Grounded

I think that a big reason why the movie "Gravity" was so compelling to me was that it used a very simple concept to induce a wide variety of intense emotions - being grounded.  The fear of letting go and drifting away.  The loss of control.  The fear of being alone.

What a universal concept to play on to evoke intense emotion.

A brief reflection after a year in Columbus

It feels great to be a young professional on a solid start to a rewarding career.  It was a year ago that I moved to Columbus to start work at AEP.  This shortly after a whirlwind period of job searching, dealing with death in my near family, living as a broke illegal student in academic limbo in Canada, a melancholy breakup with Logan that still makes me sad to think about, and more riveting tales of chaos and loneliness.  Stability and independence are my two primary objectives during these first couple years in Columbus; with a lot of emotional and financial baggage I've carried with me to this lovely city, I can't afford to have a false sense of security about things just because I happen to be one of the lucky ones in our generation with a nice job and stable income for now.  There's still a lot of adventure in store, though, and I can't wait to grow more grounded and at home in this beautiful city.

True or False

The United States of America is divided.  Nowadays, it seems more like two separate societies - "The United States" and then "Amerrrrrrrica."  Why?  How did this happen?

For how complex and interconnected our world is, somehow our political environment has managed to decompose everything into two diametrically opposed sides - the left and the right.  Working in concert with an electoral system that places significant hindrance upon political parties who fall outside the left/right establishment, the result has become a world that is, by most measure, growing more complex while our means for collective problem solving continues to consist of bullshit questions like "Is Obama-care wrong?  Yes, No, or Undecided."  If you're not able to give a response that resembles one of those first two choices, then it's simply presumed that you must be "undecided" or just not yet informed of the issues.

Over time, the news has widdled away from a solid source of facts and critical analysis into an ugly looking glass of pundits trying to yell and scream over each other for ratings.  News has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of the conservative narrative versus the "liberal" one.  Misinformation turns into mis-action, which then becomes fresh fodder for the next news cycle.

The United States of America has managed to take a robust feedback cycle between citizens and their government, free-market-capitalize the shit out of it, and turn us into a country who has sold its soul for the sake of shock and awe in the next story.

Do you love America?

• Yes
• No
• Undecided / I don't know.

A pilot run

Dear Internet (and the cute hipster boy with the NSA credentials listening out there),

A dramatic artist's rendering of me.

Well, hello again.  It's been quite a while.  And while part of me was stuck in an outdated medium in the midst of an mini-identity crisis, I have returned into this new being.  I guess you could say, the LiveJournal was the cocoon, and this is the butterfly.

A link to the past - buddha17.livejournal.com

Stay tuned for more ramblings.  I'll try to categorize them - kinda...

About me

This is me.

I like to think of my life as a meandering quest to deliver the fruits of my imagination, given the constraints of reality, and given the lessons of my past.

I am an engineer for an electric power provider in Columbus. I hope to contribute to the field of energy research - e.g. alternative energy, energy distribution, energy conversion, etc. I hope to pursue a career based not only in science and engineering research, but one that transcends into management, politics, and education.

I grew up in the Appalachian town of Steubenville, Ohio. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a minor in business from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. I then studied for my master's degree in electrical engineering at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Now, life has brought me full circle back to the state I love, by way of Columbus.


Discovery and learning excite me. I love meeting weird new people, learning new things, and experiencing new activities. The most valuable moments of my life are those during which I learn something new.