there are a couple of drafts in hibernation... in creation... and some unfinished entries awaiting burial at the cemetry for incomplete works of attempt... but there's always so much to do, and yet sometimes, you just can't bring yourself to do it... this restless procrastinating energy... baaah.
what am i really trying to do...? perhaps too much?! well, there're these crazy number crunching... and they really are number crunching.... all in the name of research/phd/science...?!? then there's writing up and (re-)reading-up for writing up... there's a report and THE thesis to work on... there's the twin-cities driving test to pass (Ooooh... i really hope i will!) ... there's dancing/exercising which i enjoy... there's still this unfulfilled wish to get back into music making... there's all these reading for pleasure i so want to do... there's all the cooking/cleaning/washing/shopping... and there's the arts/music/culture to explore... and places to see... and this wee humble blogspace to fill... hmmm.
and not to mention... flights to hunt... for the end of year/ start of the new year... hmmm... it's going to be nearly a trip around the world... depending on the direction of flights... should i spend hogmany/new-year's eve in aussie-land?! i wonder if one could take a train from Adelaide to Sydney... and back... maybe i could visit the universities there too... hmm. or maybe i should go only at the beginning of the new year... hmm. i can't decide. maybe you guys out there will have some advice?! hmm.
but worst of all, i am having more trouble waking up after i got over my jet-lag... i wish i could be more disciplined about going to bed early and rising earlier! i am so hopeless when it comes to waking up on a weekday... it's quite pathetic...
perhaps i ought to be grateful... because i am no longer having strange night-mare-like experiences like i did when i was briefly back in edinburgh visiting ruthie @ portobello... it was rather strange... i was with my graduate-school classmates... and we were all detained in a camp because the war had begun... but because i was not a citizen of the country... i was not released... but for some reason... i was told i could go one day... and i was asked to walk out of the gates... i wasn't sure what awaited me; my death, or freedom... or?! and i woke up frozen.
i don't usually remember my dreams unless they are quite night-marish... and this particular one i had is quite peculiar... it almost sums up everything... the unknown future... sigh.
i had a wonderful dance class last tuesday evening... leaving me buzzing in my head as i cycled home to a nice refreshing shower... and a great feeling of... oooh i love dancing!
i will never forget the first dancing debut i premiered as a wee toddler at the kindergarten (german spelling here) that me brothers and i went to... a bunch of toddlers from the 3-4yr-old class were (probably randomly?!) selected to dance a waltz-like set-dance in couples probably for the Christmas concert at the Church which ran the kindergarten ... the whole affair of the waltzing seems, in retrospect, slightly pompy (like austrians; my act of stereotypy) and civilized for such tenderness... and to bring in a comparison, my 2nd-elder brother was dressed up as a red-indian in his class dance in the same fanfare, which i think was probably a lot of fun, if not more... in fact, i never got to see him in his performance, and i wondered if he, mine! but mummy made papa take photos of us, and so we have evidence to prove i am not making this up! =C)
what i fondly remembered was that there was a pair of twins in my dance and they both wore pink ballet slippers in the actual performance, which completely intrigued me from the moment i took notice of their perculiarity... i was instantly fascinated by the slippers... partly because i kinda thought i liked the colour pink, and partly because i thought they made you dance even more sweetly... i honestly don't remember who my tolerant partner was... but i presume (hahah!) he must have been rather dashing... we all looked beautiful in the pictures... and i had a lovely new white (or was it yellow?!) dress and black (?) mary-janes to match... and i have no doubt that i absolutely enjoyed myself in the performance... it's great being 3! you don't really care who's watching... as long as your parents are out there witnessing your spectacular display of some potentially budding talent! OR just simply supporting you in making a fool of your poor self at such a tender age!
what i came out of the experience was that i found dancing or prancing about very fun, probably because it's great having an equally good-dancing partner... and i SO wanted a pair of ballet slippers and to LEARN how TO DANCE in them!
that wish eventually came true, if only quite a few years later... after trying to move like a cat and tinkering bits of Pink-Panther theme with my fellow Yamaha mates in the annual music-school concert, and after some years doing what they called "Chinese Dancing" at the primary school, an extra-curricular activity, which was run by two very scary chinese women, one of whom was also my Chinese teacher, who HIT you with a WOODEN ruler or THREW the chalk-board DUSTER at you for not remembering how to write your newly learnt character (those were days when hitting was acceptable as a form of punishment -- many adults thought it was okay... but i, and other sensible beings, thought it was ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING and inhumane!)... all these traumatic experiences, and you wonder why i hate school and rote learning (and a particularly evil piano teacher i had)?!... and finally after we relocated to another home closer to the ballet school i got acquainted with the Royal Academy of Dancing syllabus and what would be my first introduction to the FRENCH language from a wonderful dance teacher.
to be honest, i didn't realise how difficult classical ballet would be... despite seeming effortless! i entered the whole ballet-thing very very late compared to my peers who have either got themselves out of it, or stayed on with their weekly classes, and as such, i had a lot (like YEARS!) to catch up... and a new vocabulary in a new language to learn, and that's not as if i wasn't having enough trouble with English and Mandarin Chinese...
starting directly at the middle of grade 3, i advanced on to senior levels, got to dance 2 roles in the Nutcracker production one year, and finally got chosen to take the board exams when i was still at secondary school. at Sylvia McCully's you don't simply take exams; she kinda picks you, and you are asked to consider if you will embark in the preparatory classes... it is little wonder that it meant a lot to me...
this whole exam-procedure was very different from my experience with music lessons... which has left me with a big emotional scar and is an experience that i am still trying to cope with after all these years. suffice to say, it certainly helped mould the inner being i have become... and i am glad for standing up to what i think is right... and thankfully, my passion for all things musical was not dampened in the process...
it took me rather long to decide about the exam... i ABHORE exams... and my awful experiences with attaining certificates of musical aptitude have made me weary of such pursuits... and then, there was school, gym-training, and music lessons -- which i might have stopped taking (by then) as a very naughty but necessary rebellious act of will; i shall call it self-preservation... the amazing thing was, once i'd made up my mind, i even paid for the whole endeavour with my modest red-packet savings (money one gets from Lunar New Year as children) ... and i worked real hard on it... and on making sure i didn't neglect the other bits of my school-life.
unlike my dance partner who took the exam with me, i was a complete amateur in such formal dance critique... she was very confident... and technically much stronger, but i guess i excelled in areas which were less classically constrained... the free-expression parts in the new syllabus; where one got to listen to some 32-bars of music and you were to express yourself in your own way throughout and end up in your own kind of a pose... i absolutely loved it. so, despite being new to the whole thing, i did better than anyone expected... scoring a few marks lower than my partner, who ended up with the best score that year, yet, i got to join her in receiving the highest grade... i couldn't believe it!
although that was the very first and the only dance exam i've taken and though i had a couple of serious ankle injuries from gymnastics... i didn't really stop dancing... even if i had to say goodbye to my dance teacher and head offshore to experience life in another part of the world... in a way, the whole dancing episode i had while i was growing up in singapore was probably an experience which marked a few significant changes in my life!
while away from home, i danced at the college in wales in international evenings put up by students, i embraced scottish ceilidhs, and sought ballet classes like the ones i had at Ms McCully's even though i have never found any quite like hers... i even tried modern dance in germany despite being very hopeless with the language... but none of them was quite like the dance classes i grew up knowing... and appreciated while i was away.
it wasn't till i came to the usa, and spotted dancers rehearsing in the floor above a hardware store in the Saint Paul City Ballet one evening in early winter (while i was walking towards the bus stop with my groceries from WholeFoods, along Grand) when it occured to me that maybe they might have open adult classes i could go to and meet new people... it was also a place i could get to without a car!
and so i discovered to my happiness, that the adult classes were very similar to those i had bade goodbye to a decade ago... and in addition, i learnt too, that these classes have a long history and tradition that dated back to the old russian school of dancing which is nearly as old as the history of ballet itself... in fact, the ballet school in st. paul has it's roots in the Ballet Russes, which is a ballet company set up by Diaghilev in 1909 who with his choreographers, kept the art of dance alive in times of revolution, and whose vision and passion in the arts revived ballet in the western european cities, linked many musicians and artists together in the creation of his ballet productions, and is one of the main persons who introduced classical ballet to the new world.
thanks to divine happenstance, i recently watched the documentary of the surviving prima-ballerinas/nos of the Ballets Russes, released as a zeitgeist film on my flight back to the UK, and was amazed by the challenging experiences that these talented dancers had gone through... and how they could survive on so little; fuelled primarily by their passion for dance...
but perhaps there is, in everyone, an innate need to be challenged and to want to dance and express themselves through movement... whether or not you think you are good at it. indeed, i do think it would be wonderful if everyone, and i mean everyone... could simply "Dance as though no one is watching you... (Souza)" ... so go on, i am *not* watching!
this entry is much over-due... as with my update on my trip to the UK, as with my update on my neverending ski-annecdotes...
oh well.
if there's one thing (among others which i can recall!) which i didn't get to do when i was back in the UK, it was to go to the theatres and orchestra halls... that used to be quite a norm... but i was out of luck... the spectacular Edinburgh Fringe and the outstanding Edinburgh International Festivals didn't start till late july / early august and most of the interesting bits at the London Royal Opera House were long snapped up before i got there... and then just when i left the 2 great Russian Ballets are performing during the same season! how unfair! i would love to watch either a Boshoi or Kirov... in fact, i truly admire the Russian ballet style (which has a nice combination of French, Itallian and native Russian influences) and am very glad to have gone through some of its schooling...
but apart from technical rigour, ballerinas rely on music to express themselves... and it is music that is the topic of my blog entry.
SOMMERFEST is here in the Twin-cities... and while resident conductor, Osmo Vänskä, takes a wee break from the scene we have Andrew Litton, who leads the summer concerts. i got to learn about this series of musical events nearly 3 weeks after it started... partly because i was away and partly because i was busy trying to settle back into the 'swing' of things... which i am still struggling... but J, my classical-music-loving colleague and all-things artsy/literary-friend at work thought i needed to be educated about this annual experience and checked on me about my awareness... to which i responded flabergasted. i have undoubtedly missed some chamber concerts i'd like to have attended!
nevertheless, i got a free ticket and used it to catch Anne Akiko Meyers dazzle the audience with a beautifully alluring rendition of Barber's String Concerto, and Litton playing Gershwin with much enjoyment... Gershwin is a genius.
then, as one thing often lead to another, i discovered that Dave Brubeck would be in town for a night with his quartet!
my encounter with Brubeck's jazz is, like most things in my wee life, quite random... yet, there is, at times, beauty in apparent 'chaos'... i stumbled upon Dave and Desmond's Duets some years ago when i was back in Edinburgh, visiting from Germany... while i really enjoy jazz, i didn't know much about the jazz-scene... i didn't even know how amazing Dave Brubeck is... my vocabulary for jazz was pretty much limited to Ella, Louis, Billie, Nina, and Keith Jarrett... and even today, i can't claim to have a better knowledge... perhaps a wider exposure... but like many of my cds, they are acquired simply because the music appeal ... no matter how obscure the composer, or performer might be... a rule that pretty much works miracles!
those who are familiar with Brubeck and Desmond will know their hits, "Take5", which Paul wrote... and "Blue Rondo a la Turk", which Dave penned while on tour in Turkey... these two numbers are synonymous with their names... but i like the 'lesser-known' ones... like "Alice in Wonderland"... "Blue Dove" and his solos. it is rare to hear him play these days and while he gets even older, these public performances will become even more special... but i've never heard him live before... so when one gets a chance to enjoy the Dave Brubeck Quartet perform... you don't simply pass the opportunity over... unless, of course, the odds are working against you... the concert was completely SOLD OUT by the time i discovered about it and inquired at the ticketing office... while i expected its popularity, i didn't expect that there won't be any tickets left particularly when the performance was scheduled on a tuesday... refusing to accept this fact, i pestered the ticket office personnel on the phone... and just as i was inquiring if there might be any possibility of any tickets appearing from 'returns'... the chap over the phone said that 2 tickets just came up on the system... YES!!!
the lucky ticket got me into the concert hall with a view of Dave Brubeck pretty close-up... i could see him from his back tinkering on the Steinway, Michael Moore on the bass, that was when Bobby Militello didn't block my view with his jolly large boggie woogie when he's having a wee break from playing the sax or the flute... and Randy Jones drumming up rhythms... it was AWESOME... just simply enjoying the fact that the people on stage were all having a ball of a time playing these numbers:
Cassandra
Three To Get Ready
Lullaby
The Basie Band Is Back In Town
Mr Broadway
Blue Rondo a la Turk
Unsquare Dance
New Wine
Theme For June
Take Five
of the selection of blues the audience got to enjoy, i think i really grew fond of the "Theme for June"... it was composed by Dave's brother, Howard... and offered lots of soulful lyrical phrases for the pianist to express himself... it got me wondering what a "theme for may" might be like... hmmm... but one thing i was certain was i felt 100% better after being at the concert... and my splitting headache (from lack of sleep!) disappeared! a bit of jazz a day keeps insanity at bay... hah!
although some people would beg to differ... and some believe that Mozart's music is a marvellous antidote to life's stress... good thing that there's a plethora of gorgeous music out there... but i have to admit that some of Mozart's pieces are really quite remarkable, particularly when you hear them perform live in a bigger setting than it is actually written for, ie. the modern chamber orchestra as oppose to a quintet. ... with subtle changes in the thematic contours of the melodies, Mozart is able to create some pretty pieces with a dramatic side to them, rendering a modern catchiness to them and a lasting attachment to his name.
but i am a little bias... and i still prefer BACH and jazz... and modern romantiques... like Rachmaninov, Ravel, Debussy...etc ... and the beautiful rhythms you find all over the world... oh yaaah....
THU-duum-DA DEEEEE TWee-thAAA .. .. .. THU-duum-DA DEEEEE TWee-thAAA .. .. .. THU-duum-DA DEEEEE TWee-thAAA .. .. ..
--- and you keep doing that by just stomping with your feet and slapping your hands on your heels and clapping... and if enough people join in, we'll have a great rhythmic symphony of body movements...
it's taken me this long to figure out why some of my older entries are showing random " ? " dotted where foreign alphabets (ü ö ä é è ç à ô ê etc...) or " ... " or " , " or " ' " ought to be. i thought it had to do with firefox not being able to read the symbols... but it now appears that when the blogging-software MT was upgraded, the automatic transfer or 'translation' of old entries and the old paths into 'new' addresses didn't seem to take into account of these strange alphabet-symbols i occassionally drop here and there...
sob. this means i have to go over 600 entries to correct the unnecessary typos... madness.
please bear with me... while i rectify this terrible mishap! ... and i thought technology was supposed to make life easier?! ... poooo!
had a crazy crazy day yesterday... so crazy that i can't even believe how 'calm' i really was... in spite of all the trauma... yes computer-induced trauma...
always is.
i've been working all week and weekend on my seminar presentation on one of the classic motor-papers of the century and stayed up all night till the early dawn of yesterday and before i left it, i hibernated my laptop, then napped a little... by the time to got to the lab to finish up the powerpoint... my laptop had decided that it couldn't detect the hard-drive at all... if it could just spin a wee bit i could retrieve the powerpoint and that would be it... but it won't wake up.
it's happened before... and came back alive again... but it was pointless fighting.
so i had to piece together a talk from scratch in 4 hours... had bits in my flash-stick (which i should never have removed... or to which i should have backed-up before i fell asleep! arrgh!!!)... i suppose it could have been worse... it was yet another boring talk i gave... boring for me... coz i could do with the sleep... but probably boring for others because the paper was so dense and full of words... but full of very fascinating ideas for the 1870s... ideas that we are still struggling with today... i mean, we haven't quite progressed in foresight but have somewhat been stalled by the very imaging-technology boom that ought to have given us more leaps into the future... oh well. i did okay despite the mishap... and was able to answer all the questions... even if in a round-about-way... afterall, i had only 3-4hrs of sleep!
anyways... after the wretched talk, i thought i'd give my laptop another try... and IT WOKE UP! ARRRRGGGGHHH... i could just whaaammm that cranky thing! i could... but i didn't. backed up everthing i could instead... computers ARE evil.
but then as much as i would like to, i couldn't sleep all night despite the ratty day being over... c'est la vie... sometimes, you just can't win at all.
oh well, thank goodness for blogs! i certainly think this is a great space for, well, catharsis... and a spring-board and space to bounce my silly thoughts here and there and maybe everywhere...
and so, as a wee 'tribute' to the day this silly blog came into being... i'd like to quote Anne Frank... just because. and also because i just bought a German copy of her diary, which appears to be a new edition, and having read it nearly 10 years ago in English, i'd like to try to brush up my pathetic grasp of the german language by doing some amateurish translation, once in a while... although to be fair, i really ought to do this excercise for my very rusty Mandarin too... it's amazing how much 'refinement' of my crude skills i still have to do... during this life time! ach! =CS
anyways...
12. Juni 1942
Ich werde, hoffe ich, dir alles anvertrauen können, wie ich es noch bei niemandem gekonnt habe, und ich hoffe, du wirst mir eine große Stüze sein.
[Anne Frank]
12. June 1942
I would like, I hope, to be able to confide everything in you, how I could yet with nobody do so, and I hope, you will be my great bearer.
[written shortly after her 13th birthday -- the diary was a birthday gift]
28. September 1942 (Nachtrag)
Ich habe bis jetze eine große Stüze an dir gehabt. Auch an Kitty, der ich jetzt regelmäßig schreibe. Diese Art, Tagebuch zu schreiben, finde ich viel schöner, und ich kann die Stunde fast nicht abwarten, wenn ich Zeit habe, in dich zu schreiben.
Ich bin, oh, so froh, dass ich dich mitgenommen habe!
[Anne Frank]
28. September 1942 (Addendum)
I have for all this while found a great bearer in you. Also in Kitty, to whom I have now regularly written. This form, of diary-writing, is to me more pleasurable, and i can hardly wait for the moment, when I have the opportunity, to log something down in you.
I am, oh, so glad, that I have brought you along!
[written as an after-thought to the above diary entry, while in hiding only 3 months later]
--- italic quotes from Anne Frank Tagebuch © 2004 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Fischer Schatzinsel