When I reflect upon myself, one of the funniest things I notice is how fickle a person's attitude can be dependent on their memory. When somebody is angry or in various ways unhappy with another person, the only memory that preoccupies that person is the very incident that has brought about that feeling of unhappiness. If it were only that, then maybe things could be better, but alongside that memory comes any other instances where similar discontent had settled into their minds. It's as if a human's mind is one big google search agent that is "smart" enough to search for the word "angry" when one is, well, angry. The result page will naturally bring up every single related bad memories it can find ( complete with a link to similar memories and cached versions of those angry moments for easy access, of course ). All those times spent indexing happy memories are obviously no good when the keyword you have typed in is "angry". Even if the search engine had flaws that made it display results from unrelated branches of the index after all the highly relevant matches are shown, all of them would be ranked so low, that just as even the most persistent google result diggers wouldn't bother looking past page 10 of the search results page, people won't bother trying to dig up any happy memories that may exist on the back of their minds when they're concentrated on their current anger.

Maybe we, as human beings, shouldn't be behaving like google. Perhaps when you're angry with somebody else what you should do is enter "happy" into the search engine and look for the times when you were angry with that other person. Depending on your relationship, don't you think it's possible that by the time you reach that 11th page listing those angry moments, you would have realized just how blessed you are to have this other person in your life? Food for thought. :)

As I approach my 5 year mark out in the so-called corporate America, (if you can actually call where I work that... given its unique culture and all...) I remember that during the first couple years I was very fond of compliments. When somebody acknowledged my good work by saying stuff like "Wow, you're a genius" or "You're the man", etc... I'd be like "Hell yeah, who's got the party goin' on!", or "Damn straight, I got cho back, bra". Those were the days... Then into my third year I thought, "Hey... why should I get all the credit? Shouldn't I spread the knowledge? All this is no good if I get hit by the bus tomorrow! Let's see... If they appreciate my skills, I could teach them how to fish and theyll become proud of themselves, solve same kinds of problems with equal or better results and the world will be a much better place to live!" So right then and there I changed my attitude. When people compliemented me, instead of the usual humble acknowledgement I instead replied by saying "Thanks, but you know what? It's not something you can't do, come here lemme show you exactly how I did it so that you can do the same and perhaps apply the same knowledge to far greater things!". Oh, how naive I must have sounded. The reaction was not quite what I had expected... Instead of "Sweeeeet! You for real?" or "Awwww, man! Lemme be yo apprentice!", I got the "Uhm... no that's really all right... maybe next time" or "Thanks, but I really gotta go". The more polite ones would start off with something like "Oh, that'd be great. I'll come grab you later when I reach a stopping point", then they'll never return and that very offer becomes somewhat of an odd subject to bring up again because it all seems rather out of context starting the following day. If I were to empathize I'd probably say that they're too busy with their own stuff that they'd rather keep the professional boundaries clear so that the division of labor can be implemented with ease. I can totally value that decision as I understand how the modern men feel this sense of urgency trying to balance a bunch of things on their plate. For all I know they may think "What the hell is this guy trying to teach me? I just want to get this thng done, get ou of here by 5PM and go home to forget about work!", in which case it is totally inappropriate for me to have made that offer since it only makes things awkward for that person to try and politely refuse. However, if I were to put my cynic's cap on I'd have to say that all those compliments were simply a sugar-coated way of saying "Dude, you just made my life easier with very minimal effort on my part, and you're gonna do it again when I ask you all nice and polite the next time around sucka!" :P Am I too cynical for you tonight? :)

So today I finally got my blood work done. It turns out that you just need to meet a nice doctor. That jerk I saw last time that refused to give me a blood test should get his license revoked if my blood test reveals anything bad! *HMPH* Anyway, it was quite fascinating how the simple syringe technology has matured over the past years ( since it's been a while since I had any blood drawn ). Well, I wouldn't call it an advancement in technology since the fundamental mechanism by which the transfer of blood is made is still the same, it's just the way in which it is carried out is different. It turns out that in studies they discovered that drawing blood the old fashioned way had potentially serious hazards, so hostpitals started to adopt new types of syringes that draw blood directly into the vacuum container tube. My only question is whether there is any way in which the pressure is controlled or is it simply assuming that the pressure will quickly stablize between the two medium and that it is done at a rate that human being won't feel it in a painful way. I'd be interested in finding out as my physics is kinda rusty. I'd imagine that this kind of blood drawing would be bad for small vessels that can easily collapse with a sudden void of blood. Any experts around?

Starting now I will no longer call myself a software engineer, I will from today onwards be referred to as a colleague of jean-clad, baby-faced knowledge worker. ^0^. Oh and as a side note... When will these journalist finally start to spell our (MAYA and MAYA Viz) names correctly??? It's MAYA, not Maya. It stands for Most Advanced Yet Acceptable! :P

When one finds something ( be it a new recipe, new belief, new hobby, etc... ) they love so much, they might want to let others know how much they love this new found interest. It is also possible that one might try to share this new found love by trying to recommend it to others. Well, at least that's how I feel. Small, big, no matter the significance, so long as they connect with me in a way that it successfully intrigues my senses, they're all so fascinating to me. However, I am often reminded that I should be careful how I try to share the love, as it can come across the wrong way.

It might sound a bit too abstract, but what I'm trying to say is simply that what you might find fascinating and wonderful, another may find offensive or unrealistic. For example, just because I believe being able to work on a thought-provoking project is a rewarding experience, that doesn't mean another person will share that same feeling. As a matter of fact, that other person may just want to get done with the project by trying to do as little as possible because their goal is to simply get paid and go homje not become intellectually satisfied. Another good example of this is how religious people try to convince non-religious people to join their religion. In other words, the so-called "saved" people going out to "save" other people for their own good.

Of course all this isn't earth shattering when you think of the fundamental notion of how everyone has their own value system and that one needs to empathize before being able to truly understand another person, but even when you think you know the theory, you tend to get reminded about it in practice once in a while, and it seems quite healthy to refelct upon it as often as you can. :)