Things I want to do before I die

In no particular order (under construction):

Dine at El Bulli
Take a hot air balloon ride
Go on a safari
Walk the runway in a new york high fashion show
attend a big-deal gala
Sing in front of a crowd
Dance a well-rehearsed routine
Raise a child
Ride an elephant
Learn at least 4 languages
Film myself having sex
Live alone in New York
Make a million
Become friends with someone I don't think I can ever be friends with
Have a short-lived romance
Become "in" with the gallery - going crowd
Become friends with a famous musician
Have my portrait painted

fyi

Something that you may or may not know about Pandas:

"The Panda is a smelly, defecating eating machine. It spends 60% of its time devouring bamboo, 40% resting, and defecates continuously. Indeed it does so on such a prodigious scale, that it is said to confound the mathematical ratio between input and output.

Left vs. Right

Today I was driving down the street that I live by in downtown Berkeley and I passed by a protest to support our troops in Iraq. That was pretty weird already because, well, it's Berkeley and not a lot of people are openly pro-troops here.

But what made this especially interesting was that on the other side of the same street was a protest by Code Pink to shut down the main Marine recruitment center in downtown Berkeley.

So the two sides just stood on the separate sidewalks, traffic running in between, and yelling at each other.

The best effect was when you drove through the street, because you were getting yelled at from both sides.

The whole scenario gave me the feeling that once traffic dies down, the crowds are going to converge somewhere in the middle and just duke it out for whose political views are more correct.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What spend years building, someone may destroy it overnight. Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
But give the world the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God;
it was never between you and them anyway.

Writing about Writing

I don't know why people write in blogs.
To be completely honest, I've always considered myself a good writer until I came to Berkeley. I think it's because I see writing as an ultimate check for self-confidence; I only write well when I'm confident I can be good at it. Doubt destroys all possibility of writing something good - I double check I re-write, I ask others what they think and by the time I'm done it's lifeless plastic.

But maybe that's not why I haven't written in so many years.