June 23, 2008

• Corneal Scarring 3: No 3D

  Our school holds an orientation for incoming freshmen every year, and
  yesterday I participated in the Major Fair, an event where new students have the
  opportunity to talk to faculty about majors they are interested in pursuing. I was there with a Chinese colleague, a late 20-something, single, and attractive--I am particularly vulnerable to Chinese and Vietnamese women. We had our share of students interested in studying Japanese or Chinese, but as you can imagine, the numbers do not come close to those interested in the "popular" fields such as, say, psychology or political science. Go figure.

  Anyway, when there were no students asking us questions, we had an opportunity to chat and get to know each other better--just because we're in the same department, doesn't mean we hang out. She is a native of Taiwan and claims her English is not very good, although I would beg to differ. Her English is quite good. But she told me that it can be quite awkward at times when she is the only one in an English speaking setting that doesn't get the joke. Man, can I relate with that.

  Previously on onigiriman

  "My brain would take into account any and all sensory information,
  then adjust my 2-D world into a 3-D one. The only time it would fail
  me, I deduced through my own--albeit unscientific--observations, was
  when I didn't have enough information, like when there were no shadows
  to measure. Or when I had headphones on and could not hear other
  sounds.

  Or when I watched 3D movies?"

  Back in 1973, I went to see Andy Warhol's Frankenstein in 3D with Aileen, Diddly and his girlfriend. It was relatively amusing to watch a tree pass by right in front of your face, and body parts jump of the screen. Well, amusing enough for a 17 year-old. But 16 years later, I went to Disneyland in LA and went on the ride, Michael Jackson's Captain Eo. This too was in 3D. I didn't really notice much in terms of the 3D effects, but the ride jostled me up and down, left and right, and the lack of 3D didn't seem to matter. It was fun anyway. But another ten years later, and it became all to obvious that I was being left out.

  I went with my daughter to Tokyo Disneyland and watched "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience". This particular attraction had its share of physical special effects--tails whipping our ankles when rats escaped sent K sqealing with delight, and the mist spraying on us when the dog sneezed was grossly amusing... or was that amusingly gross? But all the 3D effects on screen just did not happen for me. When glass shatters and shards flew toward the audience, everyone around me screamed and ducked, but all I could do was lean over and ask my daughter:

  "Did something happen?"

  Seriously, do you know how sad that is? I was like my Chinese colleague, the only person in the room who did not get the joke. Perhaps I had been fooling myself all along. I mean, I had come to terms with my lack of depth perception, but the adjustments in the brain more than made up for the visual acuity I needed to function in everyday life. I felt that I was able to enjoy anything and everything life had to offer. I was wrong. But, hey!--and maybe I'm just trying to rationalize my situation--3D is not the end all of life. It just seemed like it would be a little more fun.

  Unfortunately, it turned out that my vision affected more than my enjoyment of 3D effects. So I had an operation.

  Cont'd next and final post

  • 4:25 PM
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