Filed under: Music
To my friend.
因為愛情總是難捨難分 何必在意那一點點溫存
要知道傷心總是難免的 在每一個夢醒時分
有些事情你現在不必問 有些人你永遠不必等
Filed under: Dating
When my good friend said on the phone, in this uncharacteristically weak voice, “You meet this one guy whom you think you can give it a chance, and he breaks your a heart again, and leave you with carrying another scar. Why can’t I seem to hold on to a guy?”
When I heard this self doubt in the voice of this beautiful and confident girl, I wanted to cry myself. My heart was breaking with hers.
Yes, why does this happen to good girls? I just want to kick a wall after this conversation because I felt that life is so unfair. This is so unfair, and I am sick of this happening to good people.
While I reassured her with my belief in fairytale endings, I really wasn’t sure myself. Do fairytale endings happen to good people?
Recently, I was thinking that, dating is like crossing the Sahara desert. You think you see an oasis, but it is just another mirage. And eventually, that hope only makes you more thirsty. And wanting the water only make you more thirsty and give you more mirage. Until one day, you stop seeing the oasis. And perhaps you would pass by one, not believing it is a real thing. (And then you die)
After discovering that Bartlett Hall (an undergraduate residence cafeteria) serves all you can eat with many different ethnic food stations, I went there again tonight for the second time.
Honestly, I was famished. These years of living by myself has not been good to my stomach. So when I saw these different food stations, my eyes shone with the greedy light of a hungry wolf and my stomach growled with the feverish pitch of a howling wolf.
This is why I chose to sit in the most inconspicuous corner at the end of the cafeteria hall, with my back facing the aisles. Such that NOBODY would be able to see my devouring process.
Think of a pack of wolves tearing apart the carcass of a little bird. Think of a crocodile swallowing a bull. Think of the Amazon’s piranha searing the fleshes of a little boy swimming in the river.
Here is what I had:
1. Half a slice of cheese pizza
2. One bite of BBQ chicken pizza
3. One beef taco
4. A standard salad
5. Half a plate of turkey meat with craneberry sauce
6. Half a cup of Mountain dew
7. About 12 pieces of Fries
8. One bowl of Chili
10. One scoop of strawberry ice cream
11. One scoop of vanilla ice cream
12. One cup of decaf coffee
The only redeeming factor out of this is the exercise I got from making the several back-and-forth trips to refill my plate (as I said, I sat at the END of the cafeteria hall, so indeed it is pretty far from the food station).
Sigh.
Filed under: Music
I love to observe beauty. Beautiful clothes, beautiful people, beautiful words, beautiful sentences, beautiful books, beautiful mathematical models, beautiful movies, beautiful natural phenomena, beautiful furnitures, beautiful ideas, beautiful music….perhaps above all, I love beautiful music.
After these few years, I am still in love with this song: Jorge Drexler’s “Al Otro Lado Del Rio”. I posted it in my old blog couple years ago, now I do it again here.
The lyrics is so full of soul and hope, also a little sadness. Maybe I am influenced by its association with Motorcycle Diaries; whenever I hear this song I think of and feel for the loss and waste from wars and poverty. A heaviness would weigh on my heart.
I plunge my oar in the water
I carry your oar in mine
I believe I have seen a light
On the other side of the river
The day will come when we will be able to conquer
Little by little, the cold
I believe I have seen a light
On the other side of the river
Above all, I believe that all is not lost
So many tears, So many tears
And I am an empty glass
I hear a voice that calls to me,
almost as a sigh :
“Row, Row, Row!
Row, Row, Row!”
In this border of the world
Where we are imprisoned, are uncultivated,
I believe that I have seen a light
On the other side of the river
Filed under: Adventure
The sheer beauty of nature is awe-inspiring. Watching this left me with goosebumps. There’s no question about it: next spring or summer, I’m going to be surfing! YESS! Any takers?
Filed under: Random
“I know how to play this game. There’s just one last huge hurdle to overcome. I’ve been trying my best to figure it out and I think what it comes down to is I needed to believe in myself a little more. So now when I play I’m putting myself out there more and really putting myself on the line. The stakes are higher for me but I’m okay with that. I’m so focused on winning and to get that victory I have to give it everything I have. There’s no holding back anymore.”
Filed under: Music
I was in New Orleans for four days, most of which I was actually working. However, my love for the city (well, at least the French Quarter area) is just as much as what I felt 4 years ago, on my visit just a couple months before Katrina. One sentence to summarize the experience: New Orleans is a different world from the rest of US. (this is the same reaction I had from my last visit).
Being in New Orleans is like travelling to the old world. It is entirely in its own world. It is slower than other US cities such as Houston, Atlanta, all those cities in East or West coast. The people, especially musicians, are more down to earth than their counterparts elsewhere in US.
I love the lazy Mississippi river. Love the creole tune. I love that for every block you walk in French Quarter, you’ll hear a different sort of music. Everywhere you go there is this upbeat sound of trombone or trumpet. Every night of those four days, my friend and I would venture into the French Quarter and go to some jazz/blues club.
And we found gold. Fritzel’s, a so called European Jazz pub, had us there for two days. I even got their CD. I can honestly say that this jazz club is the BEST that I have ever been to — in all the cities I’ve been to (SF, Chicago, HK, DC). Perhaps the jazz across these cities are not exactly comparable. (New Orlean’s jazz is the first in US, known as Dixieland Jazz). Nonetheless, I love New Orlean Jazz the best: banjo, trombone, cornet, clarinet, bass, drums, piano. Love the fedora hats.
It was a very memorable musical experience, sitting in that intimate little pub, in front of this loud, rauchy old man who kept making exclamations during the song. In this little place, all people care about is the music, not money, and not the world outside.
I remember that red-faced old man who threw a Benjamin Franklin into the bucket and requested the song “Many Mermaids” (a total impromptu). I remember how as the band played “Someday You’ll be Sorry” (written by Louis Armstrong’s wife, to Louis Armstrong), and all the old men in the audience threw up their arms during chorus to chime in.
I remember the first time I heard “St James Infirmary”, and then again the second night.
I remember the first time I heard “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans”, and heard it again the second night.
A common word to describe the music and people I met here is “charming”. But “charming” is a little condescending. I much prefer “warm” and “passionate”, and “family-style”.
Being immersed in the jazz scene of New Orleans is a memorable, very memorable experience.
Now I am back, currently at the school library. I can’t help but relive the scene when the band played “Someday You’ll be Sorry” with that old raunchy voice yelling behind me.
On the plane back, I kept listening to this song, “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans.” It conveys the spirit of New Orleans and its people, very well.
Filed under: Economics
Starbucks connect the poorest countries to the wealthiest countries. (linked from Urbanomics)
See a bigger and clearer picture here
Filed under: Random
I had the EXACT same dream for a second time.
This is the first time that the same dream occurred twice. Well, actually, with some changes in the details, which reflect my post-dream sentiments after the first time. But the ending and the resulting post-dream reaction are the same.
So the dream took place in high school. I was selected at the last minute to be the leading lady for a play similar to Phantom of the Opera, because the cast was impressed by my rendition of “Think of Me” (yes, I remember clearly how I was busting my voice on the wide stage) I was shocked, I was flattered. But since the performance was supposed to be moments later, I wondered how I would have time to memorize the lines.
And so on the day of performance, I ran to the backstage. Somehow my older brother was there. I was nervous.
The part about forgetting the lines was quite blurry. All I remember was the panic of not knowing the lines. I kept asking or thinking ” But I don’t know the lines!” I remember I was still frantically reading the script before I came out to the stage.
The ending is unknown. All I know is that I was panicking for not knowing the lines. (All I have is that one song which I can sing).
Filed under: Music
Since last year, I kept coming back to watching this performance of this song, by Katherine McPhee (my favorite American Idol performer next to David Cook) and Chris Botti. OHHHHH so much chemistry. As Botti puts it, Katherine has the perfect phrasing of the song. Makes me want to jump up and sing and dance. I also especially like the crescendo of the band at the first break of the song before the trumpet solo starts. What a classic!
Here are the lyrics for me to sing a long:
I’ve got you under my skin.
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me.
I’ve got you under my skin.
I’d tried so not to give in.
I said to myself: this affair never will go so well.
But why should I try to resist when, baby, I know so well
I’ve got you under my skin?
I’d sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of havin’ you near
In spite of a warnin’ voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear:
Don’t you know, little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
But each time that I do just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
‘Cause I’ve got you under my skin.
