carmina burana

well la jolla symphonic chorus was a little more mature than i had thought. there aren't many students there, even though i was told that there were more students in the chorus than in the symphony itself. well. not exactly affecting me in any way. and i kept my place in first sop, which is also nice. met section leader, took measurements for gown, got scores from librarian, streched, warm-ups, all felt right. like the choir life i was used to. it's a good choir. for the first time in many many months, i heard an overtone, during warm-ups in unison. that took me by pleasant surprise. singing carmina burana was very exciting, much more than listening to it on cd. as usual. another song that the choir was singing, the rio grande, was so damn hard, with chromatics and all everywhere. looks like i've got to work a great deal this quarter.

what about dreams?

caught 20 mins of save the last dance on tv before going for dinner on sunday. was when the guy asked the girl if she really wanted juilliard. she nodded. and the guy said well, you're the only who's gonna make it happen. and the guy himself wanted to become a doctor. how cliche.

which reminds me of another thing. another friend of mine used to say, america is such that here if you want anything badly and you work for it, normally you can get it. sounds cliche too.

but i was strangely, or maybe ridiculously inspired by what was going on in the film and what my friend said. behind my practical self, i've always had dreams. i've always wanted something. i want to be someone important, and make something big and useful happen. in science, that sounds like corresponding to some huge invention or a grand theory. yeah, i meant those. but it just upsets me when such dreams seem out of place and it seems fashionable to just want to earn enough money to live happily.

should i just stop those silly dreams and get back to the ground and work for a living?

hmmm. i didn't say exactly what i meant, but roughly it's there. and i can't think of a way to phrase it.

extras to canyon trip

all along we drove in the desert areas of utah and arizona, with scattered indian settlements. the barren land, scarced vegetation, and little cottages of the indian families appeared again and again like dejavus. once in a while, we would see small shops or just little stalls at the road side, selling hand-made indian handicrafts and jewellery. what's been sold was always those things-- dream catchers, charmes with cavepainting figures and everything made of turquoise. such are a set of symbols that represent the indian culture that we have come to know. the commercialised alias of that millenia old civilisation. at times i felt really miserable about such generalization of a civilisation so grand and diverse into merely a few symbols, for the indian people, and maybe for my own as well. sigh. (and i mean, SIGH). maybe my mom was right. only someone of one enduring people can understand those from another.

for one strech of the trip i was listening to the soundtrack of hero. and figured that it was really right for the sight outside of the car window. so..

耳边
犹太人的提琴，
沉吟着中式的悲欣。

眼前
印第安没落的文明，
放逐在帝国贫瘠的边境。

心中
古老民族的声音，
沧桑地共鸣，
　
我竟颤抖得
不能自禁。

yes i went to grand canyon

the spring break was but one week, not even enough to rest properly. well, in stead of resting, the long planned spring trip was finally realised. it wasn't exactly the best time to go to the canyons, because of the low temperature and all that precipitation. all that precipitation, namely, rain, hail, snow. we really saw all of them because of the diverse micro-climates in the canyons. the weather and hence the lighting wasn't exactly fantastic for taking pictures, and that's why all the pictures turned out like crap and i became indulged in editting canyon photos into surrealistic pictures with sinister barren trees.

grand canyon was so much of a disappointment, because of the colour. i went there with the impression that grand canyon is all orange and brown, and was totally sad to discover that the the rocks appeared a greenish grayish brown. well, it's been rainy recently, and guess the plants were exhilarated to grow to their fullest potential. not that i didn't want the plants to grow. well i just wanted to see the canyon that i remembered in the picture. i shouldn't have brought anything with me when i go visit something, i know, but well, i can't help it. only during sunset i saw that glorious kind of colour, but was all but too short. apart from that, grand canyon was fine. the mystical view in the morning with fog and streaks of clouds weaving in between the canyons was quite a sight. and of course it is really grand. it was hard to describe the awe that i felt when i looked down on the endless piece of land carved by the forces of nature bigger than anything i have seen. for the grandness alone, the grand canyon is worth visiting.

bryce was a different story. when we drove up the winding roads towards bryce, we already started to see strange land forms and interesting pillars of rocks. (oh, and driving on those freeways was hell...) shortly before reaching bryce, we went past red canyon, with firery red colour rocks and arches across the freeway. and those sure delighted me who was in the search for colours. and it had been snowing. so many parts we went past were covered in thin layer of snow. without us realising it, it snowed through the night, and when we woke up in the morning and looked out from our wooden cottage kind of hotel, everything was white and beautiful. (use your imagination.)

so the snow in the canyon was knee deep, and we had a whole lot of fun rolling down slopes(small ones of course) and stuff. bryce has very nice slopes, some with more exquisite structures, far less boring than the mere wavy lines in grand canyon. and sure the snow helped.

zion. zion is different from both other canyons. it was much warmer when we reached zion, and there wasn't as much snow in zion. instead, it felt more like spring in zion, rainy, crisp air, plants. the virgin river was running with the vibrance of early spring, and many little water falls sing their way down the straight walls of rock. songbirds in conversations. i guess i liked zion for its liveliness. so much life, so much movement in there, even in just early spring. we walked one of the scenic routes at the bottom of the canyon, and enjoyed our encounter with the fressness of this shaded paradise.

sorry for writing this entry that sounds like a big bore to myself. but well, it's like post-trip assignment that we were all used to writing isn't it? hehe.

canyon fantasy

talking about stereotypes

i was thinking about stereotypes. and remembered this scene in sex and the city. carrie went to SF for a book reading session, and the audience was all in T-shirts and bermudas. maybe it was the director's intention to show that it's the casual california, as opposed to the trendy ny. well, i don't really think the whole of california looks so beachy. but if you wanna show that it actually happens in SF, maybe just let half of the audience be chinese. think that'll be obvious enough.

Ha!

几间东倒西歪屋，一个南腔北调人

从小就听说过浙江的徐文长，大多数是“聪明的徐文长”之类的故事，说他如何机智过人戏弄权霸等。其处世之潇洒闻名浙东，以至当地人说某事不要紧，即“此事徐文长弄一弄就行了”。最近才渐渐发觉徐渭实为书画大家，且一生坎坷，潦倒而终，与脑中一贯的印象大有出入。唉，所谓天妒贤才是也。
听他晚年感慨自己“几间东倒西歪屋，一个南腔北调人”。总觉得待我老了也就是这么个境地。甚是没趣。

and excitement!!!

i didn't know that Fred Gage, the guy who realiesed that neurons renew themselves is in ucsd. neither did i realise that the guy who found hox in organism other than drosophila was McGinnis here in ucsd. wow. i've read about such things in the past and well never occurred to me that they were real pple living around me. esp. in such vicinity. i can't describe my excitement. so i'm not doing it.

OVER

many things were over today. for example, my month long driving learning experience finally ended with the test passed. well. wasn't the best of results but i finally got my license. phew~

and requiem was staged. i knew the sop soloist from the chamber music concert last quarter. pretty much the same impression this time i heard her. very clear rounded tone, with very even vibrato. bright. colorful. very beautiful. i don't like her 'e' vowels, sounding a little too close to "i" maybe in an effort to focus. and her pitch wasn't very stable at the higher range, but was much better in the actual performance. and her phrasing was way too choppy for my liking. well, overall she has a very adorable voice, (and looks like an adorable personality too. unlike some other sops i've seen in this school.) think she was indeed very much more suitable than me for the part. well. i've nothing to say.

my vibrato is not healthy. sigh. i want to take voice lessons but i don't think i should. it'll cost me a nuclear bomb. but my voice is going down the drain, not to say that it was ever very good, but certainly was better. when i was conscious of what my voice box was doing and now i don't seem to have much control over my voice. sigh.