Flies and Butterflies (苍蝇, ハエ, 파리 and 蝴蝶, 蝶, 나비)

Every once in a while MJ and I will be annoyed by an unwelcome houseguest or 2: the fly. Not sure how it gets in since we have all the windows sealed and doors shut, maybe flies follow us home from the outside, but once they're in they make themselves well known, buzzing around the home like they own the place and whizzing by our ears as if taunting us that we can't catch them. And it's true, it's really hard to catch them at their speed while flying around, but if they land and pause for a little bit, it's a different story. When I was a kid living in suburban Illinois I made a habit of killing flies in our home, getting whatever piece of paper was closest to my hand and swatting the flies as they landed. Maybe certain flies have evolved, or different regions of America have different flies: the ones MJ and I deal with seem bigger, faster, and just a tad smarter: they don't land in convenient places for us to swat them, and they sense our hand movements just a nanosecond because it comes crashing down upon them. I even tried to anticipate their escape path and swat away from where they are to where I anticipate them to be, but flies sometimes can fly away from where their heads are pointing towards. I'm not sure why I have such a bloodlust for killing flies: they're actually pretty harmless, as long as you don't put food out for them to infect. MJ doesn't like them because they're around dirty things and don't want them to touch our food; fair point, but they definitely can't sting or bite or cause any pain, something that can't be said about mosquitos and/or other creatures that can get into the home. I think it might be a bit of OCD too: something just seems off when the home has a fly in it, like something stuck in our teeth that we need to extract, a pimple on an otherwise blemish-free face, a literal "fly in the ointment" as the idiom goes which actually comes from a Bible phrase from Ecclesiastes about fly ruining something otherwise perfect. The Bible, turns out, is the source of a lot of vocabulary and phrases that we still use today. Breaking Bad even had a whole bottle episode with Jesse and Walt in the meth lab trying to excise a fly from the lab, a kind of metaphor for their relationship. Butterflies, on the other hand, are the exact opposte of flies, despite having its name in their name. MJ and I went to a botanical garden today and most gardens have a butterfly preserve or some sort of hothouse/greenhouse indoor component for when the winter months come rolling in. The butterflies were free-roaming, and it just put us into such a better mood than the flies. Butterflies are like the calm classical orchestra concert to the heavy metal flies or "Ride of the Valkyries," butterflies just want to be left alone and flutter up to you unassumingly, not making any noise exact the tiny pitter-patter of beating their wings. They have such exquisite patterns on their wings that we forget that the center of their bodies look kind of like house flies, they just survived through evolution through their beautiful wings, and now human beings cultivating them, whereas flies survive through sheer will of crowding into people's houses, surviving on other organisms' junk. It'd be so easily to kill a butterfly just by clapping your hands around them, yet they're so precious no one in the butterfly house even thought of doing something like that. There's a reason there are no houses full of flies (maybe iguanas or frogs would get a kick out of that though). The relationship between flies and butterflies is kind of symbolic of human life too (I always try to relate it to myself, selfish human that I am ). Some people are born butterflies, some people are born flies. Everybody just naturally gravitates towards butterflies and they can do no wrong, they're like gods' gifts to the world and they act like it, just going about their day as they please without worry of predators, they become soft. Flies, on the other hand, get no positive attention for others, they're just on their own to survive, yet they still manage to survive and make a living out of it. There's something admirable about it; it's not like they can just turn into a butterfly, and they didn't ask to be flies, they were just born that way. Maybe something us humans should consider at least when treating other human beings. As for actual flies though? No mercy if you've entered the Yan household! You know that phrase "wouldn't hurt a fly!" that does not apply to me.

National Blood Donor Day

TIL that there's a national blood donor day, every June 14. I would probably NOT go to donate blood or platelets on that day, as it's probably packed to the gills with willing donors. I also learned today that there's a man named Mark Vinson who's trying to donate platelets in all 50 states.... he already completed the task of donating blood in all 50 states this year! Missed the video. It's the kind of story that would have went more viral in something like.....2008, when one man went around the country doing "50 jobs in 50 states" and got on CNN for the interesting idea. In 2025, though, with so much more content and Youtubers and streamers and content creators, and people not caring about the news as much, it got a few thousand views on Youtube and an Alaska Airlines promotional spot. Sigh.....that's the state of the world: people will jump all over a story about Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl or celebrity gossip or the latest Taylor Swift album (Life of a Showgirl) or the latest ICE raid video, the good stories about humankind go unnoticed; good people doing good things don't get as much attention as someone seeking attention doing stupid things. In Mark Vinson's case, he's been donating blood and platelets for 37 years, he's an ambassador for the American Red Cross, he's encouraging other people to donate. I wish I came up with this idea; I almost did the 50 jobs in 50 states challenge in 2011 after law school when I couldn't find a job; it really ties together my love of visiting new places and my (wouldn't say love) my commitment to donating and doing something good for the world. So far in my blood donation journey I've donated in 6 different states and various different cities, and I used to seek out new donation places around L.A. and other cities I lived in temporarily just to check out new areas of the city. So I envy Mark Vinson and the life that lets him go to various states on business and otehr occasions especially with a family. Some of those smaller population states can be tough, and have less occasion to go to Montana, Idaho, North Dakota.......he even made it to Alaska and Hawaii, where "blood donation" is not one of the first things to come to mind about what to do there. (But that actually make it more important to donate if there are less donors there). The logistics of going to a new place is also tough: transportation is one thing, but also learning the new rules of the donation place, getting to know the nurses, finding out if there's a vein whisperer or not.....blood donation anyone can do, but platelets: you migth want a familiar face doing both arms. I think the best thing that American Red Cross does in getting repeat donors is NOT to keep spamming me with phone calls and texts about the "critical shortage" of donors and the free shirt giveaways, hoodies (although those are nice), I can get equivalent quality ones for $20 or so and not be forced to take an extra large shirt is they track your donations for you, so you can look back at your whole donation history and where you've been, how often you did it, where the blood went to, what your hematocrit and other health signs are (A1c tests for diabetes, etc.) It gives the donor a log, a ritual, and gives people like Mark Vinson a history of their life, where they've been to, where they might still want to go, that you matter in this world and others notice your sacrifice. So often in today's world our accomplishments go unnoticed: I paid my mortgage this month, yay! There will be one for next month, or at work bosses don't acknowledge your work, or you let someone in on the highway but they give no acknowledgment of your kindness. Instead selfish people who do relatively dumb things get likes and views on Youtube. It's frustrating and can be ungratifying in this "only attracted to cool stuff" world. It's valuable when someone pays attention, and that's likely why American Red Cross can get repeat donors like me. Even though they get money and have an incentive to recruit you too, at least they let you know someone's keeping track. I still won't go in to donate on National Blood Donor Day though.

Recharge Battery (电池充电, 배터리 충전)

Last week I was caught in one of the most dire situations imaginable in today's modern world: being away from home with a cell home that was out of battery. Seems inconceivable, but a confluence of issues contributed to my battery situation: No charging stations on the train to the airport, not enough time to charge my phone in a socket at the airport before getting on the plane, no charging port ON THE PLANE (thanks United Airlines) and being delayed on the flight for an hour sitting on the tarmac (by the way, tarmac is a word created from the 2 materials in its name, tar and macadam), and finally, THE RENTAL CAR I BOOKED DID NOT HAVE AN OLDER CHARGER, just the newer USB-C charging port that any versions of Apple iPhone 15 and newer have.......I have the iPhone 14 Pro, which I got in late 2022 but might as well be from the Triassic Period before the wheel was invented, and I couldn't charge in the car while driving, which I was counting on. Turns out life is difficult without technology, and the romantic idea of driving cross-country with just a car and a full tank of gas is not practicable if you're still living in the 20th century phone-wise. I really don't like relying so heavily on technology and batteries to save me since I like to be all-natural and free, but that kind of living hits a snag when your ability to use the magic wand in your hand appears. The modern smartphone really shouldn't be called a "phone," such an outdated use of the term because no one really calls anyone anymore, it should be the anything device because it can get you anything you want: it acts as a wallet, paying for anything, you can get a car to come to your exact location and pick you up in less than 5 minutes almost anywhere in the world, food arrives anytime, and you can watch any movie or show that's available for streaming from anywhere in the world. Just as long as you charge your battery! MJ and I are making some decisions on baby furniture and what to buy....she seems calm and collected, maybe from taking classes discussing healthcare for the baby, but I'm a little stressed and overwhelmed at the coming storm, no matter how many Youtube videos we watch of influencers and "certified pediatricians" smiling and telling us it's going to be OK.....one mother apparently had a baby that slept from 8PM to 7AM through the night almost starting from brith. That is probably the dream scenario, dream baby, legendary baby you only hear stories about but never have met, like the Loch Ness monster. I suspect we'll get a well-behaved baby, and between MJ and I we both sleep pretty well, so maybe we'll get lucky too, but so much of what to prepare for depends on the baby: what they'll wear, if they like baths or not, if they like being in a bassinet or crib, if they sleep well with the lights dimmed or in total darkness, just so many variables, they're so diverse just like human beings are. In real life some people would never consider taking a flight to another city in the morning and coming back in the same day without even staying a night in that city, but that's what I've done and enjoy doing now. That's kind of the beauty of it, we don't know. I suppose we might look back on these pre-baby as the "good ol' days," not knowing what we will get and enjoying our pre-baby life without the constant stress of being responsible for another human being. I felt a similar burden the summer before law school way back in 2008, knowing there was so much to do coming up and I was entering another phase of my life with unknown variables and things that would totally change me as a person, looking forward to those changes as a natural part of life and moving up a level, but also desperately clinging on to the last vestiges of the life that we have now that's all things considered a very good, comfortable life: I could do this forever if given a choice, but the high-risk, high-reward endeavor of having a child makes life so many more flavorful, like variety being the slice of life (and apparently, bread is the staff of life, just learned that today). I need this variety in life to make life worth living, and instead of hardcore recreational drugs or getting a dog, or taking on a second career, traveling the world, something else, I have chosen the more traditional path of having a baby. Maybe it will be very difficult and very cranky. But maybe it'll be like that fast charger (instead of the slow charger I brought with me) I needed on last week's flight: Give me a boost in enjoyment and satisfaction and recharge my outlook on life.

Precautions (预防, 予防, 지침)

The Canadian band "Men Without Hats" had their only major hit in 1983 with the song "Safety Dance." Unfortunately, that song wasn't actually about doing anything safely, it was actually protesting the safety measures at a nightclub and preaching dancing however you wanted to do, apparently with reckless abandon. Not typical of rock bands or any type of music to preach caution, it's usually "love," rebel, fight the power, we won't take anymore of this, you only live once type of stuff. No one sings about safety because it's not cool, it's not sexy, and it doesn't sell. The whole US economy is predicated on people taking chances, spending unwisely, throwing caution to the wind and living just for today. "Safety" is for cops, condoms, and parents, some of the most uncool things there are. MJ might disagree when I pick up food from the floor I just dropped and eat it, but I live a pretty safe life....no drugs, not much alcohol, no skydiving, no alligator feeding, no guns, and I drive barely past the speed limit. Which is why I cringed today when I drove past a guy on his bicycle in the middle of traffic, driving in the opposite direction of traffic, without a helmet...and looking at his phone. This really took the cake for me in an environment where I see pedestrians crossing the street in front of cars regularly, people stopping in the middle of the road and putting their hazard lights on as if that fixes the whole problem, and pedestrains "taking a head start" (previously complained about here) walking into traffic and coming inches away from having their feet run over by the passing car's tires. I cringe both for their lack of care but also for myself in having to deal with these situations because it makes it so much more dangerous for me as well. I'm about to one of those 3 "safety" categories (a parent) trying to bring up a baby and take precautions by getting vaccines, buying the safest car seats, having the most precautions delivering a baby....and here are these bozos singlehandedly making the world a more dangerous place. I've also learned a lot about precautions to take when having a baby: like I didn't know babies shouldn't drink water; hmmm, seems like the lifeblood of human life and my life (I drink almost only water every day) but apparently that's not recommended until 6 months old. Carseat should face towards the rear of the car, not supposed to kiss the baby (we have a lot of germs in our mouths), don't put jacket on a baby in a carseat, lots of things to avoid. This is in addition to all the normal things in life that we have to worry about like being too hot or too cold, sharp objects, being turned upside down, etc. I realize learning about all the precautions to take with a baby, that this is like a forever thing: parents are always going to try to keep the baby as safe as possile, and it's always going to be anxiety-inducing worrying about what these babies do. Even as an adult, there are still concerns about safety: getting into a car accident, getting sick, life is pretty delicate, we're all just delicate flowers traveling through the world with so many pitfalls lying in wait that can trip us up. Probably good to avoid the actual pitfalls in the road......especially when riding a bicycle in a car lane in the wrong direction...while checking your phone, without a helmut. Aigu! (the Korean equivalent of English exclamation "OMG")

Weight Gain (体重增加, 体重増加, 체중 증가)

On the night of my high school's 20th reunion (didn't go after the 10-year reunion was underwhelming), a new source of stress has reared its ugly head, something I hadn't had to worry about since high school: weight gain, especially unexpected weight gain. Working out the same amount (in fact, my health tracker says I moved 300% more than my target, doesn't happen every day), eating roughly the same amount, but.....weight is persistently high. For the last 20 years or so, ever since I started a daily routine of doing about 5 miles of cardio at least a day, I've been able to keep a steady weight, and even if I let myself go and got a little overboard (maybe 10 pounds over), I was able to gradually whittle that down without anyone dramatic changes). Not this time; this time I'm dreading getting on the scale for fear it will tell me some bad news; whereas usually I get on as a form of routine just to check myself like checking the weather or checking the stock market, recently checking the scale has been painful, a daily reminder that I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I can see why people struggle with weight issues or self-image issues; it's not necessarily that I can tell I've put on 7-10 extra pounds, it's that sinking feeling that I'm at my upper limit now without any room to spare, and I need to watch myself; getting any heavier is not acceptable. Except I'm not sure what's causing this most recently episode of weight gain, with the main culprit maybe something we all dread: aging. Perhaps my body just doesn't have the same metabolism anymore. It's not breaking down the same amount of food as fast anymore so more of it is staying on my body. Which means: I have to eat less. I have to curb myself so I don't overeat, and watch it with the high-sodium, high-calorie, high-fat foods. Aka everything tasty in life. I've never been THIS heavy before, hopefully my knees are doing ok, the rest of my body isn't breaking down and buckling under all that weight? I'm now worried about life after baby (not just the lack of sleep, the constant attention you have to give) but also not being able to run outside for too long to burn off all the calories. I might have to prevent weight gain by (gasp) watching what I eat, which has never been my forte for controlling weight gain. Ideally I would go into parenthood at the lower threshold for weight; have a couple months to work on that! Or maybe the cause was the saline that they pumped in me for my platelet donation today, or waking up early in the morning not allowing my body to fully burn off pounds at night. It was a Snoop/Peanuts cartoon T-shirt giveaway today, a blatant marketing gimmick to get more people to donate blood, and of course when I showed up at the site...only XL and XXL t-shirts left. I've always wondered why large corporations giving out giveaways don't make more Medium and Larget T-shirts....why are there always XL's left? I used to go to L.A. Clippers games and they'd give out all XL shirts. Not everyone is XL! In fact, most people are not XL! Only people like my mom encouraged me to wear XL's as a kid because "maybe it'll shrink in the laundry" or "it's more comfortable and it won't be too tight." I've since come to realize, even with my limited fashion sense, that wearing baggy clothing isn't aesthetically pleasing for most, and MJ has pretty much rid me of the nation of going outside wearing something too big. Maybe it's too much to ask for when you're getting a free shirt, but the giveaway only has value (and acts as another incentive for people to come give blood) if the shirt can be worn. Oh yea, and this means I've now lived more years after high school than before high school. They say that life begins after high school.......I guess I'm 20 years old now! I hesitate to go to high school reunions because even if people are cordial and nice now, I feel like they'll always remember in the back of their mind their image of Robert Yan during high school, which was not a version that I'd like people to remember, the awkwardness, the lack of social awareness due to not having parents or older siblings telling me how to behave in American society. I was such a babe in the woods ripe for reputation slaughter. I wish I could get another chance at doing high school over again, but going to the high school reunion is not going to resuscitate my image or allow me to relive those years. And I had weight gain in high school.

Tuberculosis (结核病, 결핵)

I often, like most humans, lament and complain about what I don't have (a big car, a big house, a bigger bank account, a more athletic body, the ability to throw a baseball 95 MPH, etc.), but it's important to take a step back and reflect on what I do have, or to put it another way, what bad things I don't have: I don't have tuberculosis. And according to John Green and his latest work "Everything is Tuberculosis," that's definitely something to celebrate. Tuberculosis has been around for centuries and was highlighted in many famous works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, etc., it's been very present in human life for centuries but doesn't get the top billing of other more lethal and contagious diseases like Ebola, Covid, HIV/AIDs, etc, but it's definitely there and it's definitely deadly. The most common symptom is coughing up blood and having your napkin turn red, which we're all familiar with in movies and other media, and John Green does his usual excellent job in describing all the horrors of it, including how it just decimates families and villages and whole communities of people in Africa, who suffer due to cramped living conditions (where tuberculosis can spread the fastest and most easily) and bad healthcare. I think people in the U.S. are extremely lucky tuberculosis is just not that much of a problem here (although there were some breakouts this summer as a wake-up call), so much so we don't even vaccinate for it. Let's hope that continues and that everything doesn't turn into tuberculosis like John Green's book. I recently heard that humans are still at our infancy about understanding the human body, and there's still so much go to go about understanding diseases, how they interact with the body, how the body tries to heal itself, and how everyone's body is different. So doctors don't have all the answers (just ask my mom who's going through a difficult situation with medical professionals right now), but the answers they do have have made a profound effect (vaccines, surgeries, anesthesia). I still feel like the best way to go through life is all-natural, let the body heal itself and do its thing, don't subject oneself to too many medications and being dependendant on artificial stuff. But to the extent it's needed, do rely on medical help: for childbirth, for example. I think I've become very naive and complacent about diseases: I've never once had a surgery, had to use anesthesia, had any broken limbs/arms, never had to go to a hospital except to visit others. Never had to worry about tuberculosis. It's almost like my parents just wished upon a healthy baby and put all their energy in giving birth to a health kid, and I was the beneficiary of all those well wishes I feel like I have a circle of protection around me (not to say I'm invincible and I like to think I drive cars to maximize safety and make sure I don't test the physical limits of that circle of protection). I think every parent probably wants that for a child and it's one of the No. 1 things that they prioritize (MJ might prioritize being pretty and cute over this), but it's health for me. Just be healthy, be free from disease, be able to live like I have, pain-free. But of course the baby will get sick in the first few years, like all the time, is what I've heard, because they have the immune system......of a baby, it hasn't been tested and it's prone to everything. So I'm anticipating some really bad grossness and being sick a lot....one of the things that has probably kept my relationship with MJ alive is that I don't get sick very often and don't really get her sick, so we're both relatively healthy most of the time (except those Covid bouts everyone had to get over)......that's about to be tested with the arrival of a baby. As long as it's not tuberculosis!

Encyclopedia (百科全书, 百科事典, 백과 사전)

Playing chess. Going camping. Going surfing. Taking a road trip. Going to a baseball game. Going to a music concert. Watching TV. Sleeping all weekend. Reading a book. Going to a wedding. I hear a lot of fun things that other do in this wild wacky world of ours, but of all the activities I've heard friends say they are actively doing, I've never heard anyone say they are busy reading the encyclopedia. I suspect this is partly because of the nerdiness associated with reading dictionaries and books that never really went away after grade school where you just don't want to be outed as the nerd who is in the library reading references books for fear of getting your lunch money stolen or just bullied by other kids in your class, but it also could be that encyclopedias seem boring. They don't have a plot like novels do, they don't have a famous actor or actress on the cover marketing their tell-all memoir, they don't prepare you for any particular test like the LSAT or the GRE or the MCATs. There's really no purpose especially in our internet age of reading physical encyclopedias like the Britannica or the World Book Encyclopeda (my go-to encyclopedia). And yet, I must be a special breed because whenver I go to a new library, I always wonder where their encyclopedias are, and often crack open the A section to check out where all the familiar sections of "Alaska," "atoms," and "aardvarks" are and what they say about them (a lot of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Samuel Adams action in the first few pages of the A's in the encyclopedia, by the way). I often find that these encyclopedias are in near-mint condition because nobdy has read them; it's like cracking open a new book and the pages still kind of stick together, and pages turn crisply with a little "whoosh" sound. I get enjoyment out of taking an adventure into those pages, but also of the content of the encyclopedias: they've really made an effort (probably to attract any readers they can) to put in more pictures, make the entries more reader-friendly, full of stats, quotations, fun facts, etc., so that it's not pages upon pages of full text. Still....reading an encyclpedia front-to-back is pretty hard work, I like the overviews of states with their capitals, populations, landmarks, famous peoples, famous universities, largest cities, etc., but in between are entries that you can only take so much of like random species of trees, plants, bygone technology, books you've never heard of, old medieval instruments, yet another type of antelope native to Africa. One really is incentivized to skip ahead to something that you're interested in. I've just never ever in my life been interested in fashion and clothing, and it's just a bore sometimes reading about all kinds of shoes, fabrics, styles of the 1930s, etc. It doesn't help that each tome is 800 pages or so, depending on it's a meaty letter like "A" or "M" or even if they have to divide certain letters like C (C-Ch is just one tome). It really doesn't help that encyclopedias are characterized as "reference books," so they're for libary use only and can't be checked out. In this day and age, who's going to steal an encyclopedia? I wonder each time I go to the library and have to put the book back for the next time. Luckily, there are encyclopedias on various topics that CAN be checked out like Space encyclopedia, dog encyclopedia (I really like that one, shows a lot of pictures of dogs and gives the illusion that I have one of those dogs, without actually having one). Yup, reading the encyclopedia is difficult, which is why I give props to an author named AJ Jacobs (I've discussed him before) who took on the monumental project of reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover in about 2003-2004. This was before iPhones and just the beginning of the Internet, so people had more uses for encyclopedias back then as a source of knowledge, but still his story inspires me that others have done it before. He didn't even read the read-friendly World Book version, he did the Britannica all-text black and white copy version. Yikes. I honestly don't know if any normal person would do that in today's day and age without some serious monetary incentive now. There's just too much out there. I'm able to go to the library and sit down for a solid hour without checking my phone (and actualy my eyes thank me for letting them read a physical piece of paper instead of a screen, either phone or computer) but it's just too tempting nowadays with a device smarter than any encyclopedia just sitting in your pocket and beeping all the time with new alerts, new information, new communication from friends, there's just too much to do nowadays to read encyclopedias. I wonder how college kids read textbooks, to be honest. But Jacobs's book about reading the encyclopedia is great: he describes trying to use the facts he learned in normal conversation, to no avail; he just sounds kind of weird at parties, he lugs the book around the New York City subway and other inconvenient places to have a 5-pound brick of a book with you at all times, and he discusses important entries he learns about Descartes (liked cross-eyed women), gagaku (Japanese music), all very relatable to an encyclopedia reader: so much human knowledge that is right at our fingertips everyday that we just brush by without a second's thought. Before reading the encyclopedia and getting into trivia (more like general knowledge), I was naive like a babe in the woods. Now after having read the encyclopedia, there's still a world of information I don't know, but I at least know a little about the stuff that I don't know and how much else there is to know. The more you learn, the more you understand how much more there is to learn. In 10 years when all human beings will be programmed with a microchip with all the knowledge in the universe or there's a magic pill that increases your IQ by 100 points, and encyclopedias including digital encyclopedias become obsolete, I'll always look back on those days spent leafing through an encyclopedia and getting endorphin hits each time I learned something new, as "those were the good ol' days."