monoceros blogsI succumbed. I bought some shoes. I skipped the reliable black and went for rose-colored footwear with kitten heels. Very decadent. The blue ones seemd nice too, but I wanted the pink ones.
I haven't had pink in my wardrobe for a long, long time. The story goes like this - when I was in kindergarten, there was a boy who went round collecting girlfriends, rather like the way you collect pencils. I was a rather curious kid, and wondered what all this girlfriend business was all about. I learned that he selected girls with nice shoes or nice bags or something along those lines. The girls had in their possession something that stood out against the plain white and blue uniforms. So I carried out a little experiment: I wore to school these pink shoes that my mom had bought me. Rather sweet-looking ones with bows on them. The experiment went too well. I became the new girl of the day, and I promptly freaked out. I went home crying to my brother who had his first real opportunity to play the protective older brother, a role which he has played for a great number of years. I never wore the shoes to school again, and have had an aversion to pink ever since then. Time has cured me of it, thankfully. The new shoes should arrive in a couple of days.
I've taken to doing my reading and studying in the school libraries and even in Media Union (abode of the engineers) on north campus. This past week, I spent several hours each time at the Grad Library and the UGLI (Undergraduate Library). Rather productive, I must say, since there aren't any comfy futons or computers (read: Internet) to distract me. The last time I made like a good student in the library was when Lin Kiat and I were still hmm...keeping each other company, I suppose. We weren't dating, we were just hanging out as neighbors who got on well. That was in 1998, I believe.
Anyhoo, the libraries are especially empty and peaceful this week. The storm of university students hasn't arrived on campus. They're all in the midst of moving in and settling other businesses. Classes haven't started, after all. It's only procrastinating graduate students like myself who are buckling down to work two weeks before term begins.
I drove by the dorms on central campus and it was very nice to watch the people settling in. Moving vans, parents' cars, international students checking out each others' new cars. The excitement does rub off on you. Going past my old dorm, Stockwell Hall, an all-girls dorm, I fondly recalled the day I first moved into my wee little room. That was seven years ago! Next door to me was a nursing student who played the clarinet, and to my left roomed a music student, a cellist. Next to the cellist was a Vietnamese-American girl who got assaulted in her room one night. I remember being asleep and waking up to her screaming and then some sounds of a struggle. It was some fellow spending the night who got a little too far, I believe. Hmm, I meant to reminsce on happier moments. I did make friends with a girl who first introduced me to the movie, Strictly Ballroom. She'd borrowed the video from the hall library and watched it and promptly told me that Paul Mercurio was hot stuff. It took me six years to watch it (I seem to take a long time to act on people's recommendations - three years before I watched My Sassy Girl!) and well, I did like the movie very much after picking it up at Blockbuster last fall. Definitely one for my home library.
Sadly, I've lost touch with the friends I made in my hall. One girl who lived down the corridor, a Singaporean girl, tragically passed away a year and a half ago. Another friend, Jenny, a Shanghainese-American girl, used to converse with me in Mandarin and invited me to visit with her family in New York City where they own a Chinese restaurant. I never went. I've even lost contact with another friend, Renee, whose home in Ohio I did visit one spring. That was where I got to hold a real gun for the first time - a Magnum. Her father showed me the gun closet - literally filled with guns. Her grandmother asked me what I thought of Clinton. They were Republicans, of course. Renee's dad wanted to take me to a target practice session, but there was no time as her twin brothers (whopping giants who stood at 6'5") were graduating that weekend. Alas, I never returned to enjoy the promised target practice - shooting cans on a fence. This year at the writers' conference in Chicago, I did miraculously bump into another friend Lara, who was friends with me and Renee. She's doing an MFA in creative non-fiction in Ohio. We didn't get to talk long but we did exchange emails (I should write her soon). Lara is Lebanese-American, and both she and Renee, had been a little anti-Semitic, as they'd once confessed to me. That had been two years before 9/11.
Every year, new students arrive and forge friendships. Some are steadfast, others dissolve. The dynamic social system in universities never ceases to amaze me. Some people stay in touch with professors for long years, others can't wait to be done with course evaluations. Speaking of courses, I hunted for my classroom a few days ago. It's situated in Mason Hall. Rather small, which I like (I don't have to raise my voice), with a blackboard that's clean and all ready to be desecrated by my horrific handwriting. Life is going to be pretty exciting over the next few weeks. The cycle begins again. Welcome back, students (and instructors)!
I heard about an old interest recently. I say "interest" and not "flame" because nothing ever transpired from our feelings. It's strange to think about it really, the people who meant a great deal to you a long time ago.
What do you say to someone like that after all these years? How do you greet each other when your friends are still friends, but you're not?
I suppose one of the saddest things is a lost friendship after the lack of courage to be honest and even apologize for the way things ended.
Not that we'd ever meet again, but every once in a while, I brush up against someone who's heard something, a slice of information, a mention of a name, a city, and I remember so much.
Some people can face such situations without ever letting the past well up. I admire that strength in them. I'm not built that way. Even when I'm over a person, should we should meet, history would haunt me. Not that I'd change anything, I just regret having a friend fall away. That part of me is tragically unchanged even though I'm well into my 20s and have become far less idealistic - it's the part that's embarrasingly sentimental.
Our past makes us the individuals we are today, just as history shapes nations and their peoples. If we didn't have the experiences that we do, how different would we be? I think I wouldn't have realized what I was looking for and what I needed in a partner for life. I hope he's as lucky as I am and finally found someone for keeps.
My parents went to Comex yesterday, I wonder if they purchased anything. Did I ever mention my father is a gadget geek? He drags my mom to computer fairs, which is actually quite sweet. They watch tennis tournaments on TV, they go for walks, or rather, my mom has to pull him out of the house.
Anyway, I meant to write about Collateral, the movie which stars Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise, and is directed by Michael Mann, who did Heat, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Insider. The film has had mainly good reviews with several not-so-good ones. People either like it or come away disappointed.
I was thoroughly impressed by Cruise's bad guy character. I loved watching him make his kills, particularly at the night club. It's Tom Cruise after all, and you root for him to get his job done. But you also root for Jamie Foxx's Max. What drives the film is the intense and unusual relationship both men share for that one night. The bond is aptly suggested by the two coyotes that the cab encounters halfway through the film. Max, although he may not see it, isn't too far off from Vincent's anti-social, prowling character. As a cab driver, he moves around the city, seeing everything but engaging nothing. Vincent travels to fulfil contracts, but he does it unfeelingly, indifferently. They're both good at their jobs. Like the coyotes, they traverse the land, existing on the fringes of society, one following the other for convenience or for necessity. It's Vincent who spurs Max out of complacency, out of his bubble, galvanizing him into action, into calling the girl and seeking her out. By the end of the evening, you sense that each has taken from the other, although I'm hard pressed to determine what Vincent comes away with.
Vincent consistently deflects Max's questions and remains unfathomable. Yet you sense a magnetic quality about him. Despite his cold, exacting executions, he's impressively knowledgable, eloquent, even charming. This is definitely one of Cruise's better roles. I think I actually liked the salt-and-pepper shaded hair, even the strangely cut grey suit. I'll remember him for this role. This and, oh, okay, Jerry Maguire. He certainly had me at "Hello."
Speaking of Tom Cruise, my favorite lookalike (then again, the only lookalike I know of), Barney, and ex-boss joined me for a morning/night (my morning, their night) online conversation. Much later, I also got to chat with old friends Karen and Benny who happened to be online at the same time, although they now work in different offices.
I nearly got eaten alive by mosquitoes yesterday. Once the sun sets, these bloodsuckers pour out of whever they hide in the day in droves. Elizabeth asked me to dinner and we had pizza, orange juice, and good conversation on the front steps of her home.
It was probably the last visit to her Northwood Housing abode. Now that her novel has been sold, her husband, Georgi (happy driver of my Rabbit this summer - after driving nothing but an MPV for years, switching to a little Golf was like leaping onto a motorcycle for him, he declared) will get his turn at graduate school. He'll apply for a Masters/PhD program in computer science here at U of M, which means they'll be here for another three years. Over the summer, they bought a house and will move at the end of August. I'm sad they won't be my north campus neighbors any more, but I'm happy they're going to be homeowners and that they'll have a pretty house with honeysuckle growing over the walls, even a garage too! They showed me pictures and I can't wait to visit once they're settled in.
The kids - Tony, Yanka, and Kiril - were wild and crazy and sweet as usual. I continue to be amazed by Elizabeth's gentle but firm discipline of the children. She's been watching over a neighbor's son too so that's four little people she has to care for. And four kids will have their ups and downs. By sundown, the children were tense and often cross with each other. Elizabeth never once raised her voice. She spoke to them like adults and never had to physically pull them apart. They heeded her words and eventually continued their play despite their differences. When Kiril wanted something, his mother would direct him to the object or direct him to ask one of the others to help him get it, and he did so with no whining. What an independent little chap! He had an operation this summer at Motts Children's Hospital and Elizabeth told me how brave he was. A few days before the op, the doctors gave him a video to watch - a little puppet was due for surgery and helped instruct children on how it wasn't anything to be afraid of. Elizabeth also said the doctors had asked her if she wanted to put on scrubs, carry little Kiril into the operating room, lay him down, and hold his hand while they put him under general anesthesia. When they entered, all the staff involved in the operation greeted Kiril cheerfully and really put him at ease. He was sent home three hours after the operation and playing in the yard that very afternoon! What a guy.
I gave them some little presents I'd bought over the summer and they whooped like it was a surprise Christmas. Kiril said of his new little red truck - "This is my favorite truck now!" - and Yanka fanned herself with her Hello Kitty fan like a true empress. Later, Georgi, Elizabeth, and I allowed ourselves to be subject to the creativity of young hairdressers. I had marigolds and geraniums planted in my hair while Georgi was given a mohawk. I survived, thank goodness.
The bug bites, I didn't quite survive. Still scratching furiously.
Movie: My Sassy Girl
~ It took me two or three years to get round to seeing this. Thanks to Boon for loaning me the vcd. When my old colleague Benny told me it was a great movie, I was "Eh, okay," and promptly forgot about watching it. At that time, the only Korean film I had seen was Il Mare. It was a sweet film, and the soundtrack was even sweeter. Jeon Ji-hyun stars in both and what varied roles they are. She has decent acting chops, I must say. I do think My Sassy Girl is the more entertaining of the two. Hilarious, sweet, heart-breaking, cute-looking leads, pretty songs, and the movie's based on a series of entries on a Korean weblog! People should really see this movie. The interaction between the two characters is remarkable and convincing, the nice little twist or revelation at the end makes you smile, and there're so many moments that you want to call your favorite. Too, there're strange asides in the film - appearances of quintuplets and a UFO.
Trailer: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
~ It's a Wes Anderson movie (read: quirky)! Set in the ocean! One of the Wilson boys is in it too (as expected)! I'll miss Kumar Pallana though, the guy who plays Pagoda in The Royal Tenenbaums. He's been in all the earlier Anderson movies. Nevertheless, go see the funny trailer for this movie here. You just gotta love Bill Murray. And that Owen Wilson chap ain't bad too. Then there's Jeff Goldbum, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett, Angelica Huston...what a cast!
I spent most of Sunday vacuuming the apartment and anti-bacterializing my window sills and kitchen. Today, I'll attack the bathroom. On a side note, the Dirt Devil is really heavy!
Apart from cleaning and some intermittent reading for school, I've been doing shopping at Kroger, the grocery store five minutes away. I picked up a pack of 10 thank-you cards for SGD $6.00. Very reasonable, and with Piglet on the front to boot. Here's a sample.
Things to look forward to:
1. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis 2. You can read a review here.
Her books are for all lovers of Maus. To be released August 31st.
2. I think I might actually catch the movie, Team America: World Police. It's not CGI, it's not live-action, it's a marionette film! The makers of South Park decided to do a satirical movie about terrorism and world politics. If you're tired of Michael Moore, Bush, Kerry, and actors who keep flinging their political opinions on the public, you'll like this. Go here to read more about the movie. It opens in October. Caution: Film contains graphic puppet sex.
3. Jane Monheit's new album, Taking A Chance On Love. She's looking mighty fine on the cover, let's hope she sounds even finer on the album. Release date: September 7th.
...unfortunately I didn't take advantage of it. I left the house a little late in the afternoon and had to do a mall-run for facial cleanser. I should have left this for another day and taken a walk at Gallup Park instead. Oh well, I hope there'll be other days.
Boon came over earlier and gave my computer a mini make-over. I'm now on Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer and I'm really pleased about this - no more annoying pop-up ads, neat little tabs that let me access as many websites as I want (without having to open up a gazillion windows like before), and a bookmark toolbar containing my daily reads. I also had a firewall installed and a lesson on organizing my music on itunes. Now I can go home and show LK a thing or two. Mozilla Firefox really is better than IE. For the first time, I'll be installing something on LK's computer and showing him how to use it!
I had dinner with Peiming and then brazenly asked her if I could borrow her vaccum cleaner (my little dustbuster won't do much for my upcoming summer cleaning of the apartment). So we returned to my place with the Dirt Devil and the ballet, Romeo and Juliet, on DVD - required viewing for Peiming's upcoming exams in September.
I had laid out my reading for tonight, but I didn't get to it for some reason. And after chatting on the phone to her boyfriend Max, Peiming watched about five minutes of the ballet before falling asleep on the couch, headphones still on her head.
It's a cold night tonight, cold for this time of the year. 5 degrees celsius.
Discoveries:
1. I get over jet lag pretty easily.
2. I switch to driving on the other side of the road easily too.
3. There is an extended version of The Bourne Identity on DVD.
4. Natalie Portman is doing a commentary for the 10th anniversary DVD of Leon, otherwise known as The Professional. In the full version of the movie, her character actually asks Jean Reno's character to sleep with her. No wonder she turned down the role of Lolita in the re-make with Jeremy Irons, she'd already pulled off that role in her debut movie.
5. Liz Claiborne earrings are cheaper in the US than in Singapore, and are even cheaper when Marshall Fields gives a sale.
6. Hush Puppies and Aerosoles have nice shoes in their fall collections.
Okay, I finally cleared all my mails! Just a couple more things to check - renewal of handphone, or cell phone (since I'm in America, I might as well use some of the terms), and internet connection.
I've even got together my list of books or examination copies that I want to order from Harcourt Brace. Being an instructor in a university has its perks - I get to order cool, free books! Well, most of them are books on writing, college composition, poetry, fiction and the occasional grammar guide; but these are the kinds I adore. Harcourt Brace also publishes the fun reads, like The Time Traveler's Wife, and I'd love to order that, but since I listed the classes I'm teaching as College Composition and Creative Writing, I suppose someone at the publishing company might figure that such a title isn't the most relevant to my classes.
On a more interesting note, I found out that Michael Phelps will be starting college this fall at University of Michigan! His coach will be taking over the school's swim program. It's too bad my writing class is already full - wouldn't it be remarkable if he were one of my students! If he decides to take freshman composition this semester, and if he decides to take my class and put himself on the waitlist, I'd seriously consider granting him a spot! Heh.
I made it back safely. No fever on board the plane, no funny food to make my stomach protest. I didn't sleep as much as I wanted to, but that's okay. I did a bit of reading (the work kind) and watched Jersey Girl. That little kid sure looks like she could be the offspring of Ben Affleck and J. Lo.
The journey started off on a good note. I got to the airport early, got bumped up to the Business Class queue (not a seat upgrade, just a queue upgrade), got passes to the NW lounge in Tokyo (which I unfortunately could not enjoy because I had no time). The one thing I dreaded did not come to pass - having my check-in luggage opened and unpacked to the very last article. That happened in January this year. My carefully-arranged items were removed and put back in a most haphazard manner. The officer even forgot to re-pack my large cooking pan. LK was telling my mom, "Look at how black her face is!" This time, I was returning with two suitcases, so I expected twice the nightmare. Thankfully, I was allowed to bypass this. I'm not sure why though. So I had an early early (4 a.m) breakfast with my parents while looking on as other mortified passengers had their suitcases opened and checked. I understand that all this is in the name of security, but my don't-mess-with-my-things-after-I've-arranged-them-right complex kicks in whenever strangers handle my stuff.
At Detriot, I walked as briskly as I could and made it to a rather empty immigration area. I got through in five minutes! That's a record. Even the officer was friendly and asked me where I dormed as an undergrad. He was a student at U of M in the 70s.
Boon picked me up and we had a nice drive back to AA. It was rather exciting to see the familiar sights after three months. But I wish I could have brought LK with me.
Picked up my apartment keys and house keys from friends. A bit of chatting, of course. I've learned not to tell children you have presents for them unless you can give them out right away. Elizabeth's kids wouldn't let me leave after I told them I brought them a few things from home. Finally, they let me go after it was clear I couldn't open my huge bags right there and then.
When I got home, I unpacked both bags right away. Hung up my clothes, ran the water, changed my bedsheets, stacked up my books for organizing later, turned on the computer, and felt devastatingly alone. Alone again, naturally...out, out, that damn song. It's always been hard leaving home for school, especially now. Leaving behind family and friends after enjoying time with them for a good three months. When I said goodbye to Hammie in the morning, he was on his hind legs, gazing up at me and twitching his nose, probably expecting a morsel of fruit. I had none and I didn't have time to give him a last stroke on his thin little back. I'll always remember that enquiring look on his dear face though.
Oh, and life in Ann Arbor wouldn't be complete without car problems. The Rabbit's signal lights are faulty. Sounds like a trip to the VW dealer soon.
I used to think that Hammie might be a runaway, but I'm now suspecting that he may have been abandoned by a neighbor. After noticing the worrying rate at which Hammie was losing his fur, my parents took him to a vet. He's got a skin infection and is actually rather old. We now put some cream on him twice a day and feed him a pink liquid which he adores. He's looking rather scrawny and ugly, but we love him to bits. My parents treat him like a baby, making sure he has his medicine and always taking him out to play or run around in our breakfast terrace. They even crack sunflower seeds for him since he seems too weak to crack them on his own. My brother looks in on him even when he gets home late from work.
I'm not sure how long he can last, and it saddens me that I might not be able to see him again the next time I come home, which will May 2005 (December 2004 if I'm lucky). My father has already said we'll bury him in our garden since we're rather sentimental about the fact that fate brought him to our family. I'm still amazed how my brother found and rescued him.
Here we are in August, and I'm too lazy to write a proper entry, so here's a list of new news:
1. LK and I got back from Hong Kong where we had fun riding the Peak Tram, shopping, eating, and attempting to speak Cantonese.
2. My brother found and saved a dwarf hamster. While we were away in Hong Kong, my brother took half a day off to rollerblade with friends. He was looking for something in his car, which was parked outside our home, when he saw a little flash of fur dart out from under the car. It circled his feet and probably sent telepathic messages to him: save me! take me home! don't let me be eaten by stray cats! So we've adopted the lost or runaway hamster and called him Hammie, after the little fellow in the comic strip Baby Blues.
3. I've got a new pair of glasses. Rectangular in shape - they make me look even more geeky. Perfect for teaching.
4. I recently watched Whisper Of The Heart, an anime film from Studio Ghibli. Very magical and pretty. It reminds me quite a bit of Kiki's Delivery Service.
5. Great friend D, also from our 100-Acre Wood circle, finally has her own blog up! Go visit her here.
6. LK and I have found our future home. Renovations required. Will be moving in next summer after I graduate!