Moi, Stupid@mit.edu

Over the past five years, I've had my fair share of moments like these, which still make me think that Admissions had made a mistake in accepting me.

Check out some of the gob-smacking work by fellow students - Lisa Smith, Brian Chan, Stylianos Dritsas , Saul Griffith and Moneta Ho.

Once upon a time...

Jess (on the right) and I at Jess's third birthday party
Or twenty years ago to be exact, I was cute. If you consider a lumpy child cute.
Image via Jess via Auntie Lisa.
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So Harry Potter is being released on the day of graduation. Am debating if I should be really geeky and wear my regalia to said movie, just so that I can look like I go to Hogwart's. (Sorcery is so much cooler than hardcore science and engineering...)

Asians Representin' at Cannes... and 2046(!)

NY Times article on the Asian selections that took over a third of the film fest... and on Wong Kar Wai's loooong awaited film. [subscription req'd, I think.]

What we did witness was, well, a Wong Kar-Wai movie, full of lush, melancholy sensuality and swathed in light as lustrous and supple as the Shantung dresses all of the actresses seem to wear. The title, by the way, refers both to a hotel room in Hong Kong in the late 1960's and a high-speed train racing through the future, and one of the film's themes (aptly enough, given the drama surrounding its arrival) is time. The characters are always falling in and out of love too soon or too late, and the chronology glides forward and backward.

Like other work from this director, "2046" teases the boundary of incomprehensibility. It is a series of moods, nuances and gorgeous moments � seductions, couplings, tearful partings � with the usual connective tissue left out, or implied in title cards and voice-overs. After the two screenings early in the evening, quite a few viewers rushed back to see it again later Thursday night, to experience its intoxicating beauty one more time, and also to figure out what on earth it was about.

More on 2046 from the official Cannes site: teaser clip, red carpet walk and press conference. [Real Player]
...and Dutch TV coverage with two scenes from the film from 12:39 - 14:30 [Real]

[all links via Lossless]

Goodness, Gong Li still looks as gorgeous as ever. And WKW did an excellent job of casting Zhang Ziyi as a sweet-talking bitchy prostitute (just like her real life personality, as some may say. Hmm hmm...)

Grrr. If only my app to the French embassy got there on time... I could have been in Cannes WATCHING all of this action.

La Boheme, c'est pas pour moi:

Every now and then, it seems like I'm doomed to be uncool no matter how hard I try to appear otherwise. At age 23, you'd think you'd have a better idea of how to meet cool new people. Apparently not in my case - I'm just as awkward as when I was 11, and I'm still absolutly crap at socialising in a group situation.

So I got invited by an acquaintance / pal to a party hosted by him and his roomies at their refurbished converted-Chinatown-restaurant-warehouse apartment. Not knowing who else he invited, I figured I'd prolly bump into someone I know and get to meet my host's other cool bohemian friends. Within 2 minutes of arrival, I said hi to my acquaintance-pal, got a beer (I NEVER drink beer - but then there was only that, whiskey or bourbon), took a sip, looked around, saw no one I knew, then poured beer all over myself and the floor when the plastic cup split. Bloody fantastic. Even though I recognised the DJ, who I think is this ex-Media Lab > Harvard GSD Indian dude that I had fancied a while back, my instinctive reflex was to dive for the exit. Down 3 flights of 80 degree stairs, and I was on my way back to the T station.

Why can't I just be comfortable amongst strangers? Why am I so bloody self-conscious?
Seems like the mistakes I make keep repeating themselves. Urgh.
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Speaking of self-repeating mistakes, I've just heard about Goldfish Memory, a flick about singles in Dublin making the same mistakes in love over and over on different people. Defininitely going on my summer must-see list.
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1000 words between me and graduation. Surely I know something from 12 weeks of avant-garde art film & lit well enough to write a paper on.... *sqeezes brain* >.<

Thoughts on graduating:

In exactly 3 weeks, I'll be officially unemployed, for an indefinite period.
Fuck.
Five years of MIT and I can't even find a job? What's wrong with me???

Was clearing out old notes today, and here's what my five-year education boils down to -

* US$20,000 per semester x 10 = $200,000 (enough to buy a house / a Ferrari)
* 15 or so lever arch files + ring binders
* 1 foot stack of A4 paper (all gone to the recycling bin)
* Dabbled in 10 courses: - some more in-depthly than others
3 (Material Science)
4 (Architecture)
8 (Physics)
11 (Urban Planning)
12 (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science)
14 (Economics)
17 (Political Science)
18 (Maths)
21 (Humanities)
CMS (Comparative Media Studies)

I found my lever arch of old A Level Geography notes. Tonnes of memories rushing back. Miss Tudge's
handwriting on my old essays still gives me goosebumps.

Then I realise something in me died during these years at MIT - optimism, ideals, direction and self-confidence.
Back when I was a freshman, I wanted to save the world as an urban planner.
Now I still want to save the world, but I don't know how - art and film don't feed hungry people.

All this existential angst when I still have to write three two* more papers.


* I can't believe my French Film prof just said, "You've been doing excellent work this semester, and since you're a senior, why don't you forget about paper 3?"
\^o^/ < ass is now one-third saved. Humanities profs rock!!

Retail pick of the day

Electric guitar slingpack from Fred Flare

Oooh cute. Tres rock chic. Does that make air-guitar (or this case, bag-guitar) playing in one's room less dorky?

What I learned in class today

Was sitting through some presentations for my technical writing class (hm yeah, technical. Moi? *lol*) Some dude talked about his bio paper on anticonvulsants for treating epilepsy and / or bipolar disorder. Half listening and half picking my nails, I stopped in my track when he listed the clinical symptoms of bipolar disorder:

Mania: often begins with an intense burst of energy, creativity, and social ease. People with mania typically deny that anything is wrong, and angrily blame anyone who points out a problem.

In a manic episode, the following symptoms are present for at least one week:

- Feeling unusually "high," euphoric, or irritable [check, even though I have gotten no work done for eons]

- Plus at least 4 of the following symptoms:

> needing little sleep yet having great amounts of energy [ok that never happens]
> talking so fast that others cannot keep up with the thought pattern [only when I've had too much caffeine]
> having racing thoughts
> being so easily distracted that their attention shifts between many topics in just a few minutes
> having an inflated feeling of power, greatness, or importance [a la Tony Blair...]
> doing reckless things without concern about possible bad consequences (eg, spending too much money, engaging in inappropriate sexual activity, or making foolish business investments)

In severe cases, the person may also experience hallucinations or delusions.

Depression:
In a major depressive episode, the following symptoms are present for at least two weeks:

- Feeling sad, blue, or down in the dumps or losing interest in the things one normally enjoys

- Plus at least 4 of the following symptoms:

> changes in appetite or weight
> changes in sleep
> difficulty thinking, concentrating, or making decisions
> feeling slowed down
> feeling worthless or guilty
> thoughts of death or suicide [check all of the above]

Holy cow. That all sounds rather familiar, apart from not sleeping and the sex bit. (Well, looking at the selection of men here it's not surprising)
So now at least I have some sort of medical excuse for being the way I am :P Then what?

"How Hong Kong are you?" Quiz [via Caesium Zone]

I scored 49%. Holy cow, how did that happen? Even my lil' bro, who spends more time in HK than I do, got a lower score. Am I a natural-born Hongkie in denial?