i'm so sick of metablic pathways. !!! i don't want to have anything to do with biochem in the future. damn it.

honestly i think i've wasted paul price's biochem class. he's such good lecturer and puts so much effort into teaching and stuff. now guilt stings me as i screw up the exams just because i'm repelled by biochem. man. why do i have to take it! genetics is much better. maybe there something in the bio logic that i just don't get. i've never gotten it during A-levels (Oh heck the A's i got) and i'm still not getting it. i'm just so damn puzzled why chem and phy seems so understandable and common sensical to me but bio is still just a puddle of muddy water... aren't they all sciences? don't they work by the same logic?

and i also realised that my will to suppress the reluctance to do certain things has dropped dramatically. i procrastinate without feeling much. i am not particularly afraid. just leave it screwed. just leave it! how terrifying.

Books to read

I need to make a list of books i am going to read.
the master (less than half way through. if only i didn't have to study.)
Line of beauty...(i'll borrow it someday)
the astonishing hypothesis
quest for consciousness. (i've been reading it forever. always get lost.)
odessy (recommended by a lab colleague in summer)
oedipus (sounds like a fine tragedy)
and i still have my da vinci code that i think i'll put off for a while...
my reading habits have gone from bad to worse. over the entire summer i started 4 books but only finished 2 and a quarter of them. damn me.

Beautiful morning. and spring is gone

it's a beautiful morning in the early summer, the sunshine so pretty that my heart aches. thinking me have let the precious spring time and half of the summer slip away through the phenyl rings and plasmids like a joyful string of notes, i feel a little pity for myself. others tell us, and as we grew up we tell ourselves, that we let a few springs go so that we can enjoy the other springs even better when we become older and more successful, but think, the precious spring of our lives are slipping away unnoticed just as silently. i'm not sure if i were ready to let it go, but nevertheless it's going.

modernism

both pieces that la jolla symphony played for the concert are very
modern. one commissioned for this seasonal finale, by a professor in
ucsd called Steiger. another one is Schwantner's Concerto for
Percussion & Orchestra, originally commissioned for new york
philharmonic. the perc solo this time is an award winning young artist
called Mathias Reumert, who is studying perc in ucsd. it is such a joy
to watch a percussionist's performance, especially when it is staged
with a theatrical flavour like that in the Schwantner piece. i think
both pieces are brilliant.

i'm just wondering, why is it that i have not heard many choral works
that sound completely modern? most choral music composed in recent
times sound no less coherent and "sane" than those produced before
modernity arose. for example, eric whitacre, copland, robert shaw. but the progressiveness in orchestral and other instrumental works are just going like crazy. the
choral pieces that copland arranges sound so vastly different from his
orchestral works. those choral pieces that show a sign of modernity,
for example some of chen yi's work and others', often omit the words,
or substitute them with nonsensical sounds. could it be that words
themselves demand a certain degree of coherence, and therefore
obstruct the complete deconstruction of music? the idea conveyed in
words has by itself a unity to its meaning, and therefore does not
facilitate the formation of multiple and conflicting narratives? in
other words, post-modernity in music cannot be as easily executed in
choral music, or songs, as in orchestral music. (or is it that singers
simply cannot stand extreme atonality or dissonance? that sounds lame.)

Exhaustion

why is it so hard to keep my interests while trying to be who i want to
be? it is not very easy to stand through a 4-hour rehearsal screaming
like mad right into 11pm in some lousy concert hall that aids hardly
anything in the acoustics. the conductor keep repeating passages. the
flute in front of me gurgling with air. the sop solo singing a note
wrongly repeatedly. the baritone is out of tempo. with the all the decent
lines taken by solo and coro piccolo and even the guys, i was left with nothing but boredom.
nevertheless have to stand there, holding that bloody heavy folder and looking involved in the music that has nothing much to do with me
after a day of classes and lab, i was so exhausted, still visualising
every minute spent in the hall pulls me a little away from the A in
biochem. damn.

HEAVEN AND HELL

Heaven is ...

Where the police are British,
The cooks are Italian,
The mechanics are German,
The lovers are French and
It's all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is ...

Where the police are German,
The cooks are British,
The Mechanics are French,
The lovers are Swiss and
It's all organized by the Italians.

some idiot on amazon.com gave hero soundtrack 3 stars, complaining that it is "not involving" and having only 1 or 2 "beautiful tracks", and that it "doesn't live up to crouching tiger". i mean, hello, subtlty.. subtlty.. that movie is not supposed to be beautiful. it's a fricking tragedy. involving. he might as well go and listen to star wars soundtrack or sth.

Mail Signature

heck. i should've known better than to tag my blog address to email signature. the stupid MAIL screwed up and the signature appeared miraculously on the mass-mailer i sent out. after i erased it and changed outgoing mail server. even though i consider my blog very much open to the public, that was just stupid. well, if anyone followed the link in the email and reached here, that wasn't intentional ok?

found this on friend's blog. quite funny
踢球

carmina burana

so today we met the sop solo. lovely voice. even though she look like such a typical sop. well, you get what i mean. very nice crystal-clear tone with a lot of colours. her long note in Amor volat undique was SO beautiful...i'm pretty sure though that she sang a note in In trutina wrongly. strange. another thing, her Dulcissime was so beautifully sung, but when she came back from all the screaming the perc and string came in on a slightly different key. then again the strings suck so much they might have just been wrong. :p

compared to the sop solo, the baritone solo sounded huge and fierce but hollow and weak. he couldn't even penetrate the orchestra. and he was out of tempo, too self-indulging i guess.

kids' chorus is cute.

looking forward to the concert.

新浪读书的热词推荐。国内精神空虚现状可见一斑


小
说 青春　言情　历史　玄幻　
　　　都市　官场　影视　名家
热
词 美女　女大学生　爆笑　
　　　同居　激情　情人　网络　
　　　校园　魔幻　恐怖　侦探　
　　　推理　原创　名家　
　　　悬念　社会　爱情
生
活
时
尚 旅游　美容保健　饮食　
热
词 内衣　瑜珈 理财 高跟鞋　
　　　笑话　减肥　美体　整容　
　　　家居　服饰　时尚　小资　
　　　健康　户外　星座　探险
两
性
热
词 性　外遇　性丑闻　性感　
　　男性　女性　怀孕　避孕

财
经
职
场 管理　营销　理财　投资　
热
词 MBA　广告　经济　市场　
　　　求职　面试　职业规范　
　　　职业生涯　职业设计　
　　　职场政治　女秘书　秘书　
　　　白领　精英

时
政 国内　国外
热
词 时政　商战　军事

励
志
热
词 自我完善　自我调节　
　　　心理素质　成功　修养


教育
热
词 考试　高考　留学　英语　
　　　考研　素质教育　性教育　
　　　教子　哈佛　哈佛女孩　
　　　女生　北大　校花
娱
乐
影
视 影视　明星
热
词 名人　人体艺术　情色　
　　　色情　武侠　音乐　综艺　
　　　动漫　舞蹈　绘画　戏剧　
　　　周杰伦　范冰冰　主持人


人
物
热
词 写真　商业精英　伟人　
　　　作家　体育　学者　偶像　　　
　　　专家　单身女性
人
文
历
史
热
词 学术　文化　人类　国学　
　　　哲学　探索　地理　随笔　
　　　北京　成都　河南人　
　　　上海男人　乡土

think things are becoming clear to me. i like the problems in bio, but not studying bio. that's why i like working in the labs but not the lectures. that's why i've decided to take the minimum number of bio courses i have to take and take as many math/physics/computing courses i can during free time. luckily my major requirement is really not that much. thank goodness.

zt

红拂从杨素府逃出来，机会成本非常高。如果红拂不走，她还将继续是杨素的宠姬，将是杨府歌姬中的领舞人，大把美女在觊觎这两个位置。而李靖，不过是个白相人，拿着一篇《论流体力学在御林军政治思想教育中的运用》的科研论文，想发表在隋帝国的核心刊物上，来找杨素拉关系。那时，每天都有人找杨素走后门、递条子、攀交情，这些人漂在长安，简称“长漂”；这一天，同样请求杨素帮助审阅、发表的论文就有512篇，杨素听秘书一篇一篇题目地读，红拂在旁边都快睡着了。不过，在她睡着之前，轮到了李靖，一个年轻英俊的男孩，而且，有点忧郁质。红拂的眼睛锃锃地亮了。

　　那时，站在杨素身后的美女都是二进制的，有256个，可是只有红拂一个人看上这个灰头灰脑的小子，其他女孩还在杨素的树荫下睡大觉呢。有人又开始杜撰说红拂会看相，看他以后必定位极人臣。这又是扯谈。王小波早告诉大家了，李靖只是一个盲流。但红拂就是好色之人，她就是喜欢英俊的小伙子，这有什么错。要是想要荣华富贵，跟着杨素老头不就得了？杨素没有看上那篇流体力学，李靖灰着脸回家了，更忧郁了。

　　半夜，有人来敲客栈的门了。李靖开门一看，居然是一个20岁的美貌小姑娘。这个小姑娘张口就说：我来私奔啦！

　　红拂告诉李靖三句话。第一句：杨素是个活死人，别指望他；第二句：你要造反；第三句：李渊有戏，跟他跑。还有一句是，达令，带我走吧。唉，遇到一个胸怀大志、深谋远虑、心思缜密、多情又美丽的小美人，还是乖乖听话吧，保准能成为卫国公。不是李靖成就了红拂，而是红拂成就了李靖。

　　红拂另一个大手笔是，拒绝了虬髯客的求爱。其实，如果她不拒绝，她已经成为扶桑国的皇后了，而且，巨有钱。如果她拒绝，搞不好会被身怀异秉的虬髯客打死。但是，红拂转过身，对这个胡子拉碴、满脸横肉的壮汉盈盈一笑，叫了一声：三哥。虬髯客先是骨头都甜酥了，然后就从头顶凉到脚底。这个哥当得真不值。虬髯客倒不把李靖放在眼里，只当两个手指按下去，就把这个身无三两肉的小臭虫啪的一下捏死了，可是，红拂只爱拜伦那样的忧郁小生，哪里看得上虬髯客呀。她拒绝虬髯客的惟一方法是：对虬髯客比对李靖更好，每天不停地“三哥——”“三哥——”地叫，让虬髯客羞愧而逃。喏，唐僧的罗嗦就是得自红拂的真传，唐僧罗嗦得让人自杀，而红拂则罗嗦得让虬髯客把整座江山拱手送给情敌，跑回扶桑打草鞋。

　　史称风尘三侠。

红拂：只爱忧郁小生

红颜：女人千年的荣耀与哀伤 侯虹斌

ZT

皇帝作为一个工作岗位，其实是很不适宜世袭制的。只有极少的皇帝具有管理一国公务的专业水准。有些皇帝，如果不干这行，那么，就是一个杰出的专业人士。比如北齐后主高纬，就是一个优秀的副食品商人，很像七八十年代的劳模“一抓准”，一把瓜子要二两一钱就绝不会只给二两，准头极好。梁武帝是一个了不起的佛学家，口吐莲花宣讲佛经，能滔滔不绝昼夜颠倒地讲七八天；宋徽宗是中国漫漫五千年最出色的画家之一，花卉禽鸟独步天下，还豢养了一大批杰出的画家；李煜更是中国文学史上顶尖的词人，跨过了一千年，他作的花间小调还在众多小姑娘那里琅琅上口，诵之泪流满面，至今被视为忧郁王子⋯⋯我们向癖好致敬，可惜上述这些国宝级艺术家或行家，基本都是政治白痴，搞得国破家亡。

ZT

脏唐乱汉，偏偏冒出来李显这样一个懦弱的皇帝。李显夹在权欲滔天的武则天、韦后、太平公主、上官婉儿、安乐公主之间，被百般戏弄。而她们，全都是他的母亲、妻子、姐妹、情人、女儿，李显的存在简直是男人的一个耻辱。对他来说，活着真是一场恶梦啊。韦后和安乐公主伙同情夫把李显毒死，这个恶梦也结束了。世上最亲最爱的人亲手送他上路。活该，愚蠢和软弱本是人犯下最大的错误，何况一国之君？

　　身为女性法西斯，安乐公主的贪婪无情与疯狂，基本上已不是出于利益的计算，而是豺狼当道了。韦后和安乐公主最后被太平公主和李隆基杀死，我想，临死那一幕一定巨煽情吧？年方二十五，貌美如花的安乐公主捂着胸口的血缓缓地说：“是你们，是你们把我逼得欲壑难填、无情无义的——”然后，挣扎着倒下。

　　命苦不能怨政府，变态不能怪社会啊。

安乐公主：变态不能怪社会

ZT

唐代官吏狎妓，甚至制度化。官吏到职交接班，交割各种档案物资都不足为奇，而且还会交割妓女：前任由于带不走所宠妓女恋恋不舍，引为憾事；后任欣然接受，还感叹没有接收到更好的。

　　白居易是唐代官员中狎妓最有名的。他蓄养很多妓女，从杭州带着妓女回洛阳，又把人家遣送回去，有来有往，不当一回事。还和元稹交换妓女，相互狎玩，让人发腻。

　　为人与为文是不必等同的。看白居易悲天悯人，一副救苦救难大慈大悲的样子，还写下了《上阳宫》、《琵琶行》同情女子的诗，谁晓得走出了诗歌，他也不过是无行文人。你可以去泡妞，也可以让我们背你的《卖炭翁》，但你不能让我们一边背着你的《卖炭翁》一边目送你泡妞吧？

樊素与小蛮：目送无良诗人泡妞
红颜：女人千年的荣耀与哀伤 侯虹斌

ZT

潘必正带着目的，制定好计划，一步一步地来，显然聪明得多。开始是借口谈诗论文，接着奕棋品茗，很快就熟稔了起来。好歹妙常也是佛门中人，好人家女儿，得有足够的智慧才能偷心。关键时刻，怎么可以没有听琴呢？潘必正弹《雉朝飞》挑之，妙常一听就知心意，强作镇定，答之以《广寒游》。——听琴实为听情，与《琴挑》、《西厢记》、《绣襦记》、《倩女离魂》同出一辙，文君相如听琴模式的理性品格是精神先于肉欲，最终以肉欲来完成的灵肉和谐。

---侯虹斌 《红颜》 陈妙常：三角恋也有美满结局

zt

　平阳公主惊人的早慧，体现在她对政治与爱情之间的抗衡有着敏锐的观察和清楚的认知。台湾小说家陈骏青在小说《平阳公主与卫青》中虚拟了一段她与母亲王娡的对话：“娘！我只问您一件事，您是愿意当大汉皇后，还是当父皇的宠妃呢？”

　　这不单纯是一个鱼与熊掌能否兼得的问题，也不仅仅是权力和爱情的选择题。其实放在任何年代都一样：要么就投身到轰轰烈烈大悲大喜的理想追求中去，要么就干脆选择平庸的幸福。选择A有选择A的痛快，选择B有选择B的舒服，只要一头扎下去，求仁得仁何所怨？只怕两边都做不彻底，又要当婊子又要立牌坊，这就不好了。平阳公主比她的母亲王夫人、汉武帝的皇后陈阿娇、卫子夫都要聪明的是，她不贪心。

---侯虹斌 《红颜》 平阳公主：迷失自己等于爱上寂寞

戏说红颜

红颜

龙应台说：（zt）

我在北美博客上看到这个帖子，楼主形容此文为“一篇雄文”，极妥。龙应台毕竟是一根硬笔杆子，好久没看她的东西了，再读还是一样犀利透彻。刊于《中国青年报》，有点意思。


你可能不知道的台湾
――观连宋访大陆有感
2005年05月25日 05:00:00
龙应台

　 编者按：近日，中国国民党主席和台湾亲民党主席分别率团访问大陆。可以肯定，以此为新的契机，海峡两岸人民之间的经济文化交流，将会进一步扩大和深化。交流和了解，相辅相成。两岸隔绝了近60年，台湾人民需要详尽、真切地了解大陆，大陆人民也同样需要这样去了解台湾。为此，我们特约台湾籍作家龙应台撰写专文介绍，供读者参考。

　 《红灯记》在台北

　 2001年大陆的报纸出现这样一则新闻：

　 去瞧瞧《红灯记》里的共产党如何比钢铁还要硬！

　 几经波折，不具国共斗争意识形态的革命样板戏《红灯记》，终于跨越台海，2月8日在国父纪念馆舞台点燃红灯。这出称为“样板中的样板”的现代京剧，有让台湾戏迷仔细体会样板神髓的机会。革命样板戏《红灯记》来台演出过程，不但通关审议一波三折，连剧本到底要不要稍作更改，也是考虑再三。中国京剧院原来已决定更改剧中出现“中国共产党”的文字，当演员们都已经练好了新台词时，院长吴江，又在演出前一天表示，基于多数台湾剧场界人士的建议，还是决定一字不改，原汁原味地呈现样板戏《红灯记》的精髓。

　 在这样的报道后面隐藏着什么样的现实？

　 台湾的政治愈来愈开放，但是开放到连宣传共产党“伟大”的革命样板戏都进来了，还真是令人惊诧；这是两岸关系史上一个不得了的里程碑，不能不去亲看一眼。

　 看戏之前，刚好遇见最高教育主管曾志朗。所有大陆团体来台演出，都得经过教育部长的批准。曾志朗听说我当晚要去看《红灯记》，很高兴地说，“好看啊。不过他们对台湾不太了解，为了‘体贴’我们，把台词都改了，‘共产党’改成‘革命党’三个字，说是不要‘刺激’我们；我就批示，根本不需要，共产党就共产党嘛。什么时代了。”

　 当天晚上，我邀了三个八十岁的长辈一起去看戏：在大陆当过国民党宪兵连长的父亲，浙江淳安县绸缎庄出身的母亲，还有方伯伯，他在十七岁那年跟着蒋介石从奉化溪口走出来，千山万水相随，做了一辈子“老总统”的贴身侍卫。

　 国父纪念馆有三千个座位，不是特别有号召力的表演，一般不敢订这个场地，因为不容易坐满。去之前，我还想，是不是经纪人不懂台湾政治现状？那是“去中国化”在台湾的政治角力中甚嚣尘上的时候。身为台北市文化决策者的我，如果致词时引用了司马迁或韩非子，会被批为“统派”，意思是对台湾“不忠诚”。为国学大师钱穆和林语堂修葺故居时，我被怒骂质问，“钱林两人都是中国人，不是台湾人，不可以用台湾人的钱去修中国人的房子！”在这样的气氛里，来这样一出样板戏？会有几个人来看？

　 红色的地毯，被水晶灯照亮了。人们纷纷入场。时间一到，所有的门被关上。我回头看，三千个位子，全部坐满，一个空位都没有。这是首演。

　 灯暗下，革命样板戏《红灯记》在台北正式演出。

　 没有手机响，也没人交头接耳。台北人很文明、很安静地看京剧演员如何在钢琴的伴奏下旋身甩袖，如何用眼睛的黑白分明表现英雄气概和儿女情长，如何用唱腔歌颂共产党的伟大和个人的牺牲。

　 我偷偷用眼角看身边三个老人家，觉得很奇怪：父亲特别入戏，悲惨时老泪纵横，不断用手帕擦眼角；日本坏蛋鸠山被袭时，他忘情地拍手欢呼。方伯伯一脸凝重，神情黯然。母亲，不鼓掌，不喝彩，环抱双手在胸前，一脸怒容，从头到尾，一言不发。

　 演出结束，掌声响起，很长的掌声，很温暖，很礼貌，然后人群安静地纷纷散去。我们坐在第一排，看着人群从面前流过，七嘴八舌地评戏。一个头特别大的老人家大声说，“告诉你，李登辉就是鸠山！”旁边的人哄然大笑。大头老人家看起来如此面熟，有人在一旁耳语：“他就是专门演毛泽东的名演员。”我赶快看他，果然，多年来在电视上演“万恶的共匪”，就是他，觉得面熟，原来长得像毛主席！一群年轻人走过，谈论着“舞美设计”和“京剧动作”如何如何，就像看完法国的《茶花女》或是英国的《李尔王》一样。

　 父亲好像得到了戏剧的升华，很高兴地说，“日本鬼子太坏了！这个戏演得好！”日本才是敌人，这戏里的英雄好汉是共产党，他浑然不觉得有任何不妥。

　 母亲在一旁坐着，本来就冷淡，一听父亲的热烈“剧评”，真的生气了，冲着他说，“我不知道台湾政府是干什么的，让这种戏也来演是什么意思。它歌颂的是共产党你晓不晓得？共产党杀了我们多少家人你晓不晓得？我是不会忘记的，我哥哥是被他们三反五反杀害的！”

　 然后她带点埋怨地瞅着我，“不晓得你带我来看的是这种戏？”

　 方伯伯看起来心事重重，在我坚持之下，才慢慢地说，“前尘往事，尽涌心头啊⋯⋯1975年，老总统遗体的瞻仰仪式就在这个大厅举行的，二十六年来，我第一次再踏进这个大厅，却是看这《红灯记》⋯⋯他的遗体，就放在台上，李玉和唱‘为革命同献出忠心赤胆，天下事难不倒共产党员’的地方⋯⋯”他说不下去了。

　 小溪潺潺得来不易

　 《红灯记》演出的同时，也是我正接待高行健来台北访问的时候。刚刚得了诺贝尔奖，在国际的追逐战中，他重然诺地首先来了台北，因为我在他得奖的半年前就邀请了他来台北作驻市作家。

　 第一个华人诺贝尔文学奖得主的到来，我担心两种反应：一种是，用民族主义的激情来拥抱他，爱他是“中国人”；第二种是，用政治的意识形态来排斥他，骂他是“中国人”。在这两种反应中，文学本身的价值都会被淹没不见。

　 其后所发生的，出乎我的预料：人们欢迎他，为他觉得荣耀，但是从北到南的讲座中，从“独派”到“统派”的媒体里，很少出现民族主义的激越语言，也很少剑拔弩张的政治解读。人们只是欢喜地聆听他的演讲，热烈地讨论他的作品，同时，因为他所有的作品都在台湾首发，引以为荣。

　 看《红灯记》的平静，接待高行健的自然，发生在同时，使我深深觉察到台湾的质变。

　 不，我们并不一直都是这样的。

　 我们经过五六十年代的肃杀。仓皇渡海的国民党是一个对自己完全失去信心的统治者，对自己没有信心的统治者往往只能以强权治国。风吹草动，“匪谍”无所不在，左派的信仰者固然被整肃，不是信仰者也在杯弓蛇影中被诬陷、被监禁、被枪毙、被剥夺公民人权。“戒严”令在1950年颁布，当初决定跟着国民党撤退到海岛的许多知识精英，作梦也没料到，他们会在“戒严”令下生活三十七年之久。在日本统治下期待回归祖国的台湾人，作梦也没想到，从殖民解脱之后得到的并不是自由和尊严，而是另一种形式的高压统治。

　 好几代人，就在一种统治者所精密编织的价值结构里成长。相信“党”的正确，因此我们不习惯政治见解的分歧。相信国家的崇高，因此我们不允许任何人对“国家”这个概念有不同的认知。相信民族的神圣，因此我们不原谅任何对民族的不敬。相信道德的纯粹和理想的必要，因此我们不容忍任何道德的混沌以及理想的堕落。而共产党，就是这一切我们所相信的东西的反面；它是“邪恶”的、“恐怖”的、“腐败”的、“欺骗”的、“罪不可赦”的。

　 我们所有的叙述都是大叙述：长城伟大，黄河壮丽，国家崇高，民族神圣，领袖英明，知识分子要以苍生祸福为念，匹夫要为国家兴亡负责，个人要为团体牺牲奋斗，现在要为未来委曲求全。

　 大叙述的真实涵意其实是，把我们所有的相信“绝对”化，而价值观一旦“绝对”化，便不允许分歧和偏离。任何分歧和偏离，不仅只被我们认为是不正确的，而且是不道德的。不正确还可以被原谅、被怜悯、被改正，但是对于不道德，我们是愤怒的，义愤填膺的，可以排斥、唾弃，甚至赞成国家以暴力处置，还觉得自己纯洁正义或悲壮。

　 《野火集》在今年要出二十周年纪念版，因此有重读的机会。物换星移，展读旧卷，赫然发现，“野火”里没有一个字一个句，不是在为“个人”呐喊：

　 法制、国家、社会、学校、家庭、荣誉、传统──每一个堂皇的名字后面都是一个极其庞大而权威性极强的规范与制度，严肃地要求个人去接受、遵循。

　 可是，法制、社会、荣誉、传统──之所以存在，难道不是为了那个微不足道但是会流血、会哭泣、会跌倒的“人”吗？

　 同时，没有一个字一个句不是在把责任，从国家和集体的肩膀上卸下来，放在“个人”的肩膀上：

　 不要以为你是大学教授，所以做研究比较重要；不要以为你是杀猪的，所以没有人会听你的话；也不要以为你是个学生，不够资格管社会的事。你今天不生气，不站出来说话，明天你──还有我、还有你我的下一代，就要成为沉默的牺牲者、受害人。

　 同时，没有一个字一个句不是在伟人铜像林立的国度里，试图推翻“大叙述”，建立“小叙述”：

　 如果有了一笔钱，学校会先考虑在校门口铸个伟人铜像，不会为孩子造厕所。究竟是见不得人的厕所重要呢？还是光洁体面的铜像重要？你告诉我。《野火》书出，1985年的台湾为之燃烧，二十一天之内经过二十四次印刷。我像一个不小心打开闸门的人，目睹一股巨流倾泻直下，冲出高筑的大坝，奔向辽阔原野。滚滚洪水一旦离开大坝的围堵，奔向辽阔，首先分岔出万千支流，然后喧嚣奔腾变成小溪潺潺，或者静水流深。

　 《野火》之后，很多人反抗过努力过，游击队似的“党外”演变成正式的反对党，而反对党又惊天动地地蜕变为执政党；《野火》之前，更多人反抗过努力过，从日据时代抵制殖民的赖和、杨逵，到后来拒绝屈服强权的雷震、殷海光、柏杨、李敖、陈映真。是在二十年后的今天，对台湾人的反抗和努力我有了新的体会：就为了打破价值的绝对化，就为了把大叙述打碎，让小叙述出现，看起来这么“小”的目标，我们花了好几代人的光阴。

　 是因为不再相信价值的绝对，是因为无数各自分歧的小叙述取代了统一口径的大叙述，台湾人平和了，他可以自然地接待高行健而不夸张过度，可以平静地欣赏《红灯记》的舞美、唱腔、身段而不激烈。可是他其实并没有忘记过去的日子。

　 如果你问我这一个台湾人，我们用六十年的时间学到了什么，我会说，我们学到：万千支流，小溪潺潺，得来不易。

　 叙述的多版本

　 那天晚上，有三千人去看《红灯记》，也有很多人基于政治的立场，是不愿去、不屑去的。去看了戏的人，有的只在乎戏剧的纯粹美学表现，有的人，譬如我父亲，被民族情感感动得涕泗滂沱。有的人，譬如我母亲，国共内战所撕开的伤口在六十年后都还淌着血。有的人，譬如方伯伯，心里烙着忠奸分明的意识，根本无法接受政治的翻天覆地、时代的黑白颠倒。

　 每个人都有自己版本的小叙述，和其他人不同，但是每个人都知道一个游戏规则：他必须容忍别人的叙述，如果他希望自己的叙述被容忍。

　 最高教育主管在公文上请演员保留原有的戏剧台词，然后签了字。

　 连战访问大陆，人们在桃园机场打了一架。之所以会闹出流血冲突，一方面固然是民意代表无所不用其极地寻找方式出名──政客们早就学到，制造冲突往往是出名的快捷方式。另一方面，台湾人分歧的小叙述在这种关键时刻被凸显出来：民主的时间还很短，很多伤口和痛楚，还没有愈合；很多纠缠的道理，彼此还说不清楚。

　 对于有些人，历史的切身认知是，日本人对台湾的统治比国民党的统治还要文明些。日本总督再怎么霸道，毕竟还受母体社会日本的法治所规范，而当时的日本是一个已经经过明治维新洗礼的现代化国家，溃散到台湾的国民党却正处在一个历史的低谷──从戊戌变法、辛亥革命、军阀割据、五四学潮、抗日战争、国共内战，中国人连坐下来绑紧自己草鞋的机会都还没有。被日本人统治了五十年的台湾人所第一眼看到的“祖国人”，是一个颇为不堪的形象。由于历史的隔阂又对“祖国人”的不堪没有什么历史的理解，没有理解，就没有同情或包容。

　 紧接而来的高压统治，更令所有对“祖国”的期待破灭；1947年的“2·28”流血事件，有些人解释为单纯的“官逼民反”，处处发生，这些台湾人，从自己的幻灭和痛苦经验出发，却宁可认为，这是“中国人”对“台湾人”的压迫。把国民党的问题解释为“中国人”的问题，再将中国人和共产党对等起来，很容易得出一个结论：中国人代表不文明，前现代，野蛮。

　 对于另一些人，日本人的侵略造成千万中国人的家破人亡，是刻骨铭心的集体国族记忆，仇深似海。中国再怎么落后都是自己的国家。国共两党再怎么敌对，都不能和中日间未解的宿仇相比。

　 有一些人，深爱中华传统和文化，写书法，读诗词，研究老庄哲学，但是拒绝与中国这个国家组织认同。

　 另一些人，讨厌中国这个国家组织，因此也想将中华文化一并摒除，拒绝说北京话，拒绝到大陆旅游。

　 有一些人，怀抱极强的民族认同，盼望中国强大，至于用什么方式强大，以什么代价来获得强大，都不在乎。在“大中国”的想像里，台湾只是一个历史的小小脚注。

　 另一些人，根本不把民族或国家看做一个有任何意义的单位。所有关于国家或民族的说词，都是统治者拿来愚民的神话。他惟一在乎的是，哪一种国家组织──殖民也好，托管也好，占领也好，黑人白人日本人，只要可以给他最大的个人自由和公民权利，都是他可以接受的国家管治者，反之就不是。

　 一道长长的光谱，从“深绿”变“浅绿”，从“浅绿”逐渐转“浅蓝”，再化为“深蓝”。“深绿”是那坚持台湾独立大叙述的人，“深蓝”是那拥抱中国统一大叙述的人，在今天的台湾，都是少数；占大多数的，却是中间那一大段不能用颜色来定义，不信任任何“绝对化”的价值观的人。

　 这些台湾人，和世界上任何其他人一样，渴望社会安定，经济稳定，家庭幸福，个人受法律保障。但是因为他曾经经历过殖民和专制统治，所以他对于国家民族等等上纲上线的崇高大叙述往往抱持一种怀疑和窃笑，却极在乎言论和思想的自由，极在乎社会的公平正义以及对弱势的照顾，极在乎国家机器不侵犯他的隐私和人权。

　 这样的台湾人，每天的生活内涵是什么？

　 民主不过是生活方式

　 首先，不管光谱上的哪一边，台湾人从头到尾就不曾觉得自己是中华人民共和国的一部分。受过日本统治的台湾人固然被历史归位为日本国民，1949年渡海到台湾的则是彻底的“民国人”，根深蒂固的自我认识是：中华民国代表正统中国，共产党所建立的国，是一个“名不正、言不顺”的历史“意外”。要到1991年李登辉宣告“动员戡乱时期”终止，台湾算是正式承认了大陆政权是控制大陆的“政治实体”，也就是说，第一次试图把中华人民共和国看做一个“平等”的存在。因为自觉是民国正统，所以台湾人从来不觉得自己要“脱离”中国大陆这个政权，因为他们从来就不曾属于、从来就不曾效忠过那个政权。

　 以军事“大国”姿态来看，“蕞尔小岛”的台湾人这种认知或许是可以被讪笑的，但是若宣称希望了解台湾人，那么台湾人这种深层的历史情感和心理结构，恐怕是任何了解的基础第一课吧。

　 台湾人已经习惯生活在一个民主体制里。民主体制落实在茶米油盐的生活中，是这个意思：

　 他的政府大楼，是开放的，门口没有卫兵检查他的证件。他进出政府大楼，犹如进出一个购物商场。他去办一个手续，申请一个文件，盖几个章，一路上通行无阻。拿了号码就等，不会有人插队。轮到他时，公务员不会给他脸色看或刁难他。办好了事情，他还可以在政府大楼里逛一下书店，喝一杯咖啡。咖啡和点心由智障的青年端来，政府规定每一个机关要聘足某一个比例的身心残障者。坐在中庭喝咖啡时，可能刚好看见市长走过，他可以奔过去，当场要一个签名。

　 如果他在市政府办事等得太久，或者公务员态度不好，四年后，他可能会把选票投给另一个市长候选人。

　 他要出国游玩或进修，是一件极其简单的事，不需要经过政府或机关单位的层层批准，他要出版一本书，没有人要做事先的审查，写作完成后直接进印刷厂，一个月就可以上市。他要找某些信息，网络和书店，图书馆和各级档案室，随他去找。图书馆里的书籍和资料，不需要经过任何特殊关系，都可以借用。政府的每一个单位的年度预算，公开在网上，让他查询。预算中，大至百亿元的工程，小至计算机的台数，都一览无余。如果他坚持，他可以找到民意代表，请民意代表调查某一个机关某一笔钱每一毛钱的流动去向。如果发现钱的使用和预算所列不符合，官员会被处分。

　 他习惯看到官员在离职后三个月内搬离官邸或宿舍，撤去所有的秘书和汽车，取消所有的福利和特支。他习惯看到官员为政策错误而被弹劾或鞠躬下台。他习惯读到报纸言论版对政府的抨击、对领导人的诘问，对违法事件的揭露和追踪。他习惯表达对政治人物的取笑和鄙视。

　 如果他是个大学教师，他习惯于校长和系主任都是教授们选举产生，而不是和“上级长官”有什么特别关系；有特别关系的反而可能落选。他习惯于开会，所有的决策都透过教授会议讨论和辩论而做出。有时候，他甚至厌烦这民主的实践，因为参与公共事务占据太多的时间。

　 他不怕警察，因为有法律保障了他的权利。他敢买房子，因为私有财产受宪法规范。他需要病床，可以不经过贿赂。他发言批评，可以不担心被报复。他的儿女参加考试，落榜了他不怨天尤人，因为他不必怀疑考试的舞弊或不公。捐血或捐钱，他可以捐或不捐，没有人给他配额规定。

　 他按时缴税，税金被拿去救济贫童或孤苦老人，他不反对。他习惯生活在一个财富分配相对平均的社会里；走在街上看不见赤贫的乞丐，也很少看见顶级奢华的轿车。他习惯有很多很多的民间慈善组织，在灾难发生的时候，大批义工出动，大批物资聚集，在政府到来之前，已经在苦痛的现场工作。

　 当然，我绝对可以同时举出一箩筐的例子来证明台湾人“进化”的不完全：他的政客如何操弄民粹，他的政治领袖如何欺骗选民，他的政府官员如何颟顸傲慢，他的民意代表如何粗劣不堪，他的贫富差距如何正在加大中⋯⋯台湾人本来就还在现代化的半路上，走得跌跌撞撞。

　 海峡两岸，哪里是统一和独立的对决？哪里是社会主义和资本主义的相冲？哪里是民族主义和分离主义的矛盾？对大部分的台湾人而言，其实是一个生活方式的选择，极其具体，实实在在，一点不抽象。

　 不仅只是经济而已

　 这个时候，再回头去读连战和宋楚瑜在北京的演讲，两篇文章的深意就如清水中的白石，异常分明。

　 连战是什么？他是芝加哥大学政治学博士，是“西洋政治思想史”、“国际法”和“政治学”的教授。宋楚瑜是什么？他有“国际关系”和“图书信息”的两个硕士学位，又是乔治城大学政治学博士。两个人都有国学的基础，又熟悉西方的政治理论和民主实践，但是在台湾一贯重视教育的环境里，这样的学识精英不计其数，他们不算特殊。而在台湾翻天覆地、竞争激烈的民主实验里，连战被视为厚道有余，能力不足，几近“昏庸”的角色，宋楚瑜则每况愈下，被描述为极为负面的弄权“大内高手”。

　 政治，在民主的机器中，已经是一个无比复杂的计算操作。政治人物的形象包装，利益结盟的输赢估算，选民的结构分析，新闻议题的引爆和“消毒”，消息透露与否以及透露的时机推敲，效果的评估以及损害的控制⋯⋯每一个动作、每一句话、每一个眼光，每一个出现或不出现，每一个“遗憾”或“抗议”，都经过沙盘推演。台湾的民主政治，在华人世界里，可以说已经玩得“炉火纯青”。或者说，玩得过头，技术操作喧宾夺主，深刻的内涵反而被颠覆，使得“大说谎家”容易粉墨上台而理想家出不了头。

　 这两个在台湾玩“输”了的政治人物，放在大陆的政治环境中，品质反而折射出现。两个人都引经据典而不费力，都学通中西而不勉强。面对镜头，都知道如何运用自己的语言，如何传递一种诚恳的眼神和态度。

　 同时，两篇演讲都是细致深思的作品，懂台湾政坛险恶的人，更能体会这两篇文章之不易。

　 连战在北大，就从自由主义谈起。他谈蔡元培“循思想自由的原则，取兼容并包之意”；他谈台湾大学“争自由、为民主、保国家”的校风；他指涉杜威的实用主义，“以渐进、逐步的、改良的方式，来面对所有的社会的、国家的问题”；他提出三民主义和社会主义的分岔，又问，“我们要选择的到底是哪一条路？”

　 他介绍了台湾的经济发展，可是不忘记说，台湾的成就来自于经济发展之后开展出来的“政治民主化的工作”。在祝福大陆的经济成果同时，他紧接着赞美大陆基层的民主选举制度，甚至于具体地提到中国宪法里头对于财产作为基本人权的事实。更明确地，他指出，“整个的政治改革⋯⋯在大陆还有相当的空间来发展。”

　 宋楚瑜的演讲策略，在提出两件事：一是厘清“台湾意识”不等于台独；一是，台湾最重要的成就不在于“富”，而在于“均富”。“蒋经国先生在执政台湾十六年当中，台湾每一个国民所得从482美金增长到5829美金，成长了11倍。但最高的所得的家庭五分之一和最低的五分之一当中的差距维持在4〜5倍以下的水准。”

　 连战会不知道大陆对自由主义的态度吗？他会不清楚目前极其严重的拆迁和土地剥削问题吗？宋楚瑜会不知道在“和平崛起”的后面所隐藏的巨大的贫富不均？

　 显然都明白，而且，都说出来了。这需要勇气，需要智能，也需要承担。连战选择谈自由主义，宋楚瑜选择谈均富，自由民主和均富，恰恰是台湾人最在乎、最重要、最要保护、最不能动摇不能放弃的两个核心价值。

　 如果只谈民族感情和国家富强这样的“大叙述”，而这两个核心“小叙述”不在连宋的演讲稿中，我会觉得，这两人愧对历史。

　 幸好，他们说了。在对的时刻，在对的地方。

Satie

so i'm actually supposed to be reading my doc reader. the novel is not entirely boring, but my suitemates are complaining a lot about it. guess cos it's about chinese i finally get less repelled by it. for once. i'm almost killed by the BORING reader this quarter.
but i started downloading. a big SORRY to the dying classical music industry. well, heck it's dying anyways. but i swear i'll try to buy the cd's soon. i suddenly fell in love with satie. haven't listened to french music for quite a while. all this time been jumping up and down with the wicked dramatic russian tunes. so i think satie's cool. i like the dancing melodies in Gnossiennes, like the kind of music you hear in art films. like, i can imagine the slow mo and lingering eyes and water colorish pictures...and the hidden emotions and clever stories. Gymnopedies are simply too over-performed. the melodies just sound so cliche. k, that remark wasn't fair. shouldn't dissmiss the work cos it's over played. but still... i also like the unexpectedness in Trois airs à fuir very interesting. ok. this is turning into a review. no. brrrrrrrrrrake.

before i leave the topic, satie is reportedly an eccentric person. anyone tell me more? like i've never heard much of him before. k. fine. i go google more myself.

also accidentally, i got flemming's beau soir(debussy). well, how do i put it. it's nice. but her voice just seems too heavy for the part. it's like, a foggy night. might just be beautiful too, but the opaqueness just kind of feels weird. still puzzled why veronique is not famous. :( in my opion she's much better than most of other singers i've heard as far as the melodies are concerned. equally weird. she's supposed to be famous for singing mozart. i don't like mozart anyways. so i don't care.

What Brody gave us to read.

Two Retired Scientists -- Bill and Doug

Vogue

my meal points are finally facing termination. yay so i had panda express today. at the food court in price centre, i ate a 3-entree combo and a cup of soup. good good. :) after dinner i read the latest issue of vogue. it is either that the fashion business has been in rapid degeneration since the last time i read vogue in singapore, or the american taste cmi. well, i'm pretty sure that'll be the last issue of vogue i'll ever buy, at least here. no wonder the subscription rate is only a dollar for one issue. thinking, the only magazine found in francis crick's household was vogue. maybe it was better at that time. maybe it was better in england. maybe he sucked at choosing fashion magazines.

我看是郁闷的。

德州塔木农场新年庆祝

看来要解决个人问题，还是要深入内地，勇于下乡，到最艰苦的地方去。

！！！ 古琴丝弦濒临失传 zt

古琴丝弦濒临失传

六十多年前绝处逢生的古琴丝弦，如今再度徘徊在失传的边缘。
目前全国精于制作古琴丝弦的仅潘国辉一人，而即将退休的他身边尚无传人―――

随着退休之日的临近，潘国辉越来越忧心忡忡，因为目前全国仅他一人精通古琴丝弦制作工艺，而他身边至今没有一个能够承前启后的徒弟。昨天，潘国辉师傅向记者倾诉了萦绕心头的担忧。

古琴乃世界文化中最古老之弹拨乐器，主要由弦与木质共鸣器发音，至今已有四千年之历史。丝弦古琴源远流长，秦汉即有“削梧为琴，绳丝为弦”之说。潘师傅告诉记者，抗战期间，古琴丝弦一度销声匿迹，琴家缦友苦觅不得。在吴景略、庄剑丞等琴家的鼎力相助之下，苏州弦工方裕庭依据琴书上所载传统造弦方法加以研制，才恢复生产古琴丝弦，韵长意深的丝弦古琴得以绝处逢生。其后几十年，方裕庭是全国惟一的古琴弦生产者。1961年潘国辉师从方裕庭，开始制作古琴丝弦。可是，好景不长。十年动乱，古琴丝弦被迫停产，直至1978年重起炉灶。

古琴丝弦可谓命运多舛。现在苏州民族乐器一厂工作的潘国辉，万万没有料到，师傅苦心挖掘、来之非易的丝弦工艺，在历经六十余年的风雨之后，如今到他手里再次面临着失传之险。潘师傅说，他曾打算收徒传艺，但他现在每月收入700多元，这样微薄的薪水能让年轻一代安心学艺吗？而且，古琴丝弦市场低迷。全国仅苏州还在维持生产，而苏州民族乐器一厂惟独他一人能娴熟地精制古琴丝弦。虽然出自潘师傅之手的古琴丝弦名扬海外，但每年销量区区二百来副，利润微薄。

据了解，追慕前人遗韵的海外缦友，大多珍视丝弦古琴，因为钢弦古琴会衍生出金属噪音，且金属之声过重，余音太长，难以彰显古琴“清丽而静、和润而远”之原味原韵。然而，大陆操钢弦琴者居多，相当部分年轻琴友不谙丝弦弹琴。为此，苏州科技学院吴声琴学研究所最近联合北京、南京等地的琴友，向潘师傅定制了二百副丝弦，意欲在琴界推广丝弦古琴，为古琴丝弦寻觅生机，但终究势单力薄。

代代相传的丝弦古琴难道真的要弦断音绝了吗？潘师傅一脸忧愁地对记者说，听说古琴正在申报世界文化遗产，倘若古琴丝弦工艺失传，钢弦古琴能代表源远流长的中华琴学吗？！（董亮）

苏州日报 2003年6月30日

if you do not follow the rules

so there's a freezer in the lab that you dispose all the dead mice in. there is a sign on the freezer stating the rules of using that disposal site. the consequence of not following the rules is, according to the sign, "you will be added to next week's fly food."

scientists are really the most miserable pple in the world. they are stressed and frustrated most of the time. i used to imagine scientists to be well-mannered cultured intellectual indiividuals. so, the manner part is really not exatly correct. so in the lab you hear f*** all the time, everywhere. i even heard a scientist talking in the most frustrated tone "so the potential f***-ups will be blah blah blah, we need to do blah blah to prevent f***ing up blah blah. it's f***ing driving me mad" yeah. and the students decribe every failures as f***-ups. i'm getting used to it. i'm getting used to it.

k. so i've decided to make the fuss today.
yeah, so yesterday, i went for the asian culture night on campus. so food and stuff blah blah. half way through, there was a fashion show, showing off all the national costumes naturally. after my friend looking very cute in her sia uniform and a couple of korean kids, came an eurasian looking girl in a bright red "qipao" who claimed that she was from taiwan. (wth). ok, that aside, her slits on the sides of the qipao were up to the hips, and she was trying to do some dance moves with her matching folding-fan. obviously failed to seduce anyone, esp when compared with the real seductive pakistan girl later. well. i find her pathetic. she's wearing a chinese costume (well that's not even chinese, but some babarian manchurian costume) trying to do what chinese are really not good at doing. and while she tried so hard to present a culturally chinese image she had to distinguish herself as a taiwanese. (well if she wanted so badly to be distinctive taiwanese, why didn't she wear some native taiwanese gaoshan costume?? that's inferior, obviouly, in their eyes) yeah fine. and then there were flocks of japnese wearing all sorts of weird things. my uneasiness at the show was probably pretty obvious, cos many friends asked if i was ok. i wasn't unhappy cos i didn't see a mainland chinese up there. such things like showing off and selling ourselves out is really not in our blood. man. how cheap. look at the japanese who were so proud of their so-called contemporary japanese teen outlook, which is really just a lot of random combi and bad taste. i admire how confident they look in that crap. that might be what draws them close to the western world. also, hard-selling their "culture" has always been their specialty anyways. back to the chinese thing, if the westerners think they know what chinese are like from that kind of frivilous performance, such as that by the TW girl, let it be. but they are wrong. it's just pathetic. both the entertainer and the entertained.
oh don't tell me to just enjoy such things without any political preoccupation. can't do it.

absolute horror. my mom got herself a blog. a BLOG. my MOM. well. my dear mother catches up with technologies faster than most pple her age. i can't even decide if that is fortunate or unfortunate of me. but still. wow...

Copley Hall

went downtown for rehearsal. and i've got to say, wow. Copley Hall is pretty. a little too victorian for my liking but, pretty. and it's a very small cozy hall, with the audience hugging the stage that creates very intimate acoustics. the whole thing is in a warm orange tint which i like too. so everything went pretty pro. the solo violin is fantastic. the pianist is such a "finger spinner" (uh-hm a real one. :p ) the conductor moved so much i thought he was going to fall off the stage. well, it's jazz, but still... looking forward to concert. the sop beside me keeps saying that we need to do the screamississimo tastefully hah.

VITAS

I'll say this gay-looking boy is pretty cute. sorry if my coverage seems outdated haha.

and you've got to hear him. reminds me of farinelli. countertenor. anyone has any idea if he's more of a countertenor or boy sop? he's 24...

lamp

the MQ

this is the funniest publication i've seen on campus. much better than the koala which i consciously avoid most of the time. so read the latest issue on radiating sun god and such..
The MQ
It's hard to imagine it's funded by the school..

philip glass

Buy it... if you relax to atmospheric classical music led by piano and strings, harmonious by nature, but without clearly defined themes.

Avoid it... if you prefer scores with more sharply defined cue changes and thematic swells, or if you never plan on sampling any of Glass' work.

this is what i read at some website, as recommends for the soundtrack of the film The Hours. well, i do agree to the "avoid it" part, but the "Buy it" it part is very misleading. well, i don't think philip glass' music can be considered classical music, especially this one. it just doesn't have drum beats. but that's not important. the thing is, i can never relax to philip glass' music. his has too much tension for that purpose. even though he's a minimalist and all, piano and string only whatever and he has no distinctive melody most of the time... his music is superior at mood painting. think about the mood in The Hours. it's nothing but disturbing conflict, tension, agony and struggle. how could you. how could you relax to such music?

such websites... well. i don't really see the point of writing such recommends at all.

一只大强

强人人体素描

某人的画
看他的画，想起小时候一笔一笔认真画静物时的情景。色调，明暗，形，线，虚实处理，都是那么小心。看这些画，我如梦初醒：不知从何时起，我学会了漠视学院派的训练，忘记了细心钻研光与影关系，然后耐心的调色，诚实地用笔纪录的感觉。（还记得刘寅教我，颜色不要调得太熟，稍微调调就上去，才有味道。可是要小心调，一下调准。刘寅其实不错。）后来我只一味地涂抹，一味地抽象，以为自己很现代，很潇洒，而学院派的很过时，陈腐，放不开。误区，都是误区。荒唐啊。

mmm叫它作大漠

构图有点问题，太满了。没办法了。看来还得再画一张。

gene names

so apparently there's this contest for funny genes going on in my genetic class. my prof was primarily inspired by two woman scientists in ucsf who mapped the genes on the Y chromosome. apart from the real gene "testis determining factor TDF" the rest are made up. such as:

Channel Flipping - FLP
Air Guitar - RIF
Ability to identify aircraft - DC-10
Total lack of recall for dates - OOPS
Selective hearing loss - HUH?

and the whole list with locus mapping is HERE

choir choir

choir choir. i just heard the recording of VE XV (i think. the roman numbers are really a fuss to remember.), as many of my old friends have pointed out, they sounded SO good. I wouldn't say that was impeccable, but their music had so much meaning in it. well i've not heard the glorious batch's performance, but since i went into rj, it finally has a near perfect choir. yes they are truly giving the music its soul, because they put so much of their own into the making. they sound so mature, their executions so subtle, not like an average high school choir. i trust my friends when they say that the choir sounded better in the competition and i really regret not being able to be there when they compete. whatever gross outcome of the competition is not important, even though it did shock me and totally disgusted me, the choir should've done well and should be proud of their excellence. and i am sure the conductor is far too professional to be affected by such minor disturbance. he knows perfectly well how good the choir is and his faith in the choir is enough for the choir to grow and blossom. it's only not very fair on my juniors to make them feel bad despite all the effort and achievement. sigh. like what one of my juniors said, we should just boycott syf. not a bad idea at all.

i can't quite figure out what liszt tries to say in his sonatas. sometimes they just appear to me as plain beautiful. i don't understand him at all.

长安乱

看韩寒《长安乱》，半天不知他要讲什么。显然，韩寒已进入高纯度狂扯境界。该书显示的韩寒痞子化简单化的倾向，是不是avand garde 的必然趋势呢？

some explanatory notes on the sunrise

yeah the painting was indeed redder than when i saw it. and because i took the picture in yellow light it looks redder tan the painting. so that was cascade effect i guess. haha. the real situation was that, before the sunrise there was a snow storm going on outside the train. i was on the train from ann arbor to boston, in the middle of december. the temperature is so ridiculously low, well, to someone who's never experienced real winter like me. the train was running and it had a slit on the window beside me through which the damn wind can sneak in. i was travelling alone. and have been on bus-train itinerary to boston for 12 hours, not knowing that it was going to last another 20 hours before my feet step on solid land again. yeah. so it had been snowing all night and i was in a near conscious state. suddenly the train reached this place where it was clear and i saw the sun rising. it was the warmest feeling i've ever gotten. have you ever felt this shiver when you feel the sun after you have been cold for a long time? that was precisely what i felt. that was the first sunrise i'd ever seen that was actually glorious. but no. it was loneliness, not beauty that i saw in the warm color. and maybe that feeling persisted so much that i intensified it with colours. that's all for now.

i'm a loser. i didn't even notice that it's already the fifth week of the quarter. time just got a new engine for faster flights.

yeah, and when i went to the lab the sweetest thing was said. i didn't have to stay cos there were no mice. so i came back. earliest of all time. i collected my parcel, which is ehrenreich's the hearts of men, reading for doc. well, better than nothing. then i did laundry, and cleaned my room with revolutionary force and speed. now my room is clearly divided into 3 parts. my rationality. desk and computer. book shelf. my feelings. drawer set, scores, paints and canvas, make-up mirror, accessaries and cds. and my bed. well. if only i could stay there longer. lol. and i just found a nice alternative to an easel. my score folder, which i just bought from my section leader for 17.55(!!) works ideally as an easel. a strap keeps it open at an angle of about 110 degrees. this is economical utility of space, as long as i don't drip too much paint onto the black folder. fantastic.

saw someone else's drawing of an eye, inspired to draw today too. wish i could improve faster.


my java teacher.


and my new imaginary friend. what shall i call her.. hmmm. yeah, she's got some attitude problem.

bought speakers. and found life much more fullfilling. haha. i just like the idea of music ringing around in my room. rising. rising. i like it. i tried my speakers with whitacre, and found the 10 buck stuff is not that bad. at least weren't shattered by the powerful overtone of BYU. the other day when i was having clam chowder in sierra summit i saw on news there were a few students from BYU dying of some mountain climbing thing. sigh. hope none of them are from the choir. what a fantastic choir they've got!

and i'm tired. really. the weekend was so long-awaited. i just want to sit here without doing anything. or maybe i should get up a do sth. maybe do a sketch or sth. maybe.

acrylic on canvas

went to the bookstore today. as i was looking at the sketch boards, someone else was checking on a wooden easel kit that is opened up from a box and can house almost all things you can think of when you go out on a landscape trip. well, the price was something like 80+ bucks. man. luckily i didn't go into art. such useless things cost a bomb! imagine i became an artists, right now i would probably dying to buy some materials so that i can produce a few works that people will buy. no wonder the commodification of art occurred. really necessary to prevent the artists from dying of hunger.

and after i paid i saw annina my classmate from my spanish conversation class in the first quarter in the line at the cashier. i remember her because after she told us that she was a computer artist i asked her if she used corel painter. (apart from the fact that she was swiss and spoke 4 languages.) she got very offended apparently, which almost alarmed me. and she made such a great effort in explaining how artists like her don't use corel as in use corel. she said she used whatever that it takes to do her art on computer. if she had to programme in some language she would learn it. guess what she meant was that she didn't rely on corel painter and she was trying to show me that the life of a computer artist was much more complicated than using corel painter. well. i didn't even mean what she thought i meant in the first place, i was just wondering if she happened to use corel as a tool. oh, well, maybe one of the tools, in her work. but i understand. somethings that are so dear to you, so important, that anything signs of misunderstanding in other people's opinion would've caused a huge violent reaction in you. that happens to me too, many times. well. everyone has this area that is more sensitive, more protected and thus more agressive in that sense. painting is her thing. that's why. and i understand that. and i'm moved by that.

my order reached.

my order of Canteloube's Chants D'auvergne by Veronique Gens and 2 DVD's have reached. Along with them also came my new Genetics textbook. My fondness for Brody has become evident as i found myself very excited even receiving the textbook. but well, brody's a nice and funny prof. just not comfortable that he cut me out when i asked if i could go talk about genetics with him but i couldn't make it to his office hours. he said, you could make an appointment with me, but there are 400 kids you know. implying my stupidity in trying to waste his precious time in useless conversations, i guess. which i understand perfectly, just that i thought he could've been less blunt on the matter. hm.

anyways. chants d'auvergne was totally folky. frankly i didn't quite expect sth like this, after indulging myself in gens' melodie album nuit d'etoiles. well that was really fantastic faure/debussy/poulenc stuff. i guess it'll take a while before the chants "grow on" me. (quoting a guy who's fond of this phrase. eww. still reminds me of fungus. what's growing on you? fungus right?)

2 dvds. to live. cos it was banned in china, so i think, i'm not sure, i think i've never seen it in china. also bought farewell my concubine. well, i've read both books and saw the latter movie a few times. feels good to have a copy of each dvd at home but honestly the movies can never be compare to the original fiction. there's just something that only words can do. what do you think? and anyway the books are both way too long to be condensed into a movie. like to live, the story hang half-way through. maybe they wanted to cut down on the tragedy and show some warmth and hope in humanity. but that really wasn't the point of the original intent, i believe. i thought yu hua set out to see how big a man's capacity for hardship is. why, then, did the movie end when the family was still left with a lot of people. all of them were supposed to have died by the end of the story. well. yu hua's extreme. but i like the way he wrote it. and ba wang bie ji, it is still much better to see cheng die yi in my imagination. at least in that way he stayed impeccable. i'm not saying that zhang guo rong is not good at the role. well, he wasn't pretty enough. there was still this inevitably awkwardness in his acting in the operas in the movie. well. guess that couldn't have been helped and he was probably the closest you could find in the business. still. still.. the notion of imperfection bugs me. a lot.

and wonder why is the cutting and transition so unnatural in these movies. by right, since they were by zhang yimou and chen kaige, the making is supposed to be good. i don't know. weird transitions all over the place. in comparison, hero in terms of movie making is really much better than these earlier movies.

wonder too, how The Peony Pavillion is like then. maybe i should watch it too. anyone has watched it before?

One of the major reasons i started taking spanish was this song:

Hijo de la luna

Tonto el que no entienda.

Cuenta una leyenda
Que una hembra gitana
Conjuró a la luna
Hasta el amanecer.
Llorando pedía
Al llegar el día
Desposar un calé.


"Tendrás a tu hombre,
Piel morena,"
Desde el cielo
Habló la luna llena.
"Pero a cambio quiero
El hijo primero
Que le engendres a él.
Que quien su hijo inmola
Para no estar sola
Poco le iba a querer."


Estribillo:
Luna quieres ser madre
Y no encuentras querer
Que te haga mujer.
Dime, luna de plata,
Qué pretendes hacer
Con un niño de piel.
A-ha-ha, a-ha-ha,
Hijo de la luna.


De padre canela
Nació un niño
Blanco como el lomo
De un armiño,
Con los ojos grises
En vez de aceituna --
Niño albino de luna.
"¡Maldita su estampa!
Este hijo es de un payo
Y yo no me lo callo."


Estribillo

Gitano al creerse deshonrado,
Se fue a su mujer,
Cuchillo en mano.
"¿De quién es el hijo?
Me has engañado fijo."
Y de muerte la hirió.
Luego se hizo al monte
Con el niño en brazos
Y allí le abandonó.


Estribillo

Y en las noches
Que haya luna llena
Será porque el niño
Esté de buenas.
Y si el niño llora
Menguará la luna
Para hacerle una cuna.
Y si el niño llora
Menguará la luna
Para hacerle una cuna.


Translation:

Son of the moon

Foolish is he who doesn't understand.


A legend tells of a gipsy woman
Who pleaded with the moon until dawn.
Weeping she begged
At the break of dawn
To marry a gipsy man.


"You'll have your man, tawny skin,"
Said the full moon from the sky.
"But in return I want the first child
That you have with him.
Because she who sacrifices her child
So that she is not alone,
Isn't likely to love it very much."


Chorus:
Moon, you want to be mother,
But you cannot find a love
Who makes you a woman.
Tell me, silver moon,
What you intend to do
With a child of flesh.
A-ha-ha, a-ha-ha,
Son of the moon.


From a cinnamon-skinned father
A son was born,
White as the back of an ermine,
With grey eyes instead of olive --
Moon's albino child.
"Damn his appearance!
This is not a gipsy man's son
And I will not put up with that."


Chorus

Believing to be dishonoured,
The gipsy went to his wife,
A knife in his hand.
"Whose son is this?
You've certainly fooled me!"
And he wounded her mortally.
Then he went to the woodlands
With the child in his arms
And left it behind there.


Chorus

And the nights the moon is full
It is because the child
Is in a good mood.
And if the child cries,
The moon wanes
To make it a cradle.
And if the child cries,
The moon wanes
To make it a cradle.

brody said he was in Tatum's lab when he defined one gene one protein, and he was telling us how cool Tatum was blah blah blah. he said he uses his Nobel medal as a paper weight on his coffee table at home. yeah. quite cool. brody has this thing for labelling important genetic theories "Genetic Principle #**" so when he told Tatum that he considered "one gene one protein“ the ”GP #5 " Tatum replied"hmm, i think i enjoy my Nobel a lot more." and when he told Yanofsky he considered his principle of colinearity "GP #6" Yanofsky said "how much is that??!" haha.

i guess one of the good things bout taking classes from big shots is that you get to hear loads of anecdotes about other big shots. which can be very interesting.

AP&M and Muir Biology

Warm and sunny day today :). When i woke up from a late morning nap, on the Sun God Lawn right in front of the two great grey buildings of UCSD, i saw a lone raven gliding down the buildings. huge was he who had feathers dark as the night. and he glid down the building, cutting the vertical lines that run from the top to the bottom of the grey giant M2B, disturbing the neat linear arrangement of the design. Maybe i shouldn't call that disturbing, because it really brought something close to liveliness to the lines, the long and hard lines. in a pretty curve, he came down, with the tip of his wing almost brushing against the grey concrete, which seemed to be brightened up by the fluid movement, as if a playful child trying to draw the attention of a serious old man. surprisingly, such a brief and geometric encounter moved me greatly.

and that brought me to appreciating the two buildings for quite a while. looking at it, tracing the straight lines and the many faces with my eyes, i thought for the first time, hmmm, they actually look very nice. the long and continuous strips that flow smoothly down M2B in pure grey colour reminds me a little of the greek pillars, only this building is even simpler than that. the geometrical arrangement of the rectangles on AP&M, each enclosing a little window in it, is better than anything else in telling us about the clean and elegant beauty of mathematics. the honest colour of concrete gives the buildings a plain look but a somehow sophisticated character. there the two buildings sit, in an intervention of modernity and classicism, somewhere between vibrancy and authority.

this is really cute. think it's some folk song in occitan, from the province of Auvergne.

Malurous qu'o uno fenno


Malurous qu'o uno fenno,
Malurous qué n'o cat!
Qué n'o cat n'en bou uno,
Qué n'o uno n'en bou pas!
Tradèra, ladèri dèrèro
ladèra, ladèri dèra.

Urouzo lo fenno
Qu'o l'omé qué li cau!
Urouz' inquèro maito
O quèlo qué n'o cat!
Tradèra, ladèri dèrèro
ladèra, ladèri dèra.

Translation:
Unfortunate he who has a wife,
Unfortunate he who does not!
He who has not wants one,
He who has one does not
Tradèra, ladèri dèrèro
ladèra, ladèri dèra.

Fortunate the woman
Who has the man she wants!
More fortunate is she
Who has not
Tradèra, ladèri dèrèro
ladèra, ladèri dèra!

主题：日本人 我等着你 (转贴 目前流传最快的一首抗议诗)

日本人 我等着你！


你第一次到我这里，
那时我叫大唐，
威震世界我强盛无比。
你赤着双脚、
衣衫褴褛。
诚惶诚恐你走进我的光辉大殿里。

我记得我叫秦的时候曾让徐福，
带领三千童男童女，
远渡东海，
扎根到你那里。
因此我认定：
有我的血液流到你的血管里。
对于你的潦倒，
我没有嫌弃。
我给了你锦衣朝服，
我盛唐全部礼仪、
和那双你穿到现在的木屐。
你千恩万谢，
满口“哈依、哈依”。
你藏不住那贪婪的目光，
我告诫自己--
这是一个人面兽心的家伙，就象在图上：
它的形状象一只可恶的虫蚁。
仁至义尽我送你回去，
还教给你我盛世的全部礼仪。
你走之后我轻声自语：
“它还会回来”--
我等着你。


当我叫明的时候我等到了你。
你手拿倭刀，
穿着我教你做的唐衣。
你说你并不得已，
因为后面有驱赶你的丰臣秀吉。
杀人放火你奸淫掠虏，
戚家儿郎把你赶下海去。
用东海水我洗着伤口，
贼心不死的禽兽--
我等着你！


日月如梭我身染重疾，
东方的巨人渐渐不能自己。
围攻撕咬我的兽群中，
我又看见了你：
强盗火拼你咬走了俄国熊罴，
独占我北方要地。
贪心不足你膨胀的恶欲。
终于到了“九.一八”那是一九三一，
血肉从我身上分离，
于是有了伪满供你驱骑。
欲壑难平你得寸进尺，
疯狂的野兽你竞妄想把世界归己。
一九三七的七月七，
我的胸膛上你印上了铁蹄。
作威作福你那么得意，
心在淌血我把仇恨铭记。
多行不义你必自毙，
自作自受--
蘑菇云中你看见了自己的广岛和长崎。
夹着尾巴你滚了回去，
还有那面沾满血腥的膏药旗。


跟在霸强后面，
你又觉得有势可倚。
偷机取巧你开始发迹，
一夜之间你觉得富得无人可比。
不改的本性让你又暗藏杀人的利器，
打着自卫的幌子想把世人蒙弊。
为富不仁你开始觉得自己家里挤，
又妄想到我的岛上来“钓鱼”！
伤疤犹在你就忘了痛，
参拜亡灵的政客们啊，
在靖国神社你们是否看见了东条英机？
往日的屈辱我怎能忘记？
昨天的病夫现在已有了强壮的身躯！
睁大眼睛我看你要向何处去？
还想再来吗？
--世世代代我等着你！


狼生的孩子仍然要吃肉，
魔鬼释缚后还会害人。
鬼魂在庙宇里在受膜拜，
人人都知道你贼心不死。
多少年来我受了你多少凌辱和欺骗，
强霸面前你又有狗仗人势，
又见到膏药旗在我的家里？！
我知道，你早晚还会回来，
如同饿狼常来觅食。
子弹上膛的猎枪手中拿紧吧，
我世世代代等着你！
-----我等着你！！

APOLOGY?

I have seriously never heard anything more ridiculous than THIS:
Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura has lodged a protest and asked for an apology from the Chinese government for the anti-Japan demonstrations in Beijing on Saturday that broke windows at the Japanese Embassy and a Japanese restaurant.
--Machimura lodges protest and demands apology from China over anti-Japan demonstrations (NHK News online. Apr. 10 2005)

Since when did the japanese know anything about APOLOGY??? try compare smashing the windows of the embassy and some irrelavent restaurant to smashing a country. oh, GIVE ME A BREAK.

talking about jap brands.

donno who will be reading this but i don't care. looks difficult to do without all these jap brands that seeps through every corner of our life, but don't mind trying.


My dear fellow compatriots, wherever you are, please boycott the following brands, and other unlisted Japanese brands. It's the least we can do.

日货、 日系产品列表
产品类别	日本产品品牌或者品牌	推荐替代品牌
数码照相机和数码摄像机	富士、柯尼卡、索尼、JVC、松下、东芝、奥林巴斯。（这些公司均出资支持日本右翼修改教科书，否认南京大屠杀和侵华史实。）	中国联想、韩国三星、美国柯达
汽车	本田、丰田、铃木、日产、三菱。（这些公司是日本重工业的支柱，也是日本主要武器装备制造商,他们壮大就是日本军事工业的壮大。） 品 牌大致如下：丰田_TOYOTA、威驰_Vios、风度_Cefiro、本田_HONDA、尼桑_Nissan、途乐_Patrol、马自达 _Mazda、日产_Nissan、佳奔_Urvan、三菱_MITSUBISHI、蓝鸟_Nissan、阳光_Sunny、十五铃_ISUZU、宏达 _HONDA、奇骏_X-trail、铃木_SUZUKI、凌治_Harrier、碧莲_Civilian	低档品牌：福莱尔、吉利 中档品牌：红旗、大众、现代、别克赛欧、菲亚特、斯科达等 高档品牌：中华、奔驰、宝马、奥迪等
电器	JVC、松下、东芝、卡西欧等	长虹、TCL、春兰、厦新等
日本料理	吉野家（连锁快餐）、味千拉面等。日本人的食品中看不中吃，不说也罢。	如果您真的爱吃生鱼，韩国的也不错。
计算机类	日本计算机类产品在品牌上不占优势。以上的推荐产品里也许有日本生产的零部件，但是请记住，抵制一分是一分。东芝、NEC、SONY等品牌当然是我们抵制的对象！	联想、方正、IBM、DELL等
软件类	假如你想使用日本人的软件，满街的盗版，你又何必给日本人送钱？——这并不代表我们支持盗版	日货最好的替代品是中国人的尊严和对后代的责任感
手机类	松下、索爱、NEC、京瓷	夏新、波导、TCL、康佳、联想
家用电器及办工器材等	索 尼SONY、佳能CANON、JVCTDK、松下_Panasonic、卡西欧_CASIO、建伍_KENWOOD、爱华_aiwa、精工_SIEKO、 尼康_NIKON、日立_HITACHI、兄弟_Brother、先锋_Pioneer、东芝_TOSHIBA、八重洲_YAESU、阿尔派 _ALPINENEC、百乐NTT、美能达_Minolta、斑马_ZEBRAKDDI、奥林巴斯_Olympus、蜻蜓 _DragonflyDoCoMo、夏普_SHARP、富士通_FUJITSUTUKA、爱普生_EPSON、美上美_MITSUMIJ-PHONE、理 光_Ricoh、京瓷_Kyocera、柯尼卡_KONIKA、三洋_Sanyo	替代产品很多很多！
化妆品及日常洗化等	资生堂_SHISEIDO、DHCMILD、花王_KAO、狮王_LION、诗芬_sifone、碧柔_Biore、多芬_Dove、乐而雅_Laurier、高丝_KOSE、naturgo	替代产品很多很多！
烟酒及食品等	柔和七星、明治食品、四洲食品、麒麟啤酒、午后红茶LUCIDO、朝日啤酒、BOSS咖啡、日清食品、日本酒、雪印食品、Suntory茶、味千拉面	本土品牌有很多很多！
服装等	美津浓_MIZUNO、爱斯克斯、日高_NIKKO、华高青山洋服（服饰）	中国是世界第一服装大国！
百货	伊藤洋华堂_Ito、Yokado_成都、华堂_Ito、Yokado_北京	中国是百货业强国之一！
其他	立邦油漆、TOTO卫浴、富士胶卷、FUJIFILM、松本电工、爱眼眼镜、精工眼镜、横滨轮胎、第一生命（制药）、武田药品、太田胃药、森永化工、OKI（针打）、 野尻（眼镜）、 伊都锦、 优衣库、 八仟代、AKAI、 内野（家纺）
恳请转发转贴,广泛传播此文,以自己的实际行动抗日!!!!!

Montparnasse

since i'm in the french mood.

Montparnasse
 
Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm Kostrowicki) (1880-1918)


Ô porte de l'hôtel
Avec deux plantes vertes
Vertes qui jamais
Ne porteront de fleurs
Où sont mes fruits?
Où me planté-je?
Ô porte de l'hôtel
Un ange est devant toi
Distribuant des prospectus
On n'a jamais si bien défendu la vertu
Donnez-moi pour toujours une chambre à la semaine
Ange barbu vous êtes en réalité
Un poéte lyrique d'Allemagne
Qui voulez connaître Paris
Vous connaissez de son pavé
Ces raies sur lesquelles il ne faut pas que l'on marche
Et vous rêvez
D'aller passer votre Dimanche à Garches
Il fait un peu lourd et vos cheveux sont longs
Ô bon petit poète un peu bête et trop blond
Vos yeux ressemblent tant à ces deux grands ballons
Qui s'en vont dans l'air pur
À l'aventure.

Poulenc set a song on this poem, among others. so beautiful, the poem. and so beautiful, the music. wait till i have more time to type the translation.

accidents

i walked out of my room wearing a red top, white trousers and blue shoes. but realised that i looked like the american flag. so went back to change to a red pair of canvas shoes. and ended up looking like a singapore flag.

prokofiev is amazing. man. the russians are amazing.

on Bleu

Bleu is typical of the french films i know of. tastefully done. plot is secondary here. visually, it's a feast. fragmented(just like this thread). the camera moves in the manner of the most observant eyes with the most sensitive heart. maybe it's avant-gardish, but the abstractness and dissectedness in the scene do remind me of the modern art works, be it cubism or what. colours. colours are always central to the french films. such a powerful thing to heighten emotions. the shimmery, almost heart-breaking blue colour that floods in the movie seeps into you with that suppressed sorrow and suffocates you. and the music. weaves in and out of the plot so perfectly in tune with the image, and they resonate. everything is so contained. so muted. so restricted. yet there is clearly this wild desire for the heroine to break free from it. a desire to come out of it, like a fire trying desperately to burn through something and emerge. and the antagony is painfully delicious. in every detail.

how clever does a man need to be to know how exactly to combine all these elements together to create a uniformed outcome that stirs us? how much has he to feel in the first place? what kind of man is he? i wonder.

what a night

it's a wonderful life turned out to be a wonderful film. rekindles my desire to do good deeds again. the other film that gave me the same feeling was amelie. how diff the two films are. talking about films, watched bleu again on sunday, and am extremely glad that i made up my mind to buy the dvd. so good. hmmmm~~. it is a work of art. Juliette Binoche looked so much more intelligent and sophisticated in the film than in the interview that comes in the dvd. well, that's the magic that Krzysztof Kieslowski does. what more to say? he's a real genius. blanc has a nice neat plot, even though i didn't think it was particularly worth keeping. and i've yet to watch rouge.

after doing unix homework for 2 hrs, my brain, still not accustomed to vowels, started to read j's poems on her blog. and i couldn't understand. but they were beautiful. so once again felt sorry for my own potential in letters. with the very atonal shostakovich playing, my brain was suprisingly at rest. (yes, and so it'll be until i open some mouse' brain tomorrow. i'd rather not think about it now. but it pops into my mind so i have to think about it. even the zebrafish are more adorable.) ok. things start to get really random at 0104am. so i guess maybe it's time to sleep. haven't been surfing all my friends' blog for a long while. sorry.

stats of the day

time talked to mom on phone: 3 hrs

mice terminated: 5
intact gangalia harvested: 24
ripped gangalia: 6

money spent on hair styling tools: 29.98

cds bought: 8
all russian
price: $82.65

dvd bought: 1
price $10.76
french

no. of meals had: 1

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.

who's vivien leigh?

i was most astonished to find out that none of my singaporean friends and a friend from china at the dinner table tonight knew who vivien leigh was. i wonder if it was a matter of country or that i was really out of date. turned out that the american suitemates i asked didn't know who vivien leigh was either, despite the fact that the glam movie star was from this very country. (jaw dropped.) fine. i'm out of date then. there is really a generation gap between me and my peers from other countries. friends please prove me wrong! hands up if you know who vivien leigh is! also shirley temple. man. i grew up watching her cute little films.

or is it just china that is out of date on such things? pple, please answer the following questions:

what books did you grow up reading?
what films do you remember watching when you were a child?

fyi this is vivien leigh.

this is shirley temple

and yes that's a real kid up there.

and for fm's information, this is audrey hepburn

吾足

吾足 is not good. haha. it sounds more like 'my foot'. sorry for coming back to this topic. am i the only person amused by this thing?

to fm

fm, i'm a goddam utilitarian who is not able to think outside the influence of societal consequences. this has in a way become part of myself and such consideration is the closeset i can get to a personal choice. i think this has sth to do with my upbringing. maybe it's communist influence. who knows.

finally

i'm finally done with my second doc paper that i started eons ago and got rid of the pain in the ass ochem midterm2. now i can come back to blogging. recently i haven't even been surfing people's blog, which is such a sad thing. been busy with other things too. been having fun. but almost lost touch with the world outside ucsd.

(sits in one of the balconies outside sierra summit. there is breeze. eats a spoonful of hot oatmeal with raisins and lotsa cinnamon sugar.) well. i find studying quite fun now. studying is like everything else. when i'm outside of it, i'm tremendously reluctant to start. but once i'm actually studying, i wouldn't mind if it doesn't end. it's just that the latter situation is far too rare. most of the time i remain outside of the condition of studying and complain about me getting bored of studying, which i'm not doing. i'm being confusing here. heck. it's just like a bath. on a normal day with normal temperature and humidity, i have perfect inertia against baths, just because it involves a change in environment, from dry to wet. but once i start it, i won't want to come out.

i've kind of picked the motivation again. (well done! at the end of quarter. roll eyes.) a few things happened that makes me think this way. firstly, i heard about one of my friends' glorious undergrad years. something like w uporking in two labs and coauthoring papers and getting offers from top schools. can't help feeling like crap myself man.. :p Secondly, i didn't get the solo part for requiem. i assume that some voice major in the chamber singers got it. i would know who on the concert night. fine. the feeling of wanting something really badly but not getting it feels so distant to me. i realised that i haven't been competitive for a long while. haven't been competing for anything of such nature. like that SOLO line that in the end only ONE person can sing. scholarships are for many many people. U admission is for many many people, at least the ones i got into. A for courses is for many many people, not to mention that this quarter my school work is all down the drain. i haven't been fighting for the top spot for so many many years. i haven't been fighting at all. and what have i been doing? donno. i'm too comfortable about being mediocre. i'm now feeling the urge to stop this. yeah. a few days earlier you would have found me feeling lousy and defeated, but now i'm all ok again. and motivated.

let's switch gear. a few days ago a friend asked me if i would choose family or career if the two couldn't coexist. it got on my nerves immediately and i made this whole fuss about social stereotype that forces women into this choice but not men. the friend found my argument quite ridiculous and irrelavent, as he was only asking about personal choice that i would make if all social and other constrains were taken away. and then i realised that too. why am i masking my inability to choose with all these sociology crap? my inability to choose. yes. of course i cannot choose. on one side is raising a child and sharing all the time with this little being there. on the other side is the quest for truth and finding fulfilment for being useful to the human kind with my career. both are equally holy. i'm not able to choose. how could anyone choose? sigh. why have humans made ourselves so complicated that the task to perpectuate our species and that to adance it have become so disparate. my life is too short for both. what do you say? people...

and my oatmeal turned cold. :(

digital cams are the best things in the world. perfect reunion of art and technology... (sounds meowish)... k. so what do you think the thing above is?

decided to delete the flower post cos it was too big blocking my nice backdrop. this is such a nice picture. sigh. if only i could do the same. sigh.
and nothing happening in life. :( except driving ard with a permit. i kinda like driving now. if not for the stupid freeway exits.

and chemistry chemistry i love you. hope this old spell my sec sch chem teacher taught us still works now.

dear friends

thank you for your comments on the post i put up regarding me being torn (sounds bloody, for a rosy v-day morning) between my passions. (to jess, yeah it is la jolla symphonic chorus. they are doing carmina burana next quarter.) the choir thing is just the surface of the problem. i'm perfectly aware that the 3 hrs/week and 2 nights of performance right before finals are not, with any luck, going to affect me that much. my problem really is doubting my own capacity as a scientist. i'm not wobbling between the sciences and the arts as a career. i never was. from the start i wanted science as a career. call me practical, and sometimes i do suspect that i've made that choices for practical reasons. but when i think further, i often realise that my passion IS in practicing the sciences, or in the desire to contribute to the sciences. i hope you could see the distinction between the two, but i can seldom differentiate them when i examine my own feelings towards science. it's more likely to be the latter.

my real worries are that my other passions indicate my inadequacy for science, because i do believe that there are gifts involved in the potential to succeed in the sciences, just like in every other field. and the gifts for the sciences and for the arts have really become so different or even opposite over the course of history since da Vinci. i posted Onnes' quote and Blake's print to show that successful scientists and artists are really opposite in personalities. and given a choice, i would not want to settle for being a mediocre scientist at the expense of being eloquent in other subjects. (i believe that the world is not made better by a flock of generalists, but a diverse group of specialists. even though i see myself really going down the drain of a generalist. ) that is, i would rather live without the desire to do other things.

(even if that means to abandon the immense joy that the arts bring me?)

you see, i'm so absolute a utilitarian. i see my life as a course leading to a certain end, which is all that's used to judge the success of my life itself. i wouldn't think that enjoyment along the course would count for anything, even though i enjoy the good of life so.

绕口令

史上最强的绕口令,吐血也读不出!


1,初入江湖:化肥会挥发

2,小有名气:黑化肥发灰,灰化肥发黑

3,名动一方:黑化肥发灰会挥发;灰化肥挥发会发黑

4,天下闻名:黑化肥挥发发灰会花飞;灰化肥挥发发黑会飞花

5,一代宗师:黑灰化肥会挥发发灰黑讳为花飞;灰黑化肥会挥发发黑灰为讳飞花

6,超凡入圣:黑灰化肥灰会挥发发灰黑讳为黑灰花会飞;灰黑化肥会会挥发发黑灰为讳飞花化为灰

7,天外飞仙:黑化黑灰化肥灰会挥发发灰黑讳为黑灰花会回飞;灰化灰黑化肥会挥发发黑灰为讳飞花回化为灰


v day is coming. you feel it come wrapping you from all over. ads. decoration in the dining hall. paper heards on the wall of my living room. people's msn nicks. and people's faces. it's coming. while i'm eating a long and chewy teriyaki flavoured beef jerky and reading tongue twisters. lol. guess it's all good. and i'll keep the time and idleness to myself for another few years.

长相思·纳兰性德（清）

山一程，水一程，
身向榆关那畔行，
夜深千帐灯。

风一更，雪一更，
聒碎乡心梦不成,
故园无此声。

so what?

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes: Door meten tot weten (by measurements to knowledge.)

vs

William Blake:


i want to audition for a choir that takes a lot of time and cannot be counted for anything. and when i told my friend about it i said the artsy side of me said it's worth it but my science side of me said it's a waste of time. i don't konw. look at Onnes and blake. to one, measurements are what life is all about. they become life itself. to blake, measurements are the first thing in the world to be despised. and i, i can't decide which one i'm for. i'm not going to become an outstanding sientist after all, maybe. because i'm not absolute. is it that hard to reconcile? da vinci magaged to find himself a middle point and contributed to both fields, but that was so long ago when the sciences and the arts were not differenciated so much. today there is a valley between the two, which does not allow me to step on both sides firmly and balanced. i either migrated to one of them, or get torn.

i'm still a scientist.

finding neverland

how do i even start?

nice movie i got to say. set me thinking again. and feeling. well, yeah. life is not only about thinking. also feeling.

it's about the potency of art in inspiring us human beings, in elevating us from mundanity, in giving us hope and spiritually supporting us, at the worst of times. it does not change anything physically, but gives us the power of believing. believing is everything really. it is not what science can do. it is not anything else can do. and it's about love. the irreplaceable role that the human connection and understanding play in our small and pitiful struggling excistence. and to put art and love together, it takes a genius. like JM Barrie. indeed, he saved Sylvie Llewellyn Davies and her boys with that magic fairy touch, with his love carried in his art. i thank his play. and i thank this movie.

it must have been fun to live in the Barrie's England then.(as a rich man, of course.) such a exquisite kind of life, attempting to get in touch with one's self. and wonder how it was to live in Barrie's England as a play writer, as Barrie. flaneuring? getting inspiration everywhere. fanacizing. writing. loving. living. must have been dramatic. must have been intense. must have been tough. how did they live? George, one of the sons, died in World War I, Michael drowned himself with his boy friend in Oxford. Michael's death was a deep blow to Barrie. Peter, who become a publisher, committed suicide in 1960. peter pan. the ever hopeful and strong little fairy. sigh.

Sir James Matthew Barrie

answer to the previous post on art for art's sake

stupid me.
if art's function was to convey political messages, like that in realism, of course the artists would embrace the idea of showing themselves, and their attitude in their paintings. whereas in the case of impressionism, the function of art is to serve art itself, for it's own sake. therefore, artists were naturally out of the spotlight and should be hid from the viewer, leaving the viewer to the art and art only.

and interesting: limelight really started off as a flame burning in a cylinder of lime (CaO) with the light focused with a lens.

致：天培

多谢阁下光顾鄙blog。亦舒我读得不多，只是断断续续读了报纸上的一些连载，《印度墨》什么的。感觉一般。或是连载之过，情节不连贯，震撼就不太强烈。有空可以在网上多读一些。
喜欢李碧华，不仅仅因为她小说戏剧化得近乎荒诞的情节，也为了她于文字的一种聪明（相对于智慧），一种游刃有余的敏捷。她总是三言两语就已点到要穴，而回味不止。印象最深的是她写的程蝶衣。想，怎么可以这么简略地把一个人这么复杂的心理写得这样微妙，这样到位？这种感觉总让我想到孙柔嘉画汪太太，“十点红指甲，一张红嘴唇。”尖刻而精炼。又感觉够冷，不让人觉得叙述中扑面而来的都是作者的气味。我不喜欢作品中作者的成分太多，作者的感情色彩太明显，一如琼瑶的小说，不留什么空间，有些急吼吼却乏味得很。
写不长，算了。做功课去了。

art for art's sake

just a follow up kinda thing:
kester was talking about the idea of art-for-art's-sake in the late 19th century, increasingly prevailent with the progress of impressionism, which reminded me of wilde. (recall his comment on beauty and artwork in the preface to the picture of dorian gray.) and the time wilde was active as an art reviewer was about 1880's and 1890's, at the tail of impressionism which started off in around the 1870's. so when i asked, kester's reply confirmed that wilde was actually a key figure in the movement of art for art's sake.

then i have to ask, did it become fashionable to hide artists from the work of art again towards the end of impressionism? remember that one of the key features that evolved with maturation of realism was that artists started to demonstrate themselves, their images, their own emotions and perspectives explicitly in their paintings. why, then, in mere 30 or so years' time, wilde was advocating artists' duty to conceal themselves from their painting? i'm missing the link between realism and impressionism, thanks to the class missed on tuesday morning. (it's not a good idea for them to have interesting classes at 8am, cos i'm bound to miss one or two through the quarter.) and it is ironic that i missed the lecture primarily on monet, considering that i had come into this class with the preoccupation of monet as my favourite painter. (i don't necessarily think so any more.) next week we are talking about van gogh, i'd better sleep early and make sure that i don't miss it. and kester shouted at the end of the class today 'come on down van gogh!' like some real fan. lol.

to my horror, there is not a single marks and spencer store in the united states of america!

英雄

听屠洪刚，斗室里满是他慷慨壮阔的一把嗓子，一股正气。这个花脸，不是白练的。真是欲刚则刚，欲柔则柔，活脱脱的一个有情有义的英雄形象。尤其是有时候唱破了的音，有一种说不出来的劲道，听得浑身都爽。听听：“ 狼烟起江山北望，龙起卷马长嘶剑气如霜”；“何惜百死报家国，忍叹惜更无语血泪满眶”；“身轻好似云中燕豪气冲云天”；“来世也当称雄，归去斜阳正浓”这些字句，并不难让人想到岳将军、楚霸王，抑或美髯公、林教头。在如今柔声细气无病呻吟的颓废小资小男人充斥的中国流行歌坛里，这样的阳刚之气，实在难得。郑州有人说屠洪刚假唱，我总很难相信。嗟夫！若是真的，那就连这一点正气也没了，也许我们对英雄的憧憬只能到列代小说传记里去找了。也不是说不可能，到头来，屠洪刚只是个半吊子科班，唱了七年花脸，终究耐不住寂寞，跳进了流行大军。

（题外话：我每次想到使枪的，总想像一个剑眉星目的白面美男子站在块石头上，披风枪缨都是红的，迎风乱舞。岳飞林冲都是使枪的，我不知道他们原来师出同门，今天才听说，不知是真是假。可叹世事难料，其际遇悬殊，岳飞成了名将，林冲落了草。）

孙悟空也是英雄文化的一点象征。这猴儿的形象，不知还能在中国留几代。不用几年，大家就只知道张卫健周星驰等人演的流气孙悟空形象，与原来哪个嫉恶如仇，忠肝义胆的美猴王相比所去甚远，所去甚远。 六小龄童访谈


精忠报国

演唱:屠洪纲作词:陈涛作曲:张宏光

狼烟起江山北望
龙起卷马长嘶剑气如霜
心似黄河水茫茫
二十年纵横间谁能相抗
恨欲狂长刀所向
多少手足忠魂埋骨它乡
何惜百死报家国
忍叹惜更无语血泪满眶

马蹄南去人北望
人北望草青黄尘飞扬
我愿守土复开疆
堂堂中国要让四方
来贺

中国功夫


卧似一张弓站似一棵松不动不摇坐如钟
走路一阵风南拳和北腿少林武当功
太极八卦连环掌中华有神功
棍扫一大片枪挑一条线身轻好似云中燕豪气冲云天
外练筋骨皮内练一口气刚柔并济不低头心中有天地
清风剑在手双刀就看走行家功夫一出手
就知有没有
手是两扇门脚下是一条根四方水土养育了中华武术魂
东方一条龙儿女似英雄天高地远八面风中华有神功


霸王别姬

我站在烈烈风中
恨不能荡尽绵绵心痛
望苍天
四方云动
剑在手
问天下谁是英雄
我站在烈烈风中
恨不能荡尽绵绵心痛
望苍天
四方云动
剑在手
问天下谁是英雄

人世间有百媚千红
我独爱爱你那一种
伤心处别时路有谁不同
多少年恩爱匆匆葬送
我心中你最重
悲欢共生死同
你用柔情刻骨
换我毫情天纵
我心中你最重
我的泪向天冲
来世也当称雄
归去斜阳正浓

我站在烈烈风中
恨不能荡尽绵绵心痛
望苍天
四方云动
剑在手
问天下谁是英雄
人世间有百媚千抹
我独爱爱你那一种
伤心处别时路有谁不同
多少年恩爱匆匆葬送
我心中你最重
悲欢共生死同
你用柔情刻骨
换我毫情天纵
我心中你最重
我的泪向天冲
来世也当称雄
归去斜阳正浓

was reading wilde's De Profundis while Arvo Pärt's De Profundis was playing. strangely the two works resonate to produce a depression that silently creeps into me. that recording is good, described by one of the reviewers on amazon as 'an icy wind of delicious sadness'

(Lidholm)  De Profundis


De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.
Domine, exaudi, vocem meam.
Fiant aures tuae intendentis
in vocem deprecationis meae. Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus:
speravit anima mea in Domino
 

Engl. Trans  (Lidholm) De Profundis

Out of the depths I cry to Thee, o Lord
Lord, hear my voice!
Let thy ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplication.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in His word I hope.


(Psalm 129 / 1-2, 5-6)

And the brand played on

a friend guided me to this link: And the brand played on and i agree that this is a very meaningful article. just putting it here, not sure how many people will be interested though.

and for those interested in jap/non-jap animated films, here is a new blog by my dear friend Life in Motion enjoy!

hail. zhang weiliang.

i almost got a heart attack when i read on some webpage that zhang weiliang the ultimate chinese music idol, love of my life was born in suzhou! (soochow that is.) i was like, what?!!??!!??!! OMG(although i want to avoid using such remotely religious exclamation, it is hard under such circumstances). So proud i am, my fellow con-politans who do or do not know zhang weiliang, that the little old city that we are from should have produced a musician so fine! as much as it is entirely logical for suzhou to have cultivated such a person, considering the cultural and musical tradition of the city, i was very surprised by the discovery. juiceyly surprised! it would never have occurred to me. never. ooh! :D

hoho.
and happy chinese new year. people.

yo. in cloud9

郑燮敲你的大脑袋

郑板桥好好笑哦。他诗钞的《后刻诗序》里说：板桥诗刻止于此矣。死后如有托名翻版，将平日无聊应酬之作改窜滥入，吾必为厉鬼以击其脑。
不过精神可嘉，精神可嘉。

Quick Vote!

who do you think is cutest? i mean guys. duh. :p


the one at the top left corner? (T) PEDER KARLSSON
the one in the middle? (Ct) ANDERS EDENROTH 
or the one at the bottom? (B) ANDERS JALKÉUS  

haha i'm just being stupid and bo liao here. haha. but i think karlsson at the top corner there is really cute!
Well, the girls. pretty too.
Left (S) MARGARETA JALKÉUS
Rigth (A) KATARINA HENRYSON. oh her voice!

i'm bored... :/ and i long for a group as such. they sound amazing.
and zj, i thinik of you all haha when i hear i sing you sing then feel like you all singing non-stop over and over...haha it's pretty maddening.. hah.

oh, and today during my art hist midterm i had 20 slide ID questions, but not every slide i memorised came out. so i was a little surprised. so when i got back i counted the slides i memorised, 27 of them there are! wow. i didn't know i'd memorised so many...wow.

i'm sitting in my room trying to memorise 20 slides of paintings from late 18c to early 20c. and am dying of all the audially intriguing but visually confusing names, majority of which are french. some of artists have similar names, some share common first names, most have more than 2 parts to their names. such as jean-auguste-dominique ingres, jean-francois millet, john everett-millais, jacques-louis david, elisabeth-louise vigee-lebrun, and joseph mallord william turner (note the use of hyphens). while naming them, their parents obviously weren't aware that their kids were growing up to become great figures in the grand history of art, and possessing the potential of confusing pathetic art history students like myself who are killing all their neurons trying to secure that one point for this name. i love them. i love their works. i just can't stand the inconsistencies in the naming of kids in the european societies. maybe an IUPAC system for nomenclature of kids will help.

and outside my room, in the common room, the TV is broadcasting the bushistic state of union. and 2 of my neighbours are watching. the president speaks cooly and firmly of the freedom in iraq, the freedom in the US and no freedom to create embryos, before the audience breaks into overwhelming waves of applause every now and then.

LIst of Scores

List of Scores I bought myself recently:

The Real Group's fun and jazzy interpretation of
-Chili Con Carne

Whitacre's ever powerful compositions
-Cloudburst
-When David Heard
-Water Night
-Lux Aurumque
-Five Hebrew Love Songs
The last one is a SA with piano piece. thinking when i go back to singapore if we are missing guys again at least we can do this one.

and i'm looking forward to buying another beautiful song by the Real Group
-Kristallen Den Fina (Heavenly Crystal)
and i want a copy of Ravel's Trois Chansons. I will get it sooner or later.

And there i was staring at my scores. they are so new and neat and enclosed with beautiful music. what's the point? These are meant to be read by a group of people and translated into sounds with colors. not to sit there on my desk, doing nothing. :( i don't have a group. and i don't even feel like looking for or starting one here. well. small groups are such intimate things. i don't think it's what i can start just by shouting "who wants to sing in a group" across the facebook. well. sigh.

and i'm very sad.

My page is supposed to look like this :(

A Screen Shot

viva corel

My Picture

李碧华看张爱玲

我记得我看过《绿腰》怎对下面这一段高见没什么印象？

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　　我觉得"张爱玲"是一口井--不但是井，且是一口任由各界人士四方君子尽情来淘的古井。大方得很，又放心得很。古井无波，越淘越有。于她又有什么损失？

　　是以拍电视的恣意炒杂锦。拍电影的恭敬谨献。写小说的谁没看过她？看完了少不免忍不住模仿一下。搅新派舞台剧的又借题发挥，沾沾光彩。迟一点也许有人把文字给舞出来了。总之各人都在她身上淘，然而，各人却又互相看不起呢，互相窃笑没有人真正领略她的好处，尽是附庸风雅，只有自己是十大杰出读者，排名甚前。

　　"张爱玲"除了是古井，还是紫禁城里头的出租龙袍戏服，花数元人民币租来拍个照，有些好看，有些不好看。她还是狐假虎威中的虎，藕断丝连中的藕，炼石补天中的石，群蚁附膻中的膻，闻鸡起舞中的鸡⋯⋯

　　文坛寂寞得恐怖，只出一位这样的女子。

　　--李碧华《绿腰》


张爱玲



文评我是写不象的。摘一点吧。

李碧华：素手裂红裳


　　没有矢志不渝，只因找不到更好的。

　　世界上之所以有矢志不渝的爱情，忠肝义胆的气概，皆因为时相当短暂，方支撑得了。久病床前无孝子，旷日持久不容易，一切物事之美好在于“没时间变坏”。

　　这便是爱情：大概一千万人之中，才有一双梁祝，才可以化蝶。其他的只化为蛾、蟑螂、蚊蚋、苍蝇、金龟子⋯⋯就是化不成蝴蝶。并不像想象中的美丽。

　　高晓松在《青春无悔》的文案中曾有过一句话：再也没有了一诺千金的男人，再也没有了“拼将一生休，尽君一日欢”的女子。身为女子的我也有着同样的惆怅：在成熟将我变得开通而自爱的同时，圆滑也是不可避免的；我原想要成长为一棵独立支撑的乔木，而现在，我成了分不清主干的灌木丛。所以，每次我看到韦庄的那阕词———春日游，杏花插满头，陌上谁家少年足风流。妾拟将身嫁与，一生休。纵被无情弃，不能休———的时候，总是叹息：有过一次那样热烈奔放的情怀，也不枉做过一次女人。就像郭襄小姑娘说穆念慈“既然欢喜了杨康，便要欢喜到底”，就像《胭脂扣》里的如花变成了鬼也要来追寻她的十二少，而白素贞闹到水淹金山也要向法海讨回那个怎么看也配不上她的许仙一样。李碧华的东西，同样不能一次多看，她有种“素手裂红裳”的决绝，看得你只觉天地苍茫伊人不知何处去、而桃花没心没肺地依旧笑春风。

　　李碧华跟亦舒一样擅长写女性，但她不是亦舒那样的“大女子主义”，否则，也不会有如花或白素贞的“贞烈”了；但李碧华也绝对不是爱情的信徒，她的美丽善良坚强的女主角们，往往是所遇非人，或者说，遇到的都是“小男人”：十二少跟如花约好了一起自尽，却又在最后关头贪生求救；许仙安心地享用白素贞带给他的一切舒适，也能冷笑着对小青说：“你以为我不知道你们不是人吗？娘子那么只求付出不求回报，哪是人能做到的？”———如花们的情太重太浓了，“小男人”根本负担不起，当年的胡兰成，基于同样的理由，离开才华盖世的张爱玲。

　　我更愿意相信，除了极个别的之外，尘世女子的心愿，也就是张爱玲所说的“岁月静好，现世安稳”，像刘若英那样只想做个好太太。只是，李碧华无情地说，你得能找到那个肯跟你过日子的男人。

　　对这一点，很多女作家也有同样的感慨。画眉在《湖畔的惆怅与乌烟灶头的亲吻》一文里的口气简直有点愤愤不平：“我们拥有自己的工作并且还算兢兢业业，我们孝顺爹娘看顾朋友拾金不昧，我们都还不老不难看，我们暂且还不想出家为尼，难道我们不应当被搭配一个说得过去的男人？”而钱红丽则怀着这样的希望：“找到一位像父亲那样温柔敦厚的人，与他白云苍狗共赴百年，过暖老温贫的日子。”

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（不过，干嘛拿李碧华和亦舒比？好像差太远了吧？）