1) Today is 12/12/12. I started this post at 12:12am actually, and I'm going to wrap it up quickly. This will be the last xy/xy/xy calendar date for quite some time, after a streak of having one every single year for 12 years. Actually starting from 9/9/99, to 01/01/01, 02/02/02...10/10/10, and the epic 11/11/11, there have been a lot of repetitive dates since elementary school. 8/8/88 was the only other one in my lifetime and 2/2/22 will be the next date that's anything close.
2) I like interesting dates, I don't know why. It's probably the number geek in me. Anyway I remember 8/8/08 I was in Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games, 9/9/09 I was at Georgetown and it was my friend Frank's 21st birthday, 3/3/09 (square root day) I had a math test, 10/10/10 I was at Georgetown, and 11/11/11 I had been in Hong Kong for just over a month.
3) The world is supposed to end at 11:11 GMT 12/21/2012, or 7:11pm HK time. Note that I don't believe in the slightest that this day will have any real significance, one look at academic literature on the Mayan calendar dispels any of that. However, this date has been reverberating in my head for a long time - I think I may have first heard about a 2012 apocalypse before the Y2K. I remember thinking that once 2012 rolls around, we'll still have to wait til almost the end of the year before finding out whether the world does end. So the fact this date is finally coming has some odd prophetic anticipation about it.
4) I was having a bad day today. Kinda felt monotonous at work and unmotivated and tired when I finally finished. I was sitting on the couch eating too many French fries watching the Patriots replay long after I had checked to see that they had won, mired in one of those stretches where everything was hard to accomplish. Then I went downstairs to get laundry and made a stop at the mailbox, where surprise I had mail! Eva & Auntie ad sent me a lovely Christmas card and Maggie had sent me a postcard from Cambodia. I'm not one of those people who randomly have their day made by little acts like this, but this totally made my day. I need to send and receive more snail mail.
5) I ended up cooking a few pounds of spaghetti because I had told my coworkers I would feed them tomorrow. It was a really interesting juggling act with lots of food and limited kitchen space. At one point I put several plates of ingredients on the ground behind me, and at another I was straining the spaghetti and found that a bit of it hadn't cooked. While trapping the giant pot with my elbow and holding the strainer in my right hand, I took a pair of scissors off the wall and cut the uncooked spaghetti away with my left hand.
6) Sometimes you think you can choose your friends, but you really can't. You can make an effort to be there for someone sure, but friendships are supposed to naturally happen. Some people you might theoretically want to be your friend but these things can't be forced.
7) It's extremely important though to recognize the friends who have chosen you, who think of you when you don't think of them. I think everyone has friends who are way better to you than you are to them. There should be a holiday to correct that imbalance, or you can just read this and go correct it yourself.
8) It's interesting how different family dinners are in Hong Kong and America. I estimate the average 25 year old urban American who has moved out of the home, basically all of my friends in DC, eat 10-15 family dinners a year. I estimate the average 25 year old Hong Kong local who lives at home (I haven't met a real local who doesn't) eats 200-300 family dinners a year. I definitely felt when I came home this past year that I had prioritized friends over family. It's an interesting remark on our culture, but not necessarily a negative one.
9) I've previously noticed that I don't like to go out of my way on the morning commute, even like 3 minutes to get money at the ATM, here in Hong Kong. I don't recall it being such a problem in the states. I realized today that it's because in those 3 minutes, hundreds of people "pass you." It's this psychological impulse to return to the fast-moving flow that you wouldn't feel if you were say walking alone in a wooded path to work. I'm going to see if there are psychological ways around this because I don't think it's a healthy attitude.
10) I applied for a year-long visa to China and ended up getting a 3 year visa. Charity from the Chinese government?? There must be some catch.
11) I haven't had a discussion with anyone about the "fiscal cliff" and I couldn't be happier about that.
12) What were the most memorable events of 2012? Syria? Hurricane Sandy? Gangnam Style? I personally think it was bit of a year for the nerds, with lots of mainstream public attention on the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, the atmospheric jump of Felix Boumgartner and the potential discovery of the Higgs Boson. All are so cool and so geeky.
2) I like interesting dates, I don't know why. It's probably the number geek in me. Anyway I remember 8/8/08 I was in Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games, 9/9/09 I was at Georgetown and it was my friend Frank's 21st birthday, 3/3/09 (square root day) I had a math test, 10/10/10 I was at Georgetown, and 11/11/11 I had been in Hong Kong for just over a month.
3) The world is supposed to end at 11:11 GMT 12/21/2012, or 7:11pm HK time. Note that I don't believe in the slightest that this day will have any real significance, one look at academic literature on the Mayan calendar dispels any of that. However, this date has been reverberating in my head for a long time - I think I may have first heard about a 2012 apocalypse before the Y2K. I remember thinking that once 2012 rolls around, we'll still have to wait til almost the end of the year before finding out whether the world does end. So the fact this date is finally coming has some odd prophetic anticipation about it.
4) I was having a bad day today. Kinda felt monotonous at work and unmotivated and tired when I finally finished. I was sitting on the couch eating too many French fries watching the Patriots replay long after I had checked to see that they had won, mired in one of those stretches where everything was hard to accomplish. Then I went downstairs to get laundry and made a stop at the mailbox, where surprise I had mail! Eva & Auntie ad sent me a lovely Christmas card and Maggie had sent me a postcard from Cambodia. I'm not one of those people who randomly have their day made by little acts like this, but this totally made my day. I need to send and receive more snail mail.
5) I ended up cooking a few pounds of spaghetti because I had told my coworkers I would feed them tomorrow. It was a really interesting juggling act with lots of food and limited kitchen space. At one point I put several plates of ingredients on the ground behind me, and at another I was straining the spaghetti and found that a bit of it hadn't cooked. While trapping the giant pot with my elbow and holding the strainer in my right hand, I took a pair of scissors off the wall and cut the uncooked spaghetti away with my left hand.
6) Sometimes you think you can choose your friends, but you really can't. You can make an effort to be there for someone sure, but friendships are supposed to naturally happen. Some people you might theoretically want to be your friend but these things can't be forced.
7) It's extremely important though to recognize the friends who have chosen you, who think of you when you don't think of them. I think everyone has friends who are way better to you than you are to them. There should be a holiday to correct that imbalance, or you can just read this and go correct it yourself.
8) It's interesting how different family dinners are in Hong Kong and America. I estimate the average 25 year old urban American who has moved out of the home, basically all of my friends in DC, eat 10-15 family dinners a year. I estimate the average 25 year old Hong Kong local who lives at home (I haven't met a real local who doesn't) eats 200-300 family dinners a year. I definitely felt when I came home this past year that I had prioritized friends over family. It's an interesting remark on our culture, but not necessarily a negative one.
9) I've previously noticed that I don't like to go out of my way on the morning commute, even like 3 minutes to get money at the ATM, here in Hong Kong. I don't recall it being such a problem in the states. I realized today that it's because in those 3 minutes, hundreds of people "pass you." It's this psychological impulse to return to the fast-moving flow that you wouldn't feel if you were say walking alone in a wooded path to work. I'm going to see if there are psychological ways around this because I don't think it's a healthy attitude.
10) I applied for a year-long visa to China and ended up getting a 3 year visa. Charity from the Chinese government?? There must be some catch.
11) I haven't had a discussion with anyone about the "fiscal cliff" and I couldn't be happier about that.
12) What were the most memorable events of 2012? Syria? Hurricane Sandy? Gangnam Style? I personally think it was bit of a year for the nerds, with lots of mainstream public attention on the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, the atmospheric jump of Felix Boumgartner and the potential discovery of the Higgs Boson. All are so cool and so geeky.
No comments:
Post a Comment