las Vegas. Much of it probably has to do with the fact that I’m not a fan of the crowds. Walking on the strip, there is a general crassness about the people. Everyone’s drunk and laughing raucously. Maybe it’s like how teetotalers feel in a room surrounded by drunk people.

A fun lesson I learned in Las Vegas (though not so fun at the time) is that buffets are evil when you want to try everything and when you don’t have much self-control. True, I do have more self-control than I had several years ago. Instead of eating until I can’t move, I merely felt very stuffed. After deluding myself after the first buffet that I would be able to control myself in the future, I ventured into the second buffet a few days later and…presto! Nothing happened. I overate. Yet again.

Still, I’m glad I went. It will probably be the last vacation that I take for a long time. It is nice to spend three days in a place where everyone’s ambling around slowly and having the time of their lives.

my addiction

I suffer from an acute addiction to novels. I don’t read during the year because I know that if I picked up a book and started reading, I wouldn’t be able to stop until 5am…and the next day…and the next week…and the next month. Over the summer, I choose to read instead of watching movies, which is apparently not what the general population does.

Being a book reviewer would probably make me the happiest person in the world (or a photographer for National Geographic), but I can’t even write coherently, let alone elegantly and persuasively. I have immense respect for novelists, because it seems impossible to be able to create people and ideas from nothing, then fixing them on paper. In my eyes, writing nonfiction is less difficult because the idea is already present, and crafting the style requires less subtlety and skill than for fiction.

The best books I’ve read are those which have excellent characters, superb language, and a good to excellent plot. It does seem slightly abnormal to rate plot as the least important of the three (though still very important), but this is also how I approach most things in life.

When I was very young, I started off exclusively reading horror, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham. It was all very straightforward and I got my kicks from the shock, the intrigue, and the violence. I believe this was followed with a brief sci-fi/fantasy period, where spaceships and dragons were what I thought about all day (and being a CIA agent). Fantasy is great for ten-year olds because well…everything is great when you’re ten years old and everything seems so new and exciting. Even though I no longer read espionage novels, the best I have read is Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, which gets a 9 out of 10 for plot and average marks for everything else. Even though I adore British dryness, sarcasm, and literature, Le Carre is just a wee bit too dry and aloof for my taste.

Following the fantasy period was the historical period, Jean M. Auel and Margaret George. I still think that Auel is one of the most, if not the most creative author in fiction. In research, what you really want to do is to take a leap onto something solid or bridge a gap. There’s a mess of disconnected pieces lying around, and Auel comes along and she’s the only person to not only see that they belong to the same puzzle but also which way the pieces fit. Her main characters are amazing and impossible not to empathize with, and her style is solid. On the other hand, Margaret George’s books seem painstakingly researched (I rather think she would make a better historian than author if she’s not already), and her writing falls slightly on the flat side. One aspect of history/fantasy that I never liked was the King Arthur stories. I did not respond positively or negatively to The Once and Future King, The Mists of Avalon, etc. and I don’t know why.

After this, I only read for school, and these were without doubt the best books I’ve read in my life. I had to dissect each one, turn them inside out, break them apart, and put something back together again. When you spend that much time and effort on books, you find yourself on an entirely different plane. I don’t think I’ve done much critical and creative thinking since high school honors english. The two books that I enjoyed the most from that period were 1984 and Candide. I can’t even describe how I felt after reading those two books, which is perfectly fine since thousands of critics have already done it for me.

After high school, I couldn’t go back to reading books just for plot. Character became more important, and I viewed plot as something that was a part of the character. The plot basically revolves around the decisions that people make and their response to events (usually calamities) that happen to them. Essentially, the characters in a novel carry the plot along. If the two are separated or not correctly joined, then it’s a pretty crappy book. That was when I started getting into my humanistic and magic realism period.

During this period, I adored John Irving and Pat Conroy, both because they created such amazing characters, original storylines, gorgeous imagery (Conroy), and virtuoso style (Irving). At the time, I thought that Irving’s novels were so close to perfection, especially The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp. His characters made you think that Irving knew just about everything there was to know about being human and life itself. The only problem with his books was that every climax was anticlimactical. There were usually several climaxes per book, and the ending just felt lifeless by the time I got to it. Conroy’s characters were alive more so than Irving’s, and his writing style was superior, but Irving just had that something that made me think that he was so close to the ideal.

Of course, magic realism followed, which was a combination of humanism, witchcraft, rituals, and miracles. The two authors that I enjoy in this category are Isabelle Allende and Gabriel Gael Marquez. Of the two, Marquez’s novels are more put together, and Allende’s were slightly inconsistent. The ideas were wonderful, and the writing flowed, but there was always something in their books that made me think that there was a piece missing or a chunk that didn’t fit correctly. Moreover, the magic part reminded me of my slight distaste of fantasy. Sci-Fi and fantasy has been bashed over the years and accused of being lower quality then most other novels. In some sense, I think that it’s true. Since fantasy is appreciated mostly for its ingenuity and ideas (as well as generally being written for younger readers), character development and style are sometimes sacrificed.

Since then, I’ve been reading Nick Hornby and Dave Eggers, which I would describe as realism. Their books are a combination of the sad and the poignant and the funny. Essentially, both authors point out the problem with modern life and modern people, but do it in such an uplifting and graceful way. Since I’m an overly enthusiastic fan of sarcasm of any kind, I love Hornby’s matter-of-factness and dryness. I admire how much Hornby can get across in so few words. It’s quite a feat.

I’m now in my Jane Austen/George Eliot phase, which is a mix of extremely clever writing, less emotion, and some history. It’s almost the antithesis of Conroy’s tense emotion and Irving’s melodrama, but nice and balanced, which I enjoy. I’m also attempting to reconnect with my sci-fi/fantasy self of more than ten years ago. However, it’s not going terribly well, seeing as my computer’s almost an extension of myself and there’s nothing intriguing about the matrix and data streams present in sci-fi novels. And I think I’ve just grown out of fantasy.

The two books that I will always go back to are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Those books are the closest physical approximation to the excellence of the human spirit. The sheer magnitude and drive of the ideas and characters wrapped in those two books transcend anything else I’ve ever read. It is the one case in which the ideas in the book are so important that the characters and the style don’t matter. The words just live and breathe on their own. Although I know I will never reach that level of excellence, it’s worthwhile to get a glimpse once in awhile, however fleetingly.

teaching...or something like it

Now that my prelims are over, I can no longer shirk my TAing responsibilities and hide in the topmost corner whenever I skulk into class. Since there's a midterm coming up, I've been wound up at the thought of giving office hours. Considering that the students had a month's head start on me (not to mention an intro class) for learning the material, I freaked myself out. Originally, I was supposed to hold a review session last Friday and freaked myself out in the process (It's what happens when there's nothing at all going on). In class, the professor announced that he'd be holding it...okay...I did a double take and was given a temporary reprieve.

This week, I held 5 total hours of office hours, which is pretty crazy. The first student that walked in had a PhD in EECS and wanted me to prove that certain formulas were equivalent to others and certain approaches could be the same as other approaches and could I please prove all of this. Um. No, I can't. Sorry? I walked into that room, and he whipped out his list of questions. After he asked his first question, I just felt my stomach drop. It's one of those moments when you know that you're falling and that you're just going to keep falling and nothing's going to stop you. Thankfully, he only stayed for half an hour after he became aware of my incompetence.

The other students were nice, and I was able to answer some of their questions (I hope). Today I sat sown with this student that came down from Boston and went through both practice midterms with him, step by step. For someone who can't even concentrate for an hour of lecture, it was intensely tiring. Two hours and some change later, I felt like my brain was going to melt into a puddle in my skull.

Actually being a professor and orating for three hours must be draining beyond belief. Honestly, I can see how people can't get research done when they're teaching. Obviously, teaching a class requires knowing the material and much more. I realized that I knew exactly how much work I've been putting in for the last three weeks (shocker) and not much more. In fact, I probably know as much as the average student in my class. That's not too encouraging, but how much I put in is how much I get out (I'm descending into the valley of triteness).

These executive MBA students are pretty dedicated. Imagine being a VP at some job, being married with kids, and coming to class every other weekend to top it off. Then again, they didn't get to where they are in life without working hard and sacrificing something (sleep, no doubt). The eMBAs are much nicer and less openly aggressive than regular MBAs, who lug around egos the size of a small island and exude an overpowering combination of youth and insecurity. I'm not intimidated by eMBAs when I'm sitting down next to them, but I don't feel like an instructor either. I have a healthy respect for people who got to where they are in life, successful by all counts, by the time that they're thirty. I can only hope to be so lucky.