“I’m from Hong Kong”
“So you’re from Japan?” or “So you speak Japanese?”

“You look like Bruce Lee, except for the glasses”

“Wait, so you don’t ride a bike? I thought all the people in China rode bicycles.”

“Asian men have trouble giving positive feedback” (really? I’m glad I’m not the only one)

“Do people in your culture express sympathy?” (someone had just passed away)

“Do you play piano?”

“Wait, you don’t eat rice?”

I spent my holidays with friends, and a significant amount of time was spent in an automobile listening to popular music on the radio I hadn’t heard before. I got a bunch of songs stuck in my head, and one of them was the song “Replay” by Iyaz, which is basically a guy talking about how a girl is always on his mind, replaying over and over again.

Not counting its catchy tune, two things caught my attention. 1) the speaker in the song suggests his desire for commitment in wanting marriage. 2) he expresses his love through service by cooking in the kitchen for the girl – isn’t that sweet. The rest of the song is all that good lovey-dovey stuff.

Now contrast that with this popular song by another R&B singer with foreign roots and a 2 syllable pseudonym.

“Sexy B*tch” by Akon (and some Frenchman?) is also a catchy tune about a special girl – in fact this girl is so special that Akon can’t compare her to the “regular neighborhood whore.”  We get some insight into his difficulties when we find out that he is at a loss for words when struggling to describe this new girl “without being disrespectful,” because, you know, Akon’s all about this respecting women business. After some contemplation and serious thought, he comes up with the answer.

“Damn girl, you’s a sexy b*tch, a sexy b*tch!”

Excited by his solution to showing some respect for this special lady, he repeats it several times for good measure. And in between the refrain, he also finds the time to gush about her booty.

The trainer was a balding, beer-bellied middle-aged man in short shorts who had an undeniably queer and high-pitched voice (“Let’s go sunshine!“).  He did less than a quarter of the repetitions than his students did and spent most of his energy talking a lot and loudly.

Each trainee was given a collection of items that included a BOSU ball, medicine ball, a pair of small dumbbells, and step-up thing, and a pair of small circular mats that could slide easily on the smooth wooden floor.

A set of roughly 10 exercises were repeated ad nauseum for 1 hour so that we could feel the “burn” and experience DOMS the next day.

Peace, love and chocolate by Katrina

“Breathe …engage your 5 senses, close your eyes and inhale deeply. Be in the present moment, notice the color of the chocolate, the glossy shine. Rub your thumb over the chocolate bar to release the aromas of smoked Applewood bacon flirting with dark chocolate. Snap off just a tiny piece and place it in your mouth, let the lust of salt and sweet coat your tongue.”

The chocolate wasn’t bad but not as sensual as the directions suggest. Maybe it was because I ate the whole bar in just a few large bites.

Mo’s Dark Chocolate Bacon Bar

Sparkmans Cream Valley Chocolate Milk

1.5 dozen cage-free eggs

10 marinated drumsticks (all of which I plan to eat tonight)

turkey sausages

some kind of grass-fed yogurt banana mango drink (hadn’t planned to buy this but it intrigued me)

a jar of almond butter and a jar of cashew butter (hadn’t planned to buy this either)

I was very happy.  I immediately got to work on the chocolate milk while walking back, and a lady in the parking lot asked me what I was drinking. Chocolate milk. Is it delicious? Very I said with a big smile (especially since it was whole milk – not that low-fat nonsense I thought).

But my happiness was soon to be tarnished. The handle of the paper bag broke and alas, the bag dropped onto the concrete sidewalk. The yogurt drink and 2 jars of butter cracked open and made a delightful mess. I did get to try some of the yogurt drink by cleaning it off the packaging of the bacon chocolate bar with my mouth.

I was very sad. I carried the ripped paper bag and the mess that was inside for another 2 blocks before I found a trash can to dump it in.

II. incessant activity to do lots of stuff endlessly busy and as always in a rush always producing, never ever regressing burning fuel, always growing, not ever slowing like a neoplasm in an ever-expanding lump

III. which becomes cancer

IV. The body’s normal defense against abnormal growth is apoptosis (pronounced ap-a-tow’ – sis) or programmed cell death or suicide. This system becomes defective in cancer.

V. Although we normally speak of apoptosis in the removal of potentially cancerous cells, it has another role, arguably more important, in that it essentially makes us who we are.

VI. Although rapid growth occurs during the development of humans in utero, even more dramatic is the amount of death that occurs. Apoptosis, by removing the unnecessary, sculpts the body, shapes the organs, carves out the fingers and toes, and makes you you. Similarly, the nervous and immune systems arise through overproduction of cells followed by massive amounts of cell death. Over half of the neurons and glial cells in your body died before you were able to become a cognitively functioning human being. Even as an adult, the body is maintained by killing off roughly 10 billion cells each and every day(1,2).

VII. Elimination makes us who we are. Death gives us Life.

VIII. The absence of this necessarily precise elimination results in uncontrolled growth which rebels against our own body.

IX. Less sometimes is more.

X. Slow down. Pause a moment. Rest. When was the last time you spent time to do absolutely nothing at all. Its difficult. It takes a while for all the activity to settle.

What is important to you? What do you believe? What is it that makes you who you are? What isn’t that makes you who you are?

There is a story of a boy walking on the beach collecting colorful sea shells. His hands are full of pieces of once living sea life, when he comes upon a rock with a large starfish on it. Instead of running toward the starfish and taking it, he simply looks dismayed. When his parents ask what is wrong and why he doesn’t go get the starfish, he begins to cry, “My hands are full of sea shells and I can’t pick it up.” (3)

References

1) Naegele J, Lombroso PJ. Development of the Cerebral Cortex: VIII. Apoptosis: Neuronal Hari-Kari. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 37(8): 890-892, 1998.

2) Heemels MT. Nature Insight: Apoptosis. Nature. 407(6805): 769,  2000.

3) Bell, Robert H Jnr. Drops Like Stars. Zondervan. 2009.

Additional thanks to …

the late Dr. Paul Brand and his book Fearfully & Wonderfully Made for illustrating how the body can be used as a metaphor for truth and my mother for giving me the book as a gift, partly because she wanted me to become a physician.

Carl Honore for encouraging people to slow down and my better half for sending me his talk.

Rob Bell for his NOOMA video on noise and silence, other ideas, and his style of writing

Not having produced any dominant athletes in the sport, weightlifting remains a relatively obscure sport in America. The sport is generally dominated by eastern bloc nations. Nonetheless, the sport is enjoyed by people all over the world, and even in the states there are small pockets of dedicated weightlifters scattered all over the country.

Olympic weightlifting is composed of two lifts – the snatch and the clean & jerk.

The snatch involves taking a weight from the ground to overhead in one motion. This lift is technically demanding and places great stress on the joints, with a minor risk of joint dislocation.

The clean involves taking the weight from the ground to the shoulders, and the jerk finishes the movement from shoulder to overhead. Due to the heavier weights able to be lifted in the clean & jerk, it causes intra-abdominal pressure to be significantly elevated, increasing the risk of urinary incontinence and hernias.

Generally, by the time you are able to successfully finish a heavy clean, your ego will be crushed, you will feel puny, you will feel weak, and you may just want to die. However, if you are able to complete the entire lift and hoist the weight over your cranium, it will be a triumphant and majestic moment. In fact it is scientifically proven that a heavy clean & jerk is the second best feeling in the world. A nice snatch being the first.

the climax