The Gift of the Magi

 Part of the joy of watching Jeopardy episodes with MJ is making connections about facts in life that were all jumbled up in my brain, people, places, words, historical objects, fictional characters that I had heard of but really didn't piece together or inquire further into. Today I read about Cool Hand Luke, a movie I had always known for the famous phrase "what we have here is a failure to communicate," but there's a reason the movie received a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. I've caught up on so much geography and reminded myself how little I know about the world outside of the U.S. and maybe a handful of touristy areas I've visited over the years; there's a whole vast world out there, and Honduras is a country in Central America bordering Nicaraugua and Guatemala, not somewhere in the Caribbean Islands as I had always thought. And the Tower of Babylon wasn't an actual place. Recoleta is a famous cemetery in Bueno Aires. (I actually kind of like cemeteries, I would walk through them if it wasn't frowned upon/bad luck/kind of creepy. But I also was reminded of an awesome short story I'd read before in Japanese, didn't finish because it was pretty long, called "The Gift of the Magi" by O Henry (it's a pen name for William Porter). It's a story about a very poor husband and wife team who are preparing for Christmas and want to give each other a gift, but don't have much money. ($1.87, apparently, to be exact, which even before inflation is not a significant sum). Spoiler Alert! The wife sells her hair to get the husband a watch chain to match his watch, but what she doesn't know is that the husband sold his watch to buy the wife combs for her hair. So neither of them can use the gift that they got each other, but it shows that they really cared about each other and how much they were willing to sacrifice. A touching story and a reminder of the good things mankind is capable of (at least in fictional stories, but I can imagine somewhere some time a similar story happened. But I wouldn't trust it if it was a story that popped up on Facebook or Instagram nowadays, it'd likely be a ploy to get attention unfortunately). I'd like to think that MJ and I have the same kind of relationship as in the Gift of the Magi, but I don't even wear a watch. Marriage goals. 

That's the kind of story people should aspire to even in today's society, but unfortunatley the stuff we read nowadays is far from the romanticized version of humans and more of the "clap-back" insult, and salacious news variety. Reputable news organizations like the New York Times and CNN have even caved to the pressures of what people want (gossip, spin, and stories that make people feel emotion, even anger) instead of giving neutral writing, not to mention all the new media, Youtube channels, TikTok videos, twitter trends, etc., that usually focus more on what the latest bad news or mean tweet is rather than positive, inspiring news. I feel like there's a need for people to read more short stories with parables and lessons, or at least get a refresher course on Aesop's fables (ex: The Fox and the sour grapes, the Boy Who Cried Wolf- aka STOP LYING!, and Hans Christian Andersen's "Emperor's New Clothes." - perfect metaphor for Trump right now who employs plenty of yes-men to tell him he's the greatest. It's almost like the more people grow up from the innocence of a kid and the natural inclination to do good acts and be nice to others (at least most kids) the more adults screw it up distrust each other, causing rifts in the world. Aka we all get worse as we age, a frightening prospect. 

One of the complaints I've had recently is while running around outside, a fairly innocuous act that isn't bothering anyone (I even mask up when I approach others on the sidewalk!) I frequently encounter people who make comments about me running. It's usually something like "Yeah" and "Keep running!" nothing too offensive (except one non-Chinese child looked at me and yelled "Chinese!") but it's very obviously directed at me and not in a friendly way, more like a demeaning way or pointing me out for doing something so foolish as to run. I've never really understood hecklers' ire for runners, am I making them jealous for trying to stay healthy, or distract them from some monumental discovery while they were looking down at their phone while walking? I've noticed that a lot of times hecklers are with their friends and want to say something to look cool, kind of like a bullying mentality so that they seem strong and not weak within their group. Sometimes it's also just people being drunk.  Many times in the moment after it happens I instinctively think about shouting something back, but then just move on as running nowadays is one of my stress relievers and one of the only opportunities to get out of the house and get some fresh air. Plus the November cool area coming through is one of the best times to run, feeling the crisp clean breeze of an impending winter, with the drawback being that it gets dark around 5PM every day, before I get off work. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Frost Month (霜月)

 November is "Frost Month" in Japanese, likely named due to the frigid temperatures arriving in that month over the years. I've been spoiled living in L.A. not to have cold temperatures any time of the month, but there was one November it got so cold living in the Hollywood Hills that I had to bought a space heater, which I used for 2 days.....and promptly never used again. Living in L.A., though, also deprived me of the changing leaves that happen throughout most of America, although this year being an election year it's been heralded as the changing of political colors at least in the White House from RED to Blue......Joe Biden officially became the President Elect on Saturday, although as with most things related to Donald Trump, it's pending litigation. Without getting too much into politics (which has become a problem for many people in this country), it will be a welcome change not to have to react to a new outlandish, hard-to-believe story coming out of the White House that's stranger than fiction, or have stock prices fluctuate immensely based on every tweet, or even just keeping track of all the new White House Press Secretaries and other positions seemingly with a revolving door. And the big thing is that Joe Biden (who might not necessarily be better than Trump on some issues) is definitively better on climate change, something denied and consequently pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. MJ and I watched David Attenborough's latest documentary "A Life on Our Planet" recently and were alarmed by the climate change issues threatening the world, even though the documentary was full of nice videos of animals that kind of softened the blow a bit, but still it was quite eye-opening. 

Oh and now that November 3rd has passed, I'm relieved that we're no longer inundated with political ads and we just have the garden variety car, cereal, mattress, and movie ads (I didn't think I would miss them). I'm bothered how much America is pressured by different kinds of groups into consuming things, whether it's a product, a food item, an experience (Travel), a lifestyle, an institution of higher education (lots of ads from Grand Rapids University recently), and especially in election years, a political party. Everything seems like an ad, even things that I thought growing up were genuine, organic things to care about, like Presidential activities, or charities, or eating 3 meals a day, or having a social gathering friends by going out to eat/ drink. These are all things that are pushed to the general populace as "normal" things that everyone should do, but is really just benefiting the leaders of the country or a coporation .Why do we even care about politics so much? Because politicans want power, and they need votes and attention to give them that power. What they're selling is a "better vision of America," or nostalgia to a better time ("Make America Great Again") or some promise that they can make all the troubles disappear. Even hospitals, as MJ is finding out, long having a positive reputation of helping people, sells that image but really is all about just giving patients enough drugs to help them get better and trying to get them home as soon as possible to reel in the next patient and charge them beaucoup dollars for drugs from the pharmaceutical companies. It's sometimes difficult to even know who the villains are anymore, (other than the greedy CEOs! Always those guys) which may be because it's in their best interest to stay hidden and continue the status quo while normal people suffer and get taken advantage of without even knowing it, continue buying material things as well as consuming pre-packaged information, consuming promises of political reform while willingly paying taxes (Where do those taxes go to, by the way? taxpayers have to itemize their own deductions but we don't get an itemized receipt for what the government spends stuff on. Can we direct our funds to the causes that we care about like education and building of roads and infrastructure, but not to political campaigns and election litigation? I don't think so). It's sad, and I sound really skeptical, but if nothing else the 2020 election happening during a worldwide pandemic where politicans are vying for power even while normal people are screwed by the disease and by the economical affects of that disease really made me question the whole democratic system of America. 

But hey, at least we can look forward to Thanksgiving (Cyber Monday! Black Friday!) and Christmas, 2 of the biggest consuming times of the year. CONSUME! 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

The Biltmore

 On the eve of Election, MJ and I visited Asheville, NC to check out Biltmore Mansion, built for George Washington Vanderbilt in the "old money" days of late 1800's, part of America's "Gilded Age" (learned that from Jeopardy!) Slaves weren't mentioned in the history of the mansion nor in its wikipedia entry, which doesn't mean there were none, but it's a good sign. We concluded that the mansion was similar to Disneyland in many aspects: the giant castle in the middle of the attraction, kid-friendly, emphasis on Christmas inside the mansion, beautiful entrance gate taking you inside the grounds of the mansion, and Disneyland prices: $94.00 a head on the weekend we went, although it varies depending on the season and weekday/weekend. Animals spotted included sheep, horses (and horse poop), chickens, donkeys,and a koi pond; we even saw a black bear waltzing around the campus! Not sure if that's safe for other tourists. 

The Biltmore is a bit overpriced in that regard, and I think many people overlook some free places to tour around: colleges! Other than airports, tall buildings, and baseball stadiums around the country, I also like to visit college campuses.....many of them are picturesque and designed to lure prospective 18-year-old fresh minds to their campus for 4 years, so plenty of money has been poured into the architecture and they're ideal for walking around like enjoying a garden! I've compiled a list of colleges in various areas of the country, with the most memorable being Columbia University being in a tight-knight area in Upper West End Manhattan, Peppderdine being built on a huge hill overlooking Malibu and the Pacific Ocean (how does anyone get any work done there?). There are even some local college surprises like Santa Monica College being a quaint community college where MJ took some classes, IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) where my parents did their graduate school when they first immigrated to the US, as well as where I memorably first learned how to ride a bike). I'm also adding hospitals now to my list as MJ starts to look for work upon graduation. 

Markets have taken a huge leg up since a week ago, when AMZN was down under $3,000 and I tried to convince MJ to put some extra money to use in the market (my exact words were, this stock could be over $3,300 by this time next week). Well, it arrived early: AMZN and the rest of FAANG ripped higher after Joe Biden took the lead on election night, his candidancy virtually assured, but with almost similar assurance of a Republican Senate, preventing any quick passage of higher corporate taxes and capital gains taxes. Other stocks I'm checking out recently: Mercado Libre, the South American version of AMZN, Shopify, the Canadian version of AMZN, and Pinduoduo, the Chinese version of AMZN not named Alibaba. And Bitcoin's over $14,000, worth keeping an eye on. It's sad to see stocks benefitting so much (especially AMZN) from small businesses failing and the average American citizen unable to get a share of the profits, but if I'm not getting into the market, someone else will anyway.

(Voting) Polls 投票民意调查, 투표소

 Here we are on election night 2020 at 11:37PM EST, and we don't have a winner! And a winner may not be determined until Friday, as the race has boiled down to the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (from the results I've seen), and those states' antiquated vote count methods make it so that they won't yield a conclusive winner tonight. Whatever happens tonight, though, it's pretty clear to me that there's a big loser: voting polls. Like the horse and buggy, Sony Walkmans, and Blockbuster Video stores, polling has become a thing of the past and just are not reliable in this day and age. 

As I understand it, polling occurs similarly to how MJ cold-called people at home on their landlines back in the summer as part of her nursing program: you have a list of people who are registered, and a volunteer or polling worker calls them and tries to initiate a conversation about how the person who picked up is voting in the upcoming election. As someone who a.) does not have a registered landline, b.) never picks up the phone to a number that I don't recognize, I will never be someone who gets polled. Even if I did get a phone call about polling, I don't think I would engage with the caller about who I would vote for; it'd be a waste of time. I'd ask them to email me or do something easier, like just voting on an app or something where I could enter my selection with a click of a button. The people who are getting polled are a very select portion of the population who still respond to the old methods polling companies use, and it just doesn't work in presidential elections. For a 2020 election that will ultimately cost more than $14 billion (money that we probably could have spent on any of schools, hospitals, environment, infrastructure, disaster relief, campaign reform, HEALTHCARE, etc., etc.) it seems ridiculous to still be using ancient polling methods to gauge what the likely outcome will be (most had a 90% probability Biden would win, which seems laughable now in what is at best a dead heat for Biden) and also ANCIENT vote counting methods: stories about Wisconsin needing until 6AM tomorrow morning to count all the votes, Pennsylvania needing until Friday, etc. 

Remember when fantasy baseball/ fantasy football was played by snail mail where players sent their selections of players to the commissioner each week by envelope and the commissioner tallied the results and then sent back the results each week back to the players? Sound terrible? Yea that feels like what the US polling and voting process is like right now. Welcome to 2000, except instead of Florida (which was projected to be a swing state, but went for Trump early in the night) and dimpled chads/ hanging chads it will be mail-in votes + early voting votes v. day-of voting. Yikes. 

Geography (지리학, 地理, 地理)

 Happy Halloween! A rather subdued Halloween this year as the world is already terrifying enough as it is, and especially if a certain political candidate wins in Tuesday's election (according to all the Youtube ads running nowadays). The betting markets have staked a large lead for the challenger Joe Biden, and with good reason: apparently many Americans have taken the early voting process seriously, as more than half of the amount of voters in 2016 have already voted, meaning a lot of votes are already in, and the polls are reflecting people's choices likely AFTER they have already submitted their ballot, meaning no surprise not even over the weekend can make much of a difference. Prognosticators are projecting about a 90% chance that Biden wins versus a measly 10% for Trump, and Five Thirty Eight broke it down like this: Trump needs to win all the states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Florida. These are the closest 5 battleground states all around 50-50, so Trump's chances are like flipping a coin and landing on heads 5 consecutive times (normally around 4%): Not very good odds at all. Ohio used to be the ultimate swing state during the early 2000's, but now it's solidly red, but other Midwestern states like Wisconsin and Michigan seem like they're going blue this year, as is Virginia. Even Texas's 38 electoral college votes is leaning towards going blue, although unlikely this year. 

Election season is a good time to catch up on geography in the US, with the number of electoral college votes belying the population density and trends in various states. North Carolina is at a solid 15 electoral votes, but Georgia actually has a higher population with 16 votes (didn't know that!) Pennsylvania and Illinois are at 20 apiece, which is kind of huge for Democrats because it gives them the 1st (California= 55), 3rd (New York = 29), and both IL, and PA states tied for 5th. (FL has 29). 

When I was a kid, I loved looking at maps, especially on long road trips throughout America. Each little town seemed nice even passing through, but the big capitalized metropolises that we passed through were the big kahuna, sometimes even worthy of stopping in and exploring through. It's a shame the only class I didn't choose to take Geography, probably because it wasn't an Honors or AP course, and I didn't want to lower my GPA on a non-honors course in a quest to become valedictorian (a trivial pursuit now that I think about it, but one I was pretty obsessed with in high school). I also regret not participating in Scholastic Bowl, an after-school activity that was essentially the Trivia team, where I showed up once to answer "Battle of Saratoga" due to an obsession with the American Revolution and Civil War as a child, but was stumped afterwards. I knew the 50 states and capitals by heart! I had a book listing all of America's national parks! (there are 62 now)

I realize now that I just stopped learning geography after the U.S.; I did not extend my knowledge, for example, to world countries and capitals, as well as famous rivers of the world, a HUGE category for Jeopardy. Seriously, along with "the Dead Sea Scrolls," Botticelli, the Mekong River is a recurring character on Jeopardy that the staff goes back to over and over again. I was watching the Amazing Race, where they went to Trinidad and Tobago for the first time ever in the most recent season (filmed before the pandemic) and had to look on a map to find it surprisingly in South America, when I had always thought it was in Africa, and its capital, the Port of Spain, is not a port in Spain. Oh and there's more "stans" in the Middle East than I ever could have imagined. It's not just Pakistan, there's Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan......etc., etc. 

Sometimes I wish I had my last 10 or 15 years back again, and one of the things I would want it back for is just to go into a deep learning zone like James Holzhauer did to become one of the most famous Jeopardy champions ever. I also found out he's from Naperville, IL, attended the University of Illinois (right before I did, actually we may have intersected), and is a sports bettor. And he spent like 6 years solely studying trivia as his full time job, well I guess also as a "pro sports bettor." But then I realize my last 10 years haven't been so bad.....I learned a bunch of languages and made a decent amount of money too. I did waste a bunch of time.....but it didn't turn out so bad after all. Now I just gotta look up these new national parks established recently (Cuyahoga Dunes in Ohio and White Sands in New Mexico). 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Vote (投票, 投票, 투표)

 Vote. Vote! Please vote! Make sure you vote! Voting is here! There's nothing more important than voting. VOTE! No more certain sign that we're approaching the end of an election year than every single ad on Youtube telling one to vote, or every other social media post urging people to vote, or political leaders coming out everywhere telling everyone to vote. This year's new line: "Make sure you have a voting plan." 

I don't vote in local elections, and the only time I have ever voted is during presidential elections, in 2016 and 2020. I don't deny that voting is an important part of the democratic process, but on an individual level it is hard to feel that important, knowing there are millions of other votes out there, and my vote would be easily neutralized. Especially this year, I think telling people to vote has become a way for politicians to make citizens feel powerful and "make your voice feel heard," when in reality one politician's influence is much stronger than one individual person's vote. It's like passing the buck to the ordinary citizen and blaming them if anything goes wrong. Barack Obama just blamed voters for not having enough votes to get substantial progressive legislation done during his presidency. Democrats are blaming voters for not being able to stop Amy Coney Barrett to be confirmed on the Supreme Court, and using the event as fuel for people to go vote. Well no, I don't think that's on the voters to stop the Supreme Court nomination....it seems too much like an extended infomercial about a miracle product that can cure all evils......we can have healthcare, peace on Earth, better air quality, social justice, and all the good things this world has to offer, if we just go and vote! And then after the vote is over, they'll just go about their lives like nothing happened since they've already gotten what they wanted out of the voter (kind of like being the charming prince during a first date, having a one-night stand at the voting booth, and then ghosting voters forever). 

It's pretty deflating actually when you do go out and vote.... and your candidate loses (like Hilary Clinton for me in 2016). Was my voice heard? The majority system of winner-take-all in America is pretty draconian and doesn't allow room for the minority, so sometimes voting isn't the cure-all and be all, especially if you're in the minority of people. Oh and also, there are a lot of people who can't vote...like MJ, so voting doesn't really even reflect all the people in the country. 

That tirade against voting aside, I did go vote yesterday at my local public library as part of early voting, a useful tool being applied this year due to Covid and avoiding long lines on actual election day, a week from today. I would be in favor of extending early voting for the future: I personally knew whom I was voting for, at least for President of the US, way before early voting even began. If I wasn't sure, I still could wait until the last day, but let others who are certain go before me. The whole process reminded me of taking the SAT or LSAT exam: you check in on the front desk after havng registered for the exam/ the vote, they give you a sheet that looks a lot like a scantron with questions and bubbles to fill in, and you go to a desk/booth and fill in the bubbles like a multiple-choice exam. Some bubbles had the typical 4 choices, like US Senate: Thom Tillis (Republican), Shannon W. Bray (Libertarian), Cal Cunningham (Democrat), Kevin E. Hayes (Constitution). Cunningham was in the 3rd slot normally reserved for answer choice C, so like taking a guess at the LSAT I guessed that the right answer was C! 

The President slot had 6 slots, but also a write-in spot: None of the Above! (you can write in Kanye West this year, not recommended). I only got through the first column before I stopped knowing who the candidates were anymore: I should have studied more! On the SAT they tell you don't guess if you're not sure, so I left a lot of answers blank and turned in my answer sheet in record time. The voting officer at the scanning booth to scan my answers even reminded me that there was a back side, which I had left blank. A wonderful reminder for the SAT! But not for voting, as I had intentionally left the back blank since I had no idea who anyone was. I took my fancy free pen for voting (yay!) and "I voted" sticker so I could take a selfie of myself and post it on social media showing that I was a good person for having voted. (This is probably the earliest form of virtue signaling).  Did I feel great after voting? Yes because I could check the task off my to-do list and allieve the social guilt of not voting, but did I feel empowered, like I made a difference in the world, that I can do anything I want to do? No, I felt like a number in a few hundred million numbers waiting to be counted. No one from the government is going to call me about why I voted, not going to ask me what my concerns are about the country, about what I want done. They'll only know that I prefer Joe Biden (maybe even barely) above any of the other presidential candidates. 

I also didn't mention the few campaigners right outside the voting office who were advocating for various advocates. An organization called the People's Alliance (PAC) stopped me right before I went in and asked me to consider voting for their candidates, handing me a green peace of paper with their "suggested candidates to vote for" so I could have it when going into the voting booth. I checked it out: every single bubble on the mock ballot was filled for a Democrat. Another gentleman with a "Vote Suzie Smith" sign asked me to vote for his daughter Suzie for one of the district office seats, that he would greatly appreciate it. Is this type of last-minute influencing good for the democratic process? I felt like I was going to Target and outside the store there were people selling girl-scout cookies, trying to get my vote just like trying to get my money. There are probably enough people who get convinced by this people right at the door and subverts the whole fair democratic process....to me it just highlights the various flaws this supposedly sacred process of voting, this one right and responsibility that every American citizen has. I'm not saying don't go vote, but don't hype it up to be something that it's not. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

One Day Road Trip (日帰り旅行, 하루 여행, 一日游)

 The Big 3 Asian languages all have a specific term for going on a trip for just one day, not renting out any hotels or accommodations, just setting off in the morning from one's home and returning late at night. Probably a few reasons: Japan and Korea are small countries where getting to a different region of the country doesn't take as long as say, going from Boston to Denver in the US, and also, the consumer economy of America encourages staying at hotels, AirBnB's, resorts, and spending money. MJ and I defied those spendthrift instincts and set off for some jewels of the Southern U.S.: Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. 

Red states are just different than blue states. Georgia made news in the early days of Covid-19 by being the first state to open up its stores, bowling alleys, barber shops, everything, sparking controversy because while it is trying to help citizens with small businesses stay afloat, it also is going against the world-wide effort to stop the pandemic in its track. Regardless, Savannah was completely OPEN on this Saturday afternoon in late October with gorgeous weather, sun shining down but a gentle breeze and plenty of shade under the iconic willow trees that the city is known for. The concerning thing, though, was the lack of masks.....people were crowding around like July 4th waiting for fireworks in close proximity of each other, but just a faint smattering of people adhering to social distancing or mask-wearing guidelines, and while MJ and I strictly stayed strictly outdoors, plenty of patrons were going in and out of restaurant, bars.....aka Covid hot-spots. Not encouraging for the continued effort against Covid-19, at least before a vaccine and in these less stringent cities. The signs set up in various areas encouraging everyone to wear masks seemed comical in light of the actual adherence and enforcement of these guidelines, and this was during the daytime when everyone was relatively sober.......I can't fathom the turmoil once night came around and everyone had been sufficiently lubricated with alcohol. MJ and I didn't stick around to find out. On the positive side, we saw a marriage proposal! Right in front of the iconic fountain marking the center of the city, a man pretended to take a selfie with his soon-to-be fiancee but while "adjusting the camera," he fingered the ring and got down on his knees. It all happened pretty quickly, from execution to her nodding yes to them kissing.....no dramatic music like in the movies, They even had to ask someone else to take pictures for them (no clandestine photographer set up nearby). Good luck to me! I didn't propose to MJ in a cheesy manner, but we're still going strong, so perhaps it shows a happy couple doesn't need to? 

Charleston, SC is a beach city that can be walked through in an hour, 2 hours, so it's great for holding hands and enjoying a vast view of the Atlantic Ocean (looks similar to the Pacific Ocean, btw, except the sunsets aren't as spectacular as on the West Coast since you know, the sun doesn't set in that direction). The fancy houses in the city signaled the presence of OLD money, like antebellum money, and one wonders how much slavery played a part in the city's history, but nowadays the real hard workers are the horses dragging tourists in their horse-drawn carriages.....I felt bad for the horses being forced into labor in the hot sun, but some at least had a fellow horse doing teamwork. And yes, this meant the city had a consistent smell of horse manure on the streets. Instagram models had a field day with the weather, all coming out with their designated photographers and squeals of "make sure you get my good side!" in a beautiful city with beautiful houses to use as backdrop. There's a whole row of fanciness called Rainbow Row with houses of every color, and MJ couldn't resist getting a bunch of photos and instructing me to make her figure "elongated" (in essence, getting her "good side.") 

Final note about both cities: They both have excellent bridges that connect them to another island and cross a river. Maybe in another life or parallel universe I was an architect specializing in bridges, but I marvel at the detail of bridges (suspension, arch, cantilever, tied-arch, even just a rope bridge...I admire the amount of intricacy they require. They also allow for beautiful views when you're on top of them, usually with 2 nice land masses and a body of ocean, with a fine assortment of boats to check out....that's what I'd been missing all those years in L.A. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Flashcards (抽认卡, 플래시 카드, 플래시 카드)

There are many ways to learn effectively, but over the course of my career, I find that using flashcards and testing myself rapidly is my most favored exercise. I did it in high school to learn SAT words, and I tried to help my sister learn with flashcards by taping flashcards all around our family's home so that she would flip one over every time she passed by the kitchen, the bathroom, etc., and do these mini-tests. My high school self thought that this flashcard method was too primitive, that eventually I'd acquire some more advanced technique, but alas it is the method that still works as an adult, and probably one I have to rely on until Elon Musk's promised "Neuralink" technology allows everyone to just inject chips into their brain and learn everything instantaneously (not too far off in the future apparently). Until then though, the hard work and perseverance required through flashcards still gives me pride and pleasure of knowing that I did something the "old school way." Flashcards are like bricks towards a destination, mastering each one is like paving a brick towards a destination far off in the distance, many many bricks away, but you know if you keep laying these bricks they'll eventually provide a safe and secure way to get there. It's actually one of the activities where I accept and encourage failure, because getting the question right means I knew it already, I didn't gain anything from this card, but failure equals opportunity to learn something new, kind of exciting actually.  This "test through failure" method helped me especially to learn languages, lots of volume going through sheets and sheets of words every day to hopefully get them to stick in my mind. 

Recently MJ and I have been addicted to Jeopardy, and after we inevitably run out of episodes to watch I think we will use the excellent resource J-archives: it's like a flashcard of all-time Jeopardy questions and answers. The questions are displayed like on the show, and then if you click on the box, the answer appears. My favorite format of challenging my brain with something ("Pop Quiz!"), making it work for the answer, and then when it gives up after not getting it, hitting it with the right answer. For some reason, whether because I inherited genes of prideful people who don't like getting things wrong or my naturally competitive nature (don't want to lose to an artificial enemy), I strive to make sure I don't get it wrong again, and then feeling the power of the knowledge coursing through my body, I strive on to the next one. 

Note: MJ doesn't seem to use flashcards as much, I think she has more advanced non-Neuralink secrets! 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Don't Be Afraid to Ask

 It's not Mother's Day anytime soon nor my Mom's birthday, but I was reading a Facebook friend's posts about his Mom which reminded me of the book TV show "Shit my Dad says." For me, my mom is the one who has conjured very memorable stories for me, and mostly because she was not afraid to stand up to people and ask hard questions, or make demands. I wish I took more after her in that regard; I admit that I can be too meek about asking for things from other people, often shying away even if I know I'm right or not asserting my opinion or not even having the guts to ask, just rejecting myself before putting the onus on the other person to give a response. I'm sure I've lost out on valuable things in this regard, and if there's anything that my mom taught me it's not to be afraid to ask. 

1.) My mom likes to argue (in my ways, she'd be the better litigator in court with her ferocity). When the bills arrived in the mail to our house back when I was a kid, my mom would rip open the envelopes and inspect the line items thoroughly to make sure the calculations were all correct. If they weren't, she'd call the customer service number for that bill (utilities, phone bill, whatever) and take a brusque tone with the customer service representative, demanding that the charges be reversed. One memorable episode ended with my mom apparently not getting her way, and half yelling and exclaiming, "You WILL reverse the charge or I'm no longer a customer!" (this is in broken English btw, my Mom has done very well to learn English as best as she could but it isn't perfect) and slammed down the phone with a click. I still remember this moment from like 1998 as if it happened today. The charges were reversed and my Mom got what she wanted. As the Korean idiom goes, "the screaming baby gets the food." I need to be the screaming baby more. 

2.) Our family actually liked to go on family vacations when I was a child, probably due to the freedom that America allowed us to drive anywhere in the country (as long as you have a car) and such wide open spaces, so much room and not as many people (as China, the world's largest population). My mom got on the phone with a travel agent as part of a travel package we purchased to go to Las Vegas. She hadn't researched everything about Las Vegas yet, and the primary focus was going to the Grand Canyon, a natural phenomenon that didn't have any rivals in China......but she had a burning question about the city of Las Vegas itself: "What is the Strip?" A natural question, but one full of fear that it would be related to a strip/gentlemen's club (there are actually strip clubs on or near the Strip) and that it wasn't a family friendly environment. The word "Strip" certainly has some adult connotations, if one didn't know that it also could be used to describe a strip of land with a lot of casinos/hotels on it, as the Strip is. The lesson is, if you don't know what something is, no matter how obvious it might seem, don't be afraid to ask. Plenty of times I've chickened out asking about something more obvious, like "What is Coachella?" or "Scientology doesn't have anything to do with science?" 

3.) The last story is when my sister was a baby and we still lived in suburban Chicago. On a trip to downtown Chicago (probably Chinatown, where we usually went to get groceries) we stopped somewhere near the United Center, a moderately sketchy part of the city, at a KFC or some other fast-food establishment. While waiting in line, my mom got anxious holding onto Emily in her arms, and when finally our turn came she hurriedly placed an order for chicken sandwiches (or something of the sort) and added at the end, "Hurry, my baby is hungry!" in a loud, rude-customer sort of way. It got a rousing round of "oooooohhhhhh" and "ahhhhh's" but in a bad way from the surrounding customers, one of those exclamations that happens after someone lays a diss on a victim in a group of high school friends. Except we were in a sketchy area of town, and everyone in the store except our family was African American, not exactly the best place to put someone in their place. There was an a noticeable pause after my mom made her demand, and the lady behind the counter hesitated, but ultimately didn't say anything and went on to get the order. To this day I'm not sure if she would have lashed out if my mom wasn't carrying a baby or circumstances were different, but I suspect we narrowly avoided getting a reprimand or rebuke or something that would have made a scene. 

I admire my mom for having the courage to express herself even as an immigrant in a new country where she's unfamiliar with the rules, the customs, and sometimes the place names. Her aggressive tone has sometimes gotten us in a bit of trouble (we got stopped at the Canadian border), but in many cases we were better off making a strong show of force and not being walked all over by other people. Lesson learned, mom! 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Judging People by Appearance (外貌协会, 面食い, 외모로 사람을 판단)

 In America, a huge part of how people perceive you is how you look. As MJ always reminds me, "gotta look nice." It is unfortunately a fact of life that we go for physical beauty rather than inner beauty, and it is true in Asian societies as well, to the extent that there are some interesting terms in each language for this behavior: In Chinese it's called an "Association of Appearances,"外貌协会 in Japanese it's called "eating someone based on their face," and I haven't heard a catchy term in Korean yet but it probably exists. So many make changes to their clothes, their bodies, their eyebrows, their noses, their teeth, their chests, and especially.....the big one, the face. Most people, the first impression they get of someone, is their face. And even if it's not the first thing you see, you'll eventually want to see it. 

Unfortunately for me, I didn't "look nice" for most of my life, and still don't necessarily "look nice." The paradox is, though, I still do judge people by their outer appearance, so even though only some people have the best appearances, all of us judge others by appearance. The math doesn't add up; it's not like people who don't look nice don't care about appearance at all and look for other characteristics, so there's a select portion of the population that is left out in the lurch in the attention department. I always wondered what it'd be like to join the opposite of an "Association of Appearances," (Maybe the Association of No Appearance?) or in Japanese, the "Ugly-eaters," and share our stories about how we're neglected by others, passed over as potential romantic partners, eyes meet with someone else at a party but they instantly look away, etc. On the other hand, it's very liberating not having to worry about my appearance knowing I'm not going to make it to Brad Pitt level anyway; less fuss to worry about and less clothes to have to wear. I'm also lucky enough to have a job that doesn't care how I look at the job, and in America resumes don't have the applicant's picture on the top right corner like many Asian countries require. 

When MJ and I have a child, I wish the child to be strong and healthy of course, and more intelligent than me and learn from my mistakes as a child/ teen/ even now, but I also want them to look nice. It's not for me necessarily, like I want to look nice in a family photo or have a "trophy child" or something, but I know how much harder life is in life when you don't look as nice as other kids, and how you can easily fall into the "loser group" or get neglected and have trouble getting someone one likes to like back. ("Like back!") Self-confidence and self-esteem and a ton of emotional/ psychological factors are related to appearance. I keep wanting to say that "not looking nice" people are the ones who are discriminated against constantly, they're the real victims of discrimination in America and around the world. If you're a minority in America and feel discrimination, maybe you won't be the minority somewhere else in the world...but there is no world where you can escape judgement based on appearance. There's really no solution for it and no policy that can force people to hire without considering looks (it's subjective!) but it definitely exists. So I really hope are future child will take after his/her mom (MJ looks very nice!) in that regard, but maybe take after me in.....willingness to donate at blood drives and donate $2 at Whole Foods for charity? 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Stages of Cancer ( 癌症阶段, がんの病期, 암의 단계)

 It was inevitable after binge-watching Jeopardy for a whole month like MJ and I have that we'd get to the Cindy Stowell run of late 2016. MJ and I watched a pretty long run (12 game winning streak) by PHD student Seth Wilson on Hulu, agreed that Seth was kind of bland and didn't have much personality other than knowing a lot about movies and theater/film products, and we were ready for a new run, which happened to be with a science content-developer from Texas. I noticed right away that Cindy didn't smile much and had an odd expression even when being introduced (when every contestant tries to smile or give a little signature gesture), but Cindy was hard-pressed to smile, giving a very forced expression that seemed pained. Little did we know that Cindy Stowell had stage 4 cancer during the taping of the show and would die soon afterwards, even before the TV taping of her episodes aired. (This all happened in 2016, by the way, the year many celebrities passed away and all kinds of election craziness and world craziness happened). A heartbreaking yet inspirational story, proof that inspiration and emotion can be found anywhere, even on a trivia quiz show like Jeopardy. 

Cancer has 5 stages, 0-4, where 0 is not actually cancer but the identification of abnormal cells that might become cancer, and then each stage is progressively worse up to stage 4, where the cancer in one area has spread to other areas of the body and becomes increasingly more difficult to treat, to the point where stage 4 cancer is almost a death sentence to anyone who has it. (Alec Trebek, the host of Jeopardy, recently was treated for Stage 4 cancer). It's why Cindy Stowell auditioned for the show even knowing (or perhaps because of knowing she had terminal cancer), because it was a life long dream for her and something she needed to cross off her bucket list, a list she needed to complete sooner probably than she would have liked. Not having known any terminal cancer patients personally (I knew one fellow classmate in high school who had Hodgkin's disease, a blood cancer, but was able to be treated and is living happily as far as I can tell from Facebook nowadays), it is difficult for me to imagine having terminal cancer and knowing that the clock was ticking on my life. I don't react well to upcoming deadlines and being pressed for time anyway, getting anxious and thinking about it all the time, so that ticking timeline would be devastating for me. I would, though, do what Cindy Stowell did: pursue what I could before I passed away, live my life to the fullest while I could. It appeared that Cindy had difficulty even being on stage and standing at the podium playing the game: producers had to help her out during commercial breaks regain her energy. Sometimes, though, life has a cosmic rhythm to it: Cindy got some lucky breaks on a couple games despite not achieving a super-high score (perhaps the cancer contributed to not being able to ring in quickly or think of answers as fast as she could have if fully healthy), and she wound up going on a 7-game win streak, a great way to spend a portion of the remaining parts of her life. I hope she relished and enjoyed that experience as one of her crowning achievements. Oh and she donated most of her winnings on Jeopardy to cancer research to help others who had cancer, a noble act indeed which makes her more of an inspiration to me than sports stars like Lebron James, politicians running for political office, or celebrities who gain fame just because. 

MJ has an important decision to make soon in her nursing career: what kind of hospital setting she wants to do her preceptorship (4th and last semester of nursing school) in. Whichever one she chooses would pave a path to getting a job right out of nursing school, then that first job would help her get a job a few years down the road, and so on and so on. So this first step is pretty important to set the tone: (it's like getting a summer associate position at a law firm which would lead to a full-time job offer after law school). There's tons of good options to choose from, from maternity (delivering babies!) to pediatrics to adult health to ICU, but one option available is oncology, the treatment of cancer patients. To me, I wouldn't necessarily choose oncology as my career, but I would definitely consider doing an internship or "clinical experience" or some sort of hands-on experience with oncology if I could, if only to speak to cancer patients and spend time with some of them, and understand their condition and give sympathy if it was a terminal disease. Some of the nurses in MJ's program have already met a patient who later passed away afterwards, which will probably happen to one of MJ's patients eventually, but that is certainly one thing I admire MJ and other nurses for: their job puts them in position to interact with people who are sick or dying, and just being there has inherent value, probably more than any lawyer arguing over whether their client is liable for money will bring. I do donate to a cancer research charity once a year in very small amounts, but I do hope to one day contribute in some way to easing the harmful effects of that disease, if not find a cure, or just allowing cancer patients a way to achieve their lifelong dreams before they can't anymore. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

DIY Haircuts (자기 이발, セルフヘアカット, 自我理发)

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the pandemic has forced MJ and I to give each other haircuts. Technically not self-haircuts  (those would be doing a haircut by myself with a mirror and an electric razor), but we bought a haircut cut from Costco for $50 and have already done 3 cuts that normally would cost around $30 with tip, so the kit has already paid for itself. It's also made me realize that.....I've been burnt on haircut cost in my life! The cheapest haircut I ever got was $7 (in LA Chinatown) but they can get up to $30, $40! And they don't really look that different to me. It's like buying the cheap $5 budget cheap wine vs. the sommelier recommended, vintage, bottled in Napa Valley in 1968 exclusive brand wine. I can't taste the difference! 

Also, men's haircuts are less expensive than women's haircuts (another reason it's tough to be a woman and more costly to look nice). When MJ gets a haircut, I've been able to tell the intricacies that went into it and the distinctive style (and sometimes it's a perm). 

I'm also counting my blessings that I still grow enough hair to worry about haircuts, as co-workers and friends my age tend to start losing their hair, or developing a bald start, or getting white hairs or a "salt-and-pepper look" of interspersed white and grey hair. I guess there's a preference thing where white hair could be seen as more sophisticated or distinctive like a "silver fox," but I personally prefer a full head of jet black hair for as long as I can have it, please. But that also means the hair becomes foliage pretty quickly, spreading over the ears and touching different areas of the skin enough to become a nuance, prompting me to get MJ to be my personal barber (Bobby's barber I call it). 

I realize that the haircut industry is like the restaurant industry: supports workers who provide basic services and puts a large amount of the population without college education to work, a job that basically anybody can get and start working pretty quickly, although barbers need to do 100 haircuts apparently before they obtain their license, that fancy card they place at their work station when you sit down at the barbershop/ hair salon. Hair salons have become a major ideological battleground, regarding reopening and allowing them to conduct business v. shutting down due to fear of spreading the virus. The hair salons are usually the small businesses with individual small business owners who are hardest hit by the pandemic and didn't get bailed out by the government (the corporations did) and they employ workers who probably need the income the most (usually living paycheck to paycheck). So I do feel a little conflicted about taking away my contribution to that business, and I've had some decent conversations with barbers who do my hair (granted, they're probably chatting me up to earn a better tip, or as one downtown LA Supercuts employee brazenly tried to do, sell me a hair product), but especially in this pandemic, any social interaction has been a gift. 

University (大学, 大学 だいがく, 대학)

 "College is the best time of your life! Enjoy it!" Teachers, parents, and others said before I went to college. At the time, going to college meant finally living by myself permanently without being confined by the chains of my parents, but it didn't have the further ramifications that I now realize it should have. Of course there's all the career opportunities, learning opportunities, practical opportunities, and life opportunities (opportunity, opportunity, opportunity!), but today I focus more on the social opportunities. 

I didn't do freshman year correctly: I chose to be roommates with a high school friend. College is a time for meeting new people, and every interaction that one makes has the potential to be a lifelong relationship. It's no longer being friends with a kid because he's in your class or he's your neighbor, it's making an affirmative decision to be friends with someone. Many people go to college specifically to meet people, hence where the idea of the "MRS" degree comes from, and a large part of the value of an MBA, I assume, is to make connections for future interaction and to be able to say "I knew that CEO way back before they were CEO, I was there at the beginning!" College is a collection of young people who share the quality of having had some success in life and yearning for further success, so that already filters the general populace to a select group of people that you desire to interact with (like a Filter Results option on a dating app). (And no, I'm not advocating for people to rush a fraternity/sorority)

Now that I'm stuck in a new city with MJ during a pandemic, the contrast between our social lives comes out in full force. MJ interacted with fellow nursing students during her first semester before we reached the height of the pandemic, and now she attends clinicals and Flu Fighters (catchy name, it's giving out flu shots to undergrad students) with everyone whereas I'm stuck on conference calls with work co-workers without even seeing anyone's face (we don't use Zoom). There's definitely been times when I look at my phone contacts list and wonder who I can call during the pandemic whom I won't be bothering: Criteria I consider are 1.) do they have a kid? 2.) Do we share sense of humor? 3.) might they be working or be at a different social event?   These are the times I realize that most of the friends I have are from college and law school. Sure, I've made friends outside of those arenas, but they're mostly college graduates or lawyers who I might have met anyway if I made a different decision. The farther out we get from college and grad school, the more we realize how precious those times to share were, that we can reminisce about the good ol' days with people we trust, whereas I unfortunately was still "in my shell during college" and would often spend time at the gym shooting baskets by myself or going to underground dorm room poker games. Also, interaction with people who didn't go to college with you can be a risky experience: they don't share the same values, they might envy you for having gone to college. 

I often heard the phrase "youth is wasted on the young" and got puzzled about its meaning, and since I was young in college I got slightly offended of its presumptuous tone that I was "wasting" my youth. Now looking back, it seems pretty apt at least for those college times because so much of one's direction in life takes place in college or at least right after high school, where you set off on your own to become your own person and your decisions are your own, can't blame your parents for being where you are in life anymore. Each decision in college can have so many repercussions as opposed to nowadays, my life is somewhat more crystallized and the path is much more clear. In college, just deciding to talk to a person you deem interesting might set off a life's worth of events, or taking the LSAT, or taking a class, or going to a lecture about an interesting topic, or going on an alternative spring break trip. There's just more time left in life to have those kind of decisions be life-changing. So when I run around campus and see al the undergrads (especially freshmen, although I can't really tell which kids are freshman), I give them a silent message of "College is the best time of your life! Enjoy it! Make good decisions!" 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Narcissism (自恋狂, ナルシシズム, 나르시시즘)

Donald Trump, after a tumultuous week of cutting off Joe Biden vigorously at the debate to testing positive for coronavirus to being hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital to somehow getting his doctors to release him from the hospital back to the White House, went off the rails today with a tweet by stating that he would restart talks of a stimulus package to boost the economy as a result of Covid-19 ONLY AFTER he gets elected president a month from now, essentially holding hostage his money that Americans desperately need to pay rent, meet basic expenses, etc. so that he can get re-elected (which is looking less and less likely now as he becomes more and more desperate seeking it. It's like Gollum from Game of Thrones. I guess America isn't used to long reigns of tyrannical and fatuous rulers who don't care about the people of the country, or at least they've had the power to rule those presidents out fairly quickly (in 4 years), but Trump is really living out the life of a terrible ruler (China, Japan, European nations all over the world have had them) in just 4 short years. One of the major flaws, most would agree, is his Narcissism: he loves himself too much and thinks he's the hero of the story, a trait that is reflective of the times we live in. 

I'd argue that this generation as a whole is more Narcissistic than any generation before it, probably because we all think that we're the best, and the technology and culture around us promote that. Facebook and social media outlets all promote us as the main character of our stories, everyone is encouraged to have a Podcast, a Youtube channel, an instagram account, if not all of them, and because usually the hero of the stories we read come out on top, we all believe that eventually we'll come out on top, and we're all rooting for ourselves to succeed, usually not questioning ourselves enough to stop and see our major flaws and barriers. I'm guilty of it it as well: whenever I digest news or information from other people, I process it more in terms of what that gets me, how I can benefit from it. 

Another related symptom of narcissism is that we all think that we're right all the time. It's a true epidemic where everyone has the Internet right at their fingertips, we read a few headlines about the news or whatever topic we think we know pretty well, and then think that we've become the "authority" on that topic and argue with each other based on the limited information we have. I try to live under the philosophy that I read in 7th grade "7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens," one of which is Seek first to understand, then to comprehend," basically to listen to people, but society does not listen for very long to anybody before firing back with their own opinions, especially on social media. I can't log on to any sites without seeing a post banging the drum and voicing a strong opinion (usually political) and forcing others to think like them or else shaming those who don't. My sister Emily is part of this new generation of college-educated twenty-somethings who have strong opinions on things despite not fully understanding them who claim to like "challenging" others about their beliefs. She's often very quick to say that I'm "mansplaining" something to her if I give her life hacks like how to study better, concentrating on learning a new language, etc., while berating me for not tipping the Uber driver 20% because it doesn't meet her undeveloped ideas of how society works (she thinks that Uber drivers work hard and don't get enough from Uber to manage their costs, so we as customers need to be the ones to subsidize them.) Fun fact: there is a Freakonomics podcast episode that delves specifically into tipping of rideshare drivers. I often wonder, was I like my sister when I was in my early Twenties? I look back at my posts from 10 years ago and get lost in all the fantasy sports conversation, but have never taken too much a stance on politics/ life issues. I think political topics should be treated like religious topics: don't talk about it the first time you meet someone or when you're in a group of people, maybe discuss it in the right private settings and have an earnest serious discussion about it with room for understanding and compromise on both parties. Otherwise the topic tends to stir up too much emotion and cause too much argument in a friendly social enviroment. 

It makes sense, this "hero complex" that we all have: people back in the previous century and beyond usually read books about sad events, tragedies like Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or William Faulkner, to the stories during the Great Depression like the Grapes of Wrath, books written about world wars, about plague and unsanitary working conditions. People suffered a lot back then, it seems, and had to persevere through extreme hardship and learned to appreciate the simple pleasures in life (like having kids!) Nowadays the bestselling books are hero adventure stories like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, or it's not even books but video games where you get to be any heroic figure you want to be. We like to tear down anybody else and criticize things like the government that others have built, but don't endeavor to build stuff for ourselves because it's too difficult, despite living under the allusion that anything we build ourselves would be perfect and fit exactly what the world wants because we were able to do it in Sim City or other video games, why couldn't it work in the real world? 

Bureaucracy (官僚, 官僚, 관료)

Bureaucracy is an example of an English word that is understood and used much more by its accepted usage than its dictionary definition, and the Asian languages aren't able to catch the more nuanced, generally used term. Most people in America would not be able to give the standard definition, "a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives." Basically, the government system with all its layers and structures. Immediately what comes to mind, though, and I'm sure to many, is "inefficiency," "failure of government to provide a good system for the citizens to function around." Like, "The elected official promised social change and various noble ideals during the election process, but after assuming the office all those promises were drowned through government bureaucracy." I also think of red tape, jumping through hoops, and getting drowned in paperwork. 

One firsthand example of government bureaucracy is the Driver's License office, which is an office run by officials not elected by the people but just put in their space, so they don't have to answer to public need and can't get voted out. And they can charge exorbitant rates on car registrations and license fees, apparently. Owning a car is expensive enough as it is with constant oil changes and gas fill-ups and unexpected repairs (I just recently bled hundreds of dollars for changing the starter because the car wouldn't start up) but then the government needs to take its cut too when registering a car (every year! for annual registration fees) depending on the state they charge for highway tax, certificate of title, and force you to go get your car inspected for smog inspections, etc. One of those costs that I wonder if I really need to incur if I had already registered my car in another state....why not just keep the other state's registration? 

Another government bureaucracy is the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is currently processing MJ's application for permanent green card. It's been a lengthy process with lots of long pauses and ghosting by USCIS only to give sudden deadlines when we've been lulled into inaction. Kind of like trying to get a date with a supermodel or get an appointment with the President. The whole process is still done through snail mail, which is the first sure sign of government bureaucracy, not being allowed to send anything through email despite their request for numerous photos, lease agreements, financial paperwork, affidavits from friends and family, everything that is found on my computer and would be much easier to be sent with a click (or several clicks) of a button instead of having to harm the environment, waste toner, waste sheets of paper, envelopes and mailing fees (all shouldered by yours truly by the way). There are no phone numbers, no emails, no communication other than an address to send all the necessary paperwork, as if it's some top-secret organization with high level security clearance that they can't be seen talking to you or even heard talking to you on the phone. It's a frustrating process, but we finally sent off our information to prove that our marriage is valid this week. Also frustrating because it's hard to prove through pieces of paper and pictures and stories from friends that we are in a bona fide marriage, but anyone who knows us and also we ourselves know it's true and legitimate. On that part of it, I get that there are many fraudulent marriages and people trying to go the "green card marriage" route, so I'll accept those negative externalities of being grouped with those people, but the bureaucratic process of it just reminds me how much dealing with a government organization that has no incentive to be nice to its customers (we're not paying them, or are we through taxes?) is a pain. 

I wonder if rich people have to deal with all this bureaucracy even though they collectively through their corporations own America and its political leaders (both the Republican and Democratic parties accept tons of money on them and provide them every benefit they can like skimming all the money from the PPP loans due to the pandemic). I feel like it's just the little guys like me who get taken advantage of by the system but then have to play by the rules of its bureaucratic process. And then when we go to the polls (in just a month!) we only get 2 viable choices, a.) a party that represents corporate interests, and b.) another party that represents corporate interests. Can I just vote to make the DMV less paintful and screw everyday citizens less? 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

The Ten People You Meet During the Pandemic

 1.) No one. This is the obvious answer as everyone is locked down in their own homes. Normally in a given year, I estimate that I meet at least 20 to 30 new people, if not more. This year, after March, I have met ZERO new people, no new Facebook friends, no new names and phone numbers added to my phone, no new faces to add to my internal facial recognition system. I think I've lost social skills as well: I went to an apartment-sponsored NFL viewing event the last couple weeks (I went primarily for the free pizza and wings) and tried to strike up a conversation: no dice. Even the apartment representative, whose primary job is to make me feel comfortable and continue paying rent to the apartment and renew my lease, gave me one-word answers that did not allow for furthering of the conversation. And it was about football! One of the easiest topics to talk about without politics or awkwardness clouding the discussion. It was either a reflection on him or me. But I actually do miss meeting new people: now I have to count hosts of new podcasts I listen to as "people I met," like Kyle Kulinski who hosts the Secular Talk show, good show for politics. 

2.) Everyone on a Zoom call. Zoom stock recently broke 500! (after being under 100 in February before the pandemic) but there are severe, severe limitations on Zoom. The conversations just seem so artificial, difficult to have an intimate conversation without considering that there are 10, 20, 100 other people on the Zoom call. It's a particularly inefficient way to conduct conversation: the more people join the call, the more inefficient it is for everyone having to listen to one person. It's VERY important in these situations for the leader of the Zoom call (usually the boss or host of the party) to guide the conversation and address specific people to speak and not cut off others, as opposed to sticking to a one-one conversation. 

3.) The standoff- one running path that's only wide enough for 1 person, you are running in one direction when you see another running coming in the opposite direction. Who gives way? Who plods ahead relentlessly? It's a classic game of chicken, who will not give up their right of way and just keep moving. I personally think it's a matter of courtesy to try to cross the street or move off the path far enough to maintain the 6 foot social distancing, but in the worst case scenario, I hold my breath, turn my head the other way, and not breathe at the same time the other person is exhaling. 

4.) The restaurant server who is wearing his or her mask under the nose: get out of the restaurant right away, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Zero tolerance policy for restaurants that do not enforce a strict mask-wearing policy especially when there is food lying around. 

5.) Elevator guy not wearing a mask: when getting in an elevator it's like the scene of a horror movie: first with waiting for the elevator to arrive at my floor wondering if someone will be in it, the gradual sliding open of the doors (to the tune of the Jaws music) to reveal.......no one, most of the time. Phew. But when there is someone, it's a bit of a shock, and I have to assess the situation whether to get in that elevator and put my life on the line or not. Luckily some people make it easy by having a mask on already and looking away, hiding into the corner of the compact elevator. (It's like a scene from the horror movie "Devil" with 5 people in an elevator, one of them is the devil) Once in awhile, though, it's a man who seems to have been sweating, not wearing a mask, and looking at me when the elevator door opens almost welcoming me into a Covid sauna room..... no thanks. I'll take the next one. 

6.) The social activist. Despite being in a pandemic, as the school year has started, I was approached by a student while I was running on campus to answer some questions about "Defund the Police" and "Black Lives Matter." He was wearing a mask and adhering to the 6 feet guidelines, but I was still a little taken aback by his upfront nature during Covid, further reminding me that election years are a crazy time anyway, and some people prioritize winning an election over almost everything, even social distancing. 

7.) Department of Motors Vehicle......here in NC every driver's license office requires an appointment made online....and there are no spots available same day, the appointments have to be set weeks in advance like scheduling a doctor or dentist visit (and almost as painful). Outside the DMV there's a security officer who goes through the initial intake questions of whether I have had a fever or feeling sick....but there's really no follow-up to see if I'm lying, although I guess I was wearing a mask which made it OK. When I finally did get to a DMV representative, she was surprisingly....nice. Very different from every other DMV visit I have ever had, responded to my questions calmly and respectfully, did everything efficiently and even guided me through a rougher than expected road signs test (they just gave me a yellow pentagon sign without any words on it......usually road signs are pretty obvious on their face so that I would know that yellow pentagon means pedestrian crossing or school zone, and I wouldn't have been able to articulate "divided highway" as the name for a sign if I had 5 or 6 guesses. Sounds like a jeopardy term. 

8.) homeless people outside of Chipotle, off the highway, where the rich people are. At least they are wearing masks, I guess. I feel much less guilty about ignoring these folks and passing by as a.) I realize I can pass off as a non-English speaker, and b.) I can just blame the pandemic for being anti-social. Safety first, guys. 

Mildew (곰팡이, カビ, 霉菌)

 Mold. Mildew. Fungus. Decay. Just the sounds of these words seem insidious and bad for one's health. Turns out, they are! I didn't know this, but MJ did: Brittany Murphy, the late actress, tragically died in 2009 partly due to prescription medication, but also due to toxic mold! Just another thing to worry about in 2020 besides racial tensions, coronavirus, election madness, hurricanes, etc., etc. Oh and now cockroaches have invaded our apartment complex! Not our unit specifically, but in the swimming pool area and around the neighborhood. Probably doesn't help that trash and dumpsters get strewn about around the edges of the property. Beat back the cockroaches! Stop their advance immediately and purge their colonies! 

Koreans pride themselves on cleanliness (not just them, btw, so do a lot of countries like Singapore), but they especially watch out for something called "gongpangi" in their homes, a type of mildew that forms in between the walls. It's a sign of something wrong in the home and should be addressed immediately. I now agree. To this point we've lived in only brand new "luxury apartments" for a year or a little more, and then we move, probably before the onset of mold or any other nefarious threats. We just crossed the 13-month mark living in our current apartment, and....voila! We've started noticing more mold and mildew in humid and wet places, especially our shower room, which is constantly wet on the ground and has a lot of corners and edges where mildew and mold sets in. Gives me a creepy feeling even talking about it. I've noticed that there are a LOT of things related to cleanliness that I have neglected and let build for many years at my old apartments, which probably did some undetected damage to my health. I blame it on living with other men who are just as dirty and nonchalant about overall conditions as I was. Sure, once in awhile I would clean the toilet or scrub something or vacuum if one was available, but very seldom would there be a big, knockdown spring cleaning to cover all parts of the house, even ones we didn't think about. A couple roommates did pay cleaners for cleaning services, but that just made me less cognizant of cleaning, and who knows how thorough the cleaners were; especially if they have various other jobs to rush to and only getting paid a flat fee for each home they go to and no incentive to do an extra careful job, I suspect the quality wasn't great. 

Now that I think about it, one of the apartments I lived in during law school was SUPER moldy and mildew-filled, and neither my (guy) roommate nor I cared about it at the time. It was just super dark there, near water sources, cool..... perfect for mold to form, and my acne got pretty bad during the time I lived there too. I sense some correlation or even causation. If we want to talk about "microaggressions" that people perpetuate towards each other nowadays causing angst or dischord, we should definitely look at "microbiological aggressions" that cause us harm little by little, without us even knowing it, and affecting our health and our mood. 

Another thing I'd like to complain about is also food that suffers mold in the refrigerator.....another microaggression that causes stress, usually some not-so-tasty food that is left in the back of the fridge that gets forgotten and then one day you reach back there and it's totally changed color or taken over by mold.....exceptionally shudder-inducing. Happens with a bag of grapes or oranges too.....a sign of bad mold and mildew going on in the home. 

So everyone, if you don't want these things that I'm describing to happen to you, take the Korean approach and watch out for mold and mildew and scrub them out at the source (I was scrubbing my shower room floor today to do exactly that). 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Disappointment ( 失望, 실망, 失望,しつぼう)

 I was disappointed tonight by my fantasy baseball team. I had been waiting all week to get to the weekend to watch the Friday-Saturday-Sunday games as those are typically the most important games during a fantasy baseball matchup, the deciding ones that determine who is eliminated and who advances to the next round, but my team totally blew it today. Mike Clevinger, one of my "stud" pitchers, was scratched an hour before the game due to a minor injury, so I didn't get to see his start (adding to the injury-marred start by 2-time defending NL Cy Young Jacob Degrom earlier this week), and my hitters combined to go like 4-for-35 with no HR's, no RBI's, and 2 runs. Not good at all and not exciting at all, just watching a bunch of swings and misses, pop ups, and walks. It reminds me of how disappointing fantasy baseball inherently is: everyone in our league goes into the season with high hopes, this is the year, I researched so much, I know who all the good players are, etc., etc., but by the end of the season everyone but one team will be disappointed without a championship. That's the nature of sports in general too: don't get your hopes up that your team will win; it's why I am against the whole "choking" label placed on teams/ players that are accused of choking just because they lose: they're only called chokers because people had too high of expectations of them; without the expectations they'd just be another one of the many losers. 

I find in general that it's important not to go into anything with too high of expectations; Disappointment is actually harmful and can bring me down into a bad mood (I already got upset last week at MJ partially due to less than stellar fantasy baseball results). It's the same with any TV show or movie or social gathering or food item: it's better to be pleasantly surprised than to be bitterly disappointed. So many times I've heard a lot of good reviews about a movie and get amped up before watching....only to feel like I wasted 2 hour I'll never get back (these happen especially with Academy-Award winning movies or movies with high Rotten Tomatoes scores, putting a numerical value on the false hope of the movie. In fact, the most memorable things I've done or experienced are the ones where I didn't have much of an expectation going in, that I got so surprisingly good results that I got an adrenaline rush and my brain triggered endorphins that gave me a natural high. Meeting MJ was a very pleasant surprise: I moved into a new apartment not expecting anything, I met my future soulmate! I went into dodgeball as a fun way to relieve stress during law school: turned into a lifelong sport. 

It's kind of like what they say about life; it's what happens when people are waiting for moments to never come, or life is what happens when you're making plans....and once in awhile during that down period that really gives a strong positive feeling. I think to that extent the way we digest news is somewhat set up for disappointment: we're just going about our day like nothing in the world is happening except what's going on in front of us, and then there's this huge news story that breaks on twitter, or someone posts on Facebook, or that one of your friends sends you, and it sends shockwaves: this weekend it was the news of RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg)'s untimely passing on Friday night, sparking the fear that the Republicans will push through a Supreme Court seat through the Senate and get confirmed before the election, or before (the Democrats hope) a new president is elected. Of course this is bad news, but should we be disappointed by it, to the extent of posting "2020 is the worst year ever!" "I'm leaving the country!" and "The world is ending!" I think news is usually going to be bad, otherwise people wouldn't care that much about it and digest it, so we need to set our expectations pretty low to begin with. Not to trivialize Ginsburg's death, it is really a loss for the world as well as a bad time for the world as it is with the pandemic and racial tensions, but people passing away isn't a revolutionary event (unfortunately). 

Speaking of disappointment, I opened a fortune cookie today and found inside.....nothing. No fortune. A fortune cookie without a fortune in it: does this mean I have no future? I hope not; hopefully this is not my last blog post ever. 

Also, so stock market....the last several months caused most new investors' expectations to be raised sky high to the level of "stocks only go up" which is just a huge fallacy. If you can only be happy if the sports team you root for wins or only be happy if the stock market goes up, then disappointment is sure to follow. 

The Asian languages I study are all unified on "disappointment," it's a kanji-based word meaning "loss" and "hope," loss of hope. I guess it's telling that there's no real antonym (word with opposite meaning) for "disappointment" in the English language. "Satisfaction" and "happiness" are the best Oxford dictionary could come up with, and the term I can think of is "pleasant surprise." Maybe that's a reflection on the fact we focus less on pleasant surprises than we dwell on the disappointments? The disappointments definitely stand out a lot and we tend to express them as complaints and feel strongly about them, meanwhile taking the pleasant surprises as naturally expected and a result of our own effort ("I somehow wound up in a high-paying job where I don't have to do that much work, it must have been all a product of my hard work!" whereas it should just be taken more as a pleasant surprise where good luck struck. 

Clinical

 MJ is working on something called "clinical" in her nursing program, and now with the pandemic somewhat progressing, she's going to the hospital again to participate in the program. Each nursing program is a little different in how they handle clinical, or the "hands-on" practical curriculum where they simulate real working conditions. When I snuck into the NYU Nursing School Admitted Students day to tour the school in MJ's place last year when we were deciding on schools (MJ to her credit got into all 3 of the top nursing programs she applied to), I toured their clinical program which was a separate floor they had built in the building for simulating real patients, with mannequins and dolls lying on hospital beds, hooking up heart monitors and other medical devices inside a room, and students during their clinical program would take turns practicing their craft. I'm not sure if they also were allowed to work at the NYU Langone Hospital as well during their time as a nursing student, but that would have been a fun experience. Which makes me wonder, what would a law school clinical program feel like? 

Well, during a pandemic, a clinical program would not have been practical, but in good times it's sort of up to the student himself/ herself to acquire a position to work at a law firm, court clerk's office (judge's office), at the legal department of a company, or pro bono legal aid organization. There's probably other types of real-life work experience that you could get as a law student, but that's where I benefited heavily when I attended USC: living in a large center and going to one of the best law schools in that city, I have to admit that the value of a USC education allowed me to easily get into one of those programs as a law student, and I was able to experience almost everything during the 3 years I was there as a law student (and several years after that as a practicing attorney). And the great thing, some of these positions can be paid: working for a judge, probably not, legal aid pro bono, probably not, but law firm definitely (if you're lucky enough to get into one of the summer associate programs, that's $$$) and even when I worked in a company's general counsel office I was paid. My 2L summer was pretty interesting looking back on it, I made the drive from Culver City to Irvine to work for a sales and marketing company in their in-house department. The drive down the I-405 was brutal to commute every day, but the experience was interesting, I could go to Angels baseball games easily, and I gained on-the-job experience. 

So in summary, law school doesn't have a mandatory or prepackaged clinical program per se (there was the small business legal clinic and the immigration clinic at our school, but it was conducted on campus and didn't offer that same thrill of going in to your first day at the job), and the job of attorney and nurse are different in how much hands-on tasks you do. Nurse = almost all hands on, Lawyer = a lot done on paper, could be done from home, remotely, etc. 

Also, another hands-on experience MJ has started is giving out flu shots! And I was a good enough guinea pig that she used her experience sticking the practice syringe (no actual piercing of my skin) to give flu shots to some 30 unsuspecting undergrad students on campus. As a lawyer sometimes I will attend a free legal clinic to give out some free legal advice, but no guarantee that advice amounts to anything, unlike the relieving feeling of being immunized from the flu in anticipation of flu season! 

Today's facts of the day: (MJ got this one): a flower- This species are not birds at all, but flowers of the genus Strelitzia, native to South Africa, where one of its species is featured on the 50 cent coin.  The answer: Birds of paradise! Didn't know of this species of flower, but do now. 

Wanderlust (旅行癖, 放浪癖, 방랑벽)

 I learn plenty of new words on Jeopardy nowadays, and while most of them are words related to specific fields like name of hand tools or types of gardens, sometimes a more commonly used term pops up that I am ashamed I didn't know before but excited to get to know (like making a new friend): wanderlust, which means a strong desire to travel. I guess I have that, as I often diverge off the beaten path when going for a run, delving into new areas just to see what's there, or drag MJ on long road trips to places she's hesitant about going to even when I myself don't really know what lays in store. 

My working life, unfortunately, has somewhat mirrored my travel life: I've worked for various law firms now as a contract attorney in various cities (and now I work remotely due to the pandemic so I can be in any city or suburb or remote location that I want as long as I have WiFi). It's not ideal not to settle down with a law firm and be on the natural associate path, but that was the hand I dealt in 2008 when I first entered law school during a global financial crisis that hit the legal industry hard as well because many clients were big businesses that had to cut their costs, thus cutting their legal budget that went to law firms, who in turn had to reduce their hiring of new legal associates, and as I'm too familiar now I was at the bottom of the food chain and was part of the collateral damage. Probably not unlike the current state of the legal industry, where law firms have had to cut some hiring and reduce their summer associate classes. 

Working for various law firms, though, does have some advantages: I get to work on different cases, most of which are pretty interesting and make headlines, maybe not on the front page of the New York Times but could be like a section in the "legal" section of the Wall Street Journal. When I get depressed about how certain industries are shrinking, businesses are being consolidated into mega corporations and technology firms like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc. are taking over the world (Nividia is acquiring Arm Holdings from Softbank which goes to show the strength behind FAANG MAN, the new acronym on Wall Street adding Microsoft, Adobe, and Nivida to the traditional FAANG acronym stocks), I remind myself how many companies I've worked for that are NOT those companies and there are still big players in banks, real estate, telecommunications, automobile, pharmaceutical companies, may of whom I'd never heard of before working for them but have enough money to pay big-time law firms a lot of money to represent them in litigation or maybe a merger. I'm reminded how different a lawyer's job is, than say, a doctor or nurse or teacher, all very significant and reputable professions but professions that work on a personal level of addressing the patient's problem right then and there. Lawyers do work with personal clients like an individual employee who was wrongfully terminated or injured in an auto accident, but that's not where the big money is and not where most of my law school classmates and friends in the legal industry went on to represent: it's often the big companies that can afford multiple big law attorneys to represent them. Lawyers therefore represent the big companies and often have to be on meetings with leaders at those companies, or at least meetings with law firm partners and associates who are relaying the wishes of the clients. The patient who's suffering is not a patient with a beating heart, it's a company with a class action lawsuit on its hands, or needs to get approval of a merger to another company to survive. I have to admit it's somewhat exciting sometimes to know I'm part of something, and I'm getting paid for it; it is what I thought I would be doing as a child being asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I am a professional that is hired for a specific purpose, and I do my best to accomplish that purpose that I have been trained to do (in law school and in self-studying various languages) and submit my work to the client, and hope it's sufficient, or adjust my work based on the client's feedback. I hope to be able to continue working and that demand for my services will continue, as I have, in my opinion, one of the better jobs in the world. Not the best job, like being a $20 million per film actor/actress, or professional athlete paid to play a sport, but for a mediocre talent like myself who's OK at most things but not exceptional at anything and representative of the most common type of demographic on planet Earth (an Asian man), I'll take it. 

I wrote this article after getting an update about a case that I had worked on this summer in light of Covid-19; the client's legal problems arose specifically because of the pandemic and because the demand for its services collapsed due to Covid-19; it really is a tough situation, and I feel bad for both sides of the litigation for trying to salvage something from a terrible situation, but it goes to show that I maybe in the right industry: litigation continues despite a global pandemic, and some cases business is even enhanced because of it. One of the quirks of being a lawyer. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Solitude (孤独, 고독 )

 The original title of the post was "Isolation," but I kept getting translations to Chinese and Korean that interpreted the meaning of isolation more as "quarantine" and physically separating one away from someone; what I wanted to express is the spiritual emptiness and loneliness accompanying the state of being blocked off from social contact, and "solitude" emerged as a much better term. Solitude is a major cause of depression even in normal times, but especially during a pandemic not being able to have contact with the outside world enhances the depression and loneliness, possibly even causing more serious actions like suicide. It's not going to make the Covid death toll numbers or new infection rate statistics, swept under the rug as one of the hidden downsides in all of this. 

In a sense, I am very luckily not to be dealing with Covid during my twenties, when I was mostly alone stuck in a dorm room or apartment room away from my friends or other people. My sister is going through the pandemic during her twenties, and she couldn't stand being in a lonely apartment all by herself in Washington D.C., so she took a break from the isolation and flew back to L.A. to be with my parents. I don't blame her (it's much easier to score free food and goodies at parents' home) but also the powerful feeling of loneliness is a powerful motivator to seek company. 

MJ and I recently wanted the Korean movie "Alive" (my Netflix account recommended it after I had binge watched a couple Korean TV dramas "Let's Eat" and Oh My Ghost), but this is much more of a international movie than any of the TV shows we watched that cater to Korean sense of humor and culture. Alive is about a man who lives through a zombie epidemic trapped alone in his apartment without any human contact, zombies prowling just outside the door but unable to get in. There are obvious zombie apocalypse problems like lack of food, lack of water, constant threat of danger of zombies busting in and trying to eat him, but the even more potent threat is that of solitude: he's unable to contact his family during this whole time and when he does, he (spoiler) finds out that they have succumbed to the zombies. Eventually, he becomes so depressed and lonely that he tries to commit suicide.....unsuccessfully. The movie goes on after that (after he realizes there is another non-zombie human being that knows of his existence), but that horrible feeling of being trapped and thought of maybe you are the last person on earth left and there's no one ever to interact with, most people can sympathize with that feeling, even if they can't sympathize with threats of zombies. The movie came out at a great time too, 5 or 6 months into a pandemic where so many people have been forced into their homes by an infectious virus that seems, at least for now, humans don't have a cure for. I thought it was "Wow! A wonderful examination of the human condition!" MJ was like, "Meh." And she doesn't like the Korean actor who plays the main character. 

A lot of people are taking anti-solitude into their own hands, by setting up biking journeys, hiking trips, meetings outside, etc., which makes it worse for people who don't want to risk doing those activities but also are seeing other people "escaping to the outside" and breathing the fresh air (although not sure how fresh it is right now in most of California because of the wildfires). It must be how some inmates at a prison feel when they see fellow inmates be released into the free world, except inmates don't have social media to remind them all the time how much fun and social interaction other people are having. The "solitary confinement" punishment seems like even worse than being in normal conditions at a prison, where at least you know there are other people in there doing time with you, horrible as the circumstances might be; solitary can be a form of torture, and understandably causes some inmates to crack and attempt suicide. But just as the end of the "Alive" movie said, keep hope alive, eventually we'll get through it. #alive. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Robert Yan 

THIS IS......Jeopardy! (豆知識,まめちしき, 퀴즈 게임, 琐事游戏)

 MJ and I have found yet another new pandemic pastime: watching Jeopardy episodes. Yup, Jeopardy the trivia game show hosted by Alec Trebek is still airing and still giving out prizes (since 1964, wow!) and available on Netflix (albeit only an assortment of episodes). When I grew up watching Jeopardy I always entertained the thought of knowing enough to get on the show, but then fancier follies like getting on Survivor and Amazing Race (with really no prior qualifications necessary) outweighed the pure meritocracy that is Jeopardy: you just have to know trivial facts about the world, primarily based in US and the Western World. 

Watching Jeopardy as a 33-year-old is definitely different than as a 13-year-old or even an 18-year-old: I feel like I know slightly more of the answers, but not even close to being able to compete on the show. The broad knowledge required for the show seemed impossible to digest back in the 2000's and early Internet times, but now it seems completely doable with all the resources we have available. In fact, people apparently "take time off" to study for the show, some citing one year of study, without having to hold a job. It's kind of like studying for the SAT or LSAT: it's not necessarily testing you on everything you know (that's undeniably a part of it) but how well you studied for these trivial facts and looked through the most common answers, memorized enough world capitals, seas of the world, medical terms, 18th century poets, engineering tools, Academy Award winning movies, etc. and be able to apply them quickly. It's a lot like taking a test that you can study your whole life for. 

Or compete in the College Jeopardy Championships!- I was actually fascinated by that particular show because students around the country aged 18-22 competed and were pretty skilled at knocking out categories that I wouldn't have dreamed of in college. What a great thing to have studied for in college instead of squandering the time playing online poker or going to play live poker or writing papers that likely didn't get read for classes like "Diaspora in Africa?" (a real class I took in undergrad). I guess though studying various foreign languages I've adopted an admiration for long odyssey adventures that require years of training and dedication, goals that seem difficult but attainable given a strong work ethic and stamina. And getting on the show must be sweet justification for all that hard work they went through. And the College Championship winner wins $100,000? That's like a 4-year (well, nowadays, like a 2.5-year scholarship!) 

As an adult I still don't know a lot of things about the world around me, but Jeopardy's a great way to connect ideas and concepts (ah, that's what a vichyssoise desert looks like! Oh the Chinese had a Hui Hai Initiative led by Chiang Kai-shek!) that either I've never known before or knew in the back of my mind but wouldn't be able to name outright just from even the artful clues Jeopardy gives about it. It's one thing to have soaked in some knowledge, but it's another to be able to produce it when the time is nigh. I now have more appreciation for those people who do well at bar trivia nights or quiz show games.....they might just be smart, but chances are they did a lot of work to arrive at all those trivial facts. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

Flu Shot (독감 예방 주사, 予防接種, 流感疫苗)

 The most talked about vaccine nowadays is for Covid-19, but another vaccine going under the radar: flu shots. MJ is adding to her training as a nurse by learning how to perform flu shots with a program called Flu Fighters, an interesting exercise where she insists on performing a faux flu shot on me (without the needle). So far my guinea pig experiences (taking my heartbeat, getting flu shot) haven't been painful, but I fear one day I will wake up with some kind of imminent pain about to be imposed on my body. Hmmmm......

I've never been one who enjoyed shots. I remember as a kid they scared me, and I always looked away when the nurses did it, whether it was for the chicken pox, mumps, hepatitis, etc. Just the sharp nature of the needle made me wince and imagine the pain (I don't think the actual sensation is that bad, but the anticipation of it is what makes me nervous, kind of like waiting in line to get on a scary roller coaster or the night before having to give a big presentation or something, I overthink it). I'm not sure what compelled me to start giving blood in 2015, but I do remember the first time being scare of the needle as well but not wanting to back out and look like a wimp in front of the friendly female nurse, so I stayed even through the finger prick, and didn't look when she inserted the needle (there are definitely times I never even see the needle through the whole process, just feel it, like an unknown and unseen assailant). Perhaps my case is something nurses can learn a bit about because most nurses have seen so many people everything just seems normal to them like brushing their teeth or taking out the garbage, but for weaklings like me we have a lot of distress built up before we even see the needle because it's so different from our normal routine, so just bear with us through the anxiety and closing of our eyes. 

The stock market dip definitely felt like needle pain today, Dow dipping 800+ points, Nasdaq dipping almost 600 points and almost 5% in a day. That's.....a lot of money for a lot of people. There's solace in the fact I participated in the stock run-up over the last few months and still solidly in the black, but it's never fun on days like today because you always think about where you were just yesterday and if you could have gotten out at the perfect time, which is almost never going to happen of course but the market definitely does punish greed pretty swiftly, slamming a huge losing day on your hands like a piano cover on your fingers, with the discordant music and everything. 

Luckily there's not a big controversy over flu shots in the US like there is with treatments against Covid-19 and mask-wearing,  but MJ is currently ambivalent about getting the Covid vaccine if and when it is available to the public, due to concerns about vaccines/ immunizations and how they affect one's health, or pregnant women's health (should she at some point become pregnant). There are a group of anti-vacc-ers out there with concerns like mistrust of science or whether it causes autism, something MJ is already worried about for our potential child. I personally got a flu shot once and I actually got kind of sick afterwards, although getting mild headaches/ symptoms afterwards is common. I just.....don't get sick, so maybe our potential child will be able to inherit that part of me and never get sick? Let's hope so.

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan