Q: Et tu, Jonathan? A: Read. Read some more. Buy Red Bull.
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| The Patient Etherized Q: Et tu, Jonathan? A: Read. Read some more. Buy Red Bull. |
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Tuesday, September 30, 2003 Credit to John Kalb for getting me to thinking about this topic, or Hub fan bids the pitching duel adieu ESPN.com and the media only make a fuss about records when an athlete is incredibly close to the record -- i.e. when Rickey Henderson was within ten runs of Ty Cobb's record. So now all the fuss is over Barry Bonds approaching Hank Aaron's record. The not-quite-as-magical-as-714--but-still-magical-nonetheless 755. At 658 home runs at the end of this season he has an outside shot at the record, but his major fault is that he didn't play in the homer-inflated era of the mid to late '90s for his whole career. Though you'd never know now, Bonds was a multi-dimensional player in the pre-injury Griffey mold (faster but not quite as good) from about 1987-1994. In his skinnier days when it was unheard of to hit 50 homers in a season, at least until Cecil Fielder's return from Japan heralded things to come in 1991, Bonds was the catalyst, not the brooding superstar, for a classic Pirates team that featured the original Killer B's of Bonds himself and Bobby Bonilla, as well as the third excellent outfielder, Andy Van Slyke (not to mention Doug Drabek at his finest and John Smiley). But at 39, how much does Bonds have left? Can he continue to churn out quality years like Paul Molitor, or will his body refuse to take whatever drug it is that is inflating his head into the strange watermelon that is now his head:  It is possible he may be able to get three more years of quality baseball, though Aaron didn't really produce during this time, even though he was the model of consistency before, eventually retiring at age 44. Sosa has a better chance, though I'd say that he is more prone to injury than Barry is. I'd rest my hope on Alex Rodriguez, who at 28, is the fastest (or second fastest?) to 300 home runs. At 345 home runs currently, A-Rod has another decade or more to catch up with Aaron. So hopefully when I have a career he'll be nearing the record. On the large implications of the long ball, it is a bit disturbing that home runs and runs scored will probably never be deflated like they were when the mounds were lowered. It is unlikely that the media, the team owners and anyone else interested in a profit will want to go back to the days of pitching duels, of a purist's dream of baseball that would make John Updike proud. I would have loved to have been alive for the Bob Gibson season of 1968 when he was virtually unhittable, a more powerful, less subtle version of Pedro. That 1.12 ERA always boggled me when I was little. And he still managed to lose 9 games. Almost as amazing as Maddux losing 6 games with his 1.56 ERA. Maybe teams don't think they're aces need run support. I always got pissed when Pedro was involved in those 2-1, 1-0 games and ended up with an ND. This just in: Yankees down 0-3 to the Twins. Die Yanks die! posted by Jon | 3:24:00 PM Sunday, September 28, 2003 Ah, medieval romances: As pearls are of more price than white peas, so is Gawain of more price than other gay knights posted by Jon | 3:04:00 PM Saw My Boss' Daughter today, starring Ashton Kutcher and Tara Reid. You know you have nothing to do when this is the kind of movie you want to see. Now I really want to see Once Upon a Time in Mexico even more, as sort of a counterweight to the "hilarious hijinks" of our favorite immature man-boy, Ashton Kutcher. Before the movie Aruna and I went to Little India and ate small boats of rice and assorted vegetables at Komalas Vilas. Notice from the last entry that I didn't go to Little India (went to Holland Village instead), so we decided to go for lunch today. I like our lazy Sunday theme that we've been doing the last two weeks -- large lunch followed by movie. posted by Jon | 10:01:00 AM Saturday, September 27, 2003 This is going to be a "what's-happening-in-the-life-of" post that very few people want to read :-) Going to play basketball in an hour and a half and then going to Little India tonight with Aruna and Nancy. Had fun last night going out for drinks with some of the honors lit. students from NUS. People were very friendly so it was quite a bit of fun. Had some very good drinks on Emerald Hill and also decided that the German beer garden we went to -- Baden Baden -- wasn't my favorite place in the world, though the beer was cheap by Singaporean standards and the atmosphere was pretty good. I need to get a couch if I actually want anyone to sit down in my apartment. The hard plastic chairs just don't seem to do it for most people. Gee, I wonder why? Plus I should probably keep food if I am ever going to be a good host. I need to bathe. For some reason I've not been able to get hot water two of the last three nights. posted by Jon | 2:21:00 AM Friday, September 26, 2003 Thought for the day: If you switch the l's and the r's in her name, Halle Berry becomes Harre Belly. posted by Jon | 2:40:00 AM Thursday, September 25, 2003 Do people eat cop-porn at porn theaters instead of pop-corn? posted by Jon | 1:29:00 PM Wednesday, September 24, 2003 It really wasn't such a good idea to be a Saracen in the olden days: Saracens are cheap in the old romances; King Horn rode out one day and bagged a hundred to his own sword. posted by Jon | 2:11:00 PM Tuesday, September 23, 2003 On his deathbed, he said: It is time, if so it seem good to my Maker, that I should be set free from the flesh, and go to Him who, when I was not, fashioned me out of nothing. I have lived a long time, and my merciful Judge has ordained my life well for me. The time for me to be set free is at hand, for indeed my soul much desires to behold my King Christ in His beauty. -- The Venerable Bede, 735 A.D. posted by Jon | 12:41:00 PM Observations while waiting in line at Cold Storage: 1. Condoms: In the US, condoms are usually only sold at convenience stores like CVS, and they're located in obscure aisles, usually near the pharmacy. In Singapore, however, they're sold in super markets, in addition to convenience stores, specifically right under the watchful eye of the cashier. This is interesting because I think it could mean a couple of things: a) That Singapore could actually be more open than America because it puts its birth control out in the open. b) That Singapore is more closed than America because it doesn't want people stealing the products or at least getting embarassed by the long walk from the back of the store to the register. Putting the condoms out in the open could be a method of surveillance, to protect against stealing or even use. c) That the government wants people to practice birth control properly. Again, this idea has its opposite: that the government wants people to be embarassed by the eye of the cashier and therefore not practice birth control, resulting in more babies. -- as usual, it's hard to decipher these signs without some other evidence to support one interpretation. d) One final observation, or why there should never be a product called "Arctic Shitter:" I've mainly seen Durex condoms sold in Singapore, for whatever reason. What's interesting is that it seems like Durex is following the recent trend of putting names on products that bear no relation to the functionality or specific purpose of the brand. For example, Powerade has all these imaginative names like "Arctic Shatter" and "Green Squall," names that really have nothing to do with the taste of the drink, but more to do with the color. Well, Durex, which would do well to give its condoms practical names (it does have some of these, such as "strawberry" and "comfort") now has a condom called "together." I'm confused -- how can a condom do anything but bring people together (no, I'm not going into the postmodern assertion that it brings us together but separates us, though that would just be a further instance of )? Does this particular condom possess magical powers of togetherness that differentiates itself from other ones? Or is this just another case of false advertising? Condoms are interesting creations of modern culture -- condoms in their modern, latex form, I mean -- since the companies that sell them strive to make it seem like they are invisible barriers between two people. The companies try to downplay the existence of condoms as separators while also making them necessary to sex. It's a bit of a tightrope act to be Trojan or Durex or another brand of condoms: you have to make people "practice safe sex" while also telling them that the safe sex that they practice will be as illicit and enjoyable as unsafe sex. And...I'm spent [-o-] Song title of the day: "Half-steering half-eating ice cream" by The Neptunes Quote of the day: "I am so scared to want someone, to have someone really love me. Eventually, they would catch on, and see my wounds, worts, gangrene and cancers... and disgusted, they would look at me with eyes that once mirrored the illusion I was beautiful... then they would leave." -- Sarah, a victim of incest posted by Jon | 11:59:00 AM Monday, September 22, 2003 Thought for the day, discovered whilst pressing "snooze" six times before French this morning: we should start calling people "misandopes," particularly misguided liberals with cynicism for the world but no cogent means of fixing it. Misandope being a conflation of "misanthrope" and "dope." posted by Jon | 12:18:00 PM Sunday, September 21, 2003 In primate news, Snowflake the albino gorilla is dying. In Jon news, I just took a nap and now will proceed to be up very late. posted by Jon | 9:47:00 AM Saturday, September 20, 2003 The Boring Shit that I do: I am inputting dates, names, and events of "literary history" into this gigantic Excel spreadsheet, all because of the idiotic test known as the GRE Subject Test in English. So recently I've been reading the Cambridge History of American and English Literature and learning about obscure writers from the 16th century (you know, like Shakespeare). Played basketball today and am now feeling sore from it. It was a lot of fun and I realize I'm probably an insolent, competitive shit on the court, not to mention arrogant (dao!)... To be continued. posted by Jon | 3:00:00 PM Thursday, September 18, 2003 Two Unrelated Things, one a story and another an observation, or, "Why Jon was awake at 6am this morning and is...now....skipping French class again." 1) I have been terrible about French class this week. It partially has to do with getting to bed too late and either missing my alarm or not feeling motivated enough to wake up, but this time was different. Oh yes it was. It was different because I was psyching myself to wake up this morning. I actually couldn't fall asleep because I'd taken a nap from 6-10pm (missed my alarm there too). So I crawled into bed after starting my spreadsheet on the facts and figures of all of freaking literature and after tossing and turning with an upset stomach managed to sleep around 5am. Shortly thereafter it happened. Why use bold for one little word, you might ask? Well, let's not kill the suspense just yet. No, better let it live for a bit longer. Yes, as you might suspect I was awakened at approximately 6am by the feeling of something crawling on my shoulder. I had been sleeping on my side and I instinctively reacted and used my other arm to fling the thing across the room, in this case, into my closet. Still not really awake I fumbled for the light and then got my glasses on. And there it was. No, two letters of bold does not describe the blackness in the eyes of the cockroach that looked back at me. No, two letters does definitely not describe the sheer volume that had gone into that fearsome bug. ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() There we stood, eye to eye, a duel about to happen. Cocky the Roach and Jonny the Naked Boy who just had a Cock(roach) on His Shoulder. Cocky thought better of the situation and scurried under my dress shoes whilest I moved away to get backups (tissue paper). Not knowing his exact location I decided to move a shoe. With great trepidation I lifted the toe of the shoe up to empty out any potential insect-like contents. My intuition had been right. Cocky came scurrying out and, a deer in the headlights that is my radiant strength, scurried no longer. There he was: 
I, long aware of the resilience and strength of the cockroach, wanted the bug's death to be short and powerful. Armed with my three tissues, I quickly pounced upon the bug and then grabbed a sneaker and beat the hell out of the damn insect with my shoe. My Jainist ways all set asunder, I marveled at my killing power as I deposited the beastie into the trashcan in the bathroom. Alas, my conscience weighed too heavily upon me, and I could get nary a wink of sleep as I laid in bed. The events of the past ten minutes had been to me not unlike the trauma suffered by Belinda in Rape of the Lock. Every hair that twitched on my body felt like the antennae of the beady-eyed Blatta Orientalis. Every thought that ran through my head skittered and twitched like the death throes of the cockroach I had killed. And now I lay here (sit, to be accurate) crying (typing my blog). During the three hours in the trauma unit, I made the following observation: That the so-called Buzzflood (nee Blabberforce) is perhaps the single stupidest invention to come out of the simple minds of Dartmouth students in a long time. Furthermore, why did Kabir Sehgal et al. choose to borrow the first name from a couple of Babson students who haven't exactly gotten an impressive roster of clients on their website (there is no list in fact). The half-baked ideas that reek of the Bridge program or other marketing strategy propaganda can only be believed by those who lack a liberal arts education that is intended to give one a diversity of ideas as well as a rigorous and deep understanding of them. That Sehgal et al. have obviously eschewed a liberal arts education in favor of a pathway to the anti-intellectual business world is fairly evident. That it is possible at our school must be seen as a fault of the individual, obviously, but also the institution as well. Give me a conservative who backs the status quo over a liberal with no idea of what needs change. I'd take the conservative any day of the week. Give me a liberal who can assess the world with a critical, sharp eye and I'd take him any day too, over both the preservation of the status quo and the change for the sake of changing. posted by Jon | 9:37:00 PM Johnny Cash Was at Sixth Avenue with Stacey and Aruna until three last night giving Stacey a lesson in the history of rap. We started with the basic, understandable history lessons: NWA leading to the advent of gangsta rap, early pioneers like Biz Markie, Slick Rick, and Grandmaster Flash. Haha, it would be fun to write a history of rap. But for now, I'll be happy being a joint lecturer with Aruna and our captured subject. Been listening to the The Essential Johnny Cash, 1955-1983. I really like the very timeless themes of these kinds of songs: love, death, murder, love, charity. All these things are very plain in a simpler, rural America that was based on somewhat different values. It's tough to say that so straightfaced though, since the remnants of Harry Smith's American Folk Music -- those horrific murders, that devout worship of God, all those strong, deeply felt emotions still exist in diluted forms. But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Now I hear that whistle blowin', I head my hang and cry. -- "Folsom Prison Blues" In many ways the Zantop murders were a vestige of a time gone by, mixed with a lot of the changes that have happened in the last hundred years -- the advent of the mass media, perhaps some of the motivations of Tulloch and Parker. I guess I have some desire to live in a world of the Old Testament God that would strike fear in the hearts of men. JSchroed03 (12:37:22 PM): I'm talking about old time black music JSchroed03 (12:37:25 PM): about prisons JSchroed03 (12:37:26 PM): death and love JSchroed03 (12:37:28 PM): murders JSchroed03 (12:37:29 PM): fear of God JSchroed03 (12:37:34 PM): the blues JSchroed03 (12:37:42 PM): a strong attachment to the land JSchroed03 (12:37:47 PM): prison JSchroed03 (12:38:15 PM): This stuff is visceral JSchroed03 (12:38:18 PM): deeply felt JSchroed03 (12:38:22 PM): the marrow of the country JSchroed03 (12:38:27 PM): it's not commercialized JSchroed03 (12:38:42 PM): it's the pure expression of a people who haven't had much success for such a long time JSchroed03 (12:38:48 PM): the scum of the earth 
I'm reminded of the songs that keep coming up over and over through hundreds of years -- the old English ballads and folk songs, the Civil War songs that you can read about in Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic. And I think that the exuberant tone that Marcus takes to the world is a refreshing tone, one that betrays an optimism (for such a sentiment is a betrayal, at least in the literature I've been reading lately). It is a world outside of literary theory, closer to the fervency of prophecy and the firm belief that someone can actually accomplish something in the world. It's a belief that urban America needs to get, that I wish I could have totally. It's a way that we can glean something from the Falwells and Robertsons of the world and get something positive, optimistic, ebullient, exuberant! posted by Jon | 12:49:00 AM Monday, September 15, 2003 The list (to be extended at whim): CNET For everything from buying a DVD player for my mom for Christmas to ogling the new iPod. Plus the price comparison gives you the feeling you have perfect market knowledge, even if you can usually get a cheaper price if you do a little Googling. Speaking of which: IMDB To figure out what the hell that obscure French movie is. Best feature is definitely the external resources section for each movie. EASYNEWS If you don't know what Easynews is, you probably use Kazaa and slow your computer down. Easynews isn't blocked by firewalls at work places because it organizes the files of newsgroups. You can get much more obscure songs here, from celtic music to Britney, classical to dutch trance. The world of blogs -- too many links to add; plus, I don't want to add another advertisement for Blogger. ESPN Generally my only source of sports combined with humor in this poor, deprived state. Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback TMQ is definitely da shit. A fellow at the Brookings Institution, he also happens to be a moderate conservative who takes an irreverent tone about anything from the NYSE exec scandal to the Buffalo Bills' team uniforms. The Bob Dylan CD & CDR Field Recordings of William J. Clinton Comprehensive and frequently updated, this site lists every performance of Bob Dylan that has ever been recorded. The reviews of the performances are generally reliable too. The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, by David Dodd The essay on Box of Rain is especially cool, though the site is not updated much anymore. The New Republic. I don't read TNR as often as I should, but I'm a fan of Peter Beinart's pieces. Plus Gregg Easterbrook just started a blog there! Dictionary.com. If you're ever bored, look up "ok" in the dictionary. It's got a cool derivation -- it comes from Van Buren's presidential election in 1840. Perseus. The classical world has a really good friend in the Perseus people at Tufts. The Lewis & Short Latin dictionary is helpful too, aside from the 100s of original, annotated texts. Try Muse and JStor for academic journals. Will continue to update the list... Suggestions? posted by Jon | 11:03:00 PM Sunday, September 14, 2003 To come shortly: a list of the sites that I can't do without. Damn, that sounds like a subheadline in Cosmo or FHM or some such shit publication. And, no, these aren't the sites I can't do without [-o-] posted by Jon | 10:08:00 AM You've lost that lovvvving feeeeling. Ahem, I mean the motivation to do work. I'm also getting a cold sore which I suspect is from drinking last night. After seeing Home Run, whose movie website should be www.propaganda-for-singapore.com, we went to Emerald Hill and, to be exact, to some bar called Ice Cold Beer. The title sounds innocuous, right, and the atmosphere has a sort of a glorified frat basement (a la BG-style) appeal, complete with chipped paint bar tables with names carved in them, American classic rock, baseball (ESPN!!!!) on TV. The only difference is, if this is a frat, the members were in college, oh, say about 25 years ago. Too many old dudes wandering around with prostitute-like girlfriends. However, it was nice to get out and about and to have a drink or more. Much like before at Jake Ivory's, there were a couple of incredibly trashed guys who would hear each new song and yell out the lyrics. One of them, who was worse off than the other, actually leaned his head over the shoulder of this girl sitting at the bar (who was much prettier, much younger, and much better dressed than he). He actually proceeded to do this to many different girls inside and outside. Not sure what I have to do work-wise anymore. I think I should finish the Hannah Arendt and the Fredric Jameson books sometime soon. Then maybe it will be me and Foucault having sadistic fun (sex no, reading yes). Re-listening to DJ Tiesto - Magik 2. Thanks Vic for making me listen to this again. It's damn good. So that makes three days of listening to classical music, Bob Dylan, and trance. They go together right? Right? People? posted by Jon | 5:36:00 AM Thursday, September 11, 2003 Dammit I only answered one question in this quiz with a relationship-based answer and look what I get as the result:  Hee! You are Jack's "You have to find yourself a girl, mate ... you're not a eunuch, are you?" speech. You're quite a bit sex- crazed, and you assume that everyone else is as horny as you are. Get it on as soon as possible so that you can join the rest of us on Planet Earth ... I'm sure you'll have a good time doing so. Which one of Captain Jack Sparrow's bizarre sayings from Pirates of the Caribbean are you? brought to you by Quizilla posted by Jon | 10:23:00 AM Antsy I've been a bit antsy about doing work lately, which is sort of strange. I haven't been able to pinpoint why I'm flitting about so inefficiently, but hopefully I'll solve the problem shortly. On a good note, I'm much more at ease in Singapore now. No worries about significant matters. However I need to register for the GRE subject test in a little while (couldn't register earlier because I have to call America). As for studying, I'm debating whether I can possibly take another intensive French course and study for the GREs at the same time. I believe that I should force myself to do it and just suck it up and perhaps even (shock) get into a decent sleeping schedule, one that doesn't involve a two hour nap in the middle of the day. Generally when it comes to work, if I get past a certain level of resistance I am able to work at any time (hence I'm trying to coerce myself into doing work now). Coercing goes something like this (here I shall give a small interior monologue, a la Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude: Brain to Jon: Work, dammit, work! Jon: That's enough out of you brain! Brain: Feed yourself and go work then. Jon: That's more like it. Why do you have to be so bothersome all the time? Can't you let me rest in peace like all the other creatures that lack free will? Brain: ::thoughtless:: Jon: Woohoo! It finally worked! Alright, that small act of automatic writing failed, no doubt much like the French Surrealist Andre Breton could have told me. Funny how I came up with exactly the opposite of my intended purpose, completely by chance as it were. Qu'es que c'est les chances, mes amis? (Note to self: just because you're learning French doesn't mean that everyone else is. Eventually people will get tired of the novelty of reading your drivels in French, not to mention English. Feed the masses better material!) Speaking of the masses, I was reading an essay on Ralph Ellison in boundary 2 the other day (there was a special issue to commemorate Ellison's birthday I think) and I came across this interesting opinion, courtesy of Jonathan Arac of Columbia: that all political and social decisions stem from the conflict between Fascism and the Popular Front in the 1930s. All subsequent decisions have tried to work out this problem. Arac came to this position through his work on Huckleberry Finn, as he says, and he theorizes that the prominence given to the work in the '30s came at the expense of another work, Uncle Tom's Cabin. I didn't get to read all of the article but I thought it was interesting enough to mention. Also, Donald Pease seems to be in with the editors at the journal, as he has at least one article in b2 each year. Another uncanny retracing: it was also Professor Pease who taught me the Eugene O'Neill play above freshman spring. (Yes, Jackie, the course you did better than me in :-) Listening to: Camille Saint-Saens, Piano Concerto 2. I've been on a bit of a classical kick lately, probably from reading too much theory about music. But this music is very soothing, even if it's said to be a bit superficial. Plus, I have the time, so why not teach myself about the one huge category of music I'm fairly ignorant about? A plus tard. Remember my invented mark of punctuation? Well here it is again, the super-period: [-o-] posted by Jon | 7:56:00 AM Tuesday, September 09, 2003 No, it wasn't SARS I think I'm getting better after taking a few sudafed and drinking Yakult (it seems like medicine almost because it's so tiny) and orange juice. So what have I done today, you might ask? Well I don't think it will take too long to summarize, so I will humor you (you being Jon's new imaginary friend, cyberspace): 1) "Woke up quick/ at about noon,/ just thought that I had to be in Compton soon./ I gotta get drunk before the day begins/ before my mother starts bitchin' about my friends." -- Eazy-E Unlike Eazy, I woke up at 11:17 so that I could call Jackie, who, as it turned out, was stressed due to much reading. I went back to bed at 11:30, only to get up again to semi-answer a few SMS-es. Sidenote: Things that can occupy your unconscious and not take up much of your waking ability can potentially be dangerous. I count cell phones in this category. It just makes your life that much more planned and seemingly routine. Woke up again at 2 or so, then puttered on the computer for a while and here I am. I need to get dressed and head to the bank before 7pm as well as try to iron out a problem I'm having in the argumentation of my article, which I should have finished a while ago. I'm looking at two journals now, English Literary History, and Postmodern Culture. It's unlikely that ELH will consider it since most of their articles deal with topics in the 19th century and before, but a prof said it was worth a shot. PMC is going to be tough too, though not as tough as ELH, which is one of the top journals. The major problem is that in order to be more likely to be published in either of these journals, I need to decide on two "selling points," namely, a more historical angle or one that looks at the "cultural effects of globalization." While I don't think these aims are mutually exclusive, I have to decide which one deserves more emphasis. Ok, I heard myself talk for a while there. Now it's time to hit the showers (or shower, since this ain't no locker room). posted by Jon | 4:32:00 AM Monday, September 08, 2003 Bleah I think I'm getting sick. I also think the whole library knows too since I let loose these volcanic sneezes every ten minutes. And I feel like eating tons of food because of my runny nose. Woe I say, woe! At least I don't have elephantiasis...for now (no, there are no pictures on that link, but do notice it's a link to a Phuket website, just begging me to make a trip to the sandy beaches that are filled with filarial worms). posted by Jon | 4:38:00 AM Saturday, September 06, 2003 Saw Legally Blonde 2 today because Home Run was sold out. Kind of wish it hadn't sold out -- put it that way. New weird Hungarian radio station: tilos.hu. I've been listening to its music a lot the past two days. Plays an interesting variety of lounge music that samples old jazz songs, among other things. Read the history of the station; it's pretty damn funny. I'm trying to edit my article right now so I'm blogging to loosen up my creative muscles. Blogging is definitely the metameucil for my writing. Which is actually a good thing, since the analogy implies that this activity is prescriptive and the actual writing is the shits. Lao sai! I think it's funny how violent the swearing is. Like if you say "fuck" to someone in America nobody makes a big deal out of it. But here if you say "cheebai" or something else everyone acts like you just shot their mother. I think I'm going to make a rule that I can't add any more sources into my article since it's getting bloated like a seagull that just ate alka seltzer. Ok I'm getting sick of hungarian weirdo music. Enough of that for now. Going to Little India tomorrow w/ one of the Fulbrighters to get food so I have to get up and get there by 10:30AM. Why is Plaza Singapura so teenage ghetto-ey? Actually it's more like the movie theatre is not nice compared to Shaw House and Cineleisure. I'm getting spoiled by these cinemas though, since they're really nice. I think I should listen to French radio so that I learn something useful. Otherwise I'll be speaking like this: shxnoe pooonbh ogi radic poopenisshit (ok I was trying to imitate Croatian since i have no idea what Hungarian sounds like). posted by Jon | 2:02:00 PM Thursday, September 04, 2003 I wonder how hammy is doing? Poor hammy ham ham ham, all alone in her cage without anybody to know how to clean her properly and take the sawdust out of her fur. Dammit I should have called my mom tonight but I got home late so she would have been at work. Oh well maybe tomorrow (is what I always say, hence the email from her yesterday saying "Are you still alive"). But I'm going to be getting a new cell phone plan sometime so then I'll have free incoming calls. I'm thinking of applying for this mountaineering program through NUS that sends an expedition to the Himalayas after training in New Zealand. It would be a great way to travel and I would also refresh my long unused mountaineering skills -- haha tying prussik knots and whatnot. Observation about Singapore: everybody has a girlfriend/boyfriend. It's quite ridiculous. Not like I'm that upset about being single but it's just quite amazing after coming from Dartmouth. It's also funny because though I'm not desperate I seem to be only meeting girls (this is a good and bad thing). Reasons why it's a good thing: Meeting girls means meeting girls :-) Haha, just kidding. Girls are more sensitive than guys, generally. Guys smell worse. Reasons why it's a bad thing: - Relationship potential is higher so there is also more potential for something disastrous to go wrong in a relationship. Not that I'm so pessimistic about this possibility, but that it's just that with friends you rarely get incredibly emotionally involved. With girls you want to go throw yourself in the river if something goes wrong and you're really involved. - No guy friends means I sometimes find myself talking to girls about fashion and lose my sense of masculinity. This is also known as the GAY FACTOR. I want to avoid said factor for a little while, dammit. Not that there's, as Seinfeld says, anything wrong with that. - You mistake a girl who is 15 for a girl who is 19 and get yourself into an embarassing situation. Ummm, not that this happened. On a plus note the people I've met so far are nice. It's just a little disconcerting being so far from home and comfort. The funny thing about this feeling is that even if I were home I would just be bored off my ass and still lonely because almost all my friends are working and trying to do things with their lives -- not that I'm being completely pathetic by venturing out into another country. *** Work is not happening. I'm going to be exhausted for French, just like every other day. I think that it would have made more sense to start French in January or February, and not now. I might just take a break after this course because I need to study hard for a lot of shit -- GREs, LSATs. It's good to have something to get up to but really bad when you can't work on your journal article or do the theory reading you need to do. Or maybe I'm just wussing out. We'll see. *** I started French class this week and had this to say about class two days ago (from an unpublished part of my blog): For French today, the instructor (Professeur Francois) told us to learn numbers 1-69, but no further. Coincidence? Also he asked "Quelle est le numero de telephone?" to girls first and then guys. posted by Jon | 2:28:00 PM Tuesday, September 02, 2003 H.O.V.A For French today, the instructor (Professeur Francois) told us to learn numbers 1-69, but no further. Coincidence? Also he asked "Quelle est le numero de telephone?" to girls first and then guys. Am at NUS now and doing somewhat productive work. Trying to edit the article again. It's like trying to ... ah I'm too lazy to think of a good simile. Will finish after I do some worky-work. posted by Jon | 5:05:00 AM |
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