The little red dot represesents Singapore. The slash across refers to the efficient censor’s signature. The streak of red on the right hand side tells us what we all know: at the back it’s all red tape. - alfian, on the meaning of sba’s logo.

life is stabilising for me pretty well right now. between ta-ing a graduate class that really isn’t much work at all, getting the old research engine crankin’ again and taking yet more über-geeky classes, i’ve been able to squeeze in a few (free) shows at the kranner center. shows watched:

  1. the st. petersburg ballet theater troupe, doing an interestingly contemporary interpretation of romeo and juliet. the props were just incredibly beautiful, and really highlighted the emotional troughs and crests of the classic play. faux stained glass, the dead/sleeping juliet being lifted up on a wooden platform out of the scene, and the appearance of an ethnicized temptress/witch… it was magical to watch. which was to say that i snoozed through act i, but was pretty much transfixed on the stage after that.
  2. antares, a quartet from connecticut with a very interesting repertoire. i particularly liked olivier messiaen’s quartet for the end of time, especially the juxtaposition of extremely high and extremely low notes. (the bloomingdale school of music has a pretty nice rendition available for download) slightly disconcerting, but very moving.
  3. festival 2005, the annual concert put up by the department of dance. there’s just something about pretty faces and lithe, fit youths in tights that never fails to cheer. i wouldn’t put it pass the hormones to be responsible for that.
  4. rosario andino, an incredibly underrated pianist whose fingers can make a grand piano laugh and cry. the cuban dances by saumell, cervantes and lecuona were just brilliant.
  5. the chicago symphony orchestra, playing bartók’s two pictures (a personal favorite), and prokofiev’s symphony no. 5 in b-flat major, among other things. oestensibly to celebrate the indomitability of the human spirit, it said much about the performance that most of the ushers were glad it was finally over. i felt that each movement in itself would have made a good piece of music, but all of it together was more 48 minutes of patient waiting than the triumphant overtures that prokofiev may have intended. maazel refused to do an encore for the sold-out audience, despite receiving five curtain calls. it was a snub that some audience-goers took personally, although i later discovered that the union contract for the cso players demanded an extra thousand dollars per minute of overtime or something like that. gee, that kinds of puts everything in perspective doesn’t it?

a faint glimmer of hope at a quick buck was quashed when a wisconsin quarter that i had picked up turned out to be normal after all. no freak coins for me. and passing up the free garfield park conservatory chocolate festival in downtown chicago was really killing me. (that and time-dependent incoherent perturbations in quantum mechanics. **cringes**)

cny was pretty much a non-event for me, what with classes and all. todd krauss gave an excellent lecture on the big day itself on the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, which along with mildred dresselhaus’s talk last semester, was one of the very few nanotube talks that wasn’t just pure waffle over the lovely things to come from the miraculous allotrope. (atrocious talks back in singapore, and karl hess’s ece talk come to mind.)

my only real concession to the festivities was a quick call to mummy dearest, assuring her that i hadn’t forgotten; the only celebrations that i partook in was bobo china’s tuesday dinner special; the only thing about which was special was the crowd and the unusually high price of $10.87 for the buffet, usually $7.62. that and the fact that loads of singaporeans showed up. what was more interesting for me was eyeballing the hordes of sloshed undergraduates wearing bead necklaces and speedos under their jackets and trenchcoats (it was still freezing): what were the chances of mardi gras coinciding with chinese new year to begin with? the ssa had a formal celebration on saturday evening but i didn’t feel like shelling out another $12 for less-than-gourmet pseudo-singaporean food. spinglasser apparently felt that i didn’t miss much. after the near-miss from the chicago expedition, i really had my qualms about the organizational skills of the ssa committee. and it seems like the committee itself is having trouble maintaining its coherence, almost. hm.

so instead of shelling out $12, i poured $2.22 worth of bean soup1 down the garbage disposal when adding almond milk to the mix of beans, barley, lentils and peas sold at meijer did not result in the expected lovely-smelling stew. instead, the almond quickly developed a skin over the simmering mélange and produced an inedible cloying green slime instead of a soup. note to self: add almond milk powder sparingly, if at all, next time. thankfully a wildly successful culinary experiment paid off handsomely: panfried chicken breast strips, marinated with non-fat yoghurt and then rolled in breadcrumbs. the resulting chicken had the expected delectable crisp breadcrumb exterior while maintaining a juicy interior. the juice wasn’t oil; i tested. so it seemed like frying with spiced breadcrumbs at moderately high temperature is the way to go. except that when i tried it on ground beef, the lack of internal rigidity made for an unpalatable mess in the skillet, with the yoghurt slopping off the ground beef and creating puddles of oily curdled breadcrumbs around poorly cooked meat. not at all appetizing.

my fellow first-year student is starting to get on my nerves. he seems to be pulling a lkm on me, imitating just about eveything that i do. he also pretty much told me he was envious of my superior background in theoretical chemistry, but apart from whining about it doesn’t seem to be doing much else about it. he’s also been complaining about his heavy workload, which consists of taking two classes and a senior undergraduate ta assignment, to just about anyone else who would listen to him. sorry dude, it’s not working: i simply don’t have the emotional energy to spend on feeling sorry for you, because i don’t see how you should be sorry about anything.

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Footnotes
  1. what is it now? a lame joke!↩