Half-Post 1

Old posts where I was too lazy to look up Macrocosm stuff:

My aunt, a beautiful Mexican woman who married my uncle, is pregnant, and she hopes it's a boy because "it's easier to be a man than a woman."

In this day and age and country, I should be surprised by a comment like that.

But I wasn't. Gender inequality is still very prevalent here, and it's not just the men who perpetuate it. It's pop culture phenomenons like Twilight and the fans who love it. It's the girls who fantasize about big, strong men to protect them.

Having steadily avoided the books, I finally gave into my curiosity and watched the movie today. I instantly understood the appeal of the series and the romance between Edward and Bella.

Bella is an intelligent, independent, and strong-minded girl. But soon after meeting Edward and falling head over heels in love with him, she quickly becomes a damsel in distress.

After Bella is attacked by James, she sits in the hospital bed and thanks Edward for saving her life. But as Edward points out, she wouldn't be in danger if it weren't for him.

In the scene where she and Edward are running away from the evil vampires, he pushes her into the car and starts to buckle her seat belt for her until she insists she can do it herself. That's probably the only time she isn't waiting for Edward to protect her.

In other films like The Talented Mr. Ripley Marge says of her fiance Dickie:

The thing with Dickie... it's like the sun shines on you, and it's glorious. And
then he forgets you and it's very, very cold.... When you have his attention,
you feel like you're the only person in the world, that's why everybody loves
him so much.

She knows that Dickie is unfaithful yet not only does she not confront him, but she continues to love him, seemingly without reciprocation.

Natalie Krinsky Yale '07 and writer of the novel Chloe Does Yale observes the difference between the expectations of college women and men:

As women prepare to enter college, they are told that they will meet the man they are going to marry. . . . Guys, on the other hand, are fed a completely different fantasy. . . . despite the fact that some of their hopes are dashed, it seems that they continue to make the rules. They can pursue one, two, three - hell, six women at once. Why can't we do the same? Are we unable? Or are we simply too well trained?

I think Krinsky's questions get to the heart of my aunt's statement.

Mommy can handle this

Macrocosm - Today's Headlines

Father warns US about plane bomb suspect's behavior
Once again, we fail to prevent crises that could have been avoided. And now we're taking preventive measures after the fact. On top of the ridiculously long security checks there will be pat-downs and passengers have to stay seated the last hour of flight. It makes you wonder how much personal privacy we should give up for national security.

Mystery No More: Scholars Finds Clue to van Gogh's Ear

"For years disputes have raged over what really happened to van Gogh’s ear just before Christmas 1888. Some have blamed his mental illness, others have said he was driven mad by lead in his paints."

Or maybe he cut off his ear because his favorite song was just butchered. That's exactly what I wanted to do when I heard this:

Microcosm - My Head Lines

As a write this, Shrek 2 is playing in the background. Prince Charming's mother, who is also the fairy godmother, is hilarious.

Sooo... notice anything new? Haha after a couple days of obsessing over how to represent slowing time and macro/microcosms I decided to use a photo I took of Old Campus when it first snowed in New Haven! Lots of photoshopping and voila!

Photoshop is like riding a bicycle. I taught myself how to use it years ago, when I used to design websites. I haven't done it in so long, and it felt really good to start it up again, to play with the program and watch the pictures change like magic.

My aunt asked me the other day what my hobby was, and my mind just went blank. As busy as I was, as many activities I had done over the years - debate, Girl Scouts, crocheting- I didn't really have a hobby. Was there anything I particularly enjoyed doing? Omg, what do I live for? Ok too dramatic.

But seriously, if you didn't have a hobby - something you put your energy into and looked forward to - did that mean that you were just passing your life doing obligatory, routine things? The saying is "If you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Well, work is work for a lot of people I know. We always assume this is because they don't have the luxury of choosing a career they love.

But what if it's also that they don't know what they love? That they never got the opportunity to find out?

I guess that's what college is for. I'll keep that in mind when blue booking (Yale-lingo for selecting courses)

Who is Monet?

Microcosm - My Head Lines

For the past few days, I have been hanging out in the lovely town of Chico, California helping my aunt and uncle at their dry cleaning shop.

Even people like my aunt, who has isolated herself from our family and lives in a little house on a giant orange farm by herself, wants company.

Yesterday, I visited her. The house was freezing cold. The heater was broken and the night before, the electricity had been turned off. She told me she still survived. Survived.

My aunt told me that a little boy prayed on Christmas day that all people would have what they need and some of what they want.

She had survived but I don't think she even had what she needed. She needed human interaction.

I think even the most antisocial people don't want to be alone. It might be because everyone needs someone to talk to, but I think it's deeper than that. It's the concept behind Obama's decision to appoint people with diverse viewpoints in his cabinet. The most satisfactory outcomes are the result of different inputs.

The Constitution was the work of 55 men from different regions who debated and built off one another's ideas to come up with the framework of the U.S. government. And it's still working pretty well today. Imagine how good it would be if there were women at the Constitutional Convention.

Humans need other humans to correct their weaknesses and add to their thoughts. People crave a sustainable life, and the only way to do that is to interact with many different people. But it's receiving and giving, and sometimes you get tired of opening yourself to others, tired of reacting to reactions. I think that's why people close themselves to others so completely, like my aunt. Kind of like me, sometimes.

By the way, I know who Monet is. He's not the father of modern art. It's Cezanne. I was watching a rerun of Jeopardy.

have a holly, jolly Christmas

Macrocosm - Today's Headlines
Despite more jobless, crime rates drop
But then policemen will be laid off, then crime rates will go up, then more police will be hired until an equilibrium is reached where Desperation exactly equals Security.

Sorcery charges on the rise in Saudi Arabia
"the religious police are trying to flex their muscles in the few ways they still can, including looking for people who practice magic or who don't pray five times a day, and for women who don't properly cover their hair"

Microcosm - My Head Lines

Gene was a lonely, introverted intellectual.
Phineas was a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete.
What happened between them at school one summer during the early years of World War II is the subject of A Separate Peace.

With a blurb like that, it's just incredibly hard not to, uh, read between the lines of passages like this one:

Finny and I went along the Boardwalk in our sneakers and white slacks, Finny in a light blue polo shirt and I in a T-shirt. I noticed that people were looking fixedly at him, so I took a look myself to see why. His skin radiated a reddish copper glow of tan . . . and I noticed that the tan made his eyes shine with a cool blue-green fire.

Anyways.

I'm going to confession today, which of course, gets me thinking about sin.
There's actually a special format for confession. You have to go through all the ten commandments and think about which ones you broke. Well I forgot them, which is probably an unwritten sin right there, so I looked them up online:

1. You shall have no other Gods but me.
Okay I'm good.

2. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
Um, have you seen Daniel Day-Lewis in "The Last of the Mohicans"?

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
So it's "Oh, my gosh" from now on, no matter how dorky it may be.

4. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
If only professors kept this in mind when giving exams on Monday.

5. Respect your father and mother.
This is the one I always tell the priest, although I'm a pretty good kid. Or my parents are just exceptionally cool.

6. You must not kill.
Okay so what if someone confesses to a priest that he killed someone? Is the priest still sworn to secrecy? Even if it was Scott Peterson? And how many "Hail Mary"s would he have to say to repent for this sin?

7. You must not commit adultery.
I'm no Tiger Woods.

8. You must not steal.
All that food I took from the dining hall that's stashed in my room is included in my meal plan, right?

9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
I've never done that. That guy did. I saw him.

10. You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.
How can this be helped at Yale when there are girls everywhere with gorgeous clothes, talent, and brains?

I wonder if it's wrong of me to do this. I mean these are the sacred Ten Commandments. You don't make pop culture references.
You don't comment about them on your blog.
You don't take them lightly.

Sin = bad = guilty = wrong = satanic
This has always been the formula that most religions use to get followers to do the right thing. But we've seen so many cases where enforcing rigid restrictions on people and stigmatizing sin to such a high degree has proved hypocritical or created the opposite effect:

The Scarlet Letter
An actually really pious woman with a disgusting husband has to wear a big fat A on her chest while the priest who knocked her up is revered until he finally dies of guilt.

The Crime of the Padre Amaro
Celibacy => Forbidden romance => Tragic abortion

See headline #2 above

Fortunately, I've noticed a shift in attitude toward sin. Nowadays, it's not as important to avoid sin so much as realize when you have sinned and try your best to not do it again. We choose not to sin because of the benefits of not sinning rather than out of fear of punishment. Priests don't scare people into being good Christians by describing the fires of eternal damnation anymore. They describe the peace of mind that comes from regular prayer and the joy of doing good for others.

Thank gosh for that.

khong phai cua em

Macrocosm - Today's Headlines:

Holiday sales strong over weekend except in snow-drenched Northeast
The Blizzard of 2009 slows shopping but retailers hope for "pent-up demand."

Senate Democrats Warn House Not to Toy With Health Bill

The Senate finally got enough votes to pass its version of the health care bill but now needs to chat with the House and come up with a joint bill and once again muster the 60 votes it needs to pass THAT version. Ladies and gentlemen, the legislative branch - "slow and deliberate so as to avoid hasty and unwise decisions." Ah American democracy <3.

Brittany Murphy Dies at 32
Millions of people die everyday. But a celebrity death is slower, I think. Not literally but afterwards, when the world investigates every detail of the death, relives it, speculates on the no-doubt Hollywood-related pressures or lifestyle that drove this young woman to her somehow more tragic end.

Microcosm - My Head Lines:

A particular scene in The Illusionist, a 2006 film starring Yale-man Edward Norton, inspired my blog's title, Slow the Flow. His character, Eisenheim, prefaces a magic trick that seems to slow the fall of an orange:

From the moment we enter this life we are in the flow of it. We measure it and we mock it, but we cannot defy it. We cannot even speed it up or slow it down. Or can we? Have we not each experienced the sensation that a beautiful moment seemed to pass to quickly, and wished that we could make it linger?

This blog is meant to make the moments linger. To describe what is going on at this moment in time - in the macrocosm (current political and world events) and the microcosm (my life), in essence slowing the flow of time. Each post will be titled with the sounds I heard before the post to "recreate" the moment. A Vietnamese-dubbed Chinese drama is playing on TV in the background. I am in the yellow-lighted foyer of my quiet, suburban house, typing away on a wooden, varnished desk on my precious HP laptop. clack clack humm clack.

A central theme of my posts will be about my years of college at Yale, which I suspect will define my life. You know how once you meet someone or learn something, it suddenly seems to show up everywhere? But maybe those people or things were always there, but now your eyes and mind know to look for it. It's the same with Yale. Yale is everywhere and maybe always has been.

I'm reading a book, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I'm reading it because I know it's a recommended reading, classic, critically acclaimed book. I read it so I can feel as if I'm using my winter break wisely. I make myself read it - though self-imposed it isn't voluntary. I make my own rules, but it's anarchy. Anyways, I read it half-heartedly until I see that Mr. Knowles went to Exeter and then Yale University. The book is doubly important now, it's doubly imperative that I read my fellow Yalie's hailed literary achievement. But whY?

Y? School pride?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. At the moment.