La musica

Stuck in traffic, exhausted from work, I walked in late into the practice room and heard this piece of bossa nova music being played on the strings as an audience. You should see the grin on my face. Suddenly, music erased all my other negative emotions and brought me joy. It is one of those beautiful things in life that could make me smile.

Playing music makes me feel alive. Singing makes me feel alive too. It is one of the best things that humankind has created.

Mi piace molto la musica!

Earthquake on the Laguna Salada Fault

On April 4, 2010 at 3:40pm local time, I felt the first earthquake in my life. I heard the ceiling cracking. I felt the ground shaking a little. At first I thought it was someone moving a huge piece of furniture upstairs. I was about to go upstairs and find out what happened. I then realized there was no way anyone could produce such cracking and rumbling on the wooden floor. I immediately dashed toward my desk and hid under it. I could feel the floor shaking slightly.

It was a great experience - the first ever earthquake experience in my life - and that's why it's noteworthy!

EDIT: It happened on the Cucapa-El Mayor fault that was last ruptured probably more than 10,000 years ago!

Sisterhood

Sisters fight, argue and patch up. They pull pranks on each other. When they are young, the older sister pretty much enslaves the little one, but a little one still willingly obeys orders and still looks up to her older sister. People will think they look alike but they don't think so themselves. They share inside jokes that no one else understands, especially jokes about their parents and relatives. They do the silliest things in the world together. They cry and laugh together. They share their clothes and cosmetics (no, not underwear). They sleep in the same bed especially when they are drunk after parties. They talk about their boyfriends, crushes and ex-boyfriends (and if they ever do get married, of course their husbands). They are honest with each other, even if honest words are not pleasant to the ear. They will phone each other in the middle of the night, and sometimes just to talk about nothing. They can be their true selves in front of each other because they just don't care what impression they make since they have known each other inside out since the birth of the younger sister. They don't do things to impress, they do things to make each other happy. They love each other for who they are.

I am very fortunate to have a sister like her to grow up and grow old with me.

I love you Lulu Tsang.

Nice vs. thoughtful

Being thoughtful is a step further from just being nice because most of the time it involves some sort of sacrifice and a higher level of self-awareness and selflessness.

I consider being nice pretty much as being helpful, friendly and not ill-willed. A nice person will help others out when being asked or he will offer help when he sees an obvious need of someone. However, a thoughtful person is not only a nice person, but will stop thinking only about himself for a moment and think for others as well. He will be more observant of others' subtle needs and emotions and make the move to assist others in any way he can before being asked.

A selfish person can still be a nice person, but a thoughtful person can never be selfish.

Nice people are everywhere. Thoughtful people are the rare ones...

Writing Again

I admit I am not a good writer, that is why I have to write more. Language fascinates me. Sometimes we have ideas and concepts in our mind that seem to be ineffable, only because we lack the vocabulary and language skills to express ourselves. In fact I believe many brilliant ideas can be conveyed in words, even more, the same concept can be described in various ways through words.

I think I have to write regularly to learn the vocabulary that I come across daily. I have been keeping a list of new words I see every day, but as the list gets longer, the new words that I learned have replaced the old ones that I used to know. In other words, my repertoire did not expand but had been constantly overwritten. Learning vocabulary is like learning a song. You have to sing it to know it, right?

I do not like my writing style either because my expression lacks terseness. When people explain an idea in ten words, I usually have to use twice as many words to achieve the same goal. Sometimes I wonder if I am dyslexic...

Anyway, here I am writing about frivolity again! Thanks for reading this!