My Baby Likes Carmina Burana

So I have come to the realization that Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is beneficial for my baby's health (yes, personification is a totally normal procedure in my world view, for further information, read here and here).

Anyway, like what I have been mentioning before, I sometimes find myself in a slump, in a hard time writing and going forward. Don't get me wrong: conducting research for me is fun. I like coming up with concepts to test and devising experiments to test them. But when it comes to reporting the whole thing, and writing up the stuff, then I sometimes find myself stuck that I don't find myself writing, and instead find myself thinking about the immortality of the crab.

Anyway, so I find myself doing that every now and then, and so to feel a sense of progress, I try at least to add or revise a page of the second draft of my dissertation proposal. But today, I inadvertently tried something different.

What I did was plug my earphones and stream Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

And boy, what a difference it made.

I consider this piece to be one of my most favorite pieces to listen to. I had the opportunity to listen to this live three years ago, in Prague. And it happens that the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus are performing this piece this coming July 11, so I even organized a little group consisting of my friends to attend this event with me. Anyway, I never tire of hearing this piece, so I decided to put it on while working. And voila! I found myself adding five additional pages to my second draft. A huge improvement! And I still have more to add. Perhaps the Latin singing just has a weird influence on my thought patterns, and I can actually think and type and move forward with this endeavor.

The thing is, writing a dissertation is a me-against-myself battle. Self-discipline is a huge prerequisite. And I suppose my brain cannot handle the sound of silence, since I often find myself irritated if I constantly sit down for long periods of time and try to work without hearing something. Maybe, my brain's right hemisphere wants something to do while the left hemisphere does my analytical processes. So for best results, it seems that I need to feed both my left and right hemispheres with something to do at the same time, and Carmina Burana seems to work perfectly.



(Roosevelt on Wheelchair, from my DC Memorials Series)

Cookout in the Rain

I never had the concept that summers would invite thunderstorms. We've been having these blitzkrieg thunderstorms every other day: in the morning, the sun would be up, and you would be tempted to just leave your umbrella at home. After all, it's hot, and the sun is shining, and there are no clouds at all in the midst. Why would it rain?

But it does. Suddenly, the clouds go creeping in from the horizon, and then the whole sky darkens. The sun disappears, and the thunder rolls and the lightning strikes.

Then after a few hours, it all subsides again.

Like yesterday, when I got invited to a friend's house for a cookout. We already had the grill out, the tent was already set up, and the food was prepared. Then the clouds appeared and we got wet.

I suppose my idea of summer is hot and humid. The thunderstorms aren't really part of my summer conceptual repertoire. But apparently, here, it is. And I am quite surprised that even after living here for four years, I still find that surprising. Oh wait, I suppose during the summer of 2006, I was in the Czech Republic. And in the summer of 2007, I was in Ecuador and the Philippines. And in the summer of 2008, I was in Peru, Denmark, and Hungary.

Oops.

I suppose this is the first summer in which I am actually here. Actually here because I need to work on this stupid dissertation. So yeah, rain or shine, I am here. Let's see if next year fares better.



(Entrance to the Roosevelt Memorial, from my DC Memorials Series)

Book Review: Johnny Mad Dog by Emmanuel Dongala

Pain. I suppose if I were to pick one word to describe this novel, this would be it. Every chapter oozes with pain, and I, the reader, just cannot imagine that events such as these occurred in the planet.

Johnny Mad Dog (written as Johnny Chien Mechant) is a novel by Congolese writer and chemist Emmanuel Dongala. It tells the story of a civil war that occurred in a country somewhere in Central-West Africa. It is unnamed all throughout the book, but there are several clues as to what country inspired this. The neighboring countries of Congo-Brazzaville, Zaire (presently known as Congo-Kinshasa), and Rwanda were mentioned. People used the CFA franc as a currency. Women used colorful clothes called the pagne for everyday use and wear. The country is a Francophone speaking country. There was mention of the previous reign of Mobutu (perhaps Mobutu Sese Seko). And there were mountain gorillas in the midst of the forest.

Add to that the fact that Emmanuel Dongala is Congolese. And both Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa had civil wars in the past two decades.

Anyway, the story occurs within the span of about a week, and is told through two contrasting perspectives. This, I suppose, is the best aspect of the book. It is told in alternating chapters, through the perspective of Laokole, a 16-year old girl, trying to escape the militiamen who at the outset of the book, were looting the villages. She is escaping with her younger brother Fofo, and her mother, who happens to be a cripple, since previous soldiers broke her legs. The story is also told in the perspective of Johnny Mad Dog, who goes through several nomenclature incarnations at the outset. The reader gains access to his thought processes, and even though in some level, they are logical, the logic is so bizarre and uneducated. The character is such a paradox that one cannot help but be fuming in rage at him.

Through the span of 31 chapters, the story of how the Dogo-Mayi tribe tries to eliminate the Mayi-Dogo and the Chechen tribes are told. Looting and rape are commonplace, and plenty of men were killed just because they fell within the 14 to 45 age bracket. The militiamen tell the Mayi-Dogos that they should have chosen better than to be born a Mayi-Dogo, and that is why they are being killed in the tribalist genocide. Another paradox is the fact that the people really cannot tell which one is a Mayi-Dogo and a Dogo-Mayi, since they both speak one language, given the fact that they live in the city and not in the village. The militiamen have this crude test based on language, but everyone fails, since nobody knows their ancestral language anymore.

Needless to say, I liked reading this book. It's human nature at its worst, and a highly realistic one at that. I liked the way the same series of events were portrayed through two different perspectives: it seemed that there were two authors who wrote two books and combined them together. Even though I was not familiar at all with the cultural aspects of Central Africa, the vivid descriptions were more than enough in invoking the sights, the smells, the blood, and the fighting that this book was all about. The novel ends perfectly: it stays within a realistic ending, without giving some fairy-tale finale, and staying true to what happens when humans lose their sense of reason.

See my other book reviews here.



(The Obelisk From a Different View, from my DC Memorials Series)

Danger

Three years ago, while I was with my parents in this little quaint restaurant that served hearty Colombian fare, I somehow vocalized my desire to go visit South America. It seemed that the Churrasco platters that they served were too delicious it made me want to visit.

Anyway, my father had the typical reply, that I would be kidnapped, and that South America would be very dangerous for someone who isn't from there.

Fair enough, so I read into it, and sure enough, there were horror stories of tourists being mugged, raped, murdered, everything you could imagine.

But then, there were also tourists who enjoyed their trip and went back safe.

So, did I go? Obviously, I did. The next year, I bought a round-trip ticket to Quito and had a blast. I even took their nice yet rickety-looking buses, as I plied the Pan-American highway, on my way to the equator. There were dangerous places, yes, but as long as one has a good traveler IQ, and knew how to avoid those stuff, then life was good.

See, a tourist doesn't need to flash. A tourist that has good traveler IQ need not wear those beige hats, hang a camera from their neck, and act obnoxious as if they are advertising that they have all the money in the world. One can blend with the locals and still have a good time.

Besides, the logic that "a place is dangerous so one should not travel" is flawed. In fact, look at the current news for example. A metro train crashed in Washington DC, and a couple of French tourists got lured by a criminal and ended up being involved in a car chase with NYC Police, after immediately stepping off John F. Kennedy International Airport. Danger can be everywhere. The key is knowing how to avoid them.



(Soldier with Radio, from my DC Memorials Series)

Don't You Guys Read?

So the summer usually means that there are plenty of construction around campus. Besides, they say that there's only two types of weather here in the Northeast: winter and road repair.

Anyway, the system of roads in the South Campus are currently being dug up. That means that the bus that takes me to North Campus (where my office and lab are located) follows a weird pattern for the time being. Many roads are closed, and there are plenty of detour signs all over the place.

Now what I do not understand are the cars. I mean, hello, the detour signs, the road closed signs, they are huge, and written in reflecting paint of bright orange and white. There are also triangle cones, big orange drums, barricades, all that sort of stuff, that clearly tells the driver that hey, you cannot go through there, because if you do, you will encounter this big bulldozer digging up the road in front of you.

But no, they still try to go, all the way until the end, until they see this big dump truck in front of them, and then they try to execute a U-turn in the middle of this pathetic little road. If they only read the signs, and believed them, then they would not have to do that.

The other day, I saw this small car. He was small enough to actually ignore the Road Closed sign that was standing on one side of the road and squeeze himself through the barricades on the other side. Then he saw the fence and the dump truck. He turned back, but instead of following where the actual detour was, he turned into this rather big driveway next to a building. That's just a freaking driveway, dummy! You still cannot go to the other side by heading that direction. Sure enough, after a minute, I see him pulling out of that driveway again and coming back where he came from.

So yeah, apparently, people do not read. How pathetic.



(Another Close-Up of Soldier with Cape, from my DC Memorials Series)

Book Review: I Dream of Microwaves by Imad Rahman

Should I pick a short story collection that I liked very much, this would be it. Why? Because the problems I have with respect to the short story genre is well-addressed here, and there has been a good solution that is offered by the author.

Well, the thing that ticks me off when reading short stories is that the stories only give me a simple and fleeting window into the lives of the characters. I suppose that is definitional with respect to short stories, there is a reason why they are short. Usually, short stories revolve around a common theme, and the whole book is a collection of stories about that common theme. Now the biggest thing that annoys me with regard to short stories is that the moment when I finally get to like the character, the moment when finally the character's quirks get to settle down fine with me, the story ends.

Not this one.

So how did that happen? Well, I Dream of Microwaves is a collection of short stories, but all of them have the same protagonist. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a Pakistani-American, and he is also a struggling actor. Basically, all chapters of this book is one vignette of his life as a struggling actor, describing the various gigs that he undertook, from being in a dinner theater, to being a dog-walker in New York City, to being part of a traveling troupe in the Pakistani mountains.

And yes, even though one story ended, the next story still featured the same character. And though there are no references to previous events within the stories, the character is still the same, with his same habits and quirks. In a way, the stories can be thought of as non-linear: given the fact that one cannot establish the temporal order between the stories, one might as well assume that the stories all happened in the past, but no particular order is available to the reader.

So yeah, I liked this one. And I haven't even talked about how funny this book is. But hey, that's for you to find out.

See my other book reviews here.



(Close-Up of Soldier with Cape, from my DC Memorials Series)

Unstuck

An interesting thought came to me yesterday. Yesterday, I was writing a short document about my research interests. This is for an application that I am currently processing. Anyway, I had to state what my research is about, and what my academic interests were in general.

So as I was writing it, I came to the point where I had to sort of describe briefly my dissertation topic, and where it is heading towards. As I was describing it, suddenly, the things I was pondering about, the multiple theories I am pitting against, the hypotheses that I was testing, all those stuff, they became clear to me. I felt like my writer's block for the past couple of weeks got dislodged, and I got unstuck from my stagnant location.

I suppose given the fact that I had to explain what I was doing to someone who may not have a clue or the necessary background knowledge, so I had to explain it to the level of a common man. I suppose since I had to assume that the person who will be reading this has no knowledge whatsoever of the assumptions that I am making, I had to start from the beginning, explaining basically from Square 1. And that process helped.

Anyway, so yeah. I am finishing this up, and waiting for the recommendation letters from two professors. Hopefully, something good comes out of this.



(Soldier with Cape, from my DC Memorials Series)

Linguistic Factoid No. 10: Expectation

Have you ever imagined what the human language processing system is like? How it operates, and what the mechanisms that are involved are like? Well, for this factoid, I am talking about expectation and anticipation.

You see, humans are very intelligent beings. They have the ability to do higher cognitive functions, like speaking a language, and thinking. And this language processing system isn't a passive system: it does not simply sit there in your head and wait for input. Instead, it can be quite active, and anticipate what will come next, based on the received input up to that point.

One illustration: Finish this sentence, by filling in the blank.

The current US President is _______________.

Obviously, as of today, the correct answer is Barack Obama. Everyone who is updated with the world affairs will answer that way. Now, what did I just illustrate? If I presented that sentence to you orally, instead of in a written form, and suppose I didn't say beforehand that you should finish the sentence, if I hesitated a bit, to the point that it welcomed a continuation from someone else, then that someone else would still say Barack Obama. One's knowledge of the world is activated and supplies the correct answer. So, from a "passive" hearer, one becomes a speaker.

Here's another illustration. Read the following discourse.

John was surprised at the traffic jam on his way to work. He was so irritated that he lifted up the truck and went on his way.

Now was that sentence weird? Yes. Unless John is a superhero, that doesn't happen in real world. Now contrast that discourse with the following one.

John was surprised at the traffic jam on his way to work. He was so irritated that he glared at the truck and went on his way.

Now that one was more believable. In fact, several researchers constructed experimental stimuli like this, and they asked people to read these sentences, as these sentences were being presented on a computer screen. And as they were reading, their brain waves were being measured, and guess what? Several brain wave patterns spike up when they see that anomalous word, indicating that it was a violation of expectation. The following is also a similar paradigm.

I drink my coffee with milk and sugar/dog.

The above experimental item was in fact one of the items that were used in a landmark experiment on brain waves and language processing (also known as ERP) back in 1980. Kutas and Hillyard 1980, which was an article published in Science discovered the N400 wave, which is a negative brain wave pattern that appears approximately 400 millseconds after the presentation of the critical stimulus. A heightened N400 wave suggests that there was a semantic anomaly, and that the language processor was not expecting that input.

Finally, another piece of evidence regarding expectation comes from eye movement studies. Researchers such as Yuki Kamide have conducted series of experiments showing people what is called a visual-world paradigm. This is an array of objects presented on a computer screen, while the participant is listening to a sentence. It has been found in these experiments that people anticipate what is going to occur next, again based on their real-world knowledge. For example, Kamide etal 2003 reports an experiment, where in one item, they have a picture of a girl, a man, a merry-go-round, and a motorcycle in one array. Participants then heard sentences like the following.

The girl will ride the merry-go-round.
The man will ride the motorcycle.

Even before hearing what the object is, people already direct their eyes to the appropriate vehicle. If they hear girl, there would be a higher proportion of looks to the merry-go-round than the motorcycle, and vice versa for the times when they hear man. This is evidence that humans' knowledge of how the world operates have a great effect in language processing, up to the point that they anticipate what is going to occur next even before they actually encounter the input.



(Tired Soldier, from my DC Memorials Series)

The Topography of My Hair

So yesterday, I got a haircut. It was a funny experience, because for the first time, I became a lab rat for cutting hair.

The thing is, my lovely Iranian hairstylist had two new apprentices. And given the rather difficult topography of my head and the hair that grows from it, it was an etude in hairstyling.

So, given my thick hair, I was shampooed first, so that it would be easier to cut, since shampooing it temporarily thins the hair. Then, the Iranian hairstylist then proceeded to describe the agenda: she described to the two apprentices how the hair is going to be cut, and what the steps are in doing so.

So there's three people hovering over me yesterday, my hairstylist, and the two apprentices. It was bizarre since I felt like I was in a fish bowl. The two apprentices would always follow the hands of the Iranian when she sculpted my head. They had rather interesting jargon that I didn't know applied to hair. Obviously, hairstyling requires an intricate knowledge base as well.

In the end, the fading technique that the Iranian used generated oohs and aahs from the two apprentices, and I also liked the end product. I liked the fact that the haircut gives the illusion that my head is more extended vertically, instead of a round flat one. The haircut gives me a few extra inches of illusory face, making my face more of an oval and not a circle.

So what does it look like? Hmm, the edges are a little longer than how I cut it in previous years, but the middle part is short. The slightly longer edges gives me the freedom to lift it up and style it to make a fake outline, thus resulting in the oval face illusion. I suppose the best example of this that I can think of is the haircut of this superhero. Granted, my head is not as hairy as his, but the principle is the same.



(Another View, from my DC Memorials Series)

Pad Thai Version 2.0

In reference to a post I did a couple of months ago, I have the same entry title for this one. I suppose there are just a bunch of things that I felt like talking about today, and there isn't really a common denominator except that it happened around my being.

Well, first off, I am happy to announce that the roommate search is over. I found a new roommate, and this new person is from India. From the looks of it, he looks cool, and best of all, not messy. He seems to be quiet, and is also a graduate student. The best thing I suppose is that he is a doctor: he has an MD, so am I supposed to feel safe now? Not that I felt unsafe before. But I just find it a little funny that I will be sharing an apartment with a doctor.

The other day, my friend and I watched the sequel to L'auberge espagnole, entitled Les Poupées russes. Again, I liked the non-linear narrative of this one. Anyway, we were making fun of Romain Duris, whenever he would speak in English, because his English with a French accent is hilarious. No offense to my French readers, but it really cracks me up.

Speaking of being funny because one speaks in a weird accent, I once cracked a joke on my adviser (who is French) during a party. I wasn't even talking to him, but to someone else, when I used the word genre with a very bizarre pronunciation of the uvular /r/. I suppose I gargled. My adviser was within earshot, and when he heard it, his face just contorted and it was so funny, it was the best face of the night.

Change of topic: I just finished my bottle of Givenchy Pi this morning. Wow. It took me 11 years to finish the bottle. I remember getting this bottle in the duty-free section of Osaka's Kansai International Airport, back in 1998. I wasn't even flying, instead, it was my mom who was flying back to Manila. And we happened to be late in heading to the airport: we thought that the flight was on a different schedule, but it changed for the season, and so the flight was leaving an hour earlier than we thought. We practically ran across the airport, and since I had the diplomatic pass (which allows friends and relatives of diplomats to go through security and say goodbye to their travelers right at the gate), I was able to go to the duty-free section and so when my mom finally cleared security and immigration, we went to the duty-free section, I told her what I wanted, and she got what she wanted, bought it, and then she flew back to Manila. I on the other hand took care of the purchases and took them back home to our apartment in Osaka. I didn't realize that that bottle would see its end in Buffalo.

So yeah, that's that. Oh good, as I write this, the sun is coming out. It's been cloudy all week, sometimes rainy even. I suppose I liked that weather, but it was a little bit chilly for June, and so I actually wore my sweater yesterday. But as long as the temperature doesn't make me sweat, then I am fine with that.

Ok, this is the end of this entry, I am off to get a haircut.



(Steel Soldier with Real Person, from my DC Memorials Series)

Book Review: Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead

If you want to make fun of some concept, say, the fact that Americans are so obsessed with new things and natural things, would you write a book about it? At least one author did, and the end result was this novel.

Apex Hides the Hurt is about an unnamed nomenclature consultant, who as we learn as the novel progresses, is hired by a town because the town wanted to change its name. There are three possibilities: New Prospera, which is the suggestion by one of the business magnates in the town; Freedom, which is the original name of the town before it was changed into Winthrop; and Winthrop, which is the third suggestion, namely, to not change the name of the town at all.

The character that the novel is following is rather amusing and bizarre: he has no name, and yet he has the amazing quirk of naming things appropriately for business. Through interesting flashbacks, we learn that he didn't even think that being a nomenclature consultant was going to be his real job. He took the exam as a joke, and yet he passed. He got hired. He developed good names for products. One such product was "Apex", which was apparently a culturally-sensitive bandage, which comes in different colors to match one's skin tone. Its catch phrase turned out to be the novel's title.

Another quirk that this character has is his stubbed toe. He seems to be hurting his toe every time, he describes it has having a magnet for the nearest curb, chair, door, whatever you name it, his toe will hit it. He hit it too much to the point that it became infected, and it had to be amputated because of the necrosis, which he neglected by simply bandaging it with Apex.

Anyway, he gets hired by this town, where he temporarily settles into, while consulting for the town's new name. He interviews and gets interviewed by people, and attends the town's functions. At the end of his stay, he figures out a name.

Yes, this novel was a funny read. But I believe it also had a deeper meaning to it. It basically pokes fun at how consumers are so hyped up by names: they would buy anything that is branded as new or natural. This novel tried to portray that mentality, rather successively in my opinion.

I also liked the fact that this novel engaged my head. It didn't give everything away. Instead, it required the reader to piece together things about the story, mentally building the story in the reader's head. The author didn't write this novel intending a dumb audience.

Somehow, I cannot think of a bad thing about this novel. Perhaps the only thing that prevents me from giving this novel a full 5 stars is the fact that although the topic is interesting, it wasn't interesting enough for me. In short, I could care less. And yet, it was interesting enough that I wasn't bored when I read it. But I suppose this is one of those types in which I will store it in my head, and perhaps never retrieve it again in the future, not because I didn't like it, but because I just find other topics to be more interesting and moving.

See my other book reviews here.



(Steel Soldiers, from my DC Memorials Series)

What's the Point?

So there's these series of commercials that McDonald's has in advertising their new coffee drinks. One of these is the following commercial about the commute, and how apparently, ingestion of a McCafe changes the whole ordeal.



Now what's up with the accent? Do they think that if someone drinks their iced or hot mocha, they'd suddenly be aspiring Europeans, speaking with an accent? And I wonder what is it from drinking cappuccino that they find to be French?



Here is another one of these commercials. These two guys, when they realize that McDonald's now has cappuccinos, they suddenly realize that they don't have to pretend anymore. That they can shave away their goatee, make away with the turtleneck and fake eyeglasses, and revert back to watching football instead of French film.

I don't get it. Is it that McDonald's is poking fun at people who aren't intelligent but think that they are because they drink fancy coffee? At least that's what the comments in the video said. But how is it that intelligence and coffee drinking habits are tied together? I used to drink coffee, and every now and then, I still do. And whenever I catch myself drinking one, I always get the obvious side effect: diarrhea. And I don't want that, but sometimes, I still get the urge to drink coffee. Now does that show that I am intelligent? Probably not!

So perhaps the best thing one can get from these series of commercials is the creativity that other people have demonstrated.



Say this spoof for example.



(Abraham's View, from my DC Memorials Series)

Inspiring the Kitchen

I think I need a change in the way the kitchen is being run. The thing is, I really think that I need a change of figure. Yeah, I know. This is one of those narcissistic posts. And given the way my physical figure has been transforming over the years, I think I need to act on it or else.

See? This is how I looked back in 2006. This was one year of living by myself, and after one year of eating just fruits and vegetables, eliminating all meat products in my diet. Obviously, this is not a shot that I intended to be showcasing my figure (I am not a model, I hate taking pictures of myself, my mom when she asks me for pictures of myself, and I tell her that I don't take pictures of myself because if I want to see how I look, I can just look at the mirror). This was taken after spending 3 months in Prague, and there I was, lining up on the airport queue to check in for my flight back to New York. That pair of jeans that I was wearing in that photo has a 32-inch waist, and right now, it is sitting in my closet, since I don't wear it anymore. Oh, just as a side note, that white plastic bag I was carrying in that photo contained a replica of a human skull, which is now sitting on my desk in my office.

Now this is how I look like, a year ago. This was taken in Pisac, in the Peruvian Sacred Valley. The pair of jeans that I was wearing here are 34-inch, and I still wear them. I widened my belt by one button hole. Although I don't have a weighing scale at home, I am pretty sure I have gained something from the former picture.

Now, what do I want to happen? Do I want to be like this? Ehh, not really. That looks scary. On the other hand, I am afraid that if I don't do anything, I might end up like this. So yeah, I suppose given that it is the summer, and the weather is not my excuse to go out and reduce my fat cell count, I will try and apply some self-discipline.

Aside from that, I think I would go back to my non-meat diet again. I know I have been saying this for the longest time, but I suppose I haven't configured out my dopamine levels to the right amount to make it actually work. I suppose that I need a tangible reward, so that I can get my brain, and by virtue of that, my body, correctly motivated. Maybe this would be a good one? Climbing this would require good physical fitness.

So yeah, I need to go back and browse my collection of vegetarian recipes. And I will try and not buy meat the next time I go to the grocery store.



(Abraham's Shadows, from my DC Memorials Series)

Book Review: Red Dust by Gillian Slovo

This book took me to South Africa. This is about an amnesty trial between a former interrogator and a former victim, where the former interrogator seems to know something about the death of another victim, that happened more than a decade ago. And there are multiple parties involved, trying to uncover what really happened in the summer of 1985.

Being that this book was written with an omniscient narrator, the reader had full access to what really happened, and the focus shifts from the happening but to how the characters perceived things as happening. Thus, this book was more than an account of a truth and fact-finding commission hearing between a black and a white man, but it was more a novel about truth itself. The book makes it clear that there are times in which people really cannot discern what is the truth. Instead, the truth boils down to what people think they believe in, and what people want to believe in. Multiple events in the book showcase this, such as the trial proceedings, and the final act by the wife of Pieter Muller.

I suppose I can say that I enjoyed reading this book. The narrative was very easy to comprehend, and the book was suspenseful enough to keep me preoccupied. And at the same time, it wasn't like an airport novel, the novel actually had a substantial topic that it was tackling. The only thing lacking I suppose is the personal interest: I find the topic interesting and profound, but it doesn't hit home like my other novels that I have read and that I have rated the best. So I suppose this novel only gets 4.5 stars out of 5.

See my other book reviews here.



(Abraham Sideways, from my DC Memorials Series)

Airplane Fly-By

Every time I hear the engines of an airplane zooming by up in the air, I always find myself frozen, stopped in the middle of the road, and trying to strain my neck and see what kind of plane it was, and what airline that plane was. Even here in my office, I have a window next to my desk, and the sky above seems to be part of the landing routine of planes that land in Buffalo Niagara International Airport, so I always see the planes quite close, their steel bellies zooming by.

Flying has always been an exciting thing for me. Even if I wasn't the one flying, I would always ask people who I know are going somewhere what their flight itinerary was. And I always do not understand how some people are heading for somewhere fun and different, to not even know what airline they are taking, or what route they are flying.

Perhaps it was because I watched this international movie the other day (see my earlier post) that I tend to think of travel and things associated with it. My feet are getting itchy again, and a moment ago, I realized that I have been here for about four years now. It's getting a bit long.

So, speaking of length of duration, let me recount where I have lived for the past 26 years.

• Manila, Philippines: July 1982 - August 1985. I was born here, and I have lived here until I was three years old, until when my dad decided that he wanted to go to graduate school so we moved. I don't have a lot of memories here, except those that are aided by pictures. I remember that our house didn't have a fence yet, but that's all I remember.
• Denver, Colorado: August 1985 - August 1987. We lived here for two years, while my dad was getting his master's degree. My sister was born during this time period, and again, I don't remember much except for photo-aided memory (by this, it's either I remember it, but chances are I just reconstructed these memories based on photographs I have seen later). Some scenes include playing with my dad's typewriter, making a huge snowman outside the apartment, cooling corn by sticking them out the window, and my stubborn inability to swallow my food.
• Manila, Philippines: August 1987 - October 1988. We went back to Manila, after my dad's stint in graduate school. Honestly, I do not remember anything at all during this time period. No photos I guess.
• Honolulu, Hawaii: October 1988 - October 1989. We went to Honolulu, and I started first grade. I remember my first grade homeroom teacher, her name was Mrs. Ching. I remember winning something from a FedEx raffle. We started an aquarium in the house. I remember taking a class photo and I got so nervous I took a dump in my pants. I also remember lots of other things, like the Ala Moana Shopping Center, and strolling in Waikiki Beach.
• Manila, Philippines: October 1989 - August 1995. This is the longest time period in which I stayed in one location: five years and ten months. I went from second grade to seventh grade, graduated as a valedictorian in elementary school. There were plenty of memories here, since by this time, my hippocampus is already fully functional.
• Osaka, Japan: August 1995 - April 2000. This is the second longest time period in which I stayed in one location: four years and eight months. I studied Japanese, went from eighth grade to eleventh grade, and learned to play the piano. A lot of embarrassing language-related experiences happened here, such as asking a department store clerk to try a sweater on for me, among other things.
• Guam: April 2000 - August 2001. I did a one-year and four-month long stint here. This is where I graduated from high school. I didn't like the place, the island was too small, and every time I went to the mall, I would see somebody I knew. I ate blue ice cream in the first week we were there, and my tongue turned bright blue. The lasagna in a restaurant was rather soupy, my mom didn't like it. We would go to the beach and do some night-swimming, after buying some barbecue chicken. The kelaguens that the Chamorros cooked were rather tasty.
• Manila, Philippines: August 2001 - August 2005. I spent exactly four years in Manila after living in Guam. We came back in August 18, 2001, and I left for Buffalo in August 16, 2005. It seems that I travel in August a lot. This is the third longest time period in which I have been in a certain location. Anyway, I enrolled in the university, and finished my undergraduate degree in three and a half years, graduating with a magna cum laude. I abandoned my musical pursuits and pursued something else. I also had a taste of living without parents, since my parents went away to live in Europe in 2004. This was also the first time in which I visited Europe, when me and my sister flew to Austria and visited Italy and Greece as well after my graduation, and this is also the first time in which I traveled alone, when I flew to Taiwan to participate in a conference.
• Buffalo, New York: August 2005 - present. So far, I have been living here for three years and ten months. If you look above, my history seems that I rarely stay in a place for more than five years. So I suppose this explains the travel itch. This is the period in which I started traveling alone, exploring three countries in South America, and a few in Europe as well. Whatever happens after this, I do not know yet.

So yeah, I wonder where I will be in the next few years. I can honestly say that I have no clue where I would be, and at times, it can be disconcerting. I find that other people cannot understand this, since they've been in one place all their lives. So yeah, when an airplane flies by, who knows, I might be in the cabin, moving to my next destination.



(Abraham Again, from my DC Memorials Series)

Mélange

So I watched this funny movie entitled L'auberge espagnole, which tells the story of a French graduate student, who went to Barcelona for one year to study. Why do I find myself watching plenty of films set in Spain recently? Maybe it has something to do with a possible change of scenery?

But no, let's not go there at the moment, given the fact that nothing is sure yet.

Anyway, I saw this film, and although I liked it, I didn't even try to imagine living like the characters. I would possibly not survive in an apartment with 7 other people, with different living habits. In more ways than one, this movie was really a mélange of sorts.

Funny that this word, which means "mix" in the French original, means something different in Austria. My dad would always order a "mélange" after dinner, which refers to some type of coffee.

Anyway, speaking of apartments, I am showing my apartment to someone this coming Monday. Finally, someone answered my ad. Hopefully, I get someone who is decent, and not like the previous roommates that I had. It seems that I do not have luck with roommates, all the previous roommates I had were bizarre, and every time I think that nothing else would be worse than this, but then that would always be falsified. At least I haven't had a roommate which was as bad as a friend of mine's, which somehow apparently turned out to be a drug-dependent loser, who got arrested by the police. That's why I don't want to advertise my place online yet, my primary way of advertising is through posting flyers all over the campus, so that there is a higher chance that the person is also a student, and not someone from who-knows-what.

Speaking of which, I need to replenish my flyers. Unfortunately, I need more tape.



(Abraham, from my DC Memorials Series)

Reason, Emotion, and Humans

The other day, my friend and I watched the romantic comedy movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona. If one wants to see the sights of Barcelona without actually going there, this would be a good film.

Anyway, this film tackles the human emotions that encircled two Americans, Vicky and Cristina, and how they get entangled in the weavings of human love and relationships while spending a summer in Barcelona. It was directed by Woody Allen, and overall, we both enjoyed the movie.

What made me think about this is the fact that humans seem to have two sides: a rational one, and an emotional one. This push and pull was very obvious in the characters of the film, especially in Vicky. Which made me think about this balance. People balance the two in different ways. Some people value emotions more than reason. I suppose if you have been following this blog, then you know how I stand on that. Too bad that it would be too unethical to play with this balance and conduct experiments on various people, manipulating factors that would tease out this difference.

Anyway, that was that. The movie was exotic, and so yeah, that turned out to be a good movie night.



(Lincoln Memorial Upfront, from my DC Memorials Series)

Book Review: Rex by Jose Manuel Prieto

Reading this was both a beautiful and painful experience.

Let me try to write up the synopsis first. This is about the story of a certain young man, who is so obsessed with Marcel Proust, who gets hired as a tutor for a boy. This boy happens to be from a family of Russian expatriates, who were living in the southern coast of Spain. As the novel progresses, the young man learns that the boys parents are swindlers: they manufacture fake synthetic diamonds and they happened to be on the run from the Russian mafia.

That was the basic scenario. I won't tell you what happened in the end, because I think that would be destroying the whole point of reading this. Now, what I found beautiful with this novel is that it is narrated as a monologue given by the tutor, to the boy, Petya. It's as if the reader is part of the tutelage, with the tutor giving his sermons to the boy and the reader. Dialogue is kept to a minimum, usually constrained just within the tutor's narration of events.

Now what I think is painful for this novel is the fact that the common assumptions of logic and reason seem to be violated. Near the end, it seems that the boy's mother is transformed into a bird. What is real and what is imagined by the tutor is kept blurry, so it results in a mixture of a fantastic world, similar to the magical realism that other Latin American authors are known for. It must be pointed out however, that the author himself tried to distance this book from those novels, saying that he preferred categorizing this work as a magico-scientific realism, and that all the descriptions about diamond-making are real, and that magic elements are kept at a minimum. However, the effect still stands, in that the reader cannot take everything at face value, since all bets are off when it comes to the laws of physics.

In the end, I found this a very intriguing novel. I believe this is one piece of modern literature, and people who are specialists of literature would gladly see the connections between other famous works (the author liberally quotes from other famous literary pieces, indicated in the text as boldface). However, it may be the case that I am a simple plebeian reader, that I was not willing to invest more than a cursory amount of attention, that I found this novel too dense and deep for my enjoyment. I think this is a work of a genius, but I cannot appreciate it as much as I wanted to.

See my other book reviews here.



(The View to the Obelisk, from my DC Memorials Series)

Going Hawaiian

So yesterday, I attended a wedding. It happens that my friend's sister is getting married, so I was my friend's date. I also was the assistant photographer. Yeah. I was. Really.

Anyway, the wedding was rather small, with only a small part of the two families invited. This is actually the third wedding I have attended as far as I can remember, and this one is the first in which I actually intimately knew the family.

Anyway, it was held in a quaint picturesque part of town, with a gazebo. My friend provided the music, given the fact that she plays the harp, and her sister was the bride. Her other sister was the bridesmaid, and their father happens to have a degree in photography. However, given the fact that he needs to be in the procession, he can't take those shots. So half an hour before the whole thing began, I was briefed as to how to take shots that had the right framing, angle, lighting, et cetera. I told him that I rarely shoot people, so I may need to have some crash course.

Anyway, that was that, and I forgot to mention that the wedding was Hawaiian-themed. Things were relaxed, and the ladies had daisies in their hair. The food was quite nice too. And the families were interesting, to say the least.

After the wedding ceremony, we all went to this park in another part of town to take pictures of the bride, groom, and family. Actually, the decision to go here was partly due to me and my friend, given the fact that we were the ones who suggested this location. There were water, ducks, and trees. And while we were there, there were five other wedding parties that were having their pictures taken. It was quite a quaint and interesting place. Again, I took photos when the bride's dad had to be in the photos. I took multiple shots in case some turned out to be bad.

Then we went to the bride's house afterward just to hang out. I realized then that weddings are whole-day events. They can be stressful no matter how pleasant and quaint the scenery is.

So yeah, that was my Saturday. And I suppose you now notice that I have a new photo series up. This is the start of my DC Memorials Series, which is a collection of photographs that I took in the National Mall in Washington DC, focusing on all the different memorials that can be seen in the area.



(The Lincoln Memorial from Behind, from my DC Memorials Series)

Talking to Strangers

Yesterday was a bizarre day. A guy approached me while I was waiting for the bus to arrive that would take me to the other campus, where my apartment was close to. I was simply sitting on a bench, when he approached and said,

Him: Hi.

Me: Hi.

Him: Do I know you?

Me: No.

Him: I think I saw you before.

Me: No, I don’t think so.

Him: Where are you from?

Me: Why would I tell you?

Him: Are you Asian?

Me: Yes.

Him: Are you from Thailand?

Me: No. Are you from Korea?

Him: (laughs) Oh, yes.

At this point, I became amused that this weird stranger with broken English decides to talk to a stranger, me. I figured, he might just have the extra-ordinary courage to talk to someone to make his English better, so I decided to play along. He then went on trying to guess where I came from. Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Singapore, Brunei, every time I said no and remarked, “It’s right smack in the middle of Southeast Asia!”

In the end he wasn’t able to guess, so I told him I was from the Philippines. Then the bus arrived, and we both boarded the bus. We sat down, and talked about random stuff. Apparently, he is a graduate student in the Dentistry department, and then I also told him what I study. He seemed very curious about where I live, and so I told him which street I lived, and then the topic of the conversation drifted to the topic that most graduate students are concerned about, that is, rent and living arrangements. I told him that I am currently looking for a roommate since my former roommate just left.

Then I don’t know, I just asked him what he does for his spare time. He mentioned that he exercises, and then I said, “Yeah, I need to do that too.” To which he replied, “Yeah I think so too.” “Wow, you are too direct. Very exceptional for an East Asian.” Not that I was offended, but fine, just add that to my list of reasons why I want a few pounds off my weight.

And then the interesting turn happened. Somehow the conversation drifted to the point that religion was brought up, and I told him that I do not do religion. He brought up the concept of “temporary life” and asked me whether I think about death. Of course I think about death. I think that death is inevitable, and people are just so hyped up about it, but if they accept that people die, then things would have been smoother. I told him that people just invented the concept of an afterlife because they want to do so many more things, and they want hope, albeit a false one. I told him that people just construct the afterlife because they wanted to believe that something better is lying out there, after death. I told him that God and religion are just constructs that humans invented because it is their attempt to explain the currently unexplainable phenomena in the world.

That’s when he started preaching. He said that God appeared to him personally, and that he knows what is after death.

At first I was nice, I told him that my beliefs have less assumptions than his, and that it is the simpler hypothesis. But his arguments started getting circular. At this point, another person joined in. She is a girl, Asian, and later I would learn that she is an English major. And she started asking questions to this poor Korean guy, who started losing his answers. The Asian girl was relentless, asking the guy how old he thinks the world and its species are. The girl pointed out contradictions, as to how the guy, who is studying dentistry, can believe in an assumption that humans are just 6,000 years old, when there is carbon-dating and uranium dating, using proven tenets of physics, that place the age of the human race to be far older than that.

I later realized that the Asian girl and I have the same fundamental problem with regard to religious beliefs. And that is we cannot understand how someone can take everything to be true and believe in it just because a certain book tells them that it is true. I asked the girl later, whether she believed in God, and she said that she thinks that there is a Supreme Being, but not as in the form that the Bible says.

By this time, we all are in the other campus. We even took the time to sit down on a bench, and argue with the other guy. Contradictions regarding the portrayal of God were raised, as to how in the Hebrew Scriptures, God is a harsh and wrathful god, raining fire and brimstone to people, and opening the earth to swallow people up. But in the Greek Scriptures, he is a kinder person, sending his son so that everyone on earth can be saved.

Regarding that, did God change his mind? Wasn’t God supposed to be all-knowing, and that he should have known that people would make these types of decisions, and so he should have done the proper thing in the first place? God seems to have changed his mind, and if he changed his mind, then he isn’t all-knowing? With that, the Asian girl brought the argument about the conversation that Abraham had with God, that God allowed Abraham to argue whether or not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. The fact that God allowed Abraham to argue with him suggests that God changed his mind. If he already had his mind set that he would destroy Sodom, then he should have told Abraham that no matter what Abraham thought, he would destroy the cities.

The Korean guy argued that God was merciful and compassionate, and that because of that, he gave us free will. But if God really is merciful and compassionate, he should have been a Communist. If free will were at the disposal of humans, then God should have known that use of this God-given free will won’t result in the best of things. Humans made bad choices, obviously, and God should have known that. After all, he was the one who wrote the program of free will. In essence, the God-given free will turned out to be defective. And if God was merciful and compassionate, why do we have Donald Trumps and poor people begging on the streets? God should have just equalized everything so that everyone would be happy.

By this time, 30 minutes have passed, and I told the Korean guy that this conversation is going nowhere. I don’t accept his assumptions, and his assumptions are way more numerous than mine. In the end, by virtue of Occam’s razor, I still stand by my own hypothesis. I told the Korean guy that I respect his beliefs, but unfortunately his beliefs don’t work for me.



(Quasi-Rabbit, from my National Gallery of Art Series)

Fear of Flying and Statistics

Due to the recent aviation accident with respect to the Air France 447 which was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, it recently occurred to me that there are plenty of people who have a fear of flying. In fact, I personally know of people who would rather drive all the way to California from Buffalo than take the plane.

Now the thing that somehow surprises me is the lack of logic that most people see things. Especially with this recent crash, for example. A slew of articles about finding out the world's safest airlines came up. Wow, does the fact that Air France crashed in the Atlantic Ocean make them unsafe anymore? Because the measurement that these people use to see the world's safest airline is crash and fatality rate.

Here is an example of such a list. Now, I suppose you wouldn't find any of the 6 big carriers in the United States there. Now does that mean that they aren't safe anymore? United, American, Continental, US Airways, Delta, and Northwest are not in that list. Does that mean that you won't fly any of those? Using another line of reasoning, it is more likely for one person to die in a car accident than in an airline accident. Does that mean that we shouldn't drive anymore?

But perhaps it is an issue of control. In cars, people tend to believe that they control the movement of the vehicle. But in an airline, one is just passively sitting in an enclosed metal tube. One doesn't control the movement of the vehicle.

This brings to mind interesting constraints that people have. People tend to ignore statistical information when it comes to evaluating danger. They rather want things to be in their control, which makes a big chunk of the constraint that they have to satisfy.



(Cubic Pyramid, from my National Gallery of Art Series)

Spring Cleaning and Shostakovich

So, yesterday, I was in the apartment all day long. The reason was because my roommate moved out, and I decided to clean up his wake. I started with my bedroom, and then the corridor, and the two other rooms. I am still not finished, with the kitchen, dining room, and his old room not yet done.

I like my clean bathroom, though. It is now blue, from a former brown. I changed the rugs and the shower curtain, and replaced the curtain liner with a new one.

I am glad that my old roommate moved out. I didn't like his cleaning habits, because there were none. I suppose I do not have luck in finding good roommates. This has been the third roommate that I had, which did not take the initiative in cleaning. He treated the apartment more like a hotel than an apartment. When he left, he didn't even try vacuuming his room. Just that, pack up and leave. But I figured, that would be better, because I would rather be careful in cleaning his room, because who knows what he left in there, the vacuum cleaner might break.

So yeah, I will finish cleaning the apartment, and then look for a new roommate. I am not hoping for the best for this one. But who knows, I might be just here until December, but hey, that's not yet official.

In the meantime, I am back in my office, listening to Dmitri Shostakovich while I read my articles. His string quartets are really awesome in case you are curious.



(Silver Cubes, from my National Gallery of Art Series)