Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Extra guac

“Come on, guys, we make money now!”

Is a common refrain I’ve used to my friends lately. For the times when they agonize over really small money matters. Such as paying the extra few bucks to get guacamole at Chipotle. Isn’t the point of making money so that we don’t have to think about these trivial things? The extra few dollars here and there isn’t going to amount to much savings. But a burrito bowl is immensely better with guac.

I get it: my friends and I are from working-class upbringings, so scrimping to the last dollar is sort of innate in our money psychology. Our parents did so in order to give us a better life, so why not live that? We should pay extra for more leg-room on an airplane, and we shouldn’t drive to Costco for gas just because it’s significantly cheaper. If an item is under $10 dollars, why bother with the hassle of returning it? Just throw it away (sorry, environmentalists).

Not to say we should go super crazy with it and not save a single penny. As with everything in life, it’s about moderation. If we are consistently putting away a comfortable percentage of our income every month, why not go slightly crazy with the rest? Preparing for the future is fine, but we still have to live right now. That is why I spent six-figures on a car.

I remember a guest on a certain podcast said he lives and spends with the confidence that his future self will always make more money. While I don’t quite have that kind of bravery, some modicum of that mentality is good to have. I am young: I can and will earn the money later to pay extra for guacamole today.

A house is not a home

Hate crimes and attacks targeting the Asian American community are very much in the news lately. The worst of which occurred last week, when a lunatic shot up a few massage parlors in Atlanta, killing eight people. The entire community is on edge, lacking a sense of safety when we step outside of our homes. You always have to be on alert, a certain amount of underlying stress that shouldn’t be there in a civilized society.

As someone who grew up in the south-eastern side of San Francisco, I am innately familiar with that specific kind of stress. It only takes a few muggings for the young me to realize I need street smarts to walk around my neighborhood. The five senses are always tuned in to the surroundings, always on alert for anything - or anyone - untoward. You relax for one moment, and the next thing you know, you’re getting robbed of your iPod (remember those?) violently. I still have the scar on my chin.

The subconscious trauma never leaves, so long as I never the left the neighborhood. Even as the crime rate fall as the years advanced, I could never relax in that corner of the city. Surely that’s the same feeling felt by Asian Americans presently, especially our elders. I can attest it’s the worst not being able to feel safe walking around your home neighborhood. Is there even an area of San Francisco where an Asian person can feel completely at ease? I am not so sure.

One of the reasons I love traveling to Asia is because the aforementioned type of stress simply does not exist. In major cities of Asia, I can walk anywhere, at anytime, and feel absolutely safe. The lack of stressor is so freeing, a sense of calm that I miss dearly every time I step off the plane back onto American soil. Safety - isn’t that what living in the first world is about?

Never mind the fact that gun violence and gun deaths are uniquely American. The problem is both structural and cultural.

I understand and empathize greatly with the trauma and anxiety that Asian Americans are feeling these days. I don’t have much of the answers, but one of them has to be that perpetrators of crime need to be persecuted to the fullest extent. There has to be stiff penalty for doing harm to others. Robbery may only be of material loss, but I speak from experience: the mental harm can last for a very long time.

Boring is good

What if boring is good? What if we are not meant to strive for greatness? Surely it’s perfectly fine to be comfortable, content, and be at leisure.

I had a mini existential crisis of sorts recently. It was the weekend, the time to do the stuff I want to do. To do things that improve and better myself. Like reading a book, or study some skill. Perhaps to go outside and explorer, grab that pricey Sony camera that’s been gathering dust since the pandemic started and do something with it. Why am I not being more productive? It’s the weekend! The time I pined ever so much to have during the busy work-week.

And yet, all I wanted to do was absolutely nothing. There’s errands to run, of course, but after that, lounging around seemed like the thing to do. But guilts of unproductiveness and stagnation quickly hit me, and I would then get stuck in rut, fighting between what the two sides want.

Why do we strive for more anyways? A lot of it is novelty. We can’t bear the pain and reality of doing the same things over and over. No matter how much the pandemic have made Groundhog Day a reality for us, the taste for something new and different is always the dangling carrot in front. This is why so many people are predicting a post-vaccine boom: we are all so ready to do something other than what we’ve been doing for the past year.

Why do I study things, read books, travel to places and do photography? For the chance that it may lead to something different, something new in the future. That’s the treadmill that I didn’t know I was on, but here it is on a quiet weekend, making me restless because I can’t force myself to actually rest. What if this monotony of life is all there is? Why can’t I be okay with doing the same thing day after day, week after week? I live a comfortable life: I should be satisfied with that if this is all that ever will be.

It’s okay if life is boring.

WFH on rainy days

The best days to work from home are the rainy days, when I am comfortably indoors with a hot cup of tea. The flowers are blooming this time of the year, so the view outside my window is rather lovely. The BMW M2 is getting a free car wash courtesy of the rain. The clouded skies means the sun isn’t shinning directly into my eyes during the afternoon. I have window shades, but I prefer to keep a view towards the outside.

Rainy days are great when you don’t have to go outside. One thing I didn’t calculate for when I moved closer to work is that I would have to walk through the rain to get to campus. Even the strongest umbrella cannot prevent the bottom half of my body from getting wet. The brief 10 minute walk is enough to completely soak the shoes. I really need a pair of rain boots, or shoes that are somewhat weatherproof.

The ultimate first world solution would to actually drive to work when it rains, even though I only live two longish blocks away. My parents would never dream of being so wasteful, but what’s the point of making money if not to make our lives more convenient? More so than the cost of gas, I’d be more worried about such a short trip having a negative effect on the engine. Advantage to electric vehicles: there aren’t any internal fluids to get up to temperature.

But there’s a problem: the distance from the school’s parking lot to the building where I work is precisely the same distance as that building from my home. I would literally gain nothing from driving. Perhaps those boots are indeed the way to go.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy working at home in front of the window on these rainy days. As the vaccines proliferate, pretty soon I’m going to have to say goodbye to this pandemic work lifestyle.

Slight delay

I was supposed to get the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine tomorrow morning, but sadly I got notification the City College of San Francisco vaccination site do not have enough supply to fulfill the original appointment. Therefore I am not going to complete the vaccination circle until Thursday of next week. After a grueling year of the pandemic, what’s another seven days of waiting anyways?

Of course, getting the second shot doesn’t mean I am immediately immune to COVID-19. It takes another two weeks after that for the vaccine to take full effect. That means I still have three more weeks of this super careful, masked-up, lockdown lifestyle that’s been going on for more than a year. Not that I’d be going around freely not giving a crap as soon as the two weeks is over, mind you.

Once I am fully immune, my friends and I are having a gathering to celebrate the occasion. Due to sheer luck, our friend group all either work in education, or in the medical field. Therefore, we were amongst the first batch of people to get the vaccine. This milestone should be celebrated properly: by gathering indoors without masks, and hugging each other with impunity. After a whole year of not hanging out together, it’ll be a sweet feeling indeed.

We certainly won’t be the only group of people doing this. I am genuinely happy that as more and more are vaccinated, we get to go back to socializing physically, rather than over a Zoom screen. I just hope we have enough supply for everyone to get the vaccine as quickly as possible. Hopefully my delay is just a small hiccup, rather than some widespread issue.

An EV should be your next car

To get around the relatively vast San Francisco State campus, we have these small electric trucks to drive around. They are similar in size to the kei cars you see in Japan: small engine, narrow size, supremely maneuverable. Especially during these COVID times, when the campus is largely empty of people, it’s very fun to zip around these things. A few years ago we got fully electric versions to replace the aging gasoline fleet. It’s with these tiny trucks where I had my first prolonged experience with EVs.

Conclusion: I think anybody with the capability to plug-in at home should buy an EV, and never look at gasoline vehicles ever again.

Our trucks at work are always charging and ready to go. The electric motor have more than enough torque to push a full load of cargo up an incline. Best of all, there’s no emissions to speak of, so when there are people mingling about on campus, we’re not choking up the place with smog. Range is not a problem: there’s enough on a charge to drive around campus multiple times over. Soon as we return to base, it goes straight to the plug.

If you have the capability to charge at home, there’s really no downside to an EV. Should on the few occasions you need to go somewhere far, you can always rent a regular gasoline-powered car. It’s the trap of thinking you need to have one singular car for all scenarios that’s giving people pause for EVs in regards to range. I get it: the current charging infrastructure is not broad enough and too cumbersome (who wants to wait over half an hour to “fuel” up?)

Which is why I caveat that only those with charging capabilities at home should buy an EV.

Just as you shouldn’t buy a pickup truck for the few times out of the year you think you’ll hit the hardware store, or a Jeep Wrangler for the few times you’ll go off-roading, don’t let the notion of a long road-trip deter you from buying a fully electric vehicle as your next car. EVs are the future, and I see everyday how awesome that future is at work.

DST can go die

I keep saying this, and I’ll keep on doing so until they stop: I hate changing the clock for Daylight Saving Time. Would the powers at be just pick one time and stick with it for the whole year? Why are we voluntarily giving ourselves essentially jet lag for no good reason? The agony is especially acute in the Spring, during which we lose an hour of time on that Sunday. I felt horrible yesterday, even though I did the same as I usually do every Sunday.

It’s going the greatest of day when congress passes a law mandating either we keep DST or standard time forever, and never changing back.

Until then, the best we can do is cope with the difficulties. Even though today is a work day, I still woke up at the same time before changing the clock forwards. I can afford to do this because my normal wakeup time is well before when I have to actually get ready for work. When the alarm rings, it isn’t the ultimatum like it is for most people. The snooze button isn’t some penalty I am going to have to pay for later. This freedom is rather nice, though obviously I also go to sleep earlier to compensate.

Instead of forcing myself to wake up at this “new” time, I’m going to slowly allow my body to acquiesce. I’m not going to set an alarm; whenever I wake up is whenever I shall wake up. There’s no need to set a backstop alarm, because I would have to oversleep for over two hours before I’d have to begin panicking about getting to work on time.

This begs the question: why set an alarm at all? If I have such freedom of hours before I have to get ready for work, why not “naturally” wake everyday? Surely it’s better than being rudely interrupted by an alarm. I reckon this is worth exploring.