mixed tape masterpieces: london II

2010-01-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

london ii (as in junior)

you may have guessed if you don't already know, but i am back in london. i have dubbed my new life, london II (as in Lord Albert II) because london, jr. just sounded so ... so ... american... and that would be inappropriate given my location.

i know it's been awhile but, as it turns out, when you settle, you make friends and you tell them what you're thinking instead of your computer. but here i am, unemployed in a new(ish) place and without me knowing, my computer has acted up out of old age and loneliness and said, "no" to my attempt to make it work again.

but i'm back. for now.

2009-04-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

the return of cat?

maybe...

but if there were ever a reason to start posting again, even if temporarily, it would be to show off my adorable niece and nephew, whose adorable-ness cannot be expressed by a person who uses words like adorable-ness.

i didn't get to spend too much time with these guys during my short stay in new york but this is what i learned:

ryan (1 1/2) cries. that is how he expresses himself.

joie (3 1/2) uses her words and is arguably more articulate than ... is it i or me?

this may have been one of the only times ryan smiled for me, so i tried to get in as many pictures as possible:

2008-07-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

quick link to pictures and more stories later!

i just chose my favourite 60 but will probably add more when i have some time.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hhkt9ax.3lg1mgid&x=0&y=-5tf65s&localeid=en_US

2008-05-31T05:20:00.000-07:00

griechenland :)

it's been awhile. things have really settled here. i'm still working at the hostel and am in the process of fully working for the film company as well. www.f24film.de for anyone interested. eike's all grown up now with a real job.

i write because i'm off to greece today! back on the 9th with hopefully lots of pictures.

peas

2007-12-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

normalcy

so i think i'm showing signs of stability. the symptoms are all there - work, a little money, health insurance, a home, etc. i'm unbelievably happy and have no more really great stories to tell. okay, that's a lie. i have a million stories to tell because hilarious/insane/smelly/weird people come into the hostel everyday but they just aren't right on paper and i think it's unethnical to post videos... it makes me a little sad though that life here is normalising and nothing shocks me enough to write about it...

it reminds me that while at potsdamer platz in berlin, we saw a section of the wall standing there. after careful observation, the east side of the wall is undoubtedly more interesting than the west side. this implies that oppression feeds creativity whilst democracy and capitalism feeds ... well nothing. what can be done about this?

...

in other news, i am now officially a master of ethnomusicology. results came out and i passed - woohoo :)

alright. not too much more to say. i'll be back in the states in less than 2 weeks :)
see you all soon.

2007-11-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

my new (busy) life

so yea... another month gone by and who noticed? some things that have happened:

we went to berlin. it was very cool. it was a tad cold and we were also there to support rafi at the mtv extreme playground bmx competition but i got to see some things and the things i saw i liked. the first day was tiring (6:30am flight) and a packed architecture tour downtown but the other two days i got to walk around some neighbourhoods, visit some markets and it was awesome. pictures to come (?)

we went on my first winter overnight hike in the mountains. it was unbelievably beautiful and calm. it was a friends birthday and the mix of people somehow actually worked out well. i sang (gasp). definitely pictures to come.

the piano finally moved in! our fourth and final roommate and probably my favourite.

i started german class and i go everyday from 9-1. my teacher's name is jürgen and he is fantastic. the class is intense and difficult but supremely fun because of all the different accents.

i started working at a hostel. i have just started this job (my first day was yesterday) and i shared my shift with a girl named alexa. she was awesome. i get to use a little german but mostly we just listen to music and smile. work is relaxed and i get to wear jeans. it is also supremely fun because of all the different accents.

that's all. it doesn't sound like a lot but my sleep has already deteriorated to only about 7 1/2 hours per night, which is just enough to get by. it's a tough life.

hope you are all well.

2007-10-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

new mixed tape: munich

i'm officially moving. i technically moved here in june but i guess until now i was never really sure what was going to be happening now, so since i'm still here, i consider myself re-planted.

2007-10-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

oktoberfest 2007

i was fortunate enough to have seen the wiesn before oktoberfest hit munich. i unfortunately did not take pictures but you can probably imagine what it looks like. there are two main streets: one for the rides and one for the beer tents. there are several breweries (hacker-pschorr, augustiner, paulaner, lowenbrau, spaten and hofbrau) and each brewery has i think at least two halls serving their beer (see left: inside hacker-pschorr with tobi and eike). so upon checking in wikipedia, i've discovered that there is also a wine hall but... that's ... well just sorta ridiculous.

the most amazing conversations can happen when you're standing on a bench in a beer hall, holding a mass and crammed next to a sweaty dude in lederhosen (and it's okay because you're sweating too). to give you a rough idea of how big a mass is (and how crammed you are), i thought i'd insert this picture... i mean yes, a mass is 1L of beer (and roughly 500 calories) but i think my efforts cannot be fully appreciated without seeing it in comparison to me. so here you go:

ok so i think eike and i made it a total of about 5 times. i never managed to get a dirndl (sad) and except the night of the above foto, eike worked the lederhosen like nobody's business and i have to say... they're kinda sexy.

the only thing i have to mention (because pictures won't do) is the band. every hall has a live band playing less than 10 songs repeatedly it seems and though you think it would absolutely get on your nerves, for some reason it doesn't. special mention: that guy on the right holding his trumpet funny eventually took his shirt off whilst dancing... he is aaaagile. anyway, the songs range from hall to hall but pretty much a standard is like a big ol "cheers" every 15 minutes... except it's a song. i guess it feels pretty unbelievable when you're screaming "summer of 69" on the top of your lungs and like at least 200 people are air-guitarring with you - now THAT is something i should have gotten a picture of. ah well.

ok i lie, there are more things worth mentioning: the rides. they are awesome and ridiculously expensive. however, there is a famous ride called the toppogan which is an absolute must. i only made attempts as a spectator because i was pissing myself laughing before i could even get to the line. basically, it's two rides in one. the point is to get to the top so you can just spiral down a big slide (no biggie). however, to get to the top, one must step onto an insanely speedy conveyor belt of sorts. this usually ends up with people flat on their asses... and hilarity ensues. notice what happens when drunk and cocky: (yes that is his bare ass).

i was also mildly excited at the sight of these bad boys (both boys and horns):
there was also yodeling and noone seemed to think that was odd or out of place, which was also kinda awesome.

so yea, it is a lot of fun but crazy exhausting.
more pictures:

2007-10-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

stars @ feierwerk 26th september

i was pretty pysched about this concert. it was just two days after coming back to munich and a week after handing in my dissertation. they were probably my favourite band of last year (and much of this year, i guess), i thought the band had gone away forever so this was a welcomed surprise. the show was fun. gentleman reg opened up and he was great (and super nice) and made good use of a little looping machine thing which just added way more depth to the one-man show. as for stars, i'm still a bit undecided. i absolutely love (present continuous) their first and second albums and i'm not sure if i didn't absolutely love them in concert just because i didn't know all the songs off the new album. my alternative theory is that they're just the kind of band that needs to be listened to with good headphones and maybe a blanket wrapped around you... i dunno. the set list was fairly distributed across the three albums and the encore included a smiths cover (and a mildly hilarious impersonation of a northern english accent) so no real complaints. also, compared to feist who is playing here on saturday, i could actually afford their tickets ($25 as opposed to $50).

so other highlights of my life right now: oktoberfest (pictures to come), not writing about race matters (which can be so personally confusing sometimes), streamed episodies of heroes (still on season 1, sorry) streamed episodes of 30 rock (i also apparently wear bicurious shoes) and reading fiction. the sun is also shining.

out.

2007-09-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

the end is here

it is over. it is all over.
printed, photocopied, bound and delivered.

and those are all the words i can muster for awhile. i am basking in the world of fiction novels. it is amazing. i will recover soon. back to munich on monday.

2007-09-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

the end is near

the dissertation will be out of my life after tomorrow and i'm gonna be honest with you... i'm going to feel all sorts of empty. i got so sick of it, but really, it is my child. my first born who i haven't named yet. i have grown to love it. i really thought i could just not care and shit away the last thousand or so words but now that i'm at the end of it (yes, i'm still writing/editing), i cannot do it. i cannot bring myself to not care.
so you're probably wondering why i've chosen this moment to write. seeing as i haven't written since the last time i wanted to apologise for not writing. well, it is all explained in a little url i am about to add. ... ... now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2josUqMTUmE

i'll see you all tomorrow, after 4pm.

2007-08-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

dissertation, what?

you've probably been wondering where i've been. not in the library, i tell you. i decided that the library wasn't the best working environment. i decided that because it didn't make me want to work. but until the stress really lay the groundwork, i couldn't find anywhere that made me want to work. unfortunate because now i have to miss prince at the O2 in london. shame.

anyway, i wanted to inform you all that i am still alive and surviving... sort of.

until next time...
shoes.

2007-06-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

apologies and stories

i apologise for my last account. it took me several weeks to get it all out and as you can tell, by the end, i just wanted it to be over and it reads a little rushed. so. i'm sorry. and to make up for it, i will tell you all wooooonderful stories to make you laugh and cry and maybe even hug the person next to you. we'll see.

the wedding.
eike's sister got married on june 6th and the reception was on the 9th, which is why i had to leave ibiza earlier than the others. it was all really lovely. i had to wear a dress... and i didn't hate it. in fact, i felt quite pretty. eike and i sat at the kids table. which...considering how many kids there are in the schling family, it was actually a really fun table. anyway, band was awesome, food was great, drinks were free -- all in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

southside.
i went to my first real big music festival last weekend. i can't say i'm the biggest fan. i mean, the concept is really cool. camp for 3 days, be dirty and get drunk and see a ton of bands. but i didn't get to see all the bands i wanted to see and it rained parts of the weekend so we got dirtier than we wanted and it's hard to imagine but the sound of a flushing toilet is sweeter than you'd expect sometimes.
but on to the good things:
i saw less than jake and me first and the gimme gimmes. of course a return to my high school music listening days was fun. of course hopping around in the mud with other mud-hoppers was fun. but really... these were great shows. props to ltj for continuing to play even though people were throwing mud at them. don't ask me why - i really don't think people hated the show. in fact, i think the mud was in some form a token of appreciation. it was like, "you guys rock. have some mud." the sense of it i haven't quite worked out yet but regardless, the band never left the stage and there were a lot of really amusing attempts to get people to stop throwing mud...
me first was the last show of the first night. they played from 12:30 until 2 in the morning. and it was so freaking rad. for all of you who don't know - me first is a punk cover band. and i don't know how many people at the show knew this but "the next song is... a cover" never got old and i think a lot of people had fun. what really amazed me was the songs that germans know all the words to. there are certain classics that i always imagined would stay sort of american... in the way that i think i may only know the because my parents listened to these songs and they remain cheesy in a very culture-specific kind of way. but no. at least the immediate group surrounding me knew every single word to barry manilow's mandy. strange, no?
the rest of the weekend was sort of a blur but a definite highlight was pearl jam - i never ever thought i would see them live. but i did... about 8 years after i stopped caring. and man... eddie vedder is HOT. seriously, girls. it's hard to be convincing. i was standing about 70m away on top of a garbage can with about 6 other people concentrating on not falling over but that eddie... he was amazing.

the bavarian state library
it exists. i've been there. whether or not i was actually going to get any real work done before july was questionable... the bavarian state library, hence forth now known endearingly as the stabi, was not interested in making that a possibility. first, i'm a foreigner and therefore not allowed to take books out. they do have really nice reading rooms with lots of light and plenty of tables and outlets for laptops etc, so reading there isn't a problem. the problem is that there aren't actually many books there. this is only mildly problematic for a person who has found most of her research material whilst browsing... so now i need to be organised and know which books i want. you beg, 'really?' and my dear friends, the answer is yes. in order to get a book/journal, one has to have it ordered from archives, where it will be sent to the stabi to be collected roughly 2 days later. if you're foreign, it takes 4-5 days. double burned.

dissertations
well they sorta suck. and not in a little way. in a big, fat, 'ha, take that for the next 2 months of your life' sorta way. i know 2 months isn't a lot. it was originally 'ha, take that for the next 3 1/2 months of your life.' but i somehow wasted away the last month and a half and now i've got just 2 left. and still no topic. i'm such a failure.

blogging madness (or lack thereof)
it seems i was designed to shirk all responsibility, whether important or not. it seems that i've subconsciously decided to take a stand against actually doing anything... and i am REALLY good at it. some people say they get bored doing nothing all day. me? not so much. i mean, of course i do stuff. i read a lot. but clearly nothing dissertation-oriented. i think i need to find some sort of... how do you say... purpose? if anyone has any spare purpose lying around, let me know. you know how to reach me.

yours,
la pandita

2007-06-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

life after exams

well, predictable or not, i didn't really do much partying after exams. all i really wanted to do was sleep. and sleep i did. then i went to ibiza. and i slept more. and now i'm in munich. and i really think all this sleeping needs to stop. so in an effort to guide the winds of change, i'm equating successful productivity with all non-sleep related activity. breakfast this morning was a real doozy. but on to events...

i.b.i.z.a.
the culprits: monika, me, fareeha and shikha

i can't say a lot about ibiza to be honest. it was beautiful and i already miss being near the ocean (and all the great seafood) but we could have been anywhere. i should be fair and clarify that this was the case for the places that we frequented: sant diego, sant antoni and less so eivissa (town). anything once spanish about these places was lost when the service industry started catering to as many different kinds of people from all over the world. the menus in our town were in multiple languages, most signs were also in multiple languages and a standard breakfast was sausages, beans, eggs and toast. we did enjoy ourselves though. you can't really be picky about the kind of pampering you allow yourself. in the end, we did a whole lot of relaxing and it was well deserved on all counts.
but on to the good stuff...
we were welcomed to ibiza by the raddest taxi driver you will ever meet. it was 1 in the morning and not only did he race through the streets of this small island bumping to some club mix i can only dream he made himself, AND he was doing this all in a white blinging pirate t-shirt. and by blinging i mean his t-shirt was sparkling and shiny and something my sister would wear. this is not meant negatively - he was awesome.
this may come as a surprise to some of you but the sun in ibiza is freaking hot. after half a day of wearing my cool new shirt from neu look, i was and continue to be the proud owner of a slightly darker brown circle on my back. but no worries, it looks stylish. i predict that everyone will have one by the end of the summer. the first night out was awesome. we went into sant antoni for some dinner and we found a place right by the water with yummy sangria and seafood (now my favourite combination of food and drink, hands down) and no english menu. whether this was advantageous or not is still probably disputed among the four of us but i really liked it.
our second day was action packed. we went to formentera, a small island to the south of eivissa (town) and port. we'd read that the best way to get around the island was by bike and i was all about it. we'd had trouble finding the port in eivissa because we just took the bus in but after finding it and the ferry to formentera, i felt like it would have been a waste to just sit on the beach all day. so we biked. and it was great. we ended the trip with a quick stop at a beautiful beach.
we went back to town for a night of paella, flamenco and more sangria and i don't have much to say about any of it but it is worth mentioning that afterwards, we did this bunjee rope trampolining thing which was so much fun! monika may have almost broken her neck but in the end, all the flips made it worth it. good times.
the day after we went back to eivissa to check out the old city. it's surrounded by a wall and marked by the tall clock tower. i liked the old town. it was sort of quiet and it's obviously being made into a glammy part of town with nice new hotels and expensive shops and things but it's on the top of the hill and the view is beautiful.
we walked around a bit and eventually took the bus back to sant antoni to catch the sunset (which we were told we HAD to do at cafe del mar) but we never found cafe del mar so we did it at this other place and got delicious pretty coloured drinks. (i'm such a sucker for delicious and pretty coloured drinks)... after having more delicious seafood and paella, we returned home to the temptations playing in our hotel lobby, to which we danced; and then moved straight on, quite naturally, to an air hockey tournament and a pretty terrible game of pool.
the next day was my last and we made good use of it by going to the beach again. it was sort of the perfect way for us to end the trip. we all relaxed a bit before heading back to sant antoni to catch our last sunset.
i took a taxi to the airport whilst the others went back to the hotel and when i finally got into stansted, i found myself a nice little spot next to a shop to try and sleep until 6am when i could check in again. sleeping at the airport - not as exciting as it sounds. i don't recommend it. if you're going to do it, get there early enough to steal one of the spots under the signs because i think there's less draught and it's just a wee bit quieter because of less foot traffic... just some thoughts.

2007-05-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

career destroyers

not that i have one... but i have found the worst and best possible thing in existence:
http://scrubsnbc.livedigital.com

5 days left and a million books/articles to be read, i have commited myself to watching as many scrubs episodes as humanly possible (while still getting at least some reading done everyday)

ok. just one more then i'll get my learn on.
peas.

2007-05-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

the sweet smell of knowing a lot about east asian music

i had my exam today and it is gratifying to know that i have actually learned things this year. granted, my old roommate did guess more right on the practice session for our listening exam. that was... mildly depressing but it's over now.

today was a beautiful day and i realised i'm a little stubborn. i don't really want to get into the whys and hows of my realisation but there it is.
things have been happening (i.e. eike visiting, me cutting my hand on a glass whilst washing it, etc etc) but in the grand scheme of the last two weeks, i have been in a room reading about east asian music. i will spend the next week reading about ethnomusicology (still don't really know what that word means) so ... see you in a week.

oh yea, i'm going to ibiza. shh for now. you can email me your comments...

peas pandas

2007-05-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

examination strategies

it's the monday after and, as promised, here i am. wednesday - friday was a very painful period. i think i got a total of 6 hours of sleep, which doesn't make for a very pleasant version of myself. wednesday i started my radio programme. i was minorly discouraged that after 5 hours, i'd gotten roughly 7 minutes of radio show. i managed to stay up most of the night and be finished by about 2pm the next day. i have to admit that it was the best assignment i'd ever gotten and i had a lot of fun with it and now i have a new dream job - editing music for film.
(anyone who knows anyone - hook me up!)
anyway, i spent the next night writing an awful paper and after realising it was just gonna be terrible, i worked more on the radio show. friday, i handed everything in and just gloated about it for the entire weekend.
my weekend was fantastic. i just didn't think about work and i went and saw people i don't usually see because it's too far to go so i'm pretty happy about it all.
now it's monday and i need a serious exam strategy. considering i haven't read for class since october, i feel like the next 3 weeks could be a little rough. but maybe i'll surprise myself.

anyway, check these guys out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv8ZQ6MuIks

also, type 'sneezing panda' into youtube and watch what carried me through all those rough nights...

peas

2007-04-21T11:09:00.000-07:00

back in sunny london

yes. it is warm and sunny and though i was sad to leave montreal for likely the last time, i was welcomed home by fantastic weather. oh... and a lot of work.
easter holiday productivity report: 1.5/4 papers completed. go me.

you're probably asking what i managed to do for 3 1/2 weeks, if not writing papers. well, let my photos answer your question:

nyc was hot and sunny and very appreciated. i didn't stay long but these slackers at union sq. made sure i caught the slacky, non-productive virus before leaving.

(that is a policeman telling us all to get off the grass)

this is mt. tremblant, near montreal.
notice the lack of sun and the abundance of snow... in april.
montreal did not look any different.
it was cold.

we hunted eggs. chocolate and real.
i don't have any action shots but we also played this bulgarian egg game.
time passed quicker than we thought it would, too.

i know three pictures makes it hard to believe that i really didn't work for 3 1/2 weeks but you better believe it. it's now saturday and by next friday, i will have written another paper and produced a radio programme. how, you ask? well i have absolutely no idea but it will get done. you will all find out next... oohh... monday or so when i've recovered from a weekend of much needed space from my computer.

2007-04-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

partying with eastern europeans...

eike lives with some: maciej (poland), stan (bulgaria) and mika (too complicated).
maciej left for poland today and stan and mika had prepared a farewell breakfast, to which i was invited. i got downstairs and there was an incredible feast set out on the table. and a bottle of wine. which for me at noon is kinda asking for it. so whatever, we started drinking and eating. and then stan says, "maciej, i have a surprise that isn't really a surprise" and whips out this bottle of finnlandia vodka. uhhhhh... seriously? yes. seriously.
before 1pm, i had a glass of wine and several shots of vodka.. and then a second helping of breakfast. and then maciej left and i passed out at 3pm.
sexy.

2007-04-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

arcade fire @ brixton academy

it seems a little silly to write about this now because my excitement has mostly ebbed. the show was pretty fantastic, though. i was sadly too small to see everything, but the brilliance of it was that it was so theatrical. musically, it goes up there in the top five concerts i've ever been to - visually, i think it might have taken the title, had i been able to see more. the band(s) were so into it and the lights were great, they had several tv screens across the back, which you can see and the neon bible was animated too. musicians switched instruments - something i am a particularly huge fan of and would want to do if i were ever in a band - and i guess my absolute love of their first album really put it over the edge. they didn't play too many songs off their new album because... well, i think they may have wanted to but realised that only some people had heard the new stuff because it had come out just a week or so before the gig. and having listened to the new album just once, i'm not in love with it like i was/am the first but i'm sure i will be after the third or fourth listen.

i think i've just about covered it. but one thing i do remember thinking after the show, besides that my throat hurt from screaming/singing along was that live shows like these are the reason live gigs are going to become much more prevalent in the near future. the fact that bands like arcade fire and the fratellis can play multiple nights at a venue like brixton academy is pretty rad. it also means that if you want to see a show, you're going to have to get on mailing lists and on some sort of automatic debit-scheme to actually get tickets (e.g. me waking up at 8:30am the day these tickets went on sale and waiting at my computer to click 'buy' at 9am; or, the 5 nyc shows selling out in something crazy like 10 minutes...)

quick update:
i'm in montreal now. it's snowing. and i seriously love joanna newsom's ys album.

2007-03-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

longest. day. ever.

it started the day before yesterday (saturday) when i tried to pack but all my clothes were still sorta wet and hanging to dry. i thought i'd wait so i could pack before the day i had to leave and not stress myself out. except i stayed up until 2, which became 3 because of daylight savings. so i slept. and left my clothes to hang.
so 8:30am rolls around and eike called to wake me up, because i needed to wake up but i wanted more than 5 1/2 hours sleep, but regardless, i was tired.
i had to meet helen and by the time i got back, it was 1pm. i had to get on the tube at 2:30 to heathrow and pack and eat lunch.
so with my handy sidekick don, i managed to get all of that done but not without me frantically running around headless-chicken-like for a little while.
so 2:30, got on the train and just sat in the most packed sunday, heathrow-bound train i've ever been on, having suddenly developed paranoia (thought someone was gonna steal my bag) which just made the train ride seem even longer. then the train broke down and we had to wait for another one, which resulted in a frantic people with suitcases knocking people over to get on the next train, which was already filled with people and suitcases.
4pm, arrived at heathrow to masses of people and not to wish me off, unfortunately. i got to the queue that looked like it would take me several weeks to get to the front of and just started waiting. (god, i hate waiting). every 15 minutes, a tiny woman with a large voice kept coming around the queue asking if people were leaving for "vancouver, calgary, oman, etc" and she pulled people out of the queue to go wait in a supposedly faster queue. however, she first assessed where in the line the people were, so the ones in the back, deemed more urgent, got to move to the front of the other queue whilst they hoped the people who actually got there on time would just get dealt with normally in the week-long queue. this created anger. people were angry. and the british are vocal. so clearly i was torn between drowning the sound out in my headphones and hearing "new york", which i resolved by opting for headphones and just watching the lady all the time.
5pm rolls around and she's only picked people going to new york from the back of the queue, me always being told that i'm close enough to the front (not true). at about 5:15 (flight was leaving at 6:05), i said, "excuse me, miss? i think if i wait in this line and then the security line, that i will miss my flight", to which she responded, "alright. come with me. we'll see if we have space for you."
i discovered 3 minutes later that the flight was overbooked and i'd have to be put on standby. and the other people waiting for me, who were on their honeymoon, were also being put on standby. and we were a little frustrated. more waiting. more waiting. waiting in different queues. brief comical interlude when the guy who asked me for my passport to enter me into the standby system asked me for my visa and i was like, "uhhh i'm american." and he responds, "yea, i know" (waving my passport), "your visa card, which you used to pay for the ticket." oh. ha.
so 5:35 and final call rolls around, ascertaining who would get on the flight. and my name was called. and the heavens sang. however not for the honeymooners. so i said goodbye and ran to, through and away from security.
5:50 and we were all still waiting for the plane to board but the honeymooners made it and all was well again. we sat down, sighed sighs of relief and then i fell asleep. but not before noticing that there was an empty seat next to me. this just pisses me off because, yes, i like extra room, but there were people waiting for seats at the airport and... well... they obviously didn't get on flights. stupid.
we arrived in jfk, with some time to spare (go pilot!) and more queues. not as bad for me, being AMERICAN and all, but they were way way waaay in the back so i just waved goodbye and went through.
as i waited for my bags, i heard my name called over the loudspeaker. i was instructed to go through customs and go to ba customer service desk about my bags. no. i refused to believe that my bags didn't make it. so i waited. until i realised it was kinda stupid to wait for bags that might be outside (because they decided the bag looked tired and probably belonged to a tired owner who just needed extra help).
so i handed my customs form in, went through and said, "i'm only going to tell you my name if the news is good." they asked me what flight i was on and i told them, and the said, "oh yea, some bags didn't make it. what's your name?" to be fair, they did call me honey, but i wasn't having it. "catherine lao" i said. and then they started oohing and ahhing and then laughing and they said, "oh that is so funny" and i said, "it's not that funny" and they said, "no.. we're looking for katherine lau... who is on the same flight." oh THAT is funny. and actually... kinda cool. i wanted to find katherine and take her and say, "we have the same name! and we were on the same flight! but you don't have your bags! that is funny!" but i didn't.
that was essentially the end of my day. after that, my mind shut off. i didn't realise it took me 2 hours to get to eryn's from jfk. regardless, here i am and well-rested.

arcade fire to come soon.
peas pandas

2007-03-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

saturday march 3rd - the fratellis @ brixton academy

well, as much as you might expect from a new band who is high-energy and so very popular after just their first album, the concert was...well... high-energy and crowded and they played the songs that are on the album. that isn't to say that the concert wasn't good. it was definitely good. it just wasn't anything spectacular. to be fair, since the concert, i haven't been able to stop singing 'whistle for the choir', but having said that, i can listen to the exact same version on the cd so... think the strokes on their first album tour but without all the apparent boozing and knocking shit over. PLUS the fratellis have a brass band, and that is cool.

you might be wondering why i've included an incredibly boring picture for you here... well... it's a funny story. the lighting show was actually really cool and with a band like the fratellis, it's always fun to have pulsating lights in time with the beat. HOWEVER, i may have felt faint at some point during the show and had to sit down for a good portion of the remainder. so though my memories of the show are filled with bright colours and people jumping around and screaming, i was seated and the picture would have been... well... of people jumping around and screaming and not so much of the band or the stage. i think it was at a particularly strobe-y point in the show that i especially dizzy and i'm wondering who those signs that say, "warning, this show contains strobe effects" are meant for exactly.
anyway, show was alright, but i recommend the cd - it is very very very fun.

2007-03-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

a little tale of heaven and hell

i went to brixton academy last night to see arcade fire - it was heaven. even with the tilted floor, i was still too short to see very much and apparently i am the shortest person in the world - it was not quite heaven.

that's all.

2007-03-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

crunch time

ok people, several very important things are happening in the next 3 weeks. namely, i am going to see arcade fire at brixton academy. other than that, i just have an assload of projects to do before i head out.
so, what does this mean? besides a potential posting here and there (plus one i owe you from the fratellis concert), i will be on a truly tragic vacation, wishing i were sleeping.

panda out
zzzzzzzz

2007-02-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

stones AND a henge...

we embarked on a somewhat warm, sunny day to salisbury, just slightly northwest (more west than north) - a town on the avon and home to a fairly large cathedral which is very pretty. upon arrival, we were directed to the expensive bus company to which we would catch our expensive ride out to stonehenge. i was bitter about the expenses to say the least, but to be totally honest, i was happy to be out of the city. i quickly moved on from my financial woes to the general lamentations on industrialisation and the lack of really really green fields in london. so there we were, on a bus, driving by lots of very nice really really green fields when all of a sudden we could see, appearing on the horizon, a seemingly random configuration of stones. the bus dropped us off and we headed down to buy tickets when we realised it had turned into a miserably cold day. especially unfortunate seeing as eike decided to brave the day without a raincoat. nonetheless, there we were, audio guides in hand (to ears) and undoubtedly walking in the vicinity of very ancient rocks. i say vicinity because you aren't allowed to go near them. they're roped off because of some people (among them some dirty hippies) who chose to adorn the stones with symbols and words... whatever.
so there we stood in the cold, obeying the audio guide's instructions to stop or move on and me personally feeling a little miserable. we were at the second to last audio point when the sun came out. and it was awesome. it was warm. and suddenly everything looked beautiful. and i had much more patience to imagine sun-god worshippers frolicking in the (now) really really green grass. so we stayed an extra round and took pictures in the sun. what came of this? 80 pictures on my camera alone. snap! and of course general theories on the activities of 3000bce...

we went back to salisbury to walk around and spent some time there and looked at the cathedral before going back home.

the day ended quite perfectly with a viewing of 'the science of sleep', in which i re-fell in love with gael garcia bernal and vowed to succumb to all of the creative impulses i have (regardless of how impossible and stupid they may seem).
and on that note, i'm going to go glue all my furniture on one wall of my room so it looks like i have a skylight instead of an ordinary window.

2007-02-15T04:45:00.000-08:00

slang flashcards

i may have gotten slang flashcards for my birthday... i'll let you be the judge of whether or not that's true from today's post.

what's up, players? it's a hella dope day in londontown. the sun is shining and i got some mad cheddar in the form of a gift certificate so i'm going shopping for some bling - need to work on my steelo. i'm going to avoid the po-po because i know they'll hate on me when they see the grip of goods i bought. but if they stop me, i'm going to cold diss the fuzz because they don't need to front. i'll tell them to roll back to their cribs in their janky hoopty.

gotta bounce lil dawgs.

2007-02-13T02:56:00.000-08:00

roma!
february 9 - 11

i arrived late friday night after a long delayed flight but feeling quite good about being back in continental europe. after having been "prego'd" about 30 times already, i spent the bus ride into town deciding what it meant. it was already dark when i arrived so i didn't pick up on much going by except for the signs that i didn't really understand and the cabinieri. they made me happy. i think perhaps the resemblance to the policeman arthur from postman pat?

regardless, i met camilla and we went to get pizza (clearly). we stayed near the termini station, which is very central. we were able to walk pretty much everywhere, which was maybe a little silly since it didn't stop raining on saturday. but we got a lot in. and despite the rain, i liked rome. camilla also decided that when people speak italian, they aren't being serious so walking around and listening was always entertaining.
we started off toward the colosseum and the forum, pretty good starting places, i reckon. the forum was, of course, pretty amazing. and the brilliance of it all is that it is literally in the middle of the city. you walk down a big street (via nazionale) and suddenly there's a restored site right next to you. i think compared to turkey, and i admit my memory might be failing me here, the basic level of intactness in rome was much more impressive. i don't really know too much about excavation and restoration but it looked pretty rad from where i was standing.
i liked walking around the forum a lot. but to be honest, the colosseum was a little overwhelming for me. i couldn't quite get past the 'woah it seriously IS that massive' feeling enough to start looking beyond its massiveness. there were also two men dressed up as gladiators standing around outside, which was just silly. my initial reaction to the area (colosseum, forum, arch of constantine etc) was basically, "ok. the romans are just showing off with the arches and the columns and all this artsy stuff now..." and i somehow managed to avoid taking a picture of the monument to vittorio emanuele II, which you can pretty much see from everywhere in the city. it's pretty monstrous and all marble and just like a power trip gone seriously wrong.
we also went to the pantheon but all the pictures i took look kinda stupid. and the rest of saturday we spent walking around trying to figure out if we were up to going out. we did end up going out to trastavere to grab dinner. it was pretty nice. a full meal and a bottle of wine. pretty standard, i'd say.
sunday was beautiful. we woke up to sunshine and a much warmer day. i decided i wanted to go to the vatican city, and on our way there, we realised that's where everyone else was going too. it was a mad house. there were so many people and so many cameras and we were honestly a little confused. i stopped to ask a man what the deal was. he had a big camera with reuters stickers on it so i thought he'd be helpful but he rudely replied, "what do you think? why don't people read their guide books?" and i said, "for the pope, you'd think there'd be a bigger crowd, no? this is more like an unorganised party" and walked away. jerk.
so yes. the pope, or papa, makes an appearance at noon every sunday. he delivers a quick mass and then addresses his people in several different languages. he was standing by a window with a red banner hanging (second from the right) and clearly you can't see him because i gave up all photo opportunities by taking video instead and my zoom sucks anyway.
but actually, i really liked the vatican city. despite it's theme park feel (it was the crazy people), i thought it was absolutely gorgeous. walking away from it, it just seemed kinda surreal. it's so clean and white and pretty... you do sort of feel like you're not allowed to touch anything.
i think that's something in general that i liked about rome. it's a walkable city but you have something to look at pretty much everywhere you go. if you're a nerd, like me, you get excited about things like this:

and for everyone else... statues and fountains, grand buildings and ghettos of small alleys and buildings that are falling apart. i personally liked the intensity. check out the examples of intensity strewn about the city at very random places... aren't you just thinking, "harp man, why do you look so sad? what grief befalls your soul?" or whatever... and what about these ladies? well actually, i don't know what i'm thinking when i look at them. i just really liked it when i saw it. it's on a bridge going away from the vatican city and crossing the tiber back to the centrico. but honestly, how can you get more intense than this? standing on that monument to vittorio emanuele II looking south east over the forum and toward the colosseum. i mean...rad. i got a little bit dorky with my 600 page blue guide to rome... but where else was i gonna find out the names of the different popes and emperors/kings over the last several thousand years?
the rest of sunday was tiring. we spent a lot of it sitting and eating or drinking and hanging out before going back to the airport. camilla and i were tired and grumpy from about 7pm on so i will save you the bitter comments we made for the remainder of the night.

prego.

2007-02-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

notes

i've added pictures to the lao entries (thanks alexis) so those are done now. it's reading week here and i've just gotten back from rome. it was wonderful. entries to come :)

2007-02-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

bangkok day 1: arrival

the bus ride was surpisingly pleasant. i slept pretty well and for several hours. it wasn't as cold and we were given blankets anyway. we arrived early in the morning and took a cab home... then my mom told us to shower. nice.
the rest of bangkok was rather a blur. alexis was in town until christmas evening when she took off on a surprise romantic getaway with a finn ... what does he do again?

so highlights in pictures:
christmas eve was ridiculous. my uncle put on a show on the street outside of his spa. are those men? yes, yes they are. unfortunately, i don't have pictures of the 12 year old girls gyrating on each other... it was a spectacle. alexis, chris and i arrived to a very warm welcome and on instruction, we were not a minute left alone. we had full glasses of beers all night and we were made to get up and dance because that's what happens when you're having fun! and actually, you also scream a lot when you're having fun, apparently... god that was strange.
luckily, my parents showed up AFTER the gyrating girls left the stage and just in time for a pretty fabulous drag show (as you can well see). the girls who work at my uncle's spa were clearly having a pretty good time... i think he must be some kinda tyrant boss because they were drunkity drunk drunk... particular favourite was this woman who, when alexis, chris, mom and i were taking a picture decided to sprint toward us and still have time to look natural... sort of.

general silliness was in order for the rest of the trip, i'd say. alexis and i manage to revert back to 11-year old selves when we're around each other, as evidenced by the pieces of art here.

this one's called, 'two girls stand amazed in face of skytrain'. this other one's just totally ridiculous...

2007-02-12T18:13:00.000-08:00

lao day 6 - 7
part I: alms and the sunrise

we woke up at an outrageous time to watch the monks collect alms. if you're wondering if i got any sort of spiritual enlightenment out of it, i can honestly say no. i guess i was a little jaded on monks and i kinda walked away from it with the feeling that i was just kinda impressed that they woke up so early all the time. i was so uninspired that i have no pictures to show you...

but since we were up, we decided to walk up the big hill to a monastery to catch the sunrise. that was by far one of the best memories i have of lao and i have about 50 pictures to show for it. i can't choose favourites. i really had a pretty amazing time just sitting quietly and looking out over luang prabang. i dunno... the mountains, the trees, the mekong, the mist... *sigh*

part II: pak ou caves and a hmong new year party

it was our last day in luang prabang and we still wanted to drive out to see the pak ou caves. obviously obsessed with caves and our overall determination to see as much as possible led us to drive kinda far away to see what ended up being kinda silly. i'm not trying to take away anything from the people who actually went on pilgrimages to this place. in fact, if the place were more famous for that, it'd have been a much more positive experience. however, it's lauded for its beauty. and i can't speak too much for that. to explain: from far away, the lower cave is pretty amazing looking. it is a hole in a cliff to which a white stairway has been added to get up into it and around it to the upper cave. when you near it, however, it's just not what you expected. the lower cave is filled with a LOT of buddha statues. i believe they were gifts from those who made the pilgrimage. i was a little weirded out by this whole thing. i guess i couldn't see it all in context. i s'pose what i did like was that people still do go there and there was a lady who almost seemed in a trance-like state praying at one of the several shrines... there was also a staircase in the cave that was very lord of the rings... y'know... if that story had taken place in lao... during the daytime.
after leaving pak ou, our driver stopped at a hmong new year celebration. the hmong are a minority group i had previously associated with southern china but apparently live all over s.e. asia. the new year party consisted almost entirely of children standing in lines facing each other throwing tennis balls. we (myself, alexis and tai) watched for what felt like 3 hours and then joined in. these were our teammates/opponents (because i'm still not really sure what the actual point of the game was...)

part III: luang prabang - vientiane

oh what a terrible night/day this was... we thought we were being smart by showing up at the bus station early to choose our seats. we thought we'd take the back seat for the three of us so we could try and sleep. here's what happened: the window wouldn't close and it was freezing so alexis couldn't sleep and had to move. then i tried to cover it with bags/clothes but it kept opening so i woke up every 20 minutes to close it. needless to say, we didn't sleep. we also thought we were being smart by choosing an overnight bus where we could arrive in the morning and hang out before catching the train to bangkok. well, apparently the driver was driving at the speed of light and instead of arriving at 6am, we arrived at 4am. this left us to walk around the darkened streets of vientiane knocking on hostel doors hoping someone would have a room. no luck. we ended up hanging out with a bunch of australians at a bakery. awesome. moving on, instead of finding a hostel to sleep in for a few hours when theh city woke up, we decided we were just going to walk around and make use of our day. we also found out that train tickets were fully booked and that we would have to take another bus to get to bangkok. by this time, i discovered that the previous bus ride had given me a cold. we ended up meeting said australians and going out in vientiane before our bus left at 5pm, of which all happenings have completely escaped my memory.

2007-02-04T02:10:00.000-08:00

new address

i have one.

some haikus...

my new little house
all dressed up in sparkling snow
email for address

snow falls in london
the city blanketed white
my tree is pretty

2007-01-29T07:45:00.000-08:00

i've failed you all...

firstly, i've been a bad photographer. you may or may not have heard that it snowed here in londontown. i was being too miserable and cold to actually take any pictures for you to see. and to be fair, it was pretty lame snow. it wasn't even enough to make dc stop running (which means less than 2 inches). although i did see a picture of big ben all decked in white, which was pretty.

secondly, i've been a bad blogger. as a side issue, i've also been a bad student, which has significantly contributed to my overall lack of productivity. i've been trying hard to finish up my lao-postings but i need to organise photos. so those are coming soon...ish...

thirdly, i've been a bad sharer. you are probably thinking that the reason i'm not writing is because i lead a sad sad life of inactivity. well, you're wrong. sorta. i'm moving and for the last 2 1/2 weeks, i've been staying with friends. friends who have a tv. i believe the last time i had a tv was in dc, so i have been doing a fair amount of sitting around... but there's activity all over the place!
well... i bought tickets to see the arcade fire on march 14th. that's probably the most exciting thing i can think of right now.

anyway, apologies x 500. i'm still alive.
snap

2007-01-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

lao day 4: vang vien - luang prabang

bus rides can be fun... when you aren't sitting next to ... ohh... saayy... a girl who listens to awful music very loudly on her headphones and passes out with the window open. the drive was, however, extremely beautiful. we drove northeast through the mountains and the peacefulness of the landscape was consistently ruined by blasts of whatever nonsense the girl next to me was listening to. actually, i'm exaggerating. the music was annoying but the landscape was beautiful enough to make me ignore it. and the fact that the window was open meant that at least half of the noise went straight out the window and the other half was melded with the sound of the engine. okay, enough of that.
we stopped for lunch half way and met some of the other riders: lucy, gemma, and tai - all australian. when we arrived in luang prabang, we discovered that the bus drivers have a deal with local tuktuk drivers. the "bus station" is several miles outside of town and you are stuck there unless you are willing to pay the tuktuk driver to think about giving you a ride into town. we got into town and found a hostel with our new bff tai.
i liked luang prabang. it was by far my favouritest city of all. i can admit that it was the most tourist-friendly. and by that, i don't mean backpacker-friendly, because vang vien, with all of its opiates and daybeds and tubing activities is pretty backpacker-haven-esque. luang prabang is neater. it's nicer. there is a pretty fun night market that makes use of cute little kids that con you into buying things with their sweetness...
but i guess i like it because it caters to more people. my parents: expensive restaurants in gorgeous french-style terraces, me: night market food - $1.5US for grilled mekong fish on a skewer and a full plate of whatever sides you could want with it, or the locals: squirrel. mmmmm....

day 5: kuangsi waterfalls
absolutely amazing. we met some other people to share the tuktuk with. the aussies from before and two swedish guys. after looking around for a good price, we just stuck with the guy from our hostel because we figured he had the keys to our room. it took awhile to get out there but i always enjoy the drives through the mountains.

i guess i'm just gonna leave you with those pictures... but to answer some questions:
1. yes, the water was seriously that colour.
2. yes, that is a monk sitting almost perfectly in the middle of my picture
3. yes, we swam in the water and yes, it was freezing.

2007-01-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

lao day 3: vang vien

i hate roosters. y'know why? because they're obnoxious. i don't have a problem with people/animals that feel they need to wake up at 4:30 in the morning but raucous activity at that time is a little rude. lao roosters are everywhere and they cock-a-doodle-doo funny. and it sounds like they're having conversations with each other about the right way to cock-a-doodle-doo. i can say this from extensive research, having been woken up daily by said roosters for the rest of the trip.

we gave up at around 7:30 and just woke up and went for breakfast. we sat in a day bed and had some very cakey pancakes. it was like a crepe, except not. it was literally a birthday cake smushed down covered in bananas. we spent the rest of the morning trying to digest the "more cake, less pan" and find a way to get down to the river and get on some tubes (see pretty picture). we eventually found one but were told it wasn't worth going down until about 11 when it was warmer so we walked around and found a monastery a little bit outside of town.

after we walked around the monastery for awhile, several little monks started talking to us. by little i mean they were small but also young. only one monk was an actual monk, lew (far left). the rest were novices. (gotta be at least 20 yrs old). one of the novices, tao (far right), had phenomenal english so we just kept asking him questions and him us and generally had a pretty good time. they asked us to come to evening prayer so we were kinda excited about having woken up so early and having had the time to wander off.

so we spent the day tubing which was fun but cold. we did manage to stop off and have some beer and find a cave and walk in and look around. unfortunately, we were in bikinis and flip flops, and there was a lot of mud. that swim suit is no longer in use, needless to say. and not just because london is freaking cold.

by 3pm, we were cold and not done tubing so we decided we needed to get back into the water so we could be back for evening prayer. we also figured we'd need time to change because we probably shouldn't roll up to evening prayer in bikinis, especially when it looks very much like i'm not even wearing that in certain photos (ahem, cool tree). so we got back, changed and headed back over to the monastery.

when we got in, they were stalling and being a little strange. finally one of them asked me if i could help him with his english homework. this was pretty standard practice in china so i wasn't too surprised, i guess. after a little while, evening prayer began and we got to sit right up with them and watch everything close up. afterwards, we asked them very dorky music questions and were quite satisfied with the whole evening.
then we were sitting around with two of them and they asked us what we were going to do that night. we said we were thinking of meeting a friend for dinner and going out. they said (no joke), "oh because we could all go down to the river and go to a pub... and listen to english music." and then we went, "huh?" and i followed with, "... are you guys allowed to leave?" because i clearly thought that monks were chained to the monastery or something...we declined in the end but we were a little confused. we left having given them our email addresses and hopefully not too bad an impression.

we kinda spent the rest of the night walking around being confused and wondering if monks were... well... not what we thought.

2007-01-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

lao day 1: london - bangkok - vientiane

to clear up the lao vs laos issue. i've come to believe that laos is a franco term and that lao is correct. it also helps me justify my obsession that little bit more. everything and everyone says lao and they are therefore all mine. take the following evidence.
=
a.

b.

c.

d.

(lao rice wine, aka lao lao)

e.

vientiane was quiet on the saturday night that i arrived. noone was around, even when we arrived downtown. the city was totally dead. the population grew by about 10 people the next morning. favourite sight of the night: the neon-lit church (sorry no pictures). ps, i'd like to imagine they sent jesus off with a neon-crucifixion despite what all the pictures seem to imply...

day 2: vientiane - vang vien
neither alexis nor i were that interested in vientiane. we spent the morning walking around and looking for things to be excited about but in the end it boiled down to the two of us looking at each other every once in awhile and saying, "we're in lao. oh look, there's the mekong," or "we're in lao. man that's a pretty temple."
that afternoon, we got on the bus to vang vien, which is northwest of vientiane. the bus was actually pretty nice. we did stop off somewhere for a short bathroom break and they were cooking what i can only imagine was some former live animals' intestine. it looked as appetising as it sounds. it didn't help that there were mangy cats running around everywhere. it obviously wasn't cat intestine because there was too much of it but anyone who knows what r.o.u.s. stands for can just nod with me.
when we arrived in vang vien, it was already late. we found a hostel and went to find food. as we approached the centre (read: the intersection), it seemed that restaurant options came down to the place with the day beds playing episodes of friends, the other place with the day beds playing episodes of friends or the one place with the day beds playing episodes of the simpsons. i do exaggerate a little... there were other places... but this stuff: ...
seemed like a pretty standard purchase in this town so the daybeds just seemed a natural way to end the day.

the main point of this city seems to be the calm waters. the mountains are close so big boats can't get through. instead, tourists can hop on a rubber tire and spend the whole day tubing and stopping off for food and beer lao. not a bad way to spend the day.

more to come...

2007-01-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

london, 2007. so hot right now.

it was brought to my attention that i haven't written in awhile. let me explain. no... there isn't much to say. i got back and eike was here. school started monday, which was spent frantically trying to start/finish the paper due at 4pm. needless to say, the paper wasn't finished and i spent this morning frantically finishing and now here we are. oh and by the way, that thing up there in the corner is my christmas present - i have a tag! no amount of !'s are going to convey the level of giddy so i thought i'd show it in action.

now i think i'm going to welcome you back with london 12/31/2006 - 7/1/2007. before you all go commenting on the photos, photographer = eike.

clockwise from right here on the left:
the london eye (or the giant bicycle wheel); the gherkin (god, i hate that building but it looks oddly pretty right now); the british museum (i wish sir norman foster hadn't graced this posting with 3 pictures but i sure do love this museum); city hall and tower bridge (eike has really outdone himself in this photo. city hall actually kinda looks like... sorta not the ugliest throw up of metal and glass in existence); and lastly, the very lovely st. pauls cathedral (no destructive comments).

happy new year all.

2006-12-11T06:28:00.000-08:00

eff...

it is monday. and i leave on friday. and i still have most of my writing to do. so i really shouldn't be here writing. in fact, i probably wasted valuable paper-writing time deciding whether or not i should write to tell you all that i wouldn't be blog-writing until i get to thailand...

so i will update you all with pictures and stories from laos later...
and happy holidays :)

2006-12-08T11:58:00.000-08:00

tornado sweeps through london!

for those of you wondering if i'm still alive after that crazy bit of wind picked up over here, i am. in fact, the only reason i even knew there was a tornado was because lindsay emailed me to ask me if i was still alive. clearly either the only person who watches the news and/or cares about me... just kidding... sorta.

so apparently being a loser and staying in your room to read/write has some advantages. hail is unfriendly matter. very very unfriendly.

so... morals for today?
watch the news and watch for hail.

2006-12-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

3000 down, 7000 to go!

alright people, i am on the GO! there's no stopping me now!
but seriously, this is depressing. i finished a paper today and what did i do to celebrate? i printed it out, edited it and watched one episode of samurai jack. sad. now i'm writing another one...
ps samurai jack is awesome.

so east asia paper finished. no more japanese festival music for me.

new papers: oral transmission and internet in china. still haven't decided on actual topics. but on a good note, only 10 days left of school!!!

2006-11-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

the bluetones @ shepherd's bush empire

absolutely fantastic. within the top 5 shows i've ever been to in terms of set lists. they played a lot of songs off the first album, which is great because i think that album rocks the most. it wasn't a particularly long show, but in some ways, i appreciated that.
we happened to be standing right next to the most obnoxious (and fairly large) boys who just liked to jump around and bang into people and fall over. in the very beginning, this BIG dude fell right next to me and it took about 4 people to lift him back up again. then he proceeded to stand far too near to me and sway, drunkenly. after an hour and a half of being elbowed in the face and banged into, i almost got violent with this girl who bounced in front of me and trod on my foot with her stupid stiletto heels. i just shoved her real hard. was good to get the anger out after all that.
so the advantage of going to see a band who's been around and pretty popular (at least in the UK) for 10 years is that EVERYONE knew the words to EVERY song. it was really really awesome. the energy of the place was just rad. so rad.
so i'm a little hyper now. i'm kinda still high from the concert... good times.

no snaps, sorry.

2006-11-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

guess where we went on sunday...

oh yes.
and guess where we went for lunch...

oh yes.
absolute deliciousness... perhaps utmost deliciousness next to these:

ok. no time but just happy to have my camera back.
snap snap

2006-11-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

memory card here!

yes, everybody, i have finally gotten a memory card for my camera. i have also purchased a memory card reader, which should be in the post and arriving soon. what does this mean? it means that i have no more excuses for no pictures. i will happily bring my camera along with me everywhere i go and with 1G of space on my new card, i will be trigger happy. snap snap snap.

i am unfortunately sick again. why? because i'm a moron. i stressed myself into sickness. yes, i realise it is unhealthy and yes, i realise i need to relax. this dawned on me after i had fainted in class, and my desk had fallen on top of me and i was staring at the ceiling wondering what had just happened. a major moment of revelation for me. good for me, no?

three weeks of school left and 11,000 words to go. woooooieeee i love school!
if anyone has any interesting ideas concerning either:
a. internet in china (nothing concerning politicisation or control though), or
b. musical archiving

please please PLEASE email me and tell me.
thanks.
snap!

2006-11-22T16:42:00.000-08:00

a story of a norwegian party

this is christopher. he is norwegian. sam, camilla and i went to his party.

don was also there but i cannot show his picture yet because it would ruin the sequence i've got going here.

don and i thought we would bring 40 oz smirnoff ices ... because... we're still 15. i don't have a picture of this nonsense yet but when i get it, it will be added here:

there were a lot of tall norwegians. (this is not obvious from this picture because they were all tall but they were definitely all tall and we thought this was hilarious)

and then don finished his 40oz and got silly with this other tall norwegian.

and then i finished off my 40oz and got silly with don.

and that is how we roll down in londontown.

2006-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

holy balls. that's all i got.

i'm sorry to those that have heard this already but i am approaching only having 4 weeks left and 4 papers to write. and there's a lot of very exciting things happening in the department that i wanna get involved with. and i don't deal with stress very well - as evidenced by puffy eyes and crumpled up kleenex all over the floor. boo.

montreal was rad. i didn't want to come back but all those papers...

current paper: book review on deborah wong's 'speak it louder: asian americans making music'. very interesting. i'm gonna go bang out some pages on identity politics now.

montreal

just the beginning of a long night involving most of the people at this table, me and a lot of vodka.

2006-11-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

cold and sunny london

it's been beautiful the last few days and will be for the next few days, it seems. it's getting real cold but it's so sunny that you can't not go outside and enjoy the absence of rain. i've nothing to report except that i'm heading for colder climates (montreal, here i come) so i wanted to leave you a picture that i promised..

helen, flo, and meee

ps. note the smirnoff ice comeback. there may or may not have been a 40 of that stuff at a house party the other day (pictures to come)

2006-10-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

zero 7 w/ jose gonzalez and sia (psapp opens) @ brixton academy

holy shit. brixton academy is r-a-d. i'd heard so many great things about it but hadn't seen a show yet. every opportunity was shot down by sold out tickets to shows i knew were kinda safe. so i read today that jose gonzalez wasn't opening for zero 7 but playing with them and i had no idea what that was going to sound like. i dragged don and helen along and the show was awesome.

again, the venue is phenomenal. it's massive. the building is kinda grand but not nearly what you'd expect. imagine walking through the doors, going through hallways, entering into a parlour where there are stairs to the upstairs (think opera house) and then stumbling into someone's backyard. except that they've turned their backyard into an indoor arena. seats upstairs, standing downstairs (but on an incline) and pretty awesome decor. anyway, yes i'm obsessing but it was really cool. oh and don't even get me started on the lighting...

psapp were quirky but fun. they dweebed it up on stage by playing as many instruments as possible to get everyone's attention but after song 2, i realised it was a decent show. they were definitely stoked to be playing at the brixton academy and their energy was contagious - good stuff. bonus: the obsession with cats materialised in the throwing of little toys to the audience. a few condoms were distributed as well. yay for safe sex.

zero 7 came out with very little time between and, i thought, divided the stage time quite nicely between sia, jose gonzalez and their own stuff. sia looks quite small on stage and when talking sounds even smaller but as soon as she starts singing, it's like her lungs are twice the size and her sound fills the room. she is amazing. jose gonzalez, or the gonz (thanks pitchfork) was equally amazing but in his own, quiet swedish way. it was all just a nice welcome to live music in london.

so there it is. good night out in brixton. pictures from other adventures to come soon.

2006-10-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

my emusic rant

eryn sent me a little emusic "sign up and get 25 songs free" email and i'm all about guilt-free downloads so i signed up. with my 25 free songs, i "purchased" two albums: stars - set yourself on fire and architecture in helsinki - in case we die. i'm happy with my choices, in fact, i'm ecstatic because it just turns out that one album had 12 tracks and the other 13, equalling a very lovely (and very appropriate) 25. my problem is that it took me about a week to sift through all of the albums i wanted and for me to a. find them on emusic (they're still updating of course) and b. for the entire album to be on there. nothing guts me more than seeing all but one track of an album available for purchase. what is that? that is, in essence, an anti-music loving practice. i've already resigned myself to digital because they're much easier to move around than cds but not buying a whole album is kinda... well... weird. so i don't like emusic anymore.
in expansion of my boycott of stupid people, i'm also boycotting emusic. one thing i do like about them right now is that i can cancel online instead of having to call in. that is a major selling point. now if they could just keep albums whole...

2006-10-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

new obsessions:

the taiko: a double-headed japanese drum. we learned it in class today and i've jumped ships. screw the chinese ensemble. i played it in front of my class today, sight-read the whole thing first time through and my teacher told me i rocked it. nice.

hare krishna food: everyday at 1pm, the hare krishna man sets up shop outside the school gates and we all line up in hopes that we'll get to him before the food runs out. it's a significant portion of fabulous food for a small donation (even 1p would work but who would do that to the hare krishna man?)

boys in my class with awesome accents: this is a platonic obsession. i just can't imagine ever getting sick of hearing them speak. it's fantastic. there's a mexican boy and a japanese boy and a korean boy and a british boy. (and then there's the boy from argentina who isn't in my class but who is just very pretty).

actually finding books in the library: it's not easy. first you have to look the book up, then you have to write down the class mark (the letters followed by the incredibly long number with decimal points) and then you have to find out where in the library the letters/numbers correspond to and then you have to go to the place it should be, realise it's not in its place, go to the reshelving unit, realise it's not there either and then just go back to the bookshelf and kinda scan the shelves above and below where it should be and maybe find it. otherwise, you have to go downstairs and fill in a "missing book form" at which point they will email you as soon as you've left school and arrived home and say, "oh yes, i looked for the book and the class mark was wrong, so now it's been put in the right place and i've told the librarian".

learning random words in random languages: i live with 6 other people and between us, we speak 8 languages. this is totally my kind of dorky fun.

camden town and covent garden: great places to shop. covent garden for actual stores and camden town for the markets. absolutely fantastic. and apparently the food is great there too.

2006-10-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

because it's what freakin' jesus would do?

the whole house is obsessed with gray's anatomy and it's becoming a problem. i started watching them by myself. just one or two at first and then suddenly i was up all night watching the entire first season, which i've already seen multiple times. i'm strongly advising anyone against this. i have never experienced so many different emotions in such a short span of time. i think i may have broken something. seriously.
anyway, after swearing myself off of doing that, i managed to do it again with the first bit of the second season. and i'm still strongly advising against it. i've asked my housemates to keep the discs away because i can't seem to hold off without help. but after the boys in the house realised all the girls in the house were seriously emotionally involved in something, they needed to find out what it was and now they're hooked too.
so we've all been watching gray's together, which is sweet i guess and at least i'm not watching by myself... but... like... what are we gonna do when we run out? we're already pooling resources to buy the third season off itunes. problematic.

i'm gonna start working tomorrow and with all this gray's viewings... when am i gonna have time to read?

2006-10-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

why don't asians have rhythm?

today's topic was music and identity. of course we started out with the meaning of identity (ugh) and on to how music tends to construct identity as opposed to reflect or represent it. anyway, after the break, we watched 'clowns in the hood' or something sort of like 'rize' but a little rawer - not in imagery but production. this was intended to show us the construction of an identity or even a community. so really, the point of all this is that we listened to a pan-asian jazz group. the author had asked a black jazz musician friend of hers what he thought and he said, "technically speaking, they are very good. they're just... kinda stiff". this didn't surprise me. the class sort of tip-toed back and forth over the issue of racial boundaries etc until i said that i wasn't at all surprised or offended by the stereotype that asians don't have rhythm. because it's kinda true. china taught me that there is no room for improvisation. there isn't anything beyond the stuff on the paper. maybe this is why we're so damn good with the numbers.

thoughts?

2006-10-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

"are you chinese?"

so i'm still sick and now that it's been 4 days, i think i'm allowed to whinge a little bit. so here it goes: mooooooom, i can't stop coughing. i've tried everyone's home remedies (including just taking everything and hoping for the best) and this morning, chunchun (aka crystal) gave me this chinese medicine. i have a cold and it still smells foul. i think i remember taking this in china, so it's legit.
chunchun likes to speak to me in chinese, because... i look like i should be able to speak and i always respond in english because... i can't really speak chinese anymore as it turns out. it's only minorly embarassing. it becomes majorly (?) embarassing when she insists on asking me if i'm chinese. i keep telling her yes. and i keep telling her i'm one of the bad ones. so i always try to make it up by talking about chinese history or even better, chinese art history (her field) to maybe convince her that i'm at least trying.
yesterday, don (another roommate) asked me if chinese people thought americans were violent. apparently that's the general consensus in the middle eastern countries he's lived in. i'm starting to believe that chinese people (read: crystal) think that americans are stupid. so stupid that they make chinese people who go live there stupid as well. just by being near each other. this stupidity, chinese people imagine, is what dissolves the guilt that lines ones soul.

i hate being sick.

2006-10-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

siiiiiiiick

yea i'm sick. yesterday i thought it was just a sore throat from the shisha bar the night before. alas, no. it's a full-blown constant coughing, barred breathing, stuffy ... sinuses? though possibly still from the shisha bar. yea, so you get it, i'm sick. on to better things.

last night, all the postgrad music students and faculty met at our department head's house. we all had to bring food or booze and we really didn't know what to expect but it turned out pretty rad.
david hughes, head-on-sabbatical was there and out in teaching mode.
and i finally met pretty much all of the students in my program. and there weren't undergrads around to confuse me and waste my time :)
and a guy played the didgeridoo. i'd never really heard and definitely never seen anyone play the didgeridoo. i was going on the assumption that it was limited to a very deep, resonanting sound, the resonance being the attraction. but i was pretty wrong. there's a lot of texture and alongside alot of spitting, there's a lot of pretty fantastic rhythm. AND circular breathing (which i am especially jealous of now, ps).
and the food was great. there was a korean rice dish, japanese dessert, indian(?) lentil salad, italian bread thing, tamarind etc etc. it was very impressive. i, of course, being the show off that i am, brought chips and dip and my partner in crime* brought brownies. we are REAL party people.

*helen is in all of my classes so we're together a lot. she's an england-born Francais. she studied the erhu (two-stringed, bowed fiddle) at the shanghai conservatory. i'm going to try to learn either the sanxian (three-stringed plucked guitar) or the pipa (lute).

it is hard to be at a university like this and be around people like those in my program and not feel a little underachieved. most people speak at least 2 languages, not including dialects. most have travelled to places i've never been to and honestly would never have thought to travel to. a fair amount have grown up all over the world. i may have to get a fro again just to feel interesting.

2006-10-07T03:53:00.000-07:00

"does it smell like burnt toast?"

so we had our third fire alarm go off today. i was fortunately not around for the first two but as i sat here reading jonathan stock's analysis of the advantages of the recent rise in biographies in the field of ethnomusicology, the blasted alarm went off. everyone's natural reaction was to poke their respective heads out the door and see who's in and go back into their rooms to collect valuables. a full three minutes later, everyone had come back out and started casually making their way down the stairs, knowing full well that there wasn't a real fire. but at the second floor (really the third floor), people started rushing a little bit and us at the back of the line were wondering what's going on. suddenly everybody was asking everybody else if it smelled like burnt toast. and yea, it sure did.
it's disconcerting that there are people burning enough toast to set the fire alarm off. it's also disconcerting that there are people who smell burnt toast and assume there's a massive fire raging and start running.
so... that's all. we waited outside while i quietly hoped that the burnt toast started a fire so huge that my copy of jonathan stock's analysis was slowly burning to its ash version but here i am and it's still right in front of me.
shame.

2006-10-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

"what is ethnomusicology?"

i've had two of my three classes so far this week. the first, ethnomusicology in practice, was encouraging. only 14 people in the class, a seemingly chill prof. and a reading list of 13 pages for the entire year (albeit at size 10 font). the second, chinese cinema and media, was interesting. only 4 people in the class, a seemingly cool prof. and a reading list of 18 pages for this term (11 weeks). let's do some math. 18 pages... 11 weeks... no, screw the math, how bout some reading? i can't say i'm not scared. but moving on...

what is ethnomusicology? after going to class i realised i was on sorta the right track. it's essentially undefinable. my first ethno class consisted of the faculty sitting around in a semi-circle facing the rest of us explaining what they thought ethnomusicology was. what it meant to them. it was enlightening. not in the sense that i understand any moreso what i'm studying but that i am definitely studying with people who are as fond of the ... as i am. note, that isn't a ___ but a ...
to explain,
"well... to me...ethnomusicology isn't as much a ... discipline... as it is... a way of ... thinking... i s'pose"

and in that muddy clarity, i am completely comfortable here.
a present for you:

what do you think? (yes, i took it)

2006-09-28T04:14:00.000-07:00

"how was being orienteered?"

well, the first session that i actually wanted to attend, i didn't quite make. walking out of the res, i saw this perfectly nice looking girl and asked her if she was going to school, to which she replied, "yes". i explained that i still didn't know how to get there and that i was just going to tag along if she didn't mind. so tag along i did. until i realised that she wasn't going to the same school. so it takes a great deal of something on my part to say, "y'know... i have a feeling this isn't the right way... not that i think you don't know where you're going.. it's just that... i don't think we actually go to the same school... ha... ha..." so right i was. she stopped in front of the UCL logo. suckity suck suck.

i call my sister and since she went to UCL and lived near my campus, i figured it'd be pretty simple but london isn't the type of city you can say, "yep, go up Q... pass 16th and at 15th, turn left and it's right there". london is more like, "well... if you keep walking along this road with the park on the right side, it'll turn into this other road that looks like it's going to end but it isn't going to end.. just keep going and then when it does actually end, you're going to turn right and there's russell square". so i did get to russell square but 10 minutes before the session ended.

i did make it to enrollment though and i am officially a student, which means i'm also officially in debt. hurray for debt.

2006-09-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

it isn't sunny anymore. just several million shades of grey.
i do have stories already but they will have to wait 'til next time.

peace pandas