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Welcome to my underwater home. This is my personal space so I can keep track of all of my many ideas, memories, projects, lists, and so on. Born and raised in San Jose, California, my aim in life is to become the person I truly admire. In pursuit of that goal, I study the art of communication design, interaction design, and knowledge management to communicate to the public my own sense of humanity.

yellowtailshark's Xanga

anthropology \ \ \ Dissecting Love

Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studies the psychobiochemical basis of love, has been a prominent researcher in the dating industry. I thought to study the phenomena of love as it has affected me in a blind-sighted kind of way. For many years, I couldn't feel anything, and thought that if I were to engage in a relationship, it would be a kind of sterile contractual obligation. Oh dear, it seems I'm just a late bloomer. Maybe it's odd for me to dissect my feelings and thinking. There's a part of me that wants to resist being subjugated to almost uncontrollable feelings. But as of late, it seems I can't rise above it. I'm sure there have been many intellectuals who wish to be able to control their impulses and instincts. But others have defended it as one of those traits that make you human. I'm at the stage where maybe it's about time to embrace it, rather than fighting it.

A friend suggested that I memorize emotionally-related vocabulary and practice how to identify how I feel, in essence, to raise my emotional literacy. In order to practice, I have to update my Facebook status every few days. So to start off, I feel insecure and apprehensive in embracing what I have considered for so long my hidden "demon", that emotions made me weak. But today, I'm changing that notion. Emotions make me human. Hah, as if to say I've been a robot all this time. Maybe I have been, locked in a mellow-amiable generic emotion.

Fisher also mentions that if you try to clear your mind of the person you love, it makes the longing stronger. So I'm worried about struggling to move on. But I'm reminded of the advice I gave to a homeless man when I was at a Vietnamese student conference in Portland, Oregon last week. During the scavenger hunt on Thursday night, I was assigned to a station on a bridge. I stood out there for about 2 hours alone, not knowing that they postponed the starting time by an hour-and-a-half. My station was near homeless folks and crackheads, which scared me, because I was sitting on the railing, feet tired, waiting, apprehensive at the possibility of being pushed over the edge, for about 2 hours, being too well-dressed, and the only Asian American on the block. What passed the time and calmed my nerves a bit was one particular homeless man who came up to me and talked about being a wanderer of sorts, and rejecting the material comfort that society induces us to consume. He was an intellectual who became almost an aescetic, but it was clear to me he was abusing substances to calm his nerves and find escape from the pain of surviving. "I don't know where to travel next. I feel like I'm stuck," he says to me. And I told him, "Why is it that we have to pick a destination before we travel? Couldn't we just travel and let the journey define us?" In the end I concluded, "We just have to inch along, no matter how painful, and especially when we feel stuck. You can't hope to get lucky and improve your lot by staying in the same place." Now I have to turn that advice back onto myself. It might be painful, this love thing, the strongest feeling to date. But I have to inch along and hopefully find respite in another place. "Thank you," the man says to me. We never introduced our names, because names were unnecessary when two souls understood one another. "You're not aggressive like other people I meet." My fellow, it is because I have walked in your shoes before.

life \ \ \ The Third Sign

Dearest Sammie, daughter yet unborn,

In the past few weeks, I have asked myself to do things that were inconceivable. In short, to abandon my plans and create a new one from scratch, one so wholly different as to warrant a heart attack. Your grandmother (my mother) was hard-pressed to accept it, but ultimately yielded. Being stuck in undergraduate purgatory continued to extinguish what little flame I have left. Being bitten by the lovebug of the most virulent strain altered my mental state. And my graceful transition in the Vietnamese community is taking root, the seeds I have spent 5 years sowing in building a new organization.

This past weekend, I met an old friend from high school at our mutual friend's wedding. She has been recovering from a 3 year hermitage, and is now walking the path that she wanted to define herself: to study aquatic biology and pursue her passion in studying animals and sharing her discoveries. She told me, "The one thing I remember you most for, Bao, is that you were a writer." She is the Third Sign. The Second Sign, was a conversation in which my best friend asked me, "What do you want to be?" I never gave it much thought, so I blurted what was on my mind: to become a writer. The First Sign is another friend I met in college who has supported my endeavor at writing for years, even when my creative ink was on hold these past few years, when I thought writing only as a hobby, rather than a reason to live.

That same friend, the First Sign, has now proposed to me the idea of traveling the world for one year. As I have never lived outside of the state, this idea gave me butterflies in my stomach. Most people, I find, would be uncomfortable with the idea of disentangling themselves from everything they knew, and leaving their foundations.

My best friend, my Second Sign, told me about the problem of feeling homeless when traveling abroad. This was one of the issues I wanted to address with my dream of building that Vietnamese American community center. How can we find home no matter where we travel? I feel I must remove myself from this place and know what it is that I truly miss, and what is needed to reconnect with that space in a meaningful, yet distant, way. When I had a dream of you, you were talking to your mother remotely, through video teleconferencing, in Korean, talking about Korean drama.

In the coming months, I should moving out of the house, getting rid of everything that I have not touched in over a year. I will probably crashing with my friend until I have a steady income to pay the rent, simultaneously working on design jobs, and saving up money for a one-year excursion into the world unknown, conditions permitting. I told my friends about my role models, albeit imperfect yet human, Chris Messina and Tara Hunt, adherents to the Open Source ethos. They challenge the world. And they build software tools to bring humanity back to technology, and vice versa. I'm desperately trying to learn a software development platform, Ruby on Rails, in order to do the same, because I do believe that the most personal obstacle to resolving the problems of the world, is just being able to communicate with each other, your friends. "You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you feeling alright?" my Third Sign asks.

Yours truly,

As-of-yet father

ars poetica \ \ \ Chessmaster's Dilemma

A most formidable opponent
One I can't predict
A rarity who could strike fear
And send chills down my neck

She sits across from me
Pensively contemplating
And when she makes her move
I'm left deliberating
What move I next should make
A critical moment for me
An irregular heartbeat
Crippled by all the possibilities

If I should move the pawn
And maintain the "nice guy" rapport
Then my heart would only crush me
As I yearn for more
The kind of man who supports her
Yet remain locked out her door
That ultimately wastes my time
When she finds another to adore
A courteous drive around town
Or a cheerful message on her phone
A cordial hug and handshake
Would be the most I would've ever known

If I should play the bishop
And take her to see the world
The most beautiful cathedral
To see an exquisite mural
And take her to a mountain
To see the city lights
And watch the meteor shower
Among the constellations of the night
Or inspire her with visions
Of a beautiful tomorrow
Give her every opportunity and contact
And my time for her to borrow

If I should move the knight
And play full contact sport
And by that I mean
Having my presence be her comfort
Whether holding her hand
While pushing through the club
Or adding an extra second and squeeze
Whenever we meet and hug
And tickling her feet with my own
At the table where we now sit
And rubbing her neck and shoulders
Whenever time permits

If I should play the rook
And become a breadwinner
And court her practically
By cleaning and cooking dinner
And completing her to-do list
Until her free time increases
And help her become closer
To her nephews and nieces
And editing her business plan
Or compiling news reports
And being her partner, doubles
While playing the tennis courts

If I should play the queen
And become more feminist than she is
And pray for that day
When women are fairly treated
Yet entertain her amusement
When she talks about rings,
Skin care, bracelets, fashion,
Korean drama and that sort of thing
Not to say that I'm on her leash
But understanding her need
To be an independent woman
To assure her that she can succeed

If I should play the king
And she's the kind of girl-next-door
I'd caress her cheek and neck
And tell her "I'm yours"
Playing mind games constantly
Till she comes back begging
For me and my approval
While I'm out amidst my flings
Defending my arrogance
And treat her like property
Or a sex object or whore
And living in a melange of misery

But before I could make my move
We pause the game and suspend
She answers her cell phone:
A dinner invitation from her friend
She asks if I'd like to go
I said, "Yeah, sure, why not?"
She wants to introduce me to someone
"I kinda like him, he's hot!"
I stared at the board awhile
And resigned to my fate
She never thought to see me that way
So I opted to stalemate.