Maelstrom

Maelstrom
Originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum

So today is Valentine's Day. I hate this day. The commercialization of love and romance is about as disturbing as equating Christmas to flat screen TVs and a roll of tube socks.

Having said that, I had a day off on Friday, and I still felt conflicted about being the VDay grinch, so I bought a bouquet of roses and surprised Anita at her work. Regardless of my thoughts on the matter, I still had a wife to please... And yes, I know that flower gifts are for the creatively challenged, or the lazy. I happen to be a bit of both.

-G

The Author

I've decided I'm going to write a book. SAY WHAT, you ask?!

I know, this sounds strange coming from an ESL like myself. My command of the English language is hardly at a professional writing level, but for once I feel like I have something to write about, and could actually pen something that would be mildly entertaining. After finishing reading the Lost on Planet China book, I reflected on all the travel adventures Anita and I have been through, and thought, I've got tons of stories to tell (some humorous, some gross, and some downright unbelievable). So while I'm not going to troll through my previous travel experience for this project, I am going to use my next sets of travel as the basis. Assuming everything falls into place, our plan is to take a 3 month leave of absence next year to travel the world... this post is a commitment I'm making to myself that I will write a book when we're done.

-G (is feeling very ambitious)

Comrades!

Comrades!, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

I'm reading 'Lost on Planet China' by J. Maarten Troost. It's a witty and hilarious first hand account of a gwai-lo's trek through China. The stories remind me so much of my own first experience with the motherland. Would highly recommend this book. Especially for you Dean. I think you would dig the style that it's written in. The author (a white dude from Sacramento) attempts to get a local to teach him how to say "Hu Jintao is sexy".

"Nineteen eighty-nine played out a little differently in China, of course. When thousands of students converged upon Tiananmen Square in Beijing to demand a little democracy - Hey hey, hey ho, Maoism has got to go - they were greeted with a decidedly old-school response. Deng Xiaoping, the chain smoking gnome with the twinkling eyes who then ruled China, simply reached for his totalitarian rulebook, flipped toward the index - Democracy protesters, suitable response - and followed directions. He shot them. And that was that."

The whole book is written in this decidedly blunt, but humorous take on the author's observations about Chinese society. And having seen it myself, I'd say he's pretty spot on with his musings. Check it out.

-G

Life as Art

Figure Drawing 1, originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

Okay, first off, I'm a moron. I wanted my domain to be 2Litresofsoysauce.blogspot.com, but somehow, I ended up with an extra 'com' in there (see address bar above).

So, back to this post. I always wanted to be an artist. Loved drawing from a very early age, but was never technically any good at it. It's tough to become a good artist when your parents actively discourage the pursuit as a waste of time ("you'll never make any money with that"). So after years of doodling in the margins of my notebooks at school but never taking any actual art instruction, I eventually gave up the dream of being an artist. I'm now 28, newly married, have a career and am financially established... I no longer have to ignore the creative aspect of my life any longer. Although at this age, I will never become a full blown artist oozing buckets of talent, I can at least see myself progressing again in skill level.

Not to get all 'Moral of the story' on you, but if you feel art is your calling, then don't let anyone stop you from chasing that dream.

               

Topsy Turvy

Topsy Turvy
Originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum

Alrighty... 7 years ago, I had purchased my first digital camera (some crappy 2 megapixel Olympus). And I was hooked on photography. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing technical about photography, just that I liked taking pictures of stuff. So I went and started a little blog called Can't Afford Film.com, envisioning it as a place to post some photos and rant and rave about various things. This would go on for the better part of five years, but never once did I actually turn it into the web gallery I had originally envisioned. The site became more of a place to dump random thoughts, and never actually hosted much in the way of photos.

Fast forward to Jan 25, 2009, and I've finally committed myself wholely to photography, and am actually keen on rebooting the site. I've ditched the www.agnosticmonkey.com domain, opting instead for the moniker of 2Litresofsoysauce (which is what doctors recommend as your daily intake... well, maybe not...)

So yeah, I'm actually going to use this blog as a supplement to my flickr stream (where I may not necessarily rant as much as I'd like to).

Thanks for the visit, and stay tuned.

-G