4.20.2005

 

[long overdue]

it feels like forever since i last posted, and in many ways, it is. (thanks if you're one of the few who do come back.) to be honest i don't know what i've been doing since the holidays started - heck, make that since the year started. last term went by in a haze. the holidays - the past 4 weeks, anyway - i've spent either aimlessly surfing the web (all sorts of stuff, from gizmodo to gamics and tons of RPG-related fiction (Living Spycraft, a modern day espionage-themed one, and Legend of the Five Rings, one loosely based on japan in the age of the samurai, both from the Alderac Entertainment Group - anybody interested in joining a play-by-web distance Living Spycraft game let me know, im strangely interested in being a GM), playing all manner of computer games (mainly Evil Genius - i can heartily reassure you that i am neither - and Aldon's Crossing, a brilliant RPG for the Palm (did i mention i made the switch to a second-hand tungsten e? on the day that the E2 was officially announced, no less), catching up on last december's movies (especially Napoleon Dynamite which seems to only have made it big in the UK, though i may be wrong. i adore it to pieces), generally living in isolation, venturing out of the country on two trips (been back from sweden for a week, don't have the inclination to upload the photos yet. close to 200MB i suspect, and i did take them at 2 megapixel, to maximise the number of photos. what can i say, i was there for a week.), read everything except work, and generally avoiding anything that remotely looks like work. i'm really going to regret that.

anyway in the process of not doing work today, i plowed through Bill Bryson's fantastic A Short History of Nearly Everything and John Boyne's The Congress of Rough Riders in one sitting today! well not quite one sitting. but today, nonetheless. first, A Short History of Nearly Everything is a brilliant and engaging survey of science from the big bang to human origins to quantum mechanics and everything else in between. unfortunately it also skims over some of the more important experiments and theories in a wide variety of fields in favour of accessibility - not really a serious flaw, if it can spark mass interest in science - but a suggested reading list in addition to, if not instead of, a bibliography would have been much better imho.

and as for The Congress of Rough Riders, well, that's what prompted the whole post, after so long, in the first place. it's interesting, the ideas are fresh, though it's not by far one of the best-written fiction books i've read (Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy is STILL my current vote). it's the themes that got me thinking - i seem to be doing that on a full time basis now, as long as im not sleeping or playing computer games! - about family, ancestry, identity and all that. i'm not going to go all out lit here (i'm not sure if i can pull off the pretence, and in any case i never liked to get technical, even if i could) so relax. as succintly as i can, the story's about Buffalo Bill, the wild west scout and showman extraordinaire, and two generations of his descendants - mainly the born-in-the-70s William Cody (yes, named after his titular great-grandfather) and how his father, who never managed to make much of his own life, kept feeding William stories of his great-grandfather. okay that makes it sound really boring - it's not - but then again i'm summarizing the main plot device to make my own point. i read it, and suddenly realised that i don't know much about my grandparents, much less my ancestors. sure, i know a few stories they've told me, but that can't possibly be all. and it dawned on me that we're all not getting any younger, and i won't be home for extended periods of time till after this decade is done (estimated long-term return is 2012, folks, and even then i've kind of lost count) - i won't be back, and who knows how much more time there is to share these experiences? my grandma said something to that effect many many times, but it's only really stirring emotions now. worst of all, i can't even phrase a proper question in mandarin, much less teochew, to ask them to tell me their stories. earlier this month, a friend (another international student) commented on how good my english was compared to some of the other internationals (esp when it comes to essays, i might add) and i replied that it was because english was my first language. i don't want to be melodramatic, but that episode suddenly came back, and i'm none too proud that i can't formulate a proper question in my other supposed first language, my 'mother tongue' (which is a bit of a misnomer really, since i communicate with my parents only in english). to be fair the language thing has always bothered me. more on that later. but i was really moved at the prospect of losing some part of my family history, my ancestry - god that sounds so archaic - no. real people who i am close to and mean a lot to me, but whom i never really was able to find out a lot about - who am i kidding. i didn't feel compelled to talk to them every opportunity i got, and i certainly wasn't all that curious about their lives. they're still here, thank goodness, and i intend to set some things right when i get back in june. maybe scrap holiday plans and spend some more time just at home. goodness knows thats all my family has ever wanted, and i never felt compelled to provide.





PS languages - i've known they were my achilles heel for ever and ever. anybody who's ever seen my room, or looked at my spending habits knows that i intend to learn as many languages as i possibly can.. without being particularly commited to any. i just buy the stuff and watch it languish in some shelf gathering dust. that's true of the teach yourself french kit (2CDs and book), norwegian (oslo), spanish (ibiza) and portugese of brazil (brazilian music, you know?) book in my room in college at this very moment. and strangely enough, now that i no longer NEED to do mandarin, im compelled to bring myself up to scratch in it. i DID buy a wen yan wen textbook (um, formal/"high" mandarin..?) the last time i was in shanghai. i just haven't got around to reading it yet - which is another one of my gripes. i seem to flit from interest to interest without so much as a second's pause in between. i don't really think i'll ever go back to fencing or kendo training ever again, in all honesty.

PPS i don't care if i sound preachy. it's my soapbox. and for the record, it's not meant to be. it's true that i've been roused out of my hermitlike existence for the past month by what i just read and thought about. it's one of those things that you know you just have to do.

timestamp: anonymous 01:43 0 comments

4.05.2005

 

[this blog is not dead]

this blog is not dead.

i'm just feeling antisocial, and there isn't very much happening in my life at the moment, and although i am thinking a lot (and slacking far too much for my own good) these don't translate well to electronic ink. (in other words, im playing too much Evil Genius and not doing any work at all. which is bad, considering that half the 'holiday' is over already).

been to copenhagen and back. it's nice, if you haven't already seen the pix then email me / IM / whatever and i'll send you a snapfish invite to go see. leaving for sweden in 24h, for a week - god knows how i'll ever get any work done. (and i've already been behind for all of last term, goodness knows what i was doing)

sometimes i just hate myself. dont you?

timestamp: anonymous 02:10 0 comments