Finding Love

Over delish smoked salmon capers sandwiches, my friend and I do what girls love to do. We chit chat about life and love. She says, “You are young, running around looking [for love]. I am old (which she is not, only 28), I will sit here and wait for it.” This makes me wonder if finding love would be like trying find your friend after you somehow got separated at the mall or concert. I am talking about pre cell phones days.

You just wander around and around, searching - me being small with small friends, the challenge is greater - and getting frustrated. It sort of reminds me of those butterflies fluttering around in crazy loops and zigzags. Well, actually, two butterflies fluttering around, their paths crossing but not at the same time. The magic happens when they finally meet.

I have actually figured out that if I just stay in the same spot my friends will find me much faster. AND I would exert minimal energy. So perhaps, my “old” friend might be a bit wiser and there is efficiency to her strategy for finding love. On the other hand, isn’t the fun in the journey? And I have always liked fun and flutter…

The First Approach

Or better yet, “My Attempt At The First Approach”.

Running through the list of guys I dated, I knew exactly who should be the first person I ask to write his side of the story. The choice is rather obvious. Our brief encounter was confusing - who has not been through one of those! Actually, I hesitate to use the word “dated” at the beginning of this paragraph because I am not sure if that ever did happen. Anyways whatever the weird mixed-signals, head-scratching experience was, we are friends now.

His name, if you were an inhabitant of my LaLa Land that is filled with rainbows and ponies, would be Cupcake Boy. We have hung out a bit since then. Our conversations more often than not comprise of little sense and lots of giggles. We even joke about our romantic incident, but that does not mean that I am going to randomly throw this project at him. I have been telling him about a blog that I am working on and would like his help. It has been three weekends now: 1) Just did not feel like it was the right time and I did not even have the blog up 2) Both of us were out of town and 3) Both are now infected with germs. Could this be the universe’s way to telling me that he might not be the right first approach? Or is it appropriate considering the nature of our confusing start?

T-shirt

My favourite keyboard command is ctrl + z (apple + z for macs) to undo mistakes. How great would it be if this function works for heart breaks!

I am going to print t-shirts with this design on it. Let me know if you want one =)

Who should receive life support when not all can?

A respiratory epidemic has occurred. People are rushing to hospitals and only the mechanical help of respirators could keep them alive. There are of course not enough respirators for everyone. Who should have priorities?

This is the scenario presented by Dr. Douglas White in his seminar at University of California, San Francisco. This is a problem of how to allocate limited resources with a giant red tag for violation of personal and medical ethics. In these situations, there are only losses. All we could hope for is to maximize what could be retained. Which criteria should be used to rank these patients?

Under the egalitarian principles, everyone is viewed to have the same worth. Determining who should be treated is simple. Either a lottery based system or a first come first served approach would suffice. Critics of the egalitarian approach argue that the random selection does not ensure the best results. Resources could be wasted on lost costs. Rebuilding/recovering normal society is not ensured. It is when the utilitarian approach is adopted, however, that ethics would most likely be breached.

Yes, the greatest goods for the greatest number of people sound fantastic. Except for those left with out of those benefits.

If people do not have the same worth, who should receive treatment:

A. 35yrs old mother of 3 children with breast cancer. 50% chance of survival.
B. 85yrs old pastor. 80% chance of survival.
C. 16yrs old boy. 20% chance of survival.
D. 20yrs old ex-convict. 70% chance of survival.

These are just simple representations of the factors that are at play when a person’s worth is calculated. Humans are creatures of foresight, but we use our past to help us predict our future. These predictions might or might not be accurate. What are the chances of the 16yrs old turning criminal or the ex-convict turning a new leaf (both examples could be seen with single example of Frank Abagnale Jr. - popularized by his life story adapted to the movie “Catch Me If You Can”)? What are the chances that the mother would recover from her cancer? These are the probabilities we simply do not know, especially with the occurrence of a significant event. A person’s narrow social value - the function the person could provide to help society get out of the crisis - has not even been discussed. Dr. White advocated for an integration many different criteria instead of single criterion of social values, the number of lives saved, or the number of years saved…

The most provoking part of this seminar for me is during questions and discussions. The example used is a shortage of respirators. People with pulmonary failures do have personal respirators at home. As a matter of fact, those patients often have two: main and back-up. These patients also have poor prognosis. The question is would we cease those respirators to treat those affected by the epidemic with better prognosis. I would say the collection of the back-up respirator is reasonable. Yes, there is an intrusion of personal rights but I think this violation is minimal if those respirators could keep many alive. The collection of the main respirator, however, would be utterly unacceptable. The oath to do no harm would be completely violated. When we are robbing life from the weak even with the intentions to help many others, we are taking away what is worth more than a live. We are taking away our humanity. That would be too great of a loss.

The Book

My To-Do list is getting quite extensive. Top three would have to be:

     1.  Advance medical techniques/technology
     2.  Be invited to talk at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)
     3.  Author a book…

At the moment, let’s focus on number three.

“You are a baby, what are you going to write about?”
At 24yrs old, I am hardly a baby and I know exactly what I am going to write about. Dating.

Dating is mostly fun but at times, frustrating, puzzling, and even strange. I plan to assemble a collection of short stories about my encounters. These stories will be told from two different perspectives, mine and theirs. First, I write my version and then I get the boys to write theirs. A comparison of where these stories meet and diverge is the rub.

The biggest challenge of this project? Coercing the boys into writing their side of the story. Somehow, I don’t think “hello ex-lover, could you please write about what went on between us and how you felt? And please make sure that the analysis is enlightening, honest, and entertaining,” would provide the best results. The approach must be delicate hence this blog.

A part of this blog will document the process of assembling the book and the stories that will undoubtedly arise.

Another part will be video shorts, products of the randomness of my mind. The remaining portion will be thoughts on the topics that moved me during the day.