Wang's Kitchen

this is uncle wang's part two of the drunken tirade. 1122pm august 31st.
bach rocks. i am listening to pablo casal's cello suites as i type this. the programme jacket describes him as hot blooded.
i can see why.
the vibrato is gorgeous. the sound is mellow and rich, despite the ravages of the 1920osomething recording.. yo yo ma can go f**k off. that hollow sounding twat.
technique is nothing without emotion.
and casals is as emotive as one get.
and he has balls to play bach like he plays bach.


bach rules dawgZ!

i am rehensibly drunk as i type this. three pitchers: leinenkugel's honeyweiss, spaten optimator and strongbow by the terrace, by the lake. and we even gave free beer to a passing queer who were regaling us with tales of drunken co-eds skinny dipping by the lakeside. boy would i give to see the above mentioned people now...
my head is swimmimnmg; my thighs feel week, my eyes are rolling around like a gyroscope in 6 gs. this is as high as i can get. and all before school starts.

i wish school would start earlier so i can forget all my sorrows and just concentrate on mugging. after alll i'm a canine: give me a goal and i will work like a dog for you.
but anyway its off to bed at 11 pm

i love my school and my union ! the beer's dilute but i'm nevertheless wrecked. my hands are fluid as hell. i feel like rostropovich on his cello: one with the keyboard. beer is as good as rostropovich in erasing my sorrows.
.....

my sorrows are my sorrows are Spaten Optimator.

Bitter. Sweet. and downright complex.

amen for life.

*conk bed*

life is slowly going back to the mundane triumvate of lab-school-mugging at home-repeat ad infinitum. i don't mind really, except new distractions are abound. and no, none of them involve people of the opposite sex, unless well, i revert to flights of fancies (and thats euphemistically speaking for something else. hur hur hur ) . hurhur.

cooking is one of them, surprisingly, for an anti SNAG bastard like me. its always a surprise to discover that indiscriminate use of herbs and spices, inexplicable combinations of ingredients (curry leaf + lemon grass in pasta, howzzat?) 1:10 dilution of stew to make soups (that can last a few days) and a little magic from chinese cooking wine and nuoc miam can make dead hunks of animal muscle taste edible and sometimes even delicious (thats always a fluke though. depends). sure its not chinky cooking per se, but hey, my stomach is filled every night and i ain't complaining about that insult to the dead animals Bob (and his cafeteria helpers) commit nightly that passes off as dinner. if something screws up its my fault. the downside though is that i can no longer make excuses to rush off at 6 pm from lab because the cafeteria is closing. now i can make excuses to rush off at 5 pm because mac daddy here needs to cook or there will be no food on the tonight, bitch-supervisor! hur hur hur!

speaking of lab, my plans for a senior honors thesis is in a mess because my PI is too busy and my supervisor is too busy and he "hasn't talked to her yet". if he doesnt get a move on, something bad might happen. right now everything is in the air because i don't really know whether my data is usable or not. the supervisor is sending mixed messages and making non commital noises. if my project really gets shelved, i think i need a drink, because that would be an entire 1.5 year's work down the drain. and i'm not kidding. i did all the work. but life's unfair, so..
anyway
my room is bigger now, so there's more space to engage in ahem, activities with privacy. no no no, not that (well, not all the time) . i've got a new hi fi now and am enjoying annoying my housemates with classical shit. it aint gonna pull girls though, because i aint got no car, but it makes my life a leetle bit easier, because sometimes my ety's get in the way of my reading. also, in lieu of the barren monasteric life, i've restarted making tank models because sniffing the fumes calms me down. a little chemical distraction doesnt hurt u know, if i hallucinate something good.
oh, and the liquor store is now opposite my place, as opposed to a 20 minute walk lugging six packs home.. hur hur hur hur. and i already know the owner's name. hur hur hur hur!

i am sure i will get fat and slightly more happy this sem. i am content, for now. all i need now is for the sponsor to send more chiobu freshmen down to wisc and then i can safely say my life is perfect. right now the standard is still er, wanting. how the hell are they gonna succeed in their breeding schemes when you get mummy's boys and preppy frigid little ladies? (for the record. i will never be a willing participant in this... this... conspiracy! )

the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh.

Edit : Goddamnit. i just spoilt my dhaal when i jettisoned too much black pepper into the pot. ARGGRRGH

dear boyz and galz,
today uncle wang discovered one of the fundamental truths in life. To my surprise it was standing in front of me all theeze while, and me blind shit stood there and got smack right in the kisser. so here goes:
to get attached, you need a car. more zai the car, the better.
i waz talking to me senior today and he told me: "zhenxun, u know, if i dinch have my car i wouldn't have got attached in the first place. "
my right eye popped out.
"dio bo!! wtf! u iz got charm one ley! u charm girl like charm cobra lie dat. one charm one kew one ley. wtf!!!"
"charm my ass la. you look at all the people who are attached here. they got car not?"
................
my left eye popped out.
"MUTHAFACK! RIGHT HOR! JIZZZZZZBYE! all is got one ley!" Then i thought a litte bit more and then i realized that those who are attached outside of madison also got car one. W . T . F . !!
"eh, why ar? why got car means you mac daddy har?"
"ey iz like why guys go for looks even though they say they don't. is unconscious la. juz like we are hardwired to chiong looks, they chiong attributes one lor. give a zhar bor two person. both similar character similar looks. one rich and got car, one honest john. u say she choose who?"
" nao hia. i understand liao lar. lie dat i iz big muthafucka looozer. i no car. got bike. not even motorized kind ley! use leg power one ."
"hai lan lan lor. wait until grad school lar!"

true la. wait until old man, more like. so hor, you rich freshman out there coming to wisc- u know what to do liao right.

moved in, finally. Of course, before we actually moved in, there were some things to take care of. like helping pricks who were away move their shit. Damned mofos, i almost lost my third finger trying to shoulder a wooden cabinet full of coins from one apartment to another. My right third finger got wedged into one of the drawers and almost did not come out. Fuckin' hell. This is the last time i'm going to be a free bangla worker for those pricks. Next time, pack your shit, move your shit yourself (and be around when you do so) and be nice to us before the moving starts. Faux grateful phone calls after don't cut it with me you spoilt pricks. Oh, and packing means collapsing stuff that can be collapsed. Moving entire assembled ikea cabinets down your faux bourgeois pads for free, even if the place is just next door is no fun. Next time, why don't you pay the movers to move your shit instead huh?

...

Er anyway. What i wanted to say was, that I managed to obtain a antiquated hifi set in my new room. So I am blasting my classical shit all day nowsadays, annoying the shit out of my roommates. The thing about the Hi Fi is that its resolution isn't as good as my etymotics, so the funny shit that happens in a classical recording doesnt appear even at high amplitude, as opposed to my good ole noise reducing Etymotic ER-4Ps.

Shit such as this:

-In the highly excellent Rostropovich and Serkin Brahms Cello Sonaten recording, u can actually here one of these two old men moan like they're in heat. I wonder who is it. Here is a rough transcript:
ja ... (note) ja..... (note) gut! ...(note) ja! mmm ! mmmmm! mmmm! (ascending higher notes to climax) MMMM!!

- in the Bach Cello Suite No.2, Rostropovich actually records in an old French Church. At the begnning of the Prelude, u can actually hear a pesky bird chirp. Perhaps its a hungry bird calling for the mother or some song bird trying to get a mate.

- and somebody burped and farted during a recording of Anne-Sophie Mutter's Beethoven Violin Concerto (forgot which number). And one of the string section was testing the microphone by thumping on it.

- and perhaps the same guy was there during du Pre's recording. Same burping and coughing and farting. What is it with old men and front row seats huh?

I wonder what kind of stuff happens on stage when the orchestra is playing. Does the conductor swear at the orchestra when one of them screws up? Or moan for the matter when everything goes well together?? And Rostropovich seem to have a very weird habit of taking sharp, orgasmic breaths when he goes on a long virtuostic section.

Anyway I am veli bored la. Thats why I can type so much shit. but the point is, i love my Etymotics. You hear things u can never hear on a normal hi fi.

After hideous weather in Narita, and even more hideous waiting at Minneapolis, I'm back in Madison.

The weather is still hot, but is drier, so I'm not sweating as much now.
And for all my plans due to my sudden impetous love for cars (undoubtedly as a result of hanging out too much with a supercar freak) , I've dropped them once i saw my Bitch.

No BMW M3 with a V6 engine and all the trimmings can take my Bitch away from me. I love my bike. The poor thing has been sitting in the bike cage for too long and a layer of dust has clogged its transmissions. I'd have to take it for a bath soon.

Apart from that, everything else seems the same. And Madison is still pretty in the summer. Even though I keep bitching about Madison during term time, 2 months away from this place still seems a bit too long. Its implausible to think of Madison as home, but it is also equally implausible not to think of Madison as one. Perhaps, in a weird sort of way, I grew up in Madison and it has shaped my ideology, or whatever that it is quantifiable. Maybe home is in Singapore, but life is slightly simpler here. Whatever the case, I'm glad to be back

Edit: This is icky poo-ey sweety sick. What the hell, must be my jetlag and my feasting on the New Glarus Belgian Cherry Beer. This temporary outpouring of emotive bullshit is only tempoaray.. i hope. Now lets get on to some Greenbush donuts...

Being up on a plane, someone once told me, is a whiteout.

There is no night and no day- only the saccharine fluorescence in the cabin- and on the faces of the crew. Night and day are but notions in your control.
There are no emotions- only a dull ache of regret and the twinge at the back of the mind about the unknown. Here you are free to arbitate your emotions- assign what and which you please.
There is no consciousness- for all thoughts are syncopated with the numbing roar of the toiling engines. One does not think in that few hours. One merely vegetates - consciously waiting for the clock to wind down to landing. Time can be a few seconds or a few hours- just adjust your pill dosage accordingly.
Strapped in your seat, you are utterly free. Everything is within your control. Lights- a button a fingerlength away. The crew-another button. You are only trapped in by your imagination- does the fish look like roast chicken or it is just pretending to be braised chicken?

Is this a plastic utopia, or a hell in heaven's place?

its been two months ago since i plodded on a 747 back to singapore.
unfortunately, i've been moaning about stuff here for most of the time. its just plain skewed though, because i've had quite a nice time. What wouldn't be nice if one just needs to work instead of working and mugging at the same time? Plus there were quite a number of hot chix on my floor (not my lab).
Too bad I'm leaving on Monday.
However, I'm starting to miss Greenbush donuts and the not-so-expensive-and-infinitely-better-beer over there. Too much of that weak shit Erdinger can cause me liver cirrhosis, because i keep thinking its water and i keep chugging down more of it. Give me back my Spaten anytime. Save my liver!
While this holiday has ostensibly refreshed me, my writing skills have gone to the pits. Which explains why i'm still worrying about the GRE writing section. If the marker was a sharpish guy, he would have discovered that my arguments were so flimsy they couldn't even be used to wipe an ass. And then it would what it would be : in pieces and full of shit.
And so i welcome the 25 hour ass breaking journey back to the monastery that is Madison. Where i trade the hot weather, good food and hot chix for cows, cows cows and more cows. Soon I'd be mooing about my heavy workload, failed lab experiments and what not.
What a nice tradeoff!. What a Faustian deal that is , eh.