Posts (page 2)

She'd been crying all day with me right beside her the whole time. It was the first time I broke up with a girl and I really didn't know what to do. My head was telling me to be decisive and not send any confusing signals. My heart was telling me that I still loved her and that seeing her hurt was just not worth it. How do you tell a girl that things weren't working out anymore? It meant no more good night calls and no more happy surprises in the middle of the day. You would think that this was the end of the world. It was not. All it meant was that it'd been a tough day and we'd both get over it. Like we never happened at all.

I've never really felt attached to this country. At least not the way I've missed autumn in Ames, my room in Penang or walks around San Francisco. Every time I try to love this country it pushes me away with heat and dust. This place is still foreign to me and its my fault. My dad had to work small towns for years and always managed come back to us with stories about people and places he's been to. I've always admired how he could get interested in just about every place he'd been posted to. It is impossible to get me interested in things that I have no interest in.

I met up with Kahn Li for lunch when he was back and amongst other things we started talking about his life in Vancouver. He's an engineer working for small division at Intel in a vibrant city with weather I've always wanted. It sounded eerily close to the life I'd be living if I stayed back in California. The life I craved and wanted. The funny thing is that I just realized as I was talking to him that I don't crave it anymore.

I've changed since I've moved back. I still care about living in a place I love but I care even more about the people I'm with now. I could still start a new life in a new place and I could still be happy when I get there. But I won't leave until she comes with me.

Face it, I'm getting older and nothing makes me feel more 30 than being out with a 21 year old. I wouldn't trade anything to be young again though. Here are some of the things I wish I knew when I was 21.

• Get as much sleep as you can. Waking up badly for months will change the way you look at things. Don't get used to that.
• If you worry about your looks at 21, you're going to have a tough time growing older. Get over how you look, no one really cares about how you look that as much you do.
• Your mind is constantly out to get you. Use it to your advantage.
• Honesty works. I lied because I was afraid of the reaction I'd get. It gets really tiring keeping up a lie. Freedom means not having to carry that sort of weight around.
• A great side effect of being honest all the time is that I'm always forced to do the right thing.
• Good things don't come by as easily as you think.

Other Lists

• Algorithms for life
• What I learned while learning to dance

We were having dinner at that Chinese place across campus. She looked classy in her coat. It was still light out but you could feel the cold seeping into restaurant. She was speaking when she picked up the tea. She looked classy doing that too.

When she talked she pitched and curled her sentences like no one else I knew. We talked about the movies, about food, about how her first boyfriend changed her life after they broke up. I liked that story. He broke her heart so she wrecked his Audi. She even said that the break up made her into a woman. Or rather, it made her want to start dressing up as a woman.

"I'm still the same person. I just look better now. Don't you think?"

I loved how she played it cool when she said that. I used to think that if I could get a girl to open up it meant that I was doing something right. The more stories she told me the more I wanted to be part of her life.

It was getting colder out but we kept talking. I didn't want to leave. Night comes early a few weeks before it turns to winter. She had to leave. We said our good byes and she walked through the maze of stairs behind the restaurant.

It's a small town, I'll see her again. I imagine then we'll have a great time again. Maybe then I'll tell her that she has the most beautiful fake green eyes I've ever seen. I had a thousand other things I'd like to say to her. I wish I knew then that months later we'd spend hours on the phone. I wish I knew then that I'd only see her again 5 years later in Jakarta. I wished I knew then that I'd miss her.

But that was in the future. When you're young it's easy to think that good things come by so easily. I wanted to thank you for giving me that lesson.

"Selecting A Reader" 

 First, I would have her be beautiful, 

 and walking carefully up on my poetry 

 at the loneliest moment of an afternoon, 

 her hair still damp at the neck 

 from washing it. She should be wearing 

 a raincoat, an old one, dirty 

 from not having money enough for the cleaners. 

 She will take out her glasses, and there 

 in the bookstore, she will thumb 

 over my poems, then put the book back 

 up on its shelf. She will say to herself, 

 "For that kind of money, I can get 

 my raincoat cleaned." And she will. 

   -- Ted Kooser

Ms Groovy Olives was herding ideas for her finance & economics dissertation so I gave some suggestions. Which were all quickly rejected. Why do people keep coming to me for suggestions when they don't listen to me anyways? I think they were pretty interesting ideas don't you?

• Colonial Venture Capitalists. How England and Spain managed high cost high risk ventures in the high seas of the 17th century.
• How much should I bribe my traffic cop? Figuring out the incentives and costs of corruption in Malaysia OR Why getting away with a RM5 bribe means no one gives a shit about fighting corruption.
• The pasar malam index. How to predict an impending recession by tracking the relative popularity of night markets.
• Coffee and productivity. Linking office productivity to coffee consumption OR Why giving away coffee in the office always pays for itself.
• A case study of corruption in Malaysia and how its affected business.
• Happiness and productivity. Does having a happy employee make sense? How do we measure it?