Global Winter Wonderland

Great America brought a Winter Wonderland light show to the Bay Area this Christmas. We went to see trees ablaze with LED lights and inflatables of the Wonders of the World. We also enjoyed garlic fries and hot chocolate to warm us in the brisky night air, saying so long to another Christmas and welcoming the year 2012.

The Way to the Gate

Taj Mahal

Snaking dragon made from porcelain. We saw many of these structures on display during our '08 Viet Nam trip.

Mom & Dad with the Peacock

Mom & Dad at the Eiffel

Wonders of the World

Tung & Dad at the Pyramid

Hugs from a Cuddly Snowman

The Scorpios

Ode to my Car

Her name is Little White, and I started my journey with her. All through high school when I first got my driver’s license, to my undergrad and graduate degrees in college, to my first few internships leading to a fulltime, permanent career. I talked to her in my loneliness of starting things anew—new schools, several interviews, fresh jobs—and she’s also experienced the laughter of friends and family whom I chauffeured around. She has been broken into three times, and during the first, she was crashed into a street light pole, abandoned in the middle of the intersection, and declared “Salvaged” when I reclaimed her from the towing station. She’s had her original license and registration stolen, and I went to the DMV to get her a new identity. Her original radio broke down, and a thief attempted to take out her first after-market radio before being deterred. She’s been through five accidents, including a time when a driver fell asleep behind the wheel, bulldozed down our house’s steel gate, and ran into her as she was parked in the driveway.

People say a car like this must harbor negative energy. Some even tried to convince me to give her up since the first theft and opt for a newer car with better security features. But she kept running and hardly ever gave me a real excuse to get a new car. Insurance and maintenance costs decreased for her over the years, and she saved me money that went toward other, more immediate things. She’s been through a lot. She sports many battle scars that remained unpatched. I think of all the heavy rains and harsh suns that she has had to endure, having spent the majority of her life parked outside of a garage. I think of the crooked radio antenna, the brittle plastic parts that have gradually crumbled, the faded fabric of her seats, the automatic mechanisms that eventually stopped working, worn with age.

Some may think it’s a pity borne by anthropomorphism. Cars don’t feel. They live to perform, and then they die, without fear, without pain, and you are saved the grief of having to hold them by the hand to help them make it through. She’s taught me a lot during her life and all that we have been through together. That you wear your battle scars with pride, because every hurt, though it’s ugly and mars the superficial surface, is a lesson that will bring you wisdom. That you can endure more than you think you could and still keep chugging along. That integrity is not measured by newness or beauty, but by a weathered soul and how well you serve those who mean something to you.

Her death began at the start of winter; like me, she was never a fan of the cold. A yellow-orange fluid started leaking out of her, which we discovered to be rusty water. The mechanic confirmed that it was radiator fluid bleeding out of the brittle hoses that snaked under her hood. He replaced one major part and sealed up another, but the leak continued through a few weeks of pouring water into the radiator before driving. Eventually, not enough fluid was maintained in her system, and the heating within the car also gave out. It became evident that in time, the rust will infect the more important parts such as the engine, like poisoned blood running through her arteries and veins.

With a “Salvaged” title, she doesn’t have much hope. I did the last thing possible so that she could do some good in her last run—I donated her to the Humane Society of Silicon Valley. The proceeds will at least help the animal shelter get some funds to benefit their cause. I cleaned her out, removing old items of sentiment: a stuffed animal faded by sun, addresses and driving directions to friends’ old houses when they have long moved away, back in the days before GPS, when directions were hand-written. She sits now along the curb, engine parts splattered with rusty remnants, aged and retired and waiting for the donation tow truck to take her away. And I thank her for all she has gotten me through, for the roads we traveled together, for everything she has done for me.





Rest in Peace, Little White.
Age: 20 years
Odometer: 144,908 unforgettable miles

Ikkyu Test

 

Test for my First-Kyu rank at Aikido of Silicon Valley
December 10, 2011

Snippets from my Pre-1st-Kyu Dreams

The nights are cold in the dojo, the darkness comes down fast, and I prepare to test. I watch others on the mat who will go up for the same rank, the way they struggle and brain-freeze through their practice sessions, and I fear that it will be me. I throw my all into my own preparations, absorbing advice, releasing tension, trying to get it right. In jiyu-waza, I adjust distance, timing, speed.

“Keep your distance, but don’t back off.”

“Draw out our uke, but don’t get in too close.”

“Be grounded, but don’t bend over when throwing.”

“Harder, softer, faster, slower.”

I take all these mis-matched jigsaw pieces of advice, pondering over how to make them fit.

After class each night, my overworked brain and body know only the carnal desires of a hot shower, a simple meal, and a good rest to heal up. When I sleep, I dream the exhausted dreams of someone who has spent hours preparing, weeks of practicing, months of anticipating. Under the covers, there is not enough air. I am doing jiyu-waza and gassing out fast. I run out of techniques, forget to blend, am incapable of keeping it up. I run into a rock, something hard and immovable. I am holding my breath, putting my strength into it, but something is wrong.

“Where is your shihonage?” someone asks. “Find your shihonage.”

I am standing before a great iron door, rapping on it with my small knuckles. The knocks sound feeble and hollow, echoing down the long halls on the other side. The door swings open, and it is cold and dark within. An invisible presence impatiently awaits my question.

“Where is my shihonage?” I ask it. “I cannot find it. Please, will you help?”

The darkness comes toward me, swallows me whole, and I am falling. I grab onto an arm with a morote grip, and I am launched into a stemi. The hard ground comes up quickly to meet me, and I struggle to turn my body the correct way.

“Tuck your head. Head down, feet over.”

I land with both feet sunk into the mat, elbows resting on knees as a weight on my back pushes me down.

“Bend your knees. Get down lower. Look away and whip it!” This is koshinage, do or die.

Someone is telling me something, half prose, half song. I try to grasp onto the voice, but a jarring sound cuts through my dreams. My alarm clock is waking me up for another day. Another step closer to the Ikkyu test this weekend. Ready or not, here it comes. Soon, it will be go-time.

Chicago

OK, this is way late, but here are some highlights from our trip to Chicago back on 8/28.

View from the Dana, our hotel

Shakespeare Theater. Didn't have time to catch a show here.

The fountain near Navy Pier

The gate to Navy Pier

One of the many boat tours

Stained glass display at Navy Pier

Stained glass display at Navy Pier

Spikey enjoying the view of the ducks at the pier

Had to time the water shoot

View of the skyline (complete with pigeon)

Kinky glass window between our bedroom and the shower in the bathroom

Tung's Mega Magarita at Gino's East Pizzeria

Chicago deep-dish pizza

Willis (formerly Sears) Tower

The view from the Skydeck in Willis Tower

The view from the Skydeck in Willis Tower. The black building in the middle is Sky Lounge, where we had cocktails.

View from The Ledge in Willis Tower, 103 stories above ground

Giant crab in Shedd Aquarium

 

Fish and moray eel stare-down in Shedd Aquarium

Mother and baby beluga whales at Shedd Aquarium

Chicago hot dogs

Tung and The Bean

   

The Bean and Chicago backdrop

Somehow a famous fountain in Chicago...

Playground pit stop on the way to Millennium Park

Breakfast Belgian waffle at Eggsperience

Dinner at Big Bowl Asian fusion restaurant

The Water Tower is built like a castle

View from 96th Sky Lounge

Tung and giant Marilyn Monroe statue

In front of Lincoln Zoo's Botanical Garden

At Lincoln Zoo, saying hi to the beaver

Last night in Chicago: dinner at Volare Italian Restaurant

Dark

There is a dark side to every moon. Aikido has always been my light, but lately it has built stones around me to create a well, and I am trapped at the bottom, looking up toward a pinprick circle of hope. The cold stone walls are wide and slippery, and I lack the strength to climb out.

I am chest-deep in ocean waters, trying to understand the finer details of techniques one at a time, but the corrections and critiques come too quickly, like currents of irimi-nage waves that wash over my head, riptides pulling me out to drown.

I am a little girl alone in the big, bad woods, bright red cape billowing behind me as I race against the wind. The woods are dark and deep, and I stand out to the creatures that hide there because I do not blend. I do not own the night. I know where I want to go, but never has it been harder to get there. Silver moonlight filters weakly through the stark tree branches, casting jagged shadows along my path.

Wanting

The first time I seriously looked at the test requirements for 1st-kyu, I had a mini panic attack. Blends, attacks, and techniques came together in a dyslexic blur of words on the page—why were there so many? There were those requirements that touched upon my weaknesses: koshinage and high falls and all these ushiro-waza that I was certain to brain-freeze on. More henka-waza with three technique requirements from different attacks, and I couldn’t even think of a single way to make it work. All those things that I was forgiven for at a lower rank, and all those I avoided practicing because I thought I had time to push them aside. The mere thought of what I couldn’t do won over all that I had already accomplished, stripping away my courage like a coat of old paint, exposing the ugly fear underneath. How could I have gone so far and feel like I know so little? Why does every step toward Shodan from this point on feel like a backtracked step away? Confused and discouraged, I tucked away the test sheet, ratty and worn from my notes and studies for previous ranks. I always carried it with me but opted not to think about it much as life took me on its customary ebb and sway of social events and busy schedules. But the time to test is upon me; Sensei doesn’t remind you three times without expecting some progress.

Recently, there was a health fair at my company, and I opted to take the usual assessment tests such as BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol-screening, and lung-capacity measurements. I was the picture of good health, even after over five years of being sedentary at a computer for 8-10 hours a day, and I realized it’s because I took time after work to practice aikido and keep my body running strong. I must not give up and deviate from this path that has proven to be so good for me. At the health fair, they also raffled off some fun prizes such as first-aid kits, car-emergency road kits, and—among the grand prizes—a Kindle e-reader. It was the only prize I wanted. The Kindle I bought for myself had been stolen not too long ago, and as I dropped my raffle ticket into the fishbowl, I had the feeling that it would be the prize I would win. It was there just to be claimed by me, one out of the hundreds of other employees who entered. Funny how intuition works, because at the end of the work day when they sent out the list of winners, my name showed up next to the Amazon Kindle.

As winter approaches, the days grow shorter, and it feels like you have less time. When I step out of the dojo after the hour of regular training, the moon shines brightly, and the sky is peppered with stars. I spent a summer forgetting, neglecting, enjoying the warm rays of the sun without thinking ahead, without preparing. The long journey lies ahead with me working through techniques on the test sheet, sweating through the night long past regular class, shivering through the cold months as the dojo loses its noontime heat, getting ready. Even now, writing about it is hard; it makes me commit for it to happen, making it real. But sometimes, despite the odds, you throw in your ticket, and you enter. Sometimes, the test is not about the knowledge of techniques, but the ability for you to surpass your insecurities, conquer your fears, and better yourself in the process. Sometimes, you’ve just plain got to want it badly enough. So I make myself look at all my Sempai, the ones who wear the brown belt with the black stripe. And I know that it will soon be mine.

TeleNav Picnic at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Every year, my company hosts a company picnic, and this year brought us to the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Here are the highlights.

Beach view

Boardwalk

Live band and hula to be enjoyed over a BBQ lunch

Unlimited Rides wristband

The Loof Carousel was built in 1911. This year marks its 100th anniversary.

Having fun on the carousel. There is a place where you can grab rings as your horse swings past. You can try and toss the metal rings into the clown's mouth as you come around.

View from the Ferris wheel

A soak in the ocean

Interesting to see how these sea lions use high tide to find a sleeping spot.

Dinner at The Dolphin

Tung's ready to wash that lunch BBQ down with a seafood dinner.

Tung's clam chowder

My crab sandwich

Tung's Fish & Chips

 

Mmm, can't resist garlic fries on the menu!