Songs without Words

Wishing my beautiful wife a happiest birthday!

With cows!  I always wish I could run up and down hills with cows, minus the turds I guess.

My impression of Northern California

will be written soon ..

I have so many exciting things happening right now in my life, with a fresh lab rotation coming up that I am really looking forward to and roots of association and maybe friendship finally sprouting in my new world.  I can finally cook satisfactorily and efficiently, and my refrigerator has a good in-out flow going instead of the horrendous buildup of strange creatures that characterized my Burton-Conner kitchen.  I’ve gotten to perform for and meet with amazing people, and slowly I think I’m becoming more visible to this world – I never thought I’d have a row of Massachusetts senators and representatives listening to me play, and I never thought I could “cold e-mail” a lab and be filling out paperwork to join before the interview was even over.  I’ve also become a lot more confident in my driving ability, and the past year of financial independence has taught me a lot about balancing my life and earning the things I want.

Even though it feels like I’m easing into the adult world at long last, its horrors mitigated by the eager and youthful minds of all ages that surround me every day, there’s one part of the dreams of my future that is still holding its breath anxiously.  I don’t want to ever have another trio of seasons so far from you, and so I hope every day that another place won’t come and snap you up and take you away from me.  I am so dependent on your companionship and humor and wit and playfulness that even a busy day without you is hard on the heart.  Please … stay close to me, always …

I have always been a fan of romantic comics, songs, stories, and movies, something which will probably never change.  But what I find appealing or rewarding about them has undergone a profound transformation.  Where I once turned to such media to seek out a source of feelings and events that I would like to then find reflections of in real life, now it is the reverse; I am most engrossed, most satisfied, most breathtaken by the love in my real life, and the media are the reflections in which I can be reminded of what I must hold so precious in my everyday life, lest I take it for granted.

Love in the imaginary world is effortless.  A few strokes of the fingertips, and suddenly a man has sacrificed his life for the woman he loves.  A few strokes of the pen, and a woman has forgiven all her lovers’ transgressions.  Love in the real world takes effort, and the fact that ordinary people become extraordinary lovers is a testament to the capacity of the human heart.

Just today, I was chatting with an incoming grad student who had hit it off with another student some time ago, but who held off on a relationship because she was returning to Europe.  And yet, when she moved back across the ocean, the feelings didn’t fade, and acting on her regret, she mused to him that they might be together.  He responded that she would have to return to the States if she really meant what she said, and – she had this sparkle of magic in her eye as she told me this – she found herself on a plane back that very weekend, and they’ve been together ever since.

In a story, you have a thousand lives.  You can live a life in every country, live a life with every lover.  That aura of impermanent permanence is all too apparent in “love simulation games” where you select a girlfriend (or boyfriend, as the trend continues towards girl-aimed games) to find out your happy ending with her, only to then restart and see what happens with the girl you ignored the first time through.

Especially in the modern context, we are exposed to a flood of members of the opposite gender, more than in any other period in history.  And somehow, in the midst of that, I feel like the bonds between spouses are stronger and more symmetric than ever before, and certainly no less loyal.  How is the heart able to be transfixed by one other in a way that it will never let happen with any other?  This is something I don’t understand and don’t feel a need to understand.  Suffice to say that I am with the one I want to be with, the one I trust endlessly and the one who brings me happiness no matter how far she is from me.

My life is busier and more demanding than ever before.  I have classes eight hours a day, experiments to do, and on top of that, assignments, critical readings, social activities, musical studies, and so on.  That I am writing this at 4 in the morning with a quiz six hours away (that I haven’t fully studied for yet) is an unsurprising consequence of this lifestyle.  But I can’t think about anything else right now except the one I love.  I listen to ballads in the background as I chop away at a paper analysis and critique, and their melodies remind me of her warm elegance.  Her love opens the solutions to my seemingly insurmountable challenges as I place myself before trial after trial along the path to my future, intertwined with hers.

Love can be thought of as two hemispheres coming together to form a radiant ball, but there is no direction to that analogy; the two exist in isolation of the world and time.  That is why I prefer the image of a double helix, always moving forward and changing, but each spiraling trajectory always intertwined and bound and complemented by the other.

I get so lonely without my girlfriend nearby.  Even though I’m helping out at a fun music camp now, I still can’t stop thinking about her.  Oh well.  More drawings soon, I hope!!

… is to find the equivalent resistance starting from any vertex to the node directly across from it.

…

Just kidding ^___^.

My girlfriend made this beautiful polyhedron for me and I’m going to hang it up soon. Isn’t it really beautiful? The graceful mathematical form, pulled down into a cloak of pragmatic engineering … . It is a world unto itself that tumbles and tumbles on its five dozen little resistor knobs …….

The perfect love is often described, and it seems to encompass a sort of stability and compatibility that could form a bond that could last forever.

But the most ardent of feelings arises not from that stability and regularity but from flashes of fervor that occur unexpectedly or even “against the rules.”  That is what makes for interesting love stories, and also what I think is an essential part of any relationship where the participants need some sort of spontaneity to thrive.

Love can be told to exist, and then it will, but it won’t be the same as its fickle, whimsical sibling, the passion that can pop up from just one little glistening facet or a song or a left message.  Like an elusive aria, you can hear it, sung far in the distance by a child-like spirit, and you want to pursue it and uncover it.  But then it’s gone, too, and you’re not sure what you’re left with but the memory of the chase.

Childhood is the transcendental bliss; a child has wings, a child can love, a child can sing freely.

Adulthood is a muted travesty, clipped wings dripping blood on the floor; attempts at transcendentalism through alcoholism, and wretched shouts of adoration that are only pre-planned attempts at manipulation; and songs that are only for the money.

I can only love a child-like spirit, a natural spirit, a person who hasn’t sold the soul to the devil of adult amorality and greed.

I can’t say that I feel good about this evening, but the sadness was already there.  Sometimes, people change until you can’t recognize them anymore.  And you hope that one day they’ll return to who they used to be.  But better yet, you hope that they will find themselves and be who they want to be, regardless of who they used to be or who you want them to be.

Every year, during January term (“IAP”), MIT hosts a puzzle-solving competition called “Mystery Hunt,” a massive undertaking and ritual that has grown around the simple objective of finding a hidden coin.

The puzzles are of a unique sort, rarely seen anywhere else except in particular Flash games on the internet.  Unlike puzzles with set rules or instructions, such as crossword puzzles, Sudoku, or jigsaws, these puzzles require you to figure out what the rule or pattern is, from a minimally-annotated figure or other source material.  It is a testament to the similarity of human thought and logic that people can solve these puzzles at all, which involve great leaps of faith and fishing in the dark (with plenty of red herrings dotting the pool).  And despite the stereotype of the nerd having a knowledge focused on a particular discipline and ignoring pop culture or art or whatnot, the Mystery Hunt is only accessible to teams that collectively have a very well-rounded knowledge – of geography, languages, programming, cryptology, pop music old and new, beer brands, and even sports.

I enjoyed this year’s hunt much more than last year’s, partially due to the fact that there is no better preparation for Mystery Hunt than doing one.  Last year, I was able to help on perhaps 3 puzzles, and I could not claim many innovations as my own — the “freshman” of Mystery Hunt is frequently occupied with the “data collection” task, such as looking up names or lyrics or years.  This year, I think I made inroads on many more than that.

The team this year was also a lot more tight-knit.  After the first day, we had around 7 or 8 people working consistently on the hunt, down from the norm of 20-30 people.  As a result, we weren’t terribly quick, but we were able to consult with each other much more effectively.  We also utilized Google Documents to their full potential – sharing text and spreadsheets between all team members at once.

But the best part is the sheer fun of it all.  The people involved come out with a stronger respect for each others’ intellect and humor, and even in the frustration of staring at something fruitlessly for eight hours, there is still the support of others who simply won’t give up.  Unlike the real world, where the clues do not always lead towards a certain answer, the enclosed world of Mystery Hunt is one in which minds that occupy the loneliness of infinite space can seek solace in the neat organization of clues arranged by a tidier, more comprehensible hand than God’s.

My girlfriend met me at the airport yesterday ~~~~~ and it made me so happy!  Possibly one of the happiest moments in my life.