Karma Karma Karmalia

Nervous breakdown

2006-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Lately I have not been feeling too good about myself, my personal life and my career. One day, over lunch with a friend, I launched into a tirade about my feeling depressed blah blah blah... I told him "You know I've been strong and steady for so many people for so many year, and if I have a nervous break down, you know what, dammit, I DESERVE it! " He nodded in agreement and comfort me to his best ability.

Later that day, he told me, "Well, I think if you still have the strength and energy to DEMAND your right to have a nervous breakdown, you'll be okay." I laughed at his insightful comment. You know what, he's right. I'll be okay.

Useful

2006-05-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

I bought a curio at an auction couple weeks ago. It's a beautiful little piece. It is supposed to be a French Boulle, but I think the auctioneer just put this description in to lure unwitting customers. I called and boasted about it to my ex-boyfriend, but first I had to explain to him what a curio is. He asked me "Is it useful?". I said, "Well, I use it to store my useless items, so in that sense it is useful".

In love

2006-03-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

Last night I met a girlfriend and her new boyfriend for a drink. I met her last Sunday for brunch and the first thing she said to me was "Guess what?! I'm in love!". I let out an appropriately excited shriek and gave her a congratulatory hug.

After we settled down, she proceeded to tell me about the guy. He's this and that and he's wonderful and terrific, etc.... Then she looked at me gravely and said, "And he is bald". I said "Well, bald is okay as long as he's good looking, but is he bald, bald or ring-around-the-head bald?" She said "The ring-around kind". I told her "Well, tell him to shave it all off, he may look better that way" and she said "But no! I love it!!". I said, "Oh my god! You ARE in love!"

Weimar Republic

2006-03-04T12:03:00.000-08:00

Last week I met an old friend at a bar in downtown SJ. It's a German restaurant/bar complete with a polka band playing in uniform. My friend has a bunch of friends who are regulars there. It's kind of like Cheers for them. They call themselves Society of the Worthless Drunks. One time I was there, a friend of his commented to me how the band's uniform makes him feel like they are in the military. I joked back saying something about the Stormtrooper, the Third Reich and The Weimar Repulic. He looked shocked and told me that I was the first one in a long time he ever heard of talking about the Weimar Republic, or actually know what it is. As it turned out, his master thesis was on "Unemployment Benefits During The Weimar Republic". Talking about an oddball subject!

From then on, every time I talked to someone who is surpised by some obscure trivia that I know, I would tell him, "If you're impressed by that, wait til you hear about the Weimar Republic!"

Sandy

2005-12-15T00:05:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I attended an artist display at a gallery where a friend of mine was showing her work. This is Silicon Valley so the kind of people who congregate at any place tend to be fairly mixed so even at an art event to have plenty of technical geeky folks attending. One of men I talked to espoused some pretty obscure, yet ambitious plan. He was or at least that he claimed, working on a project that will redefine the Internet and its paradigm. It sounds quite strange, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

In any case, his name was Sandy. After he left, my friend and couple of other people were talking about him. My friend say, "Sandy, isn't that like a female's name?". I replied, "Yeah, but perhaps it's short for Sandford or SanDisk". There were silence and puzzled looks. To my surprise, no one there got the joke including another friend who works in computer field. I know, I know, the joke is pretty geeky, but hey, this is Silicon Valley.

Today, I went to lunch with several co-workers. I relay the same "Sandy" story and the reaction was vastly different. Everyone laughed whole-heartedly. They got it.

I guess I'm more of a geekette than I thought.

Specialization

2005-12-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

For more than a month now, a building with a large lot in my neighborhood has been under fairly intensed constructions. I passed by it everyday on my way to work. There were men working busily blocking the road, redirecting traffic, digging etc.... So out of curiosity, one day I stopped the car, rolled down the window and asked one of them, "Hi, what are you building here?" He replied, "I don't know. We're only responsible for the digging"

Talk about specialization!

Costco

2005-11-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that one often goes into Costco with the intention of buying one or two items and always comes out with a sizeable dent in one's wallet? Last weekend I went in there intending to purchase exactly four items: toilet paper, dish-washing detergent, shampoo and bottled water. My bill came out to be $123.94. And I didn't even get water!

Thanksgiving

2005-11-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving was one of only two that I did not spend time with my family. The first one was several years ago when I went to Montreal to visit my teacher. This year since I had just been home twice shortly before, I thought I'd stay put and relax.

On Thanksgiving day I went to the City (San Francisco that is) to have Thanksgiving dinner with some friends. There were six of us, two women and four men. It was very "Friends-esque", with a San Francisco twist. The men included a gay couple and a metrosexual. Needless to say the food was FABULOUS!

anonymous no more

2005-08-19T00:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I called my friend J. up to ask him about some tax related stuff. We talked for a while and toward the end of our conversation, J. asked me in that knowing-yet-pretend-to-be-casual tone: "So tell me more about Dave Barry". I was astounded and exclaimed "What??!! How did you know about Dave Barry??!!". You see, although I haven't been very active with my blog, I had been blogging anonymously. My 2-hour crush on Dave Barry was made known here and no one I know knows about my blogging, except for Mr Lj.. He knew I was blogging, but had no information about where and what and I'd like to keep it that way. It's definitely more liberating to write about things when you're anonymous. Now, my identify has been revealed. Thank you very much J. for blowing my cover!

I asked him how he knew that this was me. He said that he looked me up in Match.com and googled my Match name and found my blog. When I signed up for Match, I thought about whether I should use the same name or something different and decided to use the same one think that it would be my online persona. In any case, I didn't think I would be found by someone I know, but I perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to be found. After the initial shock of identity uncovered, I felt a rush knowing that I now have an audience that knows who I am. I know J. will check back to see what I write about from time to time.

Now that he'd uncovered my secret identity, I would have to tell the blog world about him. J. is an old college friend. A real smart guy. He was of the type whose acquisition of straight A's seemed so effortless. You know, the type that you secretly resented, but had to be nice to because you would need his help with your homework and such. After college he went to graduate school in Berkeley and I remained and worked in SoCal. We lost touch.

Many many years later, one day, I got an email on my Yahoo account asking "Is that you?". The sender was J.. He did a Yahoo search and found my name. You see, I have one of those very distinctive ethnic names. I am perhaps the only person in the world with such a name and that was not an exaggeration. So it was not too difficult for him to be reasonably confident that it was me. I was surprised and very glad to hear from him. We were good friends in college. There is always a level of closeness that you feel toward an old friend although we haven't talked for quite a while. We've been in touch since that fateful email.

J. and I would share our life stories with each other every now and then. He is one of the friends that I only talk to about once every month or so, but whenever we talked, it would be for hours. He is fun and open. Someone I can talk to about virtually anything. And of course, with the change in my dating status, I'd talked to him about my recent foray into match.com, and therefore resulting in the aforementioned un-anonymity incident. That would teach me a lesson for being too open with you J.!

That's that for now. I will tell you more about J. when I have a chance. The lurid details will perhaps keep him from telling other friends about my blog and therefore provide some protections for my identify :)

On the road again

2005-07-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been six months since I last posted. Lots have changed since. Mr. Lj. and I broke up right about after my last post (the end of January). What can I say, irreconcilable difference. I moved out in March. We were together for over four years. It was sad and discouraging to be starting over again.

I'm back on the dating scene now. Joined match.com over a month ago. I had some funny tidbits about the match dates. I'll post the funny ones sometime when I have time.

RAISING THE BAR

2005-01-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

Driving home from work last night, I noticed a new billboard off the freeway next to the exit to my house. It's a Cingular ad showing a full strength cellphone reception signal bars with the tagline: "RAISING THE BAR". Sounds good. I assume this means they are now mounting a defense to Verizon's "Can you hear me now?" ad campaign.

We live just right across the freeway from this billboard. My bf has had Cingular for many years. We moved to this neighborhood for about a year and during the whole time, his cellphone signal has been absolutely awful! Whenever we talk while he's driving, I can always tell when he's getting close to home. It's when he looses his cellphone signal. Again, we live right across the freeway from this huge billboard boasting their "RAISING THE BAR". Raising the bar my foot!

I have Sprint which uses CDMA technology. For those non-geeks out there, CDMA is acronyms for Code-Division Multiple Access, a digital cellular technology developed by Qualcomm. I worked for Qualcomm for almost two years when I was living in San Diego. My office was at their headquarter campus. Yet, I could barely get any signal when I'm at work. And at my neighborhood Sprint store, I have to dart around the room to find a spot that has signal. I hope it's improved by now because it was so bad that it was almost comical.

I think I can create a study of this entitled "Irony in Advertisement". Do you think I can get it published?

Lazy Daisy

2005-01-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted much of anything for the past couple weeks. I know I'm not being a good blog citizen here. But lately I've been spending virtually every night laying in front to the television. Normally, I'm not a big TV person. I have couple nights a week (usually Thursdays and Sundays) where I watch a few shows that I like. Other nights, I tend to read, do chores and work on other projects. After the holiday madness, I was going to give myself a few of nights of pure laziness. And a fews nights turned into a couple weeks. On the nights that I don't usually have any good to watch, I would fully utilize my dexterious phalanges on the remote. Damn it! I wanted to watch TV and I would not stop until I find anthing half decent!

Through these highly scientific methods, I found that being lazy can be accomplished quite easily. Perhaps I should spend more time researching this through further experimentations.

Music

2004-12-23T01:06:00.000-08:00

As stated in my profile, I'm a sucker for sappy oldies. The reason is because I'm a nostalgic person and these old songs bring back memories of days past. So on the list besides music genres, I listed couple songs, my childhood favorite. Blogger.com enables links on these songs to other bloggers who share similar interest. Out of curiosity, I click on these songs to see what kind of people are into the same semi-obscure songs as I am. For the song Yesterday Once More by the Carpenters, virtually all ten of the co-admirers are from Asian continent. Six from China, HK and Taiwan, one South Korean and a Bangladeshi.
To Sir With Love, an American classic (in my mind), has ONE fan other than myself, a 14-year old from Singapore!

Hmm.... Given that both of these songs can be considered American classics, it was surprising for me to see that there were no Americans other than myself in the fan list. But I'm Asian born-American raised and my love for these songs started when I was a very young girl in Vietnam. So it's my Asian upbringing that gave me the love of these songs. I know that openly admitting to liking these oldies are not exactly a sign of hipness. So I think that many people wouldn't be caught dead admitting to liking the Carpenters. Heavens no! It's much more cool to list off the names of acid rock bands.

I'm not the type who's afraid of being myself and speak my mind. This is sometimes done to my own detriment, but I wouldn't want to change a thing. I would gladly admit to being common. I have some friends who would put down things common. They would refuse to see a movie because it is so "common", as if there are some kind of superiority in seeing a movie so awful that noone else wants to see it. I just tell them that yes I am common, and I love it.

I once confessed to a group of my co-workers that when I was looking for a new car a few years ago, I chose to purchase an Infinity sedan over a cute little sports car because I needed the trunk space for my Costco purchases. This admission generated a roar of laughter from my co-workers. I think the reason for such positive response was because people generally find it's refreshing to hear someone speaks openly and honestly. I know I do.

Itchy no more

2004-12-22T01:32:00.000-08:00

Winter is a season of dry-itchy skin. Like most people, I try to alleviate the dryness by using lotion, but the hard to reach spots such as the back pose a challenge. So often I end up spending the day with an an itchy spot on my back. Not too pleasant. Fortunately, I think I've found a way to conquer this annoying situation.

Sometime in past year or so I received a bottle of Avon body spray as a gift. First, I'm not an Avon person. The last time I bought any Avon product was like my junior year in highschool. Second as a residual affect from my tomboyish childhood, I'm not too conscientious about using beauty care products. Of course, unless I'm trying to impress members of the opposite sex. So it had been sitting in a corner of the bathroom cabinet for quite some time. Last week, Mr. Lj., tired of all the feminine products illegally parking on his side of the cabinet, mercilessly expelled them including this spray bottle. So had to take drastic steps to reduce inventory and actually use these products.

I tried this body spray. It is a skin softener but instead in a lotion form, it's a liquid that you spray on your body. I discovered that one nice thing about it is that because of its spray format, I was able to reach the hard-to-reach corner of my back. With the regular lotion, I actually have to touch the skin surface, but with the spray bottle, all I need to do is hold it up over my shoulder and spray down. Voila! That itchy corner is now cover with the softening liquid. So itchy no more!

Cranberries

2004-12-21T01:00:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting article about cranberries in the Economist special Christmas issue. There are some interesting tidbits about this cute versatile berries. They were used by the American Navy during the Revolutionary war as a source of vitamin C to stave off scurvy on long voyages. They require unusual soil composition of poorly drain, highly acid combination of peat and clay. I've done some gardening and was amazed that anything would survive in such a soil, let alone flourish. On top of that they do better when covered by a layer of sand! Go figure.

Nevertheless, they are amazing little fruits. They float and they bounce. They are stay chewy when baked. They are "flavoured fruit pieces" that serve as vehicles for other fruit flavors. They are cute little berries with amazing color. I like them a lot. I used buy these humongous bags of dried cranberries from Costco and munch on them all day at work. And they got me perilously close to baking. I almost baked some cranberry almond biscoti once. That's how good these little fruits are.

Treasures

2004-12-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

My bf, Mr. Lj. and I are from very different ethnic groups. I'm Asian and he's Eastern European. My parents raised me and my siblings quite liberally when it comes to food. We were exposed to all kinds of food so natural I am culinarily very adventurous. Mr Lj on the other hand, is quite the opposite. When he was growing up, he did not see a non-Caucasian until he was in college. Food wise, bananas were among the most exotic items there. So you could imagine growing up in this very insular culture combined with risk-averse unbringing had made him arguably one of the most unadventurous eaters that I've known.

However, after living in the US for quite sometime, he has broadened his food palete slightly. When we started dating, I was relieved to learn that he can manage some Asian dishes and he especially liked chicken curry. So in my attempt to exploit this miniscule culinary common ground, I made chicken curry from time to time. He enjoyed them very much, and actually went as far as declaring them "exquisite". (But I must disclose that Mr. Lj. is very proned to culinary hyperboles. Perhaps as some sort of compensation for the lack of actual consumption experience).

Two weeks ago, I made a pot of chicken curry. Unfortunately, unknown to me, he had some bad experience with the previous time he ate curry and decided that he no longer wants to eat it. I insisted that he gave it a try, but he refused and ate some boring cold cuts and sterile bread instead. I fumed and ended up eating what I could and stuffed the rest in the freezer thinking that I will have to gradually whittle it down by myself.

The turning point came last week. Last Friday, my company had a Christmas pot luck. I completely forgot about it until late Thursday night. With not much choices available, I pulled the chicken curry from the depth of my freezer and defrosted it. On Friday morning before leaving for work, I furiously added some veggies and chicken to the curry pot and adjusted the seasoning a bit. I put it in a nice looking casserole pot, brought it to work and presented it at the potluck. Well, surprisingly it turned out to be quite a hit. It was consumed without a single morsel left. Couple of my co-workers were inquiring on who was the creator of the "exquisite" curry. One co-worker when learned that I was the creator, said to me: "Karm, you ROCK!"

I guess one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Death

2004-12-16T23:16:00.000-08:00

I got a call from my sister tonight. Her father-in-law had just passed away. He had been having kidney problems for the past few months and suffered a heart attack last Sunday. He was not found almost an hour after the attack. His brain was so damage that the doctor said there were little chances he would recover. My brother-in-law's family decided to remove the respirator yesterday and he passed away this morning.

My parents are in their late sixties. They are still quite healthy an active. In fact, they're currently travelling in Asia right now. I'm grateful for their health and happiness, but I realize that I'm in the age group where our grandparents had passed away and our parents are on the edge. Three of my close friends had lost one of their parents. When someone you're closed too loose his or her parents, the touch of death is much more palpable. And you can't help but think about your own mortality. The fear of death drives people to do many things. For me, I hope that I would have accomplished something, made a difference in some way, other than simply take up space.

How do you feel when you think of your own death?

The Peterson's case

2004-12-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

Well, he got the death penalty. I have to admit that I was a little surprised when the verdict came out. I know that public opinion favors death, but personally, I think since the case was virtually entirely based on circumstantial evidences, it shouldn't warrant death. Oh, I think he's guilty alright. There were just too many "coincidences" plus the extreme stupidity of the things he did following Laci's disappearance to point to anything but a guilty virdict, but if I were one of the jurors, I would hesitate recommending death. After all, like what I'd said, all the evidences were circumstantial and this is a person's life you're talking about.

Any those juries, I saw four of them on "Larry King Live" last night. There were three men and one woman. I couldn't believe how dumb that woman Richelle Rice sounded. She stumbled and couldn't respond to some of the easiest questions asked. And the ones that she did respond to, they sounded idiotic. There are six women in that jury and they couldn't come up with a better articulated female?!

Sideways

2004-12-11T22:36:00.000-08:00

We just saw the movie Sideways yesterday. It was a great movie with lots of humor, drama and poignant moments. I read some good basic reviews on it and took my boyfriend to the movie. He had no clue what it was about. We laughed through-out the movie and afterward repeated funny lines to each other. Yet, it was also a melancholy movie about human's desires, successES and failures. It is definitely one of the best movies I've seen in recent years. Here is one of its reviews.

The main character in Sideways, Miles is a wine connoisseur. I suppose "connoisseur" can be another word for snob. His sometimes bordeline neurotic commentaries on wines were hilarious. I think the thing with these snobs is that the are so off the chart that they often don't realize how amusingly crazy they sound at times.

My boyfriend, whom I will be referring to as Mr. Lj (taking after sugarmama's reference to her boyfriend (now ex) Mr. S, is also a snob. No he is not a wine snob for he does not drink alcohol. He's a what I call a cola snob. He doesn't drink much of anything but cola, and his cola must be Coca-Cola. Pespsi won't do. And definitely RC Cola won't do. He is so religious about this that he's both annoying and amusing. When we go out to eat and Mr. Lj ordered Coke, I don't know how many times I witnessed the taken-back look on a waiter's face when he received a stern "No!" when he unwittingly asked Mr. Lj "Pepsi okay?"

I suppose a man must not compromise his principle.

Bourne Identity

2004-12-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

Do you know they are going to make a sequel for "The Bourne Identity"?

It's called "The Korn Identity".

In the new movie, Jason Bourne can not only recall his past, but he can also change it.

Magazines

2004-12-08T23:46:00.000-08:00

I'm such a sucker for cheap magazine subscriptions. I love to read so whenever I receive one of those cheap come-on magazine subscription for anything that is remotely interesting, I can't help myself but sign on the dotted line. Ten bucks for 2 year subscription?! Sign me up! The publishers are well aware of this so they keep bombarding me with more and more offers. I had to try hard to refrain myself. In our household, we have: Time Magazine, Fortune, Money, The Economist, Scientific American, MIT Technology, The Skeptic, BH&G etc.... Not to mention various trade journals on Linux, programming and biotech magazines, and a daily newspaper. Oh, I just signed up for Business 2.0, and Traveler magazine. I'm contemplating on a Food & Wine magazine. Our living rivals a dentist office in magazine selection.

I've stopped subscribing to women's magazines a little while back. The ones that I subscribed to the past, I've outgrown them. I haven't found one that I want to sign up with again. When I was in my early twenties living on my own for the first time, I subscribed to Cosmopolitan. Growing up in a sexually conservative culture and family, this was rather a daring step. I was excited about having my own Cosmopolitan issues and not resorting to getting glimpses of them at the supermarket checkouts. However, after six months of incessant, totally ridiculous sex articles and advices, I called it quit. Let's see, as I recall, one of the articles on how to get noticed at work included things like: wear high heels and a short skirt and bend over to pick something, leave your blouse top buttons undone and ask a male co-worker to button it for you. Even at twenty-two I realized that this was certainly not how I want to attract the opposite sex so I promptly cancelled the subscription.

I then moved on the Glamour Magazine. Glamour is a decent well-rounded magazine which I subscribed to for many years. It has a good mix of fashion, social, financial and health articles. However, as I get older and my earning power increases, articles such as "How to create a budget on a salary of $20,000" just no longer appealed to me. I suppose at some point we do outgrow the things we like. So after many years of being a loyal reader, I ended my Glamour subscription. I'm looking for a good women's magazine targetting thirty something professional. Perhaps something like Glamour but with more applicable financial and relationship topics. Any recommendations?

Lately, I'm a bit obsessed with financial investing. I'm quite realistic about this so I don't get involved with the get rich quick schemes. I have fairly simple taste and don't have an extravagant livestyle so having lots of money is not really a major criteria. However, I find the process of investing and making money to be interesting, challenging and rewarding. This leads to the subscription of Fortune, Money etc... I also love reading The Wall Street Journal. I used to read them from my previous employers' subscriptions. Although I really like it, I'm refraining from subscribing them on my own because thiswill completely overload me.

So many magazines, so little time...