Sunday, November 19, 2006

Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici

Cool line from V for Vendetta:

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.

— V's introduction to Evey

Go blue? Now we're all a bit blue.

Done with the second round of midterms, a Spanish oral test and a Spanish skit. Screwed up Math 520 I would say. The oral test went well, but the skit wasn't up to my expectation. Well, I'm done with it though, at least for this semester.

I got a new job in the Shapiro Science Library, working at the front desk. It is a 5-hour shift, and I will work for just one shift per week. The tasks seemed intimidating, with lots of stuff to remember. The student manual was a frigging 40+ pages long, and again my responsibility seems to run the gamut of petty office work. My supervisor is nice, but a seemingly demanding person. I hope I can hang on for at least the rest of this semester.

The resume-drop deadline for most of the companies was on the past Thursday. That means I was forced to face reality towards the deadline, and had to finalize my resume, write cover letter, and fill in some stupid personal profile stuff. TP even required the completion of a phone interview, which I am positive that I screwed it up by stuttering through the last part. In a sense I had everything settled for the meantime, but this is just the first wave. I shall not further elaborate on this shit before I start cursing and get depressed (Why? Hint: Remember the state that I live in? State of denial it is. Kerry was right, Bush lives next to me :D)

Watched THE game - Michigan VS Ohio just now in Trotter House. I'm "proud" to say that that was the first football match I've ever watched for the good 3 years I've spent in the United States. Well, not bad for a starter right? It was THE game because it was the clash of the century; it involved the greatest rivalry in college football, and both teams were undefeated before the game (which was the last game for the season). Sad to say that we lost (42-39), but this game kind of changed my opinion towards American Football. It doesn't look that stupid anymore, and in fact know I think there is actually a lot of strategies and skills involved in a game.

Thanksgiving is next week. We'll have a 5-day break, and as usual, I already know what will happen for these 5-days. I will waste my time doing nothing, and regret about that towards the end of the break. Same shit different time. Will I have the will to break the pattern? I think I already have the answer. Stupid question.

Going to hit the bed soon...without setting the alarm. Life's good just because of that. How pathetic...

Saturday, November 11, 2006

A new look...

Now my blog is officially under google. Tried to make it look nicer, but obviously to no avail. Years of studying had apparently sapped me of my artistic talent...

Updates..

Time flies. Suddenly it's November. Suddenly all the trees are bare again. The weather in Ann Arbor is still as crazy as usual, with temperatures ranging from -2 Celsius to 20 Celsius in a week.

Last Saturday, I attended a DeepaRaya event organized by UMIMSA. Got to see a some Malaysians I didn't even know exist. The food was good, a little bit too spicy I would say. Can't really complain much actually, as almost everything else is better than dorm food. The spaghetti served the other day was simply inedible. It wasn't even pasta; the Italians would probably commit suicide in shame when they know what atrocities had been done to their national food.

Went to play some piano in music school after the SAM dinner yesterday. When I was happily abusing pieces by Lizst and Beethoven, a familiar tune struck me. When I stopped my unabashedly bad playing, I realized somebody was playing piano concerto no.3 by Rachmaninoff!!! Touted as the most difficult piece (at least in the movie the Shine), this piece is a monster that only a beast can tame. I couldn't imagine that somebody is playing that just right opposite my room, without the orchestra accompaniment... Although it's obvious that the pianist is still in the process of bettering the playing, the precision and dynamics were almost concert-ready. I somehow resisted the temptation to go over and see how the pianist perform the piece. Not intimidated by the superior playing, I stubbornly continued on pounding the poor piano :)

And yeah, I have decided to go to Florida for my winter break. Air tickets were settled, and now we "just" need to worry about transportation and accommodation. It'll be an expensive vacation I bet...

Friday, November 10, 2006

Hahaha



My friends have been saying that my blog gets more and more depressing. This shall brighten up it a lot!! :D

Sunday, November 05, 2006

心凉自然静

I suddenly realized that writing blog is all about communicating with yourself, especially when you're writing about what you're thinking. As for me now, I'm totally prepared for winter, not physically, but mentally.

My state of mind is not much different from the winter. Cold and indifferent seemed best to describe my attitude towards virtually everything. Well, such might be a result of experiencing too little warmth in this stage of my life. To me, genuine and sincere caring is more and more like the fairies that only exists in fairytales. All I see now are individuals too preoccupied with themselves to be concerned about other people. If somebody appeared to care about somebody else, it's most likely that he is actually doing so because he cares about himself in the first place.

There's of course nothing wrong with that; anyway, we are the ones who are living our lives. It's just sad to know that the good values prevalent in the moral education textbooks are actually socially infeasible, probably no different like how disappointed kids feel when they find out Santa Clause is just a fantasy. Again, I'm most probably biased not having seeing enough, but right now the whole social structure seems like a pretentious construct which participants in it engage themselves in countless complicated and intricate symbiotic relationships. The motive behind the establishment of these webs: to survive - the most primitive goal, the sole message embedded in our deepest core.

Like winter too, the coldness, indifference and skepticism surprisingly result in a form of unearthly tranquility in my mind. Well, why taking things so seriously then, when you know the idealistic form of world is beyond grasp? Why don't just play along with the crowd and enjoy the process with a watching eye? The idea that I'm just a infinitesimal grain helplessly carried away by the current of life used to trouble me, but right now I'm just going to ride on the drift and appreciate what I have. Who cares whether genuine relationship exists. It's definitely cold, but the serenity seems to offer a peace of mind.