Introspective on a fasted Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, I did not participate in a wondrous feast that causes a satisfying yet debilitating food coma.

Instead, I chose to stare at a simple glass of water.  It was time for an in-depth introspection of who and what I should be thanking.

 

Well, for starters, I can thank the fact that I have access to a glass cup and uncontaminated drinking water.

As the chilling winds settle against my wooden college dormitory, I thank these old, creaking walls for their ability to shield me from turning into a human popsicle.

Turning to a broken keyboard infested laptop, I thank the access given through this amazing piece of technology that allows me to surf a virtual world known as the internet.  I thank my slow and painful web connection for giving me the opportunity to Skype with loved ones from across the globe.  Oh yeah, I thank Skype for existing.

Looking around my dorm, I see piles of books and projects conspiring to create legions of mind bombs, readying for assault when least expected.  I see bottles of wine and protein shakes side by side, as if relevance no longer existed in the world.

I am thankful to be buried by books and projects.  Thankful to see a bottle of wine dancing next to a hunk of protein shake.  I am thankful to be at college, facing the pressures of real life while balancing work and study.

Reflecting on previous endeavors, I am thankful to have gone to so many countries.  I still remember Poland, having the finest vodka accompanied with a slice of bread and cooked lard.  I remember Israel, the mystical Jerusalem and modern Tel Aviv. I remember the wonderful experiences with professional dance companies and creators of beautiful artistic expressions.

 

Of course, who could forget London, with its distinguished pebble stone sidewalks and crimson red phone booths, or Beijing – my family’s home town.  Who could forget the delicious Peking Duck, unrivaled in taste and crunchiness.  I am thankful for all of these colorful experiences, the unbelievable privileges and opportunities bestowed upon me.  I am humbled.

However, I am going to take an even bigger step backwards.  I have always been jealous of astronauts.  They get to see a bigger part of the picture.  They get to see the world as a whole.  A beautiful spinning orb containing an unimaginable number of dynamic life.  Many come back and say that the world’s numerous social quarrels between countries become petty at such a distance.  At such a distance, we realize that this ball of molten mass is all we have.  So, on this Thanksgiving day, I am thankful for Earth, and all the natural processes of the universe that balanced out the equation of life. 

I give thanks to the aliens who may have decided to turn their anti particle shifting cannons away from planet Earth, and I give thanks to the other aliens who might have saved us from an imminent invasion of crab people.  I give thanks to an unstable and unpredictable universe that could potentially decide to end everything randomly and abruptly.

Finally, I am thankful for having a chance to experience the body of a human being, to live in a society filled with interesting nuances,  and for the ability to give thanks.

May we all live long and prosper.

P.S If we ever achieve intergalactic travel, we should remember well to bring a towel.

Improvising for life

So I have temporarily found a way to get past this great big firewall of China to gain entry into WordPress! I can finally write in my blog again!

I have been doing some movement improvisation workshops with high school students, and a lot of these techniques draw upon the normal movements that we engage in everyday. I believe that improvisation is important even for non dancers and movement specialists. It is a unique skill that allows one to move without thinking, to truly bring out emotions and thoughts through bodily language. Simply taking five to ten minutes out of your day and giving yourself completely to your body, letting your mind relax and letting the motions flow, will have amazing changes in your body and overall health. Not only does improvising improve your physical health, it also stimulates the growth of body awareness in the brain, vital for mental health.

Below is an exercise I did with the dancers, but it can be done by anyone.

Stand upright in a relaxed position, let your mind be at peace and take a couple deep inhales and exhales. Slowly melt yourself to the ground, take your time, make sure you are completely sprawled out on the ground at the end of the melt.

On the ground, let your eyes close softly, let your eyeballs relax in the back of your sockets. Now, while on the ground, choose one of the following scenarios to do:

1. You have suddenly gained superpowers. What kind of superpower? What kinds of movements are related to your superpower?

2. You are in the ocean swimming with fearsome sharks and beautiful schools of fish. How will your body move in response?

3. You are slowly entering a blissful lucid dream, everything about this dream is perfect. Notice how your body reacts to this and explore all the possible movements and poses.

Remember to take your time, and music is optional – in fact, I usually recommend against using music because it has such a powerful influence on the way we perceive movement.

Body movements are the purest forms of expression. When we talk to someone, actual words provide very little impact for the way others will interpret your communications. Body language and tone of voice provide the bulk of understanding. This is why I smile when people say they can’t dance or move. That’s impossible, because dance is a birthright possessed by every single human being. So please, enjoy this little improvising session. Take your time, be aware of your movements, and become fascinated and inspired by them. It is a journey.

By the way, I also recommend against using mirrors. Mirrors are great…..for intense technical classes. For improvising and free movement? More of a distraction.

If you tried this and enjoyed it, I will make a page specially for these kinds of improvising exercises that anyone can do.

The Terminal

So after 12 heart wrenching hours filled with bad plane food and cheesy movies, I arrived at the Beijing airport ready to begin my REAL summer vacation. Then, as if a baseball bat had struck me across the head, I realized that my visa for China was basically nonexistent. What happened next was a series of questions by Chinese policemen, a night’s stay at the airport, and a transfer flight to Hong Kong to get my visa renewed. This is entirely my fault, as I was so excited for the summer that I had forgotten the most basic of traveling needs.

This kind of reminds me of that one movie The Terminal, where this guy gets stuck for a really long time at this one airport and slowly gets a job and even falls in love, in the same airport. It’s a pretty heart warming movie, and probably makes my little airport road bump seem like child’s play. However, this is a good experience, and I hope to never suffer from a visa malfunction again.

Also, if you have not seen The Terminal, do yourself a favor and go watch it now.

My favorite chinese noodle soup

“Crossing the bridge noodles” is one of the best dishes a person could ever come across in China. Quite a few of my family members come from the Yunnan province in China, and the province is well known for their style of cooking which come with an extremely strong flavor and very hot spices.

This dish is kind of like a cross between a hot pot and a noodle soup. The bowl of broth is served to you boiling hot, while other assortments of raw rice noodles, veggies, and meats are served on a separate platter. What you do next is take the raw servings of rice noodles and other tasty additions that you want in your noodle soup, and pour it all into the boiling broth.

Everything will be cooked extremely rapidly and ready to eat in no time.
You may choose to add spices if your taste buds desire it.

Summer time

My year as a college freshman has just gone. The dorm room looks pretty empty now, just piles of boxes here and there waiting to be shipped away for storage. I’m flying back to China on Sunday, and it’s definitely going to feel weird walking around on the streets of Beijing after spending such a long time in New York. To Times square, Broadway Dance Center, Joyce Theator, MOMA, and all the other awesome places, I will miss you dearly and hope to see you again in the future.

Summer is a time to either become focused and productive, or become a couch potato and waste another couple months doing absolutely nothing. I have found several dance companies to take classes with, and hopefully by the end of this vacation my body will have grown both physically, technically, and intellectually. I’ve also discovered a club in Beijing that meets every Sunday to engage in some intense parkour training. Parkour is the art of free running, and seems to be the perfect candidate to supplement my dance practices.

Of course, summer also means more time for my blog. I will have more interesting things to write about because there won’t be the constant nagging of assignments and essays parading about in my mind. I might go scout out random restaurants and take pictures of hilarious translation in menus and signs, etc. There will be a lot of topics to write about in Beijing.

All in all, I have my goals set. I have written them down in a journal and will be constantly keeping myself in check. This summer is a time of transformation as I strive to become a better dancer and individual. I encourage you all to write down the goals you want to achieve for the summer. Physically writing down achievements that you would like to accomplish will put your brain in a state of increased awareness. It is much more effective than just thinking about your goals.

I hope you all had a wonderful year, and I am sure that everybody will have a very fruitful summer filled with adventures, hardships, and surprises.

Best mall map, and best mall.

20 random ways to deal with stress

Stress is suppose to be part of our primal defensive mechanism. When we were attacked by predators, our bodies would pump stress hormones throughout our systems in order to wake us up. Adrenaline would cause your heart to surge and pump more blood, your lungs would also work in overtime to take in more oxygen to support this new level of awareness.

It is healthy to have short little bursts of stress, and it’s vital for keeping our bodies healthy. The funny thing is that in today’s hectic lifestyles, we no longer have the option of turning off this constant stress releasing. What use to be a healthy way of alerting your body has turned into a silent assassin. We are pressured by school, work, relationships, jobs, and other lemons that life throws at us. When we receive constant stress throughout the day, it not only affects our abilities to sleep, but it can also affect our motor skills, our memory capabilities, and the health of our brains and hearts.

Stress is not this “abstract” concept that just involves the feeling of annoyance, helplessness, and dread. Stress is a very real chemical reaction in your body that releases hormones which in the long run can cause significant damage to your body. Therefore, it is very important that we find ways of dealing with stress, so that we may enjoy a longer, healthier, and happier life.

Here are some random ways that you can deal with stress.

1. Get lost in a good book.

2. Meditate under a tree.

3. Do a 10 minute movement improvisation with your eyes closed.

4. Make smiley faces at every one you see

5. Listen to music by Philip Glass

6. Watch those outrageous Japanese reality TV shows

7. Discover a new movie in your favorite genre.

8. Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, then start making weird faces.

9. Try to say “I’m thankful for…..” as many times as you can throughout the day in your head or out loud.

10. Go look at some Lolcat pictures.

11. Go to lamebook.com

12. Go to fmylife.com

13. Look at yourself in the mirror, and give yourself a pep talk, Yoda style.

14. After every task you accomplish, do a couple fist pumps in the air and jump around for 2 minutes.

15. Give your shoulders nice little squeezes, do the same for your feet and legs.

16. Lie on the ground and break out in laughter.

17. Treat yourself to some ice cream.

18. Tell yourself that the road bumps you face are actually good hints that you are on the right path.

19. Sing as loud as you can and with all the emotions you were keeping back, if you start crying, cry like you’ve never cried before. Then, start singing again.

20. Give compliments to everyone you meet. As you shine, you give others the power to shine as well.

Language Barrier

John:TextMsg: Hey Kiaro! This is John. How have you been? It has been a while since we last talked about that business proposal, and I was wondering if you had some time on Saturday to go over the specifics? I’ve been looking into a couple restaurants that seem really wonderful, so I was hoping to get some input from you on where we should go. There’s Jim’s Bar and Hotpot, which is apparently the place to go if you really love seafood. I also found another lovely place called Cheng’s Garden, which is suppose to have the best chinese food in town. Of course, there’s always Big Burrito, which I’m not too fond of because I don’t really like mexican food. If you want to go however, then I will certainly not object!
So out of these three places, which one would work for you on a Saturday at around 1PM? I look forward to hearing your opinions!

Kiaro:TextMsg: yes

Smart and stupid

The key is finding balance.

10 amazing technologies that we will see in the coming years

We live in very exciting times. Here are just a few innovations in technologies that will drastically change our lifestyles as we continue the road towards 2020 and beyond. Enjoy.

1. Electronic Papers

No more tediously flipping through news pages. One screen interface covers it all.

This versatile and flexible material is produced when organic electroluminescent displays are combined with organic thin film transistors. The end result is a device with a thickness of less than 0.3mm and the ability to display high definition videos.

Advanced development will lead to improved resolution and contrast, and the ability to reduce or block out glare completely.

This kind of technology will not only help cut down on deforestation, but will also change the ways in how our homes, schools, and offices operate.

Imagine in the late future, your ipads would be like giant stone slabs in comparison to these electronic papers.

2. Holographic Versatile Disk

HVD’s unique way of storing data gives it advantage over previous generations.

These disks are able to store about 1Tb of information, the equivalence of over 200 DVDs. The difference between the HVD and the Blu Ray is that the HVD works by storing data in micro 3D holograms, instead of scanning markings on a surface. The 3D holograms allow more information to be densely packed, resulting in more storage space.

Disks in general however, may soon become overtaken by more convenient ways of storing and accessing data. Solid state drives are able to hold up to 2Tb now, and even Petabytes in the future.

If you didn’t know, 1 Petabyte is the equivalent of a million Gigabytes. That’s a whole lot of songs you could store.

3. Memristors

These intelligent circuits might one day change the way we view our gadgets.

Memristors are known as the fourth fundamental circuit element, and would contain properties that are unachievable in other elements such as capacitors, resistors, and inductors.

With over 40 years of development, memristors will finally start appearing in the near future in consumer products.
Conventional circuits store data with electronic on and off switches and this is how the majority of our electronic devices are built. Memristors however, work in a totally different way. They operate at the atomic level and contain a variable resistance, which means that they are able to remember their resistance when the power is turned off.

Any device built using memristors will benefit from extremely faster speeds, denser size, and phenomenal battery life. Imagine your laptop booting up almost instantly and lasting for several months with one battery charge.

The flexible nature of the memristors will also allow for dynamic configurations. Since they behave in a similar way to our own brain synapses, we may be able to build complete human brains out of these memristors in the future.

This would bring new meaning to the term “brain-like computers”.

4. Text by thinking

You think, it texts.

In 2010, Japan created mind reading devices capable of taking a person’s brainwaves and turning them into data.
In the near future, devices could be made that would take advantage of this brain-machine interface. You could turn your TV on just by thinking about it, and you could return all those text messages without even budging.

There has never been a better time to be lazy.

5. Holographic Television

So much better than netflix.

Holographic technologies have been studied for nearly three decades now. One of the main problems faced when developing holographic technology for televisions are the “rewrites”. The time it takes to display one hologram after another is very choppy and slow, which means that it is highly unrealistic to watch television. Imagine playing a video game at 4 fps. Fantastic.

However, there has been substantial improvements in such technologies. A fps of 24 has been achieved for televisual displays. These holographic devices are still relatively new and very expensive. As further refinements of the technology happen, more companies will rise to bring down the costs of this technology to an affordable range for the majority of people.

6. Intelligent advertising

Advertisers will know everything about you. Literally everything.

Nanotechnology will make several leaps and breakthroughs, allowing the production of microsensors. These devices will be embedded in posters and various out door media which will be able to identify people by their mobile phone or laptop chips. The personal preferences will scanned and utilized. The posters might electronically display a product that is appealing to the person.

Ultrasonic beams may deliver a localized message that only the receiving person can hear. Even in crowded places like NYC, you will be surrounded by advertisements and sounds that appeal to your interests and lifestyles.

These technologies will lead to issues and controversies about the invasion of personal privacy, as well as the potential of inducing anxiety and paranoia from all the personal advertising.

7. Laser-driven fusion

Will our future be powered by quick release laser fusions?

The potentials of lasers are being explored at a much deeper level. A high energy Laser energy research facility has been built in Europe to study the probabilities of creating a commercial grade laser induced fusion reaction.

The concept behind this fusion consists of a center core fuel pellet in which lasers are fired into. The laser compress the pellet into a state of high density. Then, a second highly concentrated laser is fired into this high density state with nanoprecision. This action will ignite the fuel and raise core temperatures to over a hundred million degrees celcius, hotter even than our Sun’s core.

At this temperature, fusion reactions are allowed to occur, and result in Helium induced energetic neutrons that are released and then captured to generate electricity.

When fully developed, this quick fusion will become a revolutionary form of energy production.

8. Medical Nanobots

So what was the definition of cyborg again?

Medical nanobots are robots manufactured at the atomic level and programmed to help with certain health conditions. These robots would be able to target specific viruses and help balance general wellness. The nanobots are built atom by atom and equipped with tiny motors, sensory guidance, and communication devices.

These little buggers could lead to several major breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer and other dangerous illnesses. Patients will be treated with extreme precision. Advancements in neurological disorders will lead to dramatic improvements in treatments such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Imagine nanobots and advanced stem cell research combined. These two forces will create a whole new generation of medical sophistication and efficiency.

9. Human Brain Simulations

The implications of simulating a real brain are overwhelming. The amount of answers and secrets we could unlock about the human body are endless.

The exponential growth in computing power has allowed for significant improvements in creating accurate models of the human models.

The MDGrape 3 based supercomputer is capable of processing powers up to 10^15 floating point operations, or flops. The processing power of the human brain is roughly 10^19 flops. Between 2005 and 2025, the increase in computational power will be almost a million times better.

Once these levels of flop speeds are achieved, a complete simulation of the brain will become available for study and research.

10. Human-like AI

When AI is capable of emotions, how different will we judge them?

Advancements in various areas of nanotechnology, biotechnology, neurology, and computational powers will allow the creation of the first computer to ever pass the Turing test.

The line between real and CGI will become so blurred that it is impossible to distinguish a computer animation from a real animation. These breakthroughs will be implemented in devices such as virtual realities.

The creation of Human-like AI will create powerful controversies as people become separated between robot rights. Robot racism will spring up and create new ideologies and divisions within our society. The age of AI will be brought upon us.