Rant: To The Passive-Aggressive, Socially Awkward, Teen-aged Asian Female Living In the United States

For those who deem this "TL;DR", the overall message is "nut up or shut up."

You are not your grades.
You are not your SAT scores.
And whether you like it or not, you will fail.

And you probably will stubbornly refuse to learn anything until you do.

Your parents grew up in a nation where everything was defined by test scores and money. If you wanted to be powerful, you did perfectly in school. Or, if that wasn't your thing, you could just buy your way to whatever you wanted. So what your parents have taught you is to be smart and be cheap. Except, you're now in a country with an entirely different set of values which tout anti-intellectualism and luxurious spending. As a result, you are merely a nerdy cheapskate, and you are wondering why you're so unhappy.

You want to believe that you are a good kid, so you try really hard - because you think what you lack in talent, you will make up for in effort. In Japanese cartoons, screaming harder always helps the good guys win! Surprise, surprise, exerting effort just makes you tired. You sacrifice sleep and food to attain that perfect grade - because self-sacrifice is glamorous. And what you make when you're tired certainly isn't worth that 4.0 that you keep striving for, so you're never going to get it. Seriously, just drop an assignment. The best lesson the you're going to learn is that no one cares, so manage your time and just do what is a priority. Don't lose sleep over it. When you don't turn in your homework, you get marked down, and the world goes on.

Always forced to study - potentially since you were in elementary school at places like Kumon, you've been socially deprived for many years, and you can't imagine how anyone could like you (or if you're so arrogant, how anyone couldn't like you). The thing is, people don't like you for quantitative reasons - that you're good at math, or that you can draw pretty well - they like you when you are fun to be around. So get out of your study hole, and make some friends, even if it costs your grades to slip a little. And you shouldn't expect them to be perfect-numbered people, either. You're looking for friends, not employees, right? Those six-figure jobs your parents keep pestering you about are obtained through interviews, anyway, and if you spend your life talking to a computer, there's little likelihood you can talk to a person. Otherwise, no one will notice you, and the world goes on.

Oftentimes, you are a financial hypocrite. Part of you wants to do that thing your parents do where they fight for the check and then pay for the entire meal, but you're a student, and you're cheap. Somehow, it hasn't sunk in that Americans usually split checks, and when people pay for everyone, it's because they're genuinely nice, not showing off some familial status. So while you make these shows of being rich, you take your cut back through the little things by forgetting your cash, borrowing a few bucks here and there, mooching your friends' food or asking them to drive you places (because, as an Asian girl, you were never taught to drive - your brother was your chauffeur or your parents didn't have the patience for it). Just be fair and split your bills. If everyone pays their share, you don't stir up resentment, and the world goes on.

You're good at a lot of things, but you're not great at anything. And your history of never messing up on top of your parents' endless demands has led you to need a lot of positive reinforcement. Your drawings or violin solos are good, but they're nowhere near professional quality. You seek attention to make you feel good about your perceived-as-childish hobby, to validate why you continue to do it. However, you have become so callous from shrugging off your parents unrealistic comments that you've immunized yourself to honest critique. The thing is, no one in the real world is going to waste their time giving you praise or feeding your ego. People have better things to do. You have to find a deeper, inner drive, for what you want to do because no matter how desperately you need a hug, you can't be sure anyone's going to stop to give you one. Besides, those Ivy League schools like people who do interesting things, and pure test scores aren't interesting. If you define yourself by what other people say, people will get tired of reinforcing your self-image - the world goes on.

Finally, because your parents stressed how terrible boys can be, you are deathly grossed out by the mere concept of sex. Make-up is practically foreign, but what's worse is that you have no confidence in the way you look. It doesn't matter that you're 5' 8" because you grew up drinking cow's milk - you're a size XXL in Asia, and that means you're fat. And now that you're in college, your parents are asking you why you don't have a boyfriend, and why he's not a doctor. But, you can't have a healthy relationship because you have no idea what one consists of. You expect American guys to act like the mirror-boys in Korean dramas. So when that guy asked you for your number after class, he was certainly a "creeper" with no intention to actually study with you, and even if you did find him cute, he could never, ever, ever, be a nice person because he is the one asking you out. But, on the other hand - you have no confidence in yourself, so you'd never ask a guy out! Even worse, your low self-esteem might be so detrimental that you have turned your self-life into a series of highly unrealistic, sexless, boy-boy romances played out on internet forums with other girls. BL is fine - and can be pretty hot - but it's still just fantasy. So, within reason, take care of your looks and treat guys as friends, and then maybe you'll get your doctor - but he probably won't be a doctor. Or look like a Korean supermodel (that's all plastic surgery anyway). Otherwise your would-be special someone find a girl who actually treats them like a human being. The world goes on.

All I can say is I speak from experience. You can tell me this advice is crazy, but hey - I'm happy and learning when I make mistakes, and you're moping about how much you suck - so you tell me now, who's crazy?

Art & Rant: San Fransisco Sketches and Fine Art

Here are some more sketches that I did when I was in San Fransisco, none of which will be finished. I think the marathon had burned me out.

Clockwise from top left: Ruji, Alisian demi-goddess of luck and fortune. Willowren in medic gear, looking like a crack addict. Rivek and Bohren playing a game of dice, failed 100 Themes piece.


At a friend's party, I was struck with the desire to draw an octopus. People keep asking me to finish this one. I guess it's because it's something "different." I don't think it is - fine arts circles are already brimming with people-with-antlers and sexual-innuendo-of-girls-and-octopi. Also, I don't like her face.


Fine Arts friend of mine was saying that all the ImagineFX stuff was boring because it's that same "almost realism" style. That irritate me. I'm a big proponent of "if it's enjoyable, who cares if it's innovative?" It seems like we get caught up so often in desiring and making something new that we don't desire or make something for the sake of doing it so that it's fun for both artist and viewer.

I sometimes see gallery art as being a popularity contest. There's no real accurate measure of art like there is with code, so it's pretty luck-based. Did you get your name out there? Do you know the right people? I feel it's very "bandwagon." There are so many people who draw like James Jean and Audrey Kawasaki. It all seems very trendy to draw doe-eyed girls with bleeding tentacles.

It's true with code, though, too. Microsoft released a pretty user-unfriendly workplace system back with Windows 95. However, they pushed really hard, and we all got hooked to it. Then, they went and re-vamped their user experience "for the better." Problem ensues in that we have already accustomed to the old, yet flawed system. So is the change really better? All I know is, I am thankful for .docx -> .doc converters.

We can't know what's ahead if we don't know what's already been done, and not just in your own niche field. I think this is why I choose to do both. I don't want to get caught up in the latest styles or the new release patches. If I like it, that's all that matters. Otherwise, inevitably, I would end up circling myself.

Rant: They Don't Build Things LIke They Used To

It's about time I write something insightful. Before things turn sour, a quick shout-out to Jonny Cota from SkinGraft Designs. I'm loving the sleek new website. Easy to navigate, and I enjoy the focus on events. I still wish I could afford those clothes, though! (And wish I had the body to wear them... goddamn you, holiday weight gain!) Now, on topic...

I had the fortune of breaking my iPod recently. I also replaced the keyboard of my Dell Latitude two days ago. That's the third or fourth time I've had work done to my primary machine. Poor Phineas has been through an orange juice spill, the abrupt failure of a charger, the eventual fail of a battery, a short circuiting during shutdown, and the slow smoothing of the plastic on his keyboard. All in two and a half years. It's costing me a fortune. What's the point in having a warranty if it barely covers anything? It will cost $100 to repair the iPod which I got less than two months ago. This calls into question, though, not the nature of warranties (which, in my mind, are built to cover everything but what happens) or the nature of my klutziness, but the nature of design. Where are our principles taking us?

I had an interview yesterday at a certain empire-like corporation. That's right, Microsoft. The digs were nice - free food, laid back people, shuttles going everywhere, five-star hotel with incredibly attractive doorman. Seeing real pine trees was a plus for an east-coaster like myself. I think it went pretty well, and I learned as much about them as they did about me - and maybe a little more about this world as a whole.

I should clarify that I didn't interview for a programmer position. I went for "Program Manager" - the shortest way I can explain it is you design a feature within the program you're working on. Scheduling meetings and documentation are secondary. The key is you are a designer. For all twenty-odd classes I've taken at an Ivy League University the key, designer’s, "takeaway" is this: Know your consumer. While I agree, there is something to be said about the way human beings consume.

They consume an awful lot. An epidemic of obesity can't solely be blamed on hormonal imbalances. The number of people who won't turn off their computers overnight borders on - in my mind - ridiculous. A friend once told me she didn't eat meat because it was "inefficient." To make a cow, said cow must consume grain - let's say 500lbs of corn for a 100lb cow. A human can get 1000 calories by eating 1lb of corn or 1lb of cow. Why use an extra 499lbs of corn if a human being can attain the same energy from one? At first, I thought that was ridiculous, but now, I see her point.

What is the shelf-life of a computer? I feel this period is getting shorter and shorter. To my surprise, my old machines still chug along while I my newly-released laptop get fixed so often, it seems like it gets a check-up. My mother watches YouTube videos on a machine from the 90s. It's slow and loud but perfectly functional. Same goes for our color printer.

At Microsoft, they follow deadlines. A product need not be perfect as long as it caters to 80% of the market. Look at the latest Word - bold, italic, underline, all right there. But if you need letting or line height… good luck. In this case, the rule makes sense. Not too many people will care about line height. I mean, there's no Resume Formatters Union. But in the larger scope, should we have so many deadlines to begin with? Should we force ourselves to consume? It is a principle of technology business that once everyone else gets faster, you must get faster, too.

Our younger generation has become spoiled with instant gratification - cell phones, messengers, fast food, credit cards. But do we really need a new video game every month or a new computer every year? If we took the time with our development cycles, we could certainly make things last longer. Better yet, if we slowed down and took a look at the material culture around us, we could sort out what's important - what's 'new' and ‘fast’ versus what's actually 'good.'

Erik, Arik, Rich, Devindra, if you are reading this, it was fun talking with you guys and coming up with ideas. Thanks for the opportunity.

Art post soon. I drew a lot on my trip. :) The Puget Sound is a lovely area, by the by. Sitting next to crying babies on the plane is not-so-lovely.