Chicago

I'm back! Man, Chicago is hella fun. plus it was hella cheap since we were cordially hosted by our sweet and generous friends-cum-tour guides. so yeah, good company + one great city + minimal expenses = fun! but connecting two flights from Chicago to Providence, the distance people normally travel on one flight, is not fun lah. but what can I say? We did enjoy ourselves cooking mind-blowing Thai delicacy, joking around the whole time we were awake (that's meant to be taken literally), and basically dragging our tired legs around the Windy City, which fortunately happened to be not so windy. Six days had flown into thin air before we knew it. And here I am, back in Providence, reminiscing and recalling what was left of my memories in Chicago.

I have so much to say about Chicago although I obviously don't know the city well enough to make a judgment at all (wow what an american-style self-conscious disclaimer-type thing to say). On the one hand, it is remarkably different from New England, the american living experience I have grown accustomed to and that thereby became my point of reference. On the other, it's almost impossible for me to single out where this "difference" stems from. Of course, I heard strands of accents, tried local specialties (the Deep Dish pizza), and most importantly, gave myself a little incomplete tour of this American home of modernist architecture. But there are so many things that I think still are elusive to me about trying to get a hold of this city's sensibilities. Maybe it's in the way the people dress? the choice of eateries & supermarkets? etc etc. so, quick&dirty conclusion? Every city has its own mind. and, for better or worse, I don't have to try to sum up, categorize, or make sense of everything that is obviously peculiar to itself.

It's now 5:00AM although my phone still blinks 4:00AM. I plan to write more on this in my next entry which will be hopefully devoted to things I did and saw in Chicago. And, as a manner of ritual, I like to leave this entry with a picture I took on the John Hancock tower. pretty sweet, isn't it.

Jhumpa Lahiri to come to Brown.

As I drag myself through the weak Providence rain at 8PM tonight, I was stopped mid-step in front of the Bookstore window. Gleaming through the glass is the big board announcing the bestselling author and Pulitzer-winner Jhumpa Lahiri's reading at Brown on April 6th. She will be reading her new novel Unaccustomed Earth. Although I have not finished Interpreter of Maladies, which I started months ago during my UK tour (a few pages left) nor have I read The Namesake, whose film version I already saw and found slightly disappointing as a film, I'm nonetheless really looking forward to hearing her speak on that Friday after spring break. The already huge MacMillan auditorium will undoubtedly be packed, so interested fans are advised to show up early to save their spots. I know a couple of friends and I will. I might in fact consider buying a copy (is it out yet?) and devour it over my spring break in Chicago. After I've finished Interpreter of Maladies, that is. Should be a quick yet quality read.

Having world-renowned authors over on campus is certainly one of the perks Brown has to offer. Who else would be lucky enough to shake Bill Clinton's hand, only a year later to be disturbed by several vocal, almost belligerent hecklers at Hillary Clinton's speech, or wait in line for Obama's speech (but decided to give up later due to some personal matters - Ok I was dying to pee and eat.) not to mention countless other rare opportunities. The expectation I had before I embarked on The Interpreter of Maladies was a high one. And the result in fact lived up to it - on a whole different level yet. While I was expecting a collection of lyrical essays laden with heavy allegorical language and a complex poetic touch a la Arundhati Roy, I was pleasantly surprised to meet with remarkably lucid prose, honest plots, and well-crafted characters who can speak for real-life South Asian immigrants in America. The pace of each of these short story is so slow and natural that the reader was fooled into believing it would end just as naturally as it started. You'll never know how you can be taken aback by something as simple, and natural, as death, truth, and lie.


[edit: Unaccustomed Earth will be released on April 1.]

Photoshop at Midnight

is so classy. I think I'm one of the very few people of the twenty-first century who didn't learn how to use such a useful graphic program as Photoshop until he grew old. Here is what I managed to cook up within the past three minutes. Voici le chef-d'oeuvre.

* * *

Ack!

Ah.

I decided to change the template. As if it isn't already very obvious to you, I need to be more active (in blogging in general and in designing in particular) and attentive to the design detail considering that I will become a designer of some sorts in the future (hah!) and paying meticulous attention to his/her immediate milieu should come naturally to every designer. Yes, I kid myself a lot.

Nooo... I kid you not. Just like painters who ponder what color expresses what corresponding emotion, some clothes designer and contemporary architects in fact do a lot of research on material, pattern, and method, trying to formulate a perfect recipe that best articulates their ideas. Okay this might sound ridiculous to some, but to sound like the fattest snob ever, I think these people's brains must be all used up, worn down, and wrinkled because they never stop thinking about shit. (However, as one of my friends once put it, outside of the art world who in this world takes art seriously anyway? Whatever...)

Take as an example the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland, which I had the honor to pay a visit to this past winter break. Designed by Eric Miralles, the architecture of this new parliament building has won numerous awards for its creativity, originality, and its genuine and successful attempt at representing and articulating Scottishness through the design and material.

Aerial View at night

Aerial View from the Top
(on the right across from the Parliament is a Scottish palace, which you can't see in this picture)

A l'interieur

So what did I mean when I was talking about the exterior design and the articulation of the underlying idea? Basically, the building incorporates and reflects the ideas of earth, land, and the Scottish indigenity. When I read the Statement, I was suddenly reminded of a Sanskrit word Bhumi, which to me doesn't mean just land in its bare physical sense but transcends to the national ties the people have to their homeland. Personally, I'm not too sure if I feel anything at all (admiration, disapproval, etc) towards the building, but I sincerely respect the architect's choice and more importantly I appreciate the fact that the steel-and-glass dogma of contemporary architecture is employed to speak for something deeper than the clichéd "simplicity."

I visited the Scottish Parliament as part of my visit to Scotland (which is in turn part of my trip to the UK). The Parliament in fact also function as a museum displaying, well, itself to the visitors. There is an exhibition on the history of the project on the first floor with tons of brochures with many different languages.I took some of the most beautiful pictures in Scotland, only to lose them all later due to some technical difficulty on my friend's laptop (hah!). But despite all this, a good time was had. I love Glasgow and Edinburgh and would certainly love to go back if a second chance comes around.

On an unrelated note, to pick up on my last post on my pathetic insomniac self that I left off at last time. Dear good god, this occasional friend of mine Insomnia for some reason has changed his mind to prolong his stay. With me. But his pattern is different this time around, mind you. Instead of keeping me perfectly awake from 3AM to 10AM, he now plays a game of deception. tsk.tsk.tsk. He lets me sleep - or at least me think I am sleepy - at around 3AM and three hours later smacks me right in my head. Results? Me fully awake again at around 6AM like no man's business. Ridiculous.

Ok, I vow to pimp my blog once inspiration comes around. Man this is just so bad to live simply on other people's inspiration.

Early Risers

Here I am, 9 o'clock on a sunny Wednesday morning sitting in front of a computer in, well, the library. I in fact have been up since around 5:30 after hitting the bed at 3:30. So yes I'm basically on running a grand total of two hours of sleep. I don't know how and why.

I ate some cereal and a PB&J sandwich. made some tea (with two equal sachets). And here I am typing to you from the cozy sanctuary of the library. My first class is at 10:30. Since I'm starting today in a quite special manner, I'll make sure the day will also be run in style. I'll spend this one and a half hours fixing my Greek architecture paper. Then perhaps some more caffeine (in the form of either black tea or coffee, duh) at Starbucks at the corner of Thayer and Watermann. and then walk a short distance to Metcalf auditorium where my European history class is at. Then I'll sit way in front so as not to let my lack of sleep eat away my attention.

I'm so happy I don't know why. :)

I feel

DISGUSTING
.
.
.

why, you ask? it's now 6:30AM after the DST took one whole hour off of my life. As if being an insomniac on the DST night was not bad enough, I just ate some ramen (with minced port and two eggs) and wolfed down an entire pint of B&J ice cream.

And i have a paper due by midnight. Joy.

A random nocturnal rambling from an insomniac

Yes, the title sums up best my current state of mind. What am I still doing at 6AM friday night/saturday morning? God knows. Maybe that six-hour nap was a little too effective. (yes, six whole hours, which is now starting to take its toll on me.) okay, this is really important. I need to restore my faith in writing, not that i totally lost mine to begin with. But I've seen it starting to scatter. Words are beautiful, but the ability to actually write them down is much more beautiful. I want to be done with minimalist postmodernist cryptic writing SO BAD. I need to stop letting one word/sentence/phrase or two to sum up what I think and how I feel. It might look cool and edgy to drop a line here and there, but what good is a line when much more needs articulating? Verbosity can sometimes be ugly, but one should not encode so much in a sentence. Never should the verbal economy come at the price of meaningful retrospection.

What I now am

craving: spicy&sour food
working: greek sculpture exam
feeling: mildly calm, jittery, bored

Content

There's so much about my Brown education i'm grateful for. I asked myself this a few years back when I first got to Brown: what will I be like upon graduation? what will I have learned? who will I be? Today it's getting progressively clearer. I cannot say if I am a smarter person seeing that I keep making dumber and dumber choices (everything done repeatedly is not called a mistake). But I am a proud architect of my own education.

Senioritis is striking me harder and harder as graduation is brimming on my horizons. I'm feeling my ability to focus has been dwindling, and my time management skills are beyond repairs. But I think there's not much I can do when the only thing I have yet to do is graduate. I nonetheless take great pains to remain in control. I know I will miss this. Much as I am a flaky student who shies away from delving into anything, I will miss going to class, taking notes, studying for art history midterms, memorizing slides and the like. I know I will regret what i should have could have done here and there. This is the last stretch of a hell of a ride. And I'm doing it.

One of the graduation requirements of Brown University and probably the weirdest, the most abstract and the least structured, is the lofty "writing requirement":

"Since its founding, Brown has stressed the importance of writing. Competence in reading and writing is required for all degrees. Beyond competence, Brown seeks to develop the quality of writing in courses throughout the University.

All students at Brown are expected to pursue a high level of performance in their writing. Students who, in the opinion of their instructors, fail to maintain an appropriate level of competence in writing, are referred to an agent of the Dean of the College to develop a plan for bettering their writing. This can include placement in a designated writing course. If students do not complete such a course satisfactorily or are subsequently judged by the Dean to be incompetent in writing, they will be refused registration by the Committee on Academic Standing until they meet the responsibilities for the completion of the writing requirement."

Today I can say without modesty that I can write and know how to write. Much more than a student with a global awareness or an informed student of art history, I am a writer who has the preconditions of becoming a better writer. My first art history paper of my last semester was nicely done. The writing fellow said that the authorial voice in my archeology paper came forth so strongly. My professor said my personal statement was flowing and coherent. If anything, this is what my BA has culminated in.

Classic awesomeness

Oui.