Saturday, February 25, 2006
My idea of a Friday night well-spent: watching epic, overblown musicals extolling the virtues of the Chinese Communist Party and praising Mao every other verse. Even better, watching said propaganda musical with a friend from Taiwan whose grandfather fought in the Chinese civil war on the side of the KMT. It helped that she knew every detail of Chinese history and could fill me in when the onstage propaganda became a little bewildering.
Everybody should watch '东方红 - 大型音乐舞蹈史诗'.
The East is Red is gaudy, operatic, classic, and oh-so grandiosely Chinese. The songs are rousing, the performers dead-serious, the history seriously whacked, the praise for Party and Chairman never-ceasing. It's really quite incredible. After we finished both VCDs (it's a long musical) I was tempted to get drunk and maybe stagger around the Main Green singing '东方红，太阳升，中国出了一个毛泽东' at the top of my lungs. But, of course, I don't drink.
My Taiwanese friend and I had the time of our lives, laughing our heads off. She found it even more hilarious than I did, mainly because she had the requisite Mandarin background for appreciating the inanity of the words (oh the words) being sung or declaimed while the music swelled triumphantly.
words were spilled on Saturday, February 25, 2006
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Sunday, February 19, 2006
I've got my replacement debit card in the mail, and things are clearing up nicely. Although I say that with reservation, because life never seems to want to settle down into the sort of comfortable rhythm I so crave. But nevermind.
I've decided that instead of wasting energy being disappointed when I have much to be grateful for, and even more importantly, more work to do than I can ever get my procrastinating self to finish, I shall knuckle down to aforementioned work.
Interesting tidbit of conversation with my roommate: when I told her that hair-dying was forbidden in schools back home, she asked, 'But, how can they tell?' I spent some seconds being amazed that anyone could have asked such an obvious question - because in a place where black hair is the genetic norm, dyed hair is -duh- obvious. But I'd overlooked the fact that natural hair colours are considerably more diverse
here. So hair-dyeing school rules
ala Singapore would be near-impossible to enforce, not to mention extremely pointless. Certainly puts a new perspective on things.
words were spilled on Sunday, February 19, 2006
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Monday, February 13, 2006
I went to Starbucks today. Not for coffee - just to use its restroom. So in I went, feeling considerably more collected than I was 2 days ago, because I had spent my day getting replacement cards, settling paperwork and generally cleaning up various messes at a nice clip. I had finally bought my textbook (second-hand and relatively cheap, considering), and I was in the process of booking flights home. I felt decently
accomplished, and even allowed myself a wary sense of optimism.
Nothing seemed out of place - I shut the door, locked it, went about my business - and when I tried to open the door again, I couldn't.
At first I assumed that my door-opening skills were somehow at fault, so I tried harder. I jabbed repeatedly at the button, jiggled the knob, leaned my entire weight on the door, willing it to swing open so I could quietly and unobtrusively go on with my life without having to suffer the embarrassment of banging on the door and yelling for help in the crowded cafe.
But, despite my best attempts, thematic consistency won the day and the door stayed locked, much to the merriment of my hypothetical cosmic persecutor. And so I was reduced to, yes, banging on the door and yelling for help.
It could have been worse, I suppose. I could have been stuck there for much longer had the aforementioned cosmic persecutor not decided that the joke had gone on far enough and graciously sent a Starbucks employee to release me from my urine-scented cell. It turned out that the locking mechanism was defunct and the restroom had to be declared out-of-order until the lock could be repaired. And with my luck,
of course I had to be the first unfortunate person to discover this, in a cafe
full of people and serving caffeinated beverages with a diuretic effect.
I'm so NOT freaking amused by all this.
words were spilled on Monday, February 13, 2006
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Well, now, isn't this just wonderful.
The maximum liability for lost luggage is US$20 per kg. Which means, assuming my bag weighed in at 20kg (baggage weight limit for international travel being 23kg), I stand to receive a maximum of $400... if I am lucky. According to my estimations, to replace everything that I have lost, I need around US$600. This is after adjustment for the ridiculous US retail prices and cost of shipping.
The rules are designed to screw the non-litigious, hapless consumer over.
Filling out baggage claim forms puts me in a truly, truly black mood.
And to top it all off, my wallet was stolen over the weekend. Cards, cash and all. I've survived being a clueless tourist in China for more than a month without falling victim to petty theft, but here in the wealthiest country in the world, on an Ivy League campus, someone decides to help him/herself to my wallet.
This amazing streak of bad luck really must end. Soon. I don't know how much longer I can hold off the tempting (but utterly irrational) belief that someone, somewhere is enjoying a huge, cosmic joke at my expense. Probably karma and divine punishment are involved. If I believed in such things - which I obviously don't - but some part of my mind is considering the various probabilities involved and multiplying them together, producing an answer that defies rational sense.
words were spilled on Monday, February 13, 2006
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Saturday, February 11, 2006
After coming down from the exhilaration of my caffeine-induced Friday, a possible approaching blizzard is the only thing remotely cheerful about this weekend. Or maybe I'm just drained, as usual, after calling up Baggage Recovery for the nth time, with nothing to show for it apart from elevated levels of stress and frustration, which is really nothing new.
Once again: Northwest Airlines has earned my enmity for
life. I may not be a significant consumer, but I
paid, damnit. It wasn't scholarship money either. And all this is eating into time that really should be spent on preparing for classes, or getting a life. I'm so pissed off by this whole incident that I'm beginning to feel acutely unhappy even being in this country.
Although the US does have blizzards, which one can't get in Singapore. That's certainly a redeeming feature, but it has nothing to do with the humans that run the place.
words were spilled on Saturday, February 11, 2006
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Monday, February 06, 2006
Being falsely cheerful has become a way of life. And I don't even do it very well.
Meeting with my advisor is always a chore, although he's a wonderful professor who likes John le Carre as I do - but it's his job to check on my welfare. And I don't know whether to tell the truth or paint rosy illusions. I usually settle for embellishing the truth - the 'yes, it has been great, though of course there're a few things that could be better' approach.
He advised me to be a little more assertive when dealing with delayed luggage, so I actually wrote down what I wanted to tell those airline people before I called them, so that they could be induced to take me a little more seriously.
Naturally, it didn't work out as planned. It worked out pretty badly, in fact.
Yes, and so I found out today that in the face of airline bureaucracy and sarcastic staff, I crumple without a fight. And then slink off to the toilet for a cry, like a primary school kid, my dignity in shreds. How absolutely humiliating.
To make matters worse my dorm neighbour walked in to ask me something (probably homework, as usual - I'm little good for anything else, it seems). My roommate told her tacitly that I wasn't in that great a mood for a homework chat, but she went ahead anyway, saw my odd behaviour and wondered aloud, 'Is she laughing or...?'
Talk about compounding my humiliation.
Next flight home to Singapore will be on Singapore Airlines. I'm already making arrangements.
words were spilled on Monday, February 06, 2006
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Saturday, February 04, 2006
CNN report: Air traveler complaints upHell, yeah. And the figures are probably understating it, since not all screwed-over consumers complain to the Transportation Authority. I should know.
I dreamt that I got pregnant. It was
horrible, not so much because of the pre-marital pregnancy thing, but because of the scholarship agency wrath thing. Much of the dream was consumed in angst, trying to hide the fact from
them, and agonising over whether or not to abort so as to retain my scholarship. It was a uniquely terrifying sort of nightmare.
This reminds me of the time when my roommate was searching for on-campus jobs and she dredged up this Mandarin interpreter job and asked me if I was interested. The job involved translating for an exiled Chinese political dissident by the name of Xu Wenli at Brown's institute for international relations. If I were adept at Mandarin (most certainly not), politically-conscious and active (...nope) and not obliged to seek agency approval prior to taking on employment in the United States, I might have been intrigued, at the very least. However.
words were spilled on Saturday, February 04, 2006
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Friday, February 03, 2006
'tis Friday night and predictably enough, I'm not getting myself passing-out drunk or engaging in the usual college Friday night traditions. I
did do more socialising than usual today: finally hosted a male friend in my room (oh yes, please do ask if I'm finally getting a love life), spent an hour in the company of people whose conversation contained American cultural allusions about which I had absolutely no clue, so I practised my smile/ nod/ inane comment routine, while cultivating my sociable-nerd-with-eccentric-sense-of-humour image.
Because I've been a terrible bum lately, (My roommate actually told me, at 3am in the morning for freak's sake, that I wasn't being 'productive' enough because I was divvying up my late night studying time between chatting and actual work. I vigorously denied it, of course, but she had a point.) I resolved to devote the rest of my Friday night to no-life penitence and organic chemistry. But a 1979 BBC miniseries changed my plans. I am completely in love with
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - read the book more than a year ago, fell into a black depression at the end, and promptly became obsessed. Seeing the BBC adaptation is a miraculous experience - all the right character touches and the satisfying little details. And of course, Sir Alec Guinness as George Smiley. The dry, ironic and scrumptious Brit humour.
Perfect diversion on a Friday night, wouldn't you say?
By the way, the guy who came to my room? He is gay.
Come on, you
had to see that coming.
words were spilled on Friday, February 03, 2006
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