He who seeks truth shall find beauty
He who seeks beauty shall find vanity

He who seeks order shall find gratification
He who seeks gratification shall be disappointed

He who considers himself a servant of his fellow beings shall find the joy of self expression
He who seeks self expression shall fall into the pit of arrogance

Arrogance is incompatible with nature
Through nature the nature of the universe and the nature of man we shall seek truth
If we seek truth we shall find beauty

My friend of... uh... 30 years? (Wow... I've literally known her since birth. No kidding...) recently made the rounds in several Corean newspapers talking about her experience as the only Asian Industrial Designer to be working in the Amsterdam Philips HQ. She joined towards the end of the Norelco Architec's design cycle, and she's currently involved in conceptualizing the future line of consumer products for Phillips. I didn't know this, but she had spent ten months preparing her portfolio to get that gig, and to escape the mundane Corean corporate design hell. She deserves every little bit of attention she's getting! :) Quite proud of her, I have to say. :D

I recently bought myself a Roomba for Christmas. The way my new apartment is structured (wide open areas with concrete floor) makes it perfect for Roomba (and a lazy Single guy). Now, after watching these videos, I'm strangely drawn to the Pleo as well. :) Hey Sugardaddy/mommy, will you get me one? :) I hope I'm not on a fast track to Robot fetish

So it's been quite some time since I took a real vacation. I thought I'd finally do that... :) I'll be spending a chunk of time traveling around the US visiting my friends and gathering inspirations. I'm also going to finally paint my new apartment! Red is in the cards! ;) Well, I have to unpack first... I have to admit... It's kinda pathetic that three weeks have passed since I moved in, yet I have not finished unpacking... Shows how crazy busy I've been. So where am I headed in the US? I plan to visit friends living in Chicago, Rhode Island, Connecticut, LA, Washington DC, and San Francisco. That's a tour, my good friend! I hope it snows, too so I can go boarding! Can't wait!!!! ;)

I've always said that the day I own a dishwasher and that grinding thing in my sink, I would consider myself to have "made it". Well, I recently moved into a new apartment down in the strip district, and last night I used the dishwasher the apartment came with. While I don't really own the dishwasher, there's now one in my apartment, which is a huge step from where I was a month ago! :P I'm so so livin' large! :D

I've always heard of stories of people who expected an earth-shattering kaboom with a side dish of enlightenment for their 30th birthday, only to be horribly disappointed that they never got it. My 30th birthday has come and gone. I felt pretty much the same way on that very day. A week has passed, and I finally sat down to write an entry confirming everyone else's observation. As I was reflecting on the weekend, it hit me. It hit me hard. Something has changed. Something is different. Nothing will ever be the same again. No it wasn't literally a kaboom that shattered the earth. It even took me a whole week to make it real. It is shocking to have learned what I had learned. Was it enlightening? Well, that depends on what you mean by enlightening. It has caused a small paradigm shift in my head. Is it good? That's highly debatable. I have no idea what the long-term ramifications will be or even short-term... I just don't know. All I know is that the way I look at the world is changing... The way I look at myself is changing... All I know is that I don't know. Man, isn't life wonderful... :D Here's to another 30 years!

Stay tuned... A radical change will happen to this space between now and the end of the year... =) Please don't expect any new posts between now and then, tho... ;)

I know this guy named Mick at work. He's a goofball most of the times, but that's just his way of ensuring that your guards are low when he wishes to teach you a thing or two about life and design. He obviously knows more about leading without authority than I do. But, this entry is not about him. As it is with all my entries, this entry is about me, me, me and the me. The world revolves around me, and I'd like to keep it that way as long as I don't get too dizzy. ^^ Urm.. now, where was I going with this... Ah, yes... Mickey.... Yeah, so, from time to time he sends random links my way (either personally or as part of a mass e-mail), and I tend to make a point to read each and every one carefully (because they're not random.. well, most of them aren't, heh heh). One of the links he sent out recently pointed to this entry by John Maeda. The entry, at least to me, is about the two step process to realizing your dream. The first step is to lie to yourself for just the right amount of time to get yourself to bring what you truly believe in to life. The second step is to then stop lying to yourself at the right moment, so that it can be real for the rest of the world and not just you. This two step process is hard. There's a lot of balancing that needs to happen to excute the two steps. One of these days I'll actually be in a state of mind where I can talk more in depth about this topic, but for now I just wanted to comment on the following quote I found on John's entry:

Lying tends to get you into trouble.

I don't know about you, but the statement rings very true to me. There are two reasons why that one sentence resonates so strongly with me. One, because I'm doing a lot of reflecting these days about how I've lived my life so far. I'm going to turn 30 this year, so it's been a lot more intense than usual. Second, I've learned throughout my life that the only time I experienced a growth spurt was when I lied. Pretty freaky, no? If I wanted to paint a nicer picture of myself I might be tempted to say that it's not when I lied, but when I got myself into trouble, but I dunno... If i think hard about what had happened to get myself into trouble, there was usually a lie involved at some point in time.

The farthest back I remember is when my parents were deciding whether to move our whole family to China or not. Moving to China wasn't a simple decision. First of all, it meant that mom and I had to live in Beijing while my dad lived in DaLian (there were no internationl schools in DaLian that I could attend) It also meant that I had about 6 months to get my Enlglish from 3rd grade level to 8th grade level. That was what was expected to pass the entrance exame given by the International School of Beijing. Given how poorly I was doing at school, it was most definitely unclear to my parents whether I could achieve that goal or not. The risk was pretty high. Spending the next 6 months studying English meant completely giving up on school work. There was simply not going to be enough time in a day to do both. That meant that if I failed the entrance exam I would be 6+ months behind in school work. I absolutely hated the Corean education system, so falling back a year was something that I dreaded even thinking about. So I looked mom straight in the eye and told her that I could do it. I lied, and now I was in deep deep trouble. I had basically committed to achieving something I had no idea how to. I'm not going to claim as if I had really jumped 5 grade levels in 6 months, cuz that would be another lie. But, thankfully I did pass the exam. Moving to Beijing absolutely changed my life. Experiencing life as a foreigner in a country transitioning from communism is not something you can buy with money. Befriending North Corean students? Virtually unheard of as a South Corean. Starting and leading a rock band, and realizing that all it takes to start someting is a little bit of creativity and a lot of will power? Priceless. Learning to look at things from an international perspective (not policitally, but culturally) by making friends who come from just about every little inch of the world? Pure bliss. All this began with a lie. It's about time I lied once more. What do you think? ;)

lost 7 lbs... argh... argh... argh... gotta bulk up.... argh... argh... argh.....!!!

I love you Mom. I love you so very much. Just wanted to say that out loud. :)

What can I say? I'm speechless. It was by far the best snowboard experience I've ever had. I'm not sure if I can settle for anything less from now on. I'm now permanently spoiled. ^^

I did have a small incident on the first day of boarding which put a bit of a damper on my boarding experience (blister on one of my toes), but all in all I really had a great time. It snowed every single day!! The mountain... er... mountains were friggin' huge!! You just have to go there to experience it for yourself! I met two great Irish lads whom I shared rooms with for the week. I also met a lot more people at a potluck training to either become pro boarders or instructors. Lot of folks from the UK and Europe. Of course, the good ol' random encounters on the chair lift are always fascinating as well! *SIGH* So many things to do, so many places to go to, so many people to meet, and so little time.

One of the things I learned while I was there was how out-dated my gears were. I had bought it back when I was a junior in college and have been sporting it until now. Yeah, I'm a frugal bastard, kill me. I just didn't feel like I needed a great set of gear when I obviously wasn't nailing any backside 720s. But now I'm finally feeling that I've outgrown my gear. I can feel that my bindings don't give me as much support when digging in with either edge and my board feels too stiff to do quick ollies and nollies. Then there are my boots that get loose after two runs. So I'm going to look into some closeout gears from 2006. Recommendations anyone? I'm looking for something in the 154-156cm range with an all-mountain core that has a bit of a freestyle bias. Right now I'm thinking of Ride delta bindings (black) and Option Redline 154. Possibly a pair of boots from Salomon. Thoughts?

The best snow I've ever seen in my entire life.... Speechless.

I'm off to black comb in Whistler in a few hours. Just wanted to take a moment and wish everyone an amazing new years. I subscribe more to the lunar new year, but that shouldn't stop me from enjoying evey bit of the new year's eve festivities in whichever way they celebrate it in Whistler. =) Party on up everyone! Tis the season to be jolly~~!

"Athletic and toned" is so not the same thing as "tanned and chunky"...