Chove chuva
constant is the rain
Chove chove chove chuva
endless is the pain

- lyrics from Chove Chuva by Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66

One of the few reasons why I like Boston: (yes, in spite of the -15'C winters)
The legendary jazz artists who play here annually. I just saw Herbie Hancock LIVE. Absolutely amazing stuff, even for a jazz-outisider (moi for one). To see the funkster in his black O' Neill's (or Killer Loops or whatever his cool shades are) is the sort of experience that just won't happen in Hong Kong for less than US$100. He's still got the groove on, even if he temporarily lost his music at the beginning of the show. As one dude sitting behind us said, "The Seventies never left him."

O the architectural history writing TA is so hopelessly cute. I'm not usually big on Caucasian guys, but he is *o* <= wordless CY
had a meeting with him for the first time today about my paper rewrite. He looked a little shy, but made constructive and intellectual comments, amazing seeing how my paper was for a lame assignment where you compare two antique vases. The dude seemed a bit nervous - his hands were shakey when he waved them about to explain a point. A quiet sensitive type maybe?

Mrs. DePiro, my English teacher in 3's once said, "Isn't it exquisite when fifteen year olds blush?" Never mind my paedophilic English teacher, but this was exactly what popped up in my boy-crazy head when I attempted to think of a less pretentious intro for my essay.

the downside: he's a tad short :( why o why are cute guys at MIT always short?? Anyway, would it be wrong to try to date a TA who won't teach you again?

Ben Katchor's A Date in Architectural History:
a short, brilliant, slap-in-the-face comic for architectural historians!

am fully feeling the consequences of teaching my dad how to use Ebay. Now my room is inundated with antique cameras and lenses of all sorts. (believe me 2 portable accordion cameras and 3 70's SLRs take up enough space to bother me). Now that he has no kids at home to harrass, he's re-invested his last traces of fatherly love into photo equipment. My mum's told me he's totally addicted, glued the comp at all waking and semi-conscious hours outside of the office. And he no longer has enough cash to pay for sundries. What have I done?!!!!

Now it just seems inevitable that I'm a shoppaholic.

o i'm so terrible with this procrastination...instead of doing reading for building tech, I'm trying to sort out my blog for the discrepancies between IE & Netscape. What an unproductive use of time.

can't believe my tiny 130 s.f. room just hosted a sleepover for 3 over the weekend. What a re-definition of true compact living. It was nice in a cosy way, since I haven't made any contact with human civilization for weeks (e-mail & icq really doesn't count). Scary what my addiction to my comp can do. Now I'm back to solitairy living mode :(
It'd be nice if we had more opportunities for college-family get-togethers. It's intense now that Chin Yee, Jason, Jess and Geoff are all here in the Boston / New England area, plus Evelyn who comes to see Jason every now and then. Can you believe our families have been friends from our grandparents' generation? I'd love to have my kids play with Jess' or Geoff's, just like we did when we were little. Jess and I have a baby pic of us together in a bath tub!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coming soon:

BMW' s new promo movies for the 2003 Z4 Roadster by John Woo, Joe Carnahan and Tony Scott.
Luuurrrve their slick stuff - the cars are nice, but their short movies are just as beautifully and precisely executed. The first season featured the likes of Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai, Guy Ritchie etc. And oh, the cooler-than-thou, subzerolly-poised Clive Owen as the laconic Driver. Getting paid to drive all those dream machines - can it get any better ?

Dude... was trying to look for a January internship through the alumni network listings, and I found this:
There's actually an NYC rejection hotline number you can give to dodgy stalker types (!!) courtesy of Eyebeam Atelier. Can a prospective employer be any cooler??

Mind you, Conde Nast, Pixar, Aardman and Sotheby's are still on top of my dream job list.

My mum gave me two avocado seeds to grow way back in September. They've been sunbathing in tiny glasses of water on my window ledge for almost two months now, and they ain't done a thing. Must chant to meself: "patience is a virtue....."

Yay! Wallace and Gromit are back! The coolest regional-accented inventor & his brighter-than-your-average pup :) Did I mention one of my dream jobs would be working at Aardman? [prospective employers please take note]

Took my dad to the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA to see the glorious New England fall foliage. I had such perfect memories of the place from my first visit, when Another Man took me there, that I secretly wished to avoid what would be for me, a nostalgic trip. I was a little scared that the usual bickering between my dad, my brother and I would ruin what I remember as a Perfect Place, where I shared a quietly happy, blissful day with the Other Man.
My dad wasn't staying in Boston long enough to go anywhere further away, so there we went, my brother getting on my nerves all the way.

It was spectacular. It was windy, but the sky was a cloudless blue after a miserable weekend of fog and rain. I love it when the maple trees turn firey red on the edges when the leaves near the trunk are still green. I love not being able to hear civilisation, just for a short time. No construction workers, no machinery, no cars. Just the wind rustling the fallen leaves and the occassional bird cry.
The sculpture park was as lush and as beautiful as I remembered it. I walked towards the lake with my dad, down the trail shaded by golden trees. It reminded me of my time at CLC - our housemistress Mrs. L-G used to make us go on country side walks, to 'take in some fresh air', with our green wellies we'd be stuck into her Volvo. (and if you're not fast enough, you'd be stuck in the boot with Prima, her drippy white English Sheepdog which had really bad doggy breath) It made me happy that I could do this with my dad, who never had enough time for us when we were little.

After a pared down lunch at the museum cafe, I went to the room where His group put on an installation. 1.5 years onwards, the gallery room now has paintings by contemporary Boston artists, in place of miniscule video screens in bird cages.The closet behind the glass door is still there, though now locked. The image of Him, lanky and double bent, sitting on a disproportionally small milk crate, monitor inches in front, quietly debugging the program with muted frustration. (the program crashed often and would undisirably show Windows 98 screens on the installation....)

The trip brought back the memories, of Him and other things, but it also made new ones. The new ones are just as perfect in their own way. If I had a sound track for every place I go, DeCordova would be cheesily labelled as Perfect Day.

Spent the cold, rainy afternoon oogling at glossy modern houses in glossy modern architecture magazines in the not-so-glossy but very Modernist architecture library. Learnt that students can take old issues tucked behind the 'secret' flipping magazine shelves. [my excuse for not knowing this for the past 4 years] Must exploit these resources, afterall my tuition => glossy modern architecture magazines, thus should take a small %age of my tuition back, instead of forking out more $$$ for glossy architecture magazines in some overpriced poseur book shop.

New object of desire:
a Microflat by Stuart Piercy & Richard Connor in London. Very chic yet afforable Tokyo-salary-men-style modular housing [note the oxymorons] in Hoxton at a mere 10, 000 - 15, 000 euros. I can either start saving up, or consult parents on potential purchase.
Upon 3 seconds of thoughtful consideration, the later option is preferred. I am a brat.
----------------------------------

The radiator hasn't stopped making banging noises since I switched it on three days ago. Inefficient facilities ppl haven't got round to it yet. I hope it won't explode on me, and cald me to bits of steamed cha siu. *ewww* But it is getting on my nerves. I couldn't go to sleep cos every hour or so, I have to switch the knob one way or another to stop it banging, for an hour. *Grrrr*

Nerd Pride:

The truth about crop circles -
They are made by MIT course 16 (aero astro) students with too much time, too much resources.

Just took my senior portrait for the school yearbook. Crap.
The reality of being a senior just hasn't set in - I'm sleeping in a bunked bed like in freshmen year, I'm taking classes packed with sophomores, and I still get asked if I'm finding my way around OK.

The photographer asked if I wanted to take the pics in cape and gown. I politely declined - just doesn't feel right, since I won't be graduating anytime soon.

Something bizarre-
I found Lego Porn when looking up Sweet J Presents on Google
Are childhood toys / memories not sacred anymore??

Had an indoor picnic with Yao in my room today. Haven't seen her sans boyfriend in.... 3 months? (Has it been that long?) So we had a nice, long, heartfelt conversation. Nothing electronic can beat face-to-face catching-up. Her mashed sweet potatoes are highly addictive :d
---------------------------------------------

Went to Screenblast.com to check out my fav webtoons, only to be disappointed!! Sony has changed the site to an advertising thingy for its multimedia editing suite.
For a sense of that it used to be: check this out.
My favs were Sweet J Presents and Paul Frank's Julius and Friends under Comedy, and Lenore (by Roman Dirge) under Horror. [not a fan of horror movies but this is a goth-cutesy-gross cartoon]

DJ Shadow's Six Days music video by Wong Kar Wai

Can't wait to see 2046 - Chang Tsen (? Spelling) looks so good, tho not as cool as he was in Crouching Tiger
He has that Johnny Depp drifter mystere that's so magnetic......*o*

Amazing what a bit of furniture rearrangement can do.
Now my room has virtually doubled its size, and I can *almost* roll around on my 6 x 9 carpet. (Not that I want to - the ol' rag needs a good vacumming which I'm reluctant to do)

I was soooo mad this morning. To the point where I was tearing.

Got into a war of words with a fellow student, after reading his pro-war-on-Iraq column in the uni's newspaper.
Basically he was repeting the typical American "bellicose rhetoric" (as acurately described by Lib Dem party leader Charles Kennedy).
He said a lot of other things dismissing the whole Islamic culture and also the Muslim nations, which can be boiled down to, "We don't need to understand Islam, let's just bomb the shit out of these Third World proletarians."

I was at an utter loss of words. Seems like four years of tip-top education has been fruitless on this man. How can a student here come up with such insulting and irreverent words?

Then I found out the author is the nutty black loner rapper around campus who rhymes to himself. I'm not angry any more. There's just no point getting all worked up, trying to reason with a nutter radical who has no audience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a lighter note, my mum told me that my lil' bro felt sick after having the breakfast that I cooked for him. :P
He felt like throwing up all morning, after I dropped him off at a family friend's house to take off for the airport.

The consolation: he didn't actually throw up. And he said the breakfast was quite good.
I'll just blame his indigestion on the butter overdose.

career-scare part II:

the thing that gives me this fear?

My peers. Most of my friends are either doing their masters, or gonna be filthy-rich corporate types, or both. At school, it seems like I'm surrounded by people in dark suits off to interviews. And me? I'll prolly become a new age hippie / uni drop out loser if I don't get my act together.

On the otherhand, I don't want to become a corporate bi-ae-tch (yet). So there.

I am mighty scared.

it's always been a timebomb tick tocking away in the back of my mind, and lately the ticktocking is getting louder and louder.
I don't yet have a vocational calling.
So Uncle Kai, one of my dad's loonier friends, gave me this sound advice: if you're not reputable in your field by thirty-five, you might as well forget about the whole career thing. Say I need 8-10 years to build up my career, I'd better know what I want to do by 25 / 27ish. Which leaves me three / five years+ to find out what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Chilling thought, since I've been trying to find out what I want to be since 16 and I still haven't come up with anything more than a semester-long fad.

Fields I have thought about:
1. biochemistry (not ever again since my teacher predicted a D for my Chemistry A Level, which promptly made me drop the subject)
2. Novel cosmetic brand (after reading too much glossies in high school - particularly articles about ppl who came up with Hard Candy, Philosophy etc.)
3. city planning (decided I'm not totalitarian / confident enough [see Corbusier or Robert Moses], so I'd never get my way with cities anyway)

Fields I'm still thinking about:
4. film making - tho I can't imagine myself being a bossy director, and making anything besides Bridget Jones-esque documentaries / incomprehensible pretentious art things
5. architecture - guess what my mum's been trying to tell me all my life what NOT to become
6. advertising - mostly creative jobs. But my thoughts have been quivering a bit after one week at Saatchi's. Maybe it's just the way chilled Brits do things - ie. indifferent to interns.

and the job that every little girl wants to have:
7. I still like to imagine, deep down there's still a seedling inside waiting to be the next John Galliano / Rei Kawakubo .

exercise in narcistic behaviour:

Why Cumulo Nimbus you ask? (or I'll pretend you asked)
[in a geeky nasal voice] Cumulo-nimbus is a type of cloud, the thick dark ominous looking ones you see before thunder storms or heavy rain.

Ever since I was a kid, my mum thought she should name me Cloudy if I should ever get an English name, cos I'm so clueless all the time.
Things haven't changed much, except that I've been getting more teary as I grow up.
When confronted with figures of authority (usually people who want me to work harder, people I can't stand, or people who I get frustrated with), any traces of decorum plus my will to control my tear ducts simply vanish.
I'm hoping I can be more like Cirrus, the wispy feather-lite clouds you see when it's sunny and bright. So that's my ICQ nickname.

it's plainly obvious I'm not meant for geeky techy hobbies
I wasted 3.5 hrs trying to figure out how to put in a blog roll
*Hmmmph*

this nonsensical babbling is rather addictive....but not as good as chocolate.

I brought back *nine* bars of Galaxy and a box of After Eight's. When I was checking out at Sainsbury's, the lady working at the till asked, "A bit of a chocolatey lady, are you?" :P
I told her it isn't all for myself. She laughed, unconvinced.
I wasn't lying. I'm gonna prove to my friends on this side of the pond that English confectioners can kick Hershey's ass anyday.

Check out what I found on Google- Chocoholics Anonymous.