The Curse

I remember waking up every morning in 3rd grade and my first thought being, "I wonder if the Celtics won last night?" At that point in my life we didn't have cable, so I couldn't watch any Celtic home games just the away games on UPN and even then I wasn't usually allowed to stay up to watch them. So every morning I'd wake up and take a superstitious walk downstairs to the kitchen making sure to hit each step just right. I'd sit down at the kitchen table, yank out the Boston Globe sports section, and take a peek.

That year was their worst year in history I believe, 15-67. Their coach was ML Carr, starting center was Eric Montross, power forward was Dino Radja he led the team in scoring, small forward was Rick Fox (although it might have also been Eric Williams I think), shooting guard was usually Dee Brown, and the starting point was David Wesley. That was the team. It was before the antics of Antoine Walker, before Paul Pierce hogging the ball, before KG and Ray Allen made being a Celts fan cool again.

Yet, I also wonder if my undying faith in the Celtics was also related to their drought. The last championship the Celtics won was in 1986, the year I was born. I used to believe that I was going to be the savior for this historic team. They'd get continually farther away from their glorious past until David Wang brought them back towards the light. But now I'm wondering if perhaps it was the opposite. I was what brought the curse upon the Celts. In '87 they made it to the championship game again, but lost to the Lakers. And after that there was one anomalous appearance in the Eastern Championship, and a lot of painful playoff-less years. And now, I'm here in Beijing, and when I'm in the States I spend most of my time in LA (who took a turn for the worst after my arrival I might include), and those Celts are incredible. 19-2 and undefeated at home! I remember hating Jordan and the Bulls for having that kind of record.

So I wonder, am I the curse? Did my faith in the 15-62 team encourage that kind of performance? And upon my leave, the Celtics took their chance to regain glory? Aiya, I probably shouldn't go back after Beijing. But what a year to live in Boston. Red Sox have already won their championship, and the Celts and Pats are on their way. The last time things were like this was a long time ago, 1986.

the other abroad experience

Last night I went out to $7 all-you-can-eat/all-you-can-drink sushi. I'll say right now that it was a great deal. It wasn't only sushi and beer, but also deep-fried chicken, edamame, salad, etc. etc. etc. and it was all made to order, none of that bacteria-filled hot plate bullshit. But that's all unimportant, you'll find that surprisingly good value (when measured with the American dollar) is everywhere you go in China, 到处可见。

What IS important is who I was eating with and how much fun it was. (Now before I continue, I'd like to first state for the record that I like ACC, I think it's the best study abroad language program in the world, and that I've had a delightful, albeit painful, experience there.) After accepting an invitation from a friend at ACC to hike all the way across town to meet up with her college friend at Qinghua University, I found myself sitting down with about 20 strangers at one of those Japanese tables where they make you take off your shoes and there's paper walls surrounding you should you ever have the urge to start taking notes or something. Surrounding the table were what I imagine are a group of your more typical study abroad students doing what the more typical study experience might encompass.

There were a bunch of Australian-Chinese, a British-Chinese girl, a hilarious dude from the Netherlands, a Bible-toting Tennessee-er, some Japanese girls, Korean girls, my ACC friend and her friend, and me. To be honest we were all strangers, it's just these Qinghua students had had a semester to get used to it. Everyone was just so goddamn curious, happy, and fun. I'm never good at describing reality, so I'll just say that I found myself laughing more than I have for the past six months in Beijing as the Australian/British-Chinese all made fun of the the guy from Tennessee and the Dutch guy because "white people would never dare to suck a fish head." I nearly doubled over when the Dutch guy began to describe some food saying that it was like "an angel pissing in your mouth." (Apparently a direct translation from Dutch.) Then I did double over when a couple Australian guys began betting on whether or not the Tennessee guy could catch a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. And somewhere between the smiles and laughs, I managed to have some really interesting conversations with the Australian girl, my friend's friend, and the Dutch guy.

I know I didn't describe that right. The ability escapes me and I apologize. I have never been one for telling stories, the gene is probably absent in my family line. But the point I want to make is that, I regret not being able to have this kind of study abroad experience. The kind where you CAN speak english, but you still are meeting amazing people from around the world. Maybe I just like Australian accents too much or something, but I think I missed out on a lot by not being able to meet the motley groups students that many study abroad programs entail.

Concerning our future.

We're all gonna die.

bookin'

me and my teacher, fang dong, at a water park

So I'm reading a book.

Always have been jealous of those who perpetually have a book that they're in the midst of reading. Those who faithfully chip away at a daunting list of "Books to read" which grows at a geometric rate. (I know it as the Inverse-Malthusian Theory).

At first I thought it was just cool. I remember some girls once talking about how "cute" (the sexy "cute" not the emasculating demeaning one) it was that one of my friends always had a book popping out of his back pocket as he walked through our high school corridors. But, I couldn't even find the self-discipline to carry a book around as an accessory much less open the thing.

It's not that I don't like reading, it's just that I'm guilty of... oh what's that sin again? ... Gluttony, that's right. I'm guilty of gluttony. If I'm gonna eat, then why not eat till a little past full. Sleeping? Take that extra hour(s). Reading? Devour the book in an hour. I don't pace myself, can't stand it. It's not that I continually am transgressing, however I am prone to the sin known as gluttony I suppose.

The problem is, I read s l o w l y

Thus, I need I a lot of time to gluttonize a book. I need a good three days of concentration to gulp it all down. It's not like watching a Full House marathon where time is measured out for ya. You allot the time for yourself. So I gluttonize the time and the book.

And I don't like being a sinner. In fact, knowing that I'm prone to gluttony, I overcompensate by making spartan like goals and schedules for myself. My 2nd semester of college, I rose as the bell struck 6 in the morn' to go jogging simply because I was killing the demon within me. So, with books, I'd love to read my eyes out, but it's just too wasteful. I consuming too much time is dangerous. In fact, I'm willing to bet large quantities of time is the number one cause of death amongst 99% of all species, and we still have no cure! (The 1% probably being the incredible number of domesticated livestock who die by the proverbial "blade" as opposed to nature's clock.) So I'm not the well-read scholar who scans pages with a glance of the fingers and throws the book into the pile labeled "Memorized." (But I do tuck I a small pedigreed paperback in alongside my wallet from time to time.)

So I'm reading a book now. Wish I had time to do it more. But then again I also wish I had more time to sleep, more time to think, and more time to have more time too, so where does that leave me.

In other news, I'm procrastinating even when I have nothing to do. At least that's how I feel. Not healthy, David. Not healthy.

OK. A question that's been on my mind for quite a long time now: Are we all born with different energy levels?

I'd say this question arose from its latency about the time I went to Pomona. After the first semester of college adrenaline wore off, I found myself taking naps, procrastinating, and just generally feeling tired. But then I began to notice that there were these people, and they just don't stop. I mean it's not just that they'd pull all nighters, but they'd be happy the next day too. There was even this one girl (and I have noticed without any real statistic data keeping that the majority of the supercharged people have been female) who stayed up 72 hours straight and smiled the whole time!

So what is it?

I find it interesting that these Energizer Bunnies seem more prevalent amongst the college students than they did in high school. Is this one of those correlations of success along with IQ, economic status, and all that other stuff? It'd make sense, right?

But more importantly how do they do it? If I'm tired, I can't work, I can't think, I'm useless, I'm unhappy, etc. Are they simply just better at putting their fatigue in the backs of their minds? Or have they trained their minds to be stronger? Or were they born with it?

And were those great people, those people we all like to look up to for their accomplishments, amazing thoughts, and contributions to society, did they have an endless supply of spinach too?

You always gotta write something when something is done

4th year students and teachers

So I graduated from ACC. I got a nice diploma with my Chinese and English names on it to prove the hell that I went through. But despite getting up at 6 AM every morning, despite studying thousands of Chinese characters, despite it all, I already miss the ACC life. There's something reassuring in knowing what your're doing, why you're doing it, and where it's taking you. But now all those short but big questions are creeping back out and their shadows are once again obscuring clarity. Already.

Thoreau wrote, "Simplify. Simplify. Simplify!... Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose."

I write, "Elevate your life by simplifying your purpose."

I have a friend who before I left told me, "I hope you change a lot while you're abroad." At the time I feigned being offended. (Who likes being told that they need to change?) But in my heart I agreed. I hoped I would change too.

So here I am. I'm picturing myself stepping off the plane- the plane that just took me miles from the six months I spent in Beijing. I step off wearing my black, Italian-style, fitted suit, leather shoes, a black dress shirt, no tie, sunglasses, and a look of confidence. My head's shaved like my little brother's. Maybe even a little smirk because I know that I've got a tattoo on my upper back that nobody can see.

But what is change?

Change is a noticeable difference between two points in time. But I'm beginning to believe that we've all got this core that is unchangeable. Or maybe I'm just not capable of changing it. Sure I've changed, I have more knowledge and less hair, more languages and less words, more friends and less time for them all, more experiences. But then again it's always like that. Do we ever change or are we always in the constant progression of life?

We come and go. It must all look so random from the bird's eye view. We meet to part and part to meet.

Yammin'

It's cold in Beijing. Everyday the temperature hovers above freezing so that you just kinda wish it'd freeze already. Thankfully, my apartment has heating now, but when you're walking around Beijing your breath always floats a few feet in front of your eyes and everyone has that winter chin tuck that you only really know about if you're from a cold place. It's kind of like Boston.

But Beijing knows how to do cold better than Boston. On almost every block there's a tam vendor. He has this iron barrel on the back of his three-wheeled bike thing, and uses it as a roaster of sorts. He parks (probably illegally) by the sidewalk and warms the vicinity with the toasted aroma of yams. There's a lot of things to smell in Beijing, not many of them pleasant, but I think we all know that the smell of roasting yams on a cold winter day is three steps away from heaven but two away from gluttony. This is the smell that every Advent season should be saturated with. Lysol should makes this scent. New car smell? Forget it.

And the best is in those precious moments when the Yam man (or woman) bikes past with her portable roaster and the smell graces the olfactory senses for a brief but all the more warming moment.

Classical Chinese

me and one of my (very cute) teachers after ACC's "China Night" presentation on Fri night

Supposedly our curriculum is split into four different classes each semester. We supposedly have a media/news class, modern chinese, and some other stuff, but in reality each day is just another string of four chinese classes all based on the same text. The distinction is there, some weeks we watch movies or TV programs, but in terms of rhythm of life, there is little difference.

However, there is one class that throws adds a little snare to the otherwise onerous drum set that is ACC. Classical Chinese is ridiculous. Every now and then, sometimes once a week sometimes twice, the teachers throw in a little Classical Chinese instead of a third straight class of grammar/vocab practice (read: torture). However, Classical Chinese, while undeniably a departure from monotony, is not quite a departure from the mundane tedium. Yet, I've found nuggets of starlight nestled between the characters of these ancient texts.


The first thing you need to know about Classical Chinese (which I'm going to stop capping henceforth) is that it's another language. Remember reading Shakespeare or perhaps Dante in translation? That was usually tough but understandable with the footnotes right? Classical chinese is like that, but every single word has a footnote, grammar is even more fluid than regualr Chinese, a single character can have one or two pronunciations and multiple meanings, and some characters have no specific meaning whatsoever. And so as I walked into my classical chinese final this morning, how did I prepare? I just memorized it all. We had five texts on the final, and I made a branding iron with out of them and burnt it into my cerebellum or whatever part of the brain neurologists believe short-term memory is located. I say short-term because, unlike skin, branding on seems to be less permanent. As I write this entry moments after my final, I can already see the smoke clearing and the imprints fading.

Anyhow, I memorized the translations (I say translation because classical chinese and modern chinese are exactly that, two different languages albeit they use the same pictographs). But what really helps is understanding the story. Those ancient chinese philosophers... aiya! They were crazy, but oh so funny!

One of the texts is about this guy who is in love (the character used is "ai" which in modern chinese means "to love" but in classical chinese means "to like", I prefer the former) with the monkeys he's raising. He can understand their language, and gives them everything their little hearts desire. But b/c of this he ends up spending all his cash on his little monkey gang, and has to start rationing. But he's scared of the monkeys' reaction. So he tells them, "I'll give you guys three bananas (actually the translation is some kind of acorn, but we all know modern monkeys eat bananas) in the morning, and four bananas at night, is that enough?" And the monkeys, who are lounging in luxury, jump to their feet and start screeching and howling in anger. Then this monkey-lover guy endures for a while and says, "OK,OK, OK. I'll give you FOUR bananas in the morning, and THREE bananas at night, alright?" And the monkeys all settle down, and start lounging again.

Hilarious? Yes. And this little story boils down to a modern day Chinese saying, "Morning Three, Night Four" which is used to describe inconsistency.

The other stories are just as trippy if not more.

ACC 的一天 (Pt. 1)

This is as authentic a representation of the program I've been enrolled in for the past 6 months. It's packed full of inside jokes, but hopefully still find it amusing.

My roommate and I made it for our China Night presentation. It's a little long so I had to split it into two parts. The second part is below.

ACC 的一天 (Pt. 2)