The Kindness of Strangers

When it comes to politics, I’m pretty much insanely liberal. Green-Party-liberal, although I’m not an official member.

So if you read my LJ, you should also read lots of thought-provoking articles like this one.

For some reason I like video clips of people dancing. Remember the last one I posted? This one is equally impressive — a little less crazy, perhaps, but also a lot more cohesive.

One of life’s coincidences: as far as I can tell, one of the guys who played bass on Vienna Teng’s album was also on my Ultimate team in Boston during the summer of 2001. Go Jacob!

In a (chronological) nutshell: birthday dinner, Ruby Skye, Telepopmusik, soccer, another birthday dinner, pool hall, Vienna Teng, dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (thanks Jen!). Vienna was awesome, and I’m already waiting in anticipation for her next show. And, of course, happy birthday to Umesh, Michelle, and Ray.

Could I be less motivated? Probably not. Advisor stuff isn’t going so well, and TAing, usually pretty fun, is now becoming a chore. We’re giving a midterm this week, which means an extra review session, the usual two sections and two office hours, extra time to do and proofread the test, administering it Thursday night, and then grading it starting at 8am on Friday morning. Ouch. Hopefully things will get better next week.

I can’t figure out what I’d regret more two decades from now: working a lot in grad school but missing out on all of the fun that comes with being in my twenties, or having a great time but just getting by academically. Professionally, of course, the first choice sounds best, but I think too often we go down that road because it “makes sense” and end up forgetting about the existential pain that comes with trying too hard and realizing that you’ve not really accomplished anything at all. Or maybe I’m just rationalizing my decadent lifestyle :).

Vienna Teng is alternately inspiring and depressing: she was a CS major at Stanford and then a software engineer before dropping it all to do music full time. Of course, that’s what I’d love to do (or at least study biology…) but then she’s so good and I’m not, and it’s around this point in my thought process that the sobering fact hits me that for most people life is a tradeoff between what you’re good at and what you want do to. It’s not like I haven’t come to this conclusion a thousand times before; I think I’m just getting more frustrated about it this time around :).

Oh yeah, in my last entry I was trying to describe what life here is like. A typical week: a day or two of soccer, volleyball, ultimate or tennis; classes; TAing; typically one late night doing work; several sessions of table tennis (I’m totally addicted); playing lots of guitar; an hour or two on the weekend of piano or drums; one night at a bar or club, one night in SF, and one night playing games (Taboo, etc.); an IHouse-wide coffee hour on Wednesday night; occasional trips to the RSF; a huge amount of time spent chatting or gossiping late into the night. It sounds fun, and it really is — I just feel so aimless sometimes.

I guess one of those “sometimes” is right now, hence the depressed tone. How boring would my LJ be if I were always happy, though? Trying to make things entertaining, that’s all :)…

Well the DDOS hit me pretty hard: I didn’t realize how compulsively I checked LJ (at least a couple of times a day) until I couldn’t anymore. Yes, I’m an addict. That’s how much you guys mean to me :).

International House is nestled at the bottom of the Berkeley hills, so from my room (fourth floor) I have a pretty good view of downtown Oakland. Today there’s just the right amount of haze for the setting sun to illuminate the whole city in a kind of otherworldly glow. At this minute it’s as much Camelot as it is Oak-town. Funny how anything can look good in the right setting.

I resolved not to bore you with my quotidian goings-on, although I must say it’s really tempting to do so. You see, otherwise I’ll have to think when I write these things. And we all know I’m too lazy for that :).

Regardless, instead I’ll try to give you an idea of the bigger things that matter in the life of an unmotivated yet soul-searching Berkeley grad student.

It all really centers around International House. There’s no question that IHouse been the defining influence on my experience here so far. The propaganda says that it’s the first coeducational, multi-racial dormitory west of New York City, which is pretty cool. It’s an amazingly integrated environment: half guys, half girls; half Americans, half foreign students; half undergrads and half grad students. It’s a safe bet to say I’ve learned more about the world in the last six months than I did in four years of high school history classes. The first things you notice about foreign students are all differences — difference senses of humor, different methods of greeting (no one, really no one outside the U.S. has any idea how to respond to “What’s up?”), different clothing styles, different political viewpoints.

But we’re all young adults and culture can only separate us to a limited degree. Slowly you begin to tease out the similarities: academic ambition (it is Berkeley, after all), love of parties, knowledge of the Beatles, penchant for late-night conversation marathons, obsession with gossip and relationships. People are people, of course, and I’m not saying anything new; for me the revelation was not in the knowledge that we’re all in it together, but the actual experience, the kind of jaw-dropping I’m really doing this feeling that arises when I find myself sitting at the dinner table with people from a dozen different countries discussing the latest Coldplay album or whether six degrees of separation really holds for the whole world.

There are three additional factors that make IHouse so awesome. The first is that people are, in general, amazingly fluent in English. Ridiculously fluent. Good-at-Taboo fluent. Six years of French classes left me with a vague ability to comprehend Georges Moustaki lyrics, whereas most of my friends here who started learning English in sixth grade have no problem arguing complex issues with me. It’s humbling :). The second is the mandatory meal plan. The food isn’t so hot (but it’s improved dramatically since the start of this semester), but the dining hall is a terrific place to meet new people. I can’t count the number of times a quick half-hour dinner has turned into a ninety-minute talk-fest. The last reason is that people who are willing to live in such a diverse environment tend to be really, really nice. I’ve learned as much about being a good person (still a long way to go, of course…) as I have about anything else here.

And, for the first time, I’m considering what it might be like to not live in the US the rest of my life…. I would never have even dreamed of it before.

More stuff later. Gotta go out to a dinner birthday party now. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to mention any stuff like that!

Well, I’ve got to start doing work again today, so it’s back to the ol’ LJ :).

Even though I ended up not going to Tahoe at the last minute (various cancellations and confusions), and even though as a result most of my friends here were partying on the lake while I was at home, I still managed to get no work done this weekend.

Friday night I went with a bunch of friends to see a Berkeley showing of Punch-Drunk Love. I saw it last year but it’s a great movie and I really enjoyed seeing it again. Just the right amount of quirkiness to keep it endearing. And everyone knows I’m a sucker for romantic comedies anyway. Then after that (with a slightly rearranged group of friends) we headed down to Rockridge for a party. We got there around 1am, I think, only to discover that the party really sucked. It was way too crowded and hot, the music was terrible and no one was dancing. I wasn’t in a mood for shmoozing, and the lack of dancing put me off, so we headed home about half an hour later. Well, the walk itself took about 35 minutes (with a sweet Safeway run along the way), but it was a nice night.

Saturday I lazed around till the evening when I joined Umesh and Co. for dinner in San Francisco followed by Dave Chappelle at the Warfield. He was really funny, although I think the opening dude (don’t remember his name) was even funnier, and did some incredibly spot-on impressions.

Okay this is getting boring… (why do I always get bored halfway through LJ entries? I’m lacking stamina…)

Anyway Sunday morning, assisted by the Danish girls, I joined Umesh & Friends once again for a hike up Mt. Tam. It was supposed to rain all day but miraculously everything cleared up and it was gorgeous. We took a lot great pictures, some of which I’ll post here when I get them. Then we went out to Stinson Beach to relax, munch on some food, and unwind. I came back so refreshed that I took a nap right after dinner :).

Today I’m supposed to do work, okay? Except it’s already midafternoon and I’ve done everything but. I swear I’ll start soon. Oh yeah, I’m basically over my little illness, except for some reason I still can’t wear my contacts. I think I’m going to chuck my current pair and try again this evening.

I realized that I kind of mention all these random things I’m doing but give no idea of what my day-to-day life is like. Maybe I’ll talk about that next time. I know all you guys back home are eager to hear even more minutiae from me, heh.

Congrats to Nicole and Sergio, btw ;)…

So now it’s nearly 2am and I’m just about losing it. But I figured I better update this thing now before it’s too late.

As usual, the last two weeks have been a blur of work and play. Work hit me especially hard this week, as all my homework assignments and T.A. duties and advisor-finding-plans were in phase and swamped me at the same time. A lot of late nights.

Last weekend was quite a whirlwind. Saw Morcheeba at the Warfield on Friday night with six friends. Front row, baby. It was a terrific show; they have so many catchy tunes it’s ridiculous. I had a great time dancing and singing myself hoarse for two hours. Saturday afternoon I got to play soccer for a couple of hours. That night we (me and three of my neighbors) threw a big party. Well, we meant for it to be big, but it became huge really quickly. Over a hundred people showed up, and we ran out of alcohol really quickly. The cool thing was that we had each of our rooms tuned to a different kind of music so you could pick the style you wanted to dance to and go with it. I think my room varied between Swede-pop (Abba, Roxette), Hip-hop (Beastie Boys, Outkast, De La Soul), and chill-out music (Morcheeba again, Thievery Corporation, etc.). Despite the booze shortage, it was a ton of fun.

Somewhere in there, though, I got sick. I used to never get sick, right? At least I thought so. But something about California has made me susceptible. I started out with red eyes, a sore throat, and a stuffy nose, and by today I’ve progressed to a (very annoying) cough. I better recover by this weekend!

… which is going to be kick-ass. Actually I was going to go to Tahoe tomorrow till Saturday afternoon with about 30 IHouse people but that may fall through. Saturday night I’m going with Umesh and friends to SF to see Dave Chappelle, a comedian. Sunday we’re going to hike up Mt. Tam.

This is turning out to be a great season for shows. Some upcoming ones I’m planning on attending:
feb 21 telepopmusik
feb 23 vienna teng (right, jen? :)
mar 6 royksopp
mar 19 audioslave
mar 20 electrix 6 and d4
mar 22 the music, the vines
mar 23 supergrass, the coral
apr 1 idlewild
apr 8 sigur ros
apr 19 richard shindell
may 28 coldplay

There’s that killer period right around spring break during which I might actually go to four shows in five days. I don’t think I’ll have the stamina :). But if you’re in the SF area and are interested in any of the concerts, send me an email and we’ll go together!

It seems like this journal is less a spot for interesting ruminations and more a tedious archive of the things I do. Perhaps that’s because at some level I’m writing it for myself…. I can internalize my thoughts on things but it’s good to glance back and remember some of the stuff I’ve experienced.

Hey, today is Valentine’s Day, and I guess there’s a certain amount of rumination that goes along with it, Hallmark-induced or otherwise. It’s interesting to be single on Valentine’s Day. Of course, you’re acutely aware of your dating status (but then again when aren’t you? you think about it all the time, anyway), but you also get to witness the more awkward moments of dating, as couples try extra hard to define their relationships — even if it involves a break-up, fighting, or whatever. I guess Valentine’s Day is more about reinforcement than it is about love.

… although as far as I can remember, the Valentine’s Days I’ve had while dating people have been universally happy. I guess a couple of my friends have just been unlucky this year.

I really get the feeling I’m rambling or something. Probably has something to do with that 6:30am bedtime last night. I swear I had something engaging to say about Valentine’s Day and relationships and blah blah but it’s slipped my mind. Actually it feels like my mind itself has slipped and fallen over somewhere. Good night!

Sorry, I’m just too tired to write anything coherent now. Was up till 6:30 this morning doing work. Going to Tahoe Friday till Saturday, Dave Chappelle Saturday night, Mt. Tam Monday. More later.

In the meanwhile, read this interview with Tom Morello in Rolling Stone.

For those of you keeping track, last night I said I was going to do work at a quarter to nine. For the record, it’s now 13 hours, a pre-party, a party, a post-party, and a 3:30am bedtime later, and I’ve done absolutely no work at all.

Man, it was really fun, but now I’m in deep shizzizzle, as Snoop Dogg might say. Woe is me.

Despite my best intentions, I’m back to my usual journal-writing habits: an update every couple of weeks, right before I’m about to start doing any real work.

I guess I would write more often if I actually did real work more often but, alas, that is not the case :).

School’s started and I’m slowly readjusting. I’m taking three real classes and they’re all quite boring, one because the lecturer is bad, the second because I know 70% of the material already but really want to know the last 30%, and the last because although the subject, computational biology, seems like it might be interesting, I don’t know enough about it to make sense of the material. So I’m probably going to drop one of them… most likely the last one because it meets at 9:30am.

I’m thinking of taking a couple of de-cal courses too. De-cals are classes organized and taught by students, so they cover a dizzying array of subjects, most of them interesting. I think it’s a pretty cool idea. Anyway, I’m probably going to take two of DJing 101, Conundrums and Paradoxes (we just work on puzzles during each meeting), and Hitchhike the Galaxy (read and analyze the books by Douglas Adams; although I’ve probably read them more times that the course instructors have, it still seems like a fun time).

I’m also TAing again, this time for CS172, the 121 equivalent. I realized that I like teaching a lot, and that I care what my students think of me. I’ve resolved to try harder this semester than I did last time — for the last month or so of last semester I didn’t use any notes at all — and to improve my student evaluation score. My goal is to get a 4.7/5.0 overall rating, and actually feel like I’ve had a positive impact on my kids.

(Btw, I find myself calling my students “kids”, even though they’re probably a year or two younger than me. Weird, but it feels natural.)

So this is important. The fact that I care even though it has absolutely no impact on my graduate career — I still get paid the same, and student evaluations have absolutely no effect on the road to a Ph.D. — has made me think more about teaching as a profession. I still doubt that I have the skills, motivation and intelligence to be a researcher at a big-time university, but maybe teaching at a good undergraduate-centric school like Harvey Mudd would be cool. Something to think about.

I’m still searching for funding and for an advisor, and all the other usual graduate school woes. But at least I’ve been having a good time. Saw Dan Bern in concert, went to a bunch of parties, got a new table tennis bat (the Stiga Ultra, for $40 the best low-end model you can get, but nothing really compared with the $150+ bats that most of the guys with whom I play use), played cricket for the first time, went to Haight Street and Alcatraz (beautiful… too bad they built a prison on it), and watched the first series of The Office, a hilarious British fake documentary. Hung out with Wing and Jen one day; we went to Muir Woods and Stinson Beach before coming back to Berkeley for dinner. It was one of the most relaxing, happy days I’ve ever had — it’s a wonder what good friends can do for you. I remember in particular sitting with them on a high cliff overlooking the ocean as the sun set and the breeze played coolly over the rocks. Just magical.

Anyway, the album’s over and now Mother Love Bone is playing… a very different feel. I think it’s time to do work.