天网恢恢，疏而不漏

Walls

i am not a snail

a snail carries a heavy bulky shell on its back.

up a blade of grass, across a sandy patch.

such a hefty burden the shell is,

but the snail carries it still

because it is home

--protection and warmth

it is comfort.

I am not a snail

yet I too had a burden

no less heavier than the snail's.

mine wasn't a home

but it promised warmth

and comfort, dreams come true.

childish promises.

lofty castles built of clouds

rich in romance and fantasy

with ever changing guises. 

when all is said and done

I hold in my gentle hands

air, and fading memories.

I am not a snail

I want no burden.

Not of love or concern,

void of hatred or belittlement.

It's time to skip off the cliff

on which I have stood for years.

Let me unfold my wings

long hidden, forgotten

and flap, flap

flap!

thank you, 

for being ever wiser.

花有落颜愁
人有衰老忧
此情自常变
日增不会减

disappointing.

then again, why would I be?

disappointing is if the expected positive did not happen.

I expected the opposite of the positive, so I shouldn't be disappointed.

but I am.

love again?

I used to wonder--
how would I know that I am in love?
--then when my eyes, my nose and my ears
perceive only that One,
my skin tingles with desire, and
my heart goes into overdrive
pumping crimson passion into my crumbling mind
--that same question became so foolishly trivial.

like the torrents that flood the banks
it came with force
unstoppable was its spearhead
and left in a blink
relentless was its sacrifice
having abandoned in its wake
carved and molded
a terrain
forever changed
leaving in the sands
words etched with bewildered fingers
'how would I love again, if love isn't you?'

Graduation: One Year Anniversary

If Blogspot hadn't introduced  this new Dynamic View feature, I wouldn't have looked at my older blog posts.
If I hadn't looked at my older blog posts, I wouldn't have realised that today, Oct 6 2011, marks the 1-year anniversary of my Exit Seminar.

Yes, one year ago I presented my Exit Seminar, and as far as I was concerned, that one hour of bla-bla-bla ended my Ph.D. career. From that day on, I started a new chapter, or as it turned out, new chapters.

Immediately after my exit seminar, I traveled across four States in the USA with my mom. We set eyes and feet on Grand Canyon, Columbia River Valley, Los Alamos and the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta at Albuquerque, Californian Redwood forests and the Xi Lai Temple in L.A. We filled our stomachs with cakes and pastries, salmon and chops, dimsum and what not.

I left my home away from home, and came back to my real home. Accepted a job offer, and on the third day of Chinese New Year, left for India alone. Till now, I still remember the face of that South-Asian lady who, like me, waited the whole night in Starbucks in the LCCT the night I boarded the plane for Chennai. I didn't muster the courage to talk to her, but she was definitely attractive enough that I wish I had.

Spent four weeks in Chennai and three weeks after traveling down south from Chennai. I visited the temples in Chennai, Kanchipuram, Thanjavur, Chidambaram, Madurai and Ramesvaram. I went for two bharatanatyam performances (extremely world-class) and one Kathakali play (definitely top class!). I learned Tamil intensively for four weeks, at the end of which I could speak, write and read Tamil. If the locals go slow, I could understand them too [unfortunately since I left India my Tamil has deteriorated due to lack of practice....shame shame]. At Ramesvaram a priest bathed me in one of the holy wells (there were like >20 of them I think), and there I stood at the edge of the Indian Ocean in awe of her blue-turquoise beauty. At Thanjavur I fell in love with the majestic Periyar Kovil, and at Kanchipuram the simple yet indescribably elegant Kaisalanatha Kovil took a piece of my heart and claimed it since.

I escaped the heat of the lowlands by spending day up in the cool Kodaikanal hills west of Madurai, where the richer kids of the international boarding school there led lives so different from the uncountable poorer kids in the lowlands. I learned to love the sugar-loaded fruit juices of the Indian roadside, and in the backyard of my language institute I enjoyed twenty days of lunchtime among birds with funny headcrests. I saw a salt-farm for the first time in my life, and stepped on cow dung twice. I also finally set eyes on the bronze statue of Lord Nataraja in the Government Museum of Chennai. In many hot afternoons of Tamil Nadu March, I tried my best to run calmly across the baking-hot stone floor of temples, while locals walked and chatted as if they were walking on soft green grass. In Kanchipuram, I taught children in Tamil and English, and I entertained the teachers and the students with songs. I still remember her name--Indra. I wonder if she is still doing the morning rounds bringing children from their shacks to the school?

I can't count the number of friends I made in Tamil Nadu, including Matias and Alex who accompanied me during my one week stint in Kanchipuram. I truly miss all of them. I am still waiting for Sushil to send me a picture of him, his wife and their now 6-month old son.

Came back home again and started my working life immediately. Spent two months doing nothing much else but reading papers, writing proposals and preparing for my visit to Davis.

Went back to Davis almost without telling anyone. The first night I was back in that home away from home, I met up with my very good friend Hanayo, ate at my favourite restaurant in Davis, and untied a knot in my heart for good. The following two months were surreal--busy with my research yet enjoying all the luxuries I had before..Netflix, the library, board games, Amazon.com, a great housemate. A few days before I left for the Ecological Soc. America Meeting, our experiments produced unbelievably pleasing results! Had one of my best Meetings ever, and witnessed the largest bat colony in the world at Bracken Cave. Seeing Jay and his family again was a heartwarming moment for me.

Left Davis (this time much more reluctantly than last year) before I even had time to visit San Francisco, and once again I was back home. Went back to work immediately, and had been occupied since with preparing class materials for my course. Teaching it has been a ride so far (see previous blog post) but it's really enjoyable and rewarding. The students have warmed up to my style, and are now actively asking questions and answering and discussing questions in class. More than half of them now call me by my name instead of "Dr.", for which I am glad.

My friend passed her exam with flying colours, and with that, I have nothing left to worry about in Davis anymore.

There were somethings that I planned to do since graduation, but I haven't done. I haven't enrolled in a bharatanatyam course, and I haven't offered my services to teach at an orphanage yet. I haven't yet published another paper (still in review now...WTH). I have asked three girls out, one gave face and we stayed friends, one told me she was unavailable after a few weeks, and another is still...well....pending. So, the romance front is not exactly stale, but it's not blossoming either. Don't think I can enroll in a bharatanatyam course before Jan 2012, but I am hopeful about the others working out before the end of this year.

What a year it has been!

on education, and this profession of mine.

education,
it is of course not giving you a durian every day,
for when I am gone, how would you get your durian?
it is better to teach you to pick and open a durian
so that in my absence, you can still enjoy your own durians
still, that's no enough, for what happens when you
too are gone? who will provide durians for the world?
Hence, I need to teach you to open durians, and then
guide you to teach others too.
And how would I know that I've done my part?
--only when you aspire to teach others better
   than I've taught you.


KEY: we don't just make excellent students out of our students, we need to make great and willing teachers out of them.

early days of local teaching Part 1.

My life as a university lecturer in Malaysia started last week.


It's been quite a ride so far.

My class began with too many students, like 25% more than the maximum number allowed. After my first lecture, the number dwindled down to a dramatic 50% of initial registration. Of that 50%, half were students who registered after the 1st lecture due to the sudden availability of vacancies. That means of the initial students who registered, only 25% remained after having a 2-hour session with me. Then overnight the number went up again to reach the max cap, only to drop within a few days.

Currently, my class size is <50% of the initial. All the first-year students left, and I pity the only guy in the class--he had like 15 other XYs in the class just a week ago. Then again, he's in an enviable position...the lone guy in a class of girls.

I am not complaining. This is the class size that I love to work with, and for all purposes it is often the ideal class size. Small enough to pay ample attention to every student, and big enough to do group projects of various kinds.

I am however, kind of sad that I failed to convince more students to stay in the class. I can't tell why the students who left did so because I couldn't pull them back for a survey. If I have to guess, and because I am not stupid, these would be intelligent guesses, I would say that they were 1. unconvinced that I will deliver what I promised; 2. uncomfortable with my question-based learning/teaching; 3. unwilling to suffer a course conducted almost completely in English; 4. time-conflicts with the class.

I can't do anything about the last factor, but I tried my best to make the 1st to 3rd factors invalid. Over the past 10 days, I have given so many motivational talks that I am quite sick of myself already haha.

What's a college education? Speaking from experience, I believe that whatever we are supposed to acquire in college/university, memorization of facts and data is DEFINITELY NOT it. On the other hand, one should strive to learn to connect the dots to lines, cross lines to make webs and fold webs to build structures. In college, one must acquire the skills to communicate effectively. Communicate your ideas and your questions, and not just to your peers but also to anyone, everyone.

Just today alone I told my students thrice in a row to challenge themselves by teaching what they have learned to another person, be it a roommate, sibling, lover or parent. I looked at them in the eyes (my two eyes quickly but strongly scanning theirs) and told them in my "when I say 1+1 =2 that means it equals 2" voice that if they can't teach it, they haven't learned it.

Although I must admit that having lost >50% of the initial class size prompted me to question my teaching philosophy and teaching methods. In this case, only one question mattered.

"Is this good for the students?"


*to be continued...*

a disguised wolf

Since I got back from California, all my time at work has been spent preparing the lecture materials for my upcoming course. It was fun 'relearning' entomology but I really dislike sitting in the office. After a week, I was beginning to feel deflated.

I needed something else.
I looked at the books in the cabinet across from my desk. Excellent selection--animal behaviour, R, philosophy of science, teaching methods, environmental history, parasite ecology, insect mythology etc. I would love to read them, yet I really needed to get my lecture materials set up first.

I thought of the two undergraduate students whom I will be mentoring for their final year projects. Sadly for them, I have no funding for any projects. In fact I wouldn't even say I have any solid project in hand for them. I had to think of something. That something needs to fulfill only four criteria:
1. It is of interest to both them and me
2. It is publishable in a journal of good standing.
3. It fits within their schedule
4. It will lead to further studies (my future work)

My mind began to do the waggle dance, from cabbage to diamondback moth to competition to beet armyworm to... to... you know, this and that. Scribbled lines on a piece of paper and happily inserted it into the same envelope with the rest of the final year project information.

Boost!

The best boost of the day has yet to come.

We have a scale insect problem on of our plants in the garden. Out of the blue, scale insects infested the plant, literally covering it in white fluff. As the scale insects stay protected and hidden under their white fluff cover, they sap the plant vigour away. Some ants tend to the scale insects too, getting paid in honeydew excreted from the scale insects in return for their bodyguard services. Mom and dad (and grandma recently) were complaining about these scale insects. I told them I don't know what to do because I couldn't find a single ladybug in our garden to eat those scale insects.

Lo and behold, guess what I found today on the plant? Small white beads on stalks on the plant. Like the picture below.

My first thought? Lacewing eggs! I know that lacewings lay their eggs on stalks, a strategy that protects their eggs from predators by preventing easy access. Lacewings are known predators of scale insects, vicious ones too. Excitedly, I began to scan the plant for lacewings.

I found more eggs. Even if I didn't find any lacewing larvae, I knew that there would be some a few days later when the eggs hatch.

I wondered how would the lacewing larvae look like? How big? I needed a search image. I recalled that some lacewing larvae have a cool strategy to prey on the scale insects while avoiding the nasty attention of the protective ants--the larvae cover themselves in a layer of white fluff too. The title of the article was "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing". So aptly named :).  It was mentioned in Thomas Eisner's book "For Love of Insects" too.

Could these lacewing larvae be utilizing the same strategy, and that I needed to look for disguised lacewing larvae?

Wait..that scale insect was moving faster than the usual scale insect! Hmm...I scrutinized it, and yes, it was behaving weirdly for a scale insect--moving a lot instead of staying put and feeding. I grabbed my small microscope-eyepiece (kept it from Davis...knew it would come in handy one day!) and checked the suspicious scale insect.

Ha! Oligopod larvae, body form like that of a typical lacewing larva. Without doubt I must be looking at a lacewing larva with white fluff on its back.

 The insect on the center of the fruit was a scale insect, whereas the white fluff to its upper right corner was the lacewing larva (hidden under the white fluff).

The scale insect was on the center of the fruit, with the lacewing larva to its lower left (white fluff). You can see a lacewing egg on a stalk on the fruit (lower left).

Lacewing larva hidden under the white fluff. You can see that it's radically different from the scale insect. This was the 'wolf' in a sheep's clothing!

I never thought that I would see one of these disguised lacewing larva, and yet here they were, in my garden! I was very excited. Eager to check on the population dynamics of the scale insects and the lacewing larvae on the plant over the next two weeks.

Such is the wonder and beauty of nature--you can see it as long as you care to look.