The Wedding Meme

Have I fetishized weddings? This is my second post on the subject manner. I ask the reader to keep that in mind while reading the following post. ~

The Headmaster's Wager

There's something about historical fiction that draws me in like no other type of literature.

Reading The Headmaster's Wager (by Canadian author Vincent Lam) made me feel as though I was plunging into a different world, a story world, yet one that seemed utterly plausible, especially given my Chinese heritage. ~ Although the protagonist spoke Cantonese, and the story was set for the most part in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), the themes of family, duty and sacrifice spoke deeply to me. The usual fiction I read puts me in the position of a male, Caucasian young adult braving challenges both self-inflicted and externally imposed. ~ Reading from Percival Chen's perspective was different. Although male and middle-aged throughout most part of the novel, the hou jeung possessed such an intricately Chinese kernel that I could not help but identify with him. ~ Reading from his perspective made me realize how disconnected I actually was from the majority of protagonists whose stories I have cherished in the past. ~ I remember tearing through books, imagining myself in the main character's shoes. ~ But when reading The Headmaster's Wager I was never deluded into becoming the protagonist - only listening to his story with the respect I would owe to a real person telling me their life's tale. ~

The tragedy of the story, the plot twists, and the beautiful language of the text cannot be overlooked. But most importantly to me, the novel felt uniquely like an adult novel, in the sense that although events that occurred to Percival during his childhood were integral to his actions, thoughts and world view as an adult, the happenings of his adult life were just as momentous, just as passionate, just as significant. ~ I remember all the children's and young adult novels I used to read - how they seemed to suggest with their exciting plots and fated-to-be romances that everything exciting that would ever happen to you would happen before you became an adult, that you would meet the one on a quest and fall in love over the course of some trying adventure that you shared. ~ I remember worrying - and sometimes I still do - that once I became an adult (and I guess I am one now), I would have lived all of my life already, and the rest of my years would be spent perusing a series of fond but nostalgic recollections of the glory days of the past. ~ The Headmaster's Wager made me reconsider this belief. Adults lead meaningful lives. Adults are not tied down by their children, who supposedly go on and have the adventures that will replace their parents'. Adults feel, experience, cry, and above all, feel love, shame, fear, guilt, just as vividly as children and teenagers do. ~ Lives change, keep changing. ~ I've been naive, perhaps, living in my fictional world, still dreaming for that one adventure to happen that will change everything - that one letter from Hogwarts, that one visit from Mister Monday, that one discovery of a closet that opens to a whole other world. ~ Here's to another step in the journey of growing up. ~

P.S.: I've also read Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, by the same author. Although it was a great read, with characters whose lives I became invested in and were eerily similar to my own, I didn't find the ending quite as satisfying as this one. Granted, that was a series of short stories connected by the characters. ~ However, the way that Lam tied up everything so neatly, yet so heartbreakingly, in Headmaster vaults this book miles ahead on my list of must-reads. A definite two thumbs up and rec on my part. ~

P.P.S.: While reading, I discussed the rules of mahjong with my dad and realized that I've played a game very similar to it in the past, in card form. Just another connection with my Chinese self, lost in the miles I've traveled in my childhood.

The Great Pudding Fiasco of 2014

You are reading the words of a survivor of the Great Pudding Fiasco of 2014. ~

First things first. Let me give you a bit of background regarding my culinary abilities: I have none. I cook - almost never. I microwave, I open cans, I peel bananas. ~ I once used half and half instead of whipping cream when making egg tarts for a club bake sale. The result? Inedible tarts that had to be tossed out. ~

So what drove me to make lemon pudding tonight? ~ Well, I've been working in a lab as a summer student for the past two summers and I've noticed that doing cell culture work is a lot like what I imagine cooking to be. ~ Both use ingredients (so what if one uses cells and the other sugar?), tools (pipettes vs. spoons? No worries!), and recipes. ~ I can follow instructions - what would be so hard about trying out the Food Network's Lemon Pudding Recipe? ~

How naive I was just a mere two hours ago. ~ Let me now tell you the story of the Great Pudding Fiasco of 2014. ~

I began by heating up the pan - you usually heat up cell culture media ahead of time, so I figured this would be the same. I cranked the heat up to medium. Since I had no measuring cups (my family is Asian and never bakes), I used a drinking cup and a spoon to estimate volumes. Using my trusty chopsticks (ain't nobody got a whisk lying around), I mixed the cornstarch and sugar haphazardly, then got bored and poured in the milk. At this point I realized that while I had a whole lemon, I did not have a grater or a lemon squeezer, and that my concoction of sugar, cornstarch and milk was already beginning to heat up. I ran to the counter and began slicing the peel off of the lemon and dicing it into what I hoped was zest-sized pieces. Halfway through this process I remembered my boiling pan and ran back to stir with chopsticks, only to discover in dismay that the sugar had started burning under all the milk, sticking to the bottom of the pan. I scraped as hard as I could and lifted out my chopsticks to find globs of burnt sugar stuck on the ends. My pure white mixture was becoming littered with little brown flakes. Panicked, I scraped away as much burnt sugar as I could, stirring madly all the while. ~ Realizing not much time was left, I ran back to the counter to chop more zest. Giving up, I ran back and dumped the large flakes of "zest" into the pot. Realizing now that I also needed egg yolks, I ran to the fridge and grabbed 3 large eggs. I cracked them and accidentally mixed yolk with whites - no matter! Dumped the mixture into the pot, stirred, made more zest and dumped that in, added the salt (a bit too much maybe...), made more zest....

At this point I realized my mixture wasn't congealing. Foolishly thinking that the cornstarch must have also burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan, I added around another 1/4 cup into my mixture. It clumped up instantly despite my vigorous stirring. I took a break to squeeze the lemon for its juices, then realized that I might infuse more flavour into my pudding if I added pieces of the entire lemon into my mixture. I dumped that into the pot and realized stirring was now greatly impeded. More sugar had started to burn, so I conducted my second burnt-sugar-ectomy.

After another 10 minutes of stirring I realized nothing was going to help. I dumped in the lemon juice, added a bit of vegetable oil (because we have no butter at home) turned off the heat and looked around for a strainer. I had this idealistic image in mind of straining the pudding into these cute little mason jars I had, and began that process with bravado. I soon realized I had way too much pudding and that the small strainer I was using with my mason jars wasn't going to cut it. I pulled out my giant red mug, a larger strainer and got to work making pudding in a mug.

This straining process was arduous, especially as I was holding a hot, pudding-filled pan in one hand and ladling pudding into a strainer with the other. I briefly set down the pan on the divider between my two kitchen sinks to take a break. When I lifted it back up, I saw a dent where the pan had been. I freaked and thought that the heat from the pan had melted the sink. I grabbed a glass coaster (which was what I should have done initially) and set the pan down while I examined the sink.

My mom walked into the kitchen at this point (likely drawn in by my under-the-breath swearing) and oggled at the sight. There was pudding over half the kitchen, burnt sugar lumps strewn around my "measuring cups", and one 20-year old girl leaning over a sink in dismay. She came over and I sheepishly explained what I was attempting to do. She just sighed and told me that there had always been a dent in the kitchen sink divider, and that my mason jars were overflowing. Abandoning the sink, I ran back to salvage what I could of my pudding.

My mom attempted to help, then gave up and left me to finish and clean up. I was running out of hope when I licked my fingers during the straining process and realizing that the pudding tasted quite decent - even rather yummy. Encouraged, I continued straining and licking my fingers and the spoon.

Finally, I covered up my mason jars and giant red mug with plastic wrap (much like I would carefully wrap a 96-well plate with parafilm) and left it in the fridge to chill. ~ Only time will tell what happens next.

Prep time 17 mins? Try an hour, with half an hour clean-up time on top of that. ~
Yield of 4 servings? Try two tiny mason jars and one large, red mug. ~

Crime and Punishment

I've never written a book review for my blog before, but after trudging through Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment I feel compelled to lay down some thoughts before they consume me. Warning: I very much want you to read this book, but I will not hold back on spoiling the plot if I want to talk about something.

First off, let me admit that this book took me several months to read - four, to be precise. Given my (typical) university student's schedule (classes, extracurriculars, studying and Netflix), this length of time might have been pardonable, taking into account that the paperback edition of the novel is 480 pages long. However, to be completely honest, the real reason it took me a third of a year to read C&P was that somewhere in between when Raskolnikov commits his crime and when Svidrigailov returns to the picture, I became bored with the incessant pages of philosophical dialogue and psychological musings Dostoyevsky weaved into his narrative. Please don't think me insensitive when I admit that I enjoyed, although with a dark kind of fascination, reading about Marmeladov and later Katerina Ivanova's deaths. Indeed, this book put me to sleep at times.

You might be wondering where I'm going with this. Reading C&P was not an enjoyable process. There is something distinctly morose about Russian suffering, so that it draws you in with an unadorned and unapologetic "Come on in." Perhaps the sole lighthearted scene in the novel was the one describing Razumihin falling head over heels in a bashful and drunken, but utterly pure, way for Dounia. Yet even Razumihin's love for Dounia was a source of pain to me, as his love for Rodion's sister only further reveals his utter devotion to and love for Raskolnikov. Indeed, his marriage to Dounia is a sad one, Razumihin being so determined to make a living and a life for his new family so that they might all be reunited in the future. Reading about Raskolnikov's cold and harsh behaviour towards his family and his friend even up to the very end of the novel (never even personally writing to them when in prison), I could not restrain my feelings of anger but also admiration, all permeated with a vein of cynicism.

More memorable still are the deeply disturbing scenes of forced or hysterical joviality. The consumptive Katerina Ivanova forces her fatherless children to dress up and perform in the streets. They are crying, and she beats them. Her pride, much like Raskolnikov's, drives her to cruelty, despite the fact that she deeply cares for her children. Her delusional ravings and constructed memories reveal how poverty and alcoholism tore apart one family, and reflect how fragile the psyche can be in light of uncompromising personal characteristics.

Equally disturbing is how deeply Dostoyevsky dives into Raskolnikov's mind. While the long passages describing the protagonist's inner turmoil, repressed guilt and sullen belief in the righteousness of his own world view were arduous to read, I think that Dostoyevsky was right in drawing out the descriptions of Raskolnikov's mental and physical disturbances. Objectively, we can summarize Rodion's nervous breakdown, fever, nightmares and silent observations of the aftermath of his crime from his cramped bed, but how much more vivid (if torturous) for the reader to have to explore every crevasse of Raskolnikov's mind with him! What with the dramatic irony and Porfiry's seemingly transparent (but terribly clever) mind games, I was taken in for quite the ride. Really, reading the novel felt more like following a stream of consciousness than anything.

The most captivating part of that long middle section during which Raskolnikov's guilt marinates is the scene where Rodion's article is first mentioned. His theory of Napoleonic men being able to do as they please is a grandiose, nihilistic and self-absorbed one, arguably the product of his impoverished environment but likely something deeper than that. Oddly enough, I can understand, if not empathize, with him. When the circumstances you and those around you live in are so inexplicably horrible, it's easy to want to find some way out. Some people dream of better days to come or that have past, like Razumihin and Katerina Ivanova. Some drink, like Marmeladov. And some imagine themselves outside of the system, of deserving better and having the right to fight for it. In a way, Raskonikov's theory is a coping mechanism sprung out of a life too absent of hope and too full of cynical hatred.

And of course, the epilogue. Much controversy exists regarding this short but revealing section of the novel. Personally, I'm glad that Dostoyevsky included it, in the same way that I'm glad J. K. Rowling tied up the ends to the Harry Potter series. Certainly the fact that Raskolnikov confessed at the end of Section VI, especially given the fact that he was aware of Svidrigailov's death and that Sonya was the ultimate reason he followed through with the confession, may make the epilogue seem redundant. However, the plot really picked up for me again after Katerina Ivanova's death, and at that point I wanted to keep reading. Additionally, I appreciated that Dostoyevsky added a layer of complexity by showing Raskolnikov's first year in prison, when he had not yet truly "repented" despite having already confessed. I add quotations marks around the word "repented" because I don't see Raskolnikov's emotionally-charged last scene with Sonya as necessarily Christian. That's certainly one interpretation, but in my mind it comes down to love, which is more general than religion. Had any other novel employed this type of ending, I would have gagged and made some snide remark about how "Disney" everything turned out (hey, I love Disney as much as the next 90s kid, but that doesn't mean I can't think about the messages they convey in a critical fashion). But again, the Russianness of it all absolves the ending of its lovey-doveyness. Raskolnikov's realization that he loves Sonya opens his eyes to the destructiveness of his unforgiving and deeply egotistical theory. Pride really is the worst sin of all, because it is the one that requires the greatest upheaval of the soul to overcome.

How very freeing it has been to chronicle my thoughts here, without needing to organize them into a cohesive text. Perhaps I shall do this again once I read Lolita. ~

Differentiation

I'm revisiting this post after a very long hiatus. ~ The ideas presented here have been stewing in my mind since last summer, but tonight is when they will finally stream out of my fingertips and onto this digital page. ~

The scientific community has long been obsessed with the potential of stem cells (pun-intended). ~ Bone marrow transplants are currently the most widely accepted and implemented type of therapy involving stem cells, but the possibilities of their potential seems endless. ~ The thought of growing whole organs excites me as much as the next science geek out there, but that's not what the focus of this post will be. ~

Instead, the inspiration for this post originally sprung up sometime around August, while I was on a camping trip with two of my closest friends, AC and CZ. ~ Both of these gals are studying  business at prestigious American universities, and this summer trip was our first reunion after the end of our respective first years. ~ We'd been extremely close in high school, taking the same full IB courseload, with CZ and I sharing French immersion classes on top of that. ~ Although we had our own separate activities (I was in band and choir, CZ in orchestra, and AC in horseback riding), we still shared many of the same extracurriculars, such as Junior Achievement, debate, and science competitions. ~ All in all, I saw ourselves as pluripotent stem cells: not as innocent and undecided as we had been in elementary or junior high as totipotent cells, but still full of the potential of our lives stretching way ahead of us. ~

But during breakfast at a restaurant in Banff, as CZ and AC started chatting about business-related topics, such as rushing for a frat or interning at various companies, I reflected back on my own summer of studying for the MCAT and conducting research in a scientific laboratory and couldn't help feeling a bit depressed. ~ It seemed as though we were headed in a beeline for unipotency. ~ Everyone was specializing - even me, despite the fact that I had always thought of myself as a generalist. ~ Like stem cells receiving extracellular signals, we were undergoing a process of differentiation. ~

When this realization hit me, how I longed to remain a totipotent cell! All that potential stored within my genes, only to be thwarted by transcriptional, post-transcriptional, translational and post-translational modifications. (Yes, I've been taking a genetics class this past semester.)  ~ It seems a shame that eventually all that potential must be lost. ~ Maybe that's why I've taken some more unconventional routes, like doing an English minor along with my Bachelor of Health Sciences Biomedical Sciences major. ~ All my science friends scoff at me in disbelief - that someone would willingly subject themselves to the torture of English, imagine! - but I shrug and grin, continuing to puzzle over literary theory and Zizekian thought. ~ The thing is, I hate the thought of society shaping us so that we are each compartmentalized into our own little sector, with the cardiac cells pumping together as a unit, the neutrophils spreading their NETs and macrophages phagocytosing bacteria, the muscle cells contracting and relaxing in time... ~ Admittedly, this might paint a pretty picture of a cohesive organism functioning in a unified manner, but it also posits us as mere subjects serving an ideology (Althusser's structural Marxism, anyone?). ~

The way that I manage to console myself when I start spiraling into these dark thoughts is by referring back to what a wise teacher, Mr. A, recently told me: there are some things that you just have to accept will never become your career, but that can still remain part of your life in the form of hobbies. ~ You don't have to excel at everything you do, as long as it brings you joy. ~ A feeling of accomplishment need not be solely measured based on success in the traditional sense, but can also present itself in a feeling of fulfillment, of doing something new, of doing something different. ~ I can publish bad drawings on Deviantart and browse everyone else's gorgeous pictures without having to feel shame; I can try to sing Christmas carols hoarsely and accompany myself on piano, albeit out of time; I can try to bake cookies but accidentally use whipping cream instead of half-and-half and laugh it off. ~ We might be differentiating, but at the end of the day we are all still cells (even you, unnucleated RBC's!). We can't help focusing on something - indeed, that's the only way we'll ever get anything substantial done - but our attention spans may well be limited for a reason. ~ Instead of being despondent about the slow reduction in our potential, we should seek avenues to maintain it, to continue making ourselves plastic to change, while recognizing that we need not ever fully develop those new pathways. ~ They are simply our connecting points - our neuromuscular junctions - with the rest of the world. ~ It's what allows me to fall back in familiar stride with AC and CZ months after we haven't seen each other. ~ It's what takes away the boring edge from life, and makes our heartbeats quicken, whether in anticipation, fear or excitement. ~ Differentiating isn't reaching the end of the road - it's finally falling into your groove, doing what you're best at, and continuing to occasionally venture out there and take a jab at other things. ~ Our connections to other activities, people and ways of life don't just die; they serve as little dendrites that can help us continue to understand more of the world around us, and should be maintained and pruned, while helping to reinforce the strength of our axonal signals. ~ As this neuron metaphor stretches out of hand, I end my post with a question: where's the fun in classifying yourself as one type of person anyway? ~

"Cups" Cover: "I'm Gonna Miss You"

This is my version of the "Cups" song performed by Anna Kendrick on "Pitch Perfect", originally by Lulu and the Lampshades. ~ I played with the lyrics a bit to tailor this for my friend CZ, who's leaving Calgary (again) to go back to Berkeley. ~ Thanks for teaching me the cup thing yesterday! Please try to get past my incompetent singing. ~

Memory, Revisited

Because one post just wasn't enough. ~

The importance of memory in society today has been greatly diminished. ~

Educational systems have begun scorning rote memorization, arguing instead for more inquisitive-based learning. ~ Shakespeare speeches are no longer committed to memory and recited flawlessly. ~ Formula sheets are given and detail such equations as F= ma or even a² + b² = c². ~ Information is literally just a click away - on that shiny new Android device or that sleek new Ultrabook. ~ (Some self-criticism here - I own a Samsung Galaxy S II phone and an ASUS ZENBOOK Pro Ultrabook.) ~

It seems that with as technology advances in leaps and bounds, our minds shrink back to accommodate the very devices that are intended to accommodate us. ~ We rely so much on writing and digitization of data that perhaps we're losing the sharp edge and descending into laziness when it comes to thinking about the daily parts of life. ~

In my own life, I've realized how terrible my memory has become in relation to my new university schedule. ~ I recently registered for all my classes, spending a good few hours slaving over the timing, professor ratings and available option courses. ~ Just a week later, when a classmate asked me what classes I was taking next semester, I found myself unable to name more than three of the five courses each semester, much less the professors teaching each course. ~

That's why I'm skeptical to the typical advice of "just write it down!" to remember "it." ~ Day planners, agendas, online calenders... Admittedly, they're great tools, especially for busy university students/workers; however, I cringe when I see people scheduling in things such as "walk the dog" or "practice piano." ~ If we have to write down every single thing in order to remember it, activities beginning losing their meaningfulness, especially because I believe that looking forward to a special event contributes to half of its appeal. ~

Yet in today's society, we don't need to memorize something, so we don't. ~ Things are more accessible, cheaper, routine. ~ We have the nice, warm safety blanket of the notebook in case our memory  falls through. ~ I'm not trying to undermine the achievements of modern society - far from it. I'm as avid of an agenda/calendar-user as the next perfectionist, and I take notes that are so detailed, they may as well be a regurgitation of each lecture I attend. ~ Rather, I'm trying to draw attention to the inevitable flaws that accompany our very Western thinking - forward-driven and always improving our tools to facilitate our lives. ~ There is no legitimacy placed on the human memory anymore, because the goods delivered by consumerism provide an easier, more appealing means of remembering things. ~

So what are we losing? ~ A valuable skill, for one. ~ Indeed, the feats of memorization of our ancestors become truly remarkable when compared to the fact that best friends can no longer remember each other's phone numbers or birthdays without checking their contact list or Facebook. ~ See, back in the day, the epic poet Homer delivered oratories for hours on end, when a writing system hadn't been concretized as it is today. Yet somehow I can barely remember how I worded the starting sentence to this blog post (do you?). ~ In the past, memory was not just a convenience, it was necessary to pass on culture and traditions. ~ Sure, memory is fallible, which explains how myths have been blown out of proportion, but memory also helps each individual mold a story in their own mind and add a personal touch that just isn't the same as linking someone to a subreddit or online news article. ~ Indeed, there's something about memorization that's profoundly intimate. ~ When you memorize a text, you don't just study it - you absorb it, play with it, modify it to your own needs and tastes. A memorized piece of work no longer solely belongs to the author anymore - it belongs to you just as much as to the creator. It's personalized. ~

A devil's advocate might argue that memory is the exact opposite of personalized - it's rigid. ~ For instance, let's go back to rote learning. For anyone who's ever struggled in a class and miraculously discovered that simply memorizing the formula or idea could mean a pass on the exam, it's evident that memory can sometimes help us bypass the very important process of learning itself. ~ Yet in reality, memory should be treated as a much more fluid process than simple repetition. ~ It's becoming familiar with something - so much so that instead of simply knowing a fact or an idea, you begin developing synaesthetic connections to it - such as making up a mnemonic for the Linnaean classification system (Katy Perry Came Over For Great Sex, anyone?), or remembering a person based on their scent, or visualizing a scene from a novel when caressing the words of the story on your lips. ~

Memory can also denote some interesting aspects of a person. What we choose to remember (because I think memory is often a choice) reflects what type of person we are. "Forgive and forget." We often erase or modify the worst memories we have to soften their blows, and that's a healthy thing to do. However, over long periods of time, memory can indeed end up distorting the truth, which can be harmful to the overarching, lifetime process of self-discovery. ~ That's where writing down things comes into play. ~ Reading back on my old blogs is not only a trip down memory lane, it also shows me how my writing style has changed, and how deep down I'm still very much the same person. ~ As always, there is a fine balance between pure memorization and total digitization/documentation of our knowledge and memories. ~ But it sure wouldn't hurt once in awhile to reinforce those neuronal pathways and spend some time getting to know pieces of information by heart. ~