Does anyone still watch american idol?
I thought Chris Daughtry did an awesome version of Johnny Cash's I walk the line. It's not as original as it sounds, though, because it's similar to the band live's version, but still great nonetheless.
You just know that Mandisa won't win. Paris was impressive at the start, but now it's just hit and miss. Elliott is not too bad; I liked his gavin degraw song.
What oh what shall I take in summer and fall?
3.28.2006
The break is over and it looks like it's finaaaaly starting to warm up. Look, 15 deg on thursday and 17 on friday, now that is really really hot weather. Which means I have to downgrade my jacket. Which means I have to get new sandals. Which means it is time to buy more summer clothing. I'm glad I went to providence and boston, not only because I had an extremely good time chilling out but also because I saved money. The people who went to miami spent like a thousand dollars. I would have gotten a heart attack. The berkeley people would have shook their heads in disgust.
In pursuit of a photography breakthrough I purposely took blur photos.
And some normal ones.
In pursuit of a photography breakthrough I purposely took blur photos.
And some normal ones.
3.21.2006
I clocked 12 hours of sleep last night. Woot! I got woken up by the service people, who were knocking loudly on every door. When they came to my room, I jumped out of bed while they barged right in. Thank goodness I wasn't naked.
Decided to get off of my ass and go for run. I don't think I'll run again till it gets above 10 deg. Turns out, jogging in -5 and wind ain't fun. I was also afraid of slipping on the snow, so I cut the route short to 2+ k.
Friends in miami are having a crazy time and getting all tanned. I feel like I'm missing out on the tanning part.
Also watched all the oscar movies, finally. Walk the line, like what Jon Stewart said, was Ray with white people. (btw, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report predicted all the winners correctly, using his Da Colbert Code. Hahahaa. You gotta dig it up from youtube, it's hilarious). I never knew June Carter Cash had such a flitty onstage persona. You'd think she spawned Dolly Parton.
Crash was hmmmm not that great. The best moment was when everyone including me thought that the little girl got shot. I mirrored her parents' reactions and did an extended open mouthed 'Noooo' silent scream.
Also it slipped into black and white for no reason, at the same time as 'for your consideration' flashed across the screen.
I liked Capote, because he's such a conniving bastard. Didn't know that Truman Capote and Harper Lee were neighbours and best friend. Anyway it was cool to see Capote's breakdown juxtaposed with Harper Lee's success with To Kill a Mockingbird. It's also interesting that both of them never wrote a book again. Last I read National Geographic, they featured Monroeville and reported that they put up the Mockingbird play every year. It's this huge thing but the author has become totally reclusive, refusing interviews and such. Well, in this movie, she's more outgoing?.. so that was a little surprising
Goodnight and Good Luck, it's in black and white and about reporters, so I gave up after 10 mins. I'll try to watch it again another time.
The Constant Gardener is the one to watch. The story didn't do that much for me, maybe because the bad guys don't get caught in the end, but the directing and cinematography were astonishing. The same guys who did City of God. Loved loved loved the bright Technicolors of Africa, brilliant blues and scorched earth yellows. It worked as a contrast to the dull greys of London. I need more movies like that.
I want to make a movie.
Movies still waiting to be watched-- Syrianna, Pride & Prejudice.
Movies I think will have to wait till summer-- Rushmore, the Usual Suspects, Virgin Suicides, Training Day, Annie Hall, Reservoir Dogs, Before Sunrise, Girl Interrupted, Princess Monomoke.
I want a good version of Match Point. Has anyone watched The Squid and the Whale?
Oh, and I had the worst hangover on Saturday since 2003.
Decided to get off of my ass and go for run. I don't think I'll run again till it gets above 10 deg. Turns out, jogging in -5 and wind ain't fun. I was also afraid of slipping on the snow, so I cut the route short to 2+ k.
Friends in miami are having a crazy time and getting all tanned. I feel like I'm missing out on the tanning part.
Also watched all the oscar movies, finally. Walk the line, like what Jon Stewart said, was Ray with white people. (btw, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report predicted all the winners correctly, using his Da Colbert Code. Hahahaa. You gotta dig it up from youtube, it's hilarious). I never knew June Carter Cash had such a flitty onstage persona. You'd think she spawned Dolly Parton.
Crash was hmmmm not that great. The best moment was when everyone including me thought that the little girl got shot. I mirrored her parents' reactions and did an extended open mouthed 'Noooo' silent scream.
Also it slipped into black and white for no reason, at the same time as 'for your consideration' flashed across the screen.
I liked Capote, because he's such a conniving bastard. Didn't know that Truman Capote and Harper Lee were neighbours and best friend. Anyway it was cool to see Capote's breakdown juxtaposed with Harper Lee's success with To Kill a Mockingbird. It's also interesting that both of them never wrote a book again. Last I read National Geographic, they featured Monroeville and reported that they put up the Mockingbird play every year. It's this huge thing but the author has become totally reclusive, refusing interviews and such. Well, in this movie, she's more outgoing?.. so that was a little surprising
Goodnight and Good Luck, it's in black and white and about reporters, so I gave up after 10 mins. I'll try to watch it again another time.
The Constant Gardener is the one to watch. The story didn't do that much for me, maybe because the bad guys don't get caught in the end, but the directing and cinematography were astonishing. The same guys who did City of God. Loved loved loved the bright Technicolors of Africa, brilliant blues and scorched earth yellows. It worked as a contrast to the dull greys of London. I need more movies like that.
I want to make a movie.
Movies still waiting to be watched-- Syrianna, Pride & Prejudice.
Movies I think will have to wait till summer-- Rushmore, the Usual Suspects, Virgin Suicides, Training Day, Annie Hall, Reservoir Dogs, Before Sunrise, Girl Interrupted, Princess Monomoke.
I want a good version of Match Point. Has anyone watched The Squid and the Whale?
Oh, and I had the worst hangover on Saturday since 2003.
3.17.2006
SPRING BREAK (continued)
The friday before spring break is also st patrick's day. And it's also dragon day. See how they pack holidays and celebrations together to make us go to school more times than we really need to?
Dragon day is an old school tradition; it's our mardi gras. Every year, the architects team up to build a dragon, which they'll parade around campus. The engineers, on the other hand, build a phoenix, although I heard that they built a penguin last year. I was all ready to join the phoenix society right after winter break, but now as we shall see, I'm really glad that I didn't.
So usually they will supposedly 'fight', and the dragon will win or something, and then they burn it down.
The architects really brought it down this year. A few days ago, they went running half naked around school, bodies sprayed with green paint. They drank alcohol to keep themselves warm, and so that they can do things like humping the windows of the engineering library. Yesterday, they draped toilet paper all over the trees of the arts quad. It's public art man.
The dragon float was spectacular as hell. It had wings and its head and tail could moved. It started its procession at 1pm and it's perched on a mockup of rand hall, which is where the architects spend day and night in. It's a really tough life-- the bright fluorescent lights in the studio supposedly suspend your ability to tell the difference between night and day. Perhaps one day of coolness makes up for a year of architorture. I always wanted to be an architect, but that's a long story.
Our phoenix was downright pathetic. It doesn't look completed. It looks like a chicken. Or a toilet duck. It just sat there while the architects chanted 'engineering sucks'. I guess it's called dragon day for good reason, although I also heard that they needed help with the dragon head from the engineering students. It was a hoot.
Quoting from a random person, I just love that the freaks came out. Even better than halloween. I'm telling you, they were all high on something.
Then at the end of the procession, the crowd formed a big circle around the dragon while the dressed up people went insane. They began to demolish the float, hitting the walls and plucking out the fixtures.
It's also awesome to see the fire people take a break to take pictures.
And then a guy in a toga put the torch to it. The metal skeleton lasted a long time, but the fabric skin burned away in seconds. As it burned, the people continued to run circles around the bonfire.
So now the next big thing to look forward to is slope day, before summer, when some big star will come perform. Maybe the black eyed peas.
The friday before spring break is also st patrick's day. And it's also dragon day. See how they pack holidays and celebrations together to make us go to school more times than we really need to?
Dragon day is an old school tradition; it's our mardi gras. Every year, the architects team up to build a dragon, which they'll parade around campus. The engineers, on the other hand, build a phoenix, although I heard that they built a penguin last year. I was all ready to join the phoenix society right after winter break, but now as we shall see, I'm really glad that I didn't.
So usually they will supposedly 'fight', and the dragon will win or something, and then they burn it down.
The architects really brought it down this year. A few days ago, they went running half naked around school, bodies sprayed with green paint. They drank alcohol to keep themselves warm, and so that they can do things like humping the windows of the engineering library. Yesterday, they draped toilet paper all over the trees of the arts quad. It's public art man.
The dragon float was spectacular as hell. It had wings and its head and tail could moved. It started its procession at 1pm and it's perched on a mockup of rand hall, which is where the architects spend day and night in. It's a really tough life-- the bright fluorescent lights in the studio supposedly suspend your ability to tell the difference between night and day. Perhaps one day of coolness makes up for a year of architorture. I always wanted to be an architect, but that's a long story.
Our phoenix was downright pathetic. It doesn't look completed. It looks like a chicken. Or a toilet duck. It just sat there while the architects chanted 'engineering sucks'. I guess it's called dragon day for good reason, although I also heard that they needed help with the dragon head from the engineering students. It was a hoot.
Quoting from a random person, I just love that the freaks came out. Even better than halloween. I'm telling you, they were all high on something.
Then at the end of the procession, the crowd formed a big circle around the dragon while the dressed up people went insane. They began to demolish the float, hitting the walls and plucking out the fixtures.
It's also awesome to see the fire people take a break to take pictures.
And then a guy in a toga put the torch to it. The metal skeleton lasted a long time, but the fabric skin burned away in seconds. As it burned, the people continued to run circles around the bonfire.
So now the next big thing to look forward to is slope day, before summer, when some big star will come perform. Maybe the black eyed peas.
SPRING BREAK!
wow thank goodness it's finally here. This week I broke my record and slept at 5am after working on a presentation. I thought it was really cool, cuz I filmed a commercial to sell what we made in the project and I edited it to look like a 80s infomercial. Paula Abdul's 'straight up' came in handy for the soundtrack.
BEST GRAFFITI PART I
Pixel, a building hidden in a collegetown alley. I don't know what it sells, but I think I see a barrel of beer in the window. Shady!
PART II
Under a bridge. The guy looks really familiar but I can't put a finger to it. It looks like one of the evil minions from power rangers. And haha! Fun fact of the day. Did you know that the guy who used to be the red ranger is now in the porn industry? I wonder who had fantasies about power rangers..
BEST BIT OF LANDSCAPING
The stairway behind engineering quad. I find these orange thrushes?/shrubs extremely cool. From far it looks like the slope is on fire.
MOST UNDERRATED SPOT TO PEOPLE WATCH
Duffield hall. It's half a level up from the ground outside, so people can't really see you watching them. That is not a duck.
BEST PLACE TO SLEEP
The cocktail lounge at Uris library has the best seats which everyone joins together to form a bed. It also has a really great view of the surroundings. Guarenteed to put you to sleep within 5 minutes of opening your book.
MOST DEPRESSING TEXTBOOK EVER
Mechanical behavior of materials by norman dowling. It kinda looks like that for 800 pages. No colors, tables that are hard to find, and more importantly, no answers to the questions. Fucked up.
wow thank goodness it's finally here. This week I broke my record and slept at 5am after working on a presentation. I thought it was really cool, cuz I filmed a commercial to sell what we made in the project and I edited it to look like a 80s infomercial. Paula Abdul's 'straight up' came in handy for the soundtrack.
- I finished the first season of weeds and I thought it was funny. It's about sub urban people and their marijuana habits.
- Prison Break returns on monday!
- I'm going to providence and boston.
- I'm happy cuz my money arrived and I am once again starting to believe that I have a lot of money to spend.
- Well, top of the list would be a freitag bag, made of recycled truck tarpaulin with straps made of seat belts!
- Nothing exceptional happened this half semester.
- Oh, maybe the one time that I got really pissed that the bowling alley did not allow me to bring food in. That's a long story.
- And luke sitting on his own puke.
- I acquired tons of dance music. I don't think listening to that while studying helped a lot, looking at my midterm results. I really want to learn how to dj. I want to have parties at my house this fall (the basement's where it's at).
BEST GRAFFITI PART I
Pixel, a building hidden in a collegetown alley. I don't know what it sells, but I think I see a barrel of beer in the window. Shady!
PART II
Under a bridge. The guy looks really familiar but I can't put a finger to it. It looks like one of the evil minions from power rangers. And haha! Fun fact of the day. Did you know that the guy who used to be the red ranger is now in the porn industry? I wonder who had fantasies about power rangers..
BEST BIT OF LANDSCAPING
The stairway behind engineering quad. I find these orange thrushes?/shrubs extremely cool. From far it looks like the slope is on fire.
MOST UNDERRATED SPOT TO PEOPLE WATCH
Duffield hall. It's half a level up from the ground outside, so people can't really see you watching them. That is not a duck.
BEST PLACE TO SLEEP
The cocktail lounge at Uris library has the best seats which everyone joins together to form a bed. It also has a really great view of the surroundings. Guarenteed to put you to sleep within 5 minutes of opening your book.
MOST DEPRESSING TEXTBOOK EVER
Mechanical behavior of materials by norman dowling. It kinda looks like that for 800 pages. No colors, tables that are hard to find, and more importantly, no answers to the questions. Fucked up.
3.03.2006
3.02.2006
Oh boy. Just when I thought I had already hit rock bottom, I began staying in school all day till like 2am doing projects and then coming home and staying up the rest of the night to do more work. And I started to skip the first lecture of the day, which is bad cuz I think they're taking attendance by having us submit scraps of paper at the end every time.
Thurdays afternoons and nights I love the most. It's the only time to relax, before thoughts of flunking the prelim next tuesday creep in, the only day of the week when the next homework dateline is still at least 4 days away, before the next round of meetings, presentations, machining. The weekend always seem like there's gonna be plenty of time to get down to work but that is exactly the opposite feeling you get when you wake up on sunday morning feeling guilty about not having done enough.
I guess I have to balance having fun and doing work, but the pressure of having to do well enough is making me forgo quite a bit ie. snowboarding on thu/fri and the weekend, drinking over the weekend. Seems that I just can't let myself go out too much. Or maybe I'm just too inefficient with the laptop in front of me. Sometimes I think that I'd feel better wasting time looking at the computer screen with at least the homework/textbook within 1 m than to doing something that's more exciting.
[here's an example of what I do online. I was excited about the developments in Singapore, like the harborfront mall, the giant ferris wheel, the new downtown, changi terminal 3, the marina barrage etc. Seriously architectural renderings, design ideas, scale models of buildings; they're like porn to me. Nothing gets me off better. So there's gonna be a space port for launching rides to the edge of space for like $100000? That is absurdly intriguing. Suffice to say, 2008-9 are exciting times to be back in Singapore. I think the best piece of news is that of building 3 new parks in the marina bay, including space for huge outdoor concerts. Wow. Think Chicago's millenium park and Gehry's pritzker pavilion, or hyde park, or the hollywood bowl. I hope there is a huge fountain like bellagio's there too. Maybe right beside the casino...]
And then there's the problem of spring break. So I decided to curb my expenses and not go to miami. So no beaches, no rollercoasters, no crobar, no hot chicks in bikinis. Instead I get to lie in bed all day, watch all seasons of 24, movies, and blast music all day and maybe do some work instead of always rushing back to finish it or doing it in hotel rooms (see fall break). And yay, I may get to hang out with my favorite RA and eat wonderfully delicious instant noodles with my sriracha hot chili sauce. The biggest plus is that I'll have more money for summer travelling.
Summer summer summer.
I want it to be warm enough for like midnight jogs. Today the heaviest snow in maybe the whole season fell. I had always worn my boots when it's a snowy day but then when I walk out there it turns out not slippery and stuff, so today I went with the sneakers (permanently discolored) and the paths were slick as hell. Don't you also like the hush that comes when snow falls, the quietness that blankets everything. I should have had a camera with me. Outside one of the halls were tables and chairs, with a layer of about 6 inches of snow on top. Pretty.
[Hmm I think there's a study break downstairs.]
Let's talk about music too. Is it just me or is faye wong's fable the best chinese album ever. There are like layers that unpeel a little bit more every time-- there's just so much mystery to it that it sounds fresh every time. Also love how coherent it is; every song flows seamlessly into the next and yet stand on their own. I don't think most albums are capable of that.
Peace.
Thurdays afternoons and nights I love the most. It's the only time to relax, before thoughts of flunking the prelim next tuesday creep in, the only day of the week when the next homework dateline is still at least 4 days away, before the next round of meetings, presentations, machining. The weekend always seem like there's gonna be plenty of time to get down to work but that is exactly the opposite feeling you get when you wake up on sunday morning feeling guilty about not having done enough.
I guess I have to balance having fun and doing work, but the pressure of having to do well enough is making me forgo quite a bit ie. snowboarding on thu/fri and the weekend, drinking over the weekend. Seems that I just can't let myself go out too much. Or maybe I'm just too inefficient with the laptop in front of me. Sometimes I think that I'd feel better wasting time looking at the computer screen with at least the homework/textbook within 1 m than to doing something that's more exciting.
[here's an example of what I do online. I was excited about the developments in Singapore, like the harborfront mall, the giant ferris wheel, the new downtown, changi terminal 3, the marina barrage etc. Seriously architectural renderings, design ideas, scale models of buildings; they're like porn to me. Nothing gets me off better. So there's gonna be a space port for launching rides to the edge of space for like $100000? That is absurdly intriguing. Suffice to say, 2008-9 are exciting times to be back in Singapore. I think the best piece of news is that of building 3 new parks in the marina bay, including space for huge outdoor concerts. Wow. Think Chicago's millenium park and Gehry's pritzker pavilion, or hyde park, or the hollywood bowl. I hope there is a huge fountain like bellagio's there too. Maybe right beside the casino...]
And then there's the problem of spring break. So I decided to curb my expenses and not go to miami. So no beaches, no rollercoasters, no crobar, no hot chicks in bikinis. Instead I get to lie in bed all day, watch all seasons of 24, movies, and blast music all day and maybe do some work instead of always rushing back to finish it or doing it in hotel rooms (see fall break). And yay, I may get to hang out with my favorite RA and eat wonderfully delicious instant noodles with my sriracha hot chili sauce. The biggest plus is that I'll have more money for summer travelling.
Summer summer summer.
I want it to be warm enough for like midnight jogs. Today the heaviest snow in maybe the whole season fell. I had always worn my boots when it's a snowy day but then when I walk out there it turns out not slippery and stuff, so today I went with the sneakers (permanently discolored) and the paths were slick as hell. Don't you also like the hush that comes when snow falls, the quietness that blankets everything. I should have had a camera with me. Outside one of the halls were tables and chairs, with a layer of about 6 inches of snow on top. Pretty.
[Hmm I think there's a study break downstairs.]
Let's talk about music too. Is it just me or is faye wong's fable the best chinese album ever. There are like layers that unpeel a little bit more every time-- there's just so much mystery to it that it sounds fresh every time. Also love how coherent it is; every song flows seamlessly into the next and yet stand on their own. I don't think most albums are capable of that.
Peace.
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