More at my flickr.

Working at our full plates, sitting outside of Charlie’s, Jessica and I had a great conversation touching on many subjects.

When we were at ‘relationships’, she shared with me some of her past experiences and her views on them. She made a summarizing metaphor that I wish to share.

“Like watching soccer matches on the TV, sometimes you watch them live, and you don’t know what’s going to happen the next second, and that is exciting and engaging. But then there are times you watch the replay match, for which the result is already known. People still watch them and enjoy the plays performed by the participants, and it’s still fun and enjoyable.”

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My father is a considerably successful person in many aspects.

While we were descending from the base camp, at one point I sought for advice from him on investment. He told me about one of his opportunity some time ago to invest in a company that runs roadside cafes, which turned out to be a success. However, he did not buy the plan, although he saw the potential in it. He considered that the success of the company relied on more cars, especially private transportation, which contradicts with what he sees as the better future.

I asked him whether he had heard of people placing bets on the opponent to their favorite soccer team, so that either they would be thrilled because their favorite team won, or glad because they made some money. He said he has. While others may consider that as ‘diversifying’ their investments - financial and emotional, he considered that as a lack of confidence.

1.
Revisiting the UCLA campus surely recalled a scores of memory. The college life - some call the best time of their lives - was over for me. Not that I haven’t done much in those years, but who doesn’t feel like there was more that could have been done, looking backwards? I started noticing things I never noticed: clubs that I could’ve joined, classes I could’ve taken, and people that I could’ve met.

2.
Crashing the end-of-year party at Caltech was something I did not anticipate myself doing. Looking into the pool of people dancing and enjoying themselves like any other party I had been to, I couldn’t help but also understand that that was probably the pool of people with the highest SAT average in the whole world. We all just wanted to have some fun though, from time to time.

3.
Sitting in one of the many libraries at Stanford, observing people passing by or concentrating on whatever at their hands (while I am distracting myself from what I told myself I would do in the library by ‘observing others’), I wondered whether life would’ve been much different had I studied at this school. Would the prestige of its name make me a different person? Better or worse? Would the student there be that clearly smarter than those that I peered with? Of course these are overly-simplified questions, but then outside the shield of a campus, who doesn’t simplify the product of college education down into the names of institutions? (Some even only TLAs!) Ting told me his company wouldn’t even interview a person not coming out from one of the big-name schools…

4.
The spicy salmon and unagi hand-roll, baked salmon, organic salad, nachos with guacamole, and the mangolicious smoothy were the only food I got to try out of the many many options at Charlie’s–one of the many many restaurant options at the Google campus. The shark fins that comes out from the ground, the T-rex with a flamingo in its mouth, the coffee shop with bean bags, glass conference rooms with cartoonish hand drawings all over the inside of the room (clearly seen from outside) and the bookshelves that stores Legos quite successfully convey what life is like there for me.

5.
I wish I belong to a campus, or have a campus that belongs to me. Soon again, hopefully.

The stars were glimmering among the mist rising from the hot tub that was sitting in the snowfield, while Vivien and her company were relaxing, after a fulfilling day of skiing the Tahoe slopes. Their glasses of wine were chilled by the air, and laughters overheard by the houses around. It was an experience.
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Back in Kathmandu*, where air is so thick that (stealing from my father) “we need to push them aside to make way”, we are slowly following through the falling action of our journey, after we did what we came for - reaching the Everest Base Camp (EBC, 5,360M) and also Kala Pathan (5,545M) - the peak which is often used as the spot for panoramas of the Himalayan giants (You’re likely to have seen one).

Unlike the Uhuru Peak of Kilimanjaro (5,896M) which York and I summited last March, the “Base Camp” as our goal was quite an anti-climax to a hiking trip, albeit a very reasonable one. Frankly, it was by no means easy for me, I had my share of headaches and short breathes, and that 2 kilometers stretch of rocky road between our campsite and the EBC took us more than two hours each way. After 9 days of trekking, starting from some 3,000M up to our highest point, we had not even ascended half way up to the Everest (8,848M) - the top of the world. It was humbling, and it was a fact. Kala Pathan was the peak we deserve, after some effort. It was the peak from which we, struggling to stand straight in the unforgiving wind, admired the greater peaks at a distance.
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I take my word back about not being able to be reached while in the mountains…

We are currently at a village named Namche, deep in the Himalayas, and apparently there are bakeries, mountain gear shops (like 30 of them) and, so far I have spotted, four internet cafes. I am now making this post from the Buddha Communication Center. Of course, this is also my highest update to date. Let’s see if we get internet connect higher still, in the days to come.

Have I mentioned that the internet speed here is about as fast as the broadband I have at home? Ridiculous.

I think I am having slight headaches already, very mild though. I am going to buy some Pringles - baked potatoes flavor - which I suspect might help ease the pain :-)

Soaked in the smell of inscent , typing on a half responsive keyboard, in an internet cafe about 30 sq. meter in area, I am making my last blog update in the coming two and a half weeks.

Tomorrow 5 in the morning we will be flying into Lekla, our starting point of our trek. I shall not be reached (kind of, because my dad’s roaming phone will work even out there, apparently.)

I will try to capture something visually and perhaps spiritually, if I am lucky, and share with you when I return. Thank you for all the blessings from my dear friends, and sorry for making so many of you so jealous. Wahahahahaha….

I will make that extra Jump for Jessica who have made the specific request. For the rest of you sorry it’s too late to take any more orders but I’ll do a few extra if I can to spare :-)

Just to clarify, I am not climbing Everst…. basecamp is about 5,500m (corrected from 55,000m. Sharon is always right), only. Not as high as the peak of Kilimanjaro :-P

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I have an urge to write very badly, all of a sudden. So I am writing as I am riding the MTR.

I want to write about my work, my friends, my thoughts. None of those seem interesting enough to publish on the internet. Day in day out I read blogs on design on coding on all sorts of things. I hardly spare anytime for personal blogs. Then, I have this urge that I just want to write. This is the ‘culture’ of blogging. Mundane, personal things suddenly become somewhat of interest to other people, if not, it is at least somewhat interesting for the owner of those mundane things to share them.

Desiccation

Desiccation is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. A desiccant is a hygroscopic substance that induces or sustains such a state in its local vicinity in a moderately-well sealed container.

— from Wikipedia.

I came across this word when I was reading about moss, when I am choosing plants to put onto the vertical green wall that we’re going to have at home - something to look forward to, seriously - and apparently there are life forms that could go into a state of ‘deep death’ just to save energy and wait until the next opportunity to ‘revive’ themselves.

In a way, for those who think human on Earth has little to no hope (which there aren’t many yet, both fortunately and unfortunately, if you know what I mean), and that we must migrate to other planets, I’d like to suggest that I feel like a specie wide desiccation would be a likely outcome. I don’t think we’ll be wiped out completely, but many of our kind will die in less ‘controlled’ ways then we probably will. We won’t die because there is no oil, or uranium, or whatever natural resources we find ‘essential’ today. We will die as a result of extreme weather and new germs. Am I a pessimist? No, I just need to have an outlook, and I am far from being original.