Update, links, quote

[tarigwaemir]

Haste Street on the Feast of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini

A rather hurried post, since I just spent the last two hours upgrading to the new version of Wordpress and tagging all the old posts on the reading blog, instead of, well, updating LJ.*

Weekend summary: on Friday, had dinner with lab at Korean tofu house. The restaurant was chosen from a list of recommendations compiled by a post-doc from Korea. Discovered that all the Korean restaurants that I've been to previously were on its list of Places to Avoid. The tofu house was excellent however, and we all ate until our stomachs burst. Must be fated to have research advisors who are enthusiastic about Asian food. (I'm not complaining.) Went to Korean supermarket afterwards with undergrad and lab tech; got laughed at for buying so much preprocessed food (which is "cheating" according to the undergrad, who is Korean and apparently cooks more adeptly than I do).

Spent Saturday visiting R------, whom I met at the last Shoryuhai, in Fremont. Had delicious teppanyaki at Pepper Lunch, drove to San Jose where we stopped by the library and visited the Tech Museum, had dinner at a Szechuan restaurant (delicious spicy beef noodle soup!) and mango ice cream with sticky rice at the next-door Chinese dessert bar. Excellent eating all around.

jaebi_lit came to Berkeley on Sunday, and we went bookstore-hopping. Ate burgers for lunch, spent several hours at Moe's, got bubble tea from the Asian Ghetto (now I can finally say I've eaten there), and even stopped by Pegasus before she left on the BART. Could there be a more ideal afternoon? I bought Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes and The Book of Imaginary Beings by Borges (used hardcover for $8!).

In other news, I started my new rotation today. Learning how to program Perl, which is actually a pretty nifty language. I'm being supervised by two senior grad students, who are being surprisingly conscientious and helpful about getting me started on the project. The lab is off-campus in the hills east of Berkeley, which means my commute is technically longer, but there's a shuttle that goes up there, so I actually get to walk less and read more.

Links! The Ultimate Guide to Freezing Food, found via Lifehacker. Also, if you use iGoogle regularly instead of in erratic spurts like me, you probably knew already that they had new themes to offer, but if you didn't, you should check them out.

More on the book club to come. In the meanwhile, have a quote from Flaubert's Parrot:

1846 Amongst those who go to sea there are the navigators who discover new worlds, adding continents to the earth and stars to the heavens: they are the masters, the great, the eternally splendid. Then there are those who spit terror from their gun-ports, who pillage, who grow rich and fat. Others go off in search of gold and silk under foreign skies. Still others catch salmon for the gourmet or cod for the poor. I am the obscure and patient pearl-fisherman who dives into the deepest waters and comes up with empty hands and a blue face. Some fatal attraction draws me deep down into the abysses of thought, down into those innermost recesses which never cease to fascinate the strong. I shall spend my life gazing at the ocean of art, where others voyage or fight; and from time to time I'll entertain myself by diving for those green and yellow shells that nobody will want. So I shall keep them for myself and cover the walls of my hut with them.

Barnes creates a chronology for Flaubert in quotations, although I'm not sure if the above is from Flaubert's journals or letters or fiction. The pressing question, as I read this book: why did I never finish Madame Bovary?

* The tag cloud is surprisingly insightful about my tastes in reading. I mean, it's pretty obvious that I read a lot of fantasy, but I think I've read almost as many mysteries in the past four years. Granted, most of those are Dorothy L. Sayers novels.

Yours &c.

Comments

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

I just saw La Rondine tonight and it was spectacular. Angela Gheorghiu totally stole the show, or would have if Prunier, Lisette, Ruggero, and the set hadn't been fabulous as well! I'm thinking of going again (and checking that claim that the nosebleed seats actually have better acoustics; the back of the orchestra seating is variable and sometimes the orchestra is louder than the singers there) for the matinee on the 25th - interested?

[troisroyaumes]

My friend is supposed to try to get rush tickets for us for Friday's performance, but if the performance is as wonderful as you say, I definitely wouldn't mind seeing it again. ^_^ How much do tickets cost?

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

$24.50 ($20 for balcony side ticket, $4.50 for handling charges).

She has an amazing voice perfectly suited for this opera! The notes simply edge into being, so softly at first that you can barely hear them, then crescendoing into glorious color. So, so amazing.

[troisroyaumes]

So it turns out that there are no rush tickets for tomorrow's performance. ;_; Anyway, now I'm definitely interested in going on the 25th. The matinee is at 2 PM right? I can give you money for the ticket on Monday.

The recording I downloaded from iTunes has Gheorghiu as well, and oh my gosh, her voice sends shivers up my spine. Such a perfect tone! *_* I would really love to see a performance.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Yay! Sun 11/25, 2 P.M. She's also doing a signing after the show!

[serendip.livejournal.com]

I was talking to my friend about this supposedly awesome gelato place. She can't remember the name but she told me oh fuck I can't remember for sure that it was on Shaddock and University? Maybe? She said that would make sense to anyone living in Berkley. GO THERE AND TELL ME IF IT IS GOOD ^_^

[troisroyaumes]

I think I've been there! It has all sorts of neat flavors like saffron and acorn, and yes, it's very good. ^_^ (Psst, if you ever visit me, we can go!)

[serendip.livejournal.com]

Yup, definitely. The operative term of course being if....