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