Since I’ve moved to the graduate students apartment 3 years ago, I’ve been running or walking around the cross-country trail at least once a week, I’ve also taken the shuttle bus to and from the main campus many times a week. But I don’t understand how I could have not noticed the wild raspberries ripening among the many many wild raspberry bushes along the trail and the road during the previous summers.

How could I have missed them the past 2 summers? I only started noticing the wild raspberries when someone pointed it out to me during a hiking trip early this month.

And then, all of a sudden, I’m seeing them everywhere. They are everywhere along the trail. People are parking their cars haphazardly along the road just to pick free raspberries. I’ve even picked and ate a few.

Why didn’t I notice the wild raspberries before? It’s perplexing and somewhat troubling.

Anyway, we saw a snake during the hiking trip.

The Dalai Lama is at Lehigh for a week-long teaching. I was a volunteer at today’s public lecture on “Generating a Good Heart”. Since tickets for the public lecture is sold out, being a volunteer is the only way I get to hear his talk.

I took copious notes. It’s not easy to understand him. Aside from his accent, he forms his sentences differently, which is quite typical of non-native English speakers. He also had his own translator beside him helping him out. After the public lecture, there was a Question and Answer session with preselected questions.

I tried to keep to his words but sometimes that may not make any sense, so I edited some parts of it.

Question 1: If you were not the Dalai Lama, what life would you pursue?

DL: That question no interest (laughter, pause). Most probably engineer, engineering.

Question 2: Why do you think there’s so many people suffering from anxiety and depression in the U.S.?

DL: Wrong person to ask, should ask American (laughter).

People always want something new and something more. People have big mission (DL makes a circle with his hands), life becomes boring but still have to go that way (gestures round and round the circle).

Excessive consumerism (DL gave example of Japan 20 years ago).

Your economy, your lifestyle, you’re the richest nation. Material values, there’s limitation because you want more. Without content, too much competition, ambition, self-centered, everything blame others.

Gap between rich and poor (DL gave example of pockets of poor people in Washington DC). This is morally wrong. Practically, this also cause many problems.

All external problems can never be solved. Change our attitude, we get more peace. (DL gave example of an old Tibetan story about covering the earth with leather in order to cover every thorn that pricks us. It is easier to cover our own small soul instead of covering the whole earth).

Unrealistic expectation. If there’s no way to overcome, no use to worry.
If Buddhist, blame on karma (laughter).
If believe a creator, then blame God (laughter).

Question 3: Is it possible to exist as a sovereign nation with a policy of non-violence?

DL: That one quite complicated.

This question very complicated, I don’t know.

Question 4: What do you think is needed to help all the children of the world?

DL: Mother’s care

Education. Secular not separate from religion, but secular equals to religion.

Question 5: What is your advice in the world of rising religious fundamentalism?

DL: Religious harmony. 4 ways

2. Meeting with practitioner

Exchange to understand other practices. [DL talked about meeting with Lady Thomas Burton (I think I got this name wrong) and a monk who stayed many months as a hermit in the mountains. DL asked the hermit what he did during those months. Hermit said that he meditated on love. DL summarized that theistic follower also meditate on love like a Buddhist.]

3. Group to group visits

Go to different Holy places (DL talked about his pilgrimage to Jerusalem).

Buddha is teacher, not God. (DL said that sometimes he is required to teach Christians about God and it is very difficult because he is a believer of a non-theistic religion).

4. Leaders of different religion come together speak with one voice…peace.

Mischievous people among the different religion: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. These people (terrorist) cannot represent their religion.

Since September 11, I’m trying to reach out to Muslims. The 15th DL provided to the Muslims in Tibet….(the translator corrected DL that it is the 13th not 15th) (DL chuckled) 15th DL not yet come, when come? I don’t know.

Spinning (Indoor cycling): I absolutely love it. I’m not sure why I like it so much. During spinning, I have to physically work really hard, but at the same time, the rhythm of the cycling movements is very relaxing.

It is also a relatively “easy” form of exercise. Since I am controlling the resistance of the spinner (stationary bike), if it gets too tough, I can turn down the resistance or cycle slower. And there’s no choreography or movements to memorize (such as those in dance or aerobic classes).

Spinning is definitely less strenuous than running. Running is hard. I think I have given up on running. I started running just to push myself to do something that I never thought I would do. Even though I ran consistently for many months, I don’t think I really enjoyed running. I was slow and it was really tough mentally and physically to keep going and going.

Yeah, I love spinning

Oh, did I mention that I was in extreme pain after my first spinning class? And the extreme pain lasted 4 days!

My legs (especially my thighs) hurt so bad. It was painful to stand up. It was painful to sit down. It was painful to walk. It was painful to go down the stairs. It was painful to get into my car. I could hardly sleep because of the pain. I never imagined cycling could cause such intense chronic pain.

Thankfully, the pain went away after 1 week. Now spinning is pure enjoyment. However, it’s hard to sell spinning to my friends. I tell them it will hurt like crazy for 1 week but they will really like it after that. But my descriptions of my extremely painful week must be scaring them off.

Or maybe it is this Danish instructor that is scaring everyone away from spinning?

After watching numerous ads of Wendy’s new spicy baconator, I was persuaded to try it. The Spicy Baconator consists of 2 beef patties, 2 slices of pepper jack cheese, 6 strips of bacon, jalapeno peppers and chipotle ranch sauce on a bun. Total calories=880. Calories from fat=500!!

Today, I packed my bag with all the materials that I need for an afternoon of dissertation work in the library, took the shuttle bus to the main campus, and walked to the nearest Wendy’s for lunch.

The place was packed and there was a long line. I stood in line behind a lady with her toddler daughter in a stroller (aka stroller lady). Three spaces ahead of me was a small group of ladies and two of them were dressed in the weirdest “fashion”.

One of them was wearing a brightly colored polka dot bikini top with a thin white halter-top over the bikini top. The other lady was wearing a white sports bra-like top with a very low cut orange tank top over that (aka orange lady). That’s very unusual dressing, especially, when the temperature was 7C outside. I guess they could have pulled off that dressing if they had supermodel bodies but both of them were very heavy-set.

They definitely caught my eye, but I was busy mentally debating whether to have fries or a healthier side salad with my burger. And then to my utter dismay, the stroller lady started talking out loud.

“I cannot believe people will actually dress like that and walk out of the house.”

Then supposedly talking to her toddler in the stroller, “You will never ever dress like that. I won’t let you walk out of the house dress like that.”

“What were they thinking dressing like that?!”

Then a mother with her 2 teenage daughters behind me started chuckling and nodding in agreement. I was horrified that a cat fight may erupt right there and then. And I would be the innocent bystander who got hit for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The oddly dressed ladies had already placed their orders and were talking to each other in Spanish. I crossed my fingers hoping they didn’t hear those comments. They eventually walked away with their order and stroller lady went up to the counter.

Then the orange lady came back to the counter for more sour cream and gave the stroller lady an “if looks could kill” stare. Stroller lady didn’t return the stare but looked at her daughter and said, “You will never ever dress like that, ever!”

That was a very tense moment but thankfully orange lady just walked away. Stroller lady was definitely asking for it, very confrontational. Anyway, I’m glad that confrontation went by uneventfully.

I chose fries. I thought, what the heck, I’ll just overload my arteries with fat today and have almost vegetarian meals the next few days. The spicy baconator wasn’t that great. It was rather tasteless except for the hot jalapeno peppers that reminded me of cut pickled green chili that goes with wantan mee. But the jalapeno peppers were cut thicker and were spicier, pretty good, I’ll look for a bottle of that the next time I go food shopping.

I was never much of a gamer. When I was around 10, I was “tricked” by my brothers to pitch in my CNY angpow money so that “we” could get a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. I think I ended up playing only about 1% of the time.

This year, just before my birthday, my brother introduced me to the Patapon online demo and the Playstation Portable (PSP: the only platform that plays Patapon). Before long, I’m totally sucked into this PSP/Patapon craze and the PSP became a must-have item.

I still don’t really know why I had to get it.

For a while, I’ve been thinking of saving some money to get a videocamera for my dissertation research. But now that I’m in the midst of writing up the research proposal, I’m sort of sick of doing everything and thinking about the research proposal all the time. I didn’t want to get a work-gift for my birthday. At the same time, I wanted something “fun” to soothe my one-third-life crisis. So I got the PSP for my birthday.

The PSP also plays music. So once again, I could actually have music while driving without having to fix the “locked” stereo player in the car.

However, the main push to get the PSP was the Patapon game. But it was only recently released and I still haven’t received the game yet. (On the PSP screen is a photo that I took in Roach, MO)

No Patapon?!! Then the PSP is only 1/3 the fun. So I tried to download the demo. Unfortunately, the demo is not downloadable to a Mac. So I went down to a PC in the computer lab and tried to download it there. But, I couldn’t get the installer to work because I didn’t have administrator rights on the PC in the lab.

Out of desperation, I dug out my old Toshiba laptop that I haven’t used for two years. I’m very surprised that it actually booted up. But the demo still wouldn’t work. I think it’s because of the low-speed USB port. Anyway, there’s nothing else to do but wait for the game to arrive…

I’ve already contributed my share of helping out the US economy and done enough damage to my own pocket. No more spending money to get a case for the PSP. I found this bottle cooler sleeve that I got at the Women’s 5K Classic expo. I think it works fine.

A nice birthday cake for my brother, Aaron, to see,
and for me to enjoy

The birthday auto-gift dilemma remains unresolved:
To patapon or not to patapon?

12:45am

I was about to go to bed and the fire alarm went off. I quickly stuffed my laptop, camera, purse and cellphone into a bag. Grabbed my coat and car-keys. Knocked on roommate’s door to make sure that she’s aware of the fire alarm. Quickly went outside the building and into my car. Waited for the policemen and firemen to come and check out the situation. Captured a short video.

1:20am

Back in my room and worked on this video. Extreme blogger behavior…

It has been really cold the past 2 weeks. Duh creek is now frozen solid.

In preparation for my dissertation, I have to observe several individuals with disabilities in their employment settings. This is so that I can see where they are working, what they are doing, who they interact with, what target behaviors I can work on, where I can set up the videocamera…all the practical aspects of doing research in applied settings.

Unfortunately, one of them works in the warehouse section of a large departmental store, the other volunteers at a Salvation Army thrift store, and both places are located in the largest mall area in town. I’m exposed to all the big discounts in the dept store and if I can’t afford those, I end up spending an hour observing my potential research participant tidy up racks and racks of $3.99 stuff at the thrift store.

“What you don’t have, you don’t need it now”
“Buy Less: Live More”

I should quickly walk out of the stores and drive straight home. But I don’t

On the bright side, the asian store is nearby so I can stock up on the ingredients that I need to make all the good stuff that I’ve been reading about on some Malaysian food blogs.

I spent the last two days organizing the clutter in my room and I’m only 1/4 done with the task. Tomorrow will be another day set aside for organizing and decluttering. I don’t think I’m much of a pack rat but how come I still end up with piles of stuff. Paper clutter is the worst - I have print-outs of all sorts going back to don’t know when.

I have set aside the last day of each month as my recycling/decluttering day. I do separate out paper and cardboard “trash” for recycling but because I don’t take them out, the movable clutter remains in the apartment. So starting this year, on my recycling day, I’ll take out all the recyclable stuff and place them into their respective recycling bins.

I have also set a forbidden zone in my room: Absolutely no paper, books, magazines or catalogs on the floor. From my experience, once a paper pile develops, it stays there till the next new year resolution day. And because a paper pile can only go so high, another new one will spawn within a short time. So no more paper pile on the floor this year!

While I was back in Malaysia, I was inspired by the greening the environment section in the local newspaper. Somebody said that he will shower only once a week to conserve water!! Ever since I came back, I have been using my own shopping bags when I go grocery shopping. That has drastically reduced the monstrous mountain of plastic bags in the closet.

And lastly, when I think I need to get more stuff, I should sing this line from U2’s Beautiful Day:
What you don’t have you don’t need it now!