I didn't really have time for leisure writing lately. What can I do? It's the finals/deadlines season, and I've been busy out of my mind just like every other students in this part of the country. Of course, it didn't really help that I don't have much to write about, just the typical musings on arts sciences and things I do as part of my research, things that doesn't really belong on this personal blog. I did lock down my livejournal blog to friend-only however. As the diybio-nyc slowly gains some degree of prominence there's a lot of people browsing around content I have on the web, and there are somethings on here that I'd like to keep private if possible. All my other blogs and web-based contents like tumblr/twitter are all still public though, and I have no wish to keep them locked into privacy. I mean, what would be the point of social media if it's locked down from being social, right?

The keyboard on thinkpad saved my life a few times this semester, in those all-night coding/calculating/writing/simulation sessions with deadlines staring at me beyond the sunrise. I've used many laptops and this one certain beats the pants off the rest, especially most of those generic offerings from Dell/HP (though their business class lines have decent keyboards as well). I've also found Apple's keyboards to be quite responsive as well. Although I don't personally own an Apple computer there's a few at the lab I use for imaging/running simulations. The Mac pros at the lab are the standard workstation quality desktops offered by Apple, with 18GB of RAM and 8 core processors, they are like small supercomputers and quite fit for pretty much anything I can throw at it (and people complain about how underpowered Apple computers are --;).

The weather's like summer now. It's been slightly colder for past day or two but mostly it had been warm enough to walk around outside without any jacket on. The flowers and trees are blooming nicely, and there are some flower blossom events scheduled at local conservatories and Botanical Gardens. Quite beautiful, and all this abundance of life is making my heart feel at ease. At least I think it's a nice change from the scalding cold of the winter. The warm-yet-not-quite-hot weather is a perfect opportunity to open up all the windows and let the fresh air in. Since my apartment is right next to a park, whenever I open up the windows the whole apartment begins to feel like middle of a forest. When the wind sweeps through the forest I can hear the leaves crashing like the ocean, a perfect occasion for some nice cup of green tea, though I've taken a liking to some western white tea servings as well. There's something innately attractive to a simple cup of tea accompanied by a small dish of sweets like mochi or cheese cakes. How should I explain it? Such experiences make me feel awake and focused for some reason.

The coming of the summer is obvious in the air. It'll only be a few weeks before the summer comes full-force. The change in flora&fauna is more obvious when I go outside in the morning for jogging, something I've more or less stopped during the cold of the winter (in the coldest days it was actually possible to freeze to death out there). I usually jog around the park beginning 4~5 am, and the whole session usually takes an hour to hour and a half. I walk through bridges on a lake, a wide grass field (New York Philharmonic orchestra plays here during summer), and a bit of mountain/forest. The change in weather is felt not through the change in temperature (it's still quite cold early in the morning) but through the smell of living things, the plants and trees emitting their distinct aroma of green into the morning air, and the feeling of dissipating morning dues soaking into my skin. By the time I see birds flocking in the air the sun comes up, throwing its rays that feels warmer than ever. The sunlight at this point of the day is something I would recommend anyone to go out and enjoy. While it doesn't have the quiet beauty of the twilight, the purity and warmth of the light is such that it almost feels like reflecting through your very heart, as if the thin rays of the light shines through the matters of the world in some higher dimension in their travels.

The warm weather reminds me of a lot of things, among them are the memories of good games I've played. It sounds weird, but for some reason warmer weathers always remind me of the days when I was into playing emulator classics and the first diablo game was the newest kid on the block... That was quite a while ago, when most people still had dial-up. I remember cutting class one day in middle school to go out to the city and buy a copy of diablo. I came back home with high anticipation, and practically spent the whole night engrossed in the game. I also remember the game Xenogears for PSX as related to summer. Quite possibly the game with most engrossing story ever, I still remember the memorable dialogues and characters by heart. There was something about that game that reminded me of Bach in some of the imageries, I think that was also the time I was big into classical composition, and wrote a play that later helped me get into a sort of gifted-children program for high school students.

The summers generally leave great memories for me. Lot of horrible things happened, of course. My life wasn't easy by any stretch of imagination, fighting down debtors who'd knock on my doors at eleven in the night. The feeling of the summers, however, come from the many amazing people I've met throughout the summers of my life (I travel in the summers. I bought my own air ticket and traveled on my own ever since I was in sixth grade), as well as the fact that summers are the time that I've devoted myself wholly to some sort of pursuit. One time I drew all the time for two whole months. I would literally wake up six in the morning, go out to the central park/the Met/libraries and draw until my hands hurt. In the evening I would come back home and draw until late into the night. In other summers I would write to the extent that all I could think of was the imageries and characters of the piece. I would sketch out the individual scenes and then write on the sketch, trying to feel the very smell of air in that imaginary places as I wrote about the light and shadows composing the place of words. And of course, gaming. I must have devoted close to 200 hours on the game, maybe more. I would complete it and then play it again and again. I've discovered all secret items/characters/events in that game through multiple playthrough. I even managed to use certain system glitch in the PSX console to uncover contents that were left unreleased yet printed into the programming codes of the game. I had quite a blast doing those things with my pals, camping out in the living room for days at a time.

I've come to understand something of myself over the years. Pleasant memories in my mind always match the periods of intense concentration and devotion to pursuit of something, whether it be sketching, writing, painting, violin (I've played until my hands bled, and I was happy about it), or digging through scientific literatures. Now that summer's come again maybe it's time to find something else to obsess over, perhaps go for another round of travel to other corners of the world. There are quite a few options open for me right now. I can always take an internship at a lab somewhere, maybe even in Europe. I'm already putting together a resume for the scienceblogs HQ in the city. I can devote my summer to the diybio, finding labspace and even work on that artificial cell project I've always wanted to do. I can travel around HK/Korea/Japan like I usually do, sleeping at my relative's places, though I've been around those places so much it's starting to get a little boring. Or I can work on something that might someday become my dissertation, prep my future so to speak. Whatever I do, I want to do something that will really take my mind away from the private circumstances surrounding me. Throughout my life I've learned that obsessive pursuit is about the only thing that puts my heart at ease. I wonder if this is normal for others as well.