Peter Writes

Ratios and momentum in Messud

2013-04-30T18:34:00.001-07:00

I finished Claire Messud’s book, The Emperor’s Children, two days ago. I enjoyed it. The plot picks up in the second half, and she has a talent for pacing -- building up characters to pivotal moments, then rendering the climax forcefully. But I had qualms with her style.

One thing I caught myself thinking while I was reading was why I didn’t enjoy her long, meandering sentences as much as I enjoyed those of, say, Dave Eggers. I ended up taking AHWOSG from my bookshelf and comparing sentences between the two books, trying to figure out what made Eggers’ prose pop while Messud’s feel wasteful. I did a bit of word association between the two authors.

Messud: adjectives, adverbs, filler, passive, non-visual

Eggers: nouns, verbs, strong, rhythm, direct, visual

Here’s a sentence that caught my eye while I was reading Messud. This is Danielle, describing her feelings towards her illicit lover, Murray Thwaite.

No, the alien was her intimate, the man she felt she so thoroughly understood, with whom she would now reluctantly have conceded she was in love (and how foolish was that?), who seemed, infuriatingly, impossibly, inevitably, to be able to turn her off like a switch, to relegate her to the realm of the irrelevant, a playmate for his daughter merely to be tolerated, and, ideally, escaped.

I’ve marked the sentence; in bold are the strong, tangible nouns and verbs:

No, the alien was her intimate, the man she felt she so thoroughly understood, with whom she would now reluctantly have conceded she was in love (and how foolish was that?), who seemed, infuriatingly, impossibly, inevitably, to be able to turn her off like a switch, to relegate her to the realm of the irrelevant, a playmate for his daughter merely to be tolerated, and, ideally, escaped.

Ratio of strong words to total words: 7:67.

Now, I’ll underline the weak adverbs:

No, the alien was her intimate, the man she felt she so thoroughly understood, with whom she would now reluctantly have conceded she was in love (and how foolish was that?), who seemed, infuriatingly, impossibly, inevitably, to be able to turn her off like a switch, to relegate her to the realm of the irrelevant, a playmate for his daughter merely to be tolerated, and, ideally, escaped.

Ratio of strong words to weak adverbs: 7:7

These proportions are horrible. Long, winding sentences need to be staked with strong, short words. At the very least, the strong words need to outnumber the weak ones. Neither happens in this sentence (or in most of Messud’s other sentences). While I don’t subscribe to the rule that you should never use adverbs, having three in a row, in the middle of the sentence (infuriatingly, impossibly, inevitably), is overkill.

The second problem with this sentence is that there’s no momentum.

No, the alien was her intimate [A], the man she felt she so thoroughly understood, with whom she would now reluctantly have conceded she was in love (and how foolish was that?), who seemed, infuriatingly, impossibly, inevitably, to be able to turn her off like a switch [B], to relegate her to the realm of the irrelevant, a playmate for his daughter merely to be tolerated, and, ideally, escaped.

Here's the bold section, by itself: No, the alien was her intimate [A], who seemed to be able to turn her off like a switch [B].

This new sentence, stripped of its detail, is the pith; point A moving into point B. When Dave Eggers, or DFW, writes a long, complex sentence, each section they add between point A and point B moves the action forward. Now look at Messud’s sentence. It starts at [A], but the next two clauses spiral the same point. When she arrives at point [B], she spirals around a few more times. Add insult to injury: the ending peters out with a halting, three-comma-three-word construction (“, and, ideally, escaped.”). There’s no momentum, there’s no rhythm; when the passage is already about something non-visual, that’s killer.

But hey, it’s her style. The entire book is like that – verbose circumlocutions of interesting ideas that seem to land flat. I know style is a personal preference. The friend who recommended the book to me said that she loved it because the prose was “pretty outstanding, and the kind of writing that deserves to be read aloud and [with] some rumination.” At what point, though, is style so inimical to the absorption of the plot, and the ideas, that we can say it’s the “wrong” style?

Kampala

2013-04-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

A grab bag of memories from my time in the dirt-red city.

Weekday nights, we played basketball until dusk, and played harder as the sun sank lower -- cut hard, crashed hard, ran harder -- not because of the competition, or because of pride, but because if we ever took a play off and just stood on the court, watching everybody else move, the mosquitoes would alight on us and start sucking. Playing hard meant no sucking.

A graduation party for a white man, in the front yard of a black man’s house. The torches lit up with electronic orange embers. There was a whole goat, he said. We’re roasting it all. When it arrived on everyone’s plate, the meat was charred black – at least it looked that way in twilight – and so tough that chewing wasn’t possible. Rather, it sat in the pocket of one’s mouth, stewing in saliva, subjected to periodic attempts at mastication.

It was a celebration, I think, of Australia Day. What that meant I’m still unsure of. But on the rooftop in Ntinda, we saw the Nakasero hills, dotted with evening lights, before darkness swept over the sky, and then all there was to look at was an inflatable pool in the middle of the rooftop, plastic and rubbery and drained of almost all its water. There was maybe 12 inches left. It’s a party, right? Want to step in, wet your feet? Why not? As we ate hot dogs and hamburgers and talked vermiculture, the guests radiated outwards, towards the edges of the roof.

Another party. This time a housewarming, or maybe just an overdue get together, in a front yard of a house on top of a hill, where the grass swept down and down and down back into the city. There was a vegetable platter. A burger was dropped on the concrete. A woman talked about her months living in the Congo. The only lights outside were candle lights, which lent all conversation an intimacy not wholly undeserved. The end of the night ended as it could only have: with a German drinking game.

Monopoly. At 9pm. We had finished dinner, the three of us, on a foldout table, and, with no plans, no events in the city, no desire to leave our gated apartment complex, we brought out a ragged Monopoly set and laid out the pieces. Within 25 minutes, we had our properties: orange and light blue vs. red and yellow vs. dark blue and the railroads. Money exchanged hands rapidly. After an hour, there was a winner, but nobody remembers who. The point was, after the game, after we packed it back in, after we brushed our teeth, after we tucked inside our mosquito nets, all of us thought the same thing: I haven't played that in years.

I went to this roadside nursery yesterday. The seedlings and saplings were sequestered in black plastic bags, arrayed along the ground in formations that reminded me of Minesweeper. I tiptoed between them. Do you have any herbs? I asked the woman. She did, but only rosemary. Were there any other plants that were edible, or might produce edible fruit? She shook her head every time I pointed, and said, "No eat." The final accounting: 6 rosemary suckers and a clay basin for 12 dollars. The next day, I walked to a construction site along the road where a Pakistani had hired a crew to dig ditches for fiber optic cables. We asked him if we could take some of his dirt, then carried a 60 pound bag back to the apartment complex. The dirt was orange, nearly red, mud-water-and-scorched-earth. I plucked the rocks out of the dirt as I poured it into my clay basin, and then set the six rosemary plants. Postscript: They all died two weeks later.

I tried to learn how to cook, because when it got dark, I didn't feel comfortable walking outside, on our road, without lamp light, for fifteen minutes to the nearest restaurant. I made spicy pasta every day. On one heater, I poured water in a pot and set it to boil. On the other heater, I poured oil in a skillet and set it to simmer. When each was ready, I put pasta in the water and chopped garlic and pepper flakes in the oil. I moved the pasta from the pot to the skillet, and stirred it together. After dinner, I drank the leftover pasta water, and bottled the rest.

The move. We piled it all into the car -- kitchen appliances, backpacks, yesterday's plantains, books, something so fragile I needed to hold it between my legs -- and drove down the road, a five minute drive, if that, to the new house. The one with the capacious kitchen. The commodious living room. Two bathrooms, two bedrooms, enough space outside for a lopsided, uneven basketball court, and a backup generator that powered the lights, even when the rolling blackouts arrived. The house was different. New. More intimate. We had to wear slippers for the linoleum floor. The closet wood was a dark liqueur. There was a refrigerator!

beachcombers in the bulwark

2012-12-02T20:11:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've written here -- a few months removed from a year, actually. There's a new blog in town now, one catered to the needs of my nascent novel. You can find it here:

http://quotidie.tumblr.com/

Quotidie, of course, is Latin for "daily." I'll be writing short posts every day for the next ~550 days on my Tumblr. It won't be a blog that's best checked every day; more like a blog that's best checked every fifteen days, when you can jump over to it and absorb all the small tidbits I've been working on. That way there'll be more of a narrative arc, you know?

-peter

The best New Yorker articles, ever

2012-12-02T02:58:00.000-08:00

My favorite New York Times articles, ever

2012-12-01T02:24:00.000-08:00

Articles is not the right word. More like metaphysical life-altering essays.

"The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami," Sam Anderson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/the-fierce-imagination-of-haruki-murakami.html

"The Ambition of the Short Story," Steven Millhauser.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/books/review/Millhauser-t.html

"Liking is for Cowards. Go for what Hurts," Jonathan Franzen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29franzen.html?pagewanted=all

"How Old Can a 'Young Writer' Be?" Sam Tanenhaus.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/books/review/Tanenhaus-t.html?ref=books

"Deep in Suburbia," Charles McGrath, on Chang-rae Lee
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/magazine/29LEE.html?pagewanted=all

"The Myth of Japan's Failure," Eamonn Fingleton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html

"A Place to Lay My Heart," Elisabeth Eaves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/fashion/a-place-to-lay-my-heart-modern-love.html

"As Not Seen on TV," Pete Wells.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html?ref=dining&_r=1&

The View From a Hill

2012-01-28T15:07:00.002-08:00

Inspiration: Eric Weinstein.

The View From a Hill

A mango turns soft
The hill grows grass and I
do not grow grass
I drop guacamole on my heel

A dress turns soft
My firm hand on her back
very Titanic hand
Handshake awkward when I make to leave

A mango is red
unripe spots sour and bleed
I once-sip soda
courageous in excess sugar

A dress is red
fabric measured and quartered
I see clearly and walk slowly
above potholes of speeding motors

A mango rises in the sky
the sky swallows my sighs and
carves wide lengths to wallow
A galaxy expands that might otherwise dust

A dress rises in the sky
collects deciduous light
My slouch is curved yellow
I am curved not yellow

A mango sits
the flesh turns fibers
to sweet orange soda or a round pothole
a Milky Way spread thick with hummus

A dress sits
on a damp plaid cushion
in the downward slope of the city
in the lantern scope of the city

A mango and a dress turn soft
A mango and a dress rise in the sky
A mango and a dress sit
not long or tough or not enough or not sweet enough, not perfect

Tasteless

2012-01-02T12:00:00.001-08:00

is my bowl. A spicy sauce
floats on top, steam
glassed

noodles heap in sun
rays. No credit.
Cash.

Pucker and ladle
stems, beef,
chili

penance into
these lips and teeth,
salt

each bud, feed
me lemon
wilted.

protect
我, and bend, at the
waist,

of every day. Empty
the grit, dark
root dirt.

sate,
sake, spake, or would it
be enough

to just chew away, chew away.

The end of Peter Writes

2011-11-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

You guys, you guys. I have important – and somber news – to announce. Today, November 8^th, 2011, one hundred forty-six days after this blog opened for business, its doors will close (though they may be left open just a crack so the winter winds can occasionally rearrange the papers). It’s been a good run: 150+ posts, 5,000+ unique visitors, 25,000+ page views, and an unexpected symbiosis and synergy with my offline life (missed connections and Simple Pickup, anyone?).

I started this blog to become a better writer. After 120,000 words – about how I learned to play guitar, my relationship with alcohol, Jasjit, Sleep No More, Love and Other Drugs, tipsy writing, subway stories, my Yale janitor, my first crush, a summer at a publishing company, my first Friday night in Manila, and an MLK essay – I have become a better writer. My voice is more self-assured, more nuanced. Big words ease into the prose, instead of sticking out. Transitions between ideas just flow better.

But my mantra of self-improvement, especially with regards to writing, is centered around change. When comfort sets in, so does complacency. It would be easy – and I’d be happy – writing 800 word posts daily about counter-intuitive insights and dramatic stories. But there's only so much the medium can convey. Quality clashes with quantity. Beholden to the blog, I don't have the flexibility to spend a day vomit drafting, or crafting one great sentence. I could just publish whatever I accomplished, as a means of – you guessed it, accountability – but that seems like a lackluster compromise.

So I’m taking my writing offline. Accountability will have to be derived from within, but I’m looking forward to the challenge. It’s not like there are a dearth of projects: I’m attempting to write a novel (though I’m fast coming to realize that, holy shit, I don’t actually know anything about the world); I’m submitting non-fiction and personal essays to online publications; I’m a mercenary for an e-book publisher. I’m also dancing around poetry. I’m sure there will be more.

A month ago, I asked one of my favorite writers for advice. He took a look at my blog and responded, “Publishing a blog post every day is probably the exact opposite of what you should be doing. Instead, work on your best idea for a couple weeks, get it perfect and then send it out.” I couldn’t agree more. It’s a scaling up of priorities: I’m moving from daily posts to a few people to monthly posts for thousands. The inherent risk, of course, is that what I write won't be published anywhere, but that's the uncertainty built into the enterprise. Better get used to it. I wouldn’t give up this blogging experience for anything in the world, but now’s the time to move on.

Check back here every few weeks or so. I might continue to publish weekly updates, and maybe, when I’m inspired just to write, a short story or narrative of my past. And if you’re ever wondering what I’m doing, day-to-day, just email me!

Finally: a shout out to everyone who’s been a regular reader. You guys know who you are; thanks for the kind words and encouragement during this journey. Like I mentioned in my last Yale Daily News column, the world is wide, wide open. It's time to go exploring. Stay in touch,

-peter

Week 20 and Week 21: Marginalia and The Novel

2011-11-07T21:51:00.000-08:00

Moments of clarity in life -- unblinking, elemental, mere momentary openings to pure consciousness -- often rise, unpremeditated, after the fallow yeast of experiences has had enough time to steep within itself. One such moment unfurled four days after I boarded a plane bound for Puerto Princesa, carrying a backpack containing Chekhov: Plays, four sets of clothes, my cell phone, a blue ballpoint pen, and my small Moleskine notebook. The situation: I had renounced my computer for a week, and, newly birthed into an environment without the weight of refreshing my online persona, I planned only to think, and then to write down those thoughts. It happened. I thought constantly: riding in a cramped van to El Nido, sitting on the sodden porch of our $3-a-night hotel room, balancing on the cramped seat of a motorcycle tricycle into the city, straddling the the rails of a rickety charter boat, walking down the bleached white sand of Helicopter Island. I observed; I questioned; I wondered. The volcano of ants emerging from mounds of wet sand, the ersatz quality of local Gatorade, the indigo floral pattern on the dress of Art Cafe's most beautiful waitress, the translucent highlights of swaying moss growing on the undersides of river rock -- the details of the islands shook out some indelible truth out from my core, and while my emotion were bursting inchoate, I was convinced that scribbling it down would allow me to, after an indeterminate time, stumble upon those old words and thoughts after they had hardened into an unassailable truth about my world. After three days, my notes, scribbled in the margins of my Chekhov book -- words often in layers on top of each other, given my frequent night-time revelations -- looked, as an oeuvre, flighty and unfinished, the phrases antediluvian leaf pressings in a musty old book, thinned and dissolving with the passage of light and time. In the months since, I've tried categorizing them, and re-reading them, to stoke the kindle of revelation, but these questions, recollections, observations, well, all of them have become normal and affected, taken away from its original environment, as if the magic of the moment imparted from pen to paper had evaporated off the surface.

Except for one idea.

I'm going to write a novel.

The idea first fomented when I was 6 years old, and wrote "Cosmo's Space Adventure." An intrepid space explorer on a time-warping, noble quest to save his parents, Cosmo needed to travel from Planet A through Planet Z, facing and surmounting challenges of increasing heft and complexity. The plot, as egregious as it seems now, was limpid and serene in my 6-year-old mind, an unapologetic romp through imagination and emotion. The story, on a Microsoft Word file, hasn't moved in 15 years; but the thought -- of having a story to tell, and wanting to tell it to the world -- has transformed, burgeoning and shrinking, competing for mind-share with the other ambitions and desires in my life. Writing, especially fiction, was a buried need, making spot appearances only when necessity called for it -- a final paper for a class, essentially -- and was never animated into a free-standing goal until I took my first fiction seminar, in my last semester in college.

Michael Cunningham, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel, The Hours, accepted me into his class knowing I'd never written fiction before in my life. I showed up as the oldest person and with the least experience -- reading and writing, most likely -- and proceeded to gorge myself on the fiction I'd been missing out on for 20 years. Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, James Joyce, Denis Johnson -- I was a virgin, initiated to the club. My first short story, "Beads," was an unmitigated disaster. My second short story, "Almost but Not Quite," was a more bearable attempt. Then the semester ended, and I strut into -- and past -- graduation sailing on an amateur cockiness about how artful a writer I was.

That cockiness is gone, dissipated long ago in the Manila sun, but on the fourth day of my vacation in Palawan, a redolent, gemmule triangle was sketched: a platoon of fiction knowledge, acquired and congealing in the last half-year; the flowering of latent resolve to become a writer; and, the last element in the trifecta, an idea. That idea is still a mere impression; an excogitation of the ideals that have surrounded my habits and actions for my entire time. It revolves, like an electron beholden to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, around the struggle between knowledge and social interaction; around the unquenchable vector of time, and around the mutability of living in a connected world. If this sounds vague, that's on purpose. Currently, without my own continental philosophy to drift upon, I'm simply going to take the advice of Haruki Murakami wrote: I have a single image in my head, which will take me away.

In Week 20, I spent 38 hours online: 13 hours and 9 minutes writing, and 13 hours and 11 minutes browsing the web. In Week 21, I spent 25 hours and 44 minutes online: writing for 12 hours and 55 minutes, and browsing for 4 hours and 22 minutes.

Here are some articles I think you’d like. Hopefully you will find one or two satisfactory. The 9 essential geek books; the top 10 moments in Full Tilt Poker; a comprehensive recap of Obama’s chances next year; this Aaron S.C. guy at Yale is a pretty good writer. The group behind the enlightened(?) mayhem? The birth of Jeff Bezos. Rebecca Taber and a story about war and love. I’m not sure if Foong is a great blogger or not. Steve Jobs’ commencement address. Amazon war stories. The future of punctuation is here, and it’s not pretty. Steve Bartman on NYT. Again on Yahoo Sports. How to get published by Jennifer Weiner. Stanford in 2009 beating USC. Music discovery sites: The Sixty One. New Yorker: How Steve Jobs t ook back Apple, and Truman Capote from the 1950s. And, I could have used this app while I was in LA on public transportation.

Epic Poem #1: The Sex Bear

2011-11-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

One to read aloud to the kids. It rhymes, and I'm working on the iambic pentameter, via the verse form Onegin stanza. (Go Vikram Seth!) Dedicated to all those FOOT trips gearing up to go into the woods.

The Sex Bear

To introduce a story sweet and scary,

Enter Yale. The ides of summer, 2007,

Our hero is a wide-eyed freshman.

His name is Forest.

A high-school whiz: 10 APs, 10 clubs,

His love life, though, had been a flub.

So college – sans parents: new life,

midnight food runs, frats, and mixers

blue-ball redress, seduction’s elixir.

“Forget my roommates, the guys next door—

The girls will adore me, every floor!”

Loading his backpack, for FOOT

Forest waltzed in his day dreams,

Saccharine images stayed put.

He stepped through Phelps Gate September 1^st

Pots, pans. A make-shift band pounded

His ears, the shrieks, cacophonous bursts,

His heart turned weak, a tremendous first.

He saw neon shirts and bandanas

Stately Elm trees and soft crabgrass

And his leaders. “Hi, I'm Panda!

Senior in Morse, best college ever,

That’s what we all say—get used to that.”

His fellow FOOTies: normal, crazy, fine

Normal was Colin, Trevor, and Jay,

Crazy Steph, and Kira, let’s just say

Her tan legs, blonde hair, and ample,

Uh, personality, befit a dime.

The Appalachian was duress, inclined,

Boulders, nettles, iodine-sapped-time.

They worked on bear bags, tortillas with honey.

No phones, no watches, no need for money.

At night, fires, A-frames, eased their burden,

And Forest told stories, details dead certain,

Of his life, for example, 5^th grade gym,

Falling on his bottom, class guffawing him.

Colin bored, Steph still crazy, but Kira—

her honey eyes met Forest’s, and he saw an

I want you look. So midnight, snores sonorous,

They crept to Ender’s lake, flashlight in hand

In nothing but long johns, warm but porous.

Their lips touch fire, ears start roaring

With the scritch scritch of crickets’ wings.

Forest thinks: “I’m young, sexy. I’m soaring!”

This nighttime thing – his first college fling.

Buttons ripped off, the briar bush heaves

They stumble tree to tree, crunch dead leaves.

A hook comes undone, a B-cup dangles;

Kira’s wrists drop silly bands, all her jangles.

“Ohh, right there,” she groans to the clouds;

“Shhh,” whispers Forest. “You’re being too loud.”

The moment dawns, call to consummate

But, alas, they can’t see him, watching from above.

He’s hungry, grumpy, with a fiend gait.

So he pounces. And eats them whole.

The next morning, over a chocolate pan-cake

Colin yells out, “Kira, Forest! They’ve flaked!”

The search party fans out, distresses,

Until Panda, poor soul, discovers the messes.

Here’s a collarbone, here’s some muscle,

“That’s a distended eyeball,” says Steph.

“Little ones, what happened was no puzzle.”

(Says Panda.) “The two, at night, vamoosed,

Seedy intent, hormones too loose,

Unaware of villainy in these woods,

black/white morality, the gangsta’ hood.

Not Loch Ness, nor Decepticon awaited:

'Twas more cruel fated. Hardly prepared,

unaware, predated by—(wait for it)—the sex bear.”

Non-profits in the Philippines: Overview of development work

2011-11-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

My goal for this blog post is to have it reach #1 for the Google search, "Non-profits in the Philippines."

1. Overview of Philippines

2. Sector Specific Overview of Development Work:

Macroeconomy
Housing
Basic Social Services
Gender Equality
Good Governance
Environmental Sustainability
Conflict Prevention and Peace-Building

1. Overview

Bird's eye view of the Philippines: There are an estimated 500,000 civil society groups in the Philippines, though only around 3000 - 5000 are development-oriented NGOs. The Philippine Council for NGO certification only lists 367 official NGOs -- don't believe them. The number is a gross underestimation, mainly because the Council hasn't done substantive work in years (The President chided them for being useless). In aggregate, the NGO sphere is "large and vibrant by developing country standards," but many of them are still "small, struggle financially, and have weak capacity." (The biggest victory by an NGO was the passage of the Indigenous People's Rights Act.)

There is strong government support for NGOs. The country is a landing ground for the headquarters of many multi-national NGOs, including the International Institute for Rice Research, PETA, Asia Pacific Alliance for Reproductive Health, Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities, South East Asian Committee for Advocacy, and the Southeast Asia Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

The Big Players: The biggest players in the Philippines, like most developing countries, are USAID, UNDP, ADB (Asian Development Bank), and World Bank. They run multi-year projects revolving around conflict resolution, housing development, sanitation and water quality, and agriculture.

Upstarts: There are a couple of upstarts I'd never heard about who were doing great things. Gawad Kalinga (community housing), Philippine Trade Training Center (a ton of business programs), and National Citizen's Movement for Free Elections (information and advocacy regarding elections).

People's Organizations: The grassroots equivalent of an NGO. They are community-based organizations where poor people come together around a common goal. (Tried finding examples of POs online, but no luck. Maybe they're all too disadvantaged to be able to hire a webmaster.)

Sources: Asian Development Bank's 1999 study of NGOs, as well as their 2007 brief, and a German paper on human security in the Philippines, from 2010.

2. Sector Specific Overview

Macroeconomy

Current Problem:

Bleak 2011 forecast: higher food and fuel prices, volatile capital flows, a lack of a credible program to tackle the fiscal deficit. Overall GDP growth is forecast at 5.9%, which is lower than the 7.1% achieved in 2010. This is attributed mostly to the dismal performance of the agriculture sector. Specifically with the agriculture sector, there needs to be asset reforms (agrarian reform, urban land reform and ancestral domain reform), investments in productivity improvements, and removal of the inefficient and archaic regulatory systems.

There are structural problems in the labor laws: Filipino owned enterprises are at a disadvantage to foreign firms (157-company survey). Minimum wage laws hurt local firms who cannot pay as much as their foreign counterparts can; there is no freedom to employ on a fixed-term basis; and there are restrictions on the dismissal policies of regular workers.

Population economics: the Philippines is seeing a widening disparities across regions and population groups, and a strain on the economy and resources is happening because of population growth.

Government goals:

Development of 2 million hectares new lands for agri-business.
Create 3 million micro-enterprises and provide them with credit, technology and marketing support, as embodied in the SULONG and the One Town One Product programs.
Secondary market for housing mortgages.
Tourism development with a liberal airline policy to generate at least 3 million new jobs.

The major players:

UNFPA – Through their population and development component.
ILO - http://www.ilo.org/manila/whatwedo/projects/lang--en/index.htm - ton of programs happening around economic development.

Source:

PIDS, Development research: http://dirp4.pids.gov.ph/ris/drn/pidsdrn11-1.pdf
MDG Midterm report - http://www.neda.gov.ph/econreports_dbs/MDGs/midterm/01-96%20UNDP_final.pdf

Housing

Overview:

Right now, there are implicit and explicit subsidies that increase affordability for low-income farmers. Other instruments include upfront grants, low interest rate mortgages, and exemptions from taxes and levies. Between ‘93 and 95, there was 25.4B PHP provided to the housing sector. 90% of that was interest subsidies channeled through home mortgage programs and developmental loan programs.

Problem:

The bulk of these low interest mortgages are channeled to middle and high income deciles. Housing needs have ballooned to more than 5.7 Million for 2011-2016, and the need is the highest at the lowest ends of the market. The biggest housing issue is affordability.

Government help:

Direct or upfront subsidies would have the greatest impact – Latin American countries have moved to this already.

Organizations:

Strong Republic Housing Program.
National Shelter Program – NSP – they want to turn land into house

Resettlement program, community mortgages, HDMF housing loans
NHA and CMP

HGC and NHMFC – went insolvent because of bad debts; needs 23B to recapitalize NHMFC.
See “Philippines Housing Institute Talk” document for more information.

Source: PIDS: http://dirp4.pids.gov.ph/ris/pn/pidspn1114.pdf

Basic Social Services

Overview:

The Good: The number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased from 24.3% in 1991 to 13.5% in 2003. The numbers are very skewed by region; we need to stabilize over different areas. More girls now get elementary school education than boys. Secondary education now reaches 63.5% of females. Infant mortality has gone down from 57 to 24 per 1000 live births since 1990.

The bad: Access to primary education worsened in 2005; it went from 96.8 to 84.4%. Maternal deaths have slowed at a slower pace than expected. Access to reproductive health care only improved slightly, by 1%, to 50.6%. 12M people in Manila travel in the city to work. 400k people use the MRT, but it is at peak capacity already and the government has to subsidize the cost of transportation.

Health: Less than 0.1% have HIV/AIDS (WHO says only 7,490). Cases are concentrated around prostitution and returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who account for some 34% of total documented HIV population. (Though this might only be because the OFWs are required to be screened.)

Hospitals are very unevenly distributed and medical professionals (doctors and nurses) are mostly concentrated in urban areas like Metro Manila. The international migration of medical professionals to urban areas is taking its toll on health services in rural areas.

Government goals:

Basic Social Services

Food (wage goods) plentiful at reasonable prices through institutional and regulatory reforms to reduce input prices
Formulate a strategy towards integration of population and poverty reduction approaches in national and local development plans.
Mobilize wider support for population and reproductive health policies and programs.
Strengthen and mobilize national and local alliances and advocacy groups.
Infrastructure

- Transport infrastructure: Nautical Highway and rail systems developed that will decongest Metro Manila. (Current solution is to raise prices).

- Power provided to the entire country.

Health

Advocate for the passage of reproductive health codes in the local government units.
Increase the national health and nutrition budget to achieve the World Health Organization WHO) recommended level of at least 5% of GDP.
Scale up interventions for HIV and AIDS such as education, voluntary and confidential counseling and testing, and antiretroviral therapy.
“Department of Social Welfare and Development designed a CCT in 2007 in Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental. The program aims to build the human capital of children aged 0–14 from the poorest families. To achieve this, cash grants are conditional upon five conditions: (i) pregnant women must receive prenatal care beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy, the birth must be attended by a skilled health professional, and they must receive postnatal care; (ii) parents must attend parent effectiveness service classes; (iii) children aged 0–5 must receive regular preventive health checkups and vaccines; (iv) children aged 3–5 must attend day care or preschool programs; and (v) children aged 6–14 must be enrolled in school and demonstrate an attendance rate of at least 85%.” In 2008, the program will cover nearly 125,000 households nationwide (with an estimated 360,000 children).

Misc:

Linkages to livelihood programs and to faith-based groups to promote economic empowerment and to address cultural and religious realities.
Best Practices in Informal Social Protection
Build on the strong rural tradition of community-based solidarity.
The sustainability of contributions is linked to income and employment security;
Sustained networking and advocacy at both national and local levels improve long-terms results.
Asset reform is essential.

Major players:

UNICEF maintains its co-leading function with government on following clusters: the nutrition, education, water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH), and the child protection sub-cluster.
WHO (already did HIV and Migration 20,000 people program)
ICPD
VAW
CMBS
BCC strategies (to prevent HIV/AIDS)
AHR Advocacy
National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW),
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and local social welfare offices.
Youth Welfare Center – served 584 children so far.

Source: Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan, 2004-2010

Gender Equality:

Overview:

The Good: Voter turnout is higher for women than men, in 2001, 85.7% for women and 75.9% for men. Women running for senatorial posts increased from 15% in 1998, to 25% in 2004. The number of women candidates for congressional posts increased 12% since 1998.

The bad: Women occupy less than 20% of all elective posts in the national and local levels. Many women who do get these posts have them “inherited” from their fathers or husbands. They are half of government personnel, but only 34.8% in the highest levels of civil service. Access to resources, both in society and in the family, has traditionally been skewed toward men, even though women’s

economic empowerment is associated with greater health and nutritional status of all family members, education, and less domestic violence.

Persistent gender stereotyping in the choice of courses or skill areas occurs at the tertiary level. Professions such as teaching, social work, and nursing are seen as “appropriate for girls” as an extension of their nurturing and reproductive roles.

Government goals:
Department of Education (DepEd) policies to reduce gender biases in education. Government ordered the integration of gender issues into the school curriculum In collaboration with the Commission on Human Rights, NGOs, and teacher education institutions, DepEd has trained elementary and secondary school teachers on peace and human rights.

Organizations that help:

Social Development Center: opened in 2000 and takes care of disabled / abused women.
Center for Women served 114 clients in 2008.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR):

legal and physical assistance needed by female refugees under specific situations found in specific area, such as sexual exploitation, domestic violence, malnutrition and displacement.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):

reducing the incidence of HIV among vulnerable women, incorporating gender dimensions into macro-economic policies and trade negotiations, and linking women’s empowerment to democratic governance, decentralization and civil society participation.

The UN Settlements Program

Gender Policy to develop institutional capacity and knowledge to enable gender mainstreaming within UN-HABITAT.

World Health Organisation (WHO)

adopted a policy in 2002 on adopting gender perspectives into its work plans and budgeting, as well as in technical cooperation activities among countries.

UN Population Fund (UNFPA)

supports programs formulated and implemented in accordance with general principles of respect for human rights and advancement of gender equality, equity and empowerment of women, among others.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO)

integrates women into the maritime sector in 1988 and began implementation of the IMO Women In Development Programme in 1989.

The UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) share the UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA,

UNDPC, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and WB commitments promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment , as leading advocate for global action on HIV/AIDS.

World Bank

Assists member countries in implementing their gender and development goals. Periodically assesses the gender dimensions of development within and across sectors in the countries in which it has an active assistance programs.

Sources: (Unless noted, all the sections that didn’t have sources are encompassed here)

UN Gender Strategy Framework in the Philippines, 2005-2009 – Sustaining Woman’s Human Rights and Gender Equity
Paradox and Promise in the Philippines: A Joint Country Gender Assessment – August 2008
Updated Medium Term Development Plan 2004-2010; (2009).
GTZ - http://www.gtz.de/en/weltweit/asien-pazifik/1431.htm
UNIFPA - http://www.unfpa.org.ph/images/Publications/2008%20SEP%20Consolidated.pdf

Good governance

Overview:

Fourth or fifth class municipalities possess little capacity to formulate, finance, manage, and implement programs and projects that are MDG-friendly. There is a lack of commitment and capacity of some local government units to design and manage programs and provide basic services. Most of the sources here focus anti-corruption, but I don’t know if it’s relevant for us.

Government goals:

Focus on social reform: automation of elections and strengthening political parties by reforming campaign finance.

Focus on Law: Develop credible law enforcement, and develop anti-corruption laws and good governance.

Weak governance at all levels affecting mobilization and utilization of public resource. Need to develop collaboration with public/private services.

Players:

UNDP
UN-Habitat
Transparency and Accountability network has developed a Lifestyle Check Guide for CSOs and trained local CSOs on existing anticorruption tools.
The Coalition Against Corruption developed handbooks/volunteer guides on pork barrel watch and medicine monitoring, and internal revenue allotment (IRA) watch.
Univlever Philippines, in partnership with the OMB, conducted trainings on the procurement process for monitors and observers. It also developed a tool to measure the efficiency of expenditure in public procurement
SWS social survey institute, in partnership with the GPPB, conducted a public opinion survey to gauge the effectiveness and impact of procurement reforms.
The Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Governance (CCAGG) monitors government’s civil work projects.
The G-Watch of the Ateneo School of Government has a project called Bayanihang Eskwela.
Office of the Ombudsman entered into a MOA with the Mindanao Business Council on anticorruption initiatives such as the conduct of lifestyle checks, monitoring of procurement, and public contracts implementation.

Environmental Sustainability

Overview:

Seen an increase in the # of Protected Areas (went from 83 to 103). The Clean Air act of 1990 has improved quality in Metro Manila, though not to goal standards. Clean water act of 2004 has helped 10 of 19 rivers that were polluted come within standards.

Government goals:

More productive use of natural resources
Sustainable mining
Protection of ecologically fragile areas
Mitigate occurrence of natural disasters

Players:

FAO
UN-Habitat, UNDP
Department of Environment and Natural Resources
ASEAN center for Biodiversity
GTZ – Teaching local government units to employ participatory land use and development planning techniques; 660,000 people have so far benefited.

Conflict Prevention and Peace-building

Overview:

The Mindanao conflict dates back to Spanish conquistadores in the 16^th century. It is a continuation of a 300 year old resistance against colonization by the Muslim population. In 1977, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) even after the main resistance signed a peace agreement in 1996. Peace talks with MILF halted when in February 2003 the military launched an assault on MILF controlled territories in pursuit of “terrorist elements”. Informal peace talks have been held in Malaysia since 2005 but there is no clear resolution on the question of ancestral domain. In 2005, MILF had about 11,000 members plus about 2,000 splinter group forces operating mainly in central Mindanao.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimated that from 2000–2006 almost 2 million people were displaced as a result of ongoing conflicts in the country. In these areas women tend to be responsible for social protection (such as caring for the family and supporting the soldiers), undertaking livelihood projects, resolving family and community conflicts, and promoting peace. Men are expected to assume the role of combatants. Children tend to suffer particularly severe psychosocial effects.

Conflict-affected areas face major poverty challenges. Most of the lagging regions are in Mindanao; this has to be a priority. Basic services and other assistance should be viewed in the context of peace and development. Peace negotiations have to ensure pro-poor economic growth, capacity building and institutional strengthening. (c/p from report)

Theoretical ways to help:

Establish community level negotiations;
Human rights education for the security sector;
A citizens’ commission that can diffuse tensions between parties on the ground;
Scholarly conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding women and conflict;
Participation of women and international feminist networks in the formal peace process.
Psychosocial care to persons affected by the civil war, displaced communities and women victims of violence
Programs to upgrade skills and capacities of frontline workers, e.g., health workers and teachers, have to be in place.
Localize UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and the Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts.
Document and disseminate the voices, vulnerabilities, and experiences of women, children, and indigenous peoples in ongoing conflicts and post-conflict reconstruction efforts.

Players:

UNDP
IOM - Humanitarian Action Plan for Conflict-Affected Areas of Mindanao (HAP) supports the Philippine government’s efforts by helping people return to their original communities following a relative improvement of the security situation in many areas. The HAP is targeting about 447,213 conflict-affected persons in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Lanao del Norte.
OCHA also coordinates the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) as well as the Inter-Cluster Coordination Committee (ICC) at the national level.
Commission on Women has developed a multistakeholder strategy for peace and development that includes active roles for women in conflict resolution in Mindanao.
GTZ - Comprehensive capacity building measures enable the people to address conflicts in a constructive manner and improve the management of natural resources in the region.

Spring Cleaning at the Lu residence

2011-10-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when I feel like "a naked strand between two immensities," I ask myself, "What's worrying me right now?" After harvesting the oblong fruit of my anxieties, I lay them out in front of me and ask a second question: "How can I fix them?"

Three days ago, around 3 p.m., I realized the benevolent chaos that is my "Blog Writing" folder on my desktop was creating undue stress. So I sluiced my resolve from the eddies of my mind, found a room with solid internet connection, and began the spring cleaning: deleting ideas that weren't worth their salt, archiving items I'd already written, and finishing all the half-formed, sexy ideas languishing in my computer.

You'll notice – especially if you've subscribed to me – that there are 22 new posts up, about OKCupid, Taylor Swift, dessert, and Greyhound bus accidents. I hope you enjoy them. While there are 8 more topics still crying out for my editing eye, I am all burned out. So 22 posts for now will have to do.

My detox plan is imposing a moratorium on my internet access. An entire week – 168 hours – without Facebook, Quora, Gmail, OKCupid, Blogger, NYT, Yahoo Sports, WSJ, Spotify (maybe), YDN, ESPN, Grantland, and The Mercury News. I want to live simply, and I want to focus my energy on the 4 or 5 longer, publishable pieces I'm writing, to see if I can actually concentrate on longer horizons, even with the World Series in the background. I don't know if I can pull this off, but that's what's exciting: we'll see what happens.

I'll be back after a week, and I'll let you know how everything turned out.

The curse of having 1,000 unique visitors in one day

2011-10-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

On June 15th, 2011, I decided the time had come to share my personal musings with an audience; that my percolating thoughts and unanswered questions deserved to be approached with a transparent intensity; and that the creative willpower governing my private journal entries would be re-purposed for the denizens of the Interwebz. I was the architect of a master plan to Internet relevance. I reasoned that, with an hour every day, a pithy, astute post could be drawn from a broth of ideas, and people (even those I didn't know) would sign up to hear what it was like, living the life of Peter Lu. That dream has ended.

The blogosphere is a dangerous beast. The accessibility of statistics -- page views, average time spent on site, location tracking -- quantifies popularity and clout. Maintaining a website becomes a game, and, as with every game, it's excessively tempting to snatch up unfair advantages when they present themselves. Solid content will always win over readers, but a few well-placed links improve the bottom-line all the same. During these four months maintaining this blog, I've spent an egregious amount of time playing by an "armchair work ethic" that served only to burnish my ego.

Here's an example. In the beginning of July, I followed the prescriptive formula for new bloggers: post my links to blog heavyweights; ask small-fish bloggers to connect; and set up Google Webmaster and Analytics to maximize SEO.

The strategy "paid off." On Wednesday, July 27th, and Thursday, July 28th, this blog received 1,018 unique visitors and 1,429 page views.

I was at work in New York when I found out baseball's biggest free agent, Carlos Beltran, with his ridiculous .280/.400/.900 split, was headed for my hometown San Francisco Giants. The San Jose Mercury New's Tim Kawakami, who writes original analysis of Bay Area sports teams on his blog, Talking Points, already had a blog post up insta-analyzing the trade. There were no comments yet.

The Talking Points comment system has no moderation and no membership. Every comment is splattered below Kawakami's original post. It's too crude a system for a blog that receives thousands of visitors a day, but newspaper websites are notorious for being behind the Internet adoption curve. So I took advantage. I wrote a post on the fly aggregating information about Zack Wheeler, the prospect traded for Beltran. Then I posted the link. It showed up as the 2nd comment.

For the next 2 hours, I furiously updated my blog post, transforming it from a barebones, 3-link collection of scouting reports to a content farm: I linked to every corner of the Internet, and added, at the end, a bit about my own experience as a fan. Every 10 minutes, I'd update and refresh the post, because I knew people were clicking through. It was piecemeal, and the cyclical refreshing was insane, but I was flowing. While alternating between adding new content and self-promotion, posting my link on Mets blogs, ESPN, and the Sports blog network, I threw in a few quick Google searches and confirmed that nobody on the Internet -- not even ESPN -- had done as thorough a job putting together this information, from interviews to obscure AAA game reports, as I had. Every time I checked my blog statistics, the page views would jump by 20.

The feeling of euphoria -- I'm an Internet celebrity! -- lasted ten minutes. Then I fell back to Earth. At the end of the workday, my blog, which had just crossed the 5,000 page view benchmark in the morning, hit 6,000 page views, ten days earlier than I expected. Instead of feeling happy, though, I felt empty. I was still at the office -- only now, everybody else was gone. I was hungry, and my eyes were tired. My life, from every relevant angle, hadn't changed at all, other than the gaudy 6,000 number bludgeoning my eyes every time I opened up peterjlu.com.

To fight the vacuity of my "accomplishment," I took a proactive measure to install AdSense, so I could commoditize my writing. After a week, Google's monetize tab showed that I had 843 page impressions, 27 clicks, a CTR of 3.2%, and earnings of $.20. I removed all my ads shortly after.

One month ago, my profile on Simple Pickup appeared in Salon. From my back of the envelope calculations, the article was viewed 50,000 times, was "liked" 293 times on Facebook, and spurred 163 comments. The blog link in my author biography was clicked 238 times; at its peak, this blog had 995 page views in one day. But those numbers barely registered with me. What mattered more were the real-world outcomes: the emails from people around the world, from authors to friends. And the blog, far from being noticed because of pure self-promotion, was there only to augment my existing legitimacy online.

That's when I resolved: I will no longer attempt to define myself with this blog. Now, what comes next is anyone's guess.

For the short-term future, I'm going offline for a week, starting 6 p.m. Tuesday PST. No nothing; it'll be a necessary "detox." After I come back online, I'm going to try something new: read as much as possible, and attempt to write between 2 to 5 hours every day, focused solely on improving my craft. The plan is still to post every day, as a means of accountability, but it'll be more for me: updates of previous entries (like this post right here) and less "new" material.

Chapter 1 in this blog experiment is now done. Looking forward to Chapter 2.

Lips too tight

2011-10-25T00:44:00.000-07:00

Fiction. Nowhere near done.

"Expensive this, unfair that, people need to open their eyes," Hanna's father said. American eyes tended to stay narrow, slitted so only certain bandwidths of experience could be made out. It was a frequency of immediate, visceral pleasures, of profligate lifestyles; it was a crying shame. He yelled all this over the phone. Yelled: 30,000 CHILDREN WERE DYING EVERY DAY.

"Just think about that," he said, afterwards, calmly.

Hanna's father, Miles, was doing something about it. He was a social worker in Szechuan, China, had been there for 8 years and counting, had given up consumerism for dusty, spartan housing and a chance at Purpose. Before that, he had worked twenty years as an engineer for Boeing. What he called "a nihilistic endangerment of his soul," is what he told his boss when he quit.

"One-third of this world lives on less than $1 a day. So that sushi you bought for lunch, that's a week's worth of food," he reprimanded.

No matter that Hanna didn't actually eat sushi her mother ordered during the power outage. Hanna hated sushi, always had, couldn't stand the smell of raw fish, couldn't even look at the fish eggs, glistening and textured and too conscious for her queasy constitution.

Every Saturday night, she held the phone to her face while her dad called from halfway around the world. She listened while lazily examining her pores in the mirror, pulling out strands of fabric from her comforter, flipping her special wheathead penny up and down, up and down. Often, she wondered what would happen if she just left a voice recorder that went "uh huh," "right," and "I do that already" playing on repeat. Would her father, expounding on the virtues of Christ and the spartan life, hear the affected cadence?

She couldn't do that, though. Her dad would go ballistic. Besides, some weeks, he was on a mission to learn as much as possible: "How is school? Social Studies? Is that what they call it these days?"; "What are you reading right now for fun?"; "How is the 4-H club? Is Shadsky still there?" Of course, before Hanna could tell him she had tested out of social science, that she was reading Dostoevsky, and that she had forgotten to renew her 4-H membership years ago, he would burst into a tangent, spitting out a laundry list of nagging worries that he wanted her to be wary of.

"Remember to buy blueberries -- antioxidants galore."

"Is your mom talking to you about this new online hacking scheme? Nigerian princes? Don't open email from anyone you don't recognize!"

"I realized last night the importance of keeping your back flat when you sleep. You're not curling up every night, are you?"

"Dad," Hanna would say, her glasses dangling at the tip of her nose, sliding down millimeter by millimeter from the accumulating sweat in her non-air-conditioned house.

"Daddy," Hanna said. "I know."

"Was he always like this?"

Hanna's mother paused, it seemed, to digest the question, so she could analyze the subtext and prepare for an appropriate level of commiseration, before peeling off her answer.

"He loves you honey. He misses you so much."

"Right, which is why he never comes back, right?"

"You have to understand -- what he went through, it would be hard, maybe impossible, for anybody. China's treated him well. He'll be back as soon as he's ready."

"Humph."

"You know, when you were a baby, he would pick you flowers? Those clover that grow by Litchfield. He'd sneak off, spend an entire afternoon stringing together hundreds of stems into a crown, and then present it to you as if you were a princess. You giggled and curtsied everytime."

That was fine. He loved her before. Adored her, maybe. He might still. But problem was, Hanna had heard this story before. Her mom dusted it off the shelves every so often to curtail a premonition of anxiety, bitterness, injustice. Its adequateness as a big-picture repudiation of her small, human needs was unfair. It dug into her skin, pricked her. A flower crown? What kind of person had the patience to make something like that? If he was smart, he could have been watching his health, or working, or buying her real presents, or, god forbid, actually spending time with his family.

Hanna had decided: it wasn't a good idea to keep up a dialogue with her mom about this. Pointless. Boys and shoes she could do. Her father -- well, she was the one who had drawn up the deal herself: an hour every week, and she wasn't the kind of girl who broke her promises.

Aboard the Greyhound Express: Accident and an Audi

2011-10-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

The inauspiciousness of the journey that lay ahead; e.g. almost being killed is not a good start

“They tried to speed up and cut us off, like this was Fast and the Furious. Ain’t no Fast and Furious,” the black man next to me said, to whomever would listen. I nodded. The damage looked terrible – the underside of the Audi had come loose, the tire had popped, and the side mirror, obviously, lay in shards. We – the other passengers and I – were loosely milling around the Greyhound bus, surveying the five cop cars and two scared 20-year-olds and our big-bellied bus driver.

“We got Miley Cyrus here whining and complaining and acting all scared; they probably hit two other people on the way there,” the European across the way exclaimed. The accident, as it were, happened 5 minutes after we left the Greyhound bus depot, on the corner of Market and Fernando Street in San Jose. We were supposed to arrive in LA at 6 a.m.; now, none of us had any idea when we would arrive.

“We didn’t want to be there on time anyway,” the bald man next to me says. We all laugh a little.

The details of said accident; or why I slept on Santa Monica pier for 4 hours the next morning

The accident sounded as bad as the damage. I was just falling asleep when what I was woken by a large aluminum can being crushed from both sides, the air hissing out while the crackle of metal sparked in the air. At that moment, our bus was making a right turn in the second-to-the-right lane; a black Audi was in the rightmost lane making the same turn. The big, wide berth we made apparently wasn’t enough, and the two cars squeezed together against each other. The Greyhound bus won, so vigorously that the Audi was literally lifted onto the curb.

Immediately after the accident, the driver walked down the aisle, passing out slips of paper. “Fill out these papers for claims adjustment, please.” I look at the paper: “It is required by law that Motor Bus Companies shall make reports to the US Department of Transportation and the State Public Utility Commission concerning all accidents. Your assistance to Our Driver in the performance of his duty will be appreciated. WE THANK YOU.” There are 10 questions:

1. Were you a passenger on the bus at the time of accident?
a. Mark Seat Occupied on Reverse Side
2. Place of Departure?
3. Final Destination?
4. Where did the accident occur?
5. Time of Day?
6. Date accident occurred?
7. Were you injured in the accident?
8. Did you witness the accident?
9. How did the accident occur?
10. Was the bus stopped before the accident occurred?

I start to answer each when I look up at the man next to me, who has begun to shout. “I’m not doing anything until you tell me when we’re getting to LA.”

“I don’t know when we’re getting there,” the bus driver says, sighing.

“Well I’m not filling out crappy paperwork. I’m not going to help you with your problem, I have a plane to catch.”

There’s a rumble from the back of the bus. “Shut up. The sooner we get this done the sooner we can leave.”

“You might get something out of it,” the bus driver explains.

“I don’t need anything out of it. I’m not filling out anything.”

“We’ll probably be an hour late.”

“Let me out, I want to get some fresh air, just because we’re going to be here for a while.”

I wonder if anyone is going to sue Greyhound; or, if we would get a refund.

The humanity of the situation occurring through conversation with strangers

“Damn that’s a nice car,” my seat partner says as he steps off the bus. “They’re driving that? That’s 55, 60k right there.” The bus is damaged as well. There’s a dent where on the luggage compartment door; during the crash, there was a big bump that felt like the entire bus was falling down a step. We were literally a minute away from the highway ramp.

At this moment, the driver, who is 65 years old, with white glasses, a blue shirt with a starched collar, and a lick of white hair (he looks like a grouchy retired postal worker) is arguing with the 5 police officers (who came in 4 different cars) on the scene. He blames the twenty year olds: they tried to squeeze past the bus on the turn and failed to judge the gap accurately. The police officers aren’t buying the story. “You’re going to have to go to court to explain your case,” one of them tells the bus driver. “You should always be turning on right most lane.”

The rest of us are just watching. Most of the officers have their arms folded, and are looking around. There’s one bystander who is writing down her version of the events on a single sheet of paper. The bus driver is still gesticulating. “Last time got into an accident we were late for 4 hours,” someone mentions. Someone else visibly sighs. It’s going to be a long night.

The best thing to happen is the lowering of social barriers. Passengers who wouldn’t have exchanged one word during the ride are now joking with each other; there are two black guys riffing off each other, doing pull-ups on the traffic signal bar, asking the two girls driving the Audi what happened.

The accident occurred at 11:25 p.m. At 11:46 p.m., the hot dog vendors have smelt their pray and are out in full force, hawking their wares. My mouth watered. At 12:33 a.m., we file back onto the bus and continue our journey. “The midnight riders ride again!” someone yells. Everyone starts to clap.

I strike up a conversation with my seat neighbor until both of us, exhausted, fall asleep. We’re at LA by 6 a.m.

the paisley dirt hole

2011-10-24T00:54:00.000-07:00

the paisley dirt hole

A maroon rabbit, loose and
lumpy, cotton, fluff, on my
child's palm. Sits on top a
totem toke, squeezes
sky—
sky scraper scribes
circumscribe a yard sale,
the blanket wrapped in the
rabbit on the rack, ragged clothes
smooth: hop: hop: hop: at home it circled
our citrus, lime, pummelo, and burst,
in a bitter rain of house pets.

Tidbits from Yale

2011-10-24T00:30:00.001-07:00

It’s a rainy night here at Yale University. On my left, Mike is reading a philosophy book. Tommy is lounging on a sofa, legs up, head buried in a Newsweek. Zach is on his bed, computer in his lap, having fallen asleep with a finger in his mouth. The other two suitemates, James and Wade, are in their rooms, already tucked in. A girl’s laughter floats inside through an open window, but it dissipates, soaked away by the pattering of the rain. Mozart’s piano concerto #23 is whispering its melody; after 3 minutes, iTunes abruptly switches to Divertimento in B-flat Major, the violin vivacious and arresting. It jars me. “Peter, we have to discover nuclear fusion,” Tommy says. “It will make us rich and solve all our problems.” I ignore the waggish comment and continue typing. But the comments keep pouring out: “San Francisco banned happy meals.” “You look like a waiter, Mike. Pretty sure you don’t need to wear a white shirt for waiter-ing jobs.” “I have 45 pages the week we get back.” “Does it actually require research?” His feet smell. His nose-blowing is perverse. His voice is grating. But then I look at him, and my exasperation melts away: he's Tommy, that's all.

T-$: word why?

When you shower, do you bring speakers with you, so that you can engage your mind with music?

Oh, right: I cut myself with the razor. I put my entire thumb on the plastic tab and pulled down; it came off too easily and my thumb buried itself into the newly exposed razor. I didn't feel anything, it was so sharp. The cut, though, was half an inch deep, and as I waited for the blood to start seeping out of the cross-section of veins, I slathered Neosporin over the area, creating a messy seal. The rest of my time in Port St. Joe, I would gingerly use my left hand for most tasks, my right as good as a dummy prosthesis.

In the Dominican Republic, after two weeks of Ed and I serenading each other with the first two lines of Drake’s most popular songs, John D's computer computer came alive with Drake the first time he opened it.

We collected plates and cups from the entryways in Berkeley. There were utensils hidden everywhere —some suites had upwards of 7 cups in their rooms. We entered the rooms in the most cursory, perfunctory, and disingenuous manner possible, proceeded to look through the cupboards, refrigerators, and rooms of everyone living in the suite. The responses ranged from friendly (“This is a great idea!”) to extreme annoyance (glares of hatred and disbelief). In all, we collected 62 cups and 28 plates.

At Warren's beach house, one of the "hicks" who lived in town stumbled into my living room, drunk, and said to me, “I'm having a better time with people I’ve just fucking met then my fucking friends."

I moved from Canada to California when I was 5 years old. The last thing I did before leaving was write a card to Katherine that said, "I'm going to come back and marry you," or something like that. I might also have called her the prettiest girl in the world -- I don't really remember (my mom does, though). She friended me on Facebook in college. I remember having a short Facebook message conversation, too, but every time I search for it, I can't find it, which makes me think the entire episode might have been a dream.

For 10 of my 14 meals every week, I sit at the Berkeley senior table. Over the course of a year, that’s 400 hours sitting on the beat-up maroon chairs, revolving around the same topics—the Jacksonville Jaguars (thanks for wasting my life, John), hedge fund investment strategies, and Youtube videos (search: “Greg Jennings”). I’ve grown used to the routine, and don’t recognize the awe-inspiring features that first struck me when I walked in 4 years ago: the loping chandeliers, demure portraits of former Masters, that admonishing elk head directly above the trays, admonishing people to go trayless.

A ghost frequented our common-room at points. One day, as I was tying my shoes in preparation for a run, the glasses on the table started tinkling – all by themselves. This also happened one night…at 3:38am.

On a chilly Yale night senior year first semester, I sat with Sangay D. in shaded area of the School of Management in a settling twilight and talked about Bhutan. The country is what environmentalists in the US wish our country was. Every 2nd of June, their children engage in Social Forestry Day, where everyone plants one tree and takes care of it for the rest of their schooling. Sangay's tree was 8 inches high when he first planted it, and now it's 12 feet tall. Watching it grow up with him, he said, was an unbelievable experience. In high school, his class adopted an area, and tended to it once a week. The Bhutanese economy is also inherently tied to the environment: 40% of its GDP comes from hydropower and 10% to eco-tourism. 40% of the entire country is a protected area.

In the Dominican Republic, I accomplished 2 important feats with Ed. The first was recalling 150 of 151 Pokemon over a four-hour hike on the tallest peak in the Dominican Republic. (We missed Paras -- but not Parasect?) The second was creating a MECE framework of all the different types of humor: whimsical, exaggeration, long-form (referring to a prior incident in a novel context later on), storytelling, ironic, non-verbal and sarcastic. For the rest of the trip, whenever someone laughed, we looked at each other and slotted it into one of the categories.

Week 19: Bookstore magic and Quora inflation

2011-10-24T00:13:00.002-07:00

This week, I spent 4 days in Dumaguete, Philippines, on a work-related assignment. The city straddles the seaside, and there are hardly any cars – most people get around via motorcycle or “trikes.” The city is not sleepy, but it is quaint. During the 4 days, I read Chekhov, discovered the most amazing cookies, bought bunches of ladyfinger bananas, and visited two rural communities. I’d tell you those stories – walking between the mud and through rice paddies and listening to mothers who had tumors the size of watermelons in their midsections because they couldn’t afford the bus fare to the free clinic in town – but I’d sound patronizing, just another ex-pat slogging through desolate conditions for a sense of benighted purpose. So I’ll tell you another story.

At the used bookstore in the middle of town, as I navigated through the aisles picking out books I wanted to read (blackjack, John Muir, sports writing), I frequently had to let three boisterous 15-year-olds walk past me, they too attempting to pin down their reading list for the week. They spoke perfect English, ragged each other on their book choices, debated the merits of Dan Brown – I’d never heard 15-year-olds speak like this before, let alone 15-year-olds in a rural city in the Philippines. I couldn’t help wondering why they weren’t playing Nintendo, or basketball, or wasting time walking around the city, instead of at a bookstore on a perfectly sunny Sunday morning. I tried to talk to them, but they were as irreverent and hare-brained as teenagers should be, and didn’t get much, other than the fact that they just liked reading.

As I paid for my books and walked out, I really hoped that they made it to a good University, and maybe even out of the Philippines.

As for online life: this week, I spent 9 hours, 48 minutes on Quora, and around an hour each on Facebook, New York Times, Yahoo Sports, TechCrunch, and WSJ. Everything else was under 30; email just 2 hours, 15 minutes. And writing -- 20 hours, 45 minutes! That's an average of 3 hours a day! Not too shabby.

Highlights from my Internet browsing this week.

I’m frankly inspired by this profile of George Clooney. His former girlfriend Sarah Larson, who figures prominently, totally didn’t see the break-up happening.

The New York Times have strong essays on the hazards of confidence, this Haruki Murakami fellow, and Herman Cain supporting alcohol and cigarettes. I also learned how Romney and Perry almost came to blows, which isn’t surprising given the history between them. And go California olive oil!

My tech digest: Hipmunk is the new Kayak; and there are a ton of people on planet Earth using Google+. The Google-Facebook-Amazon-Apple tech war, 2011 edition. If you need motivation to make your Facebook more private, take this lollipop. See how many times your name has been searched with Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Why Jeff Bezos is a baller. Online gift cards.

Here’s the evidence I’m spending way too much time online: I know the rules of Calvinball, learned a new way to pronounce “octopus” (Click on the audio), read half of the Duke University “F* list,” watched the most contentious handshake in NFL history, and know that Yale’s #4!

Finally, I’m debating whether I should become a writer. Here’s the flow chart I’m using to make my decision. (And here’s a little more on if writing is worth it.)

How to reverse myopia

2011-10-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

Is there a way to reverse myopia? Traditional ophthalmology doesn’t seem to think so, but in China, there is lore of eye exercises that, if done daily, will slow or even reverse myopia over time. My parents have always encouraged me to do them – three times a day, 2 to 3 minutes every time, if not to improve my eyes then to simply give me a quick break from work. I’ve compiled the guide to doing Yan Bao Jian Cao here.

This will help your eyes relax, reduce stress, and stimulate blood flow. You want to aim for accuracy and consistency. Do these once in the afternoon and once at night. Every 2~3 hours, you should

also go outside to look at far distances.

Remember: no one else can improve your health but yourself. You are your own best doctor. It requires determination and persistence, and you may not show results in a week – or even a month – but positive results will happen after years.

Taken from: http://baike.baidu.com/view/66516.html?wtp=tt#4

Yi Ching Eye exercises: It exercises the muscles, blood vessels, nerves and meridian by expanding and contracting the surrounding tissues.

All of the exercises are done with eyes closed. Each step should be done 4x8 times.

Keep your eyes closed. Then open them as much as you can.
Look to the rear left side - return to normal - look to the rear right side - return to normal
Look up - return to normal - look down - return to normal
Look to the upper left corner - return to normal - look to the lower right - return to normal
Look to the upper right corner - return to normal - look to the lower left corner - return to normal
Turn your eyes counter-clock wise up-left-down-right
Turn your eyes clock wise up-right-down-left
Relax and keep your hands on top of each other and put them on your belly button.
Relax and look as far away as possible, with your back to the sun.

If you really don't have time, just close your eyes and rub your face until it's warm, and rub your hands until they’re hot, then put your hands on your eyes with the middle of your palms on the eyeballs.

Sunshine of the spotted mind: Notes on my phone

2011-10-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

Notes that I’ve entered into my phone, from May 25^th to September 1^st, in chronological order.

it’s about how you say it

what’s the best way to develop resilience

oak hill

bartending

June

can you carry umbrellas on planes?

Tamar – the 3 incestuous sisters

don’t feel like doing anything song

are there redeeming factors to sadness 6/5

Do I actually—understand people?

what drives the decisions you make in life? habit?

what happens if you place a penny on a train track?

Clifton Fadiman

excel of ppl

NBA player should say I never flop always play hard

feeling of making it – 6/13

erick ring fire river hook – 6/15

write about 5 year old letter for blog like junot

unshakable confidence

rockland bike

types of humor

stand up comedy show

subway improv

taking on great persona b4 events mentally

not better just genes lucky

hester bowery Chinatown

art department senior dpt

kadinsky picture w an archer oil on canvas

karl Schmidt rottluff Pharisees 1912

piet Mondrian josef alberrs

supreme confidence getting things done

sweet potato eggplant broccoli

tuna and eggs

wasn’t worth attention I would give it

Panasonic rps7

9 10 on 4^th

what sells topic wise 0-5 6-9 10-16?

clyfford still

hans Hoffman

mark Rothko

donna orender – June 26^th

Take role models like tom cruise American pie to realize irrational self confidence works

Harvard speeches

comfort confidence not secure settling not equal

foosball whatever makes people happy: sad little existence fat Asian lady doing the circle –

are fashion models insecure

freshman year write drunk never happened to me

birds n fella

tiff w and terr ho

ukulele

river to river

American boy

just saw craigslist girl again. had forgotten till now need practice when it happens

Japanese art society on the right

irrational confidence unrelenting positivity jon eng belief that I’m worth it

just mad nobody say hi on the street – 7/13

no community in ny – itinerant so only friends shuttle to events

books are not like shoes cleanness

visitors most willing to hang. habit kills

scared poster. funny way of walking. west 4^th street? assumptive. confidence. liquid confidence.

cake shop living room piano

polar bear weigh?

good hurt

v capabkty

new york isn’t perfect city and when do I let things do w the flow vs. getting out of comfort zone? what’s the balance? happy v. ca

I like you. is that general like or domain specific? 7/19

understanding rap – abrams

happiness ceiling no floor

happiness bank. average?

best travel advice Philippines no rob. lie or no? native or travel?

marimekko

what argument do holocaust deniers have about it not happening?

what is a hipster? least likely to go to?

building any new subway lines?

short story nightclub that gets buried in so people deal w relationships day after like lost tv show

friend v money comfort vobligation hookup v no hookup promise v selfish healthy v fun

girl w short skirt looked at totally uncomfortable those w real confidence come out

eating wasabi and choking on it

best personal bloggers?

about.me

yale asc

top professions – want to be nba movie star baseball ceo tim ferris pickup

with you

how to undo a fold?

spend a day reading on the subway

even if you have played a song for a long time really feel its soul. that’s my adv.

turza as article – 7/28

soup books

what things put me in a confident mood? singing interaction

yale why is the best – real interaction w new haven people some don’t take adv but other schools loathe to do so

don’t be a boring azn

blk kids sitting in the back of the bus

wes paparazzi song make it all visceral visual

magic ghosts the world is big the world is small

is it ever more efficient to eat with chopsticks than a fork?

don’t know nething about Philippines and writing back to roots

buy a flip and record myself in convo

why are shells not as cool when you take them back home?

spin the bottle

furthest a stone has been skipped – 7/30

paul c hoops tape

does it use less energy to slouch

chicken run

stuart davis roy litchenstein

coucou bazar

fashion illustration now

excelsior

herry donenfield

nietzche superman phil

why we buy

epiphone electrical phone

stratus prep

17 best rom coms

setting expectations to live up to them assume the best. Goethe quote. – britta 8/4

naturalist draw blood

action vs. thought when situations do it in

stuart davis

paul klee al loving untitled ellsworth Kelly terry winters light source direction

hans Hoffman veluti

cy twombly

franz kline untitled joan Mitchell sunflowers

8/7

Arthur segal strassa auf 1924

tokuda masahiko plate

kim whan ki heaven n earth

lee ufan

most underrated urban planning tic – water fountains

first world suffering hn not load fast enough

how to fight air sickness

baby girl whats your name how you look en them jeans

gum throw push coach bad traffic 8/9 - rucker

what r the economics behind supersizing? more efficient deplaning

omg worst place ever if we land etc

how does airline seat pricing work?

how to play jazz on guitar keep it fresh

inner game return and irrational confidence

what’s with the crude cartoons in new Yorker?

20 day inner confidence challenge – how to make it stick?!

what’s the best way to train a belief into fact?

what would south have thought of Asian people?

Conspiratorial grin as lowered the heading over.

Check the featherballs

1,2,3,4

put everything in order, lined up, take the umbrella after starting to walk back, it’s all so measured and cute, and can tell love to work on this.

wave the baton around of the cup afterwards walking back into the house

create a new Yorker magazine all written and drawn and done by me.

Things that have changed in a year at home:

Dream: choosing between 2 different things, but that was the interlude to the real dream, which was…

if one of my keys are stuck, what do I do?

“How’s the stock market doing?”

“I don’t have internet.

“But it’s probably down 1,000 points.”

“Yea, it’s probably in the toilet.”

Sam: white girls are overrated

Chicken fried; catch your wave;

How do I increase my laptop’s battery life? Dell

Put my eng 120 essays online

Judd Yale record stuff

Astounding words, phrases, and sentences

2011-10-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when I’m reading, I come across astounding words, phrases, and sentences. I always try to write them down. Much of my writing at this point in my career is imitation – I take a paragraph that particularly strikes me, deconstruct how the sentences flow, and try to copy its structure for my own topic. This is what I’ve accumulated over the last few months. (~10% are my own orphaned phrases.) (And Derrick – yes, I had a list like this during poetry class and threw them in like ingredients in ratatoulle.) (Warned: there's a ton of Italo Calvino.)

Words:

solipsist

brio

pestiferous

patzer

machievelli codicils

bric-a-brac

Pretorian guard
feckless
bespoke (a suit)
argot
milt

loucheness

pithy aperçus

winsome

puckishly

hoariest

sibilant

denatured

Troskyite

inveterate

sound-carpet

planisphere

propinquous

palimpsest

afflatus

interstices

adenoidal,

agate

catoptric

pied-à-terres

mythomane

sidereal

bildungsroman

redolent

amoebically

Akrasia

abecedarian

gilgamesh

brilliantine

bitumen

lazaretto

rectilinear

aleatory

aubergine

arabequed

Phrases:

rendered in chiaroscuro, with thick, bristling cross-hatching all around

her calves were short but her legs were strong

the inflexible grip of unhappiness

building a relationship from the pebbles of our mutual longing

finally, at 8am, fed up with the nitty table and the molasses fish, I just left.

in a blink, baseball's Ahab's found Clemens in the Seine

green tea hips

hands pierced like halberds

in the vain attempt to turn them back, move backward over the cemetery of spent hours

incongruous quires

last one there farts in a milk bottle

fleshy flowers

it's a game where the person scores, not the ball. And you always come home

fomenting the crisis

pre-Copernican belief that the cosmos revolves around his ego

noble nullity

limn my exquisite teenage angst

tastes like wet chalk

pebbly skinned

shiny chicken wings

clausal filigree upon clausal filigree to create a baroque edifice of seething irony

the wax of years

russeting on the blossom end

salty blisters

the visit of a Singhalese

who wants to sell me a litter of newborn crocodiles in a zinc tub

skinny-limb spruce trees

sugar-rush novelty

bulldozed nuance

jejune synthetics

glossy coexistence

a strange new dance of give-and-take

the giant fingers of gravity holding him in place

bug-eyed sylph

Barbadian patois

15 million years and even the sun wrinkles into embers

daily nothing-much.
the judgment is true -- but only by half.

effusions of a graphomane

“This vehicle has been checked for sleeping children.”

“I have a question I mustache, but I’ll shave it for later.”

Sentence Structures:

"And every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells."

“The Giants are a team of low-wattage eccentrics: hirsute relievers, a thong-wearing first baseman and a manager who always looks as if he rolled out of bed at noon.”

“She was the winner, it was her always curious, always insatiable reading that managed to uncover truths hidden in the most barefaced fake, and falsity with no attenuating circumstances in words claiming to be the most truthful.”

"The secret is not refusing to look at the written words. On the contrary, you must look at them, intensely, until they disappear."

"I think I love her."

“The novel I would most like to read at this moment," Ludmilla explains, "should have as its driving force only the desire to narrate, to pile stories upon stories, without trying to impose a philosophy of life on you, simply allowing you to observe its own growth, like a tree, an entangling, as if of branches and leaves..."

“Campaigns are like an MRI for the soul — whoever you are, eventually people find out.”

“Where else would you find that information other than from your closest most disgusting friends?”

“Looking back, he didn’t quite know what to make of his decision: he had saw the window, saw the streaming light, and figured she was safer outside than inside. An educated guess, he reasoned afterwards. Not luck.”

"They solemnly bowed their heads to the music."

“More lonely, more isolating, under the looming cloud of a prescribed emotion floating down from on high.”

“Canny, well-educated yet perpetually failing furtive Internet onanists, the dark, half- crippled, doughnut-gobbling man-apes of the literary world, who cast their lumpen shadows across the rest of us.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, pimps and playas

Half ass rappers, true rhyme sayers

This is the carter, so hold on to your teenage daughter.”

“I’ve got real pushups, power pushups, clap pushups.”

“Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain, because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from.”

“I’ve been on antidepressants for, what, about a year now, and I suppose I feel as if I’m pretty qualified to tell what they’re like. They’re fine, really, but they’re fine in the same way that, say, living on another planet that was warm and comfortable and had food and fresh water would be fine: it would be fine, but it wouldn't be good old Earth."

My hometown in Tonggu, China

2011-10-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

My grandmother’s house, nestled in the mountains of Tonggu, China, feels like it belongs in the set of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Not as a location for the action or dialogue, but as the unseen village tucked in the bamboo mountains in the movie's backdrop.

Tonggu is a four hour drive from the nearest large city, Nanchang. The last time I was there -- the summer after my senior year of high school -- I remember taking a long sleeper train from Shanghai, arriving at my aunt's apartment in Nanchang, and eating popsicles until my uncle rolled up in his gleaming black Audi. Mind you, it wasn't a "real" Audi; it was a Chinese Audi with a illegible license plate and second-class leather seats.

I almost threw up on the ride. We drove along country roads that, while paved and wide, creased along the cliffs and dipped dramatically through the valleys. I tried to hold it in for as long as possible; until, on a mist-covered plateau, I yelled for the car to stop. On the side of the road, I dry heaved.

When we got to the city, the vertiginous roads leveled off. The city itself, about 20,000 residents, is infused with an unshakable aura of tranquility. Chickens meander the streets, kicking up dust on the dirt roads to the local houses. Bikes are more prevalent than automobiles. The bamboo mountains in the backdrop are a 15 minute walk away. This isn’t the China of the 2008 Olympics—this is the China of purity, of vegetation, and of delicious food. Visiting six summers ago, having not seen my relatives for 15 years, I had a taste of real—and I mean The Omnivore's Dilemna-approved—food. The ingredients are sustainable and local, because everything comes from my grandparents' backyard. Every night for dinner, we gather at a dark, worn-down wooden table, and in front of us are dishes that 2 hours ago were collecting sustenance from soil and sun. There's bitter melon, sliced horizontally and stir-fried. Wild greens, doused with vinegar and soy sauce, with garlic sprinkled in. A whole chicken, roughly cut, the skin loosely hanging from the steaming meat. We join hands, minds, and hearts to eat, and the next hour is a Slow Food meal: the atmosphere is convivial, we savor the food, and nobody watches their portion size. As we’re eating, I glance outside the window. There’s a chicken walking around, nibbling at plants. Around it are heavy, drooping tomatoes, snap peas with ladybugs scampering over them, and a kumquat tree, bursting with orange. The food in front of me: I feel like I know it, personally.

That's the chlorophyll joy that comes from living from your own farm -- the food is indelibly yours.

My first (and last) colonoscopy running journal

2011-10-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

Every year, Father Time chases me with just a little more alacrity, emboldened by my slowing physical growth, deteriorating brain cells, and lackluster youthful spirit. He must have been pleased to know that, about two months ago, I almost -- repeat, almost -- got a colonoscopy. At 22 years old. Here's my running diary of what could have, should have, might have oh my god been.

Pretext: At the beginning of January, I got my eyes checked up my a Yale ophthalmologist who told me I was at risk of having Gardner's disease, because of the appearance of what might have looked like a little freckle in my eye. (Note: as bad as that sounds, the medical terminology makes it seem much worse than it is.) Gardner's means that I have an increased risk of having polyps in my intestines, so she recommended that I get a preliminary colonoscopy. So, back at home in August, my parents scheduled an "exploratory" visit for me against my (obvious) wishes against it.

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011.

10:30 a.m.

Reading New Yorker on way to the doctor's office. Can’t wait to get the appointment done with. I walk in and immediately, the receptionist says, “The 4 pages I’ve creased are the ones that you need to sign.” The first page is normal: SSN, address, insurance information. The next three pages are colored. Uh-oh. Sign here to acknowledge that there is a 400 in 1 risk of having internal bleeding. Sign here to waive your right to sue because there is also a chance that your bowel walls will be pierced, which requires immediate follow-up surgery. There are many other bullet points of harm, but I don't think I can handle it if I read them. So I sign it all. It's ok. I'm not actually going to have one. The doctor is going to look at how healthy I am and realize it is absurd that I am here.

I sit on the big comfortable chairs they have and read Oprah Magazine. It’s pretty good: how to defeat emotional robbers, Dr. Phil advice on abusive friends, stylish watches you can wear underwater.

10:40 a.m.

White man, fat. Bulging middle. Standing over the desk. Looking at his file. Yelling at the receptionist. "I’m 70 years old. I’ve had bleeding once! You can’t put that down.” He's furious about his record.

10:45 a.m.

The doctor walks in: genial, skinny, Hawaain shirt, and salt-and-pepper beard. Looks like Mr. Clarke, my high school English teacher. I move from his stool to a seat. He asks me questions: do you have any allergies; are you on any medications; have you had former problems – I answer them all easily. I tell him I’m going to the Philippines; he says he worked in Micronesia for 3 years, and remembers the mountains being cold. Also says he came back from Ecuador, and tells me I’ve been living an exciting life. Can’t help but smile; I really like this guy. If he’s going to poke around my anus, that’s probably the best worst-case scenario.

11 a.m.

He's looking over my paperwork from the eye doctor. “Yes, we’re going to want to do it," he tells me. "You always want to check this.” He's going to look for polyps. It’s a all or nothing deal. If I don’t have polyps, I’ll never have polyps. If I do...well....

He tells me that I should come in Friday to do it. I ask him what the procedure is like, and my fear is unconsciously reflected in my eyes. He says it takes 15 minutes, and I don’t feel anything because I’ll be heavily sedated. “What? I’m heavily sedated through the entire thing?” I ask.

“Yup. You don’t feel a thing. Though…I can do less sedation. That way, you can see what’s going on. It’s actually pretty interesting…”

11:05 a.m.

The receptionist gives me a box with containers of laxative and a sheet, and tells me I can’t eat solid food all Thursday. I lean against the counter while she’s handing me the materials. I look to the right, and on the wall I see something I missed before: a wooden sign that says, “Thou Shalt Not Whine.” It’s so fitting that I start chuckling to myself.

11:09 a.m.

I'm out of the office, and I let out a half strangulated scream. I can’t believe this is happening. Colonoscopies happen when you’re 40. Not when you’re 22. I shuffle back to the car, and I’m stuck between three thoughts: I can’t believe this is actually going to happen; it’s not happening for 2 days so I don’t need to think about it; how much sedation should I ask for? See, I have a choice: go through ignorant bliss and wake up 20 minutes later with a little soreness, or, I can satiate my intellectual curiosity and watch the doctor from start to finish, see the insertion, the plucking, gain some experience, develop some knowledge, but have it hurt, mentally and physically. I already know that I'm going to choose the less sedated route. It's now about just getting over my fear.

11:15 a.m.

Driving back home, my dad relates his experience 5 years ago. Apparently, when you start the fast, you drink only water, so basically, by the time the operation begins, all you’re expelling is water. I think of how I’m going to survive not eating solid food for a day. Then I stop thinking: I’m numb to what’s going to happen. Well, I guess I can’t meet up with those guys for fro-yo anymore.

One of the most hotly debated scientific papers I debated in psychology class revolved around "experienced utility" and "remembered utility." The former is your moment-to-moment happiness, and the latter is your happiness in a particular moment upon reflection afterwards. Which one is more important? And how do we represent pain and happiness after the fact? Well, probably the coolest psychologist of this era, Daniel Kahneman, did a study asking patients undergoing colonoscopies how happy they were before, during, and after the procedure. The finding was pretty formative for modern psychology: while the total pain of the participants (graphed out like an integral) varied tremendously, their remembered pain was a function of the peak pain and the pain endured during the last 3 minutes of the operation. This had a striking implication: to make more men come back to do followups, colonoscopies should actually last 5 minutes longer than necessary, with those 5 last minutes in a "slow, low burn" as to give patients a better recollection of the experience. Total pain would be higher, but remembered pain would be lower.

I wondered if, during my colonoscopy, I was going to have the probe in me 3 minutes longer than necessary, and if I would ask him to remove it sooner.

9:50 p.m.

Wake up from 4 hour nap. First thought: I've having a colonoscopy.

Wednesday, August 17th.

8 a.m.

Wake up. Drink a little red bean soup. Today, I have an opthamologist follow-up appointment. My schedule has been packed with doctors visits, because I'm leaving in two weeks and because I haven't been back home in a year.

In the office, I get my eyes dilated and can't see straight. The doctor – the name's Gauche – comes in and is unyieldingly gregarious. She's chipper because I'm the first patient of the day. She glances over my file, checks my eyes, and says, "There’s nothing to be worried about." I tell her that because of the freckle, I’m getting a colonoscopy. She looks at me carefully, pauses, and drops a 4-letter curse word – almost. Then she says, “I’m the closest I’ve ever been to dropping a 4-letter word with a patient. You’re a healthy, 22-year old male. What are you doing this for? You know colonoscopy is not a benign procedure. If it was a haircut sample, I’d say, go ahead, get a haircut. But this is different. I read this Newsweek article yesterday night -- you have to read it -- about how medical procedures that are uneccesary cause more complications than they help. I wouldn’t have diagnosed this in you. This. Is. Absurd.”

The best part about all this: the only light was the lamp at the desk in a closed room. It lit her face from underneath; it looked as if we were telling scary stories in the dark. Mom asks a few questions, still concerned. The doctor says, “If I were you, I’d strongly consider cancelling the colonoscopy.” (Then she says many, many things to make me feel better about my eyes: white without pressure is not threatening. Only .01% of the population ever has a tear. The treatments today are great at dealing with this. I have perfectly healthy eyes. Lattice degeneration happens at birth, and it doesn’t get bigger. You can only tear something once. And – this is cool – if I see a flash in both eyes, it is not a retinal tear. Which makes complete sense.)

I walk back to the car, and I'm thinking: the key to life is staying positive. I’m a normal, healthy, 22-year-old. That's the mindset. Sweet.

9 a.m.

Dad calls the clinic and tells them, “My son really doesn’t want to do it – he’s scared. So we’ll do it next year.”

4:30 p.m.

It's all over -- not. It's another call from the clinic. It's the doctor. He understands, he doesn't want to persuade me to do the exam, but -- just in case -- I should do x-rays on my colon, just in case. It won't be as effective, but it's a necessary precaution. Let's meet in the middle here. I agree. X-rays I can do. So they get penciled in.

Friday, August 19th, 2011.

9 a.m.

The hospital is expansive. I sit down in front of the cashier's table and whip out my credit card to pay for the $2,500 examination. With insurance, that number comes down to $200. Ridiculous.

9:10 a.m.

The waiting room is all old people, at least 90 years old, and one baby who has a heartbreaking problem -- he can't wait, and can't talk outside of meaningless babbles. The mother, though, is eager, happy. She puts on a great face.

9:25 a.m.

I walk in. Take off my clothes and put on a one-sided robe at the front and at the back. Then I do battle with the fluoroscope. It's literally the biggest machine I've ever seen. I never watched the X-men movies, but I imagine it would fit perfectly as a set piece there. The machine his built in with the table for the patient to lie down on; it can rotate 90 degrees (basically, from lying down to standing position), has a trellis system to move, a huge telescopic x-ray that is bigger than my midsection. Ah -- not X-men. Transformers. It feels like a Transformer, like it could whir and start walking away destroying the hospital.

I’m doing the stomach and the esophagous first.

The coolest part by far is the barium I have to drink, so that its progress can tracked through my digestive tract. Yea, barium, like the periodic table element. Just when you thought science would have no relevance to your life...what I'm drinking is a water-soluble barium (it's native form is a rock-like) salt that might be barium sulfate. Barium absorbs x-rays and thus creates a contrast that makes it possible to image soft tissue.

It's also flavored. The nurse gives me a thick white shake, so thick it looks heavy. I pour it into my mouth and taste the hint of coconut and chalk; it mainly tastes like a weak latex glove. The next step involves a plastic shot glass. There are white crystals at the bottom, and when he pours water on top, it fizzes and rises to the top like a Mentos-and-Coke reaction. Boom! I gulp it down before it drizzles out of the cup and over the front of my gown. "Here, here, you have Barium lips," he says, giving me a towel to wipe it off. "Try not to burp." The shot I took was literally all carbonation; it's to give my stomach air so X-rays can work better. It is very hard not to burp.

I lie down on my side and am instructed to roll over two revolutions to shake myself up. While I am rolling around and around, the X-rays are taken. I feel like I’m performing a circus trick. Then the entire machine tilts up and I’m standing. The doctor (who's in by now) gives me a straw and watches me drink the milkshake, watching it fall through my system on the monitor. It's kind of cool, except I can't see it. I drink one more shake – at this point I’ve done almost an entire quart -- lie back down, my stomach a little queasy, and wait for an hour for the Barium do descend into my bowels. It typically takes one to two hours to make its way through my system, but during a preliminary X-ray, the nurse realized it was already in my small intestine. Score one for a youthful plumbing system! I’m the first patient in a while that's been this fast.

11:30 a.m.

My mom is shocked that there were 20 X-rays taken. Those are dangerous! So, when we get back home, we cancel the 2nd set of X-rays for my large intestine. Done and done.

5 days later, while I'm walking to the Giants game, I get a call from the doctor, who says that the X-rays checked out perfectly. I thank him for calling, and then hang up. The future is bright, fierce, lovely. No colonoscopy in my future. At least not for 18 more years.

The pilgrimage from the dessert desert

2011-10-22T06:35:00.001-07:00

I've started to eat dessert again.

On Sunday, I willingly bought a slice of apple pie from a bakery. The crust was made of globular, dusty crumbles, a thick sheath to protect the apple underneath. It tasted good.

In Dumaguete, I also asked for a special order of 20 cookies (pictured above). I paid 13 pesos each for them. They are literally the most amazing cookies I have ever eaten, and big reason is because they are thick, yielding, and, most importantly, not too sweet. Repeat: unlike American sweets, the cookies here are not sweet. These cookies, then, are the synergy of the American form and the Asian sensibility. I have them in a plastic bag in a box in my unplugged fridge, as to keep the oxygen from poisoning them to staleness. Everyday, I have a ritual where I untie the bag, pick one out of the cascading, disorganized shelves, and carefully bite off manageable hunks and chew them in my mouth, making sure to silently remark at how perfectly firm they are, and how the almond or dough or oatmeal (yea, definitely oatmeal) just works as a flavor.

I don't know what's going to happen when I finish the box, but I'm scared. Unless I fly back to Dumaguete, I'm never going to eat these cookies ever again. How much more special does that make every bite? It's pretty much immeasurable.

Anton Chekhov in the Philippines

2011-10-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

In Dumaguete, Philippines, at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, the humidity is so overwhelming that the keys on my laptop stick. The “n” is barely functional; the spacebar is finicky; my touchpad has become schizophrenic. The black shirt I am wearing has been soaked and is already dried in sweat, and is oily with the residue of body odor. The skin on the inside of my left elbow is dry, an oval 2 inches wide maddeningly pink, the skin flaking off in white bits. In the last 10 minutes, 4 mosquito bites have showed up: on my right bicep, on a vein in my right forearm, on my neck, and on the bottom of my back where my too-small shirt left my midriff exposed.

The humidity here has the power to mess with the contours of my mind. When at night the heat wends its way over my body I begin to dream of vast black rooms, of invisible powerful contours, faceless walls—and all this accretion, tightness, without a ray of white light; hopeless and devoid like one who has nothing to look forward to, I look underneath at the shivering floor and feel that for some reason if I jump high enough I will escape my bondage, so I keep pressing, keep jumping higher and see the gleam of skyscraper windows and the tips of bridges, all a magnified pinpoint in the vantage point.

The heat, though -- and in all honesty, it isn't actually that hot -- is a small price to pay for the treasure I discovered in the small city: a used bookstore. It wasn't the first used bookstore I've ever been in, but it's the first one that I actually remembered. It was bursting with books. Crammed with shelves, I navigated the narrow walkways against the movements of the others there, surveying my landscape, squinting to note the bindings for the books stacked in all sorts of directions -- side by side; up to down; vertically, so I couldn't see anything but how thick it was -- and picked out my reading list for the next week. I ended up with 21: Bringing Down the House (how could I not), a diary of John Muir's travels in Alaska (only 20 pesos), Best American Sports Writing 2008, and surprisingly, the Penguin Classics edition of Anton Chekhov.

In my salad days, I would read everything but plays. It was an Achilles heel I didn't quite care about; I would never become a playwright, nor would I become a patron of theater. But that day, sitting in that theater, I looked at the dearth of fiction options and realized that this would be a prime opportunity for me to learn how to appreciate playwriting.

The Chekhov anthology is one neat book of his 5 most famous works: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. Not only that, but there's a meaty, divisive, and illuminating introduction by Yale (whoo!) professor Richard Gilman on why most traditional interpretations of Chekhov's motivations and personal life are dead wrong. ("No contemporary playwright has been more widely misinterpreted; none has been more often wrongly directed or performed.")

I'd heard the name Chekhov before, but I didn't know anything about him. So before I took a crack at the book, I searched through old New Yorker magazines to build out the context of the man and his life. Here are a few that really got to me:

"Servants of Art," Hilton Als: This is where you start. Als breaks down the play's components and, thankfully (for me), tells me what to think about it, how to analyze it, etc. If you're a tyro to play-writing, read this.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/cr...

"Travels with Chekhov," Janet Malcolm: Didn't like the focus on the author's journey, but her description of Chekhov's life in Yalta, the snippets of journal entries are some damn good reportage.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive...

"Kicking up Dust," Hilton Als: Great first few paragraphs succinctly describing some of Chekhov's early life.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive...

"Sea of Love," "Geography of Regret," John Lahr: Both are critiques of of modern performances of "The Seagull," and helps visualize the emotional landscape of the play:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/cr...
http://www.newyorker.com/archive...

"Three Journeys," Janet Malcolm: about Chekhov's journey to a Russian prison camp.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive...

With a slow and shady internet connection, I read through the different interpretations of his plays, and then I started to read him in earnest. I got through the first Act of The Seagull, and stopped there, content in my first step of a thousand mile journey. But them something happened. I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself, so after dinner, I took up the book again and started reading in the low light of the hotel lobby. An hour and a half later, I was finished with the entire play, and I closed the book, reeling back in its implications. Chekhov comes at you with a small, strange, understated force, one that cuts to the pith of human relationships without telling us what to think. See, Chekhov abhorred violent plot lines that drowned out internal conflict. He was, as Gogol said, a "great, rare, deep genius [that] catch[es] what surrounds us daily, what always accompanies us, what is ordinary." He shunned the "egregiously melodramatic" and instead wrote scenes that blended, counterbalanced, and deftly built momentum without flash and filigree. It's the exact opposite of our 24/7 news cycle, and it takes some time calming your mind down to match Chekhov's cadences. If I wasn’t sitting in Dumaguete, Philippines, in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, there’s no way that I would have discovered Anton Chekhov, but there's also no way I would have had the wherewithal to actually sit down and try to read him. Which would have been bully for me, because his work is incredible. I wouldn't recommend watching HIMYM or having Spotify on while trying to read Chekhov; if you allow yourself to focus on the text, though, you'll be richly rewarded.

(Some of the New Yorker articles are for subscribers only. PM me and I'll give you my pass/pin.)

Post inspired from a Quora answer I wrote in Dumaguete.