This 2010

"Motivation to Study? Not sure."

I thought of writing this because I had trouble sleeping last night, after several restless nights. I started this post, intending to list a few things that I am universally known for among my friends and family. Then, I moved on to describing how I think people I've dealt with in 2010 perceived me this year. Then, I got creative and decided to come up with a list of words that described me this year, something like a tag cloud for my life and our conversations in 2010 (in no particular order, and not all of them necessarily true anymore).

Boss, Sleeps Early, Wine, Food, Second Dinner, Hungry, Apple, iProducts, iPhone, iPad, Cornell, CIT, Mac Team, Photography, POTD, Cars, Grader, Engineer, Six Sigma, 407, Duffield, Phillips Lab, MEng, PowerPoint, Presentations, Design, McDonald's, 'Drink', Piso Mojado, Suntack, OTEC, Energy, Sangam, Politics, Nikon, Website, Victory Pizza, Technology, English, Words, Buzz, Flickr, USuMBS, Tumblr, Twitter, Blog, Movies, Brooklyn, NYC, Hyundai, Sonata, Mazda3, 'Tech', Trains, Ping Pong, Billiards, Frisbee, Biking, Walk, Newspaper, Subway Maps, Museums, Cold, Taiwan, America, 'Up In The Air', Basement, Weight, CUSD, MoRF, ChemE, Roaches.

Edit: Also, cooking, and 'csb'.

Finally, this picture is absolutely the Photo of the Year for me. It summarizes a lot about me and my personality in 2010, not excluding the fact that it was taken in 407 by Hans for a POTD.

Happy New Year guys.

Taiwan 2010: Reflection of Sorts

This month has flown by, and although I've been away from the Internet for most of it, I don't miss using it. I came back this trip to see my grandfather one last time. He passed away on June 16, 2010.

I must say, never before have I been as motivated to properly learn Chinese (even though I know enough to get by on my own for days); never before have I realized the significance and awesomeness of having a huge family; and never before have I cared even more about ceremony, tradition, and respect.

I did manage to find time (and permission) to do "fun" things, I guess you can say. It was on my own mostly, but sometimes with a couple of my many cousins after everything was done. Now, I have over 23 GB of raw photos and video to sort, organize, and process. My goal is to go through all of it within two weeks while it's still fresh in my head. I was the designated photographer and videographer (though photo-documentarian is probably more appropriate) of everything. I am also doing a joint photo project with a few cousins in Taiwan for my late grandfather. Not ready to share too much more about it just yet other than say that it'll be the biggest and most important photo project I've ever worked on.

I'm heading for the airport shortly after noon tomorrow, local time. I should be arriving in JFK some time around 10 pm EDT on Thursday. See you soon.

Photo: Taiwan Sunset at 星海之戀 in 桃園, 台灣.

Taiwan 2010: Random Thoughts 1

So it's been raining every day since I got here. It kind of sucks, but it's kind of nice. It's a mild 80 degrees or so everyday, and not 95. Definitely could be worse.

1. Life is so simple here. I forgot how little international news they follow here, among other things.

2. By itself, Chinese is a nice language full of idioms to describe nearly everything. Chinese, however, is a terrible language to translate into, from English. Or, English is too rich a language to be adequately translated into an Asian language. Watching American movies on TV, I find that reading the subtitles doesn't do justice to the actual dialogue of the movie. I was watching "The Davinci Code" on TV and felt the Chinese subtitles destroyed much of the subtleties of what was said. ("Subtleties" is a weird word.)

3. The food here is amazing.

4. Drivers here have no regard for what's painted on the ground. Still, they are all pretty amazing drivers to not collide with anything and to be able to navigate through a two way street that's wide enough for only one-and-a-half cars.

5. I've been following the World Cup games and the NBA finals, watching most of it live. The Korea-Greece game was the best. Germany did well because Australia was pretty terrible. The USA game was expectedly terrible.

6. I've been successfully fighting my Pepsi "addiction". Not even craving it anymore.