Yikes!

I was blogging when it happened. The earthquake.

The floor started to jiggle, windows made scary creaky noises, the glass doors of my bookshelf flung themselves open and figurines toppled on top of one another. I have to admit, i don't like it when the earth quivers. I mean come on, something must stay still, right? Anyway, i thought i should do something, like stand against a nice still structure, or dart underneath my table, but instead i went into my kitchen! I dunno why, possibly because the animated bookshelf scared me, and i had nowhere to go. Then, about a few seconds later, i realized i must protect my laptop, so i mustered up some courage (usually i am transfixed during the shakes) and closed my comp. :)

Huh! But on the flip side, i heard that some seismographic study groups would take advantage of this one to usher their earthquake (The big one) awareness campaign this year. So i guess someone is happy.

I thought i should be with people and thus went to school. There i found that my new office was already cleaned and painted! Unbelievable! I called yesterday to make sure that it happens by 31st. Our (rightfully) shocked secretary said, "This is a first, Dr. X!" Now i am strongly suspecting that someone over there has a crush on me. It is either that or my name carries more weight than i thought. haha.

Well, since life can be so unpredictably topsy-turvy, i wanted to balance it by something predictably sweet. By that i mean, young coconuts. So i went to Whole Foods. Oh! I found a bobbing baby on a cart and he was oh-so cute! I found him again upstairs, and this time he noticed me and gave the most beautiful toothless smile. My knees buckled almost. I waved at him and he kept smiling. Next i went into some stacked boxes as i steered my cart while looking backward. Eeeks! Oh man! I need a baby. Je pense. Que dites-vous, monsieur jones? :-P

When the voice of the silent touches my words

Sometimes i think words are nothing but bubbles of thoughts. Bubbles that cannot help but rise above and in doing so let you breathe. Then there are times when you are above your thoughts, and breathing becomes purfunctory; indeed you forget that you even exist. And that's when you fly.

Votre voix, yeux d'émeraudes
Sa tendit mon rêve
Et je rêve d'un voyage à la lumière
Au-dessous du nuage

Seulement se rentrer dedans.

Encore une fois

C'est le 27 juillet.

My dad asked me to call him on this day, always.

Your absent thoughts know no intention
Playing, are you
With the universe
O divine child

Allo papa, peux-tu écouter moi? Tu me manques beaucoup, toujours.

Of unstoppable forces and immovable objects

Hmm, i think i wanted to say something, wait, i can't remember what! Kinda sleepy after that long shower following the killer boot camp class, yikes...

Oh right! The Dark Knight, that's what i wanted to muse about tonight. Me and c went to see it last night and boy were we surprised to see the turnout on a Wednesday night nonetheless! Boys and men everywhere! Grumpily we settled for the fifth row seats in the front. But the film was quite satisfying. Ah oui! I am happy to report that i rather relished it barring a few overly techno intrusions (such as the sonor snooping, ahh, it made me dizzy!) and some scenes that included Chirstian Bale's unmasked face. Lol. The only time he redeemed his model walk, his expressionless face and passionless intimacy (what the hell was the let me see if i can kiss with one hand in my pocket stunt about?) was in that prison cell scene with the Joker. The scene almost gave me goosebumps, ce qui je peux dire, it was like watching a Paso Doble, and trying to decide who was the cape and and who was the bullfighter. Yumm!

Loved the script and the storyline, particularly the play on social consciousness :-P, and of course the actions, oh baby! Nice work Chris Nolan, and what lines! I particularly liked Joker's (Why so serious? is just one beautiful example) and Mr. Butler's lines, hehe...and i was this close to falling for the district attorney dude, who knew Aaron Eckhart had that in him! And Heath, oh i am so gonna miss Heath :(

Ok, back to petite moi. After the movie, we came back to my apartment and chatted until late at night, about this and that. Lol, by that i mean, men. C tried her best to give me her objective opinion of mr jones situation, but ended up shaking her head, and saying "And all this (gesturing at my body with her hands, but i am sure she included my mind, lol), are you gonna let all this just sit idle as you wait for god knows how long?" Haha, funny!

Sure, i can pick up a suitable man. There are aplenty for one who is easy on the eye. Sorry, but men are visual. And people have been bugging me about it, trying to match me up with suitors, but i know i would regret it. So, what's the point, really?

Sigh.

On the other hand, we have the case of Andrew Wiles who spent 7 years proving Fermat's last theorem, which is rather a non-existence theorem. It informs one of stuff that are just not doable. I wonder if i am headed for mine, and if the margin is wide enough.

Une luciole dans la lanterne en verre

I have been avoiding you, my dear. I apologize. But you see, i had too much on my mind; muddled confused splinters of thoughts hitting me in every way possible. Depuis j'ai regardé ce film le samedi dernier.

Not like it was the first time i watched it. But it was the first time since mr. jones.

Sigh. Every doomed affair has a story to tell, and i call it doomed as that's what it is en les yeux de la société with the so-called obstacles like ours. It cannot go anywhere. It will predictably falter by stepping on its own shackles even before it learns how to take baby steps. Doomed, cursed, star-crossed tales, from the Shakespearean era to that of the Jack Twists and Ennis del Mars, ah, we face them aplenty, don't we?

Truth is that we create our own paths just by being who we are, insomuch as it becomes unfair to call the society or the star a co-creator. Je pense.

I guess i am disturbed and equally amazed by the reflections i saw in the film. Of us. Indeed since then i thought of many a stories i read and instantly knew my role. Hopeless dreamer, eternal optimist, unflinchingly unconflicted. Ah, how shamelessly me! One with my dream, and together we are invincible, and no, it's not a dream of a rosy future and all that, non, c'est rien comme la vie rouge, but to be one with the one. Opposite me, stands my destiny, ma raison d'être, guardedly hopeful, singularly focused yet eternally conflicted, ever tormented mr jones. Ah the pain of wanting something so much and not letting yourself have it! I guess i would never know what it takes to play his role.

But underneath that calm exterior of mine lies untamed current of many knots, oh so many knots, tying and untying me in fashions tumultuous until it consumes me. And i know with most certainty that i will be, and i am fighting my best to untangle. Treading currents i am, in my want to be one with him; currents unforgivable and dangerous. Dangerously unpredictable. Sometimes i choke and my confused lungs gasp for clarity and peace. At times, i can't take it any more, i want to give up - just drown and be done with.

Sigh. That is until i see his pain. Une luciole dans la lanterne en verre! And i pledge anew, My love, i shall live for thee.

Um, oops!

Er, i dunno what happened last night, all i can remember is that i was not on my best behavior. LOL. Who would'a thunk that being sleepy could be as unhinging as being drunk on liquor! So yeah, i suppose i was quite an eyeful, but hey, too late to recant now.

So when i woke up this morning i decided to be uber sober the whole day. I started by reading some Fitzgerald, followed by a 1.5 hour convo with C that included a lot of laughs, some pep-talk (from me to her, lol, i suppose that's what you do after tenure), a discourse on true meaning and form of yoga (i think i completely changed her outlook! oops!), my french prof (lol, c'est dommage que vous ne pouvez pas voir ce blog ou écouter nos conversations), where to find good dance studios (and that how hard it is to let go of that urgency to lead!). Unfortunately she has to finish a paper and can't go see Dark Knight with me today :( This was followed by me pretending to be revising a paper (or two), and doing some french devoirs.

Presently i am getting ready to go to my Belly dancing class. I know, slightly deviating from that sober path i am, but it's just an innocent form of exercise! Yeah right! Innocent my foot! The whole idea is based on how to entice your audience, prance prance, wave, shimmy shake! I don't mean to sound sexist, but there is a man in my class, and it's kinda funny cause it's a class where you shake, shimmy and wave, per exemple, of lower middle and upper body parts, ensemble ou seulement. So like for an upper body shake, what's that poor guy gotta do, i mean really..sorry, it's just bloody ridiculous!

Also, for penance i am feeding myself some bitter melon at lunch (haha are you fuckin kidding me, i love bitter melons!) Ahhh, someone stop the rambunctious R, i am losing my mind here.

A monsieur J.

From Saint T to me by way of you,

"As the storm still seeks its end in peace
when it strikes against peace with all its might,
even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love
and still its cry is
I want thee, only thee"

Et je vous comprends, fiez-vous à moi, mon amour chéri.

Un jeudi l'après-midi

After a gentle nudge from the editor yesterday, i have embarked upon the revision of my twin articles, although my mind is likely somewhere else. Actually it's in a roaming mode. Between Fitzgerald's Tender is the night and C Skyes' A Nation of Victims and i believe what i will eventually name The Saga of One Monsieur Jones. Lol.

Jokes aside, what he said the other night has put me in the thinking mode. Not L's kind of thinking, but R's. I have been reminded of one of my most favorite novels on the earth. Written by my Best friend forever (of all my silent friends), who many think of as the Shakespeare of the East, and i lovingly call Saint T. True, the laurel of Nobel Prize in literature came to him for his collection of verses citing its nature trascendantale, but it was the novel "The last verse" that in my opinion transcended even most of his work.

I wouldn't dare to present to you the prose, for i am afraid my touch would diminish its beauty in some way. Funny, i think i have just described what the novel is about. And this was exactly what mr. jones had to say.

What am i to say?

I suppose i have said my bit. To mr jones. I dunno. Sometimes i feel like Robert Kincaid (The Bridges of the Madison County). The photographer who awakened the little girl in the housewife from the humdrum outskirts of Des Moines, got her dangerously close to the danger that is love. Kincaid who was unabashed about saying that he can take care of things with her husband in "short order" and Kincaid who lasted long summer nights with her. In the morning wetness of the dewdrops and the hollow nights that followed the parched summer days, he surrounded her, within and without, brandishing her socially full yet otherwise empty existence. And then, just like that summer zephyr he was gone.

She was afraid to entrust the fragile love to the stony stares of reality.

But he thought otherwise. And i think like him. We are alike. Was he right?

I wish i knew.

Free fall under inertia, bend much?

Taking a break from doing french homework, lol, just remembering the time when ces devoirs français were considered as breaks en face des autres tâches quotidiennes. Ah, perceptions!

Anyway, i am halfway through the textbook, and preparing to take two tests next week, although i don't feel so good about not having anyone to practise my french activities with. Hmm, i kinda went solitaire on that one, hehe, it was weird; pretending to be different characters and talking with myself. Oh well, what'cha gonna do?

On another note, i am proud to say that i kept my promise of Commencer et continuer la routine d'exercice pour 2 heures per jour that included yoga/swimming/steps/belly dancing/Latin dancing for the whole last week! On the downside my hair took the burnt, as sometimes it had to endure more than one wash a day. I suppose i could cut my hair really short, hmm...

Oh, one big bad news is that this Friday my bank kinda crumbled, and with that did any uninsured deposits they held. Unfortunately i have been lazy and let my moola just sit there even though i knew i could be in for a big loss. Well who'd have thunk that a major bank can just fall on you like that! Anyway, following this i had to endure some pep talk from mr jones including some terminology such as "quarters" and " earnings" that were thrown my way. Now, isn't he a doll! :-P ...

So, this afternoon i went to get my left-over money outta that bank, only to find a snake like line of about 100 people standing outside and being parched by the sun and the worried frowns alike. Frankly this whole sight repulsed me somehow. I nicely made a circle in the parking lot by going in and pronto out! I decided to let my money sit there for now, i wanted no piece of this worry. Instead i drove to my favorite new found candy store, ahem, i meant Whole Foods. Lol. There i roamed the aisles of fresh and nice looking produce and observed happy babies cooing in their mothers' laps, picked up some whole stuff for the week including my favorite fresh young coconut drinks.

I am no escapist. I know what lack of money can do to you, albeit mostly in theory. But i will not be the one to let the concept of money make me feel miserable. It just isn't worth it. Besides, anyone who lost any money last Friday must at least own a $100k, so why worry about them? At the same time i will heed to mr jone's kind scolding on the topic of me putting all my eggs in one basket; actually i did use 3 baskets :( but as luck would have it, (or is it physics?) the heaviest basket fell.

Oh, well, what'cha gonna do?

So many whys

Last night i had dreams that imbued me with their sheer cardinality and divergent strangeness, albeit none too strange to be stripped of their dream status. Dreams intrigue me as do thoughts, perhaps more so because of their precipitous yet flighty nature, and the subliminal messages that they deliver. Often i would know exactly what it meant, other times i would rack my brain in futile. I would go as far as saying that if you can decipher your dreams, you are one step closer to knowing yourself.

Scene 1: Coming back from a trip I realize that I had forgotten all about the first day of class that was due to start in the next half hour. As I am about to freak out, i realize one good thing; it's matrix theory and i can wing it with the best of them. But i didn't have a syllabus to give out, and i can't find my laptop or printer! I frantically run around looking for them and all around me old men start to pop up with really old type-writers clunking out letters of leave of absence for men waiting in line. I look at the clock, with two minutes left until the class time, i begin to sink, despair grabs hold of me, and i think i wake up. Just that i don't.

Cut to scene 2. I am to attend the commencement, but i have arrived without my official robe. Every flight of stairs i take to go back to my office where i left the robe ends up in a barricade until they all start to look like a huge maze of stairs somewhat like The Shining maze but with varying and concrete heights.

Cut to scene 3: I enter a strangely structured house where the windows and the stairs are all too small for any adult. And there are no doors! It used to be my regular domicile when i left, but now everything has been replaced with kid-sized stuff, and kid-safe barriers. I try to enter my old room through an open window, but a hidden shutter comes down every time i try. Puzzled, i struggle down the little flights of steps to the very bottom floor in search of explanations. Oh my! Kids everywhere! A frantic and beautiful woman, who i thought could be perfect for Fitzgerald's Luella (The Adjuster) runs toward me and tells me to be very careful with my adult size limbs. By no means i were to perturb the hamper that stood beside me. Before i could tell her it looked kind of crooked, and that it might soon fall down in accord with its own unstable equilibrium, she runs away as frantically as she appeared. She has scarcely moved out of my sight when lo and behold, the hamper tumbles. Out falls a birthday cake much to my surprise, but it lands nice and horizontal. I was feeling quite complacent about this until she comes in and starts to cry. "Ah what have you done, it's all ruined now"...That was when i realized the beautiful creamy sauce to accompany the cake was now trickling down, sinking into the dirty basement carpet, drop by drop.

Parched in between these three were two more dreams, of my dad. In the first one, he was lying on bed and telling us stories. Much like the time when he told us stories only then we were little and all five of us could fit on one bed. Stories that he used to make up to appease our childish curiosities, of galaxies and rockets and excursions to unknown planets. But i knew he was gone now, as did i know that he would vanish as soon as i touch him. But i had to. I touch his feet, and he doesn't vanish, but looks up at me from his supine position and smiles. I cry out, "Come everyone, he is here! And he is here cause you can touch him"...and i can hear everyone rushing to the bedside...later i would find him in the basement where the cake spilled. So much debris! And he was sweeping away patiently...i run toward him, "Oh no, you don't! You must be tired, you rest, here, i will do it!"...i take the broom out of his hand and i wake up. For real this time.

And i cry, and tears from my dream become the tears in my thoughts, and i cry like an obstinate child, "Why did you leave me in this cruel and ignorant world, oh why did you have to leave?"

The phone rings. I pick it up and no one speaks.

I think i will leave it at that.

Danse comme si

It's but a feeble attempt to resuscitate my ailing blog.

For one i am kinda tipsy from the mimosa at dinner and cannot guarantee what will transpire next. Then i feel that i have lost my babble bug! I have switched to a quiet mode lately, for whatever reason. No, i am not brooding, not really.

Perhaps i shall start with a recounting of my daily comings and goings, just to get out of le rut paisible. Okay, woke up at eight in the morning by an intrusive telemarketing call. What the hell! That put me in a rather foul mood, and as i ventured into the kitchen for mon petit déjeuner, i accidentally slid a glass off the counter. It hit the floor almost in an obedient but decisive plunge and shattered into pieces. Zut alors! That was followed by a 20 min sweep-vacuum-mop spree which included a tiny break to take out the microscopic glass piece lodged in my left foot.

Nah! It's not working. Hey, who stole all my angst? Hmm. I wonder if i grew up a little. Oh, there it is, that word, wonder. Music to my blog's ears. It just may be his lucky night after all.

I can't seem to grow up. Neither my spirit, nor my appearance for that matter seem to take that rightful cue from age. Age, who only knows how to march forward. I mean don't get me wrong. On paper i am as grown-up as one can get. I come with a rather extensive education that takes the kind of patience and perseverance only a small subset of grown-ups can exhibit; i carry a job with the highest degree of stability; my natural ways of life from my choice of decor to my culinary inclinations sport gravitas that confounds even my contemporaries. But that's the extent of it, yep.

Need one grow up? Retire that twinkling of a wondering child behind the mask of adulthood? Steady that giddy wandering gait into a measured stride of conformity? Ah, non!

Ah, i hear the babbling brook...tiptoe not my dear, swell up and rise high, thrust across the erect stony exterior of that silent friend of yours, swirl around in tiny drops that give way to endless waves. O pray dance! Dance in glee, free and boundless, fierce and coy, dance until you are consumed and one in convergence.

There you have it mr. jones, i am not one to land, ever. I am born to fly.

Salut!

Hmm, no blogging is being done, of late. Lol...someone must be having herself some swell time!

Indeed i am. Went back to dancing and the pool and enjoying both immensely, not to mention lazy afternoons on my rug blending into the oblivion, dude style with some good ol' acid, oops, i mean books, books! Lol, I have to say that i am feeling somewhat guilty about all the lack of work. They would just have to do without me i guess. As for me, i just finished Fitzgerald's Six Tales and am in a pondering mood for now.

And as for me and a certain someone, ce qui je peux dire, :-P when the heart is this full, mind cannot but be silent.

May i never be seen outside of you again
May the last hint of i be lost in you my king

Vous entendez mon roi, votre reine dit...

Big blond

La blonde grande a voulu beaucoup mourir.

Men wanted her to be a sport, conspicuously light-hearted and gaily flying around like a butterfly from one to the next. Stuff her with alcohol they would, if that would do it. From her husband to the whole string of Eds and Sydneys and Charleys and Arts that surfaced following his departure.

"Somewhere in her heart was the lazy nebulous hope that things would change"...but then things don't change much, do they now? So she drank industriously only to be betrayed by one last partner. Whiskey. Her trusted old friend. A day came when it failed to put her in that blurred haze. It was then, almost with a Machiavellian glee "she played voluptuously with the thought of cool, sleepy retreat".

If you ask me, any woman with half a mind can understand the Big Blond. And you really don't have to be anything like her or anywhere close to the so-called parasitic life she led. And it does not simply matter the amount of kudos and accolades you have been blessed with, or the numerous footsteps organic and inorganic you leave behind. No matter what end of the spectrum you belong to, you know that there are things about you that no man would ever understand.

Pity.

This morning i spent 2.5 hours watching Mad Men season 1 dvd. Only to realize not much has changed in 50 some years.

Pity, again.

Liberté

The morning made a good impression on me with a nice mellow temperature. That was until i looked out of my window and saw a not so nice mellow sky. Can't believe i am saying this but i would trade the temp for the vivid blue sky that's a trademark of this place, um, just cause all the fireworks i am expecting tonight! That reminds me i have to concoct my trademark spicy chicken for the la soirée de 4 juillet, but that can wait.

In fact many a prominent countries declared their birth (freedom from Sovereignty) during the very month of July, such as US, Canada or France. Ah, those of you who don't know me, this also happens to be le mois de naissance for me! But i digress. So, what i was wondering about today was the meaning of freedom, the nature of it, and the context it is defined in. To me, the word freedom is rather undefined unless accompanied by a context, and also that it ain't a concept absolu.

So i looked up the definition in the good old Webster. Eh, i decided to skip the net today. I was feeling all professorial, so i hunted down the book from my shelf only to realize that another hunt for magnifying glasses was in order. Zut alors! Anyhow, from what i can tell via a squint, the word surmounts to "The condition or quality of being free" Oh, cool, what's free again? Squint once more, "Having liberty of action or thought".

Now that opens a whole Pandora's box of interpretations and contextual dubiousness. Not to mention that the very meaning of the word invokes a stark contradiction within. To restrain or not to restrain? Your free thought to kill all the pretty girls with shiny straight hair and side partings may mean the end of me and my free thoughts, lol, whatever those may be!

Indeed, in statistics (a pseudo science like life, if i may say so without vexing my statistician colleagues, hehe) degrees of freedom of a fit is inversely proportional to the flexibility you allow for the fit. So in a broad sense, if we were to model a society using people as parameters, more people exercising their free thoughts calls for a society with less degrees of freedom.

But since i am in math, i posit a rather different lens, hehe i am biased but i am right! A phase space angle. Okay, what's that? "A space in which all possible states of a system are represented, with each possible state of the system corresponding to one unique point in the phase space". Loosely, the society is the system and the people are the points. The degree of freedom are rather represented by the axes of this multidimensional space. Ah, now the axes rule the location of the points with the succession of evolving points over time depicting the evolving state of the system. The society as a dynamical system.

Freedom is but an evolving exercise in pursuit of restraint as determined by society's moral axes. Yep, that will do for my definition.

Now i am itching to tell you all about how chaos and strange attractors fit into this theory, but i gotta go cook. So the discourse is over, folks. I am off to make one f**kin good chicken!

A demain, tout le monde!

Never say never

At times i wonder why i blog in English. Although i am quite taken with the language, it is not my strongest one. Indeed, as a teenager i used to be petrified by anything remotely linking me to the language, in particular, my English teacher. We shall call her Madame Z. You see, languages are often built like math, a discourse in structures intermittently infused with logic. One must have an objective approach to master the intricacies and nuances, albeit staying within the structure.

Ah, but fear, now fear makes one subjective. Madame Z., she was a mighty big woman with a stern voice and unkind stares to boot. She scared me so much so that i would just draw a blank and stop trying altogether! So during my high-school years where i flourished in nearly everything, especially in languages (including math) English remained my Achilles' heel. Wait, actually it was Chemistry, :) but oh well, i mean language wise!

So what is my point? That, teachers, be kind, don't you ruin the potential of young minds with your lack of respect and empathy, perhaps cook up a smile (do a take-out if you are a no-good cook), and oh, if you can, hit the gym once in a while? (Sorry, but little people tend to be afraid of mean big people, lol)

Er, no! That's definitely not my point. I guess my point is if you really do love something, let no amount of fear stop you in the track. I did give up my wish to major in English literature, and never took English formally since i left high-school, but man, did i ever take it in every other way possible!

Perhaps that's why i blog in English. It stirs me in a certain way. True, it ain't my strongest suit. (believe me i would blog easier in math if blogger would just let me lol). What it is however, in some odd incongruous fashion completely of its own, symbolic of my strength.

Ah, therein lies the difference.