“As I set out for Ithaca, I had a long road indeed, full of adventure, and full of discovery…” — There are various translations, and each one provides a slightly different feel, but the meaning nevertheless remains the same. The road to Ithaca was indeed how it is described above.

Today, as I read through each line and verse, I understand it on a different level. It rings as though it were a new creed to live by. Perhaps it should be.

No matter what walk of life you are in, it can have a unique meaning for you too. I hope that you enjoy.

Ithaca
by Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

Yesterday, the bottom shelf (and the largest) of my bookcase contained an entire row of books and materials for the GMAT. This was even after I had donated three books to a friend. I had books from two different test preparation companies, an extra set of Official Guide books, general admissions books, and finally — the six notebooks that had documented my problem sets, practice exams, tutoring sessions, and everything that you could imagine related to the exam. These notebooks were of great importance in my life for the last two years. This leads me to have some sort of emotional attachment to them, as one were to view old pen pal letters. Well, it may not have that same type of sentiment…Nevertheless, countless hours were put into these notebooks as I toiled through problem after problem, especially through some of the toughest times of my life. Each notebook itself was not the vehicle to get me through 2008-2009, but I still clearly remember it as my outlet and motivation to move forward with things.

Now that I am deciding which belongings go in the Keep or Toss piles, I don’t exactly have the heart to put my notebooks in the Toss pile. Before my exam (and even immediately after), I casually mentioned that I would dispose/burn/recycle/sell anything related to it, but now that I am at that decision point, I choke a little.

From a practicality standpoint, I will most likely never reference them again. Then again, I will never reference my old school work (K-12 and college), yet I still have those at home in California.

What would you do?

“…Selina, sit back and relax.” — I sat intently on the edge of the sofa, conversing like normal.

[Oh, I need to relax. Right.]

The partial truth in the matter is that sofas are deceivingly uncomfortable. Most sofas are designed with style in mind rather than ergonomics. In a time where many of us sit all day at work, having a plush, squishy sofa to plop down upon at the end of a day may seem like a blessing. The sofas that I’ve experienced (even my own) are usually too long for my legs and don’t provide any proper back support. Again, form over function took priority, as one would expect in a living room.

Okay, so my critique of everyday sofa design is not my real reason for constantly being on the edge of my seat, though it does have some merit. Whether I am in a meeting room, dinner table, restaurant, or classroom, I tend to avoid having my back against a chair because I feel more engaged and alert when I sit closer to the speaker and/or activity. It also forces me to maintain good posture, which is important not only for your physical health, but also creating your presence. I know that sounds silly, but really, slouching is not the most appealing body language.

Perhaps if my vertically challenged self would be better suited for sitting on various chairs, then I would be able to sit back and relax a little. But I’m okay with that. On that note, I just caught myself sitting on the edge of my kitchen table chair as I type this entry.

The same concept applies to everyday life. Every action, every word, has the potential to produce some sort of aftertaste, or better known as impact. When you come across a less desirable one, you are left with a feeling of uneasiness, depending on the extent or context of the action(s) taken.

Without going on too much of a tangent, one exception that I can think of is related to my mother’s ginseng soup. She periodically makes large batches of ginseng soup for my family because of its health benefits. To give you a sense of what kind of task this is like, the whole process takes her at least six hours. But it’s not just six hours of leave-it-and-forget-it simmering or braising like you do with a slow cooker – it involves some labor-intensive cleaning, chopping, draining, filtering, and cooling. Not only does it consume enormous amounts of time and manpower to prepare, but it is also relatively costly. What amazes me is that she does this without any complaint (in fact, she is proud that she is able to make it). However, the one catch is that the ginseng soup has a bitter and foul aftertaste despite its noteworthy toil and sweat in the making. I truly do not enjoy drinking it, but I drink it anyway because of its onerous journey to reach my cup. The aftertaste is always far from pleasant (you can see it in my face), but it certainly has genuinely good intentions. She only wants the best for her loved ones, and the best is what she provides.

Not all aftertastes are going to be pleasant, but you learn to recognize the ones that serve you well. For the ones that don’t, then you can simply swallow it down as is and move on.

I have rarely been the sprinter in my life endeavors, outpacing those around me by multiple strides. In fact, it has been nearly the opposite. This isn’t to say that I have never been ahead of the curve — I have. There have been plenty of victories, first-place wins, accolades, acceptances, and the like. I look back at each of those moments and my first thought is that I worked hard. I was naturally adept at some of those endeavors, but for the most part, I sweated, toiled, tripped, and fell through the processes. It is hard for me to relate to those who view their accomplishments as a brisk stroll through the park in which some level of effort was involved, but not their full potential (because it wasn’t necessary). I come to a complete awkward silence, really. It is admirable, nonetheless. I am just not the same.

In many ways I have been a slave to my own aspirations for my entire life, chasing dreams and challenges with no one pushing me to do so except for myself. I grew up in a fairly supportive environment where “just do your best” was a common theme and if I still failed, I’d still be accepted. I could have been a complete failure and still be loved — what a concept! I think I have gone through life to ensure that that would never happen, because of it did, I would be disgusted with myself. Occasionally I would get snippets of side commentary from those around me to either encourage or cast doubts on my actions. Those, of course, may have steered my direction backward or forward, or not at all. I have typically set my own goals since I understood what goals were to begin with.

Does it matter that I will likely have to spend 200 hours on test preparation when the average person spends 100 hours? Does it matter that I took a windy and pothole-filled road to get to where I am today?

Step by step, I will make it to the finish line…or better yet, to each milestone at hand, since a finish line is a bit too finite. Each step will have its own significance, at least in my book. The journey should not be overlooked or forgotten.

One of the two characters of my Chinese name means perseverance. The other character means infinite, or the universe. When combined, it comes out to be infinite perseverance. I guess it was meant to be.

While I have been thinking about my age lately, sometimes humorous happenings occur that make me wonder if they are coincidental signs or what not. You know, one of those moments where you think, “Did that just really happen?” I had one yesterday morning.

Now, many of you know that my favorite color is white (and the other being green!). I love white because it reminds me of snow, mountains, vanilla, simplicity, and elegance. Despite my fondness of the color white, there is a white that we all dread…

I was brushing my hair in front of the bathroom mirror as I was half awake, feeling like I’d rather be back in bed. After all, it was 6:30 AM. And then I saw it (after a double take). Practically out of left field, lo and behold! A glimmer of white caught my eye. It can’t be! But yes, it was. It was a single strand of white hair precisely in the middle of my hair part. I have never experienced any white hair in my life, and here I was, thinking about my new age for the last few weeks and then getting my first white hair, right then and there. I knew friends that have had random white hairs since middle school, so that made me feel a little better. This is obviously not a life catastrophe, but it just happened to be one of those moments that coincided with some recent thoughts about life.

Well, at least I can say that I always have my identification checked, my university card still works for the movies/museums, and I have been asked if college was in my near future plans

Last week I watched a 9/11 documentary with real footage taken by a guy shadowing one of the major firehouses near the World Trade Center. The cameraman, along with the entire fire squad, were all in the main lobby as the first tower collapsed. It was incredible and emotional.

This week I couldn’t take my eyes off the media coverage of Virginia Tech. Not only was it terribly disturbing and tragic, I just wanted to read and watch whatever/whenever I could. I don’t know why, but I felt like it was the only thing I could do to understand what it was like to be affected.

After a long and pressing week at the office, I just took my weekly dose of escape from the world to yet experience more emotion and drama with my favorite TV series, with this week’s episode being “Time after Time.” Even though it is fictional, there were certainly a lot of real life type of issues that struck me as powerful and heartfelt.

Regardless of culture, I think there are two things (not the only two, but just ones that I thought of at the moment) that bring people together: food and life challenges. Food is a way of life because it is a necessity for survival, it serves as a means of celebration, and it is historical, carrying thousands of years of tradition along with it. With life challenges, humans thrive on social interaction with one another because it provides support and an outlet. Whenever there are difficult times, families and friends gather, thus strengthening the relationships with one another.

Balance is one of those things that is completely relative, as with everything (I’m thinking of the phrase, “it depends” right now).

In the workplace, we are beginning to get encouragement of having ‘work-life balance.’ Some people adhere by this entirely, and others cannot comprehend what the concept is, or just choose not to. There will always be a mixture of all types, and perhaps companies move forward because of the proportion of workaholics to work-life-balancers out there. If there are no workaholics that disobey work-life balance, I think there would be a lot less competition to be bigger and better. Lower standards would be acceptable. But of course, being the humans we are, most of us have a competitive nature. All of us are trying to survive at the very least.

Lately I have been thinking about the fact that when you gain something, you lose something. It’s definitely not a new concept, but just something on my mind. I spent an hour last week watching the latest Grey’s Anatomy, a TV show that I’m guilty of. The only benefit it provides me with is an emotional workout, and it makes me think about people, relationships, and those dynamics. I guess that is not a total loss in brain cells, but obviously, I lost an hour of time where I could have been reading and learning something new, talking to an old friend, or resting. The ambitious folks believe that all of the above can be done simultaneously. I do beg to differ with multitasking at times, since the quality would suffer greatly on all activities

Take the gain/loss concept on a larger scale. People may dedicate their lives to a specialized field and know everything there is to know about that field, yet do not have knowledge on other fields. Our world needs specialists, who then create comparative advantage, as economic theory suggests. However, the specialists are not always disadvantaged, assuming they have the intelligence to quickly adapt and catch up to speed on topics that are unfamiliar (with the other specialists). Gaining and losing is really about choice.

I think I’m still in the constant battle of figuring out what my specialty is, as well as the other little pockets that I would like to delve into. It would be wonderful to know a little about a lot.

…Pork? No, I never really liked sweet and sour pork, a widely known Americanized Chinese entree found in places like Panda Express or your favorite P.F. Chang’s. The authenticity of sweet and sour [meat of choice] does exist, but most likely in China itself.

…The childhood roadtrip game? I used to play this with my cousins when we were kids as we sat in the backseat of a minivan, trying to avoid questions like “Are we there yet?” and “Can I go potty?” to our parents. You know, the game where you wave to other cars on the road? A wave back resulted in a ‘sweet’ expression, and a non-expression or glare resulted in a ‘sour’ expression. I’m not sure how we determined who won, but that was a game we played nonetheless.

Another way I think of sweet and sour is related to being who you genuinely are. It sounds pretty simple and it probably is. When I think of sweet, I think of character traits like charming, kind, nice, elegant, sincere, etc.. Sour, on the other hand, makes me think of bold, sassy, electric, spontaneous, and exciting. Being too sour can likely be bitter, if you know what I mean (ever had a Super Lemon?)! Sweet and sour represent two very different qualities which can affect how you are viewed by others.

After reading an article in Real Simple,I was inspired to think about this after reading the motivation section in my February issue. After all, the publication is about making your life, well, more simple. The main punch line here was to be a little sour sometimes! “Add a lemon,” they say. Why? Because those that are truly themselves without worrying about being liked by everyone are the ones who stand out. Those that do not hold back and mask their true identity are the ones that shine in whatever specialty they may be in. In our world of conflicting opinions, there will almost always be people that don’t like you.

Take Rachael Ray for example. Many of you know that I really enjoy her cooking shows, books, and personality. The main reason is because she is just being herself, spunky and all. She’s got millions of fans that love her as I do. On the flip side, I hear there are community groups that congregate to show their annoyance of her! Yes, apparently people do have that kind of time to waste. The point is, she still loves what she does and has that little bit of sour in her. And for the folks that don’t like her – they don’t matter.

Sometimes I catch myself aiming to be more sweet than sour. It’s certainly not a bad thing, but obviously the title of my blog indicates what my real purpose is – to be the real me! I still think that you can’t have too much of one thing, but sometimes having that extra sour punch is what draws the line between one thing and another.

Maybe that’s why people like sweet and sour pork – it has the unique and proportional combination of sweetness and tang to it. I still don’t like it, but I do like kettle corn, which is sweet and savory