holocene

in

I'm in an apocalyptic narrative class with Junot Diaz this semester, and I thought I'd share my first assignment, which is also the first fiction piece I've written since elementary school. 

Soft flakes of snow fall from the obsidian sky, barely illuminated by the cold, unreliable glow of the nearly full moon. Shadows shift across the ground as crusty evergreens sway with the relentless wind. The snow piles high against the flaky exterior of the house—about three feet, from my estimation. I catch myself thinking it is kind of eerily beautiful before I snap myself back to the reality of the situation. It is summer.

I remember what I was looking for—anything sharp, anything that can be used as a weapon. The old aluminum baseball bat I have from my brief and failed stint as a Little League player back in the day comes to mind, and I open the creaky closet door, pulling harder than necessary because it always jams on the soft carpet. A cloud of dust bombards me, and I recoil instantly with my fists up. Calm down, I think. The dust settles slowly and I kneel down, digging through the heaps of disorganization Ma always got on my case about. The flashlight I’m holding isn’t as helpful as I wish it would be. The bright light hurts my eyes. Why did I ever think I would need this old textbook about solid-state chemistry ever again? I sigh, rub my eyes, and continue digging. I see the familiar green corner of an origami kit, and remember why this closet is so dusty in the first place.

A flash of light reflecting off the closet doorknob catches my attention, and I look down the hall. It’s Bryan, as somber as ever. His hair is jagged and flat against his head, and his feet seem too heavy for his thin legs. He drops himself down on the floor next to me, leaning against my bed, but doesn’t look at me. My little brother is sixteen now, but his cheeks make him look more like twelve. He still struggles with the incident. I reach out and squeeze his knee, but he begins to tremble, and his breath is labored. I glance at the plastic watch on my wrist, realizing Bryan was due for his medication. I pull a small purple pill from the Altoids container in my pocket and give it to him. He knows what to do at this point. I take a pill as well—the last one. It’s the only thing I’ve ingested today other than the quarter can of beans about six hours ago.

The Bryan next to me now is almost unrecognizable from the one I saw the last time I was home, before the incident I wasn’t here for. Bryan can’t let it go, and I don’t blame him. He still has nightmares about it; I can tell by the way he thrashes in his sleep. He’s a talented artist, so I asked him to draw me a picture of it. I had hoped it would relieve some of the pain, but it definitely didn’t. It had been my the start of my final quarter at UCLA – Materials Science, class of 2040 – but I never walked, although I guess no one did. I don’t know. I flew home the day of the incident, and Bryan handed me a picture of the front seats of our car. Ma and Pa sat next to each other, except Pa had multiple holes in his head and Ma had bits of brain splattered all over her. It was a pencil drawing, but I threw up just from that. I imagine the most eerie part was that the car just continued driving towards our house, undisturbed. I never got the full story out of Ma. She has bigger things to worry about.

Can you believe that? Bigger things to worry about than your husband getting his head blown to fleshy bits? Imagine that. I shut down all emotions after the incident. Pa and I got along well, but he had always been in lab, researching about chemicals and climate change.  My eyes wander back to the origami kit—I did miss when he would show me how to fold paper seals and elephants. Missing was an understatement. Anyway, like Ma, I have bigger things to worry about.

Bryan’s breathing is normal again, and I get up, helping him onto his feet in the process. I lead him quietly back downstairs, through the empty vastness of the living room and into the kitchen, my flashlight guiding the way. We go to the pantry, and I remember with a jolt why I had been searching for the baseball bat in the first place.

“Goddamnit,” I hiss to myself, hating the effects of the air on my short-term memory, and hating the situation. I breathe in deeply, even though that won’t help the forgetting.

There are six containers in our pantry. Three cans of beans, one can of corn, half a box of graham crackers, and a bottle with five purple pills inside. Bryan stares with panicked eyes. He doesn’t usually come into the pantry with me—Ma had given me full food responsibility when everything went down. I was supposed to ration for us, and I did my best. We lasted twelve weeks. Even if we had more food, we still need more pills within two days. My heart is beating in my throat and my palms are slick, but I try to breathe. Panicking isn’t going to help anyone. And now Bryan knew.

I consider my options, trying to be as objective as possible. I can tell Ma about the situation, but will it make a difference? If she stops me from going out there, we all die. If I die…we all die anyway. But if I make it back, we might live. Ma might find a cure. I might find other normal people out there.

Bryan tugs on my sleeve, staring up at me—how he ended up so much shorter, I don’t really understand. I don’t want to look at him, but he keeps tugging. I glance at him, his face gaunt and hollow under the harsh white beam of his flashlight, and I make up my mind. I’m going tonight. But he has other plans.

“I’m going with you,” he whispered, more forcefully than anything he’s ever said to me, although I hear the tremor in his voice. It’s a flash of the Bryan I used to know, the one who once forced a schoolyard bully 30 pounds heavier than him to apologize for pushing his friend off the swing. That Bryan had left when Pa got shot, but maybe he’s on the way back.

“No,” I respond flatly. That is absurd.

“More eyes are better. I will die either way.”

Why does he have to be so logical? I grit my teeth, and then jerk my head slightly. I tell him we’re going to visit Ma, but he isn’t allowed to speak. He was never good at keeping secrets.

We open the door to the basement, the glow of light at the bottom of the stairs welcoming us. We creep down the first few steps, shutting the door quietly behind us.

“Ma?” I whisper.

We continue down the stairs, eyes gradually blinded by the fluorescent lights of the basement. We didn’t keep the lights on upstairs to avoid attention. A few weeks ago, we saw a man lying right outside our back door, his head bloody from trying to bash through our walls. The snow around him was stained red, but he was buried eventually. It must’ve happened while we were down here. It’s the one room that hasn’t been affected by all of this. I’m surprised the electricity is still working, but who knows how much longer it’ll last. We have a backup generator when that day comes. The bookshelves come into view, and then the large rectangular table littered with books, research papers, and empty bean cans. Ma is bent over the table, brows furrowed, her gray hair untamed. The concrete floor is so cold I can feel it through my shoes as we walk over to her. She doesn’t acknowledge us, but pulls us in for a quick hug when we get near. She feels thinner than ever.

“Any luck?” I ask, startled by the volume of my own voice. The basement is soundproof, testament to my middle school drummer phase when nobody in the house could handle my racket. After I decided drumming wasn’t my thing, Pa turned the basement into a library, and eventually, a small laboratory.

“It’s curable,” she mutters, her sunken eyes darting around a complex diagram on the table. She sleeps about an hour a day, and does nothing else but pore over these papers and eating the inadequate amount of food I can bring her.

Pa had worked at the National Laboratory of Global Climate Change, the NLGCC, near the University of Washington. He started bringing experiments home a few years ago, when he realized the security of the labs was being compromised. People were mad. With all the technical advances of our age, why was global warming so difficult to fix? They insulted the scientists while everyone scorched in the 120 degree Seattle winter. Some smart people took it upon themselves to find out what was going on inside NLGCC—they managed to hack into the system and found out about a possible chemical that could turn it all around. They blamed scientists for keeping it under wraps, and a startup began recreating the chemical in their own lab. Pa had been the primary critic of the chemical—it could work in theory, but some tests with animals hadn’t gone smoothly. Representing the government, he revealed these potential problems. People didn’t listen. They were tired of government-funded labs. They wanted the flashy startups; they wanted the young entrepreneurs who could make a difference now, not these old guys who were far too careful. Over the course of two years, they manufactured 60 billion tons of this stuff to counter the CO2 in the air. The plan? All at once. All or nothing. Project Holocene, they called it. So, more than three months ago, Pa was shot, and this mysterious chemical was released into the air, right in the Puget Sound. There were fancy parties throughout the city and people were absolutely ecstatic. Humans could conquer nature, they believed.

I had come home to grieve for my Pa while the rest of the city rejoiced as temperatures fell day by day. Ma and Bryan struggled hard after the shooting. They started taking this OTC anti-anxiety pill that Ma had developed at Overlake Hospital Research. It was meant to suppress the nightmares and panic attacks that they both started having. Ma knew why Pa was shot though—he had been onto something that people didn’t want to be true. She grieved quickly, and then raced to figure out the implications Project Holocene would have as temperatures continued dropping. I dealt with the pain my own way, or rather, the Seattle way. Special brownies here, a joint there. I was high for weeks.

“J, I’m tired,” says Bryan matter-of-factly. God, he is a terrible actor.

We say goodnight to Ma, squeezing in two more quick hugs while we can. We creep back upstairs, and I grab the aluminum bat I was looking for earlier. I shuffle through my old drawers, sorting through old photos and letters I didn’t want to look at. I manage to find a small pocketknife and a facemask. Bryan comes back with his old BB gun, but tosses it on my bed lightly. He can’t handle guns anymore. I hand him the baseball bat. He grips it, arms trembling. I step over to him and wrap my arms around his thin shoulders. When I step back, his jaw is clenched and his eyes are closed.

“We have to go now,” I whisper.

He nods.

Factoria Mall is less than a mile away, just down Newport Way. We have been there hundreds of times—family dinners at Old Country Buffet and late night froyo runs.  Factoria Mall has everything, including a supermarket and a Target pharmacy. We have no idea what awaits us outside, or if there’s even any food or medicine left. We haven’t been outside since the day Project Holocene went awry. That was the day everyone wished they had listened to Pa.

Holocene is a spectacular hallucinogen, comparable to phencyclidine but airborne, more powerful and more unpredictable. It’s pure luck that all three of us survived. It turned out that Ma’s anti-anxiety drug, and presumably other sedatives, countered the effects of the mysterious Holocene. Bryan and Ma had been on the anxiety meds, and I had been high for days. Ma initially believed that I had a natural immunity, but I had to tell her. I never thought a mother would be so happy to learn that her kid was a stoner, but I eventually ran out of herbs. After a few days, the initial tsunami of fear passed and the thought of supplies occurred to us. The snow had already covered the roads and the car became useless. As long as we were alive, Ma had better things to worry about.

Bryan and I open a window in the living room, since snow blocks the front door. Frigid air drifts in, and we shudder. I remove a few of the jank wooden planks I had placed over some of the ground floor windows as a safety measure, and climb through. I hear nothing except the whispers of the trees, crying out ominously. I help Bryan through the window and he lands softly in the snow. I grab the bag and hand Bryan the bat. I pull out the knife and BB gun, gripping both with such force that my knuckles feel like they’re going to pop out of my skin. I clip the flashlight to my belt.

We tread slowly down the familiar gravel road, no sign of life in any of our distant neighbors’ shadowy homes. We can barely see them through the snowfall. Parts of the snow are eerily disturbed. I see something that reminds me of a mutilated body, but it’s too dark to be certain.

 The first step in Holocene poisoning is the loss of memory. We learned this from Ma in the days following the breakdown, which she had learned from Pa’s research. I stop suddenly to pull out the facemask, and quickly slip it over Bryan’s nose and mouth. I have already started this step. From the research, it doesn’t seem to be reversible. Bryan has to be protected in any way, however minuscule. I can’t let anything happen to him, not while I’m still here. After Project Holocene, our neighbors slowly forgot where they lived. We didn’t notice initially, too caught up in our own distress. Before we realized it, our street was empty, and the snow covered most signs of life. The next steps of Holocene poisoning were paranoia, then murderous aggression, and then death. The murderous aggression stage could last for years. I assume the man we saw behind our house had been in that stage.

We continue down the road, away from the body-like figure in the distance, leaving our footprints in the fresh layers of snow. We stop and listen. Movement in the corner of my eye sends me whirling. I register a crazed coyote, or some dog-like creature, bounding over the snow at us, snarling and snapping. In the beam of my flashlight, its eyes are bulging and bloodshot, and one of them has already been ejected from its socket, dangling by the nerve. Before I can pull the trigger on the BB gun, Bryan swings at it with the bat. He connects with the creature’s head with a sickening snap, and it falls limp, emitting a horrific screech in the process. I look at Bryan, who is trembling violently, but we don’t say anything. This is just the beginning. 

maybe we're home

in

Home is an interesting concept, one that I’ve been confused about for the majority of my life. I’ve never really been attached to physical places—I’ve lived in six different houses now, not including my dorm at school. Like many, I define home as where my family lives. And like many, the definition of home has shifted since moving away from my family, to a new environment full of new people and new friends. 

Eventually, these new people and new friends created an environment quite similar to that of “home”—these friends have seen me at my best and my worst. They’re the first ones to celebrate a successful exam or completed project with me. They’re inside my room when I’m stressed out or too sick to function. They’re there to cook with me, eat with me, and talk to me about my day.  They’ve created a new home for me, but I now view home as a word that can describe multiple locations (why didn't I realize that sooner?? unclear.)

I’m moving back into my dorm tomorrow, and it feels like going home. I have elaborate plans for laminate flooring, floor beds, and coffee tables, but we’ll see how that all pans out. Summer is coming to a slow close, but I’m excited to go home. 

a blog post about my summer internship

Published post here. 

As the summer draws to a close, I’ve been forced to reflect on the twelve weeks I’ve spent at Altitude as an engineering intern. In a few weeks, I’ll be returning the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to start my senior year. I study mechanical engineering and product design, and am also hoping to complete a minor in anthropology.

Transitioning from MIT to Altitude involved a bit of culture shock. For the past three years, including my prior internship at Northrop Grumman, I have had technical problem solving skills pounded into my head. When given a difficult problem on homework or an exam, I’ve been trained to blast my way through them, equipped with scientific principles, equations, and sheer determination. Getting to the answer is undeniably satisfying, regardless of the frustration, self-doubt, and sleepless nights that come before it.

Design thinking is the antithesis of this brute force attitude. At Altitude, I have learned to take steps back, instead of bashing my way forward. I’ve re-learned the critical question of minds that don’t think they already know everything—why? I’ve learned to question assumptions and traditions for a deeper understanding. Here, I’ve learned to give myself context and reasoning for which questions hold valuable answers, instead of trying to solve all of them just because they’re there.

To summarize important insights that I want to take with me back to MIT, I’ve divided the lessons I’ve learned into three categories.

1)  Empathy is crucial: Technical skills can only take a product so far. I’ve seen incredible technology placed in products, but do not effectively solve the right problem. Being able to understand and empathize with the end user is an invaluable skill. No matter who the user is, being able to design with those people in mind will help make the product more usable, more adoptable, and more successful. Thoughtful engineering is critical, but well executed user centered design is what makes a product stand out.

2)  Effective problem solving requires flexible thinking: I touched on the differences between what I’ve learned at MIT and what I’ve learned at Altitude earlier, but a strong engineer or designer has to be able to do both. There is a delicate balance between the big picture and minute details, but both have to be kept in mind. MIT has given me the hard skills, but Altitude has helped me learn where to apply them. Being here has also taught me to not get too attached to my work, no matter how long or hard I worked on it. Ideas change frequently in the iterative design process, and letting personal bias into the work only bogs down this process.

3)  Don’t be afraid to speak: This is the biggest personal lesson I have learned during my time here. “Imposter syndrome” is a common feeling shared among students from top universities, and I was definitely a sufferer. I spent the majority of my first two years at MIT questioning whether or not I deserved to be there. I never felt this way at Altitude. The open and collaborative environment gave me constant opportunities to quench my curiosity and share my own insights. The positive and encouraging responses from my co-workers encouraged me to speak without reservation, even during meetings with intimidating clients.

These twelve weeks have had a significant impact on the way I view the world around me. It helped me discover meaning in my insatiable curiosity. It forced me to question my education and to find the value in it. It forced me to embrace my strengths and work on my weaknesses, with the support of a welcoming interdisciplinary team. Ultimately, being at Altitude has trained me think more critically about how to become a better student, a better engineer, a better designer, and a better human.

you were never alone

in , ,

I'll start off with a feel good song for a feel good post. 

Summer minutes are dwindling fast. This summer has probably been the most rewarding summer I've ever had. I'm consistently happy for the first time for as long as I can remember. This doesn't mean that everything is perfect, but I am extremely satisfied with the progress I'm making in all aspects of my life, and incredibly grateful for the people around me. 

Reflections on the Red Line T.

Reflections on the Red Line T.

I have time to work on most of the things I want to do outside of work. I've been making time to read, write, play guitar, and spend valuable time with the people I love. 

I'm flexing my photographic eye constantly now. For the first time since last summer, I'm interested enough in the world around me to seize moments I used to pass on. I stop. I breathe. I shoot. 

Aggressively confused squirrel in Boston Common.

Aggressively confused squirrel in Boston Common.

Golden hour never looked so fake.

Golden hour never looked so fake.

I've found my 50/50 introverted/extroverted self a good balance of personal and social time. Although sometimes it would be good to have friends...like when I wanted to take a photo of someone in this beautiful lighting...

This is a summer I'll never forget, and a summer I know I'll be nostalgic for for years to come. There should be a word for that...knowing that you'll be nostalgic for something before it's even passed. I have 3 weeks left, and I hope to make the most of it. 

 

shake it like a polaroid picture

in

Relevant cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya" :) 

Instant film has captured my attention since the first Polaroid iZone camera my brother had when we were kids. Watching the image develop before my eyes was an unforgettable experience, even though the pictures were tiny and really poor quality.

After getting into analog photography, I would inevitably make a tangent into the instant film world. I got a Polaroid OneStep at a flea market for a few dollars during my senior year of high school. The Impossible Project was expensive, but I shot 3 packs of 600 film with that camera before the roller deteriorated and image quality became unpredictable. I eventually donated the camera to the photography club at school.

During my freshman year of college, I bought a Polaroid Land 450 on a whim off of eBay. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into—I just knew that peel film was cheap (at the time), and there was a near cult following of the Land series cameras. When I received it, I was appalled at how massive and brick-like the thing was, but then I shot with it. The images were unique. Sharp and soft at the same time. There was a distinct quality to the FP-100c that I couldn’t quite capture, but I loved peel film. I loved peel film so much that it was all I shot for a while. Despite the size and weight of the Land, I carried it with me daily. People would stare at me on the street, but it didn’t matter. The camera was magic. I even tried to design one. 

As time went on, I wanted to try other pack film cameras. I obtained a Polaroid EE100 Special, which was a lot like the Land but built from plastic and much lighter. This used a zone focusing system instead of the Land rangefinder, so the photos came out a bit blurrier, usually. It was still an incredible camera.

In 2016, FP-100c was officially discontinued by Fujifilm. I was indescribably sad. I sold my cameras, sold my film, and didn’t take photos for a very long time. I thought about stocking up on FP-100c and continuing my use of the wonderful film, but it seemed to be holding on too hard to something that I could see the bitter end of. I couldn’t do it. 

I bought a Fuji Instax Mini camera to tinker with—the colors of Fuji Instax are vivid and beautiful, but it’s a modern type of aesthetic. It’s fun, it’s cheap, and I enjoy shooting with it, but something was missing. 

While on vacation in Vancouver, BC last year, my aunt handed me a “surprise”. It was a brand new Polaroid Spectra, in box with original receipt. It was purchased while on vacation in Japan in the 90’s, and never used. I was dumbfounded. And then excited. Spectra cameras are known for their level of control, and the wide frames were suitable for my landscape vision. 

When I was purchasing a system, I opted for the Land cameras over the Spectra due to the cost of film, but I am now embracing the Spectra with Impossible film. It’s expensive ,yes, but I have fewer options now. The Spectra is light, fun to shoot with, capable of multiple exposures, and the color of IP film is quite interesting. There’s black and white and color options.

I’ve looked at Mint cameras, SX-70’s, and Lomography options, but I’ve decided to stick with the Spectra. It came from the family, and there’s something very bonding about that. Maybe it’s the sense of nostalgia or irreplaceability. It's also a spectacular (ha) camera. 

This is where I stand now in my journey through instant photography, but I’m looking forward to where my curiosities will take me (and my wallet, potentially…) next. 

the list goes on

in

I don’t pretend to know more about current events than I do, and I definitely don’t know as much as I should. I struggle to keep up, and admittedly, sometimes I turn a blind eye to avoid thinking about the cold hard facts. This is a privilege I have, and a privilege I recognize. 

Attacks in Baghdad, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Turkey, and France in July alone should convey the chaos of the world, but do not even begin to scratch the surface of everything that is wrong. Social equality, racial tensions, poverty, terrorism—these terms do not convey the sense of hopelessness felt by people everywhere, nor do these terms come close to covering the plethora of issues prevalent on this planet. I’m not the best source of this type of information, and I don’t claim to be, so I’ll leave this as it is. 

This weekend, my classmate, Drew Esquivel, was killed on the street by a drunk driving NYPD officer. I didn’t know Drew well, but I had been around him long enough to put a personality to the name, and I cannot shake the sense of loss. This was the same feeling I had when my multivariable calculus classmate, Phoebe Wang, lost her life during the first semester of sophomore year. This was how I felt freshman year of high school, when a senior, Aydin Salek, lost his life. These names haunt me, because glimmers of their personalities are etched into my brain. Like many others who have had their lives even briefly scraped by these individuals (and countless others), I can only wish I had the privilege of knowing them more—to wonder about their lives, their interests, their deepest thoughts, their biggest dreams. 

Maybe it is the location, the social proximity, the timing, or the fact that it was completely driven by another individual’s blind stupidity, but I cannot get the incident out of my head. I’ve had important lives taken from me “before their time.” I grew up immersed in loss, yet this seems so different. I’ve always tried to live by the philosophy to never save things for the “right” moment, to never take things for granted, to never miss an opportunity to show people how much they mean to me, to be kind to people even if there isn’t a “reason” to be. And although I’ve been able to do all of these things to an extent, they now seem so inadequate. I’ve never lived in a time when a missed call or slow text responses send me into slight panicked thoughts. I’ve never dreaded the loading of the news page or worried so much about people not immediately in my proximity. I’m a believer that positive thoughts hold some sort of power, but it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain these thoughts with everything that is happening. Sometimes I just have to stop and take deep breaths (and splurge my thoughts of how much people mean to me at them, hoping that they’ll realize even a fraction of what I feel). 

The most overwhelming part of this is that this was one incident that affected me so much because it was too close for comfort. However, there are incidents every day, all over the world. Some of them undocumented, some of them lost in flurry of what media deems most important, some of them completely overlooked. There are shootings, bombings, murders, and these are only the issues that remove lives from earth. There are diseases, gross inequalities, hateful attacks, poverty issues, environmental issues, structural issues…the list goes on. The list goes on. And that’s what feels the most helpless. No matter what issues we decide to focus on or put on efforts towards or even spend a moment of our days thinking about, there is always more. The list goes on. 

I didn’t write this to find solace, although I was hoping it would sort out some of my relentless stream of thoughts. I don’t think it did, but that’s okay. I am not looking away from the cold hard facts right now. 

For now, all I can do is truly cherish every moment of the people around me. To take the time and effort to really get to know people as individuals, to see what makes each person unique, and to truly sense how much the world would lose without them here. 

So to the people reading this, and I know who you are, I love you. You are each meaningful to me in drastically different ways, but each of you have supported me, believed in me, loved me, and had some part in getting me to where I am today. I can only hope to have done (and continue to do the same) for each of you. 

teamwork makes the dreamwork

in ,

I spent the past weekend in New York in the company of someone who never ceases to surprise me. I'm honestly not a huge fan of New York, but this weekend was pretty fat, lovely, and unforgettable. 

Of course the first thing seen is a tragically abandoned baby doll at an intersection... We got lunch at Terri, a vegan/kosher fast food restaurant. I had the buffalo chicken sandwich. Strawberry smoothie very on point. 

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We wandered around a few museums, but sadly no photos. Highline! 

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Dinner was eaten at Palà Pizza. Nice pizza place with delicious vegan options in a garage? Seems very New York. 

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After dinner and a bit of wandering, we arrived at Brooklyn Bridge Park (I think?) right at sundown. It was misty, foggy, and a little bit eerie, but city lights at night are always awe-inspiring. So are vegan maple donuts. 

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The day ended in torrential disgusting New York downpour. I had a "rain jacket" but it really didn't do anything. Shoes were soaked, pants were soaked, backpack was soaked, but spirits could not be ruined. 

Day 2 began in Chinatown, on a mission to consume all the vegan dimsum. 

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So much deliciousness. Post food-coma was spent at B&H Photo nerding out about all the camera things (the Fujifilm X-Pro2 is so beautiful wow). Short pitstop in Central Park. 

The walk from Central Park towards the bus stop on 34th was filled with chai tea, sky shots, and Blossom du Jour. 

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Quite a wonderful weekend, thank you New York (but not really New York, except the food maybe). 

step one: wake up, now open your eyes / now float to the window, open the blinds

“Thick-skinned chameleon
Climbs the curtains hanging on the wall;
The only living ghost to grace the hall.

Meanwhile on the battlefield,
Another soldier boldly bites his tongue;
The only noble thing he’s ever done.

Step one: wake up,
Now open your eyes,
Now float to the window,
Open the blinds,
Now nevermind
The cold shiver on your over-exposed spine
Still lying on the bed where you left it,
Soaking up the sleep from the mattress.

And that’s it;
Feel your way to the kitchen,
Bring the milk to a simmer,
Spill the sugar on the surface of the counter,
Thin-skinned calcium sipper.”
— "Milk" by Sea Oleena

As I delve deeper into the melodic rhythm of summer, I find myself frequently pulled back to the nostalgically carefree summers of early high school. It was there, in my muted yellow room of a sunny Southern California townhouse, that I began to discover some of the many things in this world that intrigue me.

Although “carefree,” my summer days were not spent lounging around in the traditional sense of the word. Those unstructured minutes were valuable, and since the first summer before my graceless entrance into high school, I vowed to make the most of them.

What did I do?

I’ve asked myself this question quite often recently. Working a typical 9-5:30 job, I’m granted a limited number of hours to pursue my own goals this summer. After commuting home, resting my brain, cooking, and unwinding, I have around four to five hours to distribute among my endless curiosities and pursuits (assuming I want a decent amount of sleep). 

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Although some summers are more vivid than others, these are things I remember focusing on most during high school:

1) Photography: I spent countless hours researching rangefinders, learning about exposure, hunting at Goodwill, wandering around my house looking for the next interesting strike of light, blogging, taking apart cameras, failing at putting them back together etc. It was through this process that I began to learn the difference between looking and seeing.

2) Music: I honestly cannot remember the first song that made me realize that music was capable of invoking indescribable feelings, but *Milk* is as good as any other one. Discovering Sea Oleena was life-changing, even if it just meant I started spending hours of my day scrounging YouTube, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud for the next "Youth", "Smoking Books", or "Paris".


3) Books: Reading has always been one of my favorite past times, but summer is when books would make me lose all sense of time, space, and (almost) consciousness. Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk realized my fascination with what I call “trippy fiction” and eventually led to my love of Murakami's work. Jonathan Safran Foer made me re-question my dietary choices in Eating Animals. I read a lot of John Green, although I’m not sure why. Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo may hold my record for fastest time burning through a series.

4) Movies: I watched a lot of movies alone. Black Swan. 127 Hours. Blue Valentine. Shawshank Redemption. IMDB was basically my homepage, and I tried to watch anything and everything I found interesting. Despite the stigma of watching movies alone, I feel that a lot of my visual language in photography is derived from the cinematographic observations from those movies that I absorbed alone.

5) Basketball: I definitely couldn’t forget this one. Most of the twilight hours were spent on the outdoor courts of my high school, trying to make 100 shots in a row, working on post moves, training my left hand, or just basking in comfort of the breezy sunsets. My basketball "career" was plagued with accidents and physical injuries, but nothing taught me how to battle pain more thoroughly than my love for that sport. 

Maybe this doesn’t sound so interesting anymore…They seem like very typical hobbies. Maybe so, but I find that each of these hobbies have made a significant impact on who I am today. The books I’ve read, the movies I’ve watched, the songs I’ve heard, and the discipline I’ve learned on the basketball court never leave me. I learned that summer minutes are indispensable.

This summer, no longer blessed with the long unstructured days of pre-real-human-life, the stockpile of minutes is much smaller. I’m constantly being forced to choose. Should I play more guitar, hoping to finally nail "Cherry Wine"? Should I watch the next episode of Planet Earth? Should I read the next chapter of Cloud Atlas? Should I listen to an episode of Radiolab? Should I write? Should I get dinner with the close friend I haven’t seen in a few weeks? Should I go play basketball?

Traditionally, I’ve mapped out my summers by what I want to accomplish quantitatively—read 10 books, finish my summer assignments by July 15th, play guitar for an hour a day, etc. This summer, I’m trying to think abstractly about my goals, and find more comprehensive steps to get there. Instead of focusing on activities, I’m centering my focus on five aspects of myself that I want to work on. At the risk of sounding like an airy self-help blog, here they are: 

1) Empathy: By definition, empathy means the ability to understand share the feelings of another person or being. The ability to truly place oneself in another's shoes is one of the qualities I admire most in other people, and something that I am constantly working on. Luckily for me, I spend a significant percentage of my work days working on this, trying to understand people's problems, what they want, what they need, what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what makes them frustrated etc. Applying this same type of emotional awareness to people around me has helped me become more understanding on many fronts. 


2) Forgiveness: This is related to empathy, but different. I am very hard on myself, constantly. It's easy for me to blame myself for things that aren't really within my control, question my abilities, and be harsh towards myself in general. It can be motivating at times, but as a whole, it causes a lot of unnecessary pressure and unhappiness. This summer, I'm learning to forgive myself for mistakes, to be gentler on myself, and to fully understand that failing is necessary for growth and development. 


3) Mindfulness: A big mistake I made this past school year was not taking the time to reflect on some aspects of my life. I found meaning in my school work, but the quality of many of my relationships became questionable. Writing is my favorite form of introspection, and I'm making more time to put my thoughts to paper (or pixels). Podcasts have been helpful in this process of finding mental clarity--I especially enjoyed TED Radio Hour's "Nudge" episode. Maybe I'll write about that one another time. Mindfulness also includes thinking about my role in the world in a broader sense (hence the interest in Planet Earth). 


4) Health: My health is something I've always tried to prioritize. Whether this category involves food, exercise, or sleep, I want to actively make sure that my health does not suffer due to all of my other commitments and goals. I'm making an effort to learn how to cook new deliciously healthy foods, play basketball more often, go biking, and to sleep a restful number of hours each night. Without health, most other things become meaningless.


5) Creativity: As demonstrated by my high school list of five, I find fulfillment in creativity. This could be interpreting someone else's creative outputs (movies, books, music) or creating my own (photography, music, drawing, writing, graphic design). I'm trying to find a balance of both and to derive more personal motivation from other people's work. Lately, I've been inspired by the musical hobbyists on Soundcloud--they might not have many listeners, but that doesn't make their music any less magical than some big names on Spotify. Instagram serves a similar purpose for photography. I think it's been important emphasize the belief that any "ordinary" person is capable of creative genius. This is why I'm blogging, and this is why I've been inspired to take more photos again. 

These are my "goals" of the summer, if you want to call them that. They could also be my five Islands of Personality, a la Pixar's Inside Out. These thoughts were all triggered by the song that started this post. The line "step one, wake up now open you eyes, now float to the window, open the blinds" always reminds me that actions are sequential. Overall tasks might be overwhelming, but if you break apart even the largest goals into achievable steps, everything becomes much easier. Not bad for a song about milk, really. 

If you're still here and wondering why there are random images throughout this post, these are various images from my summers at home, hunting around my house for interesting subjects.

Thanks for reading. :) 

 

rediscovering, repurposing

in ,

I’ve been pretty AWOL from my blog (and photography in general) for a while now. Part of it was the chaos of schoolwork, part of it was the loss of vision. I haven’t been happy with my photos for a while now, mostly due to the neglect. I’ve been trapped in a bit of a haze, and I’m hoping summer will fix this. 

The discontinuation of FP-100C was unexpectedly disheartening. I had begun to view the world around me with a Land camera filter, almost. Despite the size and weight of those cameras, they were the cameras that I carried with me and ached to shoot with. I sold both my EE100s and Land 450 after the film was discontinued. I didn’t want to be attached to something that didn’t exist anymore. 

I felt like I retreated into a shell after that. I took photos now and then, but I stopped bringing cameras with me everywhere, stopped looking, and most importantly, stopped taking photos even when I noticed something worthwhile. I ignored my eye and my instincts. As a result, I ignored a big aspect of myself. 

I find joy in the little things, the very things that make me pause in the incessant flutter of time to inhale the present and exhale my worries. Photography is my form of expression, but it’s also my form of introspection. 

I have a lot of goals this summer—gain some more guitar skills, read a variety of books, become more confident in my sketching, and find myself again. Undoubtedly, that process will be closely tied to photography. I’ll be posting a lot more from now on—I’m excited, and I can only hope that you are too. :) 

A photo of a plant outside of my office for the summer. It's heavily underexposed, but I was trying to invoke the sense of eeriness and emptiness that I was feeling. 

A photo of a plant outside of my office for the summer. It's heavily underexposed, but I was trying to invoke the sense of eeriness and emptiness that I was feeling. 

A common scene on my 30 minute walk to/from work through Somerville. The sky was particularly beautiful today. 

A common scene on my 30 minute walk to/from work through Somerville. The sky was particularly beautiful today. 

motivation and purpose; memories are the best things i ever had

I've had a photo blog since the first day I decided I wanted to become a better photographer. This was 2010, I was a freshman in high school, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. The blog is titled "Memories Were the Best Things We Ever Had", a mantra from Ben Howard's "Old Pine" that has resonated with me since the first time I heard it. 

Since its inception, I posted nearly all of my acceptable photos onto that blog. Some of my scattered thoughts made it onto there as well. Last week, I officially ran out of storage space on my Wordpress. I accidentally deleted around 40 images to make space for new ones, but I realized I was unwilling to replace my old photos with new ones--after all, memories were the best things we ever had. Therefore, I'm moving my blog to this little nook on my personal website. I probably will not be posting all of my acceptable photos anymore, but I am hoping to write more about product design, personal experiences, and the little things in life. 

I've always had a hard time balancing my love and appreciation for well-designed products and my desire to keep my life as materially simple as possible. Even though I'll be writing about cool products and objects, please believe me when I say that memories will always be the best things I ever had.