Scribbles

Just finished reading A Slight Trick of the Mind for the second time, and it really struck a cord.  The conclusion was no surprise to me, but coincidentally, I just watched House of Sand and Fog earlier tonight. At this point, I’m not certain what to make of the theme I found in both pieces:

I believe that the manner in which people deal with this notion reflects the meaning they attach to their lives.  In both cases, the protagonists respond to a gaping loss of meaning, spawned so suddenly and unexpectedly.  Yet while I refuse to ever allow the significance of my being to be defined by the placement of hope and attachment on external and uncontrollable outcomes, I can’t help ponder how many people unintentionally end up in hopeless situations guided by societal and cultural expectations, and obviously by the very human emotion of love.

Given my relatively young age and focus in life, my dismissal of people’s lack of meaning can appear condescending and outright insensitive.  But I think what I really want to question is whether people as a whole lose their love for living as a result of societal expectations, aging, or the gradual diminishing of the spark that ignites one’s reason d’etre.  Why cannot parents attach the same passion and curiosity to their lives as do their children? Responsibilities, unfulfilled dreams, physical breakdown?  I suppose we can make any of these (and more) an excuse, but then again, we can also choose not to.

Been incredible busy lately prepping for the move, thus the lack of posts.  I finally took some time out to relax this afternoon and caught Revenge of the Sith with some friends.  I wonder how many millions of other people are also blogging about this movie.  Let’s just say that for us Star Wars fans, even the disillusioned ones from the last two movies, we still would’ve watched episode 3 regardless of how it turned out just for closure’s sake.  For me, it was just a very enjoyable break from the recent craziness of work and life.  I’m looking forward to finishing up the moving details this weekend and getting on with my life!

After tonight’s talk, my Indian friends and I decided to go for Chaat Paradise in Sunnyvale.  I just love Indian food, and that was some real authentic goodness.  The spices and flavors were simply amazing.  The menu offered so many options we had no choice but to over-order and eat in mind-boggling excess.  The breads, the dishes, the sauces, the rices all soaked in lavish flavor… Did I mention that I love Indian food?

Of course delicious food is meaningless without awesome company. My good friend talked about his idea of writing a book, whose premise is based on accomplishing something incredible despite constant procrastination and putting off hard work.  Allegedly, dreams can come true as long as one’s desire is strong enough.  It’s about waking up, telling yourself you want something so bad, so much that you feel it actualizing, and before doing any real work, deciding to take a nap.  Yet somehow at the end of the day, something is achieved.  Can it happen?  Well, first it’s gotta happen for him in his venture.  And then he’s gotta write the book after swimming in that sweet success.  Let’s see if that ever comes to fruition… I’ll be waiting, for both!

Yup, you read that right.  It’s that Myron Scholes, the Nobel laureate of Black-Scholes model fame.  Stanford GSB asked the professor to present his thoughts in a talk about Leadership and Trust with the founder of Art of Living Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.  How in the world do these two seemingly unrelated and yet world renown figures get together?

About two years ago, professor Scholes attended one of the courses offered by Art of Living (something I’ve been inexcusably putting off).  Since then, he’s become a firm believer in the benefits of the Sudarshan Kriya, a breathing exercise — dating back countless years from Indian culture and refined by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar — that enables the practitioner to oxygenate the system and relieve stress.  I’ll admit, I was pretty tired during professor Scholes’ presentation and had a difficult time following the connection between Art of Living and the topic of the talk.  Nonetheless, the opportunity to see these two living legends in person was priceless.  For those of you not familiar with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, this man is hugely popular among one of the world’s largest populations, not to mention the whole world.  One student mentioned seeing a surprising number of saris worn on campus today, ostensibly in anticipation of attending this event.

The auditorium was jam packed.  After the talk and a Q&A section, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar led us through a thoroughly relaxing meditation session.  Two thumbs up!  As soon as I finish my moving I’ll be signing up for a local course.

Sandwiched between apartment hunting and mother’s day, I was unable to wind down until Sunday night.  I barely studied or slept.  I started early Saturday exploring the area known as Sunset in SF.  The best description I can come up with based on my impression is that it’s a weird suburbia without the typical cookie cutter homes and shopping centers.  Not impressive.

The two big game 7’s on Saturday absolutely reeked, including one ridiculous home loss to a clearly inferior team and the most anticlimactic ending to what I thought up to that point the best first round series.

Across the two days, I dropped by the visiting mom’s hotel for chats and meals.  It was nice that she visited, being probably the last time to see me in the bay area before my departure.  Unfortunately my brother had to work most of the time, and I just didn’t have enough time to spend with her, leaving her to explore Stanford campus on her own.  Still, after our long conversations, I was reminded of how easy it was for her intense and unrelenting personality to leave me utterly drained.  I realize that I really need to become more effective at communicating to people with strong views who dominate conversations, although I suspect many of my woes here stem from established childhood patterns.

Brutal May so far and about to get worse as the big move approaches.

Luckily for me, one of the other September admits invited me to an event tonight, organized by someone from the INSEAD alumni association.  After work, I was off for drinks and chats at Fanny & Alexander’s in Palo Alto.  Also invited was a bunch of current students taking an entrepreneurship course that came to Silicon Valley for a series of classes and seminars.  From both the Singapore and the Wharton exchange, they shared their experiences.  The Wharton exchange students described the differences between classroom styles.  According to them, the class discussions at INSEAD is more free flowing and interactive, whereas Wharton students pick a strong point of view, voice it (in an almost rehearsed manner), and then defend it.  I believe I read somewhere that Harvard does the same.  Another thing that stood out was how US-centric the class discussions are at Wharton, understandably so.

In terms of campus comparisons, the asian students commented on how boring the Singapore campus was, while the europeans loved it.  Apparently the scenery change makes a huge difference.  But for those who found Singapore boring, it’s a mere hop and jump away from tons of great locations for cheap.  I can settle with trips to Bali…

Although I didn’t speak to that many alumni, I can say that I got a nice glimpse of the student diversity in ethnicity, backgrounds, and areas of interest… the whole spectrum.  They also talked about the possibilities of working in different continents given one’s citizenship, as well as interviewing strategies.  They confirmed what I thought – it’s generally difficult to work in the EU if you’re not a citizen (and same for other countries), but if you really have the talent, the companies will make it happen.  Also confirmed is INSEAD’s status as a consulting powerhouse.

Afterwards, I joined a group of Chinese students for dinner (at a Chinese restaurant of course).  Even this group comprised eclectic students.  There was a Shanghainese girl from the media industry, two incredibly funny guys from Hong Kong, a guy from Taiwan, and his girlfriend who’s looking to come to the US for grad school.  They told me about student life, sleeping in class, not paying traffic or parking tickets in France, making grades, the whole shebang.  Great fun all around, can’t wait until the real thing begins.

What a whirlwind of activity this past weekend.  Started off with an hour of free play at Dave and Buster’s with my lady.  We blew past Time Crisis 3 and eventually got addicted to this off-road biking game, whose name I can’t remember.  Hey, can’t complain about free video games right?

Then I set out for Oak-town with my good friend Andy to catch the Chemical Brothers and New Order concert.  I didn’t know Chemical Bros going in, but I certainly do now.  Their set was flat out awesome.  As for New Order, they played 2 Joy Division songs and closed the concert with Blue Monday.  Man, great times!  Thanks Andy for the invite!

So that was just Friday.  On Saturday I set out to SF to check out a few apartments.  I found one that was down right awesome; it had a huge room, patio back-yard, office, and garage parking. Unfortunately I received a call later to say the room was to be rented to someone else.  Can’t win them all I guess.  Still, there was another promising place, with a bunch of interesting 20-something students/young professionals.  If it weren’t for the parking situation, it’d be almost a slam-dunk.  I know, what do I expect from the SF parking situation.  I got spoiled by the other property that had garage parking.  The only one I clearly didn’t like was the one owned by
two sisters who sounded friendly on the phone.  But when I arrived, I sensed an unfriendly vibe, not to mention the place reeked of pot, um, I mean incense.

Afterwards, got back home just in time to catch game 4 of Mavs-Rockets with some friends who visited.  The game was awesome, keeping this series clearly the best first rounder of NBA playoffs so far.  After that we caught up over dinner.  It’s rare for us to get together nowadays, and even though we were missing our coordinator (who had an emergency work session, doh!), we had a blast. I capped the night with another round of Mahjong training with the newbies.  No crazy hands this time, and I was pretty beat by the time we got into the second round.  Someone took another stroll in the garden again, but recovered some later,

Sunday seemed relatively tempered, but somehow it didn’t feel that way at the time.  I worked a bit, did some chores, cooked dinner for the gang, studied francais, and caught another foreign flick on DVD.  I felt rather drained by the time I hit the sack.  Perhaps the previous activities caught up to me.  The last few weeks have felt this way, not a minute to spare, yet relentlessly fun and exciting.  Cheers to that.