Midsummer night's dream

At the moment, i'm going through my Gmail labels and deleting, one by one, all the folders i nicely designated for each ibank i was in the interview process with last year. Some of them were old and particularly active (e.g Deutsche Bank, Bain, Citi) while others were plain empty, meaning i was intending to apply but decided against it (e.g. HSBC, Societe Generale, ABN-Amro). This time last year, I was freshly finished with the Duke language program in Beijing, fluent in conversational Mandarin, 5 kg fatter, and was about to kick start my last year at Brown. On top buying new books, shopping classes and decorating my new personal space (2nd flr Andrews Hall), i made it a point to make time for prepping for the forthcoming finance interviews. i was following business/econ news closely (and make no mistake, i honestly enjoyed doing it - one of the few good habits i've had since high school years). i logged on to their websites every night. in fact i was this close to bringing myself to cramming accounting ratios and endless finance formulae. i ordered a tailor-made business suit and firmly decided that i would wear the babyblue dress shirt to the interviews instead of the white one (Express Men, 2 for $55) because i thought it enhanced the overall tone of my navy blue suit and my dark blue silk tie. and the modest scent of Euphoria by Calvin Klein.

i like it how things always have a funny way of working out and how the hand of Fate is ever so fickle. this is the only kind of moment when the spiritual side of me begins to think about the possible existence of the higher power, who i shall for now call NoAccident, not God. (there's no accident, according to Freud).

here i am, one year goes by quick. i'm now looking at class schedules of my master's program next year and getting pretty excited about the next 12 months. Term1 looks okay (although what's devilishly wrong with the schedule planner who deems it appropriate to squeeze in a seven-hour block on Tuesdays?!?!!?!?!). Term2 is the most obnoxious (there's this Urban Design studio period that runs from 2PM to 6PM on top of other stuff). Term3 is the "calm before storm" recovery period, cos i only have classes (projects) on Tuesdays. that said, 10Am - 6PM. WHAT. Term4 is the ultimate nightmare of my educational life, period. Zero classes, but i need to produce a 10,000 word "dissertation in planning" (excluding tables, graphic presentation, and design component) that is worthy of a Master's Degree. TA DAH! VOMIT CAN I?! If the Bartlett's exchange program works out, I hope to spend Term4 writing this masterpiece either in Cambridge, MA or Berkeley, CA. This is my set short-term plan, i think. The preamble of the life of a young adult. always mildly confused but decidedly transcontinental.

As if joblessness is not enough

Hi Napong,

I was delighted to hear from Myra Liwanag that you inquired about a Brown Club of Thailand.

Up to this point, the alumni community there has been somewhat informal.  If it were to become more formal, though, there are some interesting tools that Alumni Relations could provide to make the operation of an alumni club easier.  Last year, I met with Celia Sophonpanich ’83, and told her about some of these tools, but I think she has enough to do with BASC and is hoping for someone else to take up the idea of having a more formalized alumni club in Thailand.  With 68 alumni, a couple of events a year could be really nice!

If you would like to start something up, I would encourage you to let me know and we can get started on doing so.

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Jennifer

OMG what do i know as a fresh graduate and the youngest alumni class?! What about those 68 alums who are not only older, wiser, and also - uh - employed? not to mention tons of non-Thai Brown alums who live/work/travel in Thailand. why does the i'm looking forward to hearing from you sound particularly threatening this afternoon? 

It's been a while since i last posted

because i've been busy wrapping things up. last night i had more beer than the whole semester combined. 8 bottles. not a lot, i know. but as a person who used to (prior to the summer in China) hate beer (the smell, the taste, the whole existence) to pieces that's pretty...ground-breaking. result? busting out a blog entry at 7:30 AM.

More later.

Last chance to flaunt

I can't believe that I would be saying this, but now my undergrad career is almost done. For the past three days I have turned in three papers. And now I'm going to study for my last final exam of my university life, early 19th century art.

I still remember this same feeling that occurred to me my senior spring in high school. I don't recall the subject I was studying for anymore, but i vividly remember telling myself this. i think it's because the sheer end of something is more symbolically powerful than that something itself. but i just hope that one day in the future - maybe the last day of my grad school - i'll still recall this very day when I just sat down and prepared for this exam. just for the hell of it, perhaps.

I don't know how to feel about graduating. Of course, as with anything in my life, i want to move on and try new things. but these past four years has certainly been a hell of a ride. people ask me if i'm 'excited.' my only, and pretentious, reaction would be like why would you feel excited about something you have planned out since the beginning, something you know is sure to happen?

Of course i am sad, wishing i had a few more months so i would have done something differently. but because i am me, i know by the end of these imaginary extra months, i would still wish i could prolong it further. so i guess the best word that captures my feeling and action is stunned. i'm stunned at the swift passage of time, at how much i have learned and changed, and at the person I now am and the person that I've come to love.

I didn't realise until recently that college is more about how we learnings than the things we learn. and i'm glad that although now i'm not where i've wanted to be yet, at least i think now i know how to get be to where i want to be. it's all about will power.

Back to where i started. tonight and tomorrow will be my absolute last chance to flaunt as a liberal arts student. although i've lost all my ability to focus, i'll just try my best and pull this together one last time. because i know i will regret this. next month and maybe forever, i won't get to run around carrying this 19th-century art reader. yes i'm a pretty superficial and self-absorbed poser. but it gives me joy.

I'm typing to you from the Rockefeller Library at 1AM thursday night/friday morning. I'm working on a research paper for my project seminar on water and architecture. and mind you, when i say i'm "working on" a paper or anything for that matter, odds are i haven't started it. oh lordy, i just wish this paper could write itself and somehow culminate in a literary finesse worthy of the department's prize at the end of the term. ok, i'll shut up.

seriously though, the more i'm reading about it, the more amazed i am at singapore's urban design and water management. how in the whole wide world could a city, 700 km.sq., with almost no natural resources be so self-sustaining economically, physically, ecologically, and etc. well, they're more than self-sustaining. they're pretty prosperous.

ok, a little note-to-self so i'm aware that i have so much shit to take care of.

what needs to be done (by due dates)

• 12-15 pages on water and urban design in singapore (the progress of which is zero.)
• European history take-home (mad loooong and not started. plus i didn't go to any of the lectures after spring break.)
• 10 pages on "architectural sculpture of ancient greece and rome" What? (needs major editing. i'm an art history major not classics!)
  
• Final: 19th-century european painting (the prof has yet to post the exam study-guide.)

Ok, back to singapore.

Un beau jour

Ah.. today is so insanely beautiful and warm (my dashboard reads 72 degrees baby) i want to nestle my face in the grass on the main green and breathe in the freshness of spring soil. but i can only wish because I have this book review to write. in fact, I have yet to read the book. 222 pages, vomit please. I'm hoping as hell that I'll finish it tonight. Yes. Right.

Today is the last day of the week-long Ivy Film Festival, which is claimed by the organisers to be the world's largest student film festival. As with the previous years, I have attended some of the screenings (3 days so far) in earnest. This year seems like a Sundance parade. Starting with "The Linguists", a film documentary about two linguists who globe-trotted to India, Siberia, and Bolivia (?) in pursuit of dying languages. Very beautifully and genuinely rendered, the film doesn't lose any of the essence of a documentary, yet doesn't bore the viewer with techy details.

On Wednesday, I went to see "Son of Rambo", a retro story of two kids growing up and cinematographically coming of age. The story revolves around the kids' film-making project, but there are a few other stories smoothly running in parallel. It was refreshing, funny, and purely pleasurable. Something that reminds an aspiring film student of why film always gives him joy and why he wants to make film in the first place.


Last night, I saw the pre-release screening of "Adventures of Power", which was followed by Q&A with writer/director/actor Ari Gold. After 15 minutes, I expected Napoleon Dynamite (which many hyped it up to be). 45 minutes later, I was disappointed. It was witty and funny at first and waxed cheesy and, may I, nonsensical after a while. Below is the blurb I took from the Ivy Film website:

ADVENTURES OF POWER is the epic tale of a rock-n-roll loving mine-worker named Power whose love of the beat--and lack of the drums--has made him the ridiculed “air drummer” of his small town. But after his union-leader father calls a strike at the mine, Power discovers an underground subculture of air-drummers who just might hold the key to changing the world.

The post-screening Q&A is however pretty informative and entertaining. What I noticed about Ari Gold the director is that he fulfilled at least to me the stereotype of the directory of an independent film, awkward, weirdly funny, and spontaneous. He talked about how his film was accepted and declined on various occasions. Filmmaking might be hard, but marketing it is way harder man.

Jhumpa Lahiri

The ugliness of the last entry's lay-out is beyond words and I know this but it's just difficult to put together text and images on a clean slate especially when the ambitious soul in you wants to justify each respective image to either side magazine-style. anyways, something needs to be worked on.

So Jhumpa Lahiri was here last week and warmly greeted with a chock-full MacMillan Auditorium. Although not uncommon I was in fact surprised to see so many people from Providence community in attendance. Much to my greater surprise and disappointment, however, is that a few minutes before the talk began the event coordinator announced that "photography is not allowed both during the reading and the book-signing." I was disappointed because I had been intent on taking a few close-up shots of her in particular and the enthusiastic ambiance in general. And I was surprised because why, in such a safe environment that is Brown and in such a non-political event, photography was prohibited with such rigor.

The logistical stiffness was carried over to the air of her speech. As a common practice of a reading, she spent most of the time reading a long excerpt from her latest book Unaccustomed Earth, which tells of a story of an immigrant Indian family and Indian diaspora. Needless to say, it was powerful and convincingly woven together. That is perhaps what I like most about this author of "ethnic literature"; instead of romanticizing and breezing through the all too familiar themes of alienation, acculturation, and emerging identity, Lahiri approaches this array of meta-issues from a specific angle, so her take is new and refreshing, and her observation sharp-eyed and personal.

Then again, that is the nature of her authorial voice and I highly admire her for that. But what surprised me was the 15-minute Q&A and the stiffness she brought to answering each of the Q's. Although I know that a lot of authors are impersonal, nonchalant if not non-social, the lack of facial expressions on her part surprised and in fact slightly bothered me. This might say something about the popular hope and expectation of a public figure; since we are familiar with bubbly TV stars, celebrities, singers and such, we expect, and often judge, all other noted personalities to be along the same lines, which is obviously unfair for them. But a little smile or a perfunctory hi is probably not too much to ask.

That said, I was immensely impressed and inspired (and my book was signed!). She corrected my perception of short story. She loves writing short stories because so much has to be put in in so little space and it is this intensity that exhilarates her. I think she delivers this intensity because it is well felt in her seemingly aloof stories. Similarly, no hierarchy, she thinks, should be established to separate novels and short stories in terms of prestige. This summer, I hope I'll be able to finish all her three books and I'll probably understand and appreciate the art of short story a little bit more.

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.]