The Frontal Lobe--Uncut

Thank you. Before I write anything, thank you. I've never thought a falling tree made any noise if no one was around to hear it and the same would go for the words on this blog if no one bothered to take a glance or peruse my writing. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.

-the Frontal Lobe team

These are a bunch of interesting ideas and thoughts I've wanted to blog about for a long time. However, usually in order to get from my head to the Frontal Lobe, they undergo revisions, drafting, filtering and what not in order for it to be suitable for the general public. I guess most of my posts are only a vestige of my brain and its sonic waves, but that's going to change because these next few snippets are as raw as they get.

It's like musical improvisation--sometimes you'll get an amazing, genius, beautiful liquid from the cosmos and other times it's like a stale marshmallow that no one bothered to put on a stick and roast in the fire. And to ensure the spontaneity of this post, I've been consciously neglecting the "backspace" button and typing with vigor. So, that might contribute to the loquaciousness if you were wondering. If you don't like where one snippet is going...skip to the next. So here goes...

The thing about great musicians is that they play one note and it's a beautiful thing. One time a friend of mine went to see Thelonios Monk play--the great pianist Thelonios Monk--at Carnegie Hall which is a pretty big gig for jazz musician. He came out and everybody was there with a lot of excitement around. The stage had nothing but a big grand piano with a pot of flowers on it. Everyone was in their fancy suits and ties and ready to see the amazing Monk do his thing. So he walks out onstage and just slams the pot and plants into the piano. He played just one note and it went "BINGGGG" and just split. And that was probably the best concert ever; I wish I was there to see it.



For your viewing pleasure:





















Past meets present. It's like I'm about to hand the baton to him which is ironic because my brother was the one who passed on a lot of advice and expectations to me. But I take this picture pretty symbolically in that I've followed my brother's footsteps pretty closely so far. Running, playing the violin...all that stuff was done by mon frere before me. Going to Illinois and studying engineering is the first real divergent step from this nice, manicured path he's made for me these last 18 years (My brother is graduating from Stern on Wednesday). I guess there's a sense of pride in being able to shape my own identity now. That and pretty big fears about doing something my brother can't advise me on.

Speaking of which...

Someone mentioned feeling apprehensive about the next four years...as if a bigger understatement could be made. Whoever said that though is thinking way too far ahead. What about these next four months? I can't even begin to tell you how hard it is to put away the feeling every time I hang out that this moment..it's all coming to an end--that the number of "tomorrows" are running out and that instead of having an unabashedly good time, there's a bittersweet aftertaste to each laugh, smile, high five or giggle. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much.

But then I realize how blessed I am to feel this sad and every rosebud of love and thanks inside of me blooms into gratitude for every single second I get to spend with them.

I guess I intended to have a post set aside for just straight up blogging because there was no way I could have articulated that in a way that could fully encompass the depth of my feelings. That's still not the best way I can describe it, but it feels better to have the essence of it down.

But all that really means is that there's just one last thing I want to do besides spend copious amounts of time hanging out. It's going to sound really corny but that's just love. So I'm going to experiment with this love thing...giving love...feeling love...I know it's really lame but it's the last thing I got to check out...before I check out.

A Message to the Secretary of Treasury

Thanks, Joe.

Joe is my dad's boss who graciously finagled a job opening for me last summer so I could get in on the action happening at Avionics Instruments in Avenel, NJ. Besides letting me come in after cross country practice and laughing when I fell alseep at the keyboard, Joe always personally delivered my paychecks to me.

"Dr. Lu! Here you go."

So for the first time in my life, I filed for my federal income tax return. Here's an idea. Instead of paying the money to my account, Timothy Geithner, you can just send me a pair of Men's Nike Air Max 90 in Obsidian/White (size 10.5):


I figure it'd be easier to count one pair of shoes than to calculate my total return.


One last thing:
I hate to beat a dead horse, but just one more word on the college snafu. I'm hella grateful for where I'm going next year. It doesn't matter that I was worse than Shaquille O'Neal on the foul line with my college decisions because I'm just happy I have somewhere to go. I don't even know the person who wrote that post on March 27th. I'm just keeping it up because I love Pinky and the Brain. But there ain't no silver lining to this, because this is the dream, baby.

I guess I owe my older brother for putting things into perspective for me. I think the last three sentences of this are really important for anyone to realize so just thought I'd share this with you all:

hey john,

i heard about duke, and i'm really sorry that it didn't work out for early. but i also got deferred from stanford and i took the wrong approach: by not caring. on the positive side, congratulations on UIUC! (illinois urbana champaign) that's one of the country's top engineering schools. (see for specialties: http://polycentric.csupomona.edu/campus_news/usnews_engineering14th.pdf). i never really subscribed to these rankings, but frankly, they're trusted by a lot of people since there's nothing else.

i wish i went to engineering school, because it really allows you to do anything after graduation. urbana champaign is tied with CalTech (almost impossible to get into) and tops in environmental engineering, which is seriously the new wave. i'm in business school, and everything is "going green" especially with people realizing that we need to get off of oil dependence. let me know what you're thinking since i went through the process myself, and looking back, it is really an important decision to make. its really important to be excited and motivated for college, since working hard in college is important. i lost sight of this, and i didn't do as well in college as i could have.

your bro,
Kevin

Made me feel a whole lot better about where I'm going. I love my brother...and that's the first time I've ever said that out loud.

Perspective Check

This is about the girl in her bedroom who poses in front of the camera she's awkwardly holding in her outstretched hand. She'll take a hundred photos until coming up with one she's happy with, which inevitably looks nothing like her, and after she's done poring over images of herself, will post one on her myspace page and then write something like " I don't give a f*ck what you think about me."

This is about the person trying out for American Idol, who while going off about how confident they are that they were born ready to sing in front of the world, are trembling so badly they can hardly breathe.

This is about me, a guy who on February 28, 2009 tried to convince you to wrap yourself in the silver lining of any situation, and exactly one month later spews out one of the most hopeless and despondent posts that is really unlike me.

I have never seen a bigger contradiction than "The Frontal Lobe".

I think I'll stick to the silver lining though.

Note to self:
When upset, do yourself a favor and sing "blackbird" or "life is a song" to yourself. If you don't like the tone, go bake brownies.

Found my "Johns Hopkins Pre-college 2008: we'll get you there" t-shirt the other day...too bad it didn't or anywhere else. It's really hard to be optimistic right now. Just feels like the last four years were encompassed succinctly by the words "the committee reviewed your application and is unable to offer you admission into the upcoming freshman class." I guess it has been a theme all year...letdowns, disappointments and just things that didn't work out as I thought they would. I don't know what my next move is or where my next step is. It's like I'm surrounded by water.

Eighteen Years

The A&P will forever be a part of my childhood as it was in the pharmacy department where I celebrated my coming of age by toasting an energy drink with Dan and Qway. Eighteen years. All I can be is thankful.

Random Things

Saw this on the official Jonas Brothers Myspace:

"hey joe i think youre really hot and my daughter thinks so too!"

Apparently the age range of Jonas Brother fans is much larger than I thought...

Most Asian people I know like taking jumping pictures, and who wouldn't? It's a skill to be able to jump, steady your hand and click in a short time span. But these pictures take it to a whole new level. None of these pictures are enhanced, by the way:



show offs.

The Silver Lining

No one really gets to see the "silver lining" in the clouds. We can only look up and see a gray sheen on the bottom of some cumulonimbus.

















It's not quite silver, but it's the stuff dreams are made of. I took that picture at around 35,000 feet altitude while leaning over the guy who had the window seat. He was asleep, luckily.

You don't have to be in the jet stream to see the silver lining though. Got deferred from your "dream" school? Welcome that blank canvas of other opportunities. Failed your driving test? You'll have a funny story to tell. Ran out of boxers? You'll have an even funnier story to tell. So hopefully you all get what I mean.

So if you ever feel neglected
And if you think that all is lost
I'll be counting up my demons, yeah
Hoping everything's not lost

One Liners

Entertainment in a single sentence. These one liners are little compilations of my life, other people's lives, experiences, imagination and just a few spark-thoughts that keep me going throughout the day. Hope you like them!

Today my 13-year-old brother proudly declared that he knows that "WTF" means "Wow, That's Funny" and has been using it all over the internet.

I conduct job interviews for a living and nothing gives me a better sense of wielding karma than giving the job to the nervous kid instead of the better qualified arrogant prick.
(thought of that while getting my college interview on)

"I was waiting for you," she said, and for an instant I wasn't alone.

From the moment her arms wrapped around my chest and her head found its place against my shoulder, I knew beyond a doubt that I would never think of five feet as too short ever again.

I woke up knowing that today was going to be like every other day because there was only one thing I was going to think about and it made me want to go back under the covers.

I never knew why I was blessed with these disproportionally large man-hands until I used them to cover my face against the world.

I want to introduce something pretty meaningful to me. I started playing the guitar in 6th grade and the first song I ever learned was "Everlong" by Foo Fighters. It was different from learning the piano or violin though because this was 100% my own initiative. I'll admit, I was a big believer in the thought that playing the guitar definitely adds points to your "score". But it's more than pretending you're Jason Mraz or Chris Carrabba (although, I wouldn't want to be that short in real life). Any feeling I have, I can channel it through six strings.

Last Saturday I drove to Sam Ash with literally a bag of money. My mom doesn't think I should keep all the money I make (thanks mom...) so she allots me increments every week...from my own account. So I went into the acoustic shop and picked up the last one of these Yamaha FG 730S guitars off the shelf. I like to relate this moment to when Harry Potter first recieves his Phoenix wand from Olivander and he feels this instant connection with it. I played a few John Mayer songs on it and decided it was definitely worth my bag of twenties, tens, fives and I think I even had a few ones in there. It's kind of the first expensive thing I paid for myself so it's special in that way. I don't plan on bringing my violin and even less the baby grand in my house to college so this'll be my musical output for the next phase of my life.

I haven't named it yet. I figure with its vanillablonde top contrasting with the almostblack back and sides, it deserves a pretty name. And yes, I did just channel my inner William Faulkner in creating the words vanillablonde and almostblack.

Driving to School

Everyday the morning has this subtle, ominous demeanor. Especially in the winter when it's still dark when I pull out of my driveway, nothing gives me a more surreal feeling than listening to a few tracks in my half-awake state. Some music I'd recommend in the AM:

Kanye West- Good Morning
The Postal Service- Sleeping In
Thievery Corporation- Lebanese Blonde
Remy Zero- Fair
Nick Drake- Northern Sky
Common- Be