In June 2007, I launched my first blog, mostly as a response to people expressing curiosity about an endeavor I was soon to undertake: moving overseas for a teaching job. A second and a third blog followed -- one as I navigated across oceans for a different teaching job and the other as I sailed into a career that landed me in myriad countries. Although ostensibly attempts to corral technology for the purpose of sharing updates to loved ones in all corners of the world, these blogs quickly became a form of therapy, a way to take stock of what was going on in my life in the present and preserve those mental moments for the future.
The last time I posted a blog entry, in September 2020, I recapped events from July to December 2019, a period in which I relished reacquainting myself with the United States after living abroad for more than a decade. That post was a serious counseling session with myself, as it represented an acceptance of my new reality. Yes, we all were in the middle of a pandemic, but I saw a new life path on my horizon. I was coming to terms with the fact that my current situation was not to be my long-term future, as it was no longer a proper match for my professional and personal fulfillment. Certainly, I'm not the only person who has made such COVID-caused life changes lately.
And so, here it is, my fourth (but I won't say final) blog, to mark yet another transition in my life. But instead of setting off on a whirlwind worldwide tour, I am settling down for a journey of self-discovery. This adventure involves a new relationship, a new community, a new career (again), a new sense of purpose. As I have done with my previous blogs, I will record outings of already-ingrained passions (read: travel and beer), detail experiences with new or rekindled interests (read: bocce and hiking), and muse about the wonders and challenges I see around me.
Another trope of my blogs is that I steal post titles from somewhere. I have gone from Bible verses to Spanish aphorisms to governmental statutes. And now, I move to library database references. Academic authority, particularly in the hard sciences, has taken a hit of late. I believe it is helpful to remember what all the rigor of research has given us. So each blog title will be an excerpt from free, full content on JSTOR, which provides online access to a vast collection of scholarly works (journal articles, book chapters, bibliographies, etc.). A full citation of the reference, including a link, will be included at the end of each blog post. Hopefully, someone will be intrigued to read the whole article, but if not, at least it's a reminder of the breadth of information that is available to us. And that we have boundless knowledge to evolve, much like how states of matter can change.
The states of matter are a basic concept; we learn them in elementary school. And yet, it is an advanced field of study that is still being added to today. In the early 20th century, a fourth state of matter -- plasma -- was added to the earlier three -- solid, liquid, gas. Irving Langmuir, the 1932 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, introduced the term plasma in 1923. In the 1950s, David Bohm and David Pines built on Langmuir's work for quantum-mechanics purposes, leading to advancements in computer chips, solar technology, and cancer treatment. Their foundational research regarding plasmons has contributed recently to developments in COVID-19 testing.
I meant for the title of this blog to reflect me metaphorically. Even the most carefully defined entities can suddenly change when certain forces are exerted upon it -- but also return to a previous phase under the right conditions. I'm no quantum physicist, I know, but maybe all of us could learn a few lessons from the changing states of matter.
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Louie, Kam. “AUSTRALIAN LOVERS: CHINGCHONG CHINAMAN, CHINESE IDENTITY AND HYBRID CONFUSION.” Double Vision: Asian Accounts of Australia, edited by Alison Broinowski, ANU Press, Canberra, 2011, pp. 61–78. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hdrb.7. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021.
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