I know New York. I need New York. I know I need unique New York.

- The Decemberists

My time is slowly ending here and despite all the things I hate about New York, I’m really going to miss it. So here’s the first in a series dedicated to the city I hate to love…

PS – MoMA has gotten crazy with their enforcement of the “No Photography” exhibits.

There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes. I threw them to sea, but a gust blew them backwards and the sting in my eyes that you then inflicted was par for the course–just as when you were living.

Death Cab For Cutie

We finally caught the mouse in our apartment. Despite all the trouble the little guy caused us, I did feel a little sad inside.

Farewell, little guy.

For those of you who think I may be exaggerating about some of the “matches” that I get, you’ll find that this profile excerpt isn’t quite as eHarmonious as you would’ve originally imagined:

“Wonderful music(All kinds of)bring me to the heaven, Singing in the public turn me on…I also think the best way to stay focus and peace in this uproarious world is spending more time on reading. When vacation is coming, I will packed up and grab my camera for traveling with my friends If the god allow me to make 3 wishes to be come true, that will be World Peace, No disease and No wild animal killing.”

I’m down with the “world piece and no disease” part but um, really? How do I get these kinds of matches, you ask? I guess only time, and a scientific experiment will tell…

[And on to the next blog... hit the jump for more.]

It’s been just over a month since I signed up to be an eHarmony soul seeker, and I’ve gotten 302 matches delivered to date. That’s right, throughout this holiday season Santa thought that I would see scientific potential in 302 eligible bachelors. Here’s the rundown:

- 147 of these are currently closed out. This means that I didn’t like them for various reasons (e.g., too short, live too far away, strange statements in their profile, terrible grammar, seem strangely controlling) or they didn’t like me.

- 143 of these are still open. I could potentially communicate with this set…but truthfully, I’m just too lazy to close out 140 of them.

- I’ve gotten 3 nudges (not associated with the three that could still have potential from the previous statistic). Nudges are exactly like Facebook pokes, but I guess it would be odd to “poke” a potential partner on an online dating site.

- 12 – this is the current number of matches I’m actually communicating with. Some have stalled at the early stages of “Guided Communication,” some have never replied back to my prompts, and

- 2 have gotten to “Open Communication.”

- Of these two, one shows promise. I have a pending date with one of these guys… (Yes, my first possible eHarmony date is on the horizon.)

- And the other…well, the below video will illustrate why this has been such an interesting learning process. I don’t even know how to begin to reply to this one, any thoughts?

[Before we get to the video, let me first say it's been quite an amusing experience so far. Every now and then Ms. Guest Blogger sends me a snippet of some of the messages she's received via eHarmony and I have a good laugh. Here's the text of the message--the audio reflects how the voice in my brain is reading the message. Enjoy. - Mat]

[Before the flaming begins, I'm not making fun of the guy for lacking the basic English skills of a 6th grader. That's not it at all. Hey, maybe there really is such a thing as a comma-ellipsis in some crazy foreign language. What I am saying though is the dude is looking for a date and couldn't spend the 20 seconds it would have taken him to proofread his bizarrely short message? C'mon, guy. Put a little effort in it. - Mat]

1. I got engaged.
2. I saw the inauguration of President Obama.
3. I authored my first published paper.
4. I won the Steinhardt Dean’s Grant for Graduate Student Research…
5. …Which allowed me to use NYU money to donate to charities via The COCOA Experiment.
6. And I got three other academic awards…
7. …Which allowed me to spend the summer in Cape Town, South Africa (and Dubai, Rome, Cinque Terre, Paris, and London for that matter).
8. I am officially one class away from my master’s.
9. I traveled over 70,000 miles.
10. Got to level 69 with a kill ratio of 1.46 in Modern Warfare 2 in a little over 2 days of game time. (Oh yes, this does deserve a space on this list.)

In 2010:

1. I’m getting married.
2. I’m finishing my master’s.
3. I’m publishing (at least) two more papers.
4. I’m moving to Boston.
5. I’m either taking the plunge into being a real adult with a real job or remaining a perpetual student in a doctoral program.
6. I’m (probably) going to Ghana.
7. And hopefully more…

Here’s to the unknowns, adventures, and promises fulfilled in 2010. To friends who stuck around. To friends I have yet to meet. To everyone who kept me sane. To my five jobs that kept me busy. To Korean fried chicken. To airplane food, those tiny disposable pillows, and safe travels. To visitors who helped me remember why I loved California. To random phone calls. If next year is half as good and exciting as this one, I’ve got a lot to look forward to.

Cheers.

Decided to take the camera out to brave the New York winter… I’m not going to lie–I didn’t get very far. I took about 25 shots within 3 minutes and then left. Still, these turned out ok.

The bokeh on the 85 f/1.4 will never cease to impress me. Below are a few shots at various apertures–it handles itself well all the way through f/8. You don’t get the ugly discoloration or the hard borders. At f/1.4, you find irregular shaped bokeh on the edges, but you’ll get that with any “old” design lens (and most modern lenses). f/2 is still my favorite aperture in terms of bokeh and sharpness.

Anyways… Merry Christmas, people.

Update Two

For the past week and a half, I have been receiving 6-8 emails each morning telling me that I have a new match at eHarmony. At the beginning of this period, the prospect of an interesting guy (aka potential date) sitting in my inbox was pretty exciting. I thought that eHarmony – with its “scientifically matched” branding campaigns would do a good job of creating complements – but as it turned out [so far], I’ve only found 3 out of the 50-some-odd candidates to be potentially date-able matches.

After saying, “What!?” to that ratio, you’ll probably ask, “Could it be your own, limited profile?” Well the answer there has to be “no” because I was as genuine, albeit cheesy, as I could have been on the questionnaire. I have a good handful of pictures up, and I have selected multiple location preferences with distance as a “not soimportant” factor, opening me up to a fairly large sea of fish. So this has got me wondering if I am more superficial than I should be. Several of my close friends who know that I’m subscribed to the online dating market have told me that I should start becoming “more open-minded” about my potential matches. Heeding their advice, I’ve been trying to read profiles before looking at pictures, and if guys don’t have pictures up, then I don’t dismiss their potential right away. In fact, I keep their profile open so that in the event they decide to “Start Communication” on Level 1 (of 4, after which is finally the “Open Communication” stage to set up a date) with me, I can respond. But you know what ended up happening? After I closed out some of the non-matches I was given, some of my own potential matches ended up rejecting me. So I’m not the only one here who is browsing profiles for a certain type of person. I think it’s difficult not to assess overall attractiveness on an online profile when you have access to a person’s pictures. But at the same time, I’m not someone who likes going on blind dates. So there – I said it – I am superficial.

There have been some…if not many “I’m sorry but absolutely not,” types mixed in to my match list. [No offense to the guys I shut down out there. I’m just not that into you.] I was disappointed because I never thought I’d see these types in my eHarmony box of science, and because I didn’t think that I would start feeling this superficial. But I guess this is a game of trial and error. I had just hoped that the errors would be a little more…attractive.

I know that I may not be the most attractive person in the world myself to a lot of guys (hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder); in fact, I believe that it’s difficult for young women like me to define the lines between modesty, beauty and confidence, especially coming from a traditional Asian background. I’ve been told that I should act like a demure lady, yet never settle for less than the best. It’s been a funny journey so far, trying to become a “Woman o Character” – the phrase that defined my Catholic High School’s theme song and ironically, the westernized end of my Catholic High School’s teachings.

But I am standing strong on the fact that I would like to date someone who I’m at least mildly physically attracted to. After all, if I’m going to look at possibly waking up in bed next to this person for an extended period of time, I would like to think that his face will
warrant a morning smile. Is that really so wrong?

I have 2 matches right now who I’m waiting to hear back from on this whole step-by-step “Guided Communication” track. As the online exchange of questions becomes more in-depth, I’ll let you know how things go. Until then, lets hope that my profile magnetizes someone more interesting.

[After she sent me this, we had a discussion about causal relationships and I'm not fully convinced we truly understand what is going on here. The researcher in me has to wonder what is really happening. After all, if she is consistently getting some 6% (3 / 50 guys) return for average-or-better looking guys, that would imply (in a perfectly representative sample) that eHarmony has 94% ugly people and only 6% nonugly people. That just isn't intuitively correct. The "average" people (just by definition) should be far greater than 6% even if they are dating online. So we've got to start asking--maybe ugly people consistently choose the same answer she happens to choose? Is she scientifically destined to only find true happiness with an ugly person? Are all hot people just not as sympathetic and passionate? I sense an experiment in the near future. - Mat]

All because of you, I haven’t slept in so long. When I do, I dream of drowning in the ocean.

- Rise Against

This is how I feel at the end of every single semester.

NIKON D700 and 85.0 mm f/1.4 shooting f/2.8, 1/250 s, ISO 400 at 85 mm. Taken at 2009:12:08 23:09:06

Just one more week of finals… Hit the break for setup shot.

Lit by an SB600, camera left, 1/4 power flash, shot through my ghetto cereal box softbox. Remotely triggered via on camera flash. Two sheets of folded paper to reflect the light back.

So here’s how we do this:

1) It’s all about controlling flash strength. Sure, I could have pushed my flash closer or kept the shutter open a little bit longer, but I did each for a reason. First, by setting the shutter speed to the max, I can more easily turn the background (and table) black. I’m essentially blacking out the ambient light so my flash is the only thing lighting the scene. Next, I “chimp” my flash until I find the perfect distance for the proper amount of reflection in the table and light fall off–don’t want too much light to wrap around or to accidentally light the brown curtain (since we want it to be black).

2) Once you’ve got those factors set, it’s all about your aperture. You’ve set your shutter speed and flash distance so all you have left to play with is aperture, ISO, and flash power. Find the appropriate depth of field you want.

3) Now set the flash to the appropriate power using a reasonable ISO. Sure, I could have added 2 more stops (full power) of flash and dropped my ISO to 100, but what’s the point? The noise difference between the two is minimal, I’d rather save my flash battery and not have to wait as long for it to recycle. Conversely, I could have bumped up my flash AND bumped up my ISO to increase the depth of field, but that’s just not the feeling I was going for.

4) Once that’s all done, soften your shadows. You can use anything here… a couple folded index cards, a couple folded sheets of paper, a white t-shirt, it doesn’t matter, but you will probably want to soften them up at least a little. It just gives everything a nicer feel and a bit more depth.

Like magic. See how ghetto my setup is? Really, you don’t need fancy equipment. Nothing some cardboard, tape, and tissue paper can’t fix here…

The Beginning

For many reasons, my relationship track record hasn’t been great. I’ve had a tendency to date guys who I thought had a good balance of machissimo and emotional sensitivity – characteristics that I defined through a cultural lens of a first-generation Asian American.  But my vision must have been cloudy, because my balance was off. The ideas of urban westernization, traditional religious values, and the social pressures of a material American lifestyle have left me as dumbfounded as a damsel in distress. [The Disney movies I watched with fervor as a kid didn’t help me understand what a healthy relationship looked like either.] I take at least some responsibility for the failed relationships of course, but in my eternally-optimistic perspective [a.k.a. somewhat cheesy, hopelessly romantic dreams], I believe that there’s someone better out there meant for me.

Enter e-Harmony.

Note: I did not choose this method of trying to meet people myself –instead, it was gifted to me.  I take no credit for this one. Someone who [I want to think] wants to see me happy in a healthy relationship has opened me up to the more progressive world of online dating. So I’m giving it a chance.

This might actually be one of the best things that’s happened to me. No, I haven’t met anyone special just yet – it’s only Day 3. But the extremely long questionnaire that I had to fill out about myself and my relationship preferences has forced me to take a genuine, introspective look into the person I’ve grown to be. And I’ve done a lot of growing up over the past few years – so I’m excited about this new experiment.

I wasn’t very happy when I didn’t get any matches at first (my heart skipped a beat when I thought that I was incompatible on this site that advertises ~230 marriages a day)…but when my first small flood of email notifications came in, I thought…this could be interesting.

Checking to see if I have any new matches is like crack right now. It’s like a renewing Christmas present each time I go to see who’s in my set…but I get disappointed when I unwrap sporting goods and video games. Right now I’ve narrowed my current sights to 2 possibilities.

Hopefully there’s a Swiss-Army knife somewhere in there…

This year, I’m thankful for OReyes–my TiVo-master, fellow-procrastinator, always-up-for-Korean-friend-chicken, always-forgets-to-put-away-her-personal-items, rat-hunting, Facebook-photo-tagging, made-me-awesome-cupcakes-in-a-cone-for-my-birthday roommate.

Thanks for the birthday Cupcakes in a Cone. A month late, but hey… it’s the thought, right?

Delicious.

(I realize the last one is a bit–juvenile. Especially for somebody turned 26 on that day, but c’mon… I still giggle on the inside.)

It’s New York–concrete jungle where dreams are made of–there’s nothing you can’t do.

NIKON D700 and 50.0 mm f/1.4 shooting f/1.4, 1/60 s, ISO 1600 at 50 mm. Taken at 2009:10:24 23:29:44

And a couple random ones from Chinatown.