your sunday, their sunday.

How did you spend your Sunday last weekend?

A Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte

Last Sunday for me was mostly spent in the library, studying for my four midterms. I woke up somewhat late around noon, and headed off to the library to study, sipping on coffee and wishing the cubicles and computers could be transported outside to the beautiful weather. After dinner, we had rehearsals for the Love Your Body Monologues in the evening which was my study break. 

Not so exciting.

Wonder how your favorite writer/actor/chef/politician spent his/her Sunday? The New York Times has these fantastic series called "Sunday Routines" where we are invited to peek into the lives of other more well-known figures who may have more interesting routines.

These articles provide a glimpse of personal lives these figures lead; who likes to get platzas(massage with venik branches), or who checks out the flea market in the dawn on their Sundays.

embrace vulnerability.

A friend in my acting class mentioned in passing a TED lecture on vulnerability. Now that my week is over, I have time to snuggle in my bed & watch this video, which was just fantastic.

Being vulnerable- it is not just a life mantra that makes life a little bit relaxed and easier. It will actually make you happier, whole-hearted, and embrace yourself as you are.

Dr. Brene Brown is a professor at our neighbor University of Houston, studying the delicate humans emotions of shame, human connections, and vulnerability. Here is her main message from her website:

In the TED lecture, she talks about what the people who had made connections with others and had a "strong sense of love and belonging" had in common. They felt they were worthy, even if they weren't perfect: they embraced vulnerability , exposing their imperfect selves, letting themselves be terrified, hurt, and betrayed. They didn't particularly enjoy the idea of vulnerability(who does really?), but they accepted it as part of life and simply integrated it into their view of themselves.

Don't be afraid to let yourself fall, searching for security and stability, because this is life, and this is us. We may not be perfect, and we may be hurt and ashamed, but as Dr. Brown emphasizes in her lecture, we are enough, and we're worthy of all these happy things in life- love, friends, sense of belonging. Let things happen, embrace them as part of life because no one is perfect & feel sadness, feel anger, and feel joy and love.

You can watch Dr. Brene Brown speak in this life-affirming lecture here: the best 20 minutes you'll spend for yourself. She's an extremely engaging speaker- funny and self-depreciating, and you'll walk away with an upgraded(ly) happy view on life.

instant forgiveness.

I'm taking an acting class this semester, and so far it's been fascinating. Every day I walk in not knowing just what to expect. We're learning body movements and getting to know the stage, and becoming (very) comfortable with each other. Yesterday we made a jungle gym with our bodies while our 6'4 professor climbed on top of us over to the other side. This was after we played a vigorous game of tag, so everyone was leaning on each other in a big sweaty hot pile.

We also played a game of passing a ball from person-to-person in a predetermined set pattern where we keep adding more balls so that there are several paths going on at once, and when there's 10~ balls for 20 people, it gets really confusing since every second, you're either catching OR throwing. Our professor Justin emphasized that in this game if you drop the ball or miss a throw, "you have to instantly forgive yourself". He noted that especially since you're part of this bigger game and indispensable, you can't feel embarrassed, become angry, or however you may react to this "failure". He mentioned that while performing, if you mess up, you are the only person who will ever know. Everyone else will have no clue until you show it by turning red in the face, apologizing, stopping to catch yourself etc.

Also because we're doing all these activities where we have to really be out there & make ourselves vulnerable, he reminded us that our mistakes are simply going to evaporate and be forgotten every time we make them. He said: you can't go, "oh my gosh, I am so embarrassed I did that, I can never see these people again, I'm going to drop this class and drop out of college..." See how ridiculous it sounds when you verbalize it? But that's how we think sometimes- that everyone is watching and judging and remembering all the little mistakes we make, but really?

Make mistakes, instantly forgive yourself.

In my yoga class, after a difficult pose where everyone is twisting their bodies and grunting, panting, our yoga instructor reminds us to "forget what just happened. Repeat on other side". She hinted that the key to being a yoga-master (there must be a better term) is to have a bad memory, and simply not remember how difficult something was last time you did it.

Of course, bigger mistakes may not be forgotten by yourself or others, but that's why we have(my friend actually gave me one of these long time ago):

Body washes that will wash away your sins for you.

Well, but seriously, forgiving yourself may be the hardest thing to do, but it's often the most important task. (See lessons in acting; yoga;)

current reading: and the band played on.

I am in Houston & back at school!

Saturday night, C picked me up from the airport, and we had a super late breakfast-dinner at IHOP where I humiliated him by starting to eat my eggs with my hands before the server went off to grab the utensils. It's nice being back! It's even nicer coming back to a suite full of laughter and homemade tamales, courtesy of suitemate B's grandma.

Over the winter break, I checked out "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts, which was mentioned in my immunology class last semester.  I thought (hoped) it would be a thin paperback book, but the 600-something hardcover book barely fit in my purse.

So far, I'm less than half way through, but it's fascinating to read through the development and discovery of AIDS. According to the book, AIDS spread rapidly because of the prominent practices of bathhouses and clubs in the San Francisco scene among the gays, and because the patients displayed vastly different pathological symptoms as result of their weakened immune system, it was difficult for the doctors to make the connection and see that the disease was caused by a common virus. In addition, because the disease was common among the gay population (even called Gay Related Immune Deficiency in the beginning) and the media preferred not to write on this subset of people, there was few interest among the researchers who would rather focus on diseases that received heavier media spotlight.


My first response in hearing about AIDS and its emergence in SoCal/NYC was how frightening and confusing it must have been for a disease to be linked to a behavior, especially one that is constantly shunned and ostracized in society. I mean, as the book mentions many times, pathogens are color, race, sexuality, gender-blind. I can only imagine all the "told-you-so's" and the "God's punishing you" finger pointings that happened while the origin of the disease was being investigated. Isn't this crazy though?, that a disease can be linked to some common-behavioral population? Imagine if a disease broke out among the liberals, or people who slept on their back or... ate yogurt with their forks. It'd be difficult not to read into such interesting happenings.


Initially, I thought the title was about the enduring nature of humans even through the disease, but I read that the title was referring to how the band continued playing on the sinking Titanic ship.


What I found even more interesting was that Randy Shilts, who was gay himself, wrote the book while he was tested for AIDS, and postponed finding out the results until he finished the book. He did indeed find out that he was HIV-positive, and later died of the very complications he wrote about in the book, pneumocystis c. pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma.

zappp laser pointers.

I gave a big presentation for one of my classes this semester and had to use a long wooden stick to point to my slides since I couldn't find a laser pointer. When I came home, Umma presented me with my very own laser pointer, which I promptly played with for the next three days. I pointed at the buildings across the street, on the walls, on trees, and at little objects all over the house, fascinated.

I was amazed that I had this great weapon/tool in my hand because wait, wouldn't it be dangerous if I were to aim it at, say a building far away, or a helicopter or even an airplane? I was surprised that laser pointers are completely legal in the U.S. considering how incredibly annoying these can be, when someone is pointing on you in the library and you have no idea who or where, and how potentially dangerous these are...

 Staring at Car Staring at Cat Staring by Steve Bishop,

 if you've ever seen/taken a picture of a cat in the dark.

Currently, laser pointers are banned in New South Wales of Australia, and a laser assault can lead to 14-year-imprisonment. In the U.S. there is an ongoing debate on whether laser pointers should be banned following several incidents where laser pointers were pointed at aircrafts, temporarily blinding the pilots. This is obviously a bad idea to blind someone who is controlling a metal weighing hundred tons in the air, and you can be traced back to pointing the laser. 

Lately in the news, a man in Winter Park, Florida was sentenced with 20 years(!) in prison for pointing his laser at a helicopter. Over this weekend in Fort Myers, two teenagers shone light on a sheriff helicopter, damaging the officers' eyes (ruptured blood vessels), committing a second degree felony. In one (another Florida) case in 2005, a man aiming a laser pointer at deputies was shot on suspicion he was using a laser-sighted weapon.

It's like I have this potential felony/arrest/imprisonment weapon in my hands! I promise to use this only for good and educational/demonstrative purposes.

In other news, I have been playing mom, helping little bro with homework and school projects, and waking up at 6:45 to take little bro to school & packing his lunch (with meticulous detail on how to spread the mustard and how many slices of meat)...