Sunday, January 25, 2009
Andy Pacheco
I was driving to Walmart today when I noticed a friend's name adorning a street sign. It was a name I had forgotten long ago, although I remember his story quite well because it never quite left me. Once I saw it though, I instantly knew... On the way back, I could see how that alleyway overlooked our intermediate school... Roger Temple Intermediate.
I didn't realize they named a street after him, but I guess it makes sense. He was, as far as I recall, much loved by the community and had a promising high school career ahead of him. To me, he was one of my first friends in California, albeit not a close one. Jocks and geeks don't get along THAT well =P but at the very least he wasn't cocky about it. We did share a table in English... along with Annie Lim (I wonder where she is now... She ended up going to another high school for whatever reason) and together we did the little activities that 8th graders did in English class. I'll leave the reminiscing there.
Anyways... here's my New Years resolution (It's kinda coincidental that the posting conditions are somewhat similar...):
Cut my sleeping hours (9+ each day is ridiculous) and push my wake-up time back to emulate working conditions, which likely means waking up at 6am.
Study goals: Week-long foreign language, weekday GRE and self-improvement
Physical: Follow a 6x/wk workout regimen, Weeklong taiko/fue regimen
Raise my weight by 10lbs and keep it there
Re-instate 3 meal days.
Start using my daily planner more.
I didn't realize they named a street after him, but I guess it makes sense. He was, as far as I recall, much loved by the community and had a promising high school career ahead of him. To me, he was one of my first friends in California, albeit not a close one. Jocks and geeks don't get along THAT well =P but at the very least he wasn't cocky about it. We did share a table in English... along with Annie Lim (I wonder where she is now... She ended up going to another high school for whatever reason) and together we did the little activities that 8th graders did in English class. I'll leave the reminiscing there.
Anyways... here's my New Years resolution (It's kinda coincidental that the posting conditions are somewhat similar...):
Cut my sleeping hours (9+ each day is ridiculous) and push my wake-up time back to emulate working conditions, which likely means waking up at 6am.
Study goals: Week-long foreign language, weekday GRE and self-improvement
Physical: Follow a 6x/wk workout regimen, Weeklong taiko/fue regimen
Raise my weight by 10lbs and keep it there
Re-instate 3 meal days.
Start using my daily planner more.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sickness
Mom's down with Bronchitis (apparently...) Dad's sick too... and the soft tissue in my sinuses have been irritated by my demonstrated use of my inhaler... this isn't looking good.
Not to mention I wanna head down to SD today. =/
It also doesn't help that I got something like 2.5 hours of sleep last night.
Not to mention I wanna head down to SD today. =/
It also doesn't help that I got something like 2.5 hours of sleep last night.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Interesting Sidenote
It seems Japanese has crept into my subconscious because it definitely occurred in my dream last night. Did the 5am wakeup thing and was thinking about getting up to write about it but the cold was a good demotivator. I forget now who it was that I was talking to, but I realized something else after the Japanese epiphany... I don't recall ever having dreamt in Cantonese. Of course this includes people I normally speak Cantonese to, ie. my parents. It seems most of my family is excluded as well. But that might be because of a lapse in memory on my part.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Balance
My coffee grinder and coffee came in on the same day a few days ago. Let me say, hand grinding coffee in the morning is pretty awesome.
Now on to more mundane matters. I had my first interview the other day. Everything seems to have gone well, I'll know for sure in a month or so (its a long wait =/). I'm pretty excited about this company, its got a lot going for it. Something became pretty apparent while I balancing the budget and its has something to do with entering the workforce and playing the retirement game. Despite a having fairly competitive engineering salary a problem arises and its this: after everything, I'll still be as poor as when I was in school. How can that be you might ask? Its actually quite simple... it takes a lot out of your paycheck to take full advantage of the retirement vehicles that are available to you. Take 401k for instance, the industry average at this point seems to be a 3% match for every 6% that you contribute to your 401k. So say you earn a nice round 50k a year (no this is not all that competitive but whatever), you have to put 3k in your 401k and you're company will give you another 1.5k. Which is a nice little bonus for retirement, but that'll leave you with 47k of taxable income and lands you in the 25% tax bracket if you file as a single. Living in California means you'll be taxed about 35% plus whatever deductions made towards social security and other things, so in the end you probably lose about 40% of that 47k to the government leaving you 28k. That's 2350 per month (+/- some). Then there's car payments, rent, utilities, and food. If we put all that at a modest 1850 (and I'm talking about fairly modest living) that leaves you with about 500 a month.
Sure that's a pretty nice allowance each month... but if you take full advantage of stuff like the Roth IRA, that 500 becomes a little less than 80/mo and we still haven't talked about health insurance. And then it occurred to me... what if I were a Mormon? or part of some other religion that takes a certain chunk out of your salary each year. To my knowledge, the Church of Latter Day Saints helps itself to 10% of your annual income. Before or after tax I don't know... but that's a pretty hefty chunk. So how do they do it? The church most likely has some sort of incentive, such as its own little retirement package, similar to an IRA or the fed's TSP. If its like that, being a Mormon might be a pretty sweet financial deal (not to mention its implications of faith). Another note on retirement is this... I can see why kids my age don't care much for these retirement vehicles as it erodes your monthly allowance by a lot and retirement just seems to damn far away. Granted, I have a harder time understanding why more young people don't take up their 401k, as it essentially means more money, and it should stay with you no matter what company you go to (given that you follow the proper protocols). Unless, of course, the plan just plain sucks.
Of course, all my calculations are pretty generalized with a ton of rounding. Budgeting in this way has typically kept me out of trouble as it gives me a lot of wiggle room with my expenditures. One thing I got over other people though... after Japan, I've become pretty infatuated with living the ascetic lifestyle. A lot of this has to do with the opportunity to house with an artist for a few days, and then the necessity to live simple on a short 6 month stint in an island nation. However, I'll have to balance it with the scholarly lifestyle as well since grad school I intend to attend grad school at some point--I gotta keep myself sharp... My final conclusion in this rather convoluted post is this: I gotta give mad props to the parental units, because things get all out of whack when you throw in a bunch of kids.
Speaking of which... Freakonomics (I realize this book was published ages ago)... has given me a solid foundation of data in support of being pro-choice... and it makes a lot of sense despite some of the 'distasteful' thought experiments one has to go through to make such a strong argument.
Now on to more mundane matters. I had my first interview the other day. Everything seems to have gone well, I'll know for sure in a month or so (its a long wait =/). I'm pretty excited about this company, its got a lot going for it. Something became pretty apparent while I balancing the budget and its has something to do with entering the workforce and playing the retirement game. Despite a having fairly competitive engineering salary a problem arises and its this: after everything, I'll still be as poor as when I was in school. How can that be you might ask? Its actually quite simple... it takes a lot out of your paycheck to take full advantage of the retirement vehicles that are available to you. Take 401k for instance, the industry average at this point seems to be a 3% match for every 6% that you contribute to your 401k. So say you earn a nice round 50k a year (no this is not all that competitive but whatever), you have to put 3k in your 401k and you're company will give you another 1.5k. Which is a nice little bonus for retirement, but that'll leave you with 47k of taxable income and lands you in the 25% tax bracket if you file as a single. Living in California means you'll be taxed about 35% plus whatever deductions made towards social security and other things, so in the end you probably lose about 40% of that 47k to the government leaving you 28k. That's 2350 per month (+/- some). Then there's car payments, rent, utilities, and food. If we put all that at a modest 1850 (and I'm talking about fairly modest living) that leaves you with about 500 a month.
Sure that's a pretty nice allowance each month... but if you take full advantage of stuff like the Roth IRA, that 500 becomes a little less than 80/mo and we still haven't talked about health insurance. And then it occurred to me... what if I were a Mormon? or part of some other religion that takes a certain chunk out of your salary each year. To my knowledge, the Church of Latter Day Saints helps itself to 10% of your annual income. Before or after tax I don't know... but that's a pretty hefty chunk. So how do they do it? The church most likely has some sort of incentive, such as its own little retirement package, similar to an IRA or the fed's TSP. If its like that, being a Mormon might be a pretty sweet financial deal (not to mention its implications of faith). Another note on retirement is this... I can see why kids my age don't care much for these retirement vehicles as it erodes your monthly allowance by a lot and retirement just seems to damn far away. Granted, I have a harder time understanding why more young people don't take up their 401k, as it essentially means more money, and it should stay with you no matter what company you go to (given that you follow the proper protocols). Unless, of course, the plan just plain sucks.
Of course, all my calculations are pretty generalized with a ton of rounding. Budgeting in this way has typically kept me out of trouble as it gives me a lot of wiggle room with my expenditures. One thing I got over other people though... after Japan, I've become pretty infatuated with living the ascetic lifestyle. A lot of this has to do with the opportunity to house with an artist for a few days, and then the necessity to live simple on a short 6 month stint in an island nation. However, I'll have to balance it with the scholarly lifestyle as well since grad school I intend to attend grad school at some point--I gotta keep myself sharp... My final conclusion in this rather convoluted post is this: I gotta give mad props to the parental units, because things get all out of whack when you throw in a bunch of kids.
Speaking of which... Freakonomics (I realize this book was published ages ago)... has given me a solid foundation of data in support of being pro-choice... and it makes a lot of sense despite some of the 'distasteful' thought experiments one has to go through to make such a strong argument.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Ghost
I guess I'll include this little anecdote since I write about my dreams from time to time.
It all started with talk about what the newly deceased do during the mourning period, especially around burial time. The adults (aka. aunts and uncles) were discussing things that needed to be done, superstitions such as making sure the rice storage was full so that grandma would be comforted that her survivors would be well fed, and the tv turning on randomly at night so that she could watch tv just like she had done while living, which meant that we should go to bed early. There were also issues about going vegetarian during this mourning period and that probably has to do with the Buddhist notion that the spirits of the animals you consume will return to consume you in your passing. Whether Buddhism believes in spirits is not really the question, as the word can be broadened to encompass the guilt of taking the life of a conscious living being. The idea behind burial rites, atleast as far as Buddhism goes (and atleast as far as my knowledge and beliefs go) is that it is done to guide the newly departed into the afterlife and hopefully into a better position to achieve enlightenment. As such, the living are to offer prayers, and since I have nothing better to do during the sutras, make myself as buddha-like as possible to set a guidepost for the dead. Lastly (or firstly), the rites are for the living, so that we know her affairs are squared away and as a time of healing and to allow the grief to flow.
Anyways, one little aside was when I changed turned on the wii because I was really bored, and left the room to go retrieve the remotes that were being charged elsewhere. My uncle freaked out a bit when he noticed that the game had been turned on and there was no one in the room.
Fast-forward to nightfall. Earlier I had partaken in breaking the vegetarian diet with a few of my cousins, and was chatting with the cousin I was sharing that side of the house with (houses in Arizona are so huge now that one normal sized family can't live in it). We stayed up late, and when we decided to turn in, my cousin claims the tv was turned off before he could hit the power button on the remote. I figured he was trying to screw with my mind so I paid it no attention.
One of the few things that got me emotional at the funeral service was the thought that nature had finally righted itself. While I'm sure its a rather common occurrence, its not really right for a parent to outlive their children, which was the case for my mother. So the thought that my grandmother would finally be joining my mother in the afterlife hit me harder than actually losing my grandmother. Death is a fact of life, it happens sooner or later, expectedly and unexpectedly. If there were to be something more certain than change, it would be that our time on this planet is limited. Most of you know that I am a pretty logical person (with a healthy spread of irrational streaks), and since I've been living with the shadow of a departed loved one since a relatively early age, I try not to take interactions with people for granted, especially when it comes to the elderly. Granted I usually don't have much to say since I am not on good talking terms with any of my grandparents (I just don't see them often enough). So when it comes time for the rights of death to be played, I can't find it in me to become that emotional because I know that their memory will always live on in their survivors and that death can bring about great release from the suffering and burden of living.
So it was with these kinds of thoughts that I drifted off to sleep. I forget what I was dreaming about, but it was a pretty vivid one, as I had been dreaming pretty often as of late. In retrospect, I think it was so vivid there was actually dialogue (which doesn't happen very often in my dreams). After some time though, my attention was brought back to my current state. Whether I was awake or not I'm not sure, it was the kind of half conscious awareness of my surroundings that I sometimes get while I'm sleeping. What happened afterwards was creepy/scary because I felt the bed move and then the area right over my abdomen (stomach) get cold. It was the type of moist cold that I guess people might associate with the living dead... ha ha. I tried to bear it as long as possible because for one thing, I was scared, and the other thing if it was grandma I just wanted her to do whatever she needed to do and move on. My more egocentric side thought about how I might remind her of her daughter. I don't know. The feeling got so creepy after awhile though that I started struggling and after some effort, I forced myself fully awake and then there was nothing. It was, seemingly, all a dream. Strangely enough though, I heard my cousin moaning from the next room, as if he were having a nightmare too. I checked the time, 4:40 ish after making up the time difference from California time. Those of you that know, 4 is synonymous with death in Chinese. I'm pretty sure I smirked in the dark and thought... That's interesting... and went back to sleep.
I worked up the courage to ask my cousin later that day to see if he had a nightmare that night. He didn't remember anything. We performed my grandmother's last rites that day.
It all started with talk about what the newly deceased do during the mourning period, especially around burial time. The adults (aka. aunts and uncles) were discussing things that needed to be done, superstitions such as making sure the rice storage was full so that grandma would be comforted that her survivors would be well fed, and the tv turning on randomly at night so that she could watch tv just like she had done while living, which meant that we should go to bed early. There were also issues about going vegetarian during this mourning period and that probably has to do with the Buddhist notion that the spirits of the animals you consume will return to consume you in your passing. Whether Buddhism believes in spirits is not really the question, as the word can be broadened to encompass the guilt of taking the life of a conscious living being. The idea behind burial rites, atleast as far as Buddhism goes (and atleast as far as my knowledge and beliefs go) is that it is done to guide the newly departed into the afterlife and hopefully into a better position to achieve enlightenment. As such, the living are to offer prayers, and since I have nothing better to do during the sutras, make myself as buddha-like as possible to set a guidepost for the dead. Lastly (or firstly), the rites are for the living, so that we know her affairs are squared away and as a time of healing and to allow the grief to flow.
Anyways, one little aside was when I changed turned on the wii because I was really bored, and left the room to go retrieve the remotes that were being charged elsewhere. My uncle freaked out a bit when he noticed that the game had been turned on and there was no one in the room.
Fast-forward to nightfall. Earlier I had partaken in breaking the vegetarian diet with a few of my cousins, and was chatting with the cousin I was sharing that side of the house with (houses in Arizona are so huge now that one normal sized family can't live in it). We stayed up late, and when we decided to turn in, my cousin claims the tv was turned off before he could hit the power button on the remote. I figured he was trying to screw with my mind so I paid it no attention.
One of the few things that got me emotional at the funeral service was the thought that nature had finally righted itself. While I'm sure its a rather common occurrence, its not really right for a parent to outlive their children, which was the case for my mother. So the thought that my grandmother would finally be joining my mother in the afterlife hit me harder than actually losing my grandmother. Death is a fact of life, it happens sooner or later, expectedly and unexpectedly. If there were to be something more certain than change, it would be that our time on this planet is limited. Most of you know that I am a pretty logical person (with a healthy spread of irrational streaks), and since I've been living with the shadow of a departed loved one since a relatively early age, I try not to take interactions with people for granted, especially when it comes to the elderly. Granted I usually don't have much to say since I am not on good talking terms with any of my grandparents (I just don't see them often enough). So when it comes time for the rights of death to be played, I can't find it in me to become that emotional because I know that their memory will always live on in their survivors and that death can bring about great release from the suffering and burden of living.
So it was with these kinds of thoughts that I drifted off to sleep. I forget what I was dreaming about, but it was a pretty vivid one, as I had been dreaming pretty often as of late. In retrospect, I think it was so vivid there was actually dialogue (which doesn't happen very often in my dreams). After some time though, my attention was brought back to my current state. Whether I was awake or not I'm not sure, it was the kind of half conscious awareness of my surroundings that I sometimes get while I'm sleeping. What happened afterwards was creepy/scary because I felt the bed move and then the area right over my abdomen (stomach) get cold. It was the type of moist cold that I guess people might associate with the living dead... ha ha. I tried to bear it as long as possible because for one thing, I was scared, and the other thing if it was grandma I just wanted her to do whatever she needed to do and move on. My more egocentric side thought about how I might remind her of her daughter. I don't know. The feeling got so creepy after awhile though that I started struggling and after some effort, I forced myself fully awake and then there was nothing. It was, seemingly, all a dream. Strangely enough though, I heard my cousin moaning from the next room, as if he were having a nightmare too. I checked the time, 4:40 ish after making up the time difference from California time. Those of you that know, 4 is synonymous with death in Chinese. I'm pretty sure I smirked in the dark and thought... That's interesting... and went back to sleep.
I worked up the courage to ask my cousin later that day to see if he had a nightmare that night. He didn't remember anything. We performed my grandmother's last rites that day.
The Afermath
Sigh... I need to read over the stuff I put up. The first paragraph in my last post needs a period in there somewhere.
Got back to the California on Friday after spending a week in Arizona. Met up with a family that I have not known for a large part of my life. Time can only tell if that trend will hold. Like my step-mom's family though, the cousins are all growing up... it's kind of funny that I'm part of the old blood that runs in Arizona--a relic of the past that somehow pops up from time to time. Apparently my family was the first one there and we ended up bringing a bunch of people over. After awhile a number of other families moved in after we moved out. It'd be good if I saw parts of that family at least once every few years instead of every half decade or so.
Apparently, I'm an uncle now... about as close to one as I'll ever get. Well... that's not really true though, there is one person that can make that situation different, but I don't think she's going to have a baby anytime soon. For those of you wondering who I'm talking about, its my one and only cousin on my father's side.
I supposed I should write something coherent on the topic of family and/or mortality, but I think I'll pass. I've sort of lost the desire to do that right now.
One a different note, I have my first interview on Tuesday... and I've put up another batch of photos.
http://asayake.photopians.org/v/Japan2008/JYPE/20080730Nikko/
Got back to the California on Friday after spending a week in Arizona. Met up with a family that I have not known for a large part of my life. Time can only tell if that trend will hold. Like my step-mom's family though, the cousins are all growing up... it's kind of funny that I'm part of the old blood that runs in Arizona--a relic of the past that somehow pops up from time to time. Apparently my family was the first one there and we ended up bringing a bunch of people over. After awhile a number of other families moved in after we moved out. It'd be good if I saw parts of that family at least once every few years instead of every half decade or so.
Apparently, I'm an uncle now... about as close to one as I'll ever get. Well... that's not really true though, there is one person that can make that situation different, but I don't think she's going to have a baby anytime soon. For those of you wondering who I'm talking about, its my one and only cousin on my father's side.
I supposed I should write something coherent on the topic of family and/or mortality, but I think I'll pass. I've sort of lost the desire to do that right now.
One a different note, I have my first interview on Tuesday... and I've put up another batch of photos.
http://asayake.photopians.org/v/Japan2008/JYPE/20080730Nikko/
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