I'm on my way to my fourth doctor's appointment in a month, where I'll be treated for one of my numerous ailments and most likely pick up another one on the side. Honestly, I'm a walking bag of diseases. Right now, I'm haunted by the itch of scabies and the lingering effects of a bronchitis-induced cough.
This is the year of the rat, and I'm a rat...so I suppose it's not my luckiest year. Still, why me? I did get peroneal tendonitis in Turkey last month, which was my own fault since I was wearing stiletto heels on rough cobblestone. Of course, I kept walking on my foot because I was on vacation in Turkey! The only thing that would've stopped me is a broken leg. Then I came back a few weeks later and got food poisoning at home. How ironic is that? I don't get food poisoning in a foreign country but in my immaculate germ-free home from home cooked food.
I barely made it back to school and everything was all right (foot healing very slowly) until the week of my birthday, when I got a sudden and intense itch in the middle of the night. It turned out that I somehow got scabies in Turkey (most likely) as well. Then I went through treatment for that (among a lot of itching), and now I'm still itching two weeks later and heading back to the good old waiting room. The doctor always look at my chart and remarks on what a healthy human being I am. Then he (or she) scratches his head when he sees the impressive number of trips to the waiting room that I've racked up in the past month.
When I got treated for scabies two weeks ago, I was sitting between two coughing people in the waiting room...and guess what? I got a sore throat and a cough a few days later. So...I ate soup all of last week, coughed so hard at night that I couldn't sleep, and itched on the side.
I'm not sure that I can take any more of this. Please please please. This is the absolute worst semester to get sick. I doubt I could keep up with all of my classes even if I were well, so this is asking me for the impossible. Instead of telling myself that I'll be all right, I just want to crawl back into bed and sleep (Except I know that I'll be itching if I do that). I promise to exercise once I get better (If I ever get better). I promise to be a nicer person, study harder, keep in touch with my friends, if only I can get better soon.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
kicking the classical
For the past year or so, I've set rock, alternative, and pop aside for classical and soundtrack music. The conclusion? I can't do classical. It's too complex for my large but apparently vacuous brain. As someone who's tone deaf and has few musical inclinations, listening to classical music always makes me feel like I'm missing something. It's the equivalent of sampling a superb seven course French meal with one taste bud. I love the idea of learning about music and taking classes in music theory, but only the idea. Listening to classical music is sometimes like sitting in lecture. My brain shuts off and my eyes start drooping when information is flying at me. In that case, I give up and either fall asleep promptly or adopt the dazed 'deer in headlights' expression. Quite a few classical composers make me feel like that.
There were some pieces that I did enjoy in my attempts to embrace other musical styles, including 'Winter' from Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' and 'Pertissimo' from Beethoven's earlier sonatas. Otherwise, I've been indulging in soundtrack music, including almost everything that Hans Zimmer ever composed (as usual), although Gladiator is still his crowning achievement with King Arthur coming in at a distant second. Of course, I love soundtrack music for its simplicity and grand flourishes.
As with everything else, we enjoy the music that we grew up listening to. I do discover new music regularly, but my fondest memories are of Savage Garden, Matchbox Twenty, and other bands that I listened to religiously in high school. In terms of sophistication and quality, Savage Garden and Matchbox Twenty were both a cut above most in their respective categories, but obviously not comparable to the complexities that define classical music. Yet, one voice, a guitar, a bass, and a keyboard is so much more soothing to me than 30 violins, 20 violas, etc. I remember not liking Savage Garden at all when I first heard them perform. It was only when I borrowed the CD from a friend and listened to it several times that I found myself liking the sound.
Back then, I had only been exposed to classical music before tentatively trying out Savage Garden. As a result, their CD sounded like a marriage of Metallica and Offspring. It's hilarious when I think back to that time. Eventually, I got into Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, Nirvana, Blink 182, and everything else. A year ago, I got sick of this music (a lot of it does sound very similar) and now I'm sick of classical music as well.
Currently, I'm going back to my obsession with Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, old old music (Sade and Engelbert), and some Moby, Black Eyed Peas, and Norah Jones thrown in. I'm always transitioning to new music, but I doubt I'll find anything that I liked as much as when I was discovering music for the first time. I don't love music enough to enjoy one style forever, nor do I have the time or inclination to learn it properly. As with so many other things, I've a healthy appreciation for music but not the steadiness nor the inclination to learn it properly.
There were some pieces that I did enjoy in my attempts to embrace other musical styles, including 'Winter' from Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' and 'Pertissimo' from Beethoven's earlier sonatas. Otherwise, I've been indulging in soundtrack music, including almost everything that Hans Zimmer ever composed (as usual), although Gladiator is still his crowning achievement with King Arthur coming in at a distant second. Of course, I love soundtrack music for its simplicity and grand flourishes.
As with everything else, we enjoy the music that we grew up listening to. I do discover new music regularly, but my fondest memories are of Savage Garden, Matchbox Twenty, and other bands that I listened to religiously in high school. In terms of sophistication and quality, Savage Garden and Matchbox Twenty were both a cut above most in their respective categories, but obviously not comparable to the complexities that define classical music. Yet, one voice, a guitar, a bass, and a keyboard is so much more soothing to me than 30 violins, 20 violas, etc. I remember not liking Savage Garden at all when I first heard them perform. It was only when I borrowed the CD from a friend and listened to it several times that I found myself liking the sound.
Back then, I had only been exposed to classical music before tentatively trying out Savage Garden. As a result, their CD sounded like a marriage of Metallica and Offspring. It's hilarious when I think back to that time. Eventually, I got into Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, Nirvana, Blink 182, and everything else. A year ago, I got sick of this music (a lot of it does sound very similar) and now I'm sick of classical music as well.
Currently, I'm going back to my obsession with Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, old old music (Sade and Engelbert), and some Moby, Black Eyed Peas, and Norah Jones thrown in. I'm always transitioning to new music, but I doubt I'll find anything that I liked as much as when I was discovering music for the first time. I don't love music enough to enjoy one style forever, nor do I have the time or inclination to learn it properly. As with so many other things, I've a healthy appreciation for music but not the steadiness nor the inclination to learn it properly.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
At least I don't live in Haiti
I was reading Penn's daily newspaper a few weeks ago, and I came upon a short blurb about the very poor in Haiti. Because they have no food to eat, they collect mud from a riverbank, add sugar and spices, and bake them into mud cookies. Imagine growing up in an environment like that or in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa where family members are dropping from AIDS and there's no food either, so you sniff glue to temporarily get away from hunger pains (I read that in an essay several years ago). On the one hand, it's simple to compare myself to billions of people like this and think that the laptop that I'm typing this post on could probably feed several families for a year. Still, it's difficult to actually go through every day thinking about how fortunate I am and not forgetting it. Even though so many people are around us, we are in our own little privileged world.
Thinking more on the children subsisting on blocks of mud in Haiti, I felt slightly guilty that I had been complaining to several of my friends because I couldn't control the heat in my apartment and I felt like I was in a sauna every time that I opened the door. I even contemplated turning on my AC in conjunction with the heat because opening the windows just didn't seem to do it. Then I realized how much energy I was potentially wasting, not to mention the bucketloads of water that I use when I shower (I know this because my shower doesn't drain especially well). The list goes on and on. Eventually, you're compelled to think about chance and destiny and all that because there's so much disparity in people's lives.
The problem is, we're not thrust into situations where we're scrabbling for a living. Maybe if we were, we'd give more thanks instead of worrying about the bigger TV or nicer house that we can't afford. I don't know if we, as relatively privileged citizens of the world, are compelled to help the starving masses. People make arguments about Darwinism, and accept without question our 'superiority' simply because of circumstances. We were born into relatively well-off families, in a country that's relatively less corrupted and more fair than most. Although earlier generations have fought for these rights, it's not as if we lifted a finger. Given all of this, is it acceptable just to do a mediocre job at work, lumber home at night and watch a few hours of TV, then push repeat? Should we even have the right to complain about our miserable lives and lackluster jobs (at least we have jobs)?
Conversely, it's not as if we're really here to help other people. If something happened to me, I doubt that anyone would rush to my aid except for my parents. Since we're not responsible for other people and no one's responsible for us, maybe there's no validity in thinking about the welfare of starving people in Haiti. That doesn't mean that I don't think about them anyway. Occasionally.
Thinking more on the children subsisting on blocks of mud in Haiti, I felt slightly guilty that I had been complaining to several of my friends because I couldn't control the heat in my apartment and I felt like I was in a sauna every time that I opened the door. I even contemplated turning on my AC in conjunction with the heat because opening the windows just didn't seem to do it. Then I realized how much energy I was potentially wasting, not to mention the bucketloads of water that I use when I shower (I know this because my shower doesn't drain especially well). The list goes on and on. Eventually, you're compelled to think about chance and destiny and all that because there's so much disparity in people's lives.
The problem is, we're not thrust into situations where we're scrabbling for a living. Maybe if we were, we'd give more thanks instead of worrying about the bigger TV or nicer house that we can't afford. I don't know if we, as relatively privileged citizens of the world, are compelled to help the starving masses. People make arguments about Darwinism, and accept without question our 'superiority' simply because of circumstances. We were born into relatively well-off families, in a country that's relatively less corrupted and more fair than most. Although earlier generations have fought for these rights, it's not as if we lifted a finger. Given all of this, is it acceptable just to do a mediocre job at work, lumber home at night and watch a few hours of TV, then push repeat? Should we even have the right to complain about our miserable lives and lackluster jobs (at least we have jobs)?
Conversely, it's not as if we're really here to help other people. If something happened to me, I doubt that anyone would rush to my aid except for my parents. Since we're not responsible for other people and no one's responsible for us, maybe there's no validity in thinking about the welfare of starving people in Haiti. That doesn't mean that I don't think about them anyway. Occasionally.
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