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tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Richard
I typed up portions of LJ posts while at home, but never got around to posting them, which I think is a good thing because they became particularly convoluted since I wrote the bulk of them while in the midst of sprinting through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I have the unfortunate tendency to pattern my moods and voice after whatever book I'm reading (well, at least I did when I was still reading regularly, i.e. before college), and so the posts sounded faux-Regency or fourthhand imitation of Austen. (Not that Susanna Clarke writes badly--she has a remarkably graceful grasp of anachronistic language--but unfortunately, I don't have the same technical facility. Not when it comes to sounding like 19th century British authors anyway.) Actually, the wordiness hasn't gone away, as I'm sure you can see, but I shall try to be concise.
During Spring Break, I...
1. watched five movies: 내마음의 풍금, a Korean nostalgia film about a young country girl who falls in love with her schoolteacher, played by a young Lee Byung-hun (who also starred in J.S.A. and a whole bunch of other movies and dramas); 봄 여름 가을 경울...그리고 봄, another Korean film which initially seemed to fall under the same category of "nostalgia" except as the Buddhist temple variation but actually turned out to be quite a profound Buddhist fable, growing symbolic and, dare I say it, almost magic realist? (the film is by no means complex, but simple in that deeply inexpressible way; I highly recommend it although it ends on a sad note); Oldboy, a Cannes film festival winner with plenty of gratuitous sex and violence and a horrible, shocking ending that left a sour taste in my mouth because it felt meaningless (I really disliked this movie and am surprised it didn't get censored by the South Korean government; it has quite a post-modern, or is it post-post-modern?, feel but I found it pointless); Million Dollar Baby, during which my mother cried her eyes out although I was feeling a bit cynical and unappreciative that day (it's still a very good movie, and I can see why it won the Oscar); and The Motorcycle Diaries, which was everything I expected and more, and my only regret is that I didn't see it on the big screen where I'm sure it would have been even more breathtaking.
2. read five and a half books: the aforementioned Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell about which I'm sure I'll write more either here or in my book log; Taltos, Phoenix, Athyra and Orca, out of which I actually found myself liking Orca best simply for the excellent plot twists at the end (Does Issola continue the chronology after Orca? I hope so, because I'm dying of suspense...); and half of Dragon. I'm still having trouble keeping track of all the Houses and what animals they correspond to (well, aside from obvious ones like Dragon or Orca, and the frequently mentioned ones like Jhereg or Yendi). Does anyone have a master list somewhere? Or a link to a master list?
3. bought a 20 GB iPod: I am now $280 short but regained 10.4 GB free space. (Well, it's 9.4 GB now, but that's because I caught up on downloading FSTs. One of these days I'm going to nerve myself to burn off the FSTs that I really don't listen to at all, but I have to figure out which ones they are first.) The iPod is pretty but it collects fingerprints really easily. -_- I've realized that I can appreciate the Good Omens FST on a whole new level now that I listen to the songs through earphones. ^_^ I don't know what to name my iPod--currently, it's called "Doremi" on the suggestion of my parents--but I want to be silly and anthropomorphic and give it an interesting name. Any suggestions?
4. did my biology problem set: aren't you amazed?
5. did not do any biology reading, Charlemagne reading, studying for physics, studying for Korean, writing the synopsis of the Korean news special, research for my Charlemagne paper: now that's more like the Tari we all know
6. ate agutang upon![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xerosphere's recommendation: I didn't like the fish itself so much, although I think that's more the fault of the restaurant, which stuck the leftovers from the agujjim special in the stew, than the actual agu, but the rest of the stew was delicious
7. ate sashimi for the first time: I don't think I'll ever understand the attraction of sashimi because frankly all I could taste was the soy sauce/wasabi mix, not the fish itself (not that I dislike the taste of soy sauce mixed with wasabi, but it tastes just the same with rice alone, so what's the point of putting the raw fish on?)
8. took a peek at the first page of the new Ender book: only the first page, but there was a nice opening that seems to refer to Xenocide (the only reason I'm reading the later series is to fill in little canon details about the Enderverse, such as Ender's mother's first name)
Oh yes, I don't know if you've heard already, but a few weeks ago, a paper was published in the Letters section of Nature that proposed a model for non-Mendelian inheritance via an RNA mechanism. It made the news in the New York Times, and since then, it's been popping up in the most discussed topics list on sci.bio.evolution day after day. People at my own lab were discussing it the day before I left for Spring Break. (Well, the paper does cite a paper that our P.I. published a few years ago and has some pretty interesting implications for our research, but even putting those considerations aside, it's big news.) Anyway, it's rather interesting, so if anyone wants to read the actual paper (to my surprise most of the commenters in sci.bio.evolution hadn't actually read the full text but only secondhand synopses because you need subscription access), I uploaded it here. Shh, don't tell or else I'll get sued for putting up copyrighted material. >_> More thoughts on the paper later: although I understand the paper itself, I don't quite understand all the arguments against it at the moment. >_<
On a final, more somber note: Pope John Paul II passed away yesterday afternoon. (Our eyes were glued to the news for the past two days.) I've never had the chance to even get a glimpse of the Pope other than through the television or newspapers, but somehow it feels like I've lost a grandfather. I hope he didn't suffer too long in his final hours. For the first time, I regret not having a television, but I suppose I wouldn't be able to watch the funeral even if I did, because of the time zone differences.
Yours &c.
I typed up portions of LJ posts while at home, but never got around to posting them, which I think is a good thing because they became particularly convoluted since I wrote the bulk of them while in the midst of sprinting through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I have the unfortunate tendency to pattern my moods and voice after whatever book I'm reading (well, at least I did when I was still reading regularly, i.e. before college), and so the posts sounded faux-Regency or fourthhand imitation of Austen. (Not that Susanna Clarke writes badly--she has a remarkably graceful grasp of anachronistic language--but unfortunately, I don't have the same technical facility. Not when it comes to sounding like 19th century British authors anyway.) Actually, the wordiness hasn't gone away, as I'm sure you can see, but I shall try to be concise.
During Spring Break, I...
1. watched five movies: 내마음의 풍금, a Korean nostalgia film about a young country girl who falls in love with her schoolteacher, played by a young Lee Byung-hun (who also starred in J.S.A. and a whole bunch of other movies and dramas); 봄 여름 가을 경울...그리고 봄, another Korean film which initially seemed to fall under the same category of "nostalgia" except as the Buddhist temple variation but actually turned out to be quite a profound Buddhist fable, growing symbolic and, dare I say it, almost magic realist? (the film is by no means complex, but simple in that deeply inexpressible way; I highly recommend it although it ends on a sad note); Oldboy, a Cannes film festival winner with plenty of gratuitous sex and violence and a horrible, shocking ending that left a sour taste in my mouth because it felt meaningless (I really disliked this movie and am surprised it didn't get censored by the South Korean government; it has quite a post-modern, or is it post-post-modern?, feel but I found it pointless); Million Dollar Baby, during which my mother cried her eyes out although I was feeling a bit cynical and unappreciative that day (it's still a very good movie, and I can see why it won the Oscar); and The Motorcycle Diaries, which was everything I expected and more, and my only regret is that I didn't see it on the big screen where I'm sure it would have been even more breathtaking.
2. read five and a half books: the aforementioned Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell about which I'm sure I'll write more either here or in my book log; Taltos, Phoenix, Athyra and Orca, out of which I actually found myself liking Orca best simply for the excellent plot twists at the end (Does Issola continue the chronology after Orca? I hope so, because I'm dying of suspense...); and half of Dragon. I'm still having trouble keeping track of all the Houses and what animals they correspond to (well, aside from obvious ones like Dragon or Orca, and the frequently mentioned ones like Jhereg or Yendi). Does anyone have a master list somewhere? Or a link to a master list?
3. bought a 20 GB iPod: I am now $280 short but regained 10.4 GB free space. (Well, it's 9.4 GB now, but that's because I caught up on downloading FSTs. One of these days I'm going to nerve myself to burn off the FSTs that I really don't listen to at all, but I have to figure out which ones they are first.) The iPod is pretty but it collects fingerprints really easily. -_- I've realized that I can appreciate the Good Omens FST on a whole new level now that I listen to the songs through earphones. ^_^ I don't know what to name my iPod--currently, it's called "Doremi" on the suggestion of my parents--but I want to be silly and anthropomorphic and give it an interesting name. Any suggestions?
4. did my biology problem set: aren't you amazed?
5. did not do any biology reading, Charlemagne reading, studying for physics, studying for Korean, writing the synopsis of the Korean news special, research for my Charlemagne paper: now that's more like the Tari we all know
6. ate agutang upon
xerosphere's recommendation: I didn't like the fish itself so much, although I think that's more the fault of the restaurant, which stuck the leftovers from the agujjim special in the stew, than the actual agu, but the rest of the stew was delicious7. ate sashimi for the first time: I don't think I'll ever understand the attraction of sashimi because frankly all I could taste was the soy sauce/wasabi mix, not the fish itself (not that I dislike the taste of soy sauce mixed with wasabi, but it tastes just the same with rice alone, so what's the point of putting the raw fish on?)
8. took a peek at the first page of the new Ender book: only the first page, but there was a nice opening that seems to refer to Xenocide (the only reason I'm reading the later series is to fill in little canon details about the Enderverse, such as Ender's mother's first name)
Oh yes, I don't know if you've heard already, but a few weeks ago, a paper was published in the Letters section of Nature that proposed a model for non-Mendelian inheritance via an RNA mechanism. It made the news in the New York Times, and since then, it's been popping up in the most discussed topics list on sci.bio.evolution day after day. People at my own lab were discussing it the day before I left for Spring Break. (Well, the paper does cite a paper that our P.I. published a few years ago and has some pretty interesting implications for our research, but even putting those considerations aside, it's big news.) Anyway, it's rather interesting, so if anyone wants to read the actual paper (to my surprise most of the commenters in sci.bio.evolution hadn't actually read the full text but only secondhand synopses because you need subscription access), I uploaded it here. Shh, don't tell or else I'll get sued for putting up copyrighted material. >_> More thoughts on the paper later: although I understand the paper itself, I don't quite understand all the arguments against it at the moment. >_<
On a final, more somber note: Pope John Paul II passed away yesterday afternoon. (Our eyes were glued to the news for the past two days.) I've never had the chance to even get a glimpse of the Pope other than through the television or newspapers, but somehow it feels like I've lost a grandfather. I hope he didn't suffer too long in his final hours. For the first time, I regret not having a television, but I suppose I wouldn't be able to watch the funeral even if I did, because of the time zone differences.
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:00 am (UTC)http://www.speakeasy.org/~mamandel/Cracks-and-Shards/
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 03:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:27 am (UTC)My reply to your comment on our FST. That was before I realized you had written an entry saying that you were back. >_>
iPod. Doremi...isn't that a karaoke place? Yeah, I think so.
You have also crossed over to the dark side.
Sashimi. Man, you shouldn't put so much soysauce and wasabi on it then! Good sashimi is *so* good.
Stick to real sushi then. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:59 am (UTC)I had oysters the other day, and I didn't really like them because they were not remotely filling. I mean, sushi/sashimi isn't really either, but you can still actually eat enough to fill ya up. Oysters on the half shell on the other hand...Eat a bucket and still feel hungry (and vaguely sick, probably..)
Teenage mutant ninja turtles! Heroes in a half shell!
Sushi is technically those rolls with raw fish in it. I think the other kinds have different names. It all makes me very confused and I should probably ask one of my sensei about it, since I don't trust the crap I find on the internet. (there was this one lady, who was like "Octopus is chewy and doesn't give any taste" and I'm like, "Well, we wouldn't eat it if it wasn't! Duh!" I love takoyaki!
It was all a mistake on the website, so no shinai bags. ;_; mr. S was right in saying, nothing is free.
About Doremi. I know *that* much. My mom taught me all that crap and I have watched enough of Sound of Music to know the song. I was just trying to remember if it was a place I know of in NY or Boston.
Er.. that's about it..
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 03:05 am (UTC)Ah okay, that makes some sense. I guess my problem is that I really like seasoned food. I mean I didn't mind the sashimi, but I kept thinking, if the flavor is coming from the soy sauce, why not just eat California rolls (without fish), which do a better job of filling you up. ::shrugs:: Well, at least I know I can eat it now, even if I don't get thrilled about it.
Actually I like octopus (and takoyaki), because its flavor is stronger than squid/cuttlefish.
Can we still order shinai bags through you since you have membership? Or will it make no difference if we just order ourselves?
Doremi Karaoke definitely exists in Flushing, so that's probably the place you remember.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 03:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 04:28 am (UTC)Whaaa?!? You don't like sashimi? (hmm, in Korea they don't have raw fish dishes? I was wondering about that). Hmm, have you tried different types of fish? I do find maguro a bit blah myself... my favorites are stuff like hamachi, salmon, if you want one that's definitely different try ika.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 11:37 am (UTC)Well, Koreans do eat a lot of sashimi (my father's a huge fan), and I think there are raw fish dishes that are not quite the same as sashimi, but my mother hates serving any sort of raw food so I haven't been exposed to it at all. But we went to a Korean-style Japanese restaurant (i.e. run by Koreans but serving Japanese food), and we ordered the Great Ship of Sashimi. XD I did try all the different types of fish on the boat, including salmon, and to my insensitive taste buds, they all tasted pretty bland. It's not so much that I didn't like it as I didn't quite see the point. I guess I need to get someone to introduce it to me properly. ^_^;;
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 05:42 pm (UTC)Ah, I see. I think sashimi is partially a texture thing. It's sort of different depending on how fatty the fish is, and how you eat it... I personally don't like wasabi that much, so I just use shoyu, and not too much.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 10:17 pm (UTC)!!! IPOD!! WARK! I WANTS ONE, TOO!
!!! NEW ENDER BOOK! I ENVY!
And about the Pope, yea... I did spend half the day at the Vatican on Easter... I'll tell you the full story later ~_~;; I have 3 decent pictures? And a picture of St. Peter's Basilica on Good Friday... xD
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 10:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 04:34 am (UTC)congrats on your ipod. mine's named delilah. i don't know why...it just sorta happened. yyyeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 04:41 am (UTC)