The American faith

I'm American by birth.

But I'm also American by choice.

My family -- not me, but my family -- has endured a bit of shit here. My mother's side was interned. My father's side lost an uncle fighting in the 442nd. I lost a great-aunt in the Hiroshima bombing.

It's not always productive or wise to analyze historical grievances. I'm not going to claim that they went through more or less than anyone else. But I do take pride that my family stayed, and worked, and served, and had children, and lived. "Endure. In enduring, grow strong."

My family didn't produce generals, or cabinet secretaries, or tech savants. We produced mostly teachers and gardeners and clerical workers and programmers and a couple artists. And that's okay. They shed the language, shed the culture, and did what they could do to build a life. And to America's credit, they were allowed to.

I use my race, and my history, to understand certain things. But it's a tool for understanding, or a way of empathizing. The past is not a good place to live; I will take care to be a visitor, and not a resident.

I have learned, and continue to learn, about this nation's sins, both past and present. I have come to see it more clearly (though still through a glass, darkly). I have, slowly, started to listen, to add the historical memory of others to that of my own.

And I still love this country. It has given me much. And it continues to be where I place my heart. It's my faith, the one I have explored and clung to for my adult life.

I do not use that word lightly. Faith demands sacrifice. Faith is a constant struggle. Sometimes, faith seems like a lonely road. I believe faith is a covenant, not a comfort. It is not the faith of a child, but the faith of the adult, who has seen things, learned things, and still believes.

Not everyone feels loved by this country. And that cuts across lines of race, faith, class, gender, orientation, and other categories. And that's a tragedy. It's my personal tragedy, and I feel it as a personal failing. And I'm going to do better about that. I'm going to listen more. And I'm going to reach out more.

I'm going to stay here. And I'm going to work, in my own, small, humble ways, to make it a bit better. Because, now, more than perhaps any other time in my life, my friends and family and country need me. And to be needed is such a powerful thing. Do not feel badly or scold those who cannot, or will not. We all live our faith in different ways, and there is no one best way to love.

I will continue to love this country. And I hope, by setting a good example, by standing up, infrequently but firmly, by training for the marathon, not the sprint, I can be a good citizen, and help others feel loved by their country. It won't be enough. It's never enough. But it's what I'm going to do. I don't know quite how yet, but I'm figuring it out.

Because you are the part of America that has loved me, inspired me, and made me a better man. You've given life to the abstract ideals. You've given of yourselves to make your corner of the country better. You've laughed -- laughed -- and that laughter, indeed, opens.

Of all the jumble of identities I carry, "American" is the most important to me. And I'm going to place that centrally in the coming years, and do a better job of living this faith, and loving you.

Election Day

Today was the first day I asked myself a very specific question:

Was Grandma allowed to vote?

Specifically, I wondered whether Grandma was allowed to vote while interned in Rohwer.

For those of you who don’t know, my maternal grandparents and all of my mom’s older siblings were interned during World War II. (My father’s side was not -- they lived in Maui, and most of the Hawaiian Japanese-Americans were not interned. Some fought, including my grandpa’s brother, who died in a corner of France.)

Wikipedia didn’t have anything. But PRI’s The World did a characteristically excellent story on the matter.

The gist is that there was voting, but it was difficult, and the combination of ballot challenges, state laws, and logistics meant that voting rights were pretty much eliminated.

I try to avoid thinking too much about my racial or cultural identity. But otherness has been a feature of this election in a way that it hasn’t been, at least in the memory of my political life. And so it was perhaps inevitable that I’d come back to that memory, and think about what was, and what might have been, and of course, what may yet be.

It is with a renewed intensity that I gaze upon efforts to make voting harder, not easier. It is with renewed anger that I consider the efforts to change election laws, under the pretense of reducing fraud, to disenfranchise segments of the population. Because it was not so long ago that my family lost those rights, through no fault of their own.

And it’s with some amazement that I consider that, after that experience, my grandparents rebuilt, had sons and son-in-laws serve in uniform overseas, and voted. I wish I had the “I LIKE IKE” button that my grandpa had hanging near his desk for decades. I wonder if he ever knew that Milton Eisenhower led the War Relocation Authority. As a farmer/small businessman, he probably was a registered Republican.

I’m grateful he didn’t get bitter. I’m grateful he didn’t give up. And I’m grateful that he was permitted -- not easily, but permitted -- to rebuild his life. It’s a sobering lesson for me. I’ve experienced nothing remotely close to that level of dislocation, humiliation, and -- I don’t think this is an exaggeration -- state-sanctioned theft. I laugh at my friends who worry about big government taking away their rights or seizing their property. But then I feel shame -- every family has stories of civic failure and grievance, whether governmental or private. It does no good to dismiss their concerns and pain out of hand.

That’s going to be the hard part after today. How do we work together? How will the victors frame their victory in a way that at least reduces the chances that we will spend the next two or four years or decades as two armed camps, unable to do much because we begrudge each other the smallest things?

Because I do think a lot of people are terrible. I do think that support of Trump flies in the face of everything I know and love about this country. I do think that it shows a marked historical ignorance, a lack of empathy to those who would most be hurt by a Trump presidency that borders on callousness and selfishness. I do think that plenty of people, even people more or less on the same page as me, have become stark raving mad.

And I believe I have been one of those madmen.

I've embraced the toxicity that I criticize in others. I've become the partisan that sees winning as essential, even existential. And in my saner moments I feel shame at being part of the problem.

So I’m trying, hard, to remember certain things. I remember that my love for this country is not the naive love I had as a young child. It’s a love that is more aware (though still partially blind) to the real historical truths, and the present truths, experienced by those different from me. I see those flaws, and that pain, and the wars and the cruelty and the short-sightedness.

But I’m finding the strength to not just criticize or willfully ignore it. I’m finding the love that demands I reach out, and do things that are uncomfortable and hard, and pride-crushing, because I know that it makes my tiny corner of the world better.

Not enough. Never enough. But some. And maybe, after today, some more.

I love this country because of its history, too, and not just in spite of it. I marvel at how some individuals and communities discovered, in their pain, in their oppression, in their privilege, something greater, something beyond the limitations of I or tribe.

That all heroes wilt under the scrutiny of history and hindsight is necessary, and even desirable. If America depended on perfect women and men to achieve greatness, we would have no hope to maintain, much less advance, this experiment. I have looked into the mirror, and learned to appreciate the flaws, the dark shadows, without sentiment or excuse. Our scars are our story, though one hopes, not our future.

So this I pray -- and I say that sincerely as a man who has struggled to bend his knees and bow his head, but does so now, at a time of acute need. I pray for a peaceful election day.

I pray for good judgment on the part of the people.

I pray not for an easy life, but to be a stronger man.
I pray for powers equal to my tasks. (Phillip Brooks)

I pray that I remember that the spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too certain that it is right. (Learned Hand)

I pray I learn how to borrow from those who came before, from those who know more, and love more -- that my pride does not prevent me from leaning too much on my own understanding, but that my honor demands that I develop my understanding to ensure I am not a weak reed.

Today, I will cast my ballot, thinking about my family that, within living memory, was denied that right. I will vote mindful of the past, with an eye toward the future, our future.

I cast it knowing that this is but a piece of citizenship -- that I will judge my worthiness of that vote based on what I do between elections to better advance this nation and the world, and the extent to which I have opened my heart to those across the fissures and chasms of discord and fear.

Today will be the expression of our will. But every day is the expression of our character.

To you good men and women: I pray you vote wisely, live well, and love openly. For you are why I vote, why I live, and why I love. Thank you.

Chant of the Decideds

Low
Low
Stoop and writhe

Love
Love
Stand and rise

Cry
Cry
Wretched year

Sing
Sing
Shed your fear

Sigh
Sigh
Shake your head

Laugh
Laugh
Hug instead

Scream
Scream
Punch and choke

Lift
Lift
Go and vote

Pray
Pray
Time long gone

Work
Work
Never done

Shame
Shame
Cannot last

We
We
One at last

Letters Home From Internet Migrants

Dear Momma,

It has been three days since the great Internet outage, and yet it feels like a lifetime. I hope you and pa can forgive me for leaving North to find wifi. I know life is hard there. I remember leaving pa, staring blankly at his computer chess game. He mustn't blame himself for asking Time Warner Cable for a change. He couldn't have known that those city men would take it away and leave us hungry for email forwards and highlights from The Voice.

To-day I found work. I have migrated north to the La Puente Starbucks. I'm not gonna complain--you and pa raised me better than that. But life here is hard. We work in cramped quarters next to hipster music social media experts and squat students from Mt. SAC. They let us work, but we end up spending most of our money at the company store, which is very dear. Star-Many-Bucks, some of the guys call it. I know you don't like me spending money, but I was very weak, and bought the venti iced green tea lemonade, half sweetner. Please don't tell pa, as in his state the news might break him for good.

The promised wifi is quarter-rations. They appear to throttle access to Facebook, and I dare not risk the wrath of the foreman by attempting a Youtube playthrough. But I will prevail. My LaTeX documents compile, slowly, and I hope to return to-night with some remaining money and the latest projections from FiveThirtyEight.

Be strong, momma. I hope you and pa can trust in the Divine Providence of the Great Internet Provider. Say your prayers to Sts. Mike and Molly, the patron saints of near-midnight comedic relief. Trust that we are on the side of right, and we shall prevail over the darkness of local monopoly.

My love to pa.

Pvt. Ryan Yamada
(published in Letters Home from Internet Migrants)

W. B. Yeats Goes to Carl's Jr.

The Second Lunching

Burning and churning in the guzzling fryer
The customer can't hear the cashier
Speakers fall apart; the stomach cannot hold;
Two western cheeseburgers; loosed up and hurled
The pink puke tide is loosed, and everywhere
The scent of mayonnaise and hash browns
The best order unconvincing salad, while the worst
Are full of American cheese.


He Wishes For the Sauce of Burgers

Had I the double moonshine burger meal 

Enwrought with golden straw onion fries
The sweet and smoky moonshine sauce
Of midnight, a delight, at least half pound cooked right
I would spread my self into that seat
But I, being poor, have only the hard taco ground beef
I spread myself into that seat
Tread softly, you tread on my ground beef.


When It's Three Days Old
When it's three days old and grey and starting to seep
And microwaved and on fire, curse at the cook
And slowly breathe, and dream of the look
The fries had once, and of the salt layers deep

How many loved your garnish of baconnaise
And loved your juicy patties too
But one man loved the pickles in you
And loved the buns coated with sweaty glaze

And bending down, the rotting food devour
Murmur, a little sadly, how the lettuce is dead
And how the undercooked burger bled
And how you hid in the stall for hours.

Gratitude to the Unknown Ingredients
What sort of unknown glue
They bound in mass
All thing hangs like a piece of poo
Upon a jet of gas.

Yoshimo Money, Yoshimo Problems: The Unuthorized Autobiography

What happens when a lovable bounty hunter can't escape from a trap he helped set? What happened during those fades to black? Why was Anomen trying to wield Keldorn's two-handed sword?

For the first time on audiobook, hear the "traitor" of Baldur's Gate 2 in his own words!

"Was it the geas or gas? After three cheesecakes, it was hard to tell the difference."

"She never knew how much I loved her. To be verbally berated by her was like the gentlest caresses of silken ropes, at once enchanting and ensnaring. Her necklace bespoke power and invitation. Oh Edwina, I offered you my love, but you kept Minor Spell Turning it away!"

"It was all an act, at least at first. Minsc was a fucking genius. Easily INT 22. But that WIS score... poor bastard. Had a problem with potions of strength. Roided out. Then turned to potions of defense. By the end, he was drinking cursed potions of anything. Boo was a bad influence."


Reviews:

You must pick up this book before venturing forth! - Elminster, author of Meddling and Muttering Magic 

For a guy who swore a geas to unspeakable evil without giving it much thought, his prose is pretty smart. - Irenicus, New York Times Book Review

Let's be honest. I sucked as a replacement. I just got the job because I was the PC's sister. Yay nepotism! - Imoen, The Heritage Foundation

Justice Stevens makes some good points in Rasul v. Bush

(from The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin)

 The Bush legal team, led by Ted Olson, the solicitor general, brought the same moral certainty to the Supreme Court that the Republican political operation put forth to voters. The issues were straightforward, the choices binary: the United States or the terrorists, right or wrong. Standing up to argue in Rasul, Olson laid the same kind of choice before the Court. "Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: The United States is at war," Olson began with heavy portent. "It is in that context that petitioners ask this Court to assert jurisdiction that is not authorized by Congress, does not arise from the Constitution, has never been exercised by this Court."

But if this kind of talk was intended to intimidate the justices, as it cowed so many others, the tactic did not work. Indeed, it backfired. "Mr. Olson, supposing the war has ended," Stevens jumped in, "could you continue to detain these people on Guantanamo?" Of course we could, Olson said. In other words, the military could detain Rasul and the others whether or not there was a war.

"The existence of the war is really irrelevant to the legal issue," Stevens said.

"It is not irrelevant because it is in this context that that question is raised," Olson replied weakly.

"But your position does not depend on the existence of a war," Stevens insisted, and Olson had to concede it did not. So in just the first moments of the argument, Stevens had shown that the Bush administration was claiming not some temporary accommodation but rather a permanent expansion of its power for all time, in war or peace. And Stevens was showing further that Olson's rhetorical flourish--"The United States is at war"-- was nothing more than posturing. (p. 231)

...

So, it turned out, was the preposterousness of the administration's key argument in Rasul. Olson had maintained that the navy base in Guantanamo was really Cuban soil and to allow a lawsuit there was inviting litigation on a foreign battlefield. But as Stevens put it in his opinion, "By the express terms of its agreements with Cuba, the United States exercises "complete jurisdiction and control' over the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and may continue to exercise such control permanently if it so chooses." The entire reason that the military took the detainees to such a remote outpost was because the base offered total freedom from outside interference. Allowing lawyers to visit prisoners in Guantanamo and letting them conduct litigation offered no risk at all of escape or disruption--something that could not be said for many prisons within the United States. (p. 235)

Thinking about my dad, two years on

I don't think about him too often. But it's been a bit over -- two years? Is that all? It feels like at least four--since he died.

I just finished working with a student on one last waitlist essay for college. And it reminded me that, last year, I had once written a sample application essay to try to illustrate the tone, pacing, humor, and emotional notes that I wanted that student to hit. In retrospect it wasn't fair -- a 30-year old has simply lived more life than an 18-year old. More things have happened, good and bad, and it's easier to write about influential people and moments once their influence has become pronounced over the years. I honestly don't know if the kid got anything out of it, though the mom thanked me for the essay and complimented me on my writing.

Upon a re-reading, I grimaced. It wasn't quite true -- it was my uncle that asked people to pull his finger. My father was usually content to make fart jokes. But my memories of him have been shaped by so many things -- especially, blessedly, time, which dulls wounds and through which the retrospective mind creates order and a logical story where there was none. It was him, in any case, and the rest of it was true.

I don't even know if it would have been a good essay. It is past-focused, and not focused enough on the qualities of character I did develop that would serve me in the future. It might be more of a red flag than a story of overcoming difficulty. And the last paragraph is a bit schmaltzy. But it was a first draft, and I didn't have time to polish it -- I must've worked on fifteen essays for that kid.

I'm too tired or reluctant to come up with a two-year anniversary set of thoughts. It would have been a recycled version at the one-year mark. So it seems strangely appropriate I take something I had written a year ago for the purpose. For it must be marked. I've been  a bit down lately, possibly because I'm seeing these seniors get ready to leave. And I want to leave with them, to give college and my twenties another crack. Or maybe because they remind me that I, too, have moved on from the past, and with equal parts ignorance, optimism, and fear, look toward the future.

“Pull my finger!”

That’s how my dad started every meeting. He was crazy like that, and crazy in other ways. He was bipolar, and I, thankfully, grew up without him in the house. But I did see him regularly – every two weeks. He was, at times, scary, or genial, or grouchy, or energetic – the combination of medications, occasionally illicit drugs, and, most importantly, life. He had enjoyed success as an aerospace engineer at the height of the Cold War, and lost it all – the house, the family, even his freedom.

But it was there, in the institutions, with minimal spending money and limited means of transportation, he developed his relationships, and, if I can be hopeful, some measure of wisdom about how he got there, and what he still had to offer the world.

My father taught me many things. I learned to fear emotion, as that was associated with manic depression. I learned to fear my intelligence, as that was also linked with mental illness. But I also learned the value of laughing, whether to forget, or to share. He could make me laugh, and as he grew older, was better able to laugh at himself, and his past. (And his gas.)

I remember the day he died. I remember his cold form, his mouth agape, stretched in a hospital bed in the care facility where he had spent the last ten years. In life, he had been a terror and an inspiration, a source of merriment and perpetual stress. He was gone, and I didn’t know with what, or how, I would fill the place in myself that was now empty.

Yet even here, there was humor. My aunt came in, and talked with me. After about ten minutes, I realized that she didn’t realize she was standing next to a dead man, and informed her of the fact. The mortician, a young, eager man obviously desperate to keep his job, pleaded with me to rate him highly on the survey that would be mailed to me in a week. “Tens, please!” I couldn’t help but laugh, and I know my Dad would have done the same.

After I had taken care of that business, I looked at him one last time. I recited the words of “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”. I sat for a while.

And on my way out, I pulled his finger.

My father learned to laugh because it felt good. He laughed to escape the doubts and regrets that plagued him. Honestly, I laugh for the same reasons. But I also value laughter as a way of really understanding and appreciating the human condition. When we laugh, honestly and fully, we begin to open ourselves, to make ourselves vulnerable – and that, perhaps, is the beginning of wisdom.

I have not fought in war. I have not discovered a new technology, or written a novel, or performed in Carnegie Hall. My triumphs, and my tribulations, have been necessarily smaller, more private. They do not capture the imagination, but they echo in my memory. They inform my character, and give me both courage and caution, combining in what I hope to be wisdom. I have faced those old, old fears. And I have learned how to laugh at them, at myself, at the frustrations great and small. He was, in his absence, at least as influential as in his occasional, unstable presence. But he trained me well. For even in that last hour, I laughed a large, wonderful laugh, and thanked my father for his imperfect love.

I am endorsing Ted Cruz for President

I have not made this decision lightly. I have thought long and hard about who is best suited to lead America. My thoughts on the nature and demands of the presidency have been informed by the history I have lived, and the history I have read. And I have decided that Ted Cruz has what it takes to be President of the United States, and to be a good one.

At present, we have five options between the Democrats and Republicans. All of the other four are fundamentally, and fatally, flawed candidates, and would bring ruin to us all.

On the Democratic side, we have Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, whose loyalty to the Democratic party run only as deep as the duration of his presidential run. His plans for free college, free healthcare, free everything, represent the apotheosis of our contemporary "gimmie-gimmie" culture. In his quest to make us Sweden, he would bankrupt us and turn us into Zimbabwe. He fails to take seriously that our present is not our own -- it is inherited from our parents, and borrowed from our future. America is not for sale for thirty pieces of silver. Despite his rhetoric, he has demonstrated by his appeals toward individual selfishness and class warfare that he is the most cynical of the candidates.

We also have Hillary Clinton, who has more baggage than an international airport. Her husband took credit for an economic boom inspired by the conservative budgets and tax policies pushed through by a Republican Congress. Despite his claims to humanitarianism, as president, he ignored a genocide in Rwanda, and exacerbated ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia. I won't even get into his personal character--that is a matter of public record. Don't believe for a second that his fumbling, corrupt hands would be idle during the presidency of his wife. As to Hillary -- she presided over the Obama State Department, and it is on her doorstep we leave the wreckage of Syria and Iraq, the nightmarish metastasizing of Islamic State, the expansion of Russia, the chaos of Yemen, and, yes, the assault on our Western allies. She is uniquely characterized by horrible judgment, changing her views more times than people change their socks. Bernie would simply bankrupt America -- Hillary would continue Obama's strategy destroy American power and sacrificing our allies for promises from nations who demonstrate neither trustworthiness nor stability.

And what of the other Republican? John Kasich? A man whose sheer ambition and arrogance has kept him in this race, even though he has won only one state, even though he has no chance at a nomination? John Kasich, who may make a deal with the devil himself for a vice-presidential spot to satiate his pride? John Kasich, whose endless pretense of bonhommie tries and fails to conceal his general grouchiness, poor temperament, and provincial small-mindedness -- none of which makes him capable of handling the job of the Presidency.

Donald Trump is no Republican. He is a creature of the media. They love him because he makes them money. He loves them because he's a narcissistic buffoon. His views are a mishmash of convenience and drug-addled somnambulence. He is the most depraved man to ever seek the presidency. It is only out of desperation that so many have turned to him -- as if to say, "We exist! Hear our voices!"

Ted Cruz hears their voices. He understands their suffering in this fake economic recovery, which has benefited the celebrities like Trump, but left behind decent, hardworking people. He understands that people are tired and angry about the desecration of American promise. He shares their anger at the academic-media-entertainment complex, who tell us constantly, be ashamed, apologize, and you deserve nothing.

They push a narrative of American weakness and attack values that have kept America safe and whole for centuries. They expect us to abandon what is good and true about our unique nation and change in response to the whims of celebrities, so-called-activists, and other braying asses, who are absent and silent when America is attacked and our citizens slaughtered. Finding no strength of their own, they seek to make the rest of us weak, and I'm sorry to say they have partially succeeded.

Ted Cruz is not afraid to ask Americans to sacrifice. He knows that, while many of our countrymen seek only handouts and attention, there are many of us, a moral majority, who know that this country is worth personal sacrifice. He is not afraid of asking us to be adults, to make hard choices needed to manage our deficits. He has fought these battles, sometimes alone in the Senate, and earned the scorn of the political class he threatens.

He is highly intelligent. He has the energy of youth, and the wisdom of a close student of history. He will not flinch to defend our country from enemies foreign or domestic. He will restore the values of our faith, in our government and in our God, to the center of American life. He is the last, best hope for a world spiraling out of control.

I ask all right-thinking Americans, all Americans who love their country, who believe that our lives are a gift from the Almighty, who believe that salvation requires sacrifice, who believe that we must fight today, tomorrow, every day for a better future, to fight for Ted Cruz. He's been fighting for you. He's been fighting for us all.

America is ours. Fight for it.

Thoughts on the power of speech

As I approach day 10 of this cold, I occasionally panic and considered what life would be like without a voice. Not in a political sense--surprising this season!- but a literal voice. I haven't lost my voice completely, but it's been very painful to speak, and attempts at remote tutoring have always been followed by hacking and greater pain. The voice is something so fundamental to most human interaction, and to most jobs. I know my voice will recover, but it's given me pause. What would I do for a living? I suppose my writing skills might be good enough to be of some use to someone. Toastmasters skills would not disappear completely -- there's still something to be salvaged from the confidence to appear in public, even if not to speak. How would my sense of humor survive? I'm not particularly gifted in that regard, but I know that what passes for charm on my end is rooted in humor. How empathetic would I seem, or be? When I apply myself, I can be an excellent listener. But how would my conversation partner feel about a lack of audial feedback, even if he or she understood I couldn't speak? I don't particularly like my voice. It is not a voice to inspire love, or authority, or loyalty. A frank acquaintance in college decidedly pronounced it "unsexy", and I have to agree with her. And I've always found it easier to write than to speak, whether due to shyness, or just an affinity for writing (rather than a disability when it came to speech). And yet it is mine. I remember people growing up who had more serious speech issues, requiring therapy, or surgery. I know that from my speech parents make a snap decision as to my competence, my intelligence, my trustworthiness, in a way that written words would never be able to communicate. When I die, people won't read through my blog posts, though that will be what remains. Instead they will remember vague outlines of the person I was, the time spent with me, and yes, my voice. It has been expensive to pretty much lose my power of speech this week. It has been painful. But it has also been informative. Putting aside my health at the moment, without good conversation, I don't feel I have much to offer. I know what it was to be shy and somewhat quiet, and I hated it enough to reject it for the tendency to talk too much. This hopefully ephemeral disability will hopefully make me more permanently humble, more empathetic to those, who for reasons of shyness, anxiety, impediment, medical or social reasons, find themselves prejudged and limited by their voice. I'm sorry I judged you, and thought in judging you by this metric I was somehow superior to those who judged you by your physical attractiveness, or race, or clothes.

A day in the life of a tutor: Sunday, February 28, 2016

I'm tired. It's been a long day. Sundays have, for whatever reason (and there are good reasons), been the longest tutoring day for a while. But it occurred to me that what seems normal to me might be bizarre to others. So here's a look into a typical atypically busy day for me.

First: Why are Sundays busy? Students have homework due Monday, AND it's a weekend day (meaning I can schedule morning appointments), AND people usually don't go out Sunday nights. Many all-day sports events appear to be scheduled Saturday, and not Sunday, presumably to avoid conflict with religious services. Note: a few of the families I work with do attend regular religious services, and yet find time Sundays for tutoring.

Anyway, here's what happened today:

7:00 AM: Got up before my alarm. Been exercising and consuming lots of caffeine lately, which has translated into slightly shorter sleep cycles. Handling it well so far. Alarm was scheduled for 7:15, and I have a meeting at 7:30, so I grab a quick shower.

7:30 AM: Meeting over Skype with student based in Denmark. How did I end up with a student in Denmark? Had to do with going to Korea, and tutoring a student who then attended a school in Israel, who was friends with this guy, who then moved to Denmark. I'm world famous! Sort of. We work on a Theory of Knowledge paper concerning psuedoscience, in which I help the student break down some of the social/psychological reasons why psuedoscientific beliefs might persist. Meet for about an hour, which generates lots of notes shared in a Google Doc.

8:30 AM: clean dog shit and eat a banana, with handwashing somewhere inbetween. Spend a bit too much time browsing the Internet. Start drinking my day-old coffee.

9:15 AM: leave house

9:45 AM: Arrive in Rosemead, but starting to feel hungry. Rashly bolt into 7-11 and buy a hot dog. Actually two. Gross. Send a quick text to a parent who had wanted to schedule a meeting today. But I'm full up. Tell her that her son can ask me questions via text, and I'll reply when I can (probably not before 11pm).

10:00AM: Meet with 9th grade student. We start with geometric constructions. Although lacking in experience, I figure out how best to help her. We pivot to Othello, which we've been analyzing for the last several weeks. Many discussions about psychology, motivation, etc. Somehow she brings up Ke$ha, and I learn that she has accused her producer of rape. A short discussion about the difficulty of proving rape follows. Ordinarily I wouldn't have touched that topic with a ten-foot pole, especially with such a young female student. But we've gotten to know each other well enough that I thought she deserved honest answers. The second tutoring session I had ever with her, I was ambushed by questions about STDs for her health class. She asked me what oral sex was. So the high-water mark for awkwardness had already been reached. Two hours of analysis and frustrations with a compass, I leave. In months of tutoring, I've never formally met the dad, though he's usually in the other room, like The Wizard of Oz. Weird.

12:00PM: Start driving as quickly as I can to Fullerton. Scheduled to meet a student at 12:45, though he's asked for more time, presumably because matrices aren't going well.

12:55PM: Got there late thanks to horrendous parking near CSUF, but decided to get coffee before sitting down at the Panera. This is a relatively new student -- incredibly polite, but it perhaps feels like I don't know him particularly well. Sometimes that comes with time. Work on systems of equations, Gauss-Jordan elimination, and row-reduced echelon form. Second meeting covering matrices. Needed some clarification from last time about why we use a parameter, t, in cases of infinite solutions. Covered matrix multiplication and calculating determinants. Also covered inverses, but -- lucky guy! -- he apparently doesn't need to calculate the inverse of a 3x3 or larger matrix. Does have trouble setting up some of the word problems -- I did the best I could in our closing minutes to explain how to distinguish between the unknown variables and given quantities, but I suspect some follow-up will be necessary. One hour was all that was needed, so I'm back on schedule.

2:30 PM: Arrive at a student's house in Yorba Linda. Been meeting with this student for about two years. She's awesome -- very well-adjusted, despite the pressures of being in a lot of high-level classes and having successful parents. Definitely think she will go far. Math has been frustrating, and she had failed a test recently. We reviewed some differential equations and parametric/polar calculations of arc length, area, etc. She often is (mostly) mock-angry when I take her teacher's side about anal retentive notation.

 "I've decided to start trying."

"You've been trying. Last meeting went really well."

"Well, I decided to start trying this week."

"Oh." *flashback to the previous week of senioritis*

She is slightly distracted by her mom being on the phone. I provide a rationalization for the multitasking phone work. "You always cut her slack!" She's not the only one, kid.

I love this family. Leave at 3:30 for La Habra.

3:45 PM: Hunger strikes me like a lightning bolt strikes a solitary tree in a vast, forbidding prairie. I find a wrapped cookie in the back seat, originating from a gift from a kindly Australian doctor I drove around LA last week. It is dry and crumbly. But it stems the temptation to stop at another 7-11.

4:00 PM: Meeting with a junior boy, who may or may not play too much League of Legends. (Spoiler: probably too much) We work on a few calculus problems involving u-substitution. Until recently, we had focused only on physics, but I guess integrals have gotten a bit harder. It's still 70/30 physics/calc.

"You didn't need my help with these questions."

"Well... when I looked at them, they looked really hard. But now that we're doing them..."

"So you didn't attempt any of them before I showed up?"

He seemed a bit jokier. It had taken a couple months for him to relax a bit -- he still works like he's in a rush. One problem involving stretching a wire seemed particularly troublesome. He wanted to give up, but I made him stick with it. The appreciation at the end of the problem was palpable. (Not.) "I hate physics." Says the future engineer. After an hour, time to take a short detour for food.

5:15 PM: While ordering my shrimp burrito at Rubio's, I sigh and return the call of a mom that had called me a few hours ago. She wants to schedule an appointment tomorrow morning for her son to work on applications to summer science programs. Against my better judgment, I agree to a 9am meeting tomorrow. She wants to meet for four hours, but I explain that the writing process will probably require a 1-2 hour meeting, then a follow-up. Apps are due Thursday. Communications have been mildly problematic -- maybe it's culture, or the fact that my phone can't receive iMessages.

5:25 PM: Burrito is in my lap. I refrain from eating it while driving, as that's unsafe and extra gross. Experience(!) teaches me that these Ancho Citrus Shrimp Burritos tend to leak a bit. It rolls from lap to the floor at a stoplight, but remains intact (and delicious).

5:30 PM: Tutoring a sophomore who has already committed to University of Maryland: College Park on a softball scholarship. (!) She's that good. We work a bit on arithmetic and geometric sequences for Algebra 2, then pivot to chemistry and enthalpies of formation. I'm pretty bad at these. I have to Google some help, but we muddle through it to calculate the average bond energy of ozone. We close out the session by going over some of the PSAT 10 she's practiced. I notice energy level flagging for both of us, but we both perk up after a brief tangent about softball and how the smaller diamond makes play very, very different from baseball. It's fascinating stuff -- maybe I'll see if we can work some Algebra 2 into that. Problems on PSAT seem to focus on semicolon use (needs to separate independent clauses) and not checking that a sentence added at a particular location is related to the content immediately before and after that sentence. She may pick sentences that seem to match the overall passage, with little regard to context.

I started tutoring her older sister about three years ago. The sister has graduated. I probably should've raised rates a while ago -- they are grandfathered in at about 2/3 my current rate -- but I'm grateful to them for providing a review from a parent with a daughter. I suspect that parents felt more comfortable with me tutoring their daughters after that review posted.

A nice family even if they care way more about sports than I do. Leave at 6:45.

6:45 PM: Reply to some texts. Had to remind a student why an integral involving a ln x and having one limit at x=0 is an improper integral and needs to be handled using limits. Head to La Palma.

7:15 PM: End up in terrible traffic at the Valley View offramp of the 91. See a crane truck leave the scene, and then see the car upside down. At least 3 cars involved, with lots of ambulances and fire trucks. Memento mori. Drive onward, with Muse playing (instead of NPR, today's a sort of day to listen to the limited number of songs I have on my phone -- mostly Muse, Two Steps From Hell, and some scattered songs: "Jar of Hearts", "Confident", "Pruit Igoe", "Prelude to War", "Counting Stars", and "Crazy", to name a few.)

7:30 PM: Arrive and start tutoring separable differential equations. My student owns an adorable dachshund that always smells like piss, but is really cute. Named Snoopy. Love how much noise his ears make when he shakes his head. Anyway, student appears to need some supplemental work on limits, as she is having trouble with end behavior. Make a note to send her a worksheet. I can feel my fatigue based crabiness set in, so I try to lighten the mood a bit by mentioning that I had heard about a group that performs synchronized swimming at high end parties. (My student is really serious about synchronized swimming.) She knows the group, and says that within the synchronized swimming community, they have a bad reputation.

Despite playing water polo and doing competitive synchronized swimming, she's very shy. Hope she gains confidence to speak up a bit more on the academic side. Leave after an hour to Diamond Bar, and send off a text informing them that I'll be about 10 minutes late.

9:10 PM: I show up ten minutes late, but managed to reschedule someone for tomorrow after parking. Evidently someone made use of the Google calendar I had set up.

It's been a few weeks since I had met with this student -- the last meeting ended in tears for the student, as his bottled up fear and anxiety came to the fore. It's kind of an awkward meeting -- how could it not be? But we don't touch the elephant in the room, although I did notice that when I asked the mom "How are you?" she replied, "He's fine."

We work on Ampere's Law and Biot-Savart. It's a shame that the most technically demanding work is coming at the end of the day, but I'm able to help him figure out why we use cosine instead of sine to find the vertical B-component (had to do with the angle labeled), and why we express it as R/r (because we use similar triangles to get a value for the cosine of that angle). Fielded some additional questions regarding current density and when to use straight/circular Amperean loops.

Thankfully, the meeting is an hour, and not the two I had prepared for. I suspect we'll have to talk again, about physics and other stuff. He's smart, but he feels he so far behind. I need to think about how to help him see that it's not a race.

10:30 PM: get home, then start working on a problem texted to me. Evidently the student dropped a 2, again, in a polar integral. Surprise! That's why the numbers are off. I eat leftovers, watch a few minutes of Kimmel (enough to TOTALLY call that Matt Damon was hiding in Ben Affleck's suit), and then head to my room. Early morning tutoring, and I have a blog post to write. Not going to have energy to submit any summaries or billing through WyzAnt tonight.

It was a long, long day. But I laughed a lot. I genuinely enjoyed most of it. I know it's unsustainable -- even if I don't work nearly this hard any other day of the week. But it was a good day.

Astropolitika

I was having a serious life conversation with a student in crisis. We discussed many things, most of which I can't share. Too personal, too raw. But I did relate one story, one thing that, at the time, seemed relevant. It's not very personal, and was probably the most boring thing I had to say to him that meeting. But it's part of me that I want to write down, because it's a small piece of history that may matter to me more as I grow older.

When I was a junior in college, I took a History of the Soviet Empire class, taught by a German with the surname O'Donoghue. Despite the confusion inherent in that, it was a very enjoyable class.

We got to choose our research topics, and for whatever reason I chose the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. I can't remember much from the paper; I did pull an all-nighter for it, but I definitely put some work into it. The tumultuous years of a Trotskeyite Soviet Empire, the Miracle on the Vistula, the heroic/despotic arc of Pilsudskii -- it was very compelling.

Senior year, I ran into an astronomer from Poland at the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego. I happened to mention that I had had the opportunity to study a bit of Polish history.

He would've been within his rights to dismiss me, politely or not, for presumption. But instead, we chatted a bit. Not surprisingly, the "Miracle on the Vistula", the triumphant defeat of Soviet forces at the gates of Warsaw by the Polish army, was suppressed knowledge under Communism. But he had heard stories and whispers growing up. The story was a source of pride and inspiration to those growing up under Communism.

It was a nice moment, one in which, for a moment, we were separated from the bubble of theoretical considerations. But perhaps it's not surprising, or even uncommon. Astronomers, when they look into the sky, are always looking into the past.

I hope my student knows that these scientists are not gods. They are women and men, flesh and blood, with their own histories and dark chapters. Gods are meant to be feared and worshiped. But people, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, they are meant to be held, and loved, and encouraged.

I hope this young man realizes that he belongs in science, if he chooses a home there... not in spite of his vulnerabilities, but because of them.

The Young Boy

Once upon a time, there was a young boy. He wanted to be good, and did his best to cultivate virtue. He was taught not to brag, to be humble even about what were honorable accomplishments. He was also taught that his quality would be recognized in time, and that it was better to be silent as to questions of desire and ambition.

That boy grew up, and experienced his share of praise. But he craved more. He worked and labored to distinguish himself, within the constraints that had become internal commandments.

The boy, now a man, waited. And as he grew older, he grew more stressed, more anguished, even embittered. He questioned why he did good, and did so silently. Why, he asked, did he do whet he thought were right and virtuous things, and not achieve any satisfaction from them?

And so he grew older, and more bitter.

Finally, in his exasperation, he began to praise himself, to tell of his brilliance, his thoughtfulness, his kindness to others. And the others initially praised him, but soon shunned him, leaving him to be self-rightrous and self-centered by himself.

At the end of his life, he cried out to the Heavens and asked, "Why am I so wretched? What did I do wrong?"

Heaven was silent. But his friend, his sole remaining friend, replied.

"You tried to cultivate virtue in isolation. But that is meaningless. For the one virtue you lsckrd, courage, comes from the constant interaction between you and the outside world. You neither loved much, nor laughed much, nor fought much. You wept much, but only for yourself. Without courage, all your gifts withered and were corrupted."

The old man wept.

"But," the friend continued, "there is one bit of good news."

"What is it?" the old man sniffles.

"You will die only as much as anyone else, no more, and no less."

A week to miss astronomy

Tomorrow morning, I will tutor a Science Olympiad student on astronomy. The topics this year are stellar evolution and exoplants. 

It hits a bit close to home, as these were two topics I had spent most of my undergraduate and graduate studies contemplating (when I was actually contemplating astronomy). It should be relatively easy to coach the student on the quantitative aspects; she had already taken an intro astronomy class at Fullerton College, but didn't learn some of the equations required of her. Though much is taken, much abides.

I had forgotten that there is something attractive about being able, with relatively simple models, to characterize in broad strokes the habitability of a world, the warmth of a star, the importance of just the right amount of greenhouse gases. 

Time and Death and God 

Perhaps not quite. But death, and rebirth. The precious origins of metal. The cutoffs determining the fate of stars -- just numbers, but each painstakingly determined by the collision of theory and data. Lies, partially. Simplifications -- that's a better way of putting it.

In a minute there is time:

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Maybe, maybe, with a bit more math, or even just qualitatively, how to estimate mass limits using the wobble of stars. Maybe direct detection. Maybe gravitational lensing -- GR, which has stormed into the headlines, those waves just a tad late to the 100th anniversary party. And whispers of reflected spectra, and now hushed whispers of an oxygen detection, something that will dwarf even gravitational waves, perhaps not scientifically, but philosophically. Why else look for these other worlds? Why else hunt for a Second Earth? We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring will be

To arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

There will be no time, perhaps, to delve into the social history -- the female "computers" that gave us stellar classification, the racism and colonialism and amateurish arrogance that perhaps led to the dismissal of Chandrasekhar, the resignations and scandals. The funding fights. How so many NASA sites ended up in regions of the country that seem, now, to hate the agency so much.

No time for remorse, to miss the learning, even as I know I do not miss the work, or the life, that in spite it all, I am free to not care.

For thine is

I celebrate you friends who stayed, and thrived. It has been a good week for astronomy. It has even been a good week to miss it.

Again, the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

Lactose intolerance and me

Believe it or not, this and the previous entry are linked, somehow.

I never officially got a diagnosis of lactose intolerance. But growing up with my mother and my older aunts, discussions about stomach ailments were legion. Digestive digressions. Medical terms half-remembered, out of context, but ominously inflected. "Heliobacteria." "Ulcer." "Sigmoidoscopy." Self-reported ratings of upper vs lower GI examinations. (Evidently the lower is more challenging, though the geography still escapes me. Is it counterintuitive, in the way that the definitions of Lower and Upper Egypt were? Is the analogy of the river correct? What precisely is the source and what is the delta in this strained metaphor?)

So I did grow up with some paranoia and perhaps even hypochondria regarding things stomach-related. These seemed to be borne out by a tendency to fart intensely at school. Rare was the audible, public trumpet, though I sweat now, dear Reader, when I think about that terrible afternoon in the high school library when I was suddenly surprised by a loud one, leaving me hovering two inches above the unforgiving wooden chair, my face the only answer needed by the thirty faces turning with a united question.

Less publicly, but no less to my shame, was first period sophomore year. World History Honors, first period. I sat near the front, and the damnable infernal chairs were made of hard plastic and metal. No cushions. I tried valiantly to preserve my classmates from what seemed like roomfuls of foul fumes, especially as these represented the brightest and, in many cases, most attractive members of my graduating class.

If they ever let on, they never told me. I feel especially sorry for Julie. I think you sat behind me, either directly or one chair back. So if you ever wondered

IT WAS I

I was the flatulent fiend
I was the malefactor of mists
I was the Boyd bombardier
I was the doubled-over, thrice-damned doofus
I was the gastard
I was the shart attack
I was the World War I recreationist

If you didn't get an A in that class, I was probably the reason.

I don't know how I connected my challenges to the milk I was drinking in the morning (accompanying a reasonably priced and nutritionally questionable school breakfast). But at some point, before graduation, I did, and didn't look back. What lay behind, other than shame, smells, and stains?

So yes, if you are facing the perils of lactose intolerance, I empathize. Like the smog of 1970s Los Angeles, it colored my experiences in high school, its social and psychological scars lingering like a brown dog, at once familiar and repugnant. This was pre-Lactaid (or at least pre- my understanding of medical options). Consider yourself blessed that opportunities abound, not only for probiotic remedies, but also cow milk substitutes.

There may come a day when public and unremitting flatulence is no longer a source of shame, and perhaps even a source of some energy. But today is not that day. Learn from my mistakes, educate yourself, and do your best to live a normal, healthy life.

Hijab

A week ago I was at a Panera near Cal State Fullerton. I passed by a woman wearing a hijab. I might've paused half a second. She noticed me, and perhaps noticed the pause. I wondered how she had interpreted it. Did she give it any thought? Is she used to it? It passed, though it lingered. I had a vague sense of guilt or sorrow about the whole thing.

How does one go up to someone and say:

I looked at you, but did not intend to gawk. I looked at you not because I am a fearful reactionary, nor because I'm an objectifying male. I perhaps looked without any present emotions, because I wasn't really looking at you. But you weren't an abstraction of a race or a faith. You were an echo of a specific person I had met in college, a woman who I didn't really know, and still don't, but who, ten years after we had graduated, had engaged me in a conversation that convinced me that we understood each other and our younger selves better.

I look at you, or through you, to the past, and realize that I had never talked with her about the hijab, though she had explained at the beginning of school (coincidentally, a few days before September 11) that it represented modesty, though then, and now, I did not know if it represented an act of modesty or itself served as a reminder, a totem, to be modest in our endeavors.

I had not talked with her about faith, or family, or hardly anything. A small school can seem so impossibly vast sometimes.

And now I did not see you, or her. I saw an idea -- that the people I had met, I had treated as representatives of types, used them to understand the identity or identities they claimed, or disclaimed, or reclaimed. And too, too often, I didn't see the person.

And yet how grateful I am, that I have pokemoned my way to some rude decency and understanding, that I would find it at least somewhat difficult to ascribe broad traits to swaths of society. Grateful at good moments -- smugly self-satisfied at worse moments -- and dangerously vulnerable and reactionary on matters of identity in the worst moments of all. But my judgment seems somewhat sane, even if my advocacy is timid.

To know how a person values and weighs their identities, which ones are superordinate or subordinate, how contextual is that ranking, how unstable and self-contradictory are the weights in the expression of thought or deed, I might have to know them better than I have known any person. Perhaps I wouldn't be equal to the task. Perhaps it would destroy the relationship; there is, of course, a difference between empathy and dissection.

When I go into the world, am I the example floating in someone's mind of the Japanese ethnicity? Or of a scientist, laughable as that possibility seems to me? Maybe. And maybe that knowledge will, or should, change me.

This is a bizarre and self-indulgent entry, even by the standards of this blog. And yet, the gulf between the dominant identities I carry around within my own head and those projected onto me is probably the source of most of my major failings.

So to the person of the past -- I'm sorry we never had a chat about you, or what you wanted me, or others, to know. I neither want to assume that these fifteen years, or thirty years, have been difficult for you, nor communicate that a complicated and variegated sense of self can or should be summed up in any one aspect of external appearance, even, and perhaps especially, clothing. And yet I fear that I have abstracted away the actual you.

And to the stranger of the present, thank you for setting my thoughts along a different course, one that will hopefully get me out of my headspace and into the world.

The lines and internet are always slow there, at the Panera.

The lines and internal thoughts are always slow here.