Hurting the Trees

"Anyone can get anyone if they truly wanted to, if they truly tried." - Doo

Maybe the fear of being spurned holds us back more than we realize. Doo always gets me thinking.


via Stella

Doo and Goliath, Part 2

Doo Lim is a good friend of mine. As I've already said, he's given me enough pearls of wisdom for a necklace. Doo is still growing up, as we discussed about a month ago. We're all growing up at this age, if not mentally then still physically.

Regardless, there are those times in our lives when we seem to undergo metamorphoses that leave us better, more self-aware, more mature (or maturer). We're smarter, savvier and we just understand a little bit more about ourselves.

And it is in these moments, that we find hope for ourselves, hope in the comfort of our identity.

Up until and beginning high school, Doo had been known as David Lim. His friends all called him David, and his teachers were instructed similarly. During all these roll calls, teachers would read from the class roster to start off a new school term. After each name, they would often ask if the student would prefer a nickname or to be called by any other name, to make the students more comfortable.

Doo Lim had always told his teachers to call him by his English name.

"Doo Lim," they would say.

"Here," he would reply, and, "I prefer David," would be the inevitable follow-up.

His teachers would quickly jot down "David" in parenthesis after "Doo Lim." He was "Doo Lim (David)" to his peers and his instructors. He had always been hesitant, a bit uncomfortable with his name, but at this particular stage, he was growing up. Like we all do, he was getting more comfortable with who he was and what that meant.

One day, during another typical roll call, a teacher called out his name. Like a call-and-response, name-and-a-here. The students are a slave to their education, but some things must be done.

"Doo Lim?" she asked, her question not really a question, her voice not really a voice, but a demand.

"Here," he replied, matching her decibel for decibel in confidence. The other students were only half-listening at this point. The L's are halfway through the class, after all, and they were just going through the motions unthinkingly and mindlessly with a duty that was the staple to every new beginning in the school term.

The teacher waited expectantly, hesitated ever so slightly for a nickname from Doo, a preference or a hint of another name, but during this roll call, it was different. He wasn't a different person, just coming to terms with the man who was always there.

"Just call me Doo," he said, and all his friends looked up. Who? they thought. Wasn't he David?

He was David, but he was Doo first. He is Doo first. He is many things, but his name is Doo. David is a good name, a strong name. But who was he to himself? David wasn't his name. It wasn't how he looked at himself. His whole life, he was David. The friends he had, the teachers from whom he learned all knew him as David.

But in this moment, this nirvanic second of clarity, he knew who he wasn't, but more importantly, he knew who he was. He knows who he is.

Just call him Doo.

Doo and Goliath, Part 1

A good friend of mine named Doo Lim often surprises me with pearls of wisdom. Right now, I think he's given me enough to string on a necklace, but I'm not a huge fan of jewelry.

Doo, whose birth name is David, once told me his philosophy on friendship.

"Friends," he tells me on the last day of finals at the Lair, after all the tests are done and the stress is passed, "are like circles. You know, like concentric circles. Do you know what I mean?"

He looks at me hesitantly, unsure if I could follow, and rightfully so. I have often told anyone willing to listen (all two of you) that I think Doo is ahead of his time. I think he's a dude growing up about ten years before he should have been born. People don't always get him, but I think it's because he doesn't really care the same way we do about our problems. He cares differently somehow, though not necessarily less than we do, just differently.

I guess when I write it out, it doesn't sound as sensible, but I just want people to understand that Doo is misunderstood for a reason. It's because he's great, in an Emersonian sense.

"To be great is to be misunderstood," Emerson says. Doo is misunderstood, and people gloss over his rants and seemingly trivial thoughts without truly getting him. Some dismiss him as unique, too dorky or just plain weird. Not everyone disregards him, of course, just the naive ones, the ones who don't fully get him. Some people aren't comfortable with what they don't understand, which is...understandable.

But Doo is great.

"They're like concentric circles," he continues, gaining confidence as I nod to show I follow. "The largest circle is all the people you know or all our acquaintances or whatever." He looks at me to make sure I was still following. Doo's timidity is part of why I love him. He's humble and modest, even when I tell him he's a man before his time.

I guess to some people, that's synonymous with insanity, talking and not being understood...which, looking back, makes me think I should have phrased it differently. Now I just look like I'm calling him crazy, multiple times to his face.

Regardless...

"Then there's a circle within that circle," he says, gesticulating emphatically, moving his hands closer together. "These are the people who are closer to you, the ones you grew up with or what have you."

A simple process so far.

"Then you have these friends," Doo says, moving his hands even closer, "who you would give or do anything for. I only have a handful of these friends, maybe five or six, but they're the ones that are very close to you and you would probably risk your life for them."

"Got it," I reply.

"So after your close friends, for whom you'd risk your life, there's an even smaller circle," he says, no longer using his hands, but looking at me very seriously.

"Then you have one or two friends who you know would do the same for you."



And that, avid readers, is just one reason why I love Doo Lim.

Bioinformatics, FTW!

bi·o·in·for·mat·ics n. (used with a sing. verb)
The use of computer science, mathematics, and information theory to model and analyze biological systems, especially systems involving genetic material.


So my bioinformatics report is due in less than 12 hours. I think I've made great strides in finishing it, though. After my peer review, which was done by the great Doo Lim, I got the paper to be more focused. I must admit, though, Mr. Lim is a very interestingly concise and good peer editor. His comments on each section of my paper were astonishingly in-depth, as exemplified with my favorite comment below:

"Abstract: Nonexistant"

Needless to say, his other critiques more than made up for it.




Yes, I'm screwed for this.

Anyways, this week AXE, my fraternity, is selling holiday grams near the Univeristy Center. Since our banner is too large for the table, we had to duct tape it to a light pole on one end and to the end of the table on the other end. People can see us better that way.

Yours truly did the taping of the duct, but such rigorous manual labor forced me furhter into insane thought: Why is Gorilla tape so awesome?

It's "incredibly strong" but I don't think it's quite comparable to a REAL gorilla's grip. Plus, why would you sell a product that has a hairy arm holding it? Gorillas are just scary. Their arms are unnaturally hairy. I mean, how does hair like that even begin to develop?

That kind of hair reminds me of my friend Jagmeet. He's hairy. He's also a covert terrorist. He told me he reads this blog, so I thought I'd return the favor and indulge his hairy ego by mentioning him.

I'm scared though. He might praise Allah all over my residence hall.

I hate racist jokes like that. I hope it was funny enough to compormise my morality though. Jag would compromise his life for his religious morality. F-ing AYrab.

Yeah, I really dislike racism.

But seriously, I taped that banner well, almost too well.

It was gorilla-tape-nice-and-tight.