Death & Taxes. So I filed my own taxes for the first time ever this year. I mean, I've sent in a return before, but my mom had always filled out the forms for me, and I just put my John Hancock on it. This year was the first time I ever went through all the paperwork myself. And whereas I usually did the 1040EZ (I think), this year I did the real 1040. It wasn't too extraordinarily difficult, but I guess that's cuz I didn't have a whole lot of crazy deductions to claim.

Anyways, I ended up owing Uncle Sam ~$500. >_< And it coulda been worse, I suppose. Claiming relocation expenses kept me from having to pay nearly double that. But MAN, I'll admit, it DOES suck to feel like you've got this wad of hard-earned cash in your pocket, and then the Man comes and yanks a cut out of what you thought was rightfully yours. =/ I mean, it's like all year long, with every paycheck, you've paid the Man his tribute, so you think you're square with him; then at the end of the year, he comes back, saying you owe more... "if you know what's good for ya, you'll PAY!" as he waves his beating stick menacingly, hahaha.

And I dunno, growing up, I'd always been like, "Why does everyone whine so much about paying taxes?? The government does a lot of good things with that tax money." ...yea, well, I guess I've grown more cynical over the years (especially the past year), and I don't really agree with the way a lot of our tax dollars are spent. But I guess you have to take the sweets with the sours. If you want Uncle Sam to replace the space shuttle fleet, you gotta accept that he's also piss away a lot of your tax dollars on frivolous things, like, oh I dunno, a WAR? I feel like I've been on the inside and seen firsthand how the needlessly complex bureaucracy makes for waste & excess; and in the end, a lot of the things promised never come to fruition.

Yea, I've heard that taxes are the leading cause of idealistic liberals starting to sway conservative as they get older. And it's true, I think a little bit of the liberal in me died when I signed that check to Uncle Sam. =(

The Great White Hype. So one of my coworkers made a comment to me this week about looking tanner than before. And I think he meant it as a compliment, but on the inside, I was just like -_-'. I know it's probably cuz I've been playing flag football and spending more time out in the sun than I have in years, but part of me couldn't help but feel irritated that my skin was getting darker.

Yea, I dunno, I guess I've just always liked sporting that pasty white look. I'm not even entirely sure why. I often jokingly cite the concept of 美白 [beauty white] in Asian culture, (though it's mainly applicable to women,) where it's considered attractive to look as fair-skinned as possible. And Asians take it pretty seriously- using sun umbrellas to prevent tans, and marketing all these whitening cosmetics, etc.

And I've heard several theories about why we do this. I've heard it argued that it stems partially from a culture-wide white-person envy (I disagree: white geisha makeup predated Asian cultural subjugation by Europeans, no?). "White people are better than us, so this is us trying to be white"? pssshhh, gimme a break. Though I'm sure it has its perks, I'm preeeeetty sure I have no strong desire to be white.

Personally, (for me at least,) I think it stems more out of a desire to appear aristocratic. A true aristocrat would never have worked a day in the hot sun, and hence would never develop a tan. That's where the term "blue blood" comes from for (European) nobles/rich folk: their skin was pale enough that you could see the blue-greenish veins showing through the skin. And granted, I don't much care for the veiny look either, I would much prefer it to being dark-skinned. Dark skin is the sign of the lower class that's been out working the fields all day, hahaha.

Yea, I like maintaining the illusion of never having done a hard day's physical labor in my life, hahaha. I guess along those lines, that's also part of the reason why I wear gloves when weightlifting- cuz I hate having callouses on my hands. God forbid I get the hands of the working class, HAH!

But yea, I think it's interesting to contrast the notion of "paleness = beauty" that's prevalent in Asia with the rising popularity of the golden skinned tan in Western culture. I dunno, I guess it's always a case of the grass being greener on the other side, of wanting to be that which you naturally are not. Personally, I think it's just indicative of the human condition, in which we'll never be fully happy with what we've got.

"Is it worth it? Let me work it." I remember last summer, we had an intern who made an off the cuff remark about a technical paper being worth tens of thousands of dollars as he tossed a copy into the recycle bin. And when he said it, I thought it was just crazytalk, but he elaborated, saying how calculating how much they pay the engineers and how much time we spend, each paper costs the company $10,000 or more to produce. Upon realizing the implications of this, I was pretty shocked. It just seems so absurd how a company spends tens of thousands of dollars for a stack of papers with some words and numbers on it. It hints at the philosophical question of what is and isn't valuable; and what is the inherent value of a thing? (One man's trash is another man's treasure, I suppose.)

So I was thinking today about this whole concept of "going to work." And I guess I was just in one of those moods where it just didn't make sense to me. Ok, so like today for example, I spent the whole day building a computer model (finite element mesh) of a nuclear waste package. And it was alright I guess- not the most exciting thing in the world, but less unbearable than some of the other stuff I often have to do. But yea, then I got to thinking how it cost the company a couple hundred bucks to have me go in to work today to do what I did. And yea, of course I like getting paid and all, but I think about it, and like, if it was a weekend or something and a friend came up to me and asked me to build them a finite element mesh like I did, I think I'd probably only charge 'em like $20 bucks or dinner or something.

And I mean, it's a weird kinda philosophical question to me that digs at the cost-of-living in America these days and perhaps even our entire economic system. And I guess it's weird, because if you ask me if I'd do a day's work for you for $200, I'd be like "hell yea, that's GREAT money!" But then multiplied out by the number of workdays in the year, you get ~$50k, and suddenly the pay seems merely mediocre. I dunno, maybe it's just this ingrained idea of how much college grads should get paid or something, but something just feels terribly incongruous. How much SHOULD we get paid for an honest day's work? And just how much work GOES into such an "honest day" (if such a thing exists)?

Do I feel like that mesh I built today was worth $200+? No, not really, I suppose. But that's how much a company apparently has to pay me to spend my day doing it for them. Otherwise what? I take my services elsewhere? And I dunno, I guess I don't know what kinda work SHOULD be valued at hundreds of dollars a day. When I think about it, it seems like some of the most important jobs are the ones that pay the least. Like seriously, the guy behind the counter at McDonald's probably causes hundreds of smiles a day (or maybe that's just in the commercials, but); how many ppl a day to I give any joy to? But I guess then that begs the question: How much is a smile worth?? "What is the inherent value of a thing?" ...and I'm right back where I started.

*As a sidenote: I remember when I was interviewing for jobs, one of the questions I was asked once was: define "work." And I remember being totally baffled and responding with something like "ummm, a productive effort towards your company's goal?" And the interviewer laughed and said, "No, no, no... I meant 'work' as in the physics concept." Me: "Ohhhhhh... force times distance." -_-

**I told my coworker about all this, and he said that every day, he imagines a couple hundred dollars cold hard cash in his pocket (the amount the company pays him for his work), and it helps him get through the day. I think I'll try that, heh.

”Fooooosball?? Foosball’s the DEVIL!” So I signed up for my company’s flag football team this season. I’ve never been much for team sports in general (I think soccer in ~5th grade was probably the last time), and I’ve never played football on a formal team before, but I figured it might be worth trying once just to see if I like it. The company subsidized the fee for our team to join a city-wide league, and it’s really more to get us ready for the Corporate Challenge (an annual city-wide company vs. company Olympics of sorts) this summer.

Anyways, so we only had one practice before our first game. The other team was a bunch of athletic young 20-somethings with uniforms and complex plays and everything, while our team was half middle-aged men in just white tees running amok. And (as half expected,) we got totally blown out- it was about 35-0 before the refs called a mercy rule end to the game. I came home pretty dejected, and my mom was like, “What did you EXPECT to happen?? Did you think you were the Mighty Ducks or something?” I thought that was pretty hilarious, heh, that a Disney movie has made its way into the cultural lexicon and my mom is citing it back to me, hah.

Anyways, so week by week, we’ve been getting steadily [less-bad]. The first week we lost by 35, the next week 28, the next week 20, and this week by 14. So if the trend continues, we’re slated to win (or at least tie) in like 2 weeks, HAH. We’re usually still pretty over-matched though- like other teams will have enough ppl to sub in & out all the time, but our team is lucky if we have enough ppl on the field at one time. So we usually end up playing the entire game (both offense and defense).

But yea, one thing I’ve learned is that I can’t catch OR throw worth crap. Well, I guess the catching isn’t quite as bad, but the throwing is abysmal. Throwing a nice spiral pass is just one of those skills that I never spent the time to learn in my youth. =/ So yea, I don’t typically play the main skill positions. On offense, I usually line up at either guard or center, and on defense I’m usually tackle/end (or linebacker). And it works out ok cuz I’m bigger than the average guy (I think I’m the only guy on the team with any sacks so far), but when the opposing team has any real lineman sized guys on their side, it’s just like >_< !

Anyways, on the whole, I guess this whole flag football things been alright I suppose. I think it’d probably be a lot more fun if we were a winning team, hah. Given a redo, I’d probably still sign up to play again. But seriously, I really gotta get this catching & throwing thing down, hah.