Reducing Weight (体重減少 )

Neither MJ and I are what you would consider "fat" people (I really watch out when I use that word around others now because of the connotations associated it, how sensitive people are, and because I dealt with weight issues in the past. There's not really a great thing to say when it comes to weight, even "you're not fat" can be considered patronizing in some contexts so I only use those descriptive words when talking to myself), nor "skinny" people. However, we both have felt the need to lose a few pounds recently. Me personally, I blame it on the cold Chicago weather keeping me indoors a lot as well as eating and then sitting in the office at work, and hopefully the California weather would change that. 

Obviously there's a lot of literature about lose-pounds-quickly methods and diets and training regimens, I treat those a lot like fortunetellers and pyramid schemes: there's not a lot of substance behind it, but it might work if you buy into it.. You know what really works for weight loss? Sweating off water weight. Our bodies consist something like 60% of water, (Actually according to wikipedia it's about 60% for males, 55% for females, huh.) Anyway, that water makes up a LOT of pounds, and if you can get rid of some of that organically, say, exercising, that really helps to make the body lose weight. I went to the local dodgeball gym for 3 hours today, ran around a lot, sweated through 4 shirts (yes I sweat a lot anyway, and it does help to lose weight I guess as well as make one smell bad) and lost 3 pounds when I measured myself at home. Now how much I'll gain that back after I eat a huge meal at dinner will be interesting, but at least I know it can be done, and that those pounds were from water weight. It's like a puzzle (I told you, life is just a puzzle!), when I was training for the marathon I lost like 10-12 pounds when I was done, mainly cuz due to running all those miles and sweating so much during those runs, I just lost all that water weight. SWEAT! It's the key to everything. 

I first learned about the theory through reading about how professional boxers and fighters lose weight, and those are really horrific tales, like going into a sauna a day or 2 before having to make a specified weight and needing to lose 10, 20, even THIRTY pounds in one sitting. I have a hard enough time losing 3 pounds, much less THIRTY, it can't be good for the body. It's apparently just dehydrating one self to the extreme, and the fighters can't drink any water during this time. Essentially they just get rid of all the water weight, come out, make the weight they needed to be at, then RIGHT AFTER the weigh in they drink tops of liquids. put the water weight back on (like 10 pounds in one day) cuz their body is used to being at that normal higher weight before, and they get to where they were orginally by fight time. Add that to the numerous reasons why I would NOT want to be a professional fighter (I don't like physical violence, I don't take pain very well, I require my mind for work so concussions are bad, etc., etc.) 

Sweat on, 

Robert Yan 

Fight (喧嘩)

I don't like fighting, I don't think anybody does. I dislike physical fighting, I actually have never gotten into a physical altercation, not even any pushing or shoving. The closest to a squibble was this aggressive 9-year-old at Chinese School every Saturday who kept egging me on over snowballs, and before we realized we had crossed the line between play fighting and actual fighting we were sorting of wrestling around on the ground, but in a very 9-year-old boy way. I also once spilled a girl's drink at a VERY crowded bar while trying to reach the bathroom, not my fault really, the bar's fault for being so crowded, and the girl's boyfriend/guy who was trying to impress her pulled me aside and told me I should pay for the girl's drink. I didn't really think I needed to, but it seemed the guy was quite insistent, and to avoid any argument I just paid the drink and got outta there, and come to think of it my life of desiring to hang out at bars ended that night. That's the story of my life though: kind of a pushover in terms of altercations, give in to others when it's more convenient to just let it go.

Unfortunately, verbal arguments are much more of a common occurrence of me, and they happen most with my family. I have a theory that I have a "crazy" gene, where I momentarily overreact about something, my blood boils, and before my mind (which has been well trained to stop me from doing anything rash) can stop it the body erupts in rage, I raise what's already a pretty loud voice and let out a yell. Admittedly it's a pretty alarming yell, so the other party would be shocked for a second and would create outrage for the other person too, but I've told my parents/ family members this: It's just a momentary slip, once I let it out, I know I've done wrong, but by then I've become the bad guy who instigated a fight, and the fight progresses as a lecturing session about what I did wrong, and then I get upset about that and that I've told them about it before, and pretty soon we don't even know what we're arguing about anymore, just upset. The "crazy" gene is something on my Dad's side I think, my sister and my father all lose control all of a sudden and we'll look a little crazy, it's like a rage that I've tried to pack under the surface but sometimes breaks out. It's very similar to the kind of repressed anger that Adam Sandler displayed in "Anger Management," a very comical but also realistic look at people with anger issues. Repressed anger is anger that's built up inside that is caused by me being done wrong (like paying for someone's drink when I shouldn't have to) but letting it go, letting it go, until it accumulates into a big ball of stress, and when that repressed anger has a catalyst to burst it into flames it bursts out like a cannonball. I have those anger issues.

I do think, though, as crazy as it sounds, that I DO learn from going through fights. I learn what sets me off, what behavior that I dislike, what values other people hold v. values I hold, a lot of information comes out in fights. Things that family members usually keep hidden from each other for fear of ruining the relationship come to light, you learn that others are also repressing anger caused by injustices done to them at work, by other people, life, etc., and that to some extent this argument isn't really about the 2 people arguing having issues with each other (it partly is, of course) but instead all the stuff that they've been dealing with that at some point has to burst out. You also learn that the people closest to you are the ones most likely to fight with, because if it was outsiders you'd just stop associating with them, it's only the ones who you're gonna have a long future with for sure that you get frustrated with, who you've had a long shared history with. I also tend to think about things more clearly while arguing, cuz apparently ever since I was a kid "I loved to argue," (very minor reason I became a lawyer), but I've been told during arguments I try to take a reasonable approach, showing why I think the other person is not being logical and why I'm right, trying to take a persuasive attitude. When really, in some fights it's not about who's right or wrong, it's just about if you still love each other, and the answer is almost always "yes" and one of the people just has to step down at some point and realize both people love each other and to remind each other of that.

I wish fights never happen to me, but if they do, at least I can learn something from them.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

The Middle Class (中産階級)

Today I learned about the different tax brackets not NCAA brackets this time! and how much the gap is between each one (about 3 percent, which is like thousands of dollars each year if you fall into the wrong one!)
I  realized I am squarely in the middle class of Americans (possibly on the higher end of middle class, but definitely not on the lower end of high class, or the vaunted 1%), which is actually not where you want to be in terms of social benefits, tax benefits, etc. Those below the poverty life live a poor life, but theoretically they don't have to work much, don't get taxed much, and qualify for low income benefits like Medicare. The higher class, well, they have so much money it doesn't matter, and they benefit from the other classes' misfortune! The middle class has the distinction of being taxed the most and getting the least out of it. I don't make THAT much money, but taxed like I do. It's like middle class quicksand, and I'm stuck in it. 

In the middle of Downtown Los Angeles is a Panda Express, an extension built as part of the Los Angeles Public Library. Its location occupies prime location, being steps away from the US Bank Tower, about 75 floors of business and commerce happening at once and plenty of white collar workers. There's nothing too special about this Panda: it's got the 2 item special, the honey walnut shrimp if you pay an extra dollar. Its employees seem very busy at lunchtime, scrambling to get all of its customers through the line quickly. And it's price is always constant: 7 bucks and change for an adequate lunchtime meal. Its specialty is it attracts the middle class.
There are plenty of homeless people on downtown Los Angeles, but they don't eat at Panda Express. There are plenty of high level business executives and wealthy partners of law firms and architecture firms in downtown, but they don't eat at Panda Express. It's the middle class that eats there.The white collar works with work attire on, business casual but not suits or expensive Italian leather, just ordinary gear to get by through the day and go through the 9-to-5 office life. They get by well enough to go out to eat and splurge for the extra $1 honey walnut shrimp (delicious, don't blame them) but not for the expensive $30/person lunch special at a fancy downtown restaurant too often without being able to put it on the firm's bill (which many of the high class do so they don't actually pay for it, hence evoking images of wealthy fatcats getting a literal free lunch......Do I sound bitter?) These middle class guys go through the line patiently understanding the plight of the Panda employees acknowledging each other's fate as a cog in the corporate machine just to make a living, consider giving a small tip or donating $1 to whatever charity is being offered, but decide against it because of the mounting bills at home that need to be attended to, foremost a mortgage that eats into every paycheck mercilessly, then pay their usual amount and hurry back to the office lest their alloted 30 hour lunch break gets extended resulting in leaving work late and getting stuck in rush hour traffic. 
Sound familiar? That Panda Express in downtown LA could be any metropolitan area or business district in America, and I've worked in quite a lot of them. The food court in the basement of a prominent building.....maybe the most depressing place on Earth for someone lamenting eternal confinement in middle class land. That is the plight of the middle class, and I know most responsible adults fully understand the concept, but Panda Express is the epitome of the social structure that I and many of the middle class live in: involved enough in society to know how it works and to see how the higher end live and be so close you can taste it, but not be able to engage in such a high class lifestyle due to the many financial and social restraints but on one as a member of the middle class, represented neatly each March/April when people fill out their tax forms and see how much their budget has been stretched and how much the federal government contributes that stretching their taxation. 


Thank goodness the threshold for tax brackets gets more lenient after you get married. Thank you future wife!

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan 

数学 (Mathematics)

When I was a kid growing up in suburban Chicago, I though I was good at math. I got good grades in school, went to advanced math class, could do arithmetic in my head, everything just clicked and it was fun. Geometry was fun, it was all about proving things and getting one answer, like a mystery that you knew had a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Algebra was fine; find out what x is using whatever means necessary, sometimes even y and z. No sweat. But then starting to get into calculus and advanced math concepts late in high school, that's when it got hard (I still got a 5, the highest score, on my AP Calculus exam though!) and then going to college and understanding there were so many smart people in the world and many smarter with me coincided with taking a really hard math class right at the beginning of my college experience that took the ambition and willpower out of me. Math was no longer fun, math was no longer easy, I no longer could understand how to solve the mystery and sometimes didn't even know what the mystery was. Math left me behind in the dust, and I abandoned math (unfortunately, cuz apparently people who really understand math can set themselves apart from others).

As an adult, though, I now realize how much math is in our everyday life. One could argue everything about life is about math. How much money one can afford to buy a house, how much one's money will accrue in a savings account, how many payments one has to pay off the car, etc. But it's not just money. Everyday events like how much gas to fill up require math, how much salt and vinegar to put into one's dish. And honestly, love and finding a romantic partner, is in a sense, related to mathematical topics (a little bit of a stretch), but those algorithms that dating websites use to match people up with each other really contain math and use statistics to come up with combinations. The concept of love itself might be math-related: at some point, after going through so many different potential partners with different combinations of character traits, one finds someone who is compatible. (Just ask every The Bachelor or The Bachelorette contestant what it's like to play the numbers game). It relates to sample size, setting enough of a sample and only needing one unit out of that set, the chances of finding someone in a set of 25 is not 100% but pretty high. It's like if you put 30 people randomly into one room, the chances of someone having the same birthday as someone is really high, really close to 100% from what I read. I'm fascinated by this stuff, how the easy math concepts can relate to average life. I used to sit idly sometimes and just think about math and how the numbers relate to each other, how people even created numbers, and how they work magically, like somehow you can have an infinite amount of numbers, but if any of them are multiplied by zero, they go back down to zero. It's like the biggest eraser/ wet towel ever, zero, yet the concept of zero is so fascinating in that there's no quantity in it, it has to exist only because there's no other way to describe the absence of any other numbers. The concept of the smallest minutest thing can become the biggest, limitless amount just by changing the question, like the distance between 0 to 1 seems small but then you realize you can create an infinite number of numbers between there, like 0.199999999..............etc, etc.

Anyway, I brought this up because in filling out March Madness brackets, I learned that I still hadn't perfected the craft of setting up a March Madness bracket, which on its surface doesn't seem that complicated: a 64-team tournament, pick who wins and you get a point. But IT IS very complicated when you're in a March Madness pool of about 100 people and want to try to maximize your chances of winning the pool, without knowing beforehand how other people will make their picks. It's something that normal people (so not me, apparently) do very normally and just have fun with it, but I like to think more about it, get to the bottom of the mystery as part of the mystery-solving carryover from my youth, even though some mathematician has probably derived the perfect solution. The dilemma is this: in a 100 people bracket, you want to WIN the pool, finish No. 1, and it doesn't matter what other places you finish in. So how do you maximize your chances to win? The first obvious answer might be to pick the team that has the highest chance to win (hard to say, obviously, in sports, but for the sake of argument let's say somebody crunched all the strength of schedule, rankings, and intangibles, and Kansas this year has a 15% chance to win it all). If you take Kansas, the odds-on favorite, you have a good chance that Kansas might win it all, but then 25 other people in the pool who picked Kansas ALSO had Kansas and you would need to do especially well and lucky to win the pool within the Kansas pickers. As opposed to picking someone like Michigan, a 7 seed wild shot in the dark with about a 2% chance to win, whom everyone stayed away from, if on a long shot Michigan were to win, you would most likely win because picking the winner is the key. But is it worth it to go for that and be on your own than take Kansas, which has a much higher likelihood of actually winning? And what's to say before seeing other people in the 100 entry bracket that other people didn't have the same idea and pick Michigan, and 5 other people picked Michigan? Then you're screwed and the odds are totally against you, even on the 50 to 1 long shot Michigan wins, you'd have to compete against 4 other entries on other factors, not a good shot. So long story, there's so much going on with game theory, psychology, but mostly MATH that makes this practice so fascinating, and makes me as giddy as when I was a little kid adding up grocery prices at the supermarket. It's quite thrilling to seek the answer, even if there might not be a definite answer (Life, the difficult concept that it is, unlike math, sometimes doesn't give a clear answer).

I picked Gonzaga to win it all. Let the madness begin!

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Afternoon Nap (昼寝)

Afternoon nap in Japanese is "hirune." Cave drawings from thousands of years ago depict human beings as having done many primeval activities, such as hunting for animals, growing crops, battling each other, etc. But the one activity that would be hard to monitor for historians and scientists: did people usually take noon/afternoon naps? If I were to guess, based on my experience, it would be a resounding "yes."

I don't nap that much, and I definitely fight the urge to nap during work hours after a big lunch (although, I have to admit that it's happened before). But it's the body urging me to nap, screaming, every fiber of my being telling me to nap, that makes me think that somewhere in my DNA there is a "prone to sleeping in the afternoon" gene that makes me do so. My friends and I often joke that we miss kindergarten/preschool because there was a built in "nap time" after lunch, and I agree, there should be, for the development of children, but also to increase the efficiency of adults.

I'm not advocating for an all-out naptime for adults.....an hour is too drastic, and often makes people drowsy and want to nap even more. 5- 10-15 minutes (not enough time to get deep sleep, have a dream or anything, there should be no snoring during these naps!) is the right amount of time to close one's eyes, forget about everything, and let the mind shut off for just a while and then reboot back into work mode afterwards. I personally find that my mind becomes clear after a nap, I get more motivation to work, and I think of problems and things differently, truly creating a "refreshing" effect. The alternative of nodding off constantly and having to fight the urge to sleep is unhealthy in my opinion because you're fighting your body the whole time and operating at less than full capacity.

The other alternative, of course, is coffee, which I haven't implemented much.......but why resort to the artificial, contrived way of keeping one sharp then go with the organic, simple, human solution of giving yourself 5-10 minutes of sleep? Getting up and making a batch of coffee/ running to Starbucks might take just as long. MJ disagrees.....probably would suggest more and STRONGER coffee.

Certainly, there's times I don't need naps at all........if I've slept 9 hours or more the day before (don't laugh, future me, at the preposterous notion of 9 hours of sleep) I can get through it. But if I've had 7 hours of sleep the previous night before or less, my mind doesn't function as well, I can feel my brain not operating at a full level, I'm less alert about things, and my memory is not functioning as well. I can absorb information about something, but I know that after that day is over and I've slept it off, I'm more likely to forget that information I got on low amount of sleep, and if it was a fun event I tend to not remember details about it well, get the full sensation of it.


In an alternative world where I was a neuroscience major and studied the brain, I would LOVE to study how afternoon sleep affects the brain. Sure there's probably tons of research done on it, but I also have tons of anecdotal evidence to provide.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Impeach (弾劾)

Impeach is "Dangai" in Japanese. This evening, a Korean court upheld the impeachment of South Korean's president, Park Geun-Hye, an event that occurred early in the evening Friday morning in Korean time. A big deal for MJ, and it probably wouldn't resonate as much with Americans except for the fact that less than 2 months into office, President Trump has alienated enough people in the country for many to mention possible impeachment (still premature, IMO and many experts' opinion, but not a wild or shocking idea anymore that it might happen sometime during this administration). The latest news has Trump accusing former President Obama of wiretapping his phones, a completely inane accusation in its own right that doesn't pertain to the welfare of the country. Even if Obama had tapped Trump's phones (which Obama's administration has refuted) what does it have with running the country? And it clearly didn't work, so just get over it. It's like accusing the other team in a basketball team of cheating AFTER you already beat them, when you have a match next that you should be preparing for. Just seems like sour grapes from a man who has much, much bigger things on his plate, like getting a decent healthcare plan working. The theory for impeachment of Trump based on accusing former presidents of misconduct without evidence is that the constitutional remedy for presidential misconduct is  impeachment, which seems a little thin to me, but I guess impeachment is in place to discourage presidents from misconduct in general, and certainly Trump has skated the line already regarding bad/ controversial acts.

Our local trampoline park had an impeachment of sorts, where the previous managers were replaced with new ones, and there were new policies in place and different prices showing up. It's a messy process, customers have to reset their expectations, there's a new set of rules, etc. Like a new restaurant or coffee shop with new management, even if I had been a regular customer of that establishment, I might reconsider my business there or re-evaluate my standards, even if the previous experiences were good.

Similarly, Impeachment on the presidential level is just bad for all parties involved, especially with such high stakes involved. The president/other elected official was supposed to serve for a specified term, everyone expects to do so, but they behave so poorly that they cannot finish out the term. A new leader has to be designated, not elected, somewhat dulling the democratic process (although I guess especially in 2016 if you voted Trump you had to be cognizant that Vice President Mike Pence would take over if anything were to happen), the time building relationships with Trump goes totally to waste for other countries' elected officials, the country looks bad (S. Korea might get a bad reputation now internationally as a country without a stable head of government),

I was once "impeached" as commissioner of my fantasy baseball league. As trivial as it sounds, it still kind of hurt to have my actions be judged by all the members of the league and others put themselves on a high horse to judge my actions. I realized that some of my actions were not done with the best intentions of the league in mind and were self-interested moves. In fantasy baseball leagues, the commissioner is usually also a player in the league trying to work against the other teams in the league and better their own team, and these interests sometimes collide. Luckily, in government, we have representatives who are supposed to be working for the people and not against the people, theoretically. I hope never be impeached again, and I hope for the American people Donald Trump doesn't NEED to be impeached.... but if he does need to be due to his own interests coming before the country, then he should be impeached..........like President Park of South Korea was today.


Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Celebrity ( 芸能人): That Time I Went Bobsledding with The Bachelorette: Canada

I've lived in Los Angeles for almost 10 years now, and I haven't really gotten into the "celebrity scene." I don't go chasing after celebrities, I don't stop to try to get their autograph, or (the new trend these days) a selfie with them, I'm usually either overwhelmed by their presence and feel too insignificant to try to talk to them, or just don't want to stop the celebrity in whatever he or she is doing and have to deal with me. That said, I haven't really seen many celebrities outside of being at the same sporting event with them showing up on the big screen (with thousands of other people also there) or brief looks at them at a casino or club or something, or even passing by famous mother-daughter duo Katie Holmes and Suri on their way to Malibu beach. I realize now that that was one of a few chances to stop and talk to a celebrity, as she was alone and not surrounded by people, but why bother her just to indulge my own desires to meet a celebrity? If I was a celebrity I'd just want to go about my day and not be stopped by random people who happened to see one or two of my movies, and don't really know the real me.

Anyway, this past weekend, I was able to hang out with a real-live celebrity! Well, not really, just the star of the premiere season of The Bachelorette Canada. Not sure I gotta admit, I was somewhat starstruck when I was told who she was (didn't know who she was before) and felt somewhat self-important having met her. I guess that's the power of a celebrity: to make other people feel special. I'd like to think that was subconsciously my reason for wanting to be a celebrity back in my early 20's and making it big on a reality TV show like Survivor or Big Brother or The Amazing Race, but really selfishly it was just to make it big, trying to find a quick path to perceived success and to be the envy of all my friends.

Anyway, I went to Vancouver to visit one of my law school buddies, and he coincidentally is dating a wonderful lady who is best friends with Bachelorette Canada, so BC (as I'll call her from now on) dropped in on our cabin during our ski trip to Whistler! To BC's credit, she doesn't act like I would expect a celebrity to (or at least someone with 58,000 Twitter followers) act......there's nothing high and mighty at all about her, she comes off like a regular woman (with great physical features of course) with great personality who tries to get to know everyone. And she laughed at some of my jokes! Which doesn't even happen with real people, not to mention celebrities. So I was pleased with myself. Oh and bobsledding..........is pretty crazy, going down a slope in a small car at upwards of 200km/hour with "G's" pounding against one's face.......not exactly my idea of a good time.

I guess the moral of the story this weekend was: not all famous people get stuck-up because they're famous and fit the stereotype of turning their back against their friends.......BC stuck with her friends who were loyal to her before all the attention.....maybe before I judge someone because they seem stuck up on TV or their personality is annoying, I should give them the benefit of the doubt instead of judge them with my own prejudices infused with my own jealousy of people who get a lot more attention that I do. I do like attention though.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan