Beam Reach

1776

I just finished 1776 by David McCullough.  It's a great book. 

Looking at all the books I liked and was willing to give a 5 star rating, I found that they had something in common - optimism.  I like stories that talk about people overcome great difficulties, either physically or psychologically, and achieve greatness.  I guess I could start a book club one day...

Off to NYC

I'm leaving tomorrow for a two-week long business trip in NYC.  Since I won't be posting for a while, I guess I would just quickly recap what's going on in my life.

Work: Busy, sometime very exciting, sometime not so much.  Happy days and anxious days are about 50%/50%.

Moving: Finally Done.  This is the hardest move I've ever done.  I learned that I have way too many things, and I don't need 2/3 of them.  I love my new place, though.  It's coming together very nicely.  The bonus is, after 8 years of driving to restaurants, I now finally can walk to restaurants and movie theaters.  It's just wonderful.

Books: Just finished "Time traveler's wife."  I'd give it a 4 (out of 5).

Cat: Toshi is having a marvelous time in NYC visiting grandparents.  I don't think he misses me at all.  I miss him very much and I can't wait to take him back and move him into my new place.

Tennis: The league is done for the year.  No more tennis.  No more formal league that is.  I still will try to play. 

Overall: Maybe a 7.  I hope life can slow down a bit.  Holiday season is coming, and I think I'd feel much better then.

Will be back in 2 weeks.

Does love need to be earned?

Ever since I finished reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand a couple of months ago, I've been thinking on and off about this question.  Does love need to be earned?  Is there a God?  These two questions seem to be unrelated.  But if you think about it, both questions are questions about faith.  Whether it is unconditional love or God, faith is required.  Do I want people to love me only for my virtues, such as my youth, beauty, capability and amiability?  What if I lose these virtues?  What if people who love me for these virtues meet someone who is younger, prettier, more capable and more agreeable?  Then are they free to switch?  I want to be loved because I'm "me".  But then the question is: "Who am I without my characteristics?"  It is certainly comforting to believe in unconditional love, a constant in a sea of moving parts.  But does such a thing as unconditional love exist?  Should we have faith in love?  or should we continuously working on our virtues to stay in love? or both?

25% Fewer Books, But Better Quality

So far this year, I read 17 books.  My goal (in my commuting dates) was to read/listen to one book per week.  I got to tell you, that's almost impossible.  It takes a good 5-15 hours to finish a book.  In a good year, I read 30-40 books.  And that would be a very good year.  At the current speed, I will finish 24 books this year.

Though reading fewer books, my book selection is getting better.  Last year, for example, I only rated 15% of the books I read 5-star.  This year there is 35% 5-star so far.  Much of that is contributed to better libraries here in Texas and book recommendations from websites and friends. 

Now a small confession here: I don't have an ipod.  I'm an early adopter, but I'm terrible with "upgrades".  Electronics these days usually just become "no longer cool" but don't exactly break.  Since I don't like to own things that need frequent upgrades, I still do not own an ipod.  Anyway, now that my new home is only 1 mile away from work, I won't need to commute, and therefore lose all the time of listening to books on CD.  So I'm considering an ipod - an ipod full of books.  That would be really cool. 

up, down, up, down, down, down, down, and finally, up!

No, that's not the tape from a stock exchange, that's my mood in recent days.  Let me skip all the downs, 'cause there is no point to bring myself down again, is there?  The ups are:

• Went to play tennis on Wednesday and I played a good game;
• Rode a horse called "piper" on Saturday.  The horse was a fantastic trotter.  And believe it or not, it was only 85 degrees! 
• Went to play tennis again tonight with a different group whom I had not played with for a while.  Everybody missed me, and that made me feel good.
• We signed all the papers for our new home today.  I'm very happy about that.
• And, I'm going to NYC this weekend.  :-)

And the downs?  Oh, I don't want to talk about them.  Hopefully it's just a phase. 

an entry about anything and everything

The 7 am to 8 pm working days are wearing me out a bit.  These are not idle hours.  I really have a lot to do.  If I have to be completely honest, I would say that I wouldn't feel so pressured if I have started alone.  Just imagine, you put three very competitive people together, having them start on the same day, working on the same tasks and comparing their results daily.  What would happen to them?  Well, they would drive each other very hard and each one of them would try to be the best. 

The two guys already have many years of experience, so they are light years ahead of me to begin with.  Instead of taking it easy, they are fast-tracking everything.  Every time I thought I was about to catch up, they would be again a few steps ahead.  I had an edge in analytical skills and product knowledge, but I think they are about to catch up with me by the end of this week.  So I actually want to work more.  I love competitions (as long as I win at the end :).

Of course I still want to play tennis, golf and ride horses.  I haven't gone to yoga for many months; I can't even count how many.  I still want to get enough sleep, eat well.  I still want to spend time with Toshi (and hubby if he is in town).  And I still want to blog.  So I decided, I would just lump my random thoughts, my sports and my to-dos together in one entry in the future.  Hey, it's not like I have a high readership.  And for those of you who are reading this, I hope you'd forgive my lack of organization.  I do MUST go to bed at 10 pm, you know.

Here is everything that has happened since my last entry:

• Friday, went to dinner with hubby and his friend
• Saturday, horseback riding.  We went to this natural trail in the park.  In order to get there, though, we had to cross a creek.  It was very steep.  I held on for my life, while my horse jumped up and down the creek with ease.  There were groups of small fish in the creek.  I felt that I was in the wild wild west when I crossed the creek on the horse.  It must have been 105 degrees, but I really couldn't complain about the trip.
• Saturday and Sunday, many chores.  Can you believe that I worked on "house work" the whole weekend and there are still many things to be done?  I did the laundry.  I bought groceries.  I cleaned the closet.  I polished my shoes.  I went to the library.  I went to the bank.  I paid the bills.  I looked at properties.  Oh, there were just too many to-dos to list them all.  I did this full time not long ago, you know.  Now I try to do everything in two days.  What?  The 100+ degree weather.  I didn't even notice.  I was busy.
• Not too busy for reading.  I am still reading the one thousand plus page book - Atlas Shrugged.  I thought I'd be able to finish it over the weekend, but that didn't happen.
• I made an offer on a property today. 
• How Toshi goes through his day is a mystery to me.  This morning, I let him out to the balcony.  It was already 80 some degrees.  I asked him to come indoors so I could have the AC on for him, but he refused.  With the weather that is still 101 at 8pm at night, I don't know how he had suffered.  Maybe I'll keep him in tomorrow.  What do other people do for their pets?  Do they leave them in with the AC or do they leave them out without the AC?
• I didn't do well at work today.  I think I was in the bottom half of the 4.  I need to get better.  I need time.  Time is the commodity that I can't afford these days.  Anyway, the reason I was in the bottom two was that I was not communicating concisely.  Well, it takes a lot more to communicate concisely.  Do you not see how I am failing this blog entry by going on and on?

So, that's it.  I won't bore you with anymore with this mundane list.  I need to get ready for bed soon.  Tomorrow is a brand new day.  Big Smile.

The West's Last Chance

The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? is a book by Tony Blankley.  I usually put my views on books on my books blog, but this one deserves more attention.

I have to admit, I'm not politically active.  Prior to this book, I had never read anything by Tony Blankley or even heard of his name.  I didn't know which party he belongs to or what political views he holds.  But I really liked the book.  Not because I agree with all his views, but because I liked his reasoning.  For every point he made, he drew a parallel between today's world and some events in the history.  It was brilliantly done.

The book talked a lot about reviving the love for the western culture, and about how the multi-culturalism doesn't really work.  Although targeted to the threat of radical Islamists, those recommendations and suggestions in the book sound applicable to all non-WASPs.  As an immigrant from China and a naturalized citizen, I should be offended by it.  And if there was a war between the US and China, I would of course against racial and ethnic profiling against me and my people.  But interestingly and sadly, I liked the book, because it was logical and reminded us some common sense. 

As I mentioned in a post maybe a year ago, people always automatically assume I'm on the left because I'm a women, an immigrant and I'm from California.  People lower their voice and hesitate before they talk about their kid or friends' kid in Iraq or how much Clinton had screwed up.  That's just Texas politeness - they obviously are not embarrassed about it, but they probably don't want to get into any debates with new acquaintances.  I usually just listen and the conversation would always be changed to a non-political topic.  So as a matter of fact, no one has asked me what I think.  I don't mind, really.  As I said, I'm not politically active.  But, I really wish the intellectual left would read this book.  If I could see the value in it (as an immigrant and everything), maybe they could too.

Still packing ...

No, I'm not dead, yet.  I've been packing for 11 hours straight and I just realized that I would have to do an all-nighter tonight.  Well, I always deliver, I always make the deadline, so there is no reason to fail this time. 

The books on CD really are helping me with my hours of categorizing, indexing and packing.  I've already finished three books and I went to the library tonight and got three more.

Alright, I got to go back to packing now.  Be back on Thursday.  ;-)

Memoirs of a Geisha

I went to see Memoirs of a Geisha yesterday.  I read the book a few years ago and liked the book a lot, so I set the bar of the movie pretty high.  The movie was good, above average good.  I only have very small improvement suggestions:

1. I know Chinese or Japanese look no different to a westerner, but you know we Asians can usually tell.  Although I am happy for the Chinese actresses who got the job, I still felt a Japanese actress would handle some of the subtleties better.  Not that these subtleties would matter to the western audience anyway, because I'm sure most people are just fascinated by the porcelain like Asian beauty and the delicate body posture/movement, that they won't detect the newly acquired skills verse something that people grew up with.  I'm not complaining about the actresses.  I think they did great.  I'm just saying that it could have been better.  OK?
2. Can they please spend a little more money on the Kimonos?  I can't believe this movie won Oscar for the best costume.  There were not enough Kimonos used, and for those ones that were shown in the movie, there were no really good shots to show off the fabric.  I'm disappointed at this.  I don't know what's the problem - the knowledge of the firm maker? the budget? the photographer?  I certainly have expected better.

Jin Yong (金庸) books

When I read/listen to books, I very seldomly would read a book twice.  The only exception is with books from Jin Yong.  I have read his books hundreds of times since my childhood.  Although these books are Kong Fu historical novels, to me, they are much more than that.  These books represent part of the culture and value systems that I grew up with.  On the theoretical level, these books are comparable to Lord of the Rings - full of fantasy, good & evil, loyalty, moral standards, adventure, heroism and friendship.  Yet, I believe you must be a Chinese to fully appreciate Jin Yong's books. 

Since I have left all my Jin Yong books in California, I went online tonight to get a small dosage of it.  To my surprise, I found that About.com has updated Jin Yong's book list with some translated versions.  I read the first chapter of the translated version of The Book and The Sword.  The translator did omit quite a bit from the original book, so it is the abbreviated version.  However, I think the essence of the story is there.  It's hard to translate a legendary piece.  There are lots of jokes about funny translations.  I think it is almost impossible to satisfy a Chinese reader with an English version.  The true test would be from English speaking readers.  Still, this might be an unattainable task: Even though I found Lord of the Rings interesting, I would not read the book more than once.  Jin Yong's book would have a much harder time to capture and influence the English speaking readers as it had done for its Chinese readers, regardless of how brilliant the translation might be.  Try to translate Shakespeare.  You see what I mean?