I'm Alive! and May's almost over.

My reason for the lack of updates: Between Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, Livejournal, and all the other sites I use, I've been spread thin on the social networking circuit lately. Perhaps the deluge of information I'm exposed to - a speedily flowing volume of bits and bytes of news and info - reduces, or detracts from, deeply-considered thought.

These days, one is more likely to quickly scan a huge deluge of short bursts of ideas, rather than process something substantial and complex for a long time. And so, continuing in the same pattern, my poor audience has only been getting 140-character tweets instead of deeply considered, thoughtful posts. Some sparks:

On why being a person of faith is almost a revolutionary act in these times:
In the greater part of the 20th century, most of the enemies that the Western world fought against were atheists and Communists. Religious orthodoxy was wholesome in comparison at that time. However, the bad guys who want to blow us up now are religious zealots. Devout religious belief is suspicious and anti-democratic (Keller).

May is National Suicide Prevention Month and Asian American Pacific American (AAPA) Heritage Month. My brother sent me this article from KimchiMamas: "Raising Your Asian-American Teen"
A great excerpt:
The model minority myth for Asians states that we are smart, hard-working and overcome the difficulties of acculturation. This stereotype can also promote depression, as it’s difficult to live up to, and can hinder teachers and parents from identifying youth to help. Asian American girls, for example, are positively rewarded for being compliant, persevering without complaint, and putting others’ needs before their own. So parents and teachers may overlook their isolation or withdrawal. This creates a difficult dynamic for the child who has learned to withhold emotions. Shame, a sense of low self-control, and a culture that limits expressing emotions lead to helplessness and isolation.

Reach out to a brother or sister today.

May 29th is World Enneagram Day.
I perceive the world as a Five with a Six wing. Do you know what your number is?

Real Life Bambi and Thumper

Since it's Easter season, and the newborn animals abound. From here

Excerpt from Counterfeit Gods (Tim Keller)

Archbishop William Temple once said, "Your religion is what you do with your solitude." In other words, the true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. What do you do enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about? Do you develop potential scenarios about career advancement? Or material goods such as a dream home? Or a relationship with a particular person? One or two daydreams are not an indication of idolatry. Ask rather, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart?

Another way to discern your heart's true love is to look at how you spend your money. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there is your heart also" (Matthew 6:21)...Most of us, however, tend to overspend on clothing, or on our children, or on status symbols such as homes and cars. Our patterns of spending reveal our idols.

A third way to discern idols works best for those who have professed a faith in god. You may regularly to to a place of worship. You may have a full, devout set of doctrinal beliefs. You may be trying very hard to believe and obey God. However, what is your real, daily functional salvation? What are you really living for, what is your real - not your professed - god? A good way to discern this how you respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes. If you ask for something that you don't get, you may become sad and disappointed. Then you go on. Hey, life's not over. Those are not your functional masters. But when you pray and work for something and you don't get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god.

A final test works for everyone. Look at your most uncontrollable emotions. Just as a fisherman looking for fish knows to go where the water is roiling, look for your idols at the bottom of your most painful emotions, especially those that never seem to lift and that drive you to do things you know are wrong. If you are angry, ask, "Is there something here too important to me, something I must have at all costs?" Do the same thing with strong fear or despair and guilt. Ask yourself, "Am I so scared, because something in my life is being threatened that I think it is a necessity when it is not? Am I so down on myself because I have lost or failed at something that I think is a necessity when it is not? If you are overworking, driving yourself into the ground with frantic activity, ask yourself, "Do I feel that I *must* have this thing to be fulfilled and significant? When you ask questions like that, when you " pull your emotions up by the roots," as it were, you will often find your idols clinging to them.
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From pp 168-169 of Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters. There is only one who can wholly hold the weight of our human needs and desires.

School Lunch Nostalgia

Ann Cooper's Dream School Lunch: Grilled beef salad with tatsoi, brown rice and tofu salad, bok choy stir-fry, pear and 1 percent milk via TED blog.

Mmm, I miss those subsidized government lunches we ate in public school for $1. Things that I remember the most: cheeseburgers in those microwaveable foil pouches, beefaroni, overcooked green beans, French Bread pizza, chicken nuggets, tater tots, and the best part: chocolate milk!

School lunch in Korea:

Choose conscience over ease.

Does anyone really doubt that the corporations that control the vast majority of animal agriculture in America are in it for the profit? In most industries, that's a perfectly good driving force. But when the commodities are animals, the factories are the earth itself, and the products are physically consumed, the stakes are not the same, and the thinking can't be the same.

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals (2009)

Hikaru Dorodango

Hikaru Dorodango are polished balls of mud made by Japanese children. Since they take great focus and concentration to make, I think this would be a great form of stress relief - and fun. (Yes, you can polish a turd.)

Neat.

Whee! Mammals.

Dolphins at sunrise.

Open-Source Education

Some free online courses to help expand your horizons:

Open Yale

MIT Open CourseWare

Academic Earth

Peachy Keen. This is not spam.

Music for Monday, Auto-tune not included

Acoustic version of Creep by Radiohead accompanied by a clip from what looks like an enchanting French Johnny Depp movie.


This came out 10 years ago! Stuck in my head since I heard it last weekend.

2010 #1

Happy New Year. Some links to keep you entertained:

1) Introverted Intuition (Ni) and the Meaning of Music

2) Songs in the key of life: What makes music emotional

3) I finally came across a description of Extraverted Feeling (Fe) that makes sense to me. Coincidentally, it happens to use music as a metaphor.
Music is a flow, a series of notes that invoke certain things. Music is essentially strategy with more feel than logic. You have a goal in mind, to make a friend, or emotionally bruise an enemy, and use what strategies you know (from your perceiving function) to reach it. Music is the same, you want someone to feel a certain thing and you use what strategies you know to reach that end.

Basically Te, but with an F instead of T. Fe users are just much more in tune with feelings of people and their reactions rather than the Te's use of hard data.
(Source: Fe as Vibration in the Ether)


4) Flavors of Enneagram Fives. Who knew that there were so many varieties? I tested as 5.1.3. I was definitely very strongly 5.3.1 about 10 years ago. I shudder to think of the word "glacial" as an accurate description (ugh).

The idea of the tritype is new to me. To determine your tritype, find your preferred type in each of the three triads: heart triad (ennea type 2,3,4), head triad (5,6,7) and gut Triad (8,9,1). I took this test here.

Happy Winter Holidays.

We now have a brussels sprouts tree in my brother's place, thanks to Trader Joe's! It looks similar to this one:


Ah, California. As a visitor to your state, you have succeeded in making me feel inadequately green. You've made my efforts to recycle, save, and spend a sustainable dollar feel insignificant compared to your conservation-friendly, sustainable infrastructure and your abundance of widely-available organic food. Sadly, New Yorkers often only embrace a green, sustainable diet/lifestyle because it's the "trendy" thing to do. It's OK to be crunchy here.

Be blessed in knowing that, now, in the most desolate time of year, God loves you.

Amaranthine flowers feel no decay.

I drank something with elderberry liqueur, ginger, and absinthe in it recently, so I've been thinking about the language of flowers.

Amaranth = immortal, Rose = fleeting.

Milton, Paradise Lost:
"Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream:
With these that never fade the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks."

Winter cheer to brighten your cold day.

In this photo provided by Disney, the canine stars from Disney's new holiday DVD 'Santa Buddies: The Legend of Santa Paws' pose on Sunday Dec. 6, 2009 on Main Street U.S.A. at the Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., while taping a segment for the 'Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade' TV special. The annual holiday telecast is scheduled to air December 25 on ABC-TV.


A participant rides with his eagle during an annual hunting competition in Chengelsy Gorge, some 150 km
(93 miles) east of Almaty, December 5, 2009. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov


Finally, a use for lazy cats.

Sesame Street's 40th birthday

Some songs have gotten stuck in my head over the years. Others, for example, the Letter "U" video, have been more like nightmares - downright scary.

The Ladybug's Picnic


Do De Rubber Duck

Offensive Halloween Costumes

Chinese Food Delivery Guy

"Fee Ling Yu"

Elderly Hip-hop choir

Green Halloween

Every year, it kills me to see the amount of packaging wasted on single-serving bags of candy passed out on Halloween. Tiny bars of chocolate, each wrapped in their own plastic covering, sold in a huge bag of 50, are cute - and safe, for practical, hygienic reasons - although the amount of wrapping used seems wasteful. Several ideas for a more conscious breed of candy-giving:

Give out things that come packaged in recyclable cardboard or paper rather than plastic. Whoppers (in the cardboard box), raisins, paper-wrapped candies and gums are a great start.

Avoid high-fructose corn syrup and other artificial products. Organic lollipops, natural licorice, fruit leather and fruit snacks are an alternative to heavily sweetened pseudo-foods.

Go for foil-wrapped chocolates that are low on wrapping. Earth chocolates are pretty cool.

Non-food items I used to get when I was a kid included pennies/spare change, small toys such as whistles and puzzles, and stickers. If you own your own business, this is a great opportunity for free, wide-ranging advertising: print your own candy wrappers and distribute.

Don't forget, candy wrappers can be recycled as craft material. Save bright plastic wrappers for art projects, such as this woven bracelet.

Rare Cloud Formations

Spotted on Wired: Weird, Rare Clouds and the Physics Behind Them.

Morning Glory


Lenticular


Noctilucent (Creepy!)

Aliens in a Crowded Establishment

I recently read John Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008). See a short, interesting guide here. The indoctrination of mass consumerism starts at a very young age in America. I always knew that high school was always about being popular and having the clothes/toys/things of the moment, but now I understand why.

The Scholar's Desk

Some interesting things that I've seen in professors' offices over the years:
-Dog testicles from a neutered pet, dipped in gold and framed on a plaque. (She was a veterinarian/evolutionary biologist)
-6-foot tall Greek sculpture
-Academic regalia (perfect for those days when you're out of normal clothes, or when they're being laundered)

My desk is my creative space, my Paracelsan alchemical laboratory, my place to think and tinker. I'd actually prefer to have the thing entirely clean and clutter-free, that is, without a single object in sight - but at times, when one gets writer's block or needs to take a break, it's better to have some kind of inspiration than to stare off into space (or at the very worst, a blank cubicle wall). Blank, empty spaces are supposed to be better for sparking one's imagination, but I have too much junk and distractions on my desk. Toys are good for breaks, too (think of slinkies, rubik's cubes, and puzzles that you turn over in your hands, such as the breakable sphere, Jacob's ladder, infinite edamame toy, etc).

Worst possible thing for "inspiration" breaks: picking up any kind of handheld electronic device such as an iphone, checking e-mail or FriendFace.

Here's what's in my workspace. Even if you are not Dan Brown, feel free to interpret the symbolism of each object.

Framed painting of Darwin

Color-changing LED eggs

Vase with no flowers, at the moment

Framed family/friend photos

Stuffed Chihuahua, an old friend

To add:

Sculpture #1: Glass sculpture of embryo inside a round-bottomed flask

Never:
Food, with the exception of coffee/water/tea