Friday, September 09, 2005
Chekhov, in his early career wrote a masterpiece entitled "A Man's Life in Questions and Exclamations." There was no thematic coherence in that entire piece, norwere there logical flow in the preceeding and anteceeding sentences, being made up of a whole battery of unconnected trite phrases and stereotyped responses that are encountered at each phase of a typical provincial Russian middle class life in the 1880s. A sampling :
Childhood. Whom has God given you, son or daughter? How soon is the christening? .... Take him away from here, he can't behave! What has he done to you? he speaks! Terrific! To fire the nanny! Shame on you to beat such a little one! Don't cry! Give him a candy!.........
.........
skipping to: Between 20 and 30 years of age. Borrow 100 roubles for me! What university department is it? its all the same to me! How much do I owe you? Will you come back tomorrow? What is on at the theater tonight> Waiter! Do you drink shrry? Is it you, Lia? I am done for, maman! Give me a job Uncle! Ma tante, the carriage is ready! Merci, mon oncle! Introduce me to your grandmother, Serge! .........
.....and so on and so forth. One is profoundly touched by it and saddened at the same time by his seemingly comic work. Life is so predictable and inevitable inasmuch as that every phase can be neatly summarized into the usual stereotyped phrases and tired old questions.
vis-a-vis my own life and state of mind, Chekhov is perfectly spot on. How does a character osscilate between two stereotyped extremes with such ease and skill that one can become two (oh, i wish two can become one! but i digress) at the same time. A cold blooded machine to his colleages and a drunken boring avuncular dick to his friends? Don't ask me, I am still trying to recouncile myself:
Typical question by colleauge in lab: What are your plans for the weekend, Wang?
"oh nothing much. going to study i guess."
Two days later same question: "So how was your weekend Wang"
same answer: oh it was alright.
Typical question by friend: "so how much did you drink today?"
typical answer (typical pungent reply, complete with standard profanity put across in a faux jolly manner)
Typical question : "eh go to the party ley"
typical answer (typical pungent reply, championing anti-social qualities and the need to drink beer alone.)
Right now only two things in my life are constant. Being disappointed and being drunk.
As usual one should end off in the PR way, but i shan't.
Byebye
Childhood. Whom has God given you, son or daughter? How soon is the christening? .... Take him away from here, he can't behave! What has he done to you? he speaks! Terrific! To fire the nanny! Shame on you to beat such a little one! Don't cry! Give him a candy!.........
.........
skipping to: Between 20 and 30 years of age. Borrow 100 roubles for me! What university department is it? its all the same to me! How much do I owe you? Will you come back tomorrow? What is on at the theater tonight> Waiter! Do you drink shrry? Is it you, Lia? I am done for, maman! Give me a job Uncle! Ma tante, the carriage is ready! Merci, mon oncle! Introduce me to your grandmother, Serge! .........
.....and so on and so forth. One is profoundly touched by it and saddened at the same time by his seemingly comic work. Life is so predictable and inevitable inasmuch as that every phase can be neatly summarized into the usual stereotyped phrases and tired old questions.
vis-a-vis my own life and state of mind, Chekhov is perfectly spot on. How does a character osscilate between two stereotyped extremes with such ease and skill that one can become two (oh, i wish two can become one! but i digress) at the same time. A cold blooded machine to his colleages and a drunken boring avuncular dick to his friends? Don't ask me, I am still trying to recouncile myself:
Typical question by colleauge in lab: What are your plans for the weekend, Wang?
"oh nothing much. going to study i guess."
Two days later same question: "So how was your weekend Wang"
same answer: oh it was alright.
Typical question by friend: "so how much did you drink today?"
typical answer (typical pungent reply, complete with standard profanity put across in a faux jolly manner)
Typical question : "eh go to the party ley"
typical answer (typical pungent reply, championing anti-social qualities and the need to drink beer alone.)
Right now only two things in my life are constant. Being disappointed and being drunk.
As usual one should end off in the PR way, but i shan't.
Byebye
what happens when the stuff you're cooking is too dry and you need sauce? empty half a bottle of Spaten that is. and get happily drunk while you're at it
Spaten Sauce tastes good. I need to get a patent for it.
hahaha
Spaten Sauce tastes good. I need to get a patent for it.
hahaha
Friday, September 02, 2005
ignore my whining about the difficulty of the courses i was going to take at the beginning of each semester; this semester takes the cake.
i woke up to bio pee chem lecture and found out that , apart from the dozens of premeds chattering away, i need to reaquaint myself with calculus, which i took like er, two years ago. and whats more, the calc required is at a slightly higher level then i took; ie, partial derivatives and other higher level stuff. so mr zonda, save my ass pleeeze. and the problem sets look more like calc homework then one pertaining to biopeeee chem. the worst part is that i don't need to take this course in the first place, but as usual i had to torture myself. wtf wtf wtf.
next up was russian literature, " cheyekov" (Chekhov) in translation, the translation part being in theory. i walked into the discussion room with 28 ang mohs and one asian - me. the russian prof walked in, took a look at me for a while and said "hrm we er-er-er still er-er-er ha-fe famirrrrliarrrr faces. (heavy rlussian accent) " at least he prononced my name correctly. it turns out that the russian zh is prononced similar to the hanyu pingyin zh. but of course, everyone was looking at me like i didn't know a hoot about russian history and figures in russian history. hell i almost corrected the old prof because he gave a wrong date for the Emancipation of Serfs by Tsar Nicky- only my uncomfortable position as the most eyeballed person in the room stopped me. its understandable though, since its like once in a blue moon a yellow skinned monkey learnt something slavic like russian- i wonder what would the reaction of the TA if i took russian as a third language next year. but ne'mine at least got a slavic chiobu sitting accross me. shes hot. damn.......
then its back to the Mcardle for a spot of bio. Two things made my balls shrink. The fact was that Prof P. was teaching the course and he recognized me and attempted to make eye contact. Prof P. was my first lab PI when i was a freshman two years ago, and who attempted to pair me with a non-engrish speaking postdoc and of course i didn't learn much and left the lab a semester later; though he was nice enough to help me secure my present lab position, the disconcerting thing is that he was the sole reason why my GPA's not 4.0 ; fair enough, i didn't do much in his lab, and i didn't know how to suck cock also. but thats another story for another day. the other reason was that no undergraduates who took this course got an A last year. that i don't mind, but u know, with the sponsor's fixation on letter grades, any false move i make this sem will cause me a warning letter the very least.
so i better play my cards right this sem. and of course exercise my jaw. and my wrist. i think i have to angkat a bit of bolah in order to survive sial.
i woke up to bio pee chem lecture and found out that , apart from the dozens of premeds chattering away, i need to reaquaint myself with calculus, which i took like er, two years ago. and whats more, the calc required is at a slightly higher level then i took; ie, partial derivatives and other higher level stuff. so mr zonda, save my ass pleeeze. and the problem sets look more like calc homework then one pertaining to biopeeee chem. the worst part is that i don't need to take this course in the first place, but as usual i had to torture myself. wtf wtf wtf.
next up was russian literature, " cheyekov" (Chekhov) in translation, the translation part being in theory. i walked into the discussion room with 28 ang mohs and one asian - me. the russian prof walked in, took a look at me for a while and said "hrm we er-er-er still er-er-er ha-fe famirrrrliarrrr faces. (heavy rlussian accent) " at least he prononced my name correctly. it turns out that the russian zh is prononced similar to the hanyu pingyin zh. but of course, everyone was looking at me like i didn't know a hoot about russian history and figures in russian history. hell i almost corrected the old prof because he gave a wrong date for the Emancipation of Serfs by Tsar Nicky- only my uncomfortable position as the most eyeballed person in the room stopped me. its understandable though, since its like once in a blue moon a yellow skinned monkey learnt something slavic like russian- i wonder what would the reaction of the TA if i took russian as a third language next year. but ne'mine at least got a slavic chiobu sitting accross me. shes hot. damn.......
then its back to the Mcardle for a spot of bio. Two things made my balls shrink. The fact was that Prof P. was teaching the course and he recognized me and attempted to make eye contact. Prof P. was my first lab PI when i was a freshman two years ago, and who attempted to pair me with a non-engrish speaking postdoc and of course i didn't learn much and left the lab a semester later; though he was nice enough to help me secure my present lab position, the disconcerting thing is that he was the sole reason why my GPA's not 4.0 ; fair enough, i didn't do much in his lab, and i didn't know how to suck cock also. but thats another story for another day. the other reason was that no undergraduates who took this course got an A last year. that i don't mind, but u know, with the sponsor's fixation on letter grades, any false move i make this sem will cause me a warning letter the very least.
so i better play my cards right this sem. and of course exercise my jaw. and my wrist. i think i have to angkat a bit of bolah in order to survive sial.
