The streets of Bordeaux

Wet streets soak my shoes but sparkle
underneath the hanging lamps,
the golden globes that glitter white and bright and joy
and hang next to messages lit up between
buildings of stone which glow too,
reflecting thousands of little lights, so proud
next to the trees encased in green
halfway up the trunk so they look like glowing
broccoli stalks floating in
the air is crisp and cold
and mittens and scarves and waterproof hats and
it's beginning to feel a little bit festive
a little bit like Christmas
a little bit like
soon.

I am not wise

How do you think of such eloquent, thoughtful ways to write about your travels? How do your sort so masterfully through your experiences to find so much knowledge and understanding? Why, when I think that I could be doing the same thing, do I feel like such a tourist, even when I am doing what I think I've wanted all along?

You are so far ahead and I am so behind.

August 25, 2009

I have never felt further from home than when I was looking down at the green and tan fields, under the cool very early morning glow. Europe.

Curiouser and curiouser

Everyone knows that I love, love, love the Chinese “pop” concerto Liang Shan Bo he Zhu Ying Tai, otherwise known as Butterfly Lovers. It’s a twenty-six minute monster (okay, so maybe not a monster—but the longest song I have on my iPod) and I enjoy every bit of it. And everyone knows I play the guzheng, a stringed Chinese instrument, so of course I tried to play Liang Zhu on that… the arrangement I got didn’t quite have the same majesty, so I eventually let that slide off.

Liang Zhu is by two composers called He Zhanhao and Chen Gang.

About two years later, I came across another song for the guzheng, Mo Li Fen Fang (Fragrance of the Jasmine). I immediately took a liking to it, and am now trying to use it as my solo. It’s great.

Last week, I found out who composed it.

Yeah, He Zhanhao and Chen Gang.

There’s another song I really like on the guzheng, as a solo. I finally got the sheets from my friend and am going to start it as soon as I can (this F key might be a bit tough, I gotta say). It’s a deep piece that feels like a journey, called Kong Que Dong Nan Fei (Southeast Fly the Peacocks).

Today I found out that it is composed by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang.

Citation is needed, as Wikipedia would say, but let me bask in my wonderment for the moment.

WHAT.

September 18, 2009
Correction: I found out a while ago, but Southeast Fly the Peacocks is not by the same composers. Too bad.

Slow down

I turned nineteen just over three months ago, and I feel that my life has moved so far ahead of me that I may not be able to catch up, even if I sprint.

Smarmy

What I really hate is how the only acceptable way for girls and guys to dance now in informal occasions (such as school dances and clubs) is the back-to-front grinding thing. Its only redeeming trait is that I can now look completely bored and make weird facial expressions while "dancing" and Mr. Faceless will never even notice or care.

Bent cardboard and missing pieces

I can't fix this.

Epic

When writing formal essays, refrain as much as possible from using the word "epic," unless it is used as a noun to describe a literary work, of the Beowulf kind.

Elephant herds

I can't enjoy funny animal cartoons anymore. What I mean is, every time I try to enjoy these things, all I can think about are their inaccuracies to real life animals.

What I mean is, today we were watching The Jungle Book in our room, and when it got to the part with those military elephants, I kept thinking: elephants herds are generally only made of females, they are lead by a matriarch, most males are solitary, this is wrong.

This happens all the time now.

Third Row Guy

Every morning when I'm in my microeconomics class I look for this guy who always sits in the third row. He usually arrives when I do or maybe a little later and he always walks in with a completely dispassionate and disinterested face. He's very tall, with almost feathery brown hair, and I think I always notice him because, if you squint really hard, he looks sort of like this guy I used to have a crush on. He wears very plain clothes (white t-shirt) as if to say, "Yes, I'm only awake for this class, and it's really no problem, but I'd rather not spend any more effort than I have to."

Today I saw him in a button down shirt and I wonder if he has a girlfriend. I think he probably does, and probably when class is over he gets loud, his faces breaks into an expression other than stoic, and he laughs to his friends about how goddamned boring his econ class is (or maybe he doesn't talk about it at all). And this is why I will stay exactly where I am, several rows behind, making up stories and dreaming my class away.

恭喜發財!

That would be gong hay fat choy up there, or, as the Mando people say it, gong xi fa cai.

Happy Lunar New Year! I know this post is a little bit late, seeing as the majority of initial celebration happens of the eve of this day, and it's rather late now anyway. But did you know that, traditionally, the Lunar New Year is celebrated for fifteen straight days? (In China, anyway. I can't testify for other countries.) It's my favorite holiday, a definite time for family, red envelopes, sugary snacks, tea, firecrackers, and incense. And you know what? This is the first year of my life where I will get none of that, being alone in wholly non-Lunar-New-Year-celebrating community. Not only am I not with my family, but I can't even enjoy festivals on my own.

It is pretty disappointing, to say the least.

However, I will try to remember our (our: my family, not our: larger Chinese community since ancient times) traditions, and I will remember the story I read in Fruits Basket about how the rat hitched a ride on the ox's back while traveling to the zodiac banquet.

Yeah Year of the Ox!

It's not over 'til it's over

I have never had a gaming console in my home until my older cousin unloaded his PlayStation 1 at our house around when PlayStation 3 first came out, so I never really got into gaming. What I want to say is (and nothing else), I don't have the habit or the muscle memory of button combinations--and only until recently did not associate A with go and B with cancel.

What I really mean to say is--my confidence in my gaming skills is not nonexistent, but just barely so. So I like to get ahead of the game and inform others before I even touch the controller that I suck, I don't know what I'm doing, please don't be too surprised when I die within a minute/the first level.

Nine years ago (has it been that long?) my family went to Canada for the holidays, where we stayed with an old friend of my father. He had a son, one year older than me, who was of course incredibly well-traveled in the world of console gaming. Us kids were instructed to play together, which basically meant that he played while my brother and I watched. Eventually he managed to convince me to play a solo game of Super Smash Bros. Melee. It didn't look too hard. So I managed to Princess Peach my way (on what I'm sure was the easiest difficulty) to Final Destination, and then I completely wussed out. There was no way I was going to try and lose, and I knew I was going to lose, so I wasn't going to try. I walked off the stage, determined to make this humiliating experience end as soon as possible and move on with my non-gaming life.

"What are you doing?" he asked me incredulously as he watched Princess Peach commit suicide a second time.

"I'm walking off the stage," I said, embarrassed. "This is too hard. I'm going to lose anyway."

"Why would you do that? You're not even going to try?"

"I'm going to lose! If you want, you can fight him," I said, holding out the controller.

"No, that's stupid. You're playing. Just... just fight him! He's not that hard."

"Fine," I say angrily. "But I'm going to lose. I mean, I already lost two lives anyway."

I won.

I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to say as whatever winning animation was supposed to play played on the screen. I didn't know whether to be embarrassed that I revealed myself to be so low on confidence, embarrassed because I was wrong and he was right, happy because I won, or angry that I could have had a more complete victory had I not dropped two lives down the drain.

It would be cliché of me to say that the lesson I learned was to not give up prematurely (or ever), to try, to believe in yourself, but that is exactly what I learn that day, when Super Smash Bros. slapped me in the face and proved me wrong. There is no after story to this. I didn't become some sort of gaming master or anything. I don't even remember who the boss was (I just looked it up on Wikipedia--Master Hand?).

It's just that, sometimes, when I think I will fail, when I am so sure I am going to lose, I remember this scene in my head, and know that sometimes I can win anyway, even if I have already lost two lives. And then, sometimes, I win.