Oh, the Dorkiness

As I was browsing my friends' facebook profiles, I came across the webcomic Piled Higher and Deeper. It's hilarious, I assure you, particularly for those of a more dorky/nerdy persuasion. Here are some of the classical highlights:

For the original link, go here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=413.


For the original link, go here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=331.

For the original link, go here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=125.

The last one was actually printed and posted in the lab I worked at over the 4 summers.

A Series of Amusing Events

Life's been rather boring lately. It's been the usual for this time of year - stressing out about papers and exams. On top of that, a med school interview for me next Thursday. Nevertheless, the passing days have their moments, and amusement ensues (maybe only in my mind, who knows).

Although this is a poor and rather uncreative thing to post for a 1000+ page view, it's the best I've got at the moment.
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Sunday (12-2-07) was the Pops Orchestra concert. I did not want to be there, the weather was gross (rain and snow at the same time), I had too many papers due, etc. There was, however, one highlight to the concert.

During intermission, AW-F got this note from someone. This freshman's roommate gave the note to her. Right before intermission ended, she wanted to share the note with some of her friends in the cello section (AW-F plays the cello too). Well, of course the entire section became curious and before long, this poor freshman's note was made known to the entire section. If he knew/saw, he'd be terribly embarrassed.

Basically, he was trying to hit on her from afar. I don't blame him, AW-F is really really attractive and has that bubbly persona that makes you smile. The note said something to this effect (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "I think you're very cute and you're clearly really good at the cello. Do you want to go out for coffee or a date sometime? Here's my cell number: ###-###-####. LSA freshman, Jared."

After the concert, she was like "Maybe I will call him back, just to say 'no.' I do have to give him props though, he's got guts." Lol, was all I thought.
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In Chinese today (12-4-07), we had this in-class writing assignment where we basically translated a page. That was moderately rough. And I'm generally a slow writer in both English and Chinese. ML-F was way ahead of me, but she kept forgetting a few characters here and there. I eventually almost caught up. Here was the verbal exchange:

ML-F: When did you catch up?!
Me: Umm, just now.
ML-F: Crap, I can't win . . .
Me: ::laughs:: Crap, now I can't write because I'm laughing!
ML-F: I won't let you win, I'm going to win.
Me: ::still laughing:: I'm almost caught up . . .
ML-F: I'm done! I win!!
. . .
After Chinese class, I was walking down the stairs, wearing my really big greenish coat.

Me: I have an aversion to wearing hoods with this coat. I look like an Eskimo in this coat.
ML-F: That's okay, we're Asian.

Honestly, I love the things that come out of her mouth. It's as random as the stuff that comes out of my mouth. She tried to convince me to write her Apocalypse paper for her, and that she would do anything I wanted . . . and by that she meant she would pay me . . . with food . . . or cookies rather.
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There's this chocolate cake in my lab. I don't know what went into it, but I couldn't finish eating the slice I took. And it was a relatively small slice too. I got about 2/3 of the way done, then I had to quit. I went to do some of my experiments, came back, ate a bite, and then threw the rest away. If I had eaten any more, I might've thrown up.

That must've been the richest and densest cake ever. This is why I don't usually eat brownies. They're of a similar denseness. Needless to say, I'm not eating anything chocolate (unless it's chocolate itself) for quite some time.
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Yesterday after dinner I was drinking my hot honey water (read this post for explanation), as I'm wont to do sometimes. My roommate DvF-M looks at me all weird. And I had to explain to him how it warms me up on cold days (it's been very cold here lately), it calms me down when stressed, and it soothes my throat if it's dry, irritated, sore, or if I have a cough. He still looked at me weird.

Then, I was reading the news and I saw this. I am now justified. Honey merits more than people give it credit for. Dis not the honey, for it is sweet and good for you.
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That's pretty much it for now.

Mask of Stoicism

It seems I have a Mask of Stoicism, one I use to mask my real emotions (particularly when I'm tired). JW-F pointed it out to me tonight at dinner, though she didn't use the term "Mask of Stoicism." Here's how the conversation sort of went:
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RZ-F: I love red peppers. ::puts lots of ground red peppers on her pizza::
JW-F: I like them too, but that's way too much for me.
RZ-F: I like it spicy.
JW-F: Yeah, but if you put too much it stays in your mouth. And when you get that one flake between your teeth and your tongue touches it, it's so spicy it burns.
RZ-F: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Me: What? I barely notice it.
JW-F: Well, when it's mixed in the food it's okay.
Me: Eh, whatever.
JW-F: . . . You're either very stoic or you just don't care.
Me: ??
JW-F: You're stoic when you just don't show it. And when you don't care, you just don't care.
Me: Okay then, I'm stoic.
. . .
JW-F: It really bothers me that she has that solo part in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (about the cello solo that we wanted).
Me: Umm, yeah . . .
JW-F: Are you being stoic now or do you just don't care?
Me: I . . . uh . . .
JW-F: You're stoic. Of course you care inside.
Me: Okay.
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It's true, I mask my real emotions so I just appear really stoic, unless you're a really close friend of mine or if I get really worked up over something. In all honestly, I love spicy food and am rarely phased by it. It just doesn't burn me nearly as much as most of my friends. Maybe it's cuz I'm Asian, haha. I've only been really affected by the spiciness of what I'm eating a handful of times (that's not to say there isn't spicy food out there that'll get me, I just haven't had it yet). Actually, I barely taste the spiciness in Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich - it just tastes seasoned to me. :P

---TANGENT---
I can't believe my blog's been visited over 1000 times. That's like, a landmark or something (for me)! I should post something amusing for my next one. I'll think of something. In the meantime, I'm counting down 11 days or so till my med school interview at NYMC. As far as I'm concerned, this may be the only interview I'm offered. I cannot blow it.
---END TANGENT---

Bittersweet

Is it possible for one's mood to swing 180-degrees in less than 12 hours, then swing 180 back after 3 more hours, then swing back again so on and so forth? My mood's a frickin' pendulum today.

After my horrible journalism class (it was actually bearable today), a classmate came up to me and asked me for the contact info of one of the sources for my final article. He was the kind of person's that's near-impossible to find, and I just got really really lucky. It seems her younger sister is in my study session that I lead and I just found that out like a month ago. Apparently, her younger sister thinks I'm a good study leader (it's kind of like a tutoring job, but I'm not allowed to give answers) because I explain things well. I must be doing something right! So I left that class quite happy and flattered.

In lab I finally saw my friend, AG-F, who I haven't seen since like Monday. So we talked, and I helped her out in the mouse room, etc. It was sad when she went to subject 3 mice to euthanasia. The "most humane" way was to kill them with carbon dioxide because it puts them to sleep first before they fully suffocate to death. Well . . . the carbon dioxide tank has been really bad lately. The flow of the gas wasn't constant or something, and the mice started going into seizures. That was horrible to watch. We both felt so bad, but there was really nothing that could be done. Stupid death tank. She told me worse stories that happened when other people kill mice. I smelled like mice when I left the mouse room.

And after returning back to my lab, I got the results for my 20 DNA samples back from the sequencing core. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the sequencing core (along with the transgenic core and enzyme core) sounds a lot better than it actually is in reality. It has such a futuristic name but it's kind of a disappointment when you actually see it. It's basically a room like an office. I'm sure it's connected to some place that's cooler, maybe. Anyway, I got back my DNA samples for the experiments I did last week. Well, apparently none of my samples had the right DNA sequence I was looking for. That was like, inconceivable. I made sure there was DNA in my samples when I sent them. This was just not right. I was shocked, and upset, and annoyed. I had worked about 2 weeks on these samples! Grrr.

Then I watched the latest episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (many hours later). Yup, a part of me's still a kid inside. I will hold onto that part of my soul for as long as possible. I love cartoons and anime. Anyway yeah, dorky it may be, but it sure lifted my mood.

The Misanthropic Cellist

I wrote half an entry ranting about the events that made my week go downhill (it's still somewhat going downhill, but it's also more than half over). And now that I've deleted it, all that remains is the title above. Let that be some hint. It's not really worth it to type about, it just felt good to type it out when I did a few hours ago.

In other news, a German guy (as in, from Germany) joined our String Orchestra recently. I don't remember his name, but I know he plays the violin and is quite hot, and his German accent only makes things that much better. Distractions everywhere!

And now I have a headache. And I still have 3 papers to finish . . . sigh.

Mask of the Composer

Thanksgiving break was wonderful. Did pretty much nothing academic and caught up on lots of sleep. And, for the first time in over 2 months, I had inspiration to compose a little more on a couple of my pieces that have been on hold. For the first time in a long while, I donned my Mask of the Composer.

Now, it's a very amateurish mask, and I contend that anyone who knows any semblance of music theory and has a creative mind can compose something. That said, very few people compose well, and I don't profess to compose well. I do it for fun as it's another creative outlet, and I can hear "potential" in my pieces, but I don't have the training and technical expertise to make them sound great. Anyway, here's my Mask.
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History
I guess I started composing my senior year of high school. I've only composed for instruments I either know how to play (piano and cello) or know how to play in theory (violin and viola). So I've mostly only composed for these 4 instruments. I use a free program called Finale Notepad 2004 that I downloaded off their site on the internet. The full version of Finale costs too much, though my brother was somehow able to pirate a few copies (a whole lot of good that does him, as it expires after 30 days without a valid authentication key).

Anyway, I've composed many pieces, and every semester starting my second semester of freshman year we (my string trio) has played at least 1 piece I've composed. Music for string trio (violin, viola, and cello) is unusually hard to come by, particularly good music. Most trio music are for violin, piano, and cello. Poor viola. So I thought, why not compose something that'll at least be fun to play? And that I did. To date, most of my pieces have been for string trio. I once tried to compose a trio for electric guitar, piano, and cello. Thanks to my friend, MS-M, I knew (in theory) how to compose for guitar; however, since I don't play the guitar (electric or otherwise), I composed intervals that were near-impossible to physically play. Alas. I compose on average about 1-2 pieces per semester. There are also many other pieces that I've started but haven't finished (and maybe never will).

Currently I'm working mainly on 3 pieces: one for a string trio, one for a cello quartet, and one for a string sextet (2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos). The string trio piece will be played next semester for sure, and it's aptly titled "Farewell." The history behind that piece is obvious enough. It's my last semester of undergrad. Also, it's partly to commemorate my friend who passed away last year, as well as a friend who went from majoring in MSE (material science engineering) to becoming a nun over the summer (and now we never hear from her anymore). It utilizes a lot of chords and sustains in A minor. I think it sounds pretty good thus far. "Hymn" is the working title for the cello quartet, though that'll likely change somewhat later. It follows a similar style as the string trio. Now, the sextet - that's a beast to compose. I may never fully understand how the great classical composers wrote such amazing symphonies, as it's hard enough to coordinate 6 instruments! Anyway, the title of the sextet is "String Alchemy."

Composing Philosophy
I believe that every composer has some kind of philosophy when composing. Mine has been fairly simple: no instrument, part, or piece will be overly repetitive. I've listened to too many modern songs where it's basically an exposition, several refrains, then an ending. Such a boring structure. And I've played many pieces in my life where the cello part is the same damn thing for almost the entire piece. And I also pity the viola. They too often get offbeats, syncopations, and arpeggios. Now, arpeggios are fairly cool . . . until you've played them for a page, then it gets old.

So my composing philosophy is to never subject an instrument to that. That's quite a challenge though, because you need the repetitive parts to create certain effects. My earlier pieces don't have that forward moving drive because the cello and viola parts lack the repetitive parts. So the direction of the piece relies solely on the players as a unit because there's no internal mechanism from keeping it going.

My later pieces utilize more repetitive parts, though not for very long in any particular instrument. The repetitive "beat-keeping" parts move between the three instruments, though it's still mostly kept to the cello and viola. It's a decent compromise. I like to have my pieces where everyone gets melody and everyone gets harmony at some point.

It's still difficult though, as things are limited by instrumentation and how they sound. Obviously where the cello's the lowest instrument, it must be the foundation of sound from which the other instruments build upon. Thus it must either keep beat in its lower register or have long sustained notes. Sigh, the very things I dislike playing. At least when I compose these pieces I'll have no one to blame but myself. But, when the instrumentation is like 4 cellos, things get much more interesting. For one, the bottom base part can easily switch between all 4 cellos, and it has the added effect (though this only applies in proximity of the performers) of hearing different parts being switched and played from different members of the group. It's kind of cool if, say, the "first" cellist is playing the melody one second only to have the "fourth" cellist playing it the next second.

Forms
Now, there are many composition forms. There are preludes, there are fugues, there are toccatas, there are chorales, there are ABA/ABBA/ABCBA sonata forms, there are etudes, there are tarantellas, and the list goes on. I haven't explored most of these, partly because I don't know where to begin and what to do. It's somewhat difficult, even in this internet age, to find "rules" of composing in these forms.

I was, however, fairly successful in composing a fugue last fall semester. It was called (uninspiringly) "Windchaser Fugue." Currently, the pieces I'm working on probably most closely resembles chorales, but only for parts of the pieces. Hmm, I wonder if there are "rules" for chorales . . . probably. One day, I may try to revisit the idea of composing a "suite" like Bach did. It would include a prelude, a sarabande, and a courante for sure. Those are fairly simple ideas. One day maybe. I may also go back to pieces I've already composed and make them sound better with the benefit of retrospection and experience.
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So I basically only compose when I'm struck by inspiration, which happens at the strangest times (like 2am, I composed an entire piece between 2-3am every night for like a month - it's aptly titled "Early Morn Inspiration"). I've also noticed that inspiration only comes when there's time for it, and when it does, it comes in waves.

I'll get a sudden urge that'll last a few hours, then it'll disappear for days, even weeks. So I'll compose maybe a page or two (rarely) in a single day/night, then won't compose on that piece again for maybe a month. It's strange how that works, but then again, this is a very strange (and incomplete) mask I wear.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was going to write a post ranting and raging about something that happened on Tuesday. It was pretty bad, and it caused me to rage inside for almost all of Tuesday and part of Wednesday. But you know, it's freakin' Thanksgiving, so no ranting here.

Thanksgiving is awesome and one of the most underrated holidays, in my opinion. Thanksgiving is never really advertised much. Things tend to bypass Thanksgiving on its way from Halloween to Christmas and that's sad. While I pretty much love all holidays, my two favorite are probably Thanksgiving and Chinese New Year, partly because of the sheer volume of food involved.

To me (particularly in the last 4 years or so), Thanksgiving is a time to just get together with my immediate family and not really do much. After the food's made, it's restful (usually). It'd be cooler if my uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents could all get together with us as well, but they live in Chicago, IL, and in Milpitas, CA, so that's not going to happen. Also, my brother's birthday is always within a few days of Thanksgiving (he was either born on, the day before, or the day after Thanksgiving) so it's almost like a double celebration. It's pretty sweet.

It's late so that it for now. At the very least, I'm thankful it's Thanksgiving. There's really too much to be thankful for to be fully expressed concisely in words.