I once walked through a work/life loft where the kitchen was stocked with diet coke, purified water, soy milk, tangerines, blood oranges, nature valley bars, tomato soup and cous cous from Trader Joes.

The only thing I ever took were the tangerines and blood oranges. And I often helped myself to the water. On occasion, I would eat a bar, but I wasn’t severely attached. Ever since I started to instill in myself a philosophy of food moderation, food rarely holds a weight.

The reason that I am willing to buy a $3 cone from Bi-Rite Creamery vs. a $4 gallon of ice cream from Sun Valley is simply that. By spending money, I feel less inclined to spend more. And by having just a taste–even if it’s barely a physical experience that lasts 5 minutes, it’s the emotional experience that stays.

Of course though, if you happen to give me a 5 lb bag of gummy worms, we all know how long that will last in my presence.

On another note, why do people drink so much soda? Why diet coke?

I am not impulsive by nature. Maybe for shoes.

However, usually I spent days or weeks thinking about something. It’s amazing what a time limited offer can do to your thinking. And then it suddenly goes back to that statement, You always want what you cannot have.

Like how the Cold War Kids tonight at the GAMH tickets are sold out!!!

I am often wary of holistic medicine because it conflicts with what I was taught growing up. You see a symptom, treat the symptom. However, nowadays, there’s a trend in medicine toward treating everything as part of the whole. Eat better. Exercise more.

Then there’s the emphasized holistic approach that almost seems to stem from Eastern medicine. Maintain the balance in your body. Don’t eat too much “hot” foods (greasy, etc.) or too much cold foods (things that are too cool, I never really understood this one). Then recently I learned about chiropractic.

It’s the idea that your aches and pains come from the lack of nerve communication from the spine. That it’s important to get the spine straightened and life managed correctly for the back. The reason that you may have a heart attack or other maladies come from subluxations–pinches of nerves from a misaligned spine. Granted, I was immediately doubtful. Sure, I shouldn’t be sleeping on my stomach (yeah, so I sometimes like the feeling of suffocation) but would that really affect whether I may have a heart attack? Maybe since nerves can be pinched and thus the performance of the heart may not be optimal? Or the lungs? Or why people die young?

Doubts though. I can be convinced that perhaps some pains and aches from the misalignment. Yet everything else? Nothing is that purely black and white. And I am wondering why I persuaded someone to do it…because I thought he had a bad back when I can’t believe it myself.

A girl featured in photos posted on Valleywag has the same dress as me!!! Grrrr…. (She’s the one on the left in the first photo with the cream-colored dress and black trim).

I mean, she has good taste.

A friend recently wrote in her journal: True forgiveness is the willingness to say “Thank you for giving me that experience.”

I believe that. I don’t regret the bad experiences. I wish they didn’t happen. In some way, I believe I become a better person because of them. Some may believe that I had a bad year because of the “bad luck” I encountered.

But no, not at all. Silver linings. I am still alive and there’s so much to conquer. Endless possibilities. Like every day, today is the beginning of the next beginning. I did lose at some fights, returning scarred and battered. But with a touch of belief, I am back again. It’s only the horizon that stops me. But oh wait one can never reach the horizon. Limitless.

I saw someone I recognized from then crossing 24th street Saturday afternoon. I was trotting along in my new shoes, trying to break them in. When I first saw him, I almost choked. But even with that behind me, I still greeted him with an enthusiastic smile. We exchanged awkward small talk and parted ways. Never the end, never the end.

Kyle, that rising star of Berkeley, and friends have created a masterpiece.

The toilet paper dispenser.

Watch it in action!

I am proud to know someone who came up with the idea of the laziness endured while on the toilet. I mean, we want to avoid germs right? But I am more amazed at the mechanical engineering of the product. Or the fact that toilet paper was selected.

Happy Chinese New Year! Now it’s my sister’s year—the year of the pig. So throughout my 24th year, people mentioned that it was unlucky. Better watch out, the Chinese superstition said. There’s something wrong with the stars.

I am no believer of superstitions. The past year was in some way unlucky but also lucky. Right near the beginning of the Chinese New Year, I broke my right hand while skiing which caused a lot of its own challenges. But in that, I also got to know some people I would not have gotten to know. The past year, I met many people for the first time this year–E and Lele to name a few. There were the delayed flights I never thought I would be on. Then there were the job interviews that didn’t go right. And then the few that had potential. And the accidental shopping. The poor judgments. Then there were the gut feelings that turned out right. There were the bad roommates and then the best ones I have ever had. And horrible landlords to find a great one. And the dreams of moving to the East Coast or out of the country dashed to discover there was a great life anyway in San Francisco.

Maybe I just have a tough time believing in luck. I have always taught myself to find the silver lining in every gray cloud.

Yeah, so after my earlier 6-day blog hiatus due to a sudden change in personal paths, I have gotten back into my original blogging habits. Or because now I have a reason to procrastinate.

Last Sunday, after jogging around Lake Elizabeth (yes, there’s more than geese poop), I suddenly declared that I was hungry and wanted food. Now.

Chris suggested that we go back and check on yelp/citysearch. At first, I was swayed to go back and sacrifice about an hour to find the right restaurant. But then I realized by intricately planning and detailing…the great feeling of serendipity was gone.

Web 2.0 has taken our feeling of surprise away. Although it has allowed us to find the best fare for a ticket and keep in contact with people. It also has streamlined pleasant surprises to intricately planned schedules. Is it by design though? That people have addressed the direct challenges of finding something to do and communication? But they haven’t addressed the other needs of that interaction?

For instance, I do like walking in a grocery store and touching things. I like the way the apples and oranges feel. The way I can tell by touch whether it’s the perfect kind for me. I like my mangoes almost hard and not soft. My bananas must be yellow and slightly green at purchase. No website can be that accurate and capture the pleasure.

I suppose that’s the same with social networks. Friends are no longer friends–the people you can trust. They are acquaintances–people you met once at a party and was enamored for one moment, but you added them as a friend so you could look at their photos. They are your project mates–the one you hated working with but you want to keep in touch with for job networking. Then you might be surprised to find that your advisor wants to add you as a friend. I guess my friend essay is slightly out of date now.

It’s a drop of artificiality. But perhaps there could be a movement toward…serendipity 2.0.

My latest greatest music discovery: Sufjan Stevens

The song titles are incredibly long and there’s more than the usual 20 tracks in an album. But an artist who plans to write an album for each of the 50 states has got me in favor.