Happy Walker

I have been walking a lot more recently. It doesn't sound like a big deal for most of the people living in New York. However, for someone had knee problems for decades, it's a freedom that no money can buy.

I was a volleyball player in my school years. From fifth grade to high school, playing for the school team. I practiced about 2-3 hours a day, 3-6 days a week. In Taiwan, coaches don't know much about preventing injuries. They were players, nobody had any medical or sports science degree. As a player, you get injuries. Everybody does, that's just the way it is.

I started to have knee pain around 12 or 13. My coach did take me to a doctor but he said it was no big deal. I was still running and jumping, but something just didn'tfeel quite right. After high school, I stopped playing. Knee problem was one of the reasons, the other was the purpose of playing. When I played for the school, it was not fun anymore. I was tired of playing for win. I started to workout in senior year. Spending most of my exercise time in the gym. My knees were up and down. During the worst time, I couldn'twalk longer than half hour. My knees would get swollen and I had to rest. (Isn't it sad that you can't even go shopping?)

When I came to NY for graduate study, I went to the school gym. However, when I started to work, I couldn't afford a membership. I stopped working out and gotten out of shape. One day, my boss called me when he was coming back to the office from a meeting. He was in the cab and didn't have any money on him. He asked me to grab his wallet and meet him down stairs ASAP. I grabbed it and started to run down the hallway. The first step I landed my right foot on the hard surface and I heard a pop. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't feel any painand I was still running. When I came back to the office later, I realized that I can't squat down. Also, my knee was getting bigger. By the evening, my knee was so swollen and I couldn't bend it at all. Finally, I went to see a knee doctor after two weeks. He told me I got a partial tear on my ACL. I started to do therapy. It took months and eventually it healed. However, my pre-existing knee problem was still there. I still didn't feel normal.

During the next few years, I avoid heavy leg workouts and kind of just lived with it. Until the lack of muscles strength brought new problems. My knee lost the stability and started to buckle. That was scary. I went to another doctor and he gave me a knee brace which cost my $600. (If I knew it was so expensive, I rather just hop in one leg) And he send me to therapy again. This time, I met my life saver. He is the husband of my previous therapist and he is specialized in sports injuries. She recommended him for me. He told me that my long-time problem was due to the unbalance muscles strength on both sides of my leg. The outside was stronger and tight, so it kept pulling the knee cap off its position and caused pain when moving.

I did probably another year of therapy and finally learned how to take care of it myself. I played softball for a few years. Still remember first time running full speed on the grass after more than ten years of knee problems. That was such a wonderful feeling. Now I can walk as long as I want. One day I decided to get off the train early and walk rest of the way to work. I was walking in the rain for an hour. Nothing can compare to this freedom.

I wish I have met my therapist ten years earlier. So I didn't need to give up the sports I loved. However, I'm glad it's not too late to pick it back on now. I'm doing yoga and even started to try kickboxing for a couple of weeks. I'm fitter than I was ten years ago. Only the people have been injured can truly appreciate having healthy limbs. So, keep walking if you could. Because you are really gonna miss it when you can't.

Sorry, my dear taste buds

It's a cool 50-degree day. I was standing outside of the office building.
My body was saying, "let's have something nice and warm."
Yes, I was craving noodle soup.
There is a very good Ramen shop about 8 blocks away, but I was
feeling a little bit lazy. I decided to search around nearby.
I ended up in a Sushi place at 27th Street.
I ordered a Chicken Soba Soup. When the girl at the counter keyed in
my order, I saw a Chinese message window poping up on the monitor.

"Oh! No!" My Fake-Japanese-Restaurant Alarm was immediately triggered.
I know that Chinese people are totally capable of making amazing food,
but I've never had any good Japanese food in New York from a restaurant
that ran by non-Japanese. I've had good Japanese food in Taiwan, made
by Taiwanese chefs. Because Taiwan is deeply influenced by Japanese
culture, it's not rare for Taiwanese chefs spending years in Japan learning
true Japanese cuisine. However, it's not the same case for New York.
I'm not an expert of Japanese cuisine, but I do know the bad one
when I taste it. And this is definitely one of them.

First of all, the noodles were white! Soba supposed to be the
brown/grey color buckwheat noodles. This shouldn't even be called Soba
since it didn't use Soba. Second, the noodles were totally overcooked.
For me, the mushy noodle soup is one of the least appetizing food.
Third, the chicken was plain and the vegetables looked like some leftover
bits from other dishes. Four, the broth was too sweet and it had no depth
at all. The funny thing is, it tasted just like the other fake Japanese noodle
soup I had before. Why the bad ones all taste similar? Is there some sort of
fake-Japanese-food conference they all go to?

I stopped eating the moment I didn't feel hungry, and had to drink
some water to get rid of that weird sweet taste of the broth.
I was so disappointing, so were my taste buds. It was nothing close
to what we wanted. I decided to never step in that place again.

Sorry, my dear taste buds. I promise next time I will do better.

How do you explain...

How do you explain it to an adult that everything takes space?
I've never thought that I needed to, until I became a designer.

I'm sure that every designer is annoyed by this day in and day out:
Your clients or co-workers have no clue about how much stuff
can fit in the space of an ad or a page. And by the way,
they have been doing this for years, you just don't know how.

You've got a sheet of letter-size paper full of paragraphs of text
cut and pasted onto it that looks like a ransom note. You check
the ad size, 1/4 page. You talk to yourself, "I'm a designer,
not a magician. How do they expect me to fit all this crap in this space?"
Don't people know that every single thing you want to put in an ad
takes space unless it's your love and soul?

I worked on this 1/6 page ad last month. The client was wondering
why the photo in the ad was much smaller than the same size ad that
ran next to it. WHY??? I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I read
that e-mail. Do you really need to ask why? Can you count?
And do you understand the concept of big and small?
The other ad only has 4 lines of text and you have 8.
Your logo is 3 times as big as their logo.
And you have an 8-point border around.
And, no, taking out 2 words in 3 point
won't help to fit in 10 words in 7 point.

I rest my case.

From Taiwan with Love

"From Taiwan with Love" was the title of my third Craig's Lists post
in the personal ads section. Although I didn't find my love
from that post, but I thought that title served the purpose pretty well.

I love James Bond movies. I still remember when my grandma took me
and my brother to see "Living Day Light" in Taipei. We had a meal
after the movie at a restaurant called Paris (巴黎西餐).
That restaurant is probably long gone.
My grandma passed away about 10 years ago.
The only thing that didn't change is that I still enjoy a James Bond movie.

I think I love movies because Grandma took me to a lot of movies
when I was a kid. I have some really vivid memories related to movies.
I got burned by a cigarette on my left hand when we were in a crowd
getting in the theater to see E.T. I was six.
It left a small rounded scar on my knuckle and I will never forget
that I was licking my wound through the movie.
I remember chewing on fried chicken necks or grilled dried squid
when we watched movies. Those are my favorite movie snacks.
Sorry, popcorn.

I started to go to movies by myself since college. Sometimes I only
had classes in the afternoon and I would watch the 10:30 then go to school.
It became more often after I came to New York. I didn't have many friends
(still don't) and sometimes just couldn't find anyone who wanted to see
the same movie at the same time. So I just went. I kind of like
that kind of freedom. Now I watch most of the movies with my boyfriend.
I love that, too. I love to have a arm to hold on to when something
sad or scary happens. However, I still enjoy going alone when he is on a
business trip. I watched "G.I.Joe" when he was away last time.
He thought it was stupid and refused to see it. I didn't mind,
I went at the Friday night. With some popcorn coated with caramel,
I enjoyed "G.I.Joe" with no expectation. Not every movie makes sense,
and sometimes I don't need it to be. It's ok.

Print to Web 101

I went to an AIGA event last night, Print to Web 101.
It was an introduction for print designers who were interested
in web design. Four designers/web developers talked about basic
web design principles and personal experience on transition.
It was a pretty good introduction for my level.
I've been working on printer design professionally about 7 years.
I've had done some simple html ten years ago just for fun.
Of course, everything is different now.
I just sat through my first lesson of CSS two weeks ago
from my boyfriend who is mainly doing web design for living.
I made my first web page with CSS after 3 hours and actually
felt a little bit good. However, that tiny little comfort
was pretty much gone after 30 minutes into this introduction.

I'm not sure I want to become a web designer if I don't have to.
I became a graphic designer because I loved stuff in print.
I collected all kinds of stationary since I was a kid.
I loved a nice envelope, a pretty greeting card.
Loved to touch them, felt the texture of the paper.
For me, I almost always want something nice in print
rather than an electronic file. Web design is great,
but I just feel different about something I can't touch.

Also, web design is full of technical stuff that takes
way more time troubleshooting than designing.
I watched my bf spending 3 hours trying to fix one coding
problem all the time. I just don't feel like that's
the kind of design I signed up for.

I work at a publishing company doing local newspapers and magazines.
Watching much better magazines die, like Gourmet Magazine,
I can't help wondering how much longer can we hang on to this cliff?
What keeps our publications alive that Gourmet Magazine didn't have?
Apparently it's not the good design. As a designer, that bothers me.
It's like watching a bridge collapse before you try to cross it.
You are glad that you were not on the bridge
when it went down, but now how do you cross the river?

I think this Print to Web thing raised more questions to myself than
answered them. People showed me how it's done to make a transition,
but is that really what I want to do? If I stay in print business,
when will I lose my job eventually? Am I good enough to survive?
And will I be happy doing what I have to do to survive?
Questions...