Observations

I recently started back up in grad school and have been practicing yoga to help manage stress and to make my butt look nice. Since I am a sensible person, I figured if I was going to have my yoga neighbors look directly at me waving my butt around for extended periods of time, I should secretly do some research beforehand so I could look like a total baller on these imaginary exercise dates.

One of the blogs I read pled for new practitioners of yoga not be an annoying person that tells everyone they know that they "should" do yoga. Indulge me in some nerdy psychology speak for a moment: Wegner (1987) has a theory that suppressing thoughts only leads to thinking about them more and more obsessively. The only problem is that I actually really really do love yoga now and want to talk about it all the time.  My solution has been to have regular morning conversations with my stuffed animals about how my yoga poses are going, so I can spare the rest of the world from being mildly annoyed at me. You're welcome world.


Around the same time I've been practicing meditation really frequently, and the two activities actually go hand in hand very well. The adult learning model poses that self-improvement is an inchworm approach; like an inchworm that makes incremental gains by plying it's back legs forward first, scrunching its torso together, and extending the front of its body forward, we improve by working on our weaknesses first which makes our strengths even stronger.

The cool part about all of this is that a pretty regular routine in yoga, sun salutations, perfectly mimic the movement of an inchworm. One of my favorite games that I like to play during yoga is to pretend I'm an actual inchworm inching my way towards mindfulness, enlightenment and all the skinny girls' butts in front of me.  I have an unprovable theory that this is how the Buddha achieved enlightenment too, which I believe will someday make me rich and famous beyond my wildest dreams.  Even though I've never directly studied Buddhism, it feels good knowing I'm definitely on the right track here.  I guess some people are just naturals.

Inchworming my way out of here, until next time friends.

I think that I have developed a new technique to quit smoking, which I believe to be by far my most disgusting habit. I'm not a heavy smoker by any means (usually 1-4 cigs/day), but I have been doing it for far too long.

Today my Mom told me I had to go renew her lease with her and be a cosigner so she could have an extra key. Before we walked into the office, she said, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You have to pretend to be [your twin brother] Stephen. Can you forge his signature?"

"What?! No, I can't do that!"

"Oh stop being a baby. Just do it."

I was pretty nervous when we walked into the leasing office, but my Mom made me feel a lot better when she immediately forgot her part of the plan and began introducing me to everyone as Michael. Luckily for us, I think that they had no idea who Michael was or that she even had a twin son, and no one asked any questions, so I'm guessing that they just assumed she was insane.

Here is a verbatim conversation we had with the rentor:

"Ok, now I need Stephen to sign this document on the second X."

"Ok Michael, here you go."

"Mom, don't you mean, Stephen here you go? Boy, you sure are forgetful today!"

"Ohhhh yeah. Here you go, Stephen (smiling really hard and giggling)"

Well... the jig was up once the manager asked for Stephen's driver's license. Luckily, my Mom was cool as a cucumber and handled the situation without making much of a mess.

Mom (Laughing): Actually this is my other son, Michael. Stephen's not here right now.
Manager: You realize this is a legal document? As in, you almost made me do something illegal here.
Mom: Oh what's the big deal? Stop being such a baby!
Manager: Excuse me?
Mom: They're the same person anyway!
Me: It's true, our Mom does think we are one person. She calls me Stephen over 50% of the time.
Mom: See?!

Well, the manager had a different idea about our blatant little violation of the law. She made us redo the entire lease and renegotiate the "legal" way.

When she made me redo all of our paperwork, this time with my forms, I had to give her my real ID. "Is this really you?" she asked me.

"No, we're actually triplets." It looked like her head was about to explode. "I'm just kidding. Well, we were triplets, but I ate the third one in the womb." This is a weird little inside joke my brother made up one day without my knowledge, so I've been continuing it for some odd reason assuming it's funny (He's a very funny guy, so it is probably funny given the right context, which this was clearly not. It might also be his nice way of telling me that I did actually eat the 3rd triplet in the womb).

Anyway, the manager gave me a look of dismay and mumbled something about "This family..."

...And now we have two keys to our apartment!

The few days leading up to every one of my doctor's visits is a thing of pure joy. I kind of hate my doctor, but I rely on him to make my knee get better, so the only recourse I have against him is to make my feet smell as bad as humanly possible when I see him.

I challenge myself before every doctor's visit to make my feet smell worse than during the previous visit. Sometimes I'll put on up to 10 pairs of socks, run my computer as hot as it can possibly get, and prop my feet up there to get them nice and sweaty. Sometimes I'll wrap my feet in little plastic bags or make cute little aluminum foil boots when I hop into the shower to make sure they remain as stinky as possible and do not even get minorly cleaned by the soapy residue of my shampoo.

Is that a spill on the kitchen floor? No paper towels handy? Don't worry, I'll just sop it up with my feet!

The moment of truth comes when I enter the doctor's office and he's exposed to my brilliant trap. The last time I was in there, I hid all of his rubber gloves during the half hour I was forced to sit in the waiting room to make sure it was as unpleasant as possible for him and he had to actually touch my feet.

Before you go thinking that this is very immature and uncalled for, I should state in my defense that I thoroughly wash my feet and make them as unstinky as possible whenever I see my physical therapist, who I really like.

(Usually they smell anyway)

I've been really excited about the new Batman movie, so I was pretty pumped when I talked my Mom into seeing it. After she got out of the theater, she called me to talk about the movie.

"Wasn't that movie great?"

"It was too confusing for me."

"...How was it confusing at all?"

"I couldn't tell who Joker was."

"Heath Ledger. He was the one in Brokeback Mountain." I mentioned Brokeback as a reference because I had seen it with my Mom, but somehow it just made her way more confused.

"OHHH, Brokeback Mountain! Was he the one that wanted to be the girl, or the other one?"

"What? Neither character in that movie wanted to be a girl."

"Michael! Stop being so difficult! You know what I mean. Was he the girl or the other one?"

"Okay, Mom, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. He was the blonde one."

"Was the blonde one the one that wanted to be the girl?"

"He was the one that wasn't married."

"Was the one that wasn't married the one that wanted to be a girl?"

This went on for quite a while until my Mom grew exasperated and began yelling at me. Whenever my Mom yells at me, she actually yells that she's not yelling and then explains that it is part of Korean culture to yell and get really angry for no reason. I was finally able to explain who Heath Ledger was to her when she asked me,

"Was the one who was more like John Wayne the one that wanted to be a girl?"

I took a minute to consider this ridiculous question at face value and responded, "Yes, Heath Ledger was the one that was more like John Wayne."

She started yelling at me excitedly, "There! Was that so hard?!"

Defeatedly, I responded, "Yes."

Last night I was at one of those really loud bars where the only way you can have a conversation is by screaming directly into the ear of the person sitting next to you. I secretly really enjoy screaming because I grew up in a strict Asian household where fun was pretty much not tolerated. Our parents would not even allow us to use dice when we were playing board games, instead we had four wooden sticks that we would throw in the air and fight over which numbers they would have represented if we had normal parents that would buy us a six sided die.

Anyway, I was really screaming at the top of my lungs into this girl's ear and having a blast when I learned that she was a stripper. Now I wasn't really into this stripper at all, but I just read something that said that strippers are the single hardest type of girl to pick up. This kind of got me wondering if I had any chance to pick up this girl. The only problem was that there were a bunch of other huge male strippers that had come along with her, and I was kind of scared that one of them was her boyfriend and would kick my ass if I talked to her for too long.

Then I got to thinking... what if I try to pick up one of the male strippers instead? That would probably be an even bigger accomplishment than picking up the girl! What a great idea! I kind of scanned the room for which of the male strippers looked like he would go most for the silly Asian guy and excitedly picked one out.

I quickly imagined how awesome my new life with the male stripper was about to be, and how I was about to be the envy of every pickup artist in Las Vegas. I've never met a pickup artist before, but I imagine that the status I obtained by dating a male stripper would instantly identify myself as a respected mark to all of them. "Oh you, picked up a female stripper? That's cute. Try a real challenge buddy!"

I was getting giddy with my plan when all of a sudden I realized that there was a huge flaw - what if this girl I was talking to was dating my male stripper target? I kind of sized the girl up and wondered if she could beat me up. It looked like she was in really good shape, and her arms were really toned from gliding up and down the strip pole. After a lot of deliberation (drunken staring) where she probably thought I was just checking her out, I sadly realized that I could not even pick up any of her potential male stripper boyfriends out of fear that she too would kick my ass.

Now I think I kind of understand why strippers are the toughest occupation to pick up. My ego was pretty bruised last night, but hey, it's better than my body, right?

I have always had this kind of silly fantasy about meeting my soulmate by taking one of those online tests that finds your exact personality match. The problem is, I'm such a strange cookie that I've never come even close to finding a personality match, let alone a soulmate.

Well, all of this changed yesterday when I launched an app on my facebook account scaling the "big 5" personality traits and matching test takers with a similar facebook user. I was very excited when I found this because the number of people on facebook is astounding, and I thought I might finally get to make this fantasy a reality.

Well wouldn't you know it, out of the millions of beautiful smart intelligent students that facebook could've paired me with, here is who it picked as my perfect match:


my internet soulmate

Patricia Sway. Now there's nothing wrong with Patricia Sway, and if she's anything like me she's probably a pretty cool lady, but she seems a little... old for me. I was praying to God that this was some beautiful young girl who put up a fake profile picture for some reason, but the only other picture she had up was an image of a cherry pie.


the real Patricia?

Now all day I have been faced with the choice of believing that my soulmate is a lady much much older than me, or that she is a delicious cherry pie. It seems like kind of a silly question, but I have put a lot of serious thought into it and I think I would rather believe that she is a pie.

I think part of the reason I want to marry the pie is because it would make my Mom really mad, and it would be so nice to give her some payback after all the crap she has given me about my selection in women. I picture visiting her in old age and bringing her little cherry pies from the grocery store and introducing them as her grandchildren. I think it would be really funny to bring her these pies and not let her eat them, insisting that only a heartless cannibal would resort to eating their grandchildren. Then I could drive home, chuckling and munching on the pies (which are not my grandchildren, my cherry pie wife is actually infertile but we keep that a secret from Mom), cherry pie wife buckled in passenger seat next to me.

Some of you may think it's kind of cruel to do this to your mother, but you need to understand the amount of crap she has given me and my brother about finding a good mate. Here is a typical "relationship" conversation between my mother and I.

Mom (irrationally angry): Have you found a girlfriend yet?
Me (kind of depressed): No Mom
Mom: What's wrong with you!? Are you gay!?
Me: Do you always have to accuse me of being gay? It is really not normal.
Mom: Get a haircut! Get a job! Stop looking so hullengey!*

*Note: hullengey is a fake Korean word that my mother has made up to mean homosexual jobless slob just for me and my brother. She insists that it is a real word but it is not.

You may think this conversation is a bit of an exaggeration, but I assure you it is not. I would estimate that this is how at least 95% of conversations with my mother go.

Anyway, at first I was kind of disappointed that Patricia Sway was my facebook soulmate, but now I am actually pretty happy with it! It's kind of funny, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that a cherry pie would be my perfect personality match!

The funny thing is, I took this personality test to kill this silly fantasy. I guess sometimes they just refuse to die...

I've been having this little problem with my car lately where the damn window doesn't roll up. This isn't really that big of a deal in Vegas because it's the desert and doesn't rain very often, but I ran into a pretty embarrassing situation because of it today.

I was at this volunteer event making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the homeless when I noticed it was starting to rain. I thought, "Oh great" to myself but whatever, I decided I was just going to deal with it later. Then all of a sudden, this woman frantically ran into the house we were in screaming "Who has a red station wagon? Red station wagon!" Now it is embarrassing enough that I drive a 15 year old station wagon, but to have it announced to a roomful of strangers makes it a little worse.

I decided to try to ignore the woman and mournfully accept that my car was filling up with puddles of water when my sandwich partner proclaimed, "Michael, isn't that your car?" As soon as the woman saw me and saw I was on crutches, she misunderstood why I was not fessing up to the car and yelled, "Quick! Give me your keys, I'll roll your window up for you!" There was no avoiding it now so I just mumbled, "Actually the window doesn't roll up on my car. It's pretty ghetto." Everybody started unabashedly laughing at the cripple who drove his mom's ghetto station wagon, but I thought my humiliation would be over and that would be that.

Unfortunately, my sandwich team decided to press the issue and asked what I did when it rained. I didn't want to tell them the real answer, which was that I have an assortment of shower curtains that I keep hidden in my backseat for when it rains. Normally I pin the shower curtains to the window of my car and pretend like the little pellets of rain that penetrate the cracks of the curtain are like droplets coming from a shower head to avoid getting too depressed about how terrible my car situation is. I decided to just lie instead and say how much I loved the rain and how I didn't mind getting wet.

Well, I had to leave early and it was raining pretty hard, so I snuck out of the house to set up my shower curtain windows and pad my seats with shower curtains so I wouldn't get my ass wet. Wouldn't you know it, as I was setting everything up, everyone decided to get into their cars and head off to distribute the sandwiches we were making. It might've been okay if I had used a clear shower curtain, but my decorative side had decided to use a bright purple shower curtain to cover up my window which was almost impossible to miss.

There was really nothing I could do at this point, especially since I had just been caught red handed in my obvious lie of enjoying getting wet in the rain, so I did what any sensible person would do and hopped in my car for a speedy getaway. It is kind of embarrassing speeding away from a group of harmless volunteers in a broken down station wagon with a purple shower curtain hanging out of your window, but at least I managed to help the homeless out at the cost of my very small dignity. How do I get myself in these messes?

I can't exactly remember the day I made the wonderful discovery of pooing and reading at the same time, but ever since then I have been a firm believer in the practice. At home, my brother and I have an unordered pile of yellowing sports sections atop our heater from weeks and even months back, just to make sure we have backups in case we need something to read.

If it's not something you've tried before, grab the entire newspaper, bring it into the bathroom with you, and don't leave until you're done reading. You will be amazed at how much poo is actually hidden and trapped inside of your body.

Sometimes after I am done pooing, I will carefully examine my poo and try to estimate exactly how much of my body is actually composed of shit. Sometimes I'll sit on my toilet for hours when I know I can get this percentage really high, and I'll get really proud and want to show someone, explaining, "hey, check me out! I'm made of 25% poo today!" But damn social norms prevent me from doing so. If you ever feel this way, just rationalize it like I do as having a really great magic trick or superpower that will someday save the world, but you must never show anyone out of fear of persecution.

The only problem with my bathroom life is that I have nothing to read at work except for piles upon piles of children's books in my office. The first day I realized this, I debated bringing a computer manual over a children's book since they both seemed so boring. But ever since then, I have realized that children's books nowadays are actually very clever and poignant. If you don't believe me, check out my favorite children's story.

Now I can't go to the bathroom at work without bringing a children's book along. Since they only take a minute to read, I am forced into carrying stacks of them with me into the stall of the men's bathroom. I'm really terrified that people see me lock myself in a stall for hours with a huge stack of children's books and suspect that I'm some kind of pervert, but I'm too embarrassed to tell them that I do actually get a secret wholesome joy from my little books.

I know that people see other people like me and think that they're inexplicably weird, but there is always a reasonable explanation for our actions! Sometimes you just have to look past the stack of books at the person inside. Empathy is a wonderful thing.

One of the coolest parts about my job is using my electronic keycard to open our lab door. It is so baller. It is by far the best part of my day.

Here is the scene for you: Hallway full of students waiting for class outside their door. Suddenly important mysterious young person dressed professionally rushes through the hallway and opens unknown door with secret key! Students try to peek into door to catch glimpse of mystery, but are locked out like a bouncer in a chic club. When out of danger, mysterious young professional takes off dress shirt, fans himself furiously, chugs water, but thinks deceiving people into thinking he's important was so worth it! Pumps fists! Repeat next day.

Since I don't really understand how this keycard works, and I also don't understand how girls work, I like to fantasize that the card and girls work the same way, and that if I am nice to the card, it will somehow find me a girlfriend. Sometimes when I am bored, I practice kissing the card, or draw little blonde hairs on it with a dry erase marker. Sometimes me and the card will watch youtube videos of pickup artists and I'll ask the card totally sincerely "Does that really work?!" pointing to the skeezy pickup artist and actually getting a little mad and feeling inadequate that this guy could pick up a girl without using a card. Of course, the card can't actually talk to me other than opening or not opening the door. Luckily though, the psychology department gave me a really bad card, so about half of the time the door will not open and a red light flashes above the door sensor denying me entry into the door. Even though it is really annoying that my card doesn't work properly, it adds a new dimension to this insane fantasy so I kind of like it.

Even though the card has not netted me anything worthwhile so far, I still have faith in it, partially because I secretly suspect that one day after I prove my worth to it, it will somehow transform into a datable girl. I halfway believe that this is how all girls are actually made, from UNLV marlock keycards. I would say that being in the realm of psychology is a good fit for me.

Do any other guys here ever have peeing races with the person standing next to you in the urinal? Sometimes I will be standing at a urinal ready to pee when a challenger saunters through the door and I am forced to painfully hold my pee in until I heard the beautiful sound of pee hitting toilet water in the urinal next to me. Then my heart starts pounding really hard and the race is on!

I like to think of myself as an underdog in these pee races, since Asians naturally have the biggest bladders of any race. It requires a lot of strategy to get really good at beating superior peeing species, but I have a strict regimen that I follow pretty religiously.

One thing I like to do is pee as hard as I can into my toilet at home when there is minimal danger of splashback. I like to practice making the noise of pee hitting water as loud as possible to create an intimidation factor, since pee races have a great mental aspect to them and are really a thinking man's game.

Another thing I've noticed is that people really really don't like it when you peek over at them when they're peeing, so if you're losing really badly you can use this as a last ditch effort. Sometimes people will actually *stop* peeing when you stare at them and threaten to kick your ass, which is great! I like to think of it as winning by disqualification and picture myself as Ivander Hollyfield in that great Tyson-Hollyfield boxing match from years back. Sometimes my ear hurts if I envision this too strongly though, so you have to be careful with that too.

This is a really top secret strategy but another great little tip is that you can increase your pee strength linearly with the distance you're standing from the urinal to increase rate of bladder emptying. What this means in plain English is that the further away from the urinal you stand, the harder you can pee without fear of splashback. BE CAREFUL WITH THIS ONE! Sometimes in the heat of the moment I will take this a little too far (literally) and stand against the far wall while I am peeing across the room into my urinal. I do what it takes to win, but this one is really really desperation strategy.

After I've beaten someone in a pee race, I like to stroll over to the sink and take my sweet time washing my hands, kind of like a victory lap. Sometimes I'll take 2-3 minutes washing my hands while my opponent finishes peeing like a loser and bask in the glory of my victory. Nothing feels better than winning a pee race and then taking all of the soap as your prize. I like to think of the soap as a little trophy. Sometimes I'll keep pushing the dispenser until my hands look like they are laminated with pink dial and the challenger will angrily look over at me when there's none left. God! There is nothing better.

I'd like to know if anyone else pee races or if it's just me. I'm sure there's more racers out there, and it's been a while since I had a real challenge. Comment if you'd like to race, or if you'd like to trade a few more tips. I still have a few that are just too good to disclose to the public. I'll use the next few posts to discuss the results of any pee races that arise in the future.

So as many of you know, it has always been my greatest dream to own a time machine. All of my life's regrets could be remedied, I could kill famous inventors and steal their work, I could win the lottery times over and donate the money to the poor, and then of course there's living forever. Well today, my dream was finally granted when I found a large cardboard box, procured some markers, and built the world's first ever fully functional time machine!



I set the coordinates on my control panel to the year 2020, set the machine on top of my skateboard, and with a running push from my friends, reached relativistic speeds that sent me hurtling into the future.



The time machine stopped with a crash and skid. When I exited through the door, I found myself in the year 2020! One thing I can say is that the future looks remarkably similar to the present. I pointed to what looked to me like an automobile and asked the nearest passerby, "Do these fly yet?", half wondering if I was talking to a human or autonomon. "You're a dumbass Michael", they answered, as they inspected my hu-man arm, now bleeding profusely from the crash landing.

The robots already knew my name! Afraid that I would embarrass myself in front of these superhumans, I shouted in the clearest English I could muster, "Greetings! I come from a far away land called Earth! You probably don't understand me but can you transport me on your flying cart to the nearest repair shop? My ship needs a new flux capacitor?" as I pointed to the shattered tube.

Instead of helping me, they began laughing, threw me back in my broken machine, flipped it upside down, and sat on the top of it! What cruel robots! I suspect that in the year 2020, humans and robots are in the midst of an inter-galactic war where no human is spared. How foolish I was to trust the autonomon! Now I was trapped in my machine, running short on air, and had little pebbles of mud dropping onto my head.



Without knowing any alternative, I desperately taped the flux capacitor back together, reset the controls, and tried to fly back into the past. The time machine cranked and quivered as I felt the entire vehicle flip once more. I re-emerged from the time machine, looked around, and found myself in the present! What an adventure! Here's a picture of me waiting at the bus stop to buy a new flux capacitor.



Time travel's a dangerous business. If any of you get caught up in the future, remember to take the proper safety precautions always bring a spare capacitor.

Yesterday evening, a group of us headed over to the local boys and girls chapter and put in some volunteer work. While I was there, I met a young boy named Darius who took it upon himself to sketch me. Needless to say, I was very touched by the gesture and saved every one of his pictures. I'd like to take a moment to share a few of my favorites:

"You're Mean":
After Darius drew this one, I asked him curiously, "who's that a picture of ?" Instead of simply telling me, he drew an arrow pointing from the paper to me. I cleverly tried to deflect the praise by switching seats with another volunteer, but persistent little Darius outsmarted me again by drawing a second arrow and clarifying to his teacher who the mean volunteer really was.

"Mike, You Are an Old Man":
I had to be honest with Darius so I told him the picture was truthfully not up to par with his previous work. He pleasantly surprised me when he drew in long curly hair and began calling me a girl in front of the other children. Darius, you've done it yet again.

"I Hate Everybody":
An early Darius piece. I thought he was talking about himself until he scowled and drew another arrow pointing at me. It's not every day that I give out an A++++++++++++++.

"Mike Is An Ugly Person":
Part one of the "Mike Is Ugly" series. Each set of the series is vastly different from the other, and paints a different story of the many ways in which I am unattractive.

"I am Ugly (Mike)":
The second of the "Mike is Ugly" series from Darius. I used to think this tortured artist simply believed that everyone was ugly until his next piece proved me wrong.

"You're Ugly, Mike":
I commented to Darius, "hey, that guy on the left doesn't look ugly, does he?" To which he responded, "that's because it's me. You're the only ugly one, ugly." Of course! The one on the left is not ugly because I am the only one Darius finds hideous! It was all making sense! I felt as though I could peer into this little child's soul through the window of his art.

"Old Mike Did It, Not Me":
I think the volunteer coordinator was getting a little peeved that Darius was focusing all of his energy on me. After about an hour of dirty looks from her, I decided that maybe it would help the situation if Darius tried sketching someone else. However when I asked him to try, he told me to "shut up." It's true what they say, never tamper with a fickle artist! I did my best to draw a Darius-esque picture of my teammate, Arie. However, when he saw it, Darius promptly ripped away the paper and added his own personal touches. Then he punched me in the arm. Hard.

At the end of the day, I came home with the pictures in my bag and thought to myself, this is what volunteering is truly about. Until next post, this is an ugly, hateful, old man signing off!