monoceros blogsMy friend Peiming, a PhD student in piano at U of M, told me she was inviting a couple of friends to dinner at Great Lakes restaurant, where she and I had arranged to meet. She mentioned that one of them is a Singapore violinist, and I, being used to Peiming's usual description of music school students as pianist, cellist, flautist etc., assumed that this would be your average, talented U of M music school undergraduate. When I met Min Lee, I was startled to find myself shaking hands with one of Singapore's most famous music prodigies, also known as Lee Huei Min.
Min has performed around the world, has recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for her debut album, is armed with a master's degree from Yale, and had spent four years at Michigan during the early nineties in the pre-college division of the music school. I wondered why in heaven's name would this gifted musician be in Michigan as a student again. It turns out that she needs to have a completed bachelor's degree to qualify her master's degree, which she received at the tender age of sixteen. So she decided to return to Michigan where she will spend two years playing violin - but will still be able to travel and hold performances - in order to receive her bachelor's degree. She is a junior this year, probably the only junior who already has a master's under her belt and many more accolades.
View these and more on her website here.
Did I learn anything particular about Min? It's rude to stare and scrutinize (and worse to write it down for all to read; ahem, not that I stared much in the first place), but I did notice that the attractive and articulate violinist is left-handed (though she plays the violin as a right-hander would), like many bright, talented people I know. Peiming is one, and she's an excellent pianist. And there's Lin Kiat too, the left-hander I know well and love.
Lin Kiat and I have been married for a little over a month now. The time drawing up to the wedding was such a crazy swirl of events and errands to run. Then the wedding was a burst of color and voices and laughter. After that, we left for Ann Arbor and spent four and a half weeks worrying about nothing except whether we had milk in the fridge and how soon the phone line would be up.
I saw Lin Kiat off at the Detroit airport this afternoon. It was farewell for now, till late December when we will meet again for Christmas (and to see Return of the King). I knew this day would arrive, but never expected it to come so soon. We'd written each other letters - I wrote mine when he was out running an errand, he wrote his when I was in the bedroom studying for my Italian exam (and playing Tomb Raider on my Gameboy Advance). His letter comforted me when I returned to the apartment, a silent and terrible space that reminded me of the weeks we enjoyed together, weeks that I won't experience until perhaps next spring when Lin Kiat will visit again.
'Arrivederci' means 'we will meet again' in Italian, it's a phrase people use when they part. It doesn't hold the wistful meaning of goodbye but a hopeful note of crossing paths in the future. I suppose I shouldn't mope these next few weeks, and I suppose that I will be busy with school soon - writing, reading and grading papers - and that will be enough to keep me from dwelling on sad thoughts. But for now, the apartment is half empty, I'm still sleeping on one side of the bed and I've taken to talking to my Serta sheep toy, a little guy that Lin Kiat and I adopted.
Yesterday, I attended the orientation session for new English graduate students. 8.30 in the morning is a little early for my good mood to emerge so I kept very still and quiet and drank orange juice as I waited for the presentations to begin. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to look at a Japanese girl who introduced herself as Kumiko, an English and Women's Studies student. I was pleased to meet another international student in the department, someone else crazy enough to travel half way round the world to get some learning and writing done.
There are 9 of us in the MFA prose program this fall (9 in poetry), a 25% drop from previous years due to cuts in funding. The director, Peter Ho Davies, was spot-on when he brought up two questions that new students always ask themselves: "Am I good enough to be here?" and "Am I the best one here?". (The first question is more of my thing, certainly not the second. I've never been the best at anything really.) He then provided some much-needed encouragement when he said that being here was proof that we have talent or latent talent, we are 18 out of some 500 applicants. We are here to learn and our learning doesn't stop at the end of two years. The two years give us time to read, write and get better at what we do. We're surrounded by others just as eager to learn and they will be a wealth of support, a mini writing community, if you will.
Ann Arbor itself has a rich intellectual community (the town has the second-highest concentration of folks with doctorates in the US, the highest being Cambridge, Massachusetts), and we've been encouraged to get involved or take advantage of the arts scene, the lectures and forums, talks and readings, music performances and vibrant plays.
By the end of the three hours, I was a little more inspired and keen to get caught up in the rush of living, learning and writing. And for a native of a tropical country, the four seasons will be nothing short of everyday wonders as the skies, light, leaves and air change. There will be bleak days, certainly, but they will give meaning to the good days when they roll by.
It seems an age ago when Lin Kiat and I were in NYC. I'm looking at some of the photos we took and I wish time were always on our side so that we could return to the days we loved best.
The blackout hours weren't the most fun, but they were a lasting experience. Lin Kiat and I were watching The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, waiting for Alan Quartermain to meet the rest of the League. Before he could face his summoner, the screen went black, as did the theater. Folks around us groaned in frustration and I heard popcorn whizzing past me. A minute later, the emergency lights came on and Lin Kiat and some guys went out to ask when the show would continue. He returned none the wiser. Five minutes passed and an AMC employee entered to apologize for the blackout in the entire building and to announce that the show would be back on in ten minutes.
We waited for fifteen and then walked out. I had a feeling we weren't going to get our show back and I was right. All the other patrons were streaming out of the building into a crowded street (more crowded than usual). The lights on the billboards and the traffic lights were out and we heard people exclaiming that it was an island-wide power shortage. Cell phones didn't work, traffic was at a standstill and some people took to walking in between vehicles to avoid the jammed sidewalks. Wherever streets were empty of vehicles, pedastrians filled them, like water rushing to fill nooks and crannies.
Lin Kiat and I walked for what seemed like an eternity (it always feels that way when one has a full bladder) in the hot NYC air towards the Singapore Consulate where we hoped to find Lin Kiat's sister, Christine. We were shoulder to shoulder with other disgruntled New Yorkers and tourists. A girl beside me exclaimed to her friend that it was so hot she wanted to strip. I was past caring and just wanted to find the Consulate toilet.
At the Consulate, we were welcomed by the Singaporeans working there. I went to the toilet with a flashlight while Lin Kiat received congratulations from Chrsitine's colleagues, all of whom had heard about the wedding. (Heh, it was so nice to be fussed over.) We waited in the dark lobby for Christine to return (she'd walked to her apartment to leave us a note in case we had gone there first) and were very glad to see her when she arrived. She and her colleagues had to prepare the Consulate for an early closure so Lin Kiat and I stuffed ourselves (okay, I did the stuffing) with leftover cheesecake rescued from the fridge and watched the people on the streets as they sought their way home. Across the street, a darkened bar was filled with the laughter of people relaxing and drinking up the last of the cold beer and wine. Why rush home when there was alcohol that needed consumption?
Armed with a portable gas stove and a bottle of water, Lin Kiat, Christine and I finally made our way back to her apartment where one elevator was still working, thanks to the building's own generator. We were on the eighth floor and had little to fear (that's what I say now, of course). That night we lit candles, took brief, cold showers (thank goodness there was still running water on our floor), cleared out Christine's fridge and had a mini steam boat with some red wine. It was just as well that Lin Kiat and I were in NYC with Christine. Our own apartment in Ann Arbor was far less equipped for a blackout - we hadn't any candles or a gas stove or food, for that matter.
Outside, the world was dark, save for the headlights of slow-moving vehicles and a few windows glowing with candlelight. I fell asleep quickly, exhausted from the heat and all the walking.
By the time power returned to the city a day later, Lin Kiat and I were ready to get out and do more walking. We went to Sunday mass at St. Paul's, paid a visit to the Strand bookstore and wandered through Soho.
We spent the last day in New York at a museum and walked through Central Park, chancing upon a saxophone player underneath a pretty bridge.
We were a little lost when we heard the sonorous notes of the saxophone, one of the last lovely moments we had before we made our ten-hour drive back to Ann Arbor.
I feel really lucky to get on-line to make this post. New York city has had a major blackout. Actually it's a cascading blackout that has affected southern Canada (Toronto, Windsor etc.), and parts of eight states in the US, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, and Michigan.
It's 3.35 on a Friday afternoon and an hour after power came back to Christine's (my sister-in-law's) apartment. Lin Kiat and I are staying away from the heat outside (nearly 90 degrees, and very humid) while Christine is handling matters at the Singapore Consulate.
I've plenty to write about, but not every part of the city or even the other states have got their power back on, and we've been advised not to use power unnecessarily until everything is back on track, so I won't write my full story till a bit later.
So just this quick note to friends and family that all is well and stable (as far as posssible) in New York city!
Well, they're not so new anymore (seeing as how slow I update news in my own weblog), but the weblogs by my friends, May and Joan, make interesting reads as they detail their lives in a small town in Germany (that'll soon change when May moves back to Edinburgh) and in Sydney, Australia. May is a budding scientist (and cello player) with a great love of life, art, and the small pleasures that each day affords, and Joan, my one time partner in rock-climbing, chronicles her adventures in Sydney where she enjoys the sights, the food, and watching toddlers play football! (She also attends graduate school.)
See Joan here!
See May here!
One of the most important things on my must-buy-list is a bed. We picked a Serta mattress (one of the best - if not the best - brands in the US). Serta's commercials are well-known in the States. In 2000, advertising agency W.B. Doner & Co. approached Aardman Animations, the Bristol-based company famous for Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run to create a series of commercials that combine animation and live action.
Detroit, Michigan-based W.B. Doner & Co., with Aardman Animations's help, created the Counting Sheep, who are put out of work because of Serta mattresses that promise a good night's sleep. Easy-to-like characters include the leader, #1, who leads his flock to seek out new work, and a couple of sheep who get put in jail when their rage at being made jobless gets the better of them.
Last year, Serta won the Gold EFFIE Award for their Counting Sheep Commercials (Category: Household Furnish and Appliance Award). Take a look at the commercials at the official Serta site. Go here.
If you want to get into the technical know-how, go here for some behind-the-scenes info.
No, I haven't switched this weblog off! It's terribly hard to sit down and write a decent post when there's no internet connection at home and I'm reluctant to pen my thoughts on a public computer in school.
At any rate, my phone line is finally up, I'm on AOL and awaiting faster connection (read: DSL) to begin some time next week.
Lin Kiat and I touched down in Detroit last last Tuesday. Chris and Amy (just three days after returning from Singapore themselves) met us at the new airport terminal with two goodie bags and one of their cars. They loaned us a Ford Focus so we could find our way back to Ann Arbor.
That we did. It was surreal to enter the town - in some ways, it was as if we'd never left, the past three years were just a pause, a comma. There were many things that remained unchanged (like our little favorite Korean restaurant on South U.) and a few that are different. Angell Hall and Mason Hall (where the English department and where most of the humanities classes take place) have been renovated, half of the bridge that I drove over each day during my undergrad years is being worked on (it's temporarily a one-way bridge now) and the front door to the building where I last stayed has been replaced (finally!).
It's been tiring, running around trying to set up home. I've got a phone line, I've got a desk and an HP computer, I've got toiletries (more importantly, I've got toilet paper! It was the first thing I purchased at Meijer, the wonderful 24-hr place that sells everything!), I've got a great bed (more on the bed later!) and I've got a car!
Beautiful car, my new love of my life (or second love, rather). Lin Kiat and I found it in Cleveland, Ohio, some three hours southeast of Ann Arbor. So it was the same routine that we followed when we got my first car, the SOLMATE, a Honda Del Sol, back in 1999. First, we drove down to Cleveland to see the car. A couple of days later, Lin Kiat and I took the Greyhound (a six-hour bus ride that took us to Lincoln Park, Detroit, Lincoln Park (again!), Wayne, Toledo and finally Cleveland) to pick the car up at the dealer's. We put some money down, did the paperwork, and then drove back to Ann Arbor (or rather, Lin Kiat did the driving).
The car is a 2001 VW Golf GLS 1.8 Turbo. It's white and has full options. This means that it has a moon roof, air-conditioning, CD changer, seat warmers...the works. Since I used to drive a Golf in Singapore, I am immediately at home in this new baby. Except that it's a left-hand-drive car. The shift knob is on my right, but my left hand tends to grope for a phantom shift knob where the driver's door actually is. I'll grow out of it.
Ann Arbor is lovely in mid-summer. The highest day temperature is only 28 degrees celsius and it's very cool at night. The sky is a lovely shade of blue and every cloud is a poem. The geese fly overhead in their trademark V-formations and litter the parks with their feces, but that's okay since I always watch where I step!