New York report, alphabet blogging
Jun. 11th, 2008 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirDurant Ave, on the Feast of St. Barnabas
Back in California after a week (well, six days, to be precise) at home in New York. Spent most of Thursday and Friday sleeping and reading The Courtier and the Heretic (book about the meeting between Spinoza and Leibniz and the subsequent effect on the latter's philosophy). Steve arrived late on Friday night (just in time for the epic heat wave that hit the next day and didn't let up until I left on the plane this morning), and we proceeded to spend the next few days meeting my friends, getting lost on the subway (due to my overconfidence about navigating the NYC subway system) and eating good food. ^_^ The itinerary:
Saturday: the Strand, lunch/dessert/tea at Cha An with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
serendip and starlighter, dinner with my parents at home, open bar for my fifth year high school class reunion
Sunday: foiled attempt to go to New Combination, dinner at Menchanko Tei with (in order of arrival)serendip, tryogeru, Steve's friend Andrew and his girlfriend Jennifer, starlighter, Steve's blockmate Peter, ldmoonflower, angelyrique followed by three hours of karaoke in Flushing (where Serena joined us to sing)
Monday: American Museum of Natural History plus picnic lunch in Central Park (kimbap packed by my mother, who was horrified at how much we'd been spending)
serendip was awfully kind and offered to let Steve stay at her place, since my parents were already nervous about Steve's visit, and I didn't dare ask them if he could stay with us. Still, after much initial panicking, my mother ended up rather excited about having someone over and prepared an extravagant dinner. The menu, for those of you who are curious like serendip: clam and tofu soup, shrimp tempura, seasoned gosari, seasoned squash, fish filet fried in egg, king oyster mushroom stir-fry, minari tied up with squid and served with hot sauce, and japchae. No, we don't normally eat like that at home.
A fair number of people came to the class reunion--I was afraid that not many people would show up--and I got to talk to some people that I hadn't seen since graduation. Most seem to be living and working in the city, although there were a few who studied abroad for the past year. Unfortunately, the bar where it was held was not air-conditioned and played loud music, leaving us feeling hot and hoarse. -_- Oh well, given all the disorganization in planning the event, I guess I'm just grateful that it went as well as it did.
We planned a trip to New Combination because Steve wanted to eat West African giant land snails, but alas, the restaurant was closed when we arrived. Walking along Utica Ave. was quite an adventure though: we passed by a meat store selling goat meat as well as a market selling breadfruit (which I bought) and pig snouts. We had a sort of belated lunch by ordering smoothies at the local juice bar, before we headed back to Manhattan for dinner. I bought aged Manchego cheese, which is made from sheep's milk, at Grand Central Market. It proved to be very delicious, and I'm quite annoyed that I forgot to bring it back with me. >_<
All in all, a very good weekend! I'm a little dismayed that the days passed by so quickly, and I'm already back in Berkeley. Oh well, I needed to get back to my experiments anyhow.
Going through the meme in alphabetical order.starlighter asked about Akira (of the Touya variety): Well, it should come as no surprise that Touya Akira is my favorite character in Hikaru no Go. (That designation used to belong to Sai, but my rankings have subtly changed over the years.) I try not to write from Akira's perspective too often because I worry that I'll warp him into a version of myself. That isn't to say that I don't on some level warp all of my characters into myself, but I do sincerely identify with Akira so the temptation is doubled. It's not just that Akira is well-behaved and somewhat out of touch with his peers but that he has always known what he was going to do with his life. It's that certainty that gives him his confidence, I think, more so than his obvious talent and family background. (That is not to say that I have obvious talent or family background in science--neither is true at all--but I haven't swerved in my plans to become a scientist since I was seven. Of course, there's still plenty of time for me to undergo an identity crisis!) Akira doesn't need to find himself because he knows who he is and what he was meant to do.
I wonder if Akira occasionally regrets the predictability of his life. I suspect he doesn't, and that's one of the ways he will remain irrevocably different from me. He wouldn't have such regrets because even if he is continuing to pursue the Hand of God as a professional go player as he always believed he would, he has Shindou Hikaru to throw surprises and detours in his otherwise straightforward path.
Akira seems very mature, even old for his age--fanon adds, "except around Shindou". Though I think the occasional flashes of immaturity, or perhaps impetuousness, are intrinsic to Akira himself: he is the boy, after all, whose polite expression turns fierce over the goban and who boldly pulls a four-way tie because it galls him to lose to a sponsor with insufficient respect for go. Akira was brought up to be quiet and charming, but I think he is capable of being quite rude if he believes the other person isn't worthy of his respect (and for Akira, being worthy of respect has nothing to do with age or status but only love for go).
Akira's fatal flaw is pride. I wouldn't call it arrogance or hubris though because he is aware of his own limitations. But he is modest in his self-assessment because he can afford to be, and I don't think Akira has ever encountered the sort of failure that made him seriously doubt himself or his abilities. When he played Hikaru (or rather, Sai directing Hikaru) for the first time, he was energized rather than crushed by his loss. I wonder what it would take to truly shake Akira's self-confidence...is Akira capable of despair? I can think of certain AU scenarios in which that would be possible, but it's harder to think of a situation that would fall in the canon timeline.
What I also like about Akira: despite having grown up with go all his life, he doesn't take go or any part of the go professional world for granted. He treats the tradition with reverence, as if performing some sort of sacred rite. Perhaps that too is what gives him his composure and self-control, in spite of the impulsive streak in his personality. There's something priestly about the way that Akira approaches go, and I think it rubs off on Shindou too, which may be why so many people conclude that they would never get around to the sex.
starlighter once made a request that I attempt an inverted version of mirabellawotr's And I am in Arcadia, where Akira was the serial killer instead of Hikaru. I, uh, have been dragging my feet on this request (and many others) for quite a while now, but it's a fascinating prompt nonetheless! Akira's pride, which can easily lead him to judge others (fairly for the most part in the series, I would say, but one can imagine otherwise), could be exaggerated into a sort of sociopathy, and the ritualism that surrounds a formal game of go could be twisted into a ritual of murder. But I have trouble imagining Akira as murderous; he's somehow too sane for all that. (He is, in any case, much more well-adjusted than Hikaru even if Akira does seem like the type to get bullied in school. Speaking of which, Kaio go club incident aside, I don't really think Akira was all that much of a loner in school. I bet he's the type who gets along with all his classmates but has no close friends. Rather like Shuuji from Nobuta wo Produce but without the facade. Hm, maybe svz_insanity is onto something here.)
All right, going to actually finish unpacking now.
Yours &c.
Back in California after a week (well, six days, to be precise) at home in New York. Spent most of Thursday and Friday sleeping and reading The Courtier and the Heretic (book about the meeting between Spinoza and Leibniz and the subsequent effect on the latter's philosophy). Steve arrived late on Friday night (just in time for the epic heat wave that hit the next day and didn't let up until I left on the plane this morning), and we proceeded to spend the next few days meeting my friends, getting lost on the subway (due to my overconfidence about navigating the NYC subway system) and eating good food. ^_^ The itinerary:
Saturday: the Strand, lunch/dessert/tea at Cha An with
serendip and starlighter, dinner with my parents at home, open bar for my fifth year high school class reunionSunday: foiled attempt to go to New Combination, dinner at Menchanko Tei with (in order of arrival)
serendip, tryogeru, Steve's friend Andrew and his girlfriend Jennifer, starlighter, Steve's blockmate Peter, ldmoonflower, angelyrique followed by three hours of karaoke in Flushing (where Serena joined us to sing)Monday: American Museum of Natural History plus picnic lunch in Central Park (kimbap packed by my mother, who was horrified at how much we'd been spending)
serendip was awfully kind and offered to let Steve stay at her place, since my parents were already nervous about Steve's visit, and I didn't dare ask them if he could stay with us. Still, after much initial panicking, my mother ended up rather excited about having someone over and prepared an extravagant dinner. The menu, for those of you who are curious like serendip: clam and tofu soup, shrimp tempura, seasoned gosari, seasoned squash, fish filet fried in egg, king oyster mushroom stir-fry, minari tied up with squid and served with hot sauce, and japchae. No, we don't normally eat like that at home.A fair number of people came to the class reunion--I was afraid that not many people would show up--and I got to talk to some people that I hadn't seen since graduation. Most seem to be living and working in the city, although there were a few who studied abroad for the past year. Unfortunately, the bar where it was held was not air-conditioned and played loud music, leaving us feeling hot and hoarse. -_- Oh well, given all the disorganization in planning the event, I guess I'm just grateful that it went as well as it did.
We planned a trip to New Combination because Steve wanted to eat West African giant land snails, but alas, the restaurant was closed when we arrived. Walking along Utica Ave. was quite an adventure though: we passed by a meat store selling goat meat as well as a market selling breadfruit (which I bought) and pig snouts. We had a sort of belated lunch by ordering smoothies at the local juice bar, before we headed back to Manhattan for dinner. I bought aged Manchego cheese, which is made from sheep's milk, at Grand Central Market. It proved to be very delicious, and I'm quite annoyed that I forgot to bring it back with me. >_<
All in all, a very good weekend! I'm a little dismayed that the days passed by so quickly, and I'm already back in Berkeley. Oh well, I needed to get back to my experiments anyhow.
Going through the meme in alphabetical order.
starlighter asked about Akira (of the Touya variety): Well, it should come as no surprise that Touya Akira is my favorite character in Hikaru no Go. (That designation used to belong to Sai, but my rankings have subtly changed over the years.) I try not to write from Akira's perspective too often because I worry that I'll warp him into a version of myself. That isn't to say that I don't on some level warp all of my characters into myself, but I do sincerely identify with Akira so the temptation is doubled. It's not just that Akira is well-behaved and somewhat out of touch with his peers but that he has always known what he was going to do with his life. It's that certainty that gives him his confidence, I think, more so than his obvious talent and family background. (That is not to say that I have obvious talent or family background in science--neither is true at all--but I haven't swerved in my plans to become a scientist since I was seven. Of course, there's still plenty of time for me to undergo an identity crisis!) Akira doesn't need to find himself because he knows who he is and what he was meant to do.I wonder if Akira occasionally regrets the predictability of his life. I suspect he doesn't, and that's one of the ways he will remain irrevocably different from me. He wouldn't have such regrets because even if he is continuing to pursue the Hand of God as a professional go player as he always believed he would, he has Shindou Hikaru to throw surprises and detours in his otherwise straightforward path.
Akira seems very mature, even old for his age--fanon adds, "except around Shindou". Though I think the occasional flashes of immaturity, or perhaps impetuousness, are intrinsic to Akira himself: he is the boy, after all, whose polite expression turns fierce over the goban and who boldly pulls a four-way tie because it galls him to lose to a sponsor with insufficient respect for go. Akira was brought up to be quiet and charming, but I think he is capable of being quite rude if he believes the other person isn't worthy of his respect (and for Akira, being worthy of respect has nothing to do with age or status but only love for go).
Akira's fatal flaw is pride. I wouldn't call it arrogance or hubris though because he is aware of his own limitations. But he is modest in his self-assessment because he can afford to be, and I don't think Akira has ever encountered the sort of failure that made him seriously doubt himself or his abilities. When he played Hikaru (or rather, Sai directing Hikaru) for the first time, he was energized rather than crushed by his loss. I wonder what it would take to truly shake Akira's self-confidence...is Akira capable of despair? I can think of certain AU scenarios in which that would be possible, but it's harder to think of a situation that would fall in the canon timeline.
What I also like about Akira: despite having grown up with go all his life, he doesn't take go or any part of the go professional world for granted. He treats the tradition with reverence, as if performing some sort of sacred rite. Perhaps that too is what gives him his composure and self-control, in spite of the impulsive streak in his personality. There's something priestly about the way that Akira approaches go, and I think it rubs off on Shindou too, which may be why so many people conclude that they would never get around to the sex.
starlighter once made a request that I attempt an inverted version of mirabellawotr's And I am in Arcadia, where Akira was the serial killer instead of Hikaru. I, uh, have been dragging my feet on this request (and many others) for quite a while now, but it's a fascinating prompt nonetheless! Akira's pride, which can easily lead him to judge others (fairly for the most part in the series, I would say, but one can imagine otherwise), could be exaggerated into a sort of sociopathy, and the ritualism that surrounds a formal game of go could be twisted into a ritual of murder. But I have trouble imagining Akira as murderous; he's somehow too sane for all that. (He is, in any case, much more well-adjusted than Hikaru even if Akira does seem like the type to get bullied in school. Speaking of which, Kaio go club incident aside, I don't really think Akira was all that much of a loner in school. I bet he's the type who gets along with all his classmates but has no close friends. Rather like Shuuji from Nobuta wo Produce but without the facade. Hm, maybe svz_insanity is onto something here.)All right, going to actually finish unpacking now.
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 03:53 am (UTC)My father was more reticent and said that he wasn't going to arrive at any judgment on such short an acquaintance, but I think he was as excited as my mother about the visit at the very least because he kept asking if they should prepare this or if they should do that.
I wasn't too surprised because I believed that they would like him. My mother also seems to have relaxed a lot now, so I think I was right to say that she would stop freaking out once she met him.
(I have yet to introduce him to you though! Ack!)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 04:05 am (UTC)Touya Akira discussion == fabulous; I had totally forgot about that prompt, but it's still fascinating! *ideas germinating!*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 05:32 am (UTC)Next time, Chikalicious! ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 06:04 am (UTC)It's the mixture of maturity and impetuousness that makes Akira so fascinating. On one hand, he's like an 'old man', but his passion for Go energises him: he's passionate because he doesn't know how to be otherwise. I really like that about him.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 05:33 am (UTC)I agree, the draw of Akira is that he's passionate about what he does. *_* I always fall for characters like that. (Probably why I liked Sai so much too, though I understand why you disliked his selfishness.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 07:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 05:34 am (UTC)