I love art installations that demonstrate a concept, but have a great narrative to it.

Thanks to Kyle, I bring Tagged, the RFID project. It is an art installation in Germany that demonstrates the technology of RFID. And according to wmmn:

The installation consists of a large shelf and tagged everyday objects in it. When one of the objects is placed in the central empty cubicle of the shelf, associated information (picture, movieclip, sound or music collages) are being displayed on the screen above.

All objects have been stolen by the same lady, who now proudly presents her “trophies”. Each object gives a hint about where how or why it has been stolen. Spending more time exploring the stories, one is able to draw conclusions about the thief’s personality and her criminal career.

I just find that fascinating. And RFID tags.

Procrastination is…setting goals for myself in the near future.

I shall one day learn Dreamweaver.

I shall actively pursue networking contacts for jobs.

I shall write my paper for my Behaviors of Groups class.

I shall buy tickets to fly home this winter break.

I shall write the thank you letter I wanted to send to my high school teacher six years ago.

I shall clean my room.

I shall take the hip hop class offered on Tuesday evenings.

I shall go on the Homewood cemetary tour.

I shall take a jog to and around Chatham College.

I shall get myself to a farmer\’s market in Pittsburgh before it closes.

I shall visit the Carnegie Science Center for the first time.

I shall see Harry Potter and read the latest book.

I shall be…a better person.

\”I just wanted to let you know, we will never come back again,\” one person in our group said as we were leaving the chinese restaurant.

For Jack\’s birthday, we opted to go to a restaurant on the other side of the river for dim sum. They only served dim sum once a month. All the pieces are handmade. And these were the selling points as 9 of us went.

Note though, I have never been fond of dim sum in the first place. Some may say that I am rejecting my Chinese heritage. But ultimately, it\’s the fact that I just don\’t enjoy dim sum. The food doesn\’t attract me. Perhaps it\’s because I have had it almost every other week when I was younger. Or perhaps I felt like I was in the position of an unstated children are meant to be seen, not heard rule in my family. Or perhaps, a yearning to be like everyone else and not an outcast created this dislike.

The dim sum at the restaurant surprisingly came very slow. It took at least 10 minutes between each dish to arrive. And furthermore, we split all the items on the dish to the 9 of us. My usual favorite–egg custard tarts–were nowhere to be found. I don\’t know what it was but the other tables next to us seemed to be getting more food. I wasn\’t sure. The pieces were somewhat small and unfulfilling. Most dishes lacked the pungent flavor I was used to in the places in California. But I am biased.

Of any Chinese food, my favorite places have been noodle houses (won ton noodle!) and Shanghainese places (those fried steam buns–ung see gurn)

The comment my friend made seemed a little bit cruel, but it was true. The likelihood of us returning was nil after the experience. Yet, everyone has a bad day right? Maybe someone skipped out on work and made the entire process of dim sum incredibly slow. Perhaps there was a family emergency that caused the staff to start later than they normally would have on this first Sunday of the month. I just can\’t accept that a restaurant chose to give bad service. After all, the hostess and servers were nice to us, apologizing for the wait.

But if I had a choice of brunch, I would trade dim sum any day for fluffy crepes filled with fresh fruit filling and hash browns.

For my weekly solitary movie-watching, I saw Saving Face. It is already typefied in the genre of Asian-American-daughter-caught-in-a-culture-clash-of-an-Asian-mother.

Typical. I did like Joy Luck Club. The Wedding Banquet. And the movie was still good. Yet, what bothers me about these movies is that sometimes the culture is really not there. What Saving Face did well was that there are some asian families that aren\’t that tied to their cultural roots. Some do accept things new to them. Homosexuality. Non-asians. Forgetting to take off shoes at the door. Not eating with chopsticks.

Still. When I write about my own life, I find that I rarely refer to my asian heritage. It just hasn\’t been a big part of my life, growing up in a predominantly Caucasian community. My parents too didn\’t demand that my sister and me stick closely to Chinese traditions. Sure, we did eat dinner with chopsticks and my mom did lay the stove with alumninum foil. Yes, there were Chinese paintings in the house. Yet, there wasn\’t any extreme awkwardness of inviting people over who would be surprised by a different culture. My parents, as far as I know, don\’t participate in the so-called Asian gossip. They don\’t know how to play mah jong or make open belittling comments about who got fat, who was in an affair, etc. (although I remember my Uncle made a comment once about my sister and me – both of us were incredibly insulted…) Only recently have my parents got involved with Chinese soaps. To this day, I don\’t understand yeet hay aka hot air…and the balance of hot and cold. Maybe I am too Americanized.

The strange thing is that my friends at Berkeley taught me the most about it all–when I took time to be part of the Asian student assocations such as the CSA, TSA, HKSA. Not that I regret not knowing my heritage, it just hasn\’t been a big part of my life to begin with.

But then, perhaps that was the point of the movie. It just so happened that the characters are Asian. And that they could be any other ethnicity. It\’s interesting how people complain that Asians are not predominant in the media. But the reason that is…is because we still believe that Asians need a purpose–a cultural purpose–to appear in a movie. Whereas it\’s not the same for African Americans or even Latinos. The cultural reason is not there anymore. And was that why it felt almost out of place that Sandra Oh was in Sideways? But she was good in Double Happiness.

Grades are not supposed to define who we are, yet when typecasted as the intelligent student, we let grades determine our goodness. In high school, I used to prefer tests over projects. In fact, when a teacher handed out an anonymous survey asking the class how they preferred the class to be run, I wrote out of sadism, \”Longer essays. More tests.\”

Back then, I knew how to \”cheat\” the system. I rarely studied and was a slacker really. The only moments that I can recall doing anything academically productive at my desk was doing homework. Particularly the math homework.

After more than 6 years of college, I realize that tests aren\’t everything. Tests suck, simply put. That is why I was able to \”cheat\” the system in high school without really learning anything. They test whether you know how the professor thinks is important and whether you know how take a test. This points out the failure of such aptitude tests such as the SAT and the GRE. I did above the mean on both, but not extraordinarily well. What none of these tests do is find out an individual\’s drive for potential.

This morning, I woke up from a nightmare where I failed a course. I argued with the professor saying that the F was unwarranted that even though I wasn\’t an ideator or a natural speaker, it was unfair to receive such a poor grade. She looked at me with pity and apologized saying that was what the syllabus from the very beginning had stated. My world started falling apart…and then suddenly I woke up to a world where grades are meaningless.

We all naturally want to be great. As a student, it\’s almost as if our school achievements define how great we can be. But isn\’t it more than that? The relationships we build? The change we make for the better? Not only for ourselves, but everyone else. What then is the definition of greatness?

I would just to take a moment and note that my portfolio has finally made it to the top rankings in Google when searching for my full name. Don\’t you…think NG sometimes? I do. Yes!

This all thanks to a short-sighted attempt to google bomb the search engine with my full name, eliminating embarrassing links appearing at the very top.

Comments, suggestions, constructive criticism appreciated. Also, I was lazy and didn\’t make an individual page for each project I worked on. To be coming there, the work in the CHI 2006 Student Design Competition and the field work/user studies I did on an event service application.

I went to eat by myself at Eat \’N Park for the second time alone this week. Strangely enough, I have somewhat gotten over the fear of eating alone. Only at specific restaurants however where the cheapness of the food calls for random single diners. Interestingly enough, at least 2 other tables near me (booths) were single diners. One was in her mid-twenties, reading a book, but evidently she came to the restaurant to also chat with her friends who worked as servers. Another was a middle-aged lady who wore a napkin bib and splashed spaghetti sauce all over herself. Another lady further down the row was working on storybook sketches, finished with her main meal and drinking a cup of tea slowly. It was pleasant.

I remember going to Denny\’s with Aaron in El Cerrito back in undergrad. We would go in with our heavy books and notes. The server would take one look at us and lead us toward the back where other students were studying. We would often order a breakfast meal since it usually was around 10 or 11 pm at night. Then eat…drink…all night. The server would bring us the check and then leave us alone, occasionally checking up on our drinks. Then three hours later, we would saunter out of Denny\’s to Aaron\’s car, feeling well-studied and happy.

I tried studying tonight for my midterm tomorrow in human factors. But it wasn\’t the same. Being alone makes me a bit too self-aware sometimes. But perhaps it was more of the fact that I just didn\’t get the cognition and decision-making chapters. Wish me luck.

A few weeks ago, some people were noting how useless videos on ipods are. But hey how about drivetime, a weekly show by a guy on his way to work in Boston. Videocast?

This reminds me of Rekuytn and my attempts on an online weekly radio show (before podcast existed). Our show was about big issues in our time, namely politics and our views on the world. Pretentious of course. The biggest mistake we made was when we decided to do a show on the world of blogging. We had a guest on our show who bashed the very essence of blogs. Then somehow this encouraged me to start bashing journals/blogs that I saw unfit. I openly critiqued the blog, giving the url to the audience for reference. A lot of negativity followed me (online) for the following weeks, but hey it was my opinion.

Do weekly shows like this actually work? Would people really be interested? At the same time, we only like to read blogs of people we know. Only occasionally do people come upon a random blog and start reading. I try to do the latter, but sometimes I feel like it\’s not my place unless the blog is created for the purposes of being completely general. What then?

It was the strangest thing. I experienced vertigo and a feeling of discomfort this morning. I felt so sick and basically laid in the lab sofa in nausea. Suddenly, the graduate program coordinators came bearing candy for Halloween. I took two pieces and suddenly about 10 minutes later, I felt better. Candy makes life oh so better!

As a result of that miracle, I couldn\’t help but eat candy anytime I found some…

A few moments from yesterday\’s famed Halloween party:

How does this compare with that of last year in the same apartment?

One thing I learned is that I probably will never wear a Halloween costume that is meant for the purposes of \”hooking up\”. I don\’t do \”sexy\” witches, cats, or schoolgirls. Every year it\’s fun to look incredibly messy and dishelved. Unlike the quote from Mean Girls, Halloween is the one night a year that I can dress as a mess and nobody else can say anything about it. Woohoo!