just another craigslist read

I don't like siding with either the pro vs anti groups (on most fronts / issues anyway), but I found this to be an interesting read. Something about it struck a chord...

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/309485032.html

Asian disrhythmia

At some point in our lives, we discover that people have some kind of affinity for various activities of the world. Some people are naturally book smart, others are street smart. Some, like Johnnie are natural dancers. Myself: climbing and video games (wish it were something more marketable... but I'll take what I can have). Of course, the opposite of this is true - some people are naturally retarded about things: some just don't get chemistry, others can't grasp how the internet works. Myself: dancing.

Last Friday night was a night out to the local salsa club at the Mariott Hotel, near UCSD. Lessons at 8:30 for beginners (ooh ooh pick me pick me!). Anticipating my natural talent for clumsiness and lack of dancing skills, I took up Johnnie's offer on some basic salsa steps. I love that girl - if not for her, I would have had to make do with the evening just sorta standing there in place kicking wildly at the other patrons and buying a drink for every other person I managed to bruise and back-kick during my "dancing" ordeal.

Still, I've learned that I'm retarded with movement sequences involving my body. Recent experiences with my friend's Wii also made me realize I like things at a slower pace than others (hence, my painfully slow climbing style and my slower-than-jesus crawl of a hiking pace). Dance lessons were something like "left, right, left... turn... right, left right". My brain would interpret that as: "left, right, left, turn, turn, right right right right... wait... why am I dragging my feet around in a circle without my partner???". Attempt 2: "left right left, spin... ". My brain: "spin, left, right.. spin, wash, rinse, repeat, throw in dryer, dry for 40 minutes on high". *sigh*.

Johnnie and I have figured out a few things why I have such a hard time with salsa:

1. I have little to no dancing experience. I've never gone to prom, junior prom, school dances, done much wedding dancing, never competed in ballroom dance and did my best to avoid the clubs during college.
   
2. The Japanese make no distinction between "butt" and "hips". As a result, I'm about 15 years behind (no pun intended) discovering my hips and seeing how they move...
   
3. Salsa beats are hard to isolate. I also have no sense of rhythm (see Asian boy disrhythmia)
   
4. I have little to no experience "leading" in dancing (see #1)
   
5. Sensory overload. brain goes boom.
   
6. I have sticky rubber soles on the bottom of my dress shoes. Mental note: Good for climbing - bad for dancing i.e. turns, slides, spins.
   

I'm determined not to let this get me done though. There's enough structure in salsa that I think I can grasp that like a life saver in a stormy ocean. Till then I've been "training" for my next salsa experience by buying a salsa cd and trying to follow the beats in the songs... (hopefully I won't bump into other cars while concentrating like I do at the salsa clubs...)

That sucks

Feel really bad for those kids in Virginia Tech. Obviously, what happened yesterday is super traumatic, but this morning, SWAT teams went through the campus to what amounted to a non-emergency. It's like they had to relive a bad nightmare all over again (it happened more or less the same time as yesterday).

*smack smack smack*. And now is the time to hate me.

It's funny the things you think about on the long walks home or the drives back to our houses. Sometimes they're deep, othertimes they're mundane. I'm not sure which one this thought goes to:

I don't mind being an ass hole and being hated for it if I feel I did my best to make someone more aware of their own actions.

Let me give you an example. There's an old Zen story about how an enlightened master would always answer raise his finger into the air to answer questions. It was succint, to the point and direct - the meanings of it are varied, but he never did it out of habit. One day he hears how a child in the local village began to imitate him and would raise his finger up as well. Infuriated, he sought out the child and cut his finger off. When the child began to run away, crying, the master called out to him. Curious, the child looked back and saw the master raise his finger. The child was then enlightened... so the story goes.

I think most people dismiss this story as a blatant cruel depiction that is elevated to a spritual level. I see it as a master seeing that the child was imitating form without meaning and keeping him from continuing in this way. In any case, it's supposed to be a story about how what seems to a cruel act that ultimately results in a benevolent outcome.

I don't mind doing things to piss off / anger / upset people if I feel I'm doing the right thing for them (usually this means just making the other party more aware of something in their actions). In fact, I'm sure I've been cursed and hated behind my back. I'm not saying I have all the right answers or am a saint - I prefer to merely open people's eyes and let them live with the consequences of their actions when they knew full well what they could / couldn't do.

It just makes me wonder how many people have misunderstood why I was harsh with them when I could otherwise have been mercifully silent. Oh well - like I said, I don't mind being misunderstood if I did what I felt was necessary at the time.

Writing can kiss my... something something...

Today's random segue: Recently, I've had a couple of people come up to me tell me that their blogs are dull. Usually somewhere in the conversation there's a line in there like "my blog is so dull... I wish it was more interesting to read like yours Obi". I'll refute compliment another time - the point I want to make is that more than one person has come up to me basically said that they enjoy reading what I have to type because: a) it's a blast b) funny c) interesting d) deep e) random f) I have nothing better to do and it beats reading the New York times. In any case, people seem to think I'm basically a decent writer.

The funny thing is, growing up I HATED writing. No wait scratch that: HATED... I LOATHE writing. If I could, I would have dragged it hateful body across a muddy field of cow poop by the ankle and dipped it into burning tar only to poke holes in it with dull spoons. Yes. I loathed it. I was just never that kid that like writing and creating compositions or thought of how lovely prepositions compounded with verbs could be in poetic Byronistic style with a peta-pentatholonic meter. Personally I write because I have the world's worst memory (I play a game of hide and seek with my personal belongings everyday: I have something of mine in my hand and in 10 minutes I'm seeking what it was I had. Sometimes this is preceded by trying to remember what I had in hand so I can successfully seek it). This poor memory led me to conclude I should record my thoughts somewhere so I can look back when I'm 30 and senile and remind myself that I actually did do something on the way to the old folks' home.

So what did I like in school? Math and computer programing (computer scripting if you want to get technical...). Yup - at 7 years old I was memorizing multiplication tables and understanding the concept of fractions and division. At 9 I was foregoing recess time so I could just trouble shoot my latest animation that I programmed with Macintosh's Hypercard (circa mid 80's). Finding derivatives was something I did in High school to calm the nerves.

So what happened? I decided math was interesting but didn't want it to be my life. I figured climbing was a better way to go... I mean it's logical right? I'm swinging by my arms across a large rock face, putting my life and limb at risk to have fun. Constantly poor with no fame or glory. Writing about my trips in some blog on my little piece of cyberspace. All instead of becoming a computational modeler forcing Matlab to crunch numbers and simulating real world settings using statistical data and making 6 figures, driving a hot sports car and having a kick ass entertainment system. Wait... oh... *sob sob*....

Humor <--> Pain?

My old roomie TJ once pointed out that all humor is derived in pain somehow. I didn't want to believe it then, nor do I want to believe it now. But having spent the last 7 years or so casually reflecting on a 5 minute comment he made, I have to admit that it's generally true.

Try to come up with something funny that doesn't involve pain on some level. Hard ain't it?

Humor can involve something like slapstick (obviously painful to some participant)
It can make fun of stereotypes (something funny at the expense of some social group / person / object)
Often times we end up laughing at someone b/c of something absurd they may have done.

It's not to say that humor is painful or bad. I think that as long as no one is coming out scarred in any real way, what's funny is funny. But the next time you laugh at something, take a second to consider if TJ was right. Kinda scary sometimes...

Whiny blogs are fun?

Random observation: the vast majority of people's blogs involve whining of some sort. Some do it in an entertaining way, while others instill whiny-ness into the readers thereby spawning a blog entry of their own somewhere in cyberspace. Does this mean that whiny blogs are asexually reproducing organisms?

!!! a bus!!!

Many of my friends in the climbing community are afraid of heights. Yes, on the outset, this appears extremely irrational - what kind of moron would intentionally swing from high heights, throw themselves on tall boulders, scratch and claw their way to the tops of cliffs all while feeling the gripping sensation of their fear? Well... that's what irrational fears are... irrational.

Am I scared of heights? No - my fear is something even more irrational... a fear of riding buses. Don't ask why - I'm not certain. But I feel very claustrophobic when I'm inside the buses and have to focus on whoever I know who is riding with me. Otherwise, I much prefer to walk / bike / drive the distance.

Stupid buses. School buses especially, looking like a giant twinkie...