Americans
Americans are the tourists of the world.
The Economist recently wrote an article about American isolationism (and, as a sidenote, about how
Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened to make Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man and a grandfather, do 500 situps [use the 'Find' option when you are at the page of this link and type 'buffett']), and talks about how American support for isolationism is on the rise. Increasingly, there is support for withdrawal from Iraq and the rest of the world.
The way that most Americans speak of the world, it is a similar tone: we'll just retreat to our boundaries, and let other countries take care of themselves, while we take care of ourselves.
Even Americans who go abroad bring with them their entire load of prejudices and cultural ideas: I had a good friend of mine spend an entire year in England. At the end of it, he told me he missed his US of A, and that Europe felt positively communist to him. While there is an element of truth to what he says, it also betrays the fact that he had spent the entire year looking at everything around him through his own set of goggles, and he hasn't changed or altered that mental paradigm at all.
Worse, there are other Americans who go around the world, telling other countries that they should do what Americans do back home. I've heard a lot of Americans do that, especially when I was in Germany and Europe.
The worst thing, however, is that they couple this ignorance of the world with the feeling that they can 'go home' and leave the rest of the world behind.
It is really appalling, that the citizens of the world's leading nation are essentially tourists.
America is a land of tourists, who want to leave the world and return home.
Michigan? or NUS?
I got accepted into University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for Industrial Engineering (M.Sc.).
They're ranked in the top 3 of the US, and that's quite a thrill.
But at the same time, the expense is prohibitive. And there are more downsides than upsides: it's in a place which is freaking freezing (I'm really a warm weather person), I'm going to be away from my parents, my gf, and in addition to that, I wouldn't be able to take other enrichment classes that I want, nor will I be able to travel around Southeast Asia (namely Vietnam) should I want to...
Mostly, I won't be able to be with my gf, which is a major bummer.
I've dropped off my NUS application with my father, and hopefully I'll get accepted by them...
In all honesty, part of the reason is I want to be with my gf in Sing.
We've been apart for far too long, and I'm quite sick of the US, to be honest... I much prefer the bustle and excitement of Asia to the complacent West. The hunger for change, and improvement, and the prevalence of technology. That is what is missing from the US.
The gringos have exchanged the American dream for Crate and Barrel's vision of it.
Getting Things Done
I've been using bits and pieces of
Dave Allen's Getting Things Done system, in particular with his principles of capturing what's on your mind i.e. your incomplete "open loops" (which you usually fret and think about, but which you aren't capable or willing to execute and "close" the loop at that point in time) into various baskets. In my case, my basket is an open-email from my email program, in which I list all the stuff that I have to do.
There's also an art of listing: putting an item like "Groceries", "settle lawyer", "placate horny other-half" is about as useful as using a dodo for time management. The list of 'stuff' needs to be explicit and clear. Preferably, it should be the 'next action step', spelled out so that when you look at the list, you know exactly what to do. So instead of "groceries", put "buy lettuce, tomatoes and mushrooms"; instead of "work on assignment", put "start reading pages 1-4 of reader; summarize".
You then routinely clear your basket by looking through each item and deciding one of four options: do it, defer it, delegate it, or drop it.
It's amazing, but just these basic principles got me off my arse, and got me to get a lot more things done than I can recall.
Without the stress from the usual "prioritization" recommended by other time-management gurus.
Dave Allen points out a very important thing: what we
should be managing is not
time, but our
actions.
I haven't had the time this weekend to finish reading his book, but I've read enough to get me excited about it... can't wait to get more tidbits for improving my ability to get things done!
(And do I sound AMERICAN... or what??)
A number of thoughts
Dunno leh. I'm very tired right now...
I haven't posted much on this blog for the longest time, mostly because the past week has been super hectic.
My old man has come up to visit me, which was a very pleasant prospect. The only problem was that he was going to be based in f$%@king
Woodlands instead of the city center of H-town!!
(For those who don't know, the Woodlands is about an hour's drive on the highway from downtown Houston. )
And, I don't have a car.
Heck, I don't even have a driving license. Last week I asked a good friend of mine to take me to the Texas DPS for testing, so that I can convert my photo driving permit into a proper license... the instructional permit of mine already has the words "Texas Driver's license" on the front, and most people don't turn the card around to see the fine print at the back....
I didn't get to take the test, but I managed to rent a car anyway as they aren't too stringent about it. So I spent the weekend getting ready to pick my dad up, which I did (the plane was 2 hours late), and spent a lot of time driving around, getting stuff, moving stuff (like luggage), etc.
In the end, I hardly had any time of my own to sit down and study for the exam, which I just took.
Nor did I have any time to do the homework due tomorrow, which, honestly, I couldn't care less about right now.
I'm just really tired. And wishing desperately that someone else was here by my side, while her pictures are pasted all over my wall...
Extreme exhaustion
Right now I'm super tired.
But I just want to say that I've discovered Dave Allen's "Getting Things Done", and the first chapter itself is highly inspirational and very useful.
Will type more next time.
Indians: The Italians of Asia?
Well, I know at least one beautiful Indian girl who has been mistaken for an Italian/Portuguese/Spanish lady umpteen times... it so happens I'm also in love with her.
But that's a digression of this topic which I want to discuss. Are Indians the Italians of the East?
Language: The respective languages are both extremely sweet sounding to the ear. Both come from the same Indo-European roots.
Body Language: Italians are not the only ones to gesticulate wildly with their hands while speaking. Indians have a tendency to do that, in addition to wobbling their heads and saying "har, har..."
Both cultures are relatively unabashed, and very demonstrative of emotions. Extremely verbal.
Well, of course such a comparison is completely flawed and meaningless. But who said it had to have meaning? I just thought it was fun to think of Indians as the Italians of Asia, that's all.
Random musing: Closet gays and Mugabe
I found out, quite out of the blue, while in Europe, that this guy whom I almost had a fight with was discovered while fooling around with a pastor's son. He was caught by the pastor. It's funny, because I had always thought this guy was straight... did he watch
Brokeback Mountain?
---
On a related note, I just want to state that while I was shopping in Singapore, I chanced upon
Robert Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe. I'd met a few Zimbabwean students before, and invariably, there's a strong sense of national pride, which is indicative that Mr. Mugabe has done a good job with his education system. But there's also this sense of denial: many Zimbabwean students (who, not coincidentally, all come from the upper-classes of Harare) insist that Zimbabwe is not half as bad as portrayed on the BBC. This, despite an economy that by all reliable economic measures, has an inflation rate of at least 500%.
The man was surprisingly shorter than I expected him to be. He's maybe 5 foot 4 or so. He walked surrounded by a posse of bodyguards, all Zimbabwean and black, and approximately my height (6 ft), and one of them was holding a plastic bag from Guardian Pharmacy. How's that for celebrity endorsement?
One thing that is true in real life, he really
does have that appalling Hitlerite moustache. Ironic, because I'm not sure Hitler would have approved of a black African idolizer.
Her Eyes
The one thing that strikes anyone about her are her eyes.
One can see the fire behind them, the spark of passion within her that comes through those brown windows of her soul.
I've seen those eyes for a year now, and I've come to love every single expression and emotion that they are capable of: love, affection, desire and lust, injustice, anger, hurt, concern, compassion... the brown pools of light reveal those emotions of hers, and sometimes more.
That one time, we sat across each other at the dinner table with others around us, and she succeeded in acting very well, as though everything was normal and fine; she saw that I was shrivelling on the inside, and shot me looks of concern that betrayed her inner reality, that everything was just as cracked up as it was on my face.
Those eyes of hers.
They are the very bits of the person I love, the representation of her essence and expression of her inner being.
