Bye Bye Uggs

It's been great knowing you since the 9th grade! We shared many camping trips, diving practice, and quick trots to the market in the evening when it was chilly . I will miss you.

My fav holiday here

These photos are old, and I meant to post them earlier. Its actually a different holiday here at the moment....and I'm avoiding going out so I don't get soaked in all the Songkran craziness. But inevitably I had to forage for food or a poolside, and got drenched along the way.

These ladies were setting off the lanterns along the riverside where we dined. Those are not stars behind them in the sky; rather they are other lanterns flying high...

This one was taken with a really slow shutter speed, and this is the moon above us that evening, being centered by ominous looking yet harmless clouds. It was a serene evening. Except for the really drunk Thai people.

This is one of my favorite holidays because the lanterns are so beautiful in the sky but there is something about the way they drift so slowly away and with the lantern, you send away all your doubts, fears, pessimism, and vanity.

Guilty dog video

I love this video. I forgot that dogs can exhibit guilt. I want a dog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ISzf2pryI

the regularness of irregularity

In this small, dust-covered town of Manipur, which fortunately shares the same climate as southern California, power comes on erratically a couple hours a day. And the locals contend that it is the corrupt, semi-autonomous state government's fault, who sells the electricity to their neighboring states, swelling up their personal coffers, and bullying the citizens into submission by ostentatiously driving around in really big military vehicles and flashing their guns. Probably true, but I don't have the time to investigate the facts. Though I have seen the big wheels and big guns. I'm too busy training medics by candle-light. Despite the regularity of having irregular power, the residents still find it alarming when the power goes out abruptly. I am sitting in my guesthouse and I was typing away and enjoying using the wireless modem on AC mode when the lights flickered out and a roar of human distraught/comedy wailed through town, and in through my window, to my amusement. The noise resembled something like a cross between a wail made by a crowd of eager futbol fans whose team just missed a goal and a moan coming from a group of boys who just witnessed a girl's dress fly up in the wind. Odd. That after so many years of consistent disruption in their lives, that they still react. And now there is a silence that cuts through this town, which is quickly replaced by generators working hard to provide a steady white noise for me to fall gently asleep to....Good night.

lover

i wish my lover is thinking of me right now and calls me soon.

moon cakes

Recently the mid-autumn full moon festival happened. I unfortunately missed it by a week when I was in Shanghai. However, I did partake in the gearing up for the full moon festival, which all really started for me when I was at the Starbucks in Bangkok a few weeks back. There, at the checkout counter, were moon cakes for sale with the Starbucks logo imprinted on top (usually, they have a pretty floral design or some other symbol that I am too ignorant to know the significance of). My instinct was to purchase the moon cake and consume it happily, but was taken aback by how expensive one pastry was (100 baht. When one is accustomed to spending 30 baht for lunch, that ~$3 is like sticker shock). Had I known that the moon cake actually weighs something in the order of two pounds, I would have reconsidered. Luckily for me, I went straight to the source (China) and bought a shoebox load and gleefully brought them back to Thailand for all my coworkers to enjoy. Unfortunately, the one I ate from China wasn't all that (booo!) so I went straight to Tesco and bought the most expensive one. Why was it so expensive? Because it was Durian moon cake. Only in Thailand. Unfortunately again, my moon cake did not live up to my expectation. In case you don't know, Durian is a peculiar fruit which half the population love and half hate. I'm in the latter camp, and that is because it smells like fart and tastes like fart. And when I eat it, I wretch, and then I break out in hives and my throat starts to close shut. I should have just bought the Starbucks moon cake. There's always next year....

(moon cakes are filled with a paste like yummy filling, and a hard boiled egg yolk)

Random updates 2010

How do we expect people to think critically about
public health problems if they've only learned to be functionally literate?

We've got way too many male squash flowers.

Children see in black in white, adults see in grey tones.

When will I be able to commit to having my own pet dog?

See photo of my spelunking: