Blog Moved

Alas, the time has come to part with the ye blogger blog. I've moved my weblog to www.timsoo.com. While Blogger has been a fantastic tool, it lacked some of the functionality and flexibility for which I was searching.

See you at the new site.

Tim Soo

Insomnia

I used to fear sleep.

It's been so long that I had almost forgotten how I fell into these unusual habits in the first place.

As a kid, I constantly maintained the belief that our home would be broken into. At night, I lay awake listening for any sound, any clue that someone might be prying a window or sneaking past our front door. Sounds of my parents walking around or talking after my supposed bedtime were torturous to a young child who had little way of distinguishing those sounds from those of a more evil intent. I soon learned to stay up until every else had fallen asleep.

Even after my conscious self had grown up enough to know not to delve so deeply into those concerns night after night, my subconscious self still drew upon irrational fear. With age, the fears no longer simply embodied the robber-in-the-house scene. Rather, the realm of sleep became a location where all my irrational fears of the day were free to reign. Some were more of the impossible sort - end of the world, wilderness attacks, foreign capture, torture. Others were very possible - loss of loved ones, loss of connection, failure, rejection.

The recurrences of the nightmares were self-propagating. When I began to fear a scenario, my subconscious ensured that that would be the subject of that night's dream. The more I did not want to dream of a particular topic, the more often it came. It was the never ending struggling of "trying to not think of something." Anyone who has tried knows that this is an impossible feat. Thinking about not thinking was hardly a viable solution.

At first, this struggle panned out in less than healthy habits. I naturally began staying awake to the point of utter exhaustion -- when you fall asleep before your head even hits the pillow. In these instances, there is little energy to even think before sleep. In addition, deeper sleep tends to avoid dreaming. With this approach, I was safe.

I always wonder how much that rationale played into my current aversion to regular sleep hours.

That solution, however, was temporary. The world did not operate on a clock that would allow for a 30-hour day (the number of hours required to employ the previous method).

By this time, I was in elementary school and was old enough to understand and attempt various of the classic methods of sleep.

• Counting sheep? -- ha! -- After reaching 3289 blasted sheep, I realized that such a method was fruitless; my mind simply did not stop running.
• Meditation. This method worked to some extent. Following a common method of self-meditation, I focused on a color (sky blue was my choice) as hard as I could. By focusing on the simple, I would drive out other thoughts, hopefully long enough for me to fall asleep. But that hope was poorly founded. The effort of focusing often kept me awake until my thoughts once again drifted back to the original issue.
• Music, of both the Disney and classic genres. I blame this strategy for two things: 1.) Disney lyrics, nowadays, are the only lyrics I remember. 2.) I never stay awake during classical concerts of any sort. True, I had learned to condition myself to attribute a soporific effect with these genres, but the tunes were never engaging enough. That is, the music did not distract sufficiently to avoid other thought. My mind would continue wandering, having turned the background music into white noise.

Around fifth grade (yes, all of these methods were attempted before the age of ten), I tried a more active approach -- lucid dreaming. For those who are not familiar with the concept, lucid dreaming, in short, is knowing you are dreaming and better yet, learning to control it.

The first time I dreamt lucidly was purely by accident. In the dream, I had returned to the age of a toddler and was walking around in my first home on Ridgecrest road, a house we had moved from before I had turned five. (It's amazing what the mind can recall with such clarity.) The dream was simple. My mother, standing near the railing, was vacuuming. I looked at my surroundings, then at myself, and suddenly realized my actual age. I wasn't three. I was ten. Logically I reasoned I must be dreaming. Running over to my mother, I shared this fantastic revelation -- I was dreaming and knew it! Of course, the dream version of my mom played along with my subconscious, ensuring toddler Tim that I was being silly and could not be dreaming. But no matter, I had lucidly dreamt.

From that moment on, lucid dreaming became one of my major attacks on insomnia. (I still tended to alternate approaches from night to night, as none were particularly effective.) If I could completely control the dream, then I could control the topic, the scenario. It would be my own personal matrix. Through trial and error, I developed a method for lucid dreaming, though it required considerable effort. Before sleep, I would incessantly repeat the thought to myself "You are about to dream." When the body becomes lethargic enough, the subconscious becomes more available to the world. It is in these moments that one can actually communicate with your subconscious self (i.e. the whole concept behind hypnotism). My method was not 100%, but when it worked, it was a New World haven.

The scenario was always preset by my brain, out of my conscious control. But once in, I could steer the blissful 5 minutes of early REM in any direction that I pleased. At first, I created carnivals on the backs of trucks, made video games into reality, and attempted whatever randomnity my mind could produce that evening. Soon, though, the dreams became only of one topic: flying. --- (aside) As I type these words, I am finding more and more of my current self seems to be molded by this battle against insomnia. --- No matter what scene my brain placed me into, I looked up and began to fly. There was a clear method involved with flight, however. It was not a simple Superman approach (my mind, apparently, had decided that would be too easy). Rather, flying in my dreams required learning how to ride subtle currents in the air (though not necessarily currents of wind). Certain motions propelled upwards, others downward, and some movements installed speed into my motion. It's funny, to this day, the method of flight still has not changed.

Unfortunately, this technique, too, was not foolproof. Often the excitement itself prevented sleep, or the constant effort of constant repetition in order to begin a lucid dream was too tiring to maintain. So once again, I was left to a combination of all these techniques with an aptitude for avoiding sleep. Exhaustion, it seemed, was still one of the best methods.

In high school, I was constantly exhausted. No problem falling asleep there. In addition, my life at that time contained endless change (extracurriculars, camps, courses, etc); the passive filtering of the steady stream was enough to distract my wandering mind. Of course, I would at times return to employing various methods of avoiding disastrous dreams when necessary, but for the most part, life was too fast to worry.

In college, I made a discovery. Most of my close friends now do not know me without the Friends theme song playing in the background. Yes, Friends the TV show. Today, I can quote most every episode with a frightening level of detail. What was the discovery? I figured out that speech, more specifically background dialogue, was the perfect balance of distraction. New shows, or rather episodes I had not seen, did not fit this category as my mind would strain to follow the plot. But episodes I had seen and were familiar with, these, I could allow to "wandering" portion of my brain to focus on, allowing a quick and easy sleep.

I soon learned that this approach also worked with the more menial tasks in studying and homework, although assignments that required actual thought demanded my full attention.

Which brings me to today, or last night -- er, this morning -- rather. I woke up and attempted to fall back asleep from a relatively awoken state without background distraction. My mind began to wander, back through those same paths of fear it had once taken when I was a child. It was that twang of familiarity that jolted me awake. I had nearly forgotten that long ago, before I learned how to distract my mind, that I used to fear sleep.

Senior Speech - Drafted May 17, 2006

To my fellow Parkview graduates, four years have passed. What has changed? How much has changed? What about yourself is still true? What part of character are you glad has altered? Or what part of yourself is no longer true that you wish it were?

Four years later, I reread my own words and find that yes, I have changed, but the sentiment still rings true. Take each day with a smile. :)

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I begin with a single statement that so many others have expressed before me: stated simply, I don’t know. I don’t know what I should say tonight. I don’t know what advice I could possibly give as we part ways to begin this new chapter, new phase, new part of our lives.

I’ve been told that “I am unique... just like everybody else.” A common pun, perhaps, but a true one at that. Within this field of white and blue, there are aspirations, goals, individual dreams that we will strive for, work for, and accomplish as we embark on our individual journeys. Each person has their own values, their own desires; no person in this crowd can even remotely be considered “normal”, because face it, we’re weird, we’re different. But we are still in many ways the same. So what advice could I possibly give, when I am just as inexperienced, just as clueless, about where I will end up in the remainder of my life. Five years from now, twenty years from now, a hundred years from now, each color of blue, each person of white in the field below, will still be forever branded a Parkview graduate. From here, our paths will diverge; they might even cross, but you’ll still always be Parkview panther. Remember that.

Amongst this uncertainty about what I should say, where we are going, and where we will end up, there stands a common goal: to succeed. And what is success? No words can adequately and explicitly sum up this ambiguous aspiration, but if these past four years have taught me something, it’s that on the road to success you must hold your head up high and approach life with a smile.

On a random day in a random spring month of my sophomore year, I distinctly recall sitting outside the tennis courts, flipping a coin over and over in my palm. Next to me was Lucas, which I’m sure many of you remember, but he, too, seemed similarly bored out of his mind. I looked over at Lucas, flipped the coin high in the air and asked “Heads or tails? Heads I win, Tails you lose.” Granted, the expression may have been slightly immature, but hey, like I said, we’re weird. Lucas turned his head, looked straight into my face, and just smiled. It’s the kind of smile that is unmistakably sincere and chock full with optimism. Answering the question he responded, “Well then, Tim Soo, I choose heads, because that way, I can share in your success.”

It took me a second to contemplate that there actually was a difference between me winning heads and him losing tails. Frankly, I thought I was just flipping a coin. But Lucas whipped back with such optimism and humility that I just laughed. Now, I’ve told this story many a time and often get a response that seems to almost jeer at such a brightness in such a simple response. Well, that may be so. But you know what? The fact is, I remembered it. I remembered his exact smile, his exact words, in that exact moment of my life. Thus, is the power of a smile.

My purpose here tonight is to challenge, to hope, and to ask each senior to go on through life remembering to smile wherever you may go, during whatever life may throw at you.

It’s 3 AM; you’ve only slept eight hours in the past week and still find you have two more essays to write. You’ve run twenty laps and Senor Brennen just smiles as he tells you to run 5 more. Life has treated you harshly, and it seems its only going to get worse. Smile during these times, in the face of adversity, and even if that smile may be forced, I guarantee a forced smile makes a genuine happiness come much faster.

Your mom drew a happy face with mayo on your sandwich. A teacher stayed with you for that extra hour after the 2:10 bell. I remind you to smile when you love. Remember to show gratitude to all those who have helped you along the way and brought you to where you are now. Whether that means giving them an extra hug or just writing a letter of thanks, let those you care about, know how much and how deeply you care.

A smile can be a smart-aleck smirk; it can be a forced smile of awkwardness when you meet someone for the first time. But among the thousands of smiling expressions, none are negative. All will bring your spirits higher.

So what is success?

"I think success is getting to a point where you have achieved the goals you set for yourself."

"I think success is determined in terms of your own standards and no one else’s. Remember your success could be someone else’s failure."

"I think success is getting to the top or near to top in life, in an activity, or whatnot."

"It’s the feeling when you can’t help but smile no matter how hard you try."

"It’s when you use your talents to better the world and fulfill your dreams."

"It’s growing mentally and emotionally in the skills, patience, and perseverance you gained in Pre-Calculus even though you may only have a B to show for it."

"Do what you love. If you’re able to do what you love in life, you’re successful."

"This road to success will be curved with speed bumps, red lights, flat tires, and loops, but as long as you have a spare of determination, optimism and hope, you will reach this place of success."

Following my Chinese heritage, I wish I could call these quotes my own giant fortune cookie? But, I guarantee you I’m not nearly creative enough nor philosophical enough to come up with these on my own. These are the definitions of success as provided by members of our own esteemed senior class, and notice no two are alike. Yet each definition has a similar trait—in each quote success depends on how you feel, how you think you did, how you evaluate your life. Thus is why there exists “success in smiles." A smile gives a brighter outlook on life, a happier mood in each day. These are the beliefs we will live by and cherish as we travel away from our Parkview years. So, if you are happier about yourself, happier about the path you have chosen, you will have succeeded.

At last as we take our leave, we cannot forget to thank. To all of my classmates, it was you who kept me going; it was you who challenged me to shoot for the stars; and it was you who unmistakably soaked me with water guns as I walked down the halls. We’ve grown together, cried together, and basically been with each other to the extent where we should be downright sick of each other; yet, I cringe at the thought of leaving, at the thought of moving away from this class bond we have formed since our innocent beginnings in freshman year. We’ve grown from the sweet first years, holding maps to find our way to class, all the way to our senior year, when we told those same map-holding freshman that their classes were indeed on the second floor of the main building. To those I was privileged enough to know and love as friends, thank you for the unforgettable memories, thank you for being a friend. Thank you to Matt and Brian, my best friends for seven years strong, a tradition I plan to continue. To my teachers, in addition to teaching me how to integrate a function and analyze world trends, thank you for teaching me the values, the life lessons, and morals I will take with me throughout life. Graduates, look behind you. This is our fan club, our supporters. These are the people who will love you, and undoubtedly annoy you. But the greatest thanks of all, goes to family. Thank you to my own twin sister Tiffany who has been subjected to my lame jokes since our birth, my older sister Cindy who has never failed to offer a quick word of advice, to my loving Momma and Papa who truly have made me who I am today. Mom, thank you for putting up with all my crazy escapades and downright stubbornness and Dad thank you for always being reasonable and levelheaded. All those lectures finally paid off. Thanks to all my extended family here today. As my grandpa said, “I should get some credit, because if I were never here, you wouldn’t be here either.” And although I’ll only be a drive away, Family I’ll miss you dearly and love you very much.

Now if I’ve counted correctly I’ve gotten a hundred and seventeen requests from my fellow classmates to keep this speech as brief as possible. So graduates, we’ve reached the end (both of our high school years and this address), and my challenge to everyone here is to just try and smile more often, smile wider, and live with your head up high. Don’t forget to smile for love, for gratitude, for any and all emotions you will feel throughout your life. Your optimism is your weapon, one that no one can take away. Keep your confidence high and your morals higher—never forget to smile.

The time has come to go forward, to move on. And twenty years from now, when you find yourself having reoccurring nightmares about Brookwood Broncos, when you can’t shake the Parkview fight song out of your head, and when you form a distinct image of Mr. Moon “raising the roof” dressed as a female Bedrock character, remember you are and must be an integral part of the Parkview Panther Class of 2006.

Thank you and let’s graduate.

Knowledge scares me: a reflection

A disclaimer: As much of my writing often seems to do, I do not write this to evoke sadness or sympathy in any way. I write as a medium to help me understand my own thoughts better, as forcing the expression of an otherwise abstract idea is in a way, teaching yourself. I share this information to the world with the continuing goal that spreading ideas is for the betterment of our society as a whole.

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A couple of my past posts quoting Orson Scott Card's Xenocide have dealt with intelligence. Or in a broader sense, knowledge.

Thinking too much, as I generally do, I have begun to understand my own motivations for creating a personal history. Over the past ten plus years, I have collected trinkets (almost as if it were second nature) from significant events in my life -- homecoming flowers, movie stubs, business cards. Now in a time of interim, I find myself struggling to piece my past back together and write about it while I still remember.

The point of this post will come in somewhat of a lengthy roundabout path. Bear with me.

I once heard a perspective that described our existence to be fleeting on a day-to-day basis. Some part of the potato that I eat tomorrow will replace pieces of my body as I constantly shed and excrete older versions. Twenty years from now, how much of my brain and body will still contain the same atoms that it does today?

It's a constant upload and download, somewhat like one interpretation of teleportation. You would not actually be transfered from one place to another, but rather you would be destroyed in one place and recreated in another. Or even the idea of "downloading" your brain into a computer. Why are these ideas so strange when that is essentially what our body already does, just in a slower manner? We eat, slough off waste, rebuild, and continue living. Even our bones are constantly breaking down and rebuilding.

Now when we store information into our brains, we forge new neuronal pathways and/or strength existing ones. Our brain cells must constantly undergo maintenance, so technically the biological/physical component of our 'thoughts' are also constantly being deconstructed and reconstructed as required by the dynamic characteristic of the human body.

All of this to say, our knowledge is so very temporary. Our memories, too.

Once, I was given the statistic that our brain can hold a million unique things at one time. When the capacity is full, it starts erasing to make room for the new. Most people hit capacity around adulthood.

We tend to define ourselves and find identity by what we believe, what we know, and what we have experienced. Then assuming all of the above maintains some kernel of truth, how could we ever hope to know who we are? Even now as I go through my trinkets of memory lane, I can no longer recall why I saved them or what they were. That thought is terrifying.

There are certain moments in my life that I tell myself, I cannot forget this. And ultimately, those are the few memories that I do not lose as easily. But as I learn more and absorb more, even those snippets into my past will begin to fade.

My memory fades quicker than most. I struggle to retain short term events and thus I grasp tightly onto the few events I do remember. Maybe that is why I take offense when accused of remembering something wrong. I will admit it if I cannot recall, but I exert so much effort in trying to retain the few that I can... that it hurts to be told that my efforts were all in vain, that I remembered it wrong.

I laugh when people call me smart; no, I'm not smart. I just have a knack for faking intelligence. There is a reason I am a 'jack of all trades, master of none.' Yes, part of it I can attribute to simple lack of sustained interest in one topic. But, part of it just has to do with the fact that a prolonged dedication to one subject often becomes disheartening. Allow any short break in my studies and I completely forget.

What did I learn in college? I could tell you the major life lessons and the more humbling events that occurred. But there is extremely little I could tell you about what I was tested on.

I highly highly respect those who have proficient memories. I can sense exactly when my brain must fill in the blanks and insert false confidence in what I say in the hopes that what I say will be considered truth -- all because I could not remember.

Teaching has always come easier to me partly because I empathize with those who are struggling to understand a concept or an idea. It took me ages to finally commit at least that facet of what I learned to memory; this gives me patience when dealing with my students -- I know their pain.

I began this project of 'personal history' (to document as best I can my life's events until now) because I do not want to lose my sense of self. I do not want to be a jaded adult twenty years from now unable to truly remember who I was years before with only the slight overly-romanticized semblance of who I once was. When I tell my kids who I am and who I was, they should know the whole truth, not the parts my subconscious chose to remember.

Why is it that kids often disregard the "Well, when I was young..." stories of the past? Because even as a child we can recognize the lack of factuality and objectivity in these stories. And in most cases there is little hope for viewing those stories from a different angle, from a different source.

It frightens me that a book can seem new and fresh when I know I have read the story years before. The Harry Potter series has passed through my eyes seven times, and each time I find it new and exciting.

What is the point of reading if it will only be forgotten? Is its purpose really just to gain reading comprehension skills or open the mind to new viewpoints that may only be forgotten years later? What goal is there in learning when ultimately what we learn may be sacrificed for some thought that our brain deemed more important or more necessary in that current moment?

As I said, knowledge scares me. It's fleeting, and yet we have little choice but to depend on it.

Website, fighting against time.

The 'invisible violin' video seems to have become popular in a short amount of time. Thanks be to reddit (link to the reddit/comments page).

A few emails I received as a product of the response to the video has inspired many new project ideas. As such, I will be starting my own website mainly for my own sanity (to keep all these ideas organized).

This blog will most likely remain a place for my more transient and pseudo-philosophical musings. Man, I wish there were more hours in a day. Medical school is going to squash any time I might have had for creative pursuits.

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I learned of a new company started by Bob Greenberg called RGA (www.rga.com). They call themselves "the agency for the digital age" -- quite cool actually.

Each day, I am continually amazed by the amount of corporations that continue to try and use old business models and conservative methods to operate in a constantly dynamic and changing world. I respect RGA for doing just the opposite.

Update

Started working on the history project. Tis taking up a lot of time...

The music goal has been on a standstill... I cannot get into the music lab. I have been looking at getting my own equipment though. Might take some time.

Non-stop errands and goal-working everyday!

I love summer. :)

More food - 2

Ender, speculating on Qing-jao:

Qing-jao, I know you well, thought Ender. You are such a bright one, but the light you see by comes entirely from the stories of your gods. you are like the pequenino brothers who sat and watched my stepson die, able at any time to save him by walking a few dozen steps to fetch his [medicine]; they weren't guilty of murder. Rather they were guilty of too much belief in a story they were told. Most people are able to hold most stories they're told in abeyance, to keep a little distance between the story and their inmost heart. But for these brothers--and for you, Qing-jao--the terrible lie has become the self-story, the tale that you must believe if you are to remain yourself. How can I blame you for wanting us all to die? You are so filled with the largeness of the gods, how can you have compassion for such small concerns as the lives of three species of raman? I know you, Qing-jao, and I expect you to behave no differently from the way you do. Perhaps someday, confronted by the consequences of your own actions, you might change, but I doubt it. Few who are captured by such a powerful story are ever able to win free of it. (pg 307)

She buys so wholeheartedly into a story that she cannot free herself from it. How many people, groups of people, or entire sects do we know that believe so completely into something that they could not see the truth even if it were presented directly to them? How much of what I believe has become such an ingrained prejudice that I am not even aware that I believe it blindly?

What does this mean for religious faiths? Often I wondered, if I had been born into a Jewish family, or one of Islam, Hinduism, etc etc, what would I believe? As the years passed my faith in Christianity became one of reasoning and logic rather than blind faith, but even still, how much of my rationale was already skewed by the story by which I was so enraptured? Can we truly ever be objective of ourselves?

:) Have a good day.

Food for Thought - 1

(conversation between two other sentient species)

You spoke a moment ago as if you believed that human beings had actually achieved intelligence.

Clearly they have.

I think not. i think they have found a way to fake intelligence.

.

.

.

They think they're rational through all those [life] stages.

Self-delusion. Even at their best, they never, as individuals, rise above the level of manual laborers. Who among them has the time to become intelligent?

Not one.

They never know anything. They don't have enough year in their little lives to come to an understanding of anything at all. And yet they think they understand. From earliest childhood, they delude themselves into thinking they comprehend the world, while all that's really going on is that they've got some primitive assumptions and prejudices. As they get older they learn a more elevated vocabulary in which to express their mindless pseudoknowledge as if they were truth, but it all amounts to the same thing. Individually, human beings are all dolts.

While collectively...

Collectively, they're a collection of dolts. But in all their scurrying around and pretending to be wise, throwing out idiotic half-understood theories about this and that, one or two of them will come up with some idea that is just a little bit closer to the truth than what was already known. And in a sort of fumbling trial and error, about half the time the truth actually rises to the top and becomes accepted by the people who still don't understand it, who simply adopt it as a new prejudice to be trusted until the next dolt accidentally comes up with an improvement.

So you're saying that no one is ever individually intelligent, and groups are even stupider than individuals--and yet by keeping so many fools engaged in pretending to be intelligent, they still come up with some of the same results that an intelligent species would come up with.

Exactly.

If they're so stupid and we're so intelligent, why do we have only one hive, which thrives here because a human being carried us? And why have you been so utterly dependent on them for every technical and scientific advance you make?

Maybe intelligence isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Maybe we're the fools, for thinking we know things. Maybe humans are the only ones who can deal with the fact that nothing can ever be known at all.

-Excerpt from Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card

p90x: Day 3

On a forum there was the question "What are things that are scams that actually work?

p90x was one of them.

It seemed like a solid program during the late-night infomercials (which was already a plus since most of them sound completely bogus), but as with all the fat-loss exercise programs, I assumed it was too good to be true and that most their 'before/after' photos were from google images.

Then my PE professor at Emory vouched for its nutrition plan. They had Emory faculty look over it and it was sound. Nothing dangerous, nothing ridiculous. Just solid eating habits.

Overhearing the conversation, a couple students talked about its success for them.

Dang it, I guess I'll give it a shot.

I've never been visibly overweight or chubby (unless you count 5th grade, in which I still had all my baby fat) but then again I've never been able to cross the line into 'amazing fit'. Chinese just weren't built for six-pack abs. My resting endurance level (say my endurance after not having exercised for a month or so) is terrible. If I ever stopped exercising, it just plops. I've tried may strategies to get the athlete's build to no avail. So I'm giving p90x a shot.

I forgot to take a before picture, but I guess I'll do that soon. And I'll only post it if the after picture is that much better. Ha.

Oh and after the first three days. I hurt. A lot. Feels great though!

How I Read...

The following is my approach to reading. So why I'm writing about it? Not sure, but its results from a bit of self-analysis during conversation. It's always fun to learn more about yourself.

I tend to select books based on their sociological response and philosophical pursuit rather than on content, genre, or immediate enjoyability of reading.

For example, classic Russian literature such as that of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy generally escapes me (Why are there thirteen different names of each character, none of which sound similar?) as my meager attention span gets loss in the dense text. But for some reason these works have survived through time and popularity, so my curiosity piques. Only then did I begin to recognize and appreciate the author's subtle ability to break down simple situation into its minute details -- stuff I would have never realized. These works make concrete the thoughts that generally pass fancifully through one's head, without ever realizing they were there. It's cool stuff.

(Although I'll admit I've yet to finish a single Dostoevsky or Tolstoy from cover to cover... I always get bored shortly before the end)

Back to the premise of this post, it is for this reason that I am a big fan of science fiction, but not fantasy. Science fiction such as Asimov (arguably the father of science fiction) and Card (arguably the father of modern science fiction) forces me to think and re-think about my own everyday life and sometimes, reality itself. Heavy, right? The Foundation Trilogy (for example) was written in a time that atomic power dominated the energy scene. Thus, the future is written based upon the technological acceleration of atomic power. The whole idea of psychohistory is an idea I think any mathematician or engineer has toyed with. What if I could calculate the behavior of human beings? It would have been the middle school years much easier to predict and handle, eh?

Fantasy, however, often offers little intellectual tinkering. Occasionally there are analog situations or lessons that can be applicable to life, but not enough to capture my interests. I want books that will really stir up my thinking.

Then what of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter? LOTR is an iconic work in its own right, that's enough of a reason for me to read it. And Harry Potter is an exception, as I grew up reading those books long before I ever realize my own strategy at choosing them.

Part of me still dislikes getting sucked into a book series. One reads the first book and a whole new world is opened up. Your own brain struggles to categorize and illustrate the new realm created by the book (think reading Harry Potter for the first time). You can feel your own brain working to fit room for new concepts and new ideas -- a truly fun process. But then with books 2, 3, and onward, there is often less to be gained. Instead, you continue to read out of a mental procrastination. It's easier to read books that already fit within an understood universe without having to exert much more mental processing. It goes from reading for intellectual pleasure to fanboy fanaticism (in some cases). But perhaps I am being too critical.

I read the Foundation Trilogy last summer and it revolutionized my opinion of science fiction. Asimov is an incredibly philosophical author, especially about questions that our world undoubtedly will face in the future.

This summer, I continued in the next book in the series "Foundation's Edge." Immediately, however, I could feel a difference. I almost felt guilty at reading this book. There was little new mental fodder; I only continued to read in order to learn more of the story... although at some points it became a bit of a stretch. One of the only redeeming points was that it tied the Foundation novels to his other series (Nemesis, Robot).

After reading, I found out why. Foundation's Edge was written thirty years after the original trilogy because the fan-boys wanted more to the story and the publishers offered him a large amount of money. Asimov even admits that those were the only reasons he continued the story. There's even a final book "Foundation and Earth," which I may finish simply out of a desire for completeness -- I might as well finish the story after coming this far, right? But that won't be until later.

I also recently began reading other works in the Ender series. After reading Ender's Game last summer, I thought that it was a solid, well-written book with many philosophical points and social commentaries written in. Recently, I found out that the whole purpose of Ender's Game was to write the story of Speaker for the Dead, which was also fantastic (although some of the plot points were a bit of a stretch). The more I read, the more I realized how similarly Orson Scott Card and I thought. Or perhaps in the midst of reading, I had begun to understand his thinking a bit better. Subsequently, I finished Xenocide, the third word in the Ender series. This series, however, is unique. In each of the three books, Card plays with different cultures/languages thrown in (American, Portuguese, Chinese) -- he heavily researches them. The locations and characters within each book change greatly (aside from Ender, of course), and the ethical dilemmas dealt with in each novel are very different. I have found less 'series'-ness of a quality to these works than I do with others. With each page turn, he makes me think. And think hard.

Granted, I could easily have read the Ender series without abstracting into practical application, but if not, then what do we learn from reading?

Next post, I want to point out a few of those passage that make me love Card's novels.

Goals: Hawaii, Taiwan..

I've decided to take an interesting approach to this summer: Finish everything you've put off for the last 21 years.

I didn't realize I only had a couple months. Let's see how many I can finish.

1.) History of Self: This is a big one. I have been saving trinkets from important events, random meetings, etc since I was in middle school. Perhaps since I was aware of my poor memory, I wanted to be able to recall easily the more vague recollections. That and I tend to assign value to pointless objects

Journal: I journal in times that require much thought. Combined with my inability to be consistent, I have journals (including this blog) in hundreds of different places. Luckily they're all packed away, just not in any particular order. I hope to make it linear.

Photos: As much as I love the technology generation, I have always been hesitant to instill complete trust in it. I hope to print out photos from years past and put them into photo albums... in case Facebook ever goes under (::knocks on wood::). I'd just hate to tell my kids "well, I had many childhood photos; unfortunately I never had a physical copy..."

Scrapbook: Maybe this isn't the right word for it, but I hope to catalog all the memorable pieces of junk (homecoming flowers, movie stubs) into a scrapbook of sort while I still remember the memories behind them. They say around my age is when your brain reaches capacity. In order to learn something, you lose something else.

Bookcards: A strategy to remember books you've read. Taught to me by my Pre-AP English teacher in high school. Thanks Dr. Tilley!

2.) Music: As I've posted before, I need to learn how to focus on the music, for the sake of the music. If I was completely honest with myself, a portion of my motivation for learning how to produce music has to do with hopes for fame and fortune. I greatly and wholeheartedly dislike being told I can't do something. Maybe I'm just trying to prove a point.

Here's a current status on the songs I've written and/or nixed (these names aren't necessarily the song titles, just how I remember them):

Vanilla Valentine - on hold. I really like these lyrics, but I worked on it too long to be objective of it, so I took a break.

First time - Nixed. It had a solid intro, but some of the words became too cliche. This was the song that explore the different versions of 'love' as inspired by Love in the Time of Cholera. It may come back, but for now I dislike it too much to continue.

Envelopes - Working on it. Just finished halfway through the pre-production writing, but haven't been in the studio (I'm still travelling) so it hasn't seen ProTools yet.

Ignorance - Working on it. I love the concept behind this one, but I've only just started

There are about 4 others that I've written down on paper, but who knows if they'll ever see the light. I just want to finish at least four songs COMPLETELY before the end of the summer. Let's hope.

Summer Projects

So I somewhat did not live up to my goals. Did not complete 10 songs, or even one song. What I do have, however, is many hours spent in the lab with four unfinished songs. The great part about failing though is learning to start anew. Granted, there is something to be learned in finishing a song, even if it's not good, but I despise putting my name on a product of which I am not particularly proud. So I didn't.

Unfortunately, putting more time into music and friends this semester did cause a bit of strain on my academic life -- luckily it was a strain that is no longer a top priority. As much as I'll miss the life of undergrad, I'm excited for what is next.

I'd like to purchase my own equipment at some point as I've grown weary of using hardware that I do not 100% understand and did not put together -- it's limiting my productivity and growth. Don't misunderstand, I love the lessons I've learned from that music lab and the hundred of base concepts it has taught me, but I think going from hi-tech to low-tech (in terms of amount of equipment) will be a change. Learn to crawl before you can walk.

This summer I hope to make much more progress. We'll see.

Video

I had to play a piece for my music theory class, but I left my violin at home. So I recorded myself playing it on the invisible violin I designed (see previous posts) on Max/MSP for my computer music course. Recorded and posted on youtube.

Newfound respect.

It seems as though my thoughts are quite fickle and constantly changing... and you wouldn't be wrong.

I decided to turn all three into songs... because I like the lyrical content of all of them, and the sound different enough to be unique.

Still working on Take 3, inspired by Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

It's really starting to shape up.

Wish me luck.

Take3

I started over for a second time... Take 3... and lo and behold, I like it!

My mistake was focusing too much on the minutia early on without an idea of structure. As much as I'd like to think the music can just come easily, I believe brilliant work is definitely a calculated effort.

I tell my students this who are working on writing or personal statements. Great writing is when someone reads it and says "Boy, I wish I was as talented of a writer as _____. The writing just comes so easily to him/her." It's when everything flows so easily that the reader cannot tell that painstaking effort went into making that work fantastic.

Same goes for music I suppose. Songs on the radio that sound so simple or cheesy probably had teams of sound engineers, composers, lyricists, and more -- just so we'd think that song was 'so simple'.. yet for some reason we can't stop listening to it....

Take 3 will be posted here. As soon as I finish it.

Day Something...

So I continued to get sucked into Max/MSP/Jitter... It's a musical computer programmer's dream. No longer bound by silly semi colon or parentheses mistakes, debugging goes much faster.

But unfortunately, it's taken me away from my original goal, the techno pop song.

So starting over. My goal for today: getting through the chorus.

Edit 4:45: Must stop for the day. I'm reaching a point where I can't tell if something sounds good or bad. i.e. it all sounds bad. Finished up until the chorus.

Day 36: Max/MSP/Jitter is awesome.

I've become slightly distracted from my goal due to spending most of my time in the electronic music lab designing Max/MSP patches. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it's a musician's guide to programming - i.e. a visual representation to map object oriented programming. In this program itself, however, there are tons of pre-designed objects that offer limitless function.

In short, it's programming with ten times less hassle. Granted, I cannot write my own objects as easily, but at this point I have yet to see the need to.

I spent a few afternoons last week just playing guitar trying to figure out the lyrics, the progression, and general pattern of this song that I was writing... But was struggling. Then in class one day, my Electronic Music professor made a comment about how music is so subjective, explain how through time, some musical trends become stale while others become popular. It was then that I understood that it was a futile effort trying to not sound like someone else's work in the current present, past, or future. Instead I should just create music as the thoughts exit my mind. If it just so happens that it sounds trite, then so be it. My music, as everything else about me, is shaped by my experiences. For this first song, I want to make sure the creativity remains unhindered by an all too logical reasoning process.

And finally, after one sitting and impromptu singing through the song, I have an outline.

Thus, I've begun the process of developing, tweaking, and honing the exact sounds I want. Effects processing, minor velocity changes, flourishes here and there -- you name it. It should sound professional... although it'll take time...

Day 29: Troubled Road

It's difficult to write even a basic verse and chorus without the nagging feeling that it sounds exactly like another song.

I suppose it's that feeling that sits behind all of pop music, but I'd hope to at least create enough variation as not to bore myself.

Still far from the finished project, but every time I sit down to listen again, I still find new and inspiring ideas.

Day 23: Finding Sounds

I ended up scraping the first version w/o remorse. From the beginning I knew the first song would require a large learning curve while I figured out how to manipulate and utilize the softwares in the manner that I want.

Finding decent sounds has been the most difficult part thus far. I've had to accept poorer samples or synthesizers and simply trudge forward. Once I finish the song's basic structure, I'll be able to implement effects in order to create the sounds that I need.

So far I'm two verses and the chorus in. I know I want to add at least: a dissonant atypical pop chord, a bridge, and a dramatic finish.

The song is about perfume. Yes, perfume (but perhaps not in the way you're thinking).

And we press on.

Inspired: Day 14

Two weeks in and it's a struggle.

I had a few more interviews (so I was not in town too often) and had to compose a separate project for class. As such, I was only able to spend a few hours here and there on this project (Ahh, the life of a college student).

I've learned just how intricate the work becomes in order to turn a simple sound from good into "man, that's catchy."

There's a solid intro in place, although I wish I had a better drum machine. I might have to tweak some of the sounds myself. We'll see.

When I get a solid piece, I'll post a sample.

P.S. The other project was a re-creation of the commercial entitled "the lost generation." It's a palindromic work, so in the background I wrote a simple palindromic piece to match it. I'll bounce it to AIF/MP3 when I can.

Musical Miscellany: Inspired - Day 1

It is interesting how often we fall short of our intentions. I hoped one day to go through and finish my blog about my time in Panama. But it's over a year later and life has moved on leaving my past goals behind. I apologize to all who were following this blog for the abrupt stop.

Inspired by Julie&Julia, I want to finish something. Perhaps not cooking, I've never been much of a recipe-follower. But I believe my goal is equally ambitious.

My goal: to write ten songs in ten different styles based off Billboard top hits. My purpose is a trivial one; I want to show that each and every person has the versatility and the ability to create their own music in whichever style they wish. Perhaps one day we'll have an Asian American singing country, or perhaps a Hispanic person playing Indian music. I hope in these songs to explore the challenges of creating coherent and pleasing music... as well as learning the difficulties in the role of technology in music.

I head to medical school relatively soon, so this project has a deadline.

For song one: I'll attempt Synthpop/Electronica Pop, a favorite of mine.

Day 1.