Change

I like change--at least I thought I did. In fact, I have a fear of stagnation, which is probably one of the reasons why attaining stability is so tough for me; after all, don't the words "settle down" imply some form of life stagnation? As of late, whenever I see couples get engaged, or get married, or have children, it freaks me out. Normal, I think. But why do I feel the same way when couples break up?

And perhaps this is the psychology of one who craves change - you don't want things around you to change. You want the world to wait for you; to wait for you until you're ready to embrace settling down, so that the world will change for you while you stay put. In the meanwhile, you hope that the world will stay put while you change.

Make-Up Chat

I have been having some trouble applying eye liner recently. Well to be honest, i've always had a bit of trouble with eyeliner. I always stick to pencil liners because I just wasn't brave enough to use anything else. One time, when I was in my early 20s, Andrea had let me try her liquid liner and i completely made a mess of my face so I steered away from anything besides pencil. Plus, pencil is super cheap. I had a similar story with blush when I was in high school actually. I tried using my mom's blush without learning how to apply it properly and I looked like a monkey's butt. I didn't use blush again until I was 25.

I'm digressing. So the pencil liners started giving me problems because they always seem to run and smear after a while. I tried several different liners after that and the latest purchase was the MAC Technakohl eye liner kajal (an impulse purchase at the duty free when I was chatting with a MAC sales about my running eyeliner problem). Anyway, the expensive eyeliner turned out to run anyway, despite being smudge free, water-proof, blah blah blah. It doesn't run as badly, but it runs. I ended up just having to learn to live with it and keep it in check, so my latest problem has nothing to do with this. My latest problem is that I can't get color to stay on my inner top right eye corner. It's so weird: from the inner corner to about half a centimetre, it just won't catch the colour. I tried using all types of pencil liners and none of it works. Yesterday, I went and bought a cream liner and brush and the same thing happens--the colour just disappears in that corner..not in the other eye either. I tried googling this and all I get is about the colour going away after a while, but not as soon as you put it on. It's like I have an eczema patch there that's preventing the colour to stick but I can't see it visibly (and I  don't even  know if eczema patch prevents colour from catching on skin), or i have a patch of oil that doesnt wipe away or something. I decided my last option was a liquid liner, so I headed back to Target today to see their selections. I ended up buying two types of eyeliner pens because I couldn't tell the difference between the two. Plus the cream I bought yesterday, and the eyeliner and shadow stick--I bought a total of four liners in two days. The only thing I am missing now is gel liner to complete the collection...not that I'm collecting.

All the liners i have with me in san antonio right now. I have more at home.

Besides the eyeliners, I also ended up buying mascara, and two lipgloss and a concealer brush (i'm not using it for concealers though, cuz i dont know how). That's a total of 9 items. How much did I end up spending? $17. No that's not a typo.

• studio line mascara: = $3
• studio line cream liner = $3
• studio line angled eyeliner brush = $3
• studio line eyeliner and shadow stick = $3
• concealer brush = $1
• liquid liner = $1
• pen liner = $1 
• lipgloss x 2 = $2

Why is it so cheap? E.L.F.! (Eye Lips Face) This budget brand that is sold online and in Target is a hit and miss for people. Some products from the line people love and some people just don't. Not everything is great but many are pretty good. When I first started using make up brushes in Boston, I was buying ELF brushes just to see if i'll use brushes in the long run before i invest in them. They are definitely GREAT beginner brushes for trial. In fact, I think all their products are pretty good if you want to try something new. A ton of reviews on YouTube on their products and I'm not make-up expert so I won't get into the details.

I've tried most of the products I purchased, and I love the liquid liner. I might buy another one ($1!) if I like it enough in the next two days. The great thing about E.L.F. is that their quantity is actually quite small, which suits me perfectly since I don't wear make up that often.

My new E.L.F. haul in the last two days ($17!!)

Dont get me wrong, I dont just buy cheap make-up; I have quite a collection from MAC, Lancôme, urban decay, Laura Mercier, Elizabeth Arden, etc., and other things u can buy at local drug stores like maybeline, cover girl, rimmel...i can go on...its such a waste actually cuz i never finish using them. I should do an entry on my fav products when i get a chance.
Aren't you excited?? Haha!

Modernist in Paris

I had the fortune of watching Midnight in Paris on my way back from Denver and when I say fortune, it's because I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but due to director and casting, I probably would have never have chosen to watch it otherwise. I mean..Owen Wilson...this is probably the first movie he was in that I actually liked. The film isn't deep and not symbolic--generally artsy films such as this never openly denote the theme the way this movie does, which is specifically nostalgia -- specifically the idealization of the past and the conclusion we have the tendency to believe that the past is always better, no matter how great your present is. You can't miss the message; this is in no way an interpretive film--which is quite ironic, considering this film is a tribute to Modernists.

What made me adore this film was actually because it is a tribute to Modernists and I have always loved Modernist works. Reading Modernist literature out loud makes my skin tingle--Eliot and Joyce, being the most obvious favourites. No, I don't read enough Modernist work because they are actually so tiring to read. Last time I read Faulkner, my brain tingled with pleasure, but I fail to remember the plot of the story--all I can remember is how beautifully he is able to string words together to create unimaginable images. And here we have a film where the protagonist gets to go back to Paris in the 1920s to meet with Hemingway, Stein, Eliot and hang out within their social circles. I have loved Dali the moment I was introduced to him via my Modern Western History class, before I even really got a hang of the concept of modernity. And then I went on to do an Independent Study Project on Modern Era in the 1920s--flappers and all--which led me to win the graduating award at the end of the year for this class. I went to the MoMa just so I can see Dali and other surrealists in person. How can I not love this movie? It also helps that all the scenes of Paris are now like second nature to me.

But wait, I might have misled you. You don't need to really be involved in history and literature and art to understand this movie. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the plot is so simple--so everyone can enjoy it. If nothing else, this movie is making me go pick up some Hemingway.

Oh and here's a read-worthy article on words making beautiful sentences. For the record, "Let us go then, you and I" were what caught my breath and made me fall in love with J Alfred Prufrock. Beautiful sentences don't come out of nowhere; it takes practice, it takes time, and a lot of work. You might think it absurd that an author can take months trying to figure out what single verb to use in a sentence of a 500 page novel, but the result is worth this. And we have seen it again and again with our own eyes.
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Ideological Alignment

This is an interview of Malcom Gladwell given by the liberal arts director at High Point University in North Carolina. He's funny, witty, humble, and incredibly insightful.

When I first encountered the book a couple of years ago, The Tipping Point, I had scoffed at the idea of reading a book that tells you how to be successful. Recently, I was given to read The Outliers and I was extremely impressed with how observant and insightful Malcom Gladwell is on social interactions and their meanings. I then obtained that copy of The Tipping Point that I had refused earlier and rather enjoyed reading it as well.

I don't believe in learning how to become "successful" by reading, whether financially or socially, but what I do believe in is reading avoid dogmatism, and this books do exactly that.

There are several key reasons why I enjoy Malcom Gladwell's analysis on social bearings:

1. He's an environmentalist like me. Not environmentalist like I'm hugging the trees, but the belief that we are shaped by our environments. It's the age-old nature vs nurture debate where although it's never one or the other, I do agree with him that a large part of our "personality" are shaped by their social environment.
2. He doesn't preach or push his insights on you. Rather, he presents you with an alternative world view that you can either take or leave. He takes what the general public view is the "norm" and gives you a completely different perspective, and therefore a new concept, of how the world works.
3. He is a great writer. His writing is clear, logical, and well-presented. A+ on rhetoric. 

You are not supposed to walk away from his book with a new hard-fast rules of how to conduct your life, but rather with possibilities of new ideologies that make the world a better place.

Some highlights on this interview:

• "I was privileged to be underprivileged" Outsiders are able to see things differently because they are not acclimated and desensitized to a culture and what people think is the way things should be the outsiders don't see it the same way.
• "If you take care of the little things then it will instill the mindset that makes the big things easier" Steve Jobs is successful because he is a perfectionist with a purpose (not a perfectionist because he's got a disorder). He insists on perfecting the little things around him to fit his overall purpose--he understands that meaning doesn't just come from words or things, but also from all types of seemingly insignificatn actions and inactions around us.
• "Do not, by the way, listen to your ipod when you work...this is insane! I'm sorry, you can't do work, it just can't be done [...] Here is the two findings: number one is that everyone thinks they're great at multi-tasking; finding number two is, no one is." (I feel validated because I cannot work with music) He also mentioned that if you are doing brain-work and working efficiently, you can't work 8 hours a day.
• Wealth is not what it's cracked up to be...a cycle of discovery on your way to being wealthy, money is a conduit, and that's why people work hard all their lives who end up just giving it all away. This is the most profound part of the interview and worth watching.
• "[Leaders] have less in common than what I thought they would. Leadership comes in an astonishing number of forms" The only thing they have in common is energy. Energy can come from passion, from purpose, from drive, or from innate (some people just don't need to sleep as much) but the only thing that help them become leaders is that they never stop.
• "Your personality is a function of what is going around you" <-- environmentalist
• "The idea..that Social Power, which is to say, to be distinguished from economic power, which is the power that comes from money...or political power from institutions, or even institutional power, the power comes from your title. There is a different if not equally more important thing, a power called Social power, an informal way which influence is mediated in the world. Social power is not held equally by all of us; it's held by a small number of us with gifts. Some people have a capacity of social interaction that's way out here...they are enormously important in the functioning of this institution...the people with social power get really good stuff done...a high functioning organization depends on these people...people go to work, school because of the environment and it's these people who create functional environments. Understand where social power lies. Well-functioning societies reward those that do that." I'm not quoting his exact words because the section was so long and so in-depth, but this is one of the ideas that he tries to make us see that we don't usually understand, the idea that social interactions can have just as much, if not more, power, than money, institutions, title.

ABC

Two years ago, not too long after I moved to Boston, through some connection, Adam asked me if I was interested in going to an Ivy League game involving Harvard vs. Cornell. The tickets were going to be bought through a group of Taiwanese-Americans who are organizing the event to cheer on a Taiwanese-American player named Jeremy Lin, who has the potential to be drafted into the NBA. It was a fun event, and one of the girls made a large sign for JLin and as posers, we took pics with it. I have a whole facebook album of the event and some close-up pics of JLin on court, as well as me being interviewed by Taiwanese media on the JLin phenomenon. Even at that point, the Taiwanese media was on top of it, ready to claim him to be the pride and joy of our "country."

It actually occurred to me at that point, I can't remember whether it was a conversation of some sort or I read this somewhere, that a lot of the people that I went to the game with, and Jeremy Lin himself, would correct you when you call them Taiwanese. "Actually, my parents are Taiwanese. I was born in America." They never directly say that they are NOT Taiwanese, nor do they say that they are Taiwanese-American; rather, they point out simply that it is their parents who are Taiwanese. If you were to ask them what their background is, they'd say "well my parents are born in Taiwan, but I'm born in the U.S." --there is simply no label for them.

First, it's important to point out that they are not wrong. I mean, it's a fact that they are born in the U.S., therefore Americans--there's no dispute about it. The question is what it even means to be Taiwanese-American. When someone says a person is African-American, it doesn't mean that the person is from Africa, it simply indicates a race in a politically correct yet in a somewhat distorted way--if you're black and your parents are from Jamaica, are you African-American? But then you never hear people refer someone as "Jamaican-American", though you do hear things like Irish-American, and yet not "Italian-American" (politically anyway). I don't understand this hyphenate American thing enough to have an understanding of when does one get a alternate attachment because it's not just purely "continent-American", "country-American", or in the Chinese case, simply "race-American"---or is it? Does being Chinese-American imply that you're from China or does it imply that your parents are of the "Chinese" race? Is Chinese even a race? Wikipedia tells me that there is no real clear definition from a social construction of different Asian races (Indians are Asians too and Korean is not a race.) So is JLin Taiwanese-American or Chinese-American? Even ESPN couldn't figure it out. At the Vday game last night against the Raptors, the commentator said, "he is the first Taiwanese....er Chinese American...."

Taiwan is neither a race nor a UN recognized country, so Jlin, not having been born in Taiwan, never having visited Taiwan until last year, and not speaking Mandarin well, how can he identify with being "Taiwanese-American"? The easy way out is for him to say he's "Chinese-American" to identify his race as being simply not white or black because, you know, if you claim to be just plainly American, you get white people saying, well of Asian descent, and Chinese people saying, oh you're not proud of your ancestor. On the other hand, if you are anywhere beyond second generation American and white, then you have an easier time not to have to associate yourself with a culture and identity you simply don't identify with. Basically, the point is, if your skin looks anything Asian, to say you're simply "American" is ludicrous in everyone else's eyes.

Interestingly, if you look at all the Canadian-born Asians or whatever other race or country their parents are from, you have no identity problems. All my Canadian-born Chinese friends have no problems saying they're simply Chinese. If anyone I know are asked "what's your background?" It'd be quite simple--- "Chinese" "Korean" "Taiwanese" "Guyanese" "Ukrainian." So put simply, this identity issue is purely an American ideological and assimilation issue, details of which I simply don't have enough interest at the moment to get into.

The second, and probably most important thing I want to point out is the lack of understanding Taiwanese people, and even other Chinese people, seem to have about the American assimilation process. They feel like JLin is Taiwanese or Chinese and they boast about it. Sure you have people everywhere talking about JLin as a phenomenon no matter where you turn your head, but these Taiwanese and Chinese people take it a step further and say that he represents them(!) Let me tell you right here and right now, I've seen his interviews and he does not feel that he's representing anyone, especially not those living on this little island called Taiwan. Every time he gets asked questions like "how does it feel to represent such a large group of people" he skirts around the issue and says things like, well it's my parents who are Taiwanese and I'm just playing ball. The funniest thing is when the Taiwanese politicians want to recruit him to play for the Taiwanese national league--good luck with that. Will Lin's attitude change when he has more interactions with Asian/Chinese/Taiwanese culture and fans? Who knows, but to go around claiming that he's Taiwanese and the "Light of Taiwan" is almost embarrassing. Like one commentator said, you don't see Africans claiming Kobe is the "Light of Africa".

Personally, as someone who is Taiwan-born with a lot of Taiwanese influence as I grew up, my initial reaction to JLin's readiness to shake off his background was a bit of a disappointment. But then as I thought about it, I realized that if he was born and raised in the U.S., and he has never been to Taiwan, and his parents never enforced traditional Asian values on him, why should anyone expect him to be otherwise? Someone said to me that it's his parents' "fault" for the way he is...Why is it a fault to allow your children to live in an environment that's like everyone else's? This idea of having a responsibility to get to know your roots is antiquated and unfair. The more you understand about ANY culture will make you a better person. It is a humanistic responsibility to learn about other cultures, but it is not anyone's responsibility to zone in on a single culture because someone else tells you based on your parents' background and your skin colour that you should get to know something.

Most importantly, JLin's attitude is not disgust towards his background or that he's not proud. He makes very valid points about his background without looking down on anything. Had he went around saying he's Taiwanese, I guarantee you we'd get haters who say JLin is as Taiwanese as Kobe Bryant because he can barely even speak Mandarin and has never been to Taiwan. You can't win. On the other side of the same coin, people who go around saying "I'm proud to be Asian" "Asian Pride" blah blah blah, but know nothing about his or her culture is a lot more appalling to me. Do you even know what you're proud of?

Regardless of where you are born, where your parents are born,where you grew up, where they grew up, the most important thing is about your identity shouldn't be something as superficial as your skin colour and things you can't change, but about being honest with yourself and being a good human being. Be proud of the fact that you have done good things in your life, and not just tout that you're proud of something you can't even control or don't even understand.

Idealistic? Probably. But we gotta start somewhere.