| my life is a whopping 7.1 |
[Jan. 5th, 2006|12:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | silence of the lab | ] |
so, how long has this been? and now you all have solid proof how short my attention span is. it must've been more than 6 months since i updated my cluttered life. i guess i've put it off for so long, it wouldn't matter too much if i just put if off a bit more. i just want to post this funny ( i thought so) quiz result i got today. i occationally get interesting/silly quizs forwarded to me from friends and here is one of the most recent results. transform quality of your life into digits. woohoo! thought it was fitting for a scientist like me who loves to quantify abstract notions with numbers.
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| a brief update, maybe |
[Jun. 6th, 2005|11:52 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | guster- medicine, | ] |
there had been several occasions in the past month that i felt quite obligated to bring this journal up to date. yet the ongoing hiatus has slowly turned into a nasty addition. today i finally gather enough will to at least give a brief update before my frequently short-circuited brain starts to forget the valuable and exciting memories. ok, yes, i don't think i wrote about the california trip in april, which was pretty fun.
i stopped by san fran for a few days, stayed with ryan and jennie before heading down to anaheim for annual AACR (american association for cancer research) meeting. the meeting was huge and a bit overwhelming. although parts of it were excellent, the sheer size and frustration of not being able to coordinate all the things i liked to do was quite a turn-off.
after california trip, i came back and put an end to my rather miserable volleyball season. well, let me rephrase that, the actual physical aspect of the season was abysmal(no offense to my teammates, some of whom might very well read this little piece. we were a great team, off the court, that is), there are probably few worse teams than us in the history of human volleyball playing. but the socializing afterwards had always been a very fun event. and i am still glad i initiated the team, very grateful to all the team members for sticking together and having lots of fun playing incompetent volleyball, and of course, i enjoyed the late night visits to the fells points bars immensely.
before the end of season, i snuck up to amherst for a weekend for jef's swordsmanship conference at Mass center for renaissance studies, which was interesting and enlightening. it was a rather tightly packed weekend, activity wise, i was quite torn between visiting folks. I actually missed jef's dedication ceremony of the collection of historical combat treatises to his late father's name, felt bad about that. in addition, as usual for this gang of friends, alana me and jef did a bit beer drinking while watching cartoons on demand. mm.. driving was insane though. 1000 miles in 2 days. my poor butt.
back to the sports, in contrast, my soccer team miraculously improved a great deal towards the end of the season. the strategies neal and i worked out had effectively prevailed. we beat the bottom team of the league 20 to 2 during the first round of playoffs. yes, that wasn't a typo and we were actually embarrassed to keep playing with our usual intensity. the second round of playoff we knocked off the champions from last season the fighting amish, 8 to 2. although i had to sit out due to my knee injury, the excitement wasn't any less just watching the game. some of the players on my team might have been a little too aggressive and dirty in some aspects, but the fighting amish never had a chance to put up any real challenges. and for the final, we played the champions from two seasons ago, the team that hadn't lost thru out the season. my knee probably didn't like the fact that i played for 10 minutes, but scoring a goal and an assist in a quarter of a game was just too exciting to miss. we capped our season with a 7:3 win, in a completely dominating fashion. yeah, i babbled a lot for the soccer but that was an awesome season.
yeah, the weekend before the end of soccer season, alana came to visit for a week. action-packed is an understatement for that week. the HFestival was great, 10 hours of musical treat. the lightening from the storm, the lighting on the stage, billy idol, cold play, foofighters, garbage, they might be giants, louis XIV, interpol, social distortions, the good charlotte, can't believe it was only 40$. then it was the NIN concert at the electric factory, what a show. and i saw the star wars III . a week of good eats, good conversations and tons of fun. and did i mention good eats? chuang cai, ethiopian, puerto rican....
so, since then, it's mostly just work. wednesday is the killers concert, so that should be another jolt for the week. and next weekend i'll be heading up to boston for the american craft beer fest, mm....
so it's late and i should end here, but this is the fear i have had that partially kept me from writing up this update. i feel like i am not doing enough justice to the past month, it was just, well, tons of fun to be effectively captured by words. *sigh* maybe i should write some up in more details later, when i have more free time, which i sort of doubt would be possible. but above all, i need to express some gratitude to the friends i spent all the fun time with, alana, jef, shoba, mark, matt (yeah, those two beer heads, i should write more about them later), and my entire soccer and volleyball team, and melinda and adam, also ryan and jennie, they had helped to make it a spectacular month.
btw, the softball season started today with a win right before the raging thunder storm, it is a bit overwhelming to manage a team of 22, i shall elaborate on that later. |
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| one of the few online quizzes that i have finished |
[May. 3rd, 2005|12:17 am] |
due to some serious pressure from a particular person, here is something for the giggles or more if anyone might like.
Your dating personality profile:
Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate.
Big-Hearted - You are a kind and caring person. Your warmth is inviting, and your heart is a wellspring of love.
Adventurous - Just sitting around the house is not something that appeals to you. You love to be out trying new things and really experiencing life. | Your date match profile:
Shy - You are put off by people who are open books. You are drawn to someone who is a bit more mysterious. You want to draw her out of her shell and get to know what she is all about.
Adventurous - You are looking for someone who is willing to try new things and experience life to its fullest. You need a companion who encourages you to take risks and do exciting things.
Intellectual - You seek out intelligence. Idle chit-chat is not what you are after. You prefer your date who can stimulate your mind. | Your Top Ten Traits
1. Liberal
2. Big-Hearted
3. Adventurous
4. Sensual
5. Wealthy/Ambitious
6. Intellectual
7. Practical
8. Funny
9. Shy
10. Romantic
| Your Top Ten Match Traits
1. Shy
2. Adventurous
3. Intellectual
4. Big-Hearted
5. Practical
6. Funny
7. Sensual
8. Conservative
9. Traditional
10. Athletic
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Take the Online Dating Profile Quiz at Dating Diversions |
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| Qingming series (清明系列) 4 |
[Mar. 2nd, 2005|01:33 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | jem-they | ] |
Ok, after a week of hiatus, Qingming (清明) poems are back in action. Today I’m posting a poem from early Tang (唐) dynasty, by Song Zhiwen (宋之问) (656-712). Song was an interesting character. Before saying anything about him, a little history dug from memory. During 2000 years of Chinese feudal history, getting a job with the government was considered a highly admirable career path. There are two common ways of doing it. one is by studying literary and philosophy teachings and became a “literary person”. Such a person could take part in regional or national exams, based on your writing skills, to be selected into the government. The other route is through military but it was less traveled. So most of those poets started off being a “literary person” or trying to be one. Some climbed high on the political ladder, some, like Song, ended up tragically. Song first had a decent career, serving as a scholar in the government, writing poems to fit the emperor/queen’s moods (part of his life he served under the only female emperor in Chinese history), so he was kind of like a literary joker. But he picked the wrong political circle to side with, as a result, he was exiled multiple times during various power struggles. Eventually he was “given the right to commit suicide” by the 3rd or 4th emperor he had served under.
Song’s contribution to Tang poetry was that he was among a handful of early Tang poets that more or less formulated the “five character” (五言)poems and set the tone for many poets to come.
途中寒食
马上逢寒食，途中属暮春。
可伶江浦望，不见洛桥人。
北极怀明主，南溟作逐臣。
故园肠断处，日夜柳条新。
Hanshi on the road
On the horseback I realize it’s the Hanshi festival,
It is already late spring on this journey to the south.
Morosely I look up the river,
And realized I can’t see pedestrians on the luoyang bridge1
I miss a wise king to the north,
While I am heading south to be exiled.
I think at home where I used to spend all the lugubrious days,
The new willow branches2 are budding day and night.
1. Luoyang was the capital at that time
2. willow tree has strong symbolic meanings during Qingming, please refer to the first posting.
Footnote:
Song’s poems written during his exile days were considered superior to his other works. Probably because when one speaks his own mind is always better than being ordered to write.
Anyway, hope you enjoy this and more is on the way. |
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| Qingming Series (清明系列) 3 |
[Feb. 20th, 2005|10:59 pm] |
ok, before I post the first poem, I would like to try something unthinkable. I want to attempt to give a brief description of Chinese ancient poems. I know this subject is worth 100s’ of doctoral theses. Yet, I thought it might be helpful for you as well as for me to refresh our memories, before delve into a whole series of poems.
So let’s start from the beginning, the first poem collection found in china so far is 诗经, edited around 6th century B.C., most of the poems were song lyrics about daily lives or political injustice, unlike Greek and other European ancient poems, very little was concerned with methodology or myth. Many of them were rather rigidly formatted, the majority is 4-character(四言) sentences (some 3 or longer) of various length. As the time passed and music styles changed, poems had evolved as well. It was during Tang (唐朝 618-907 A.D.) and Song dynasty (宋朝 960-1279 A.D.) that the ancient poems reached their prime. (I just skipped more than 1000 years of Chinese history, woohoo) During those two dynasties, there was an explosion in terms of numbers of poets and volumes of poems emerged. Most of the poems from Tang dynasty (唐诗) were formatted in 4 sentences of 5 characters (五言) or 7 characters (七律), with the 2nd and 4th sentences rhyme, the 1st is optional but definitely not the 3rd. as you will see later, most of the poems I am going to post fall in those two formats. Besides the above mentioned 五言, 七律, Song Dynasty saw the rise of another popular format of poems, which is called Ci (词, literally means word). These poems are constructed to fit a particular melody thus each of them has two titles, the first one indicates the type of melody the poem is supposed to be sung to and the second is the actually title. (I will post a few of those as well.) The structure of 词 is far more complicate because each melody title dictates the number of sentences as well as the number of characters in each sentence. The rhyming is also quite intricate because not only rhymes fall in ends of particular sentences, the tones of the characters in other parts of the poems also have to be carefully chosen. Of course more poems and additional formats emerged after Tang and Song dynasties (唐朝. 宋朝), it was well regarded the peak of Chinese ancient poetry.
Ok, that’s pretty much all I can manage to say at this point.
So the first poem for Qingming is the very first one jumped out at me as soon as I thought about doing this. It was written in late Tang Dynasty by this poet named
Du, Mu (杜牧 803-852 A.D.). Allow me to tell you a little about him. 杜牧 was born in a rather influential family, his grandfather was the 宰相 (modern equivalent of prime minister) during mid Tang Dynasty (唐朝). However, 杜牧 ‘s own political career was not smooth at all. As a rather honest and outspoken person, he didn’t really fit in the political circle. (sadly, the same is still true today.) Disappointed at not being recognized for his talents as well as the rampant corruption during the period, 杜牧 was known to frequent the “Green houses” (青楼) (similar places as Geisha houses) and carry out multiple romantic escapades. However, 杜牧 is regarded as one of best writers and poets for his time. His writings were often poignant, well-construed and concerned about dejected lives of the lower classes. The following poem is one of the most popular poems about Qingming (清明) of all time.
清明时节雨纷纷,
路上行人欲断魂
借问酒家何处有,
牧童遥指杏花村
incessant rain falls on the qingming day
people passed by as if have lost their souls
I ask where the tavern is
The little cowboy points to the distance where the village of apricot blossom lies
I like this poem because it gently paints a figure of sad, wet qingming day.
Hope you like it.
I’ll try to post one poem per week until the beginning of April. Next week is going to be insane in term of work load and administrative crap. So I’ll try to post something by the end of week. If not, I will make it up the week after. |
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| Qinging series (清明系列) 2 |
[Feb. 20th, 2005|02:18 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | too busy to notice | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | keyboard typing concerto | ] |
清明节 is usually on the April 5, the day to pay respect to the dead. Folks usually go to the gravesite, pull out the weeds, offer food, burn incense and paper money (it is believed that the dead can only receive the currency after its burned. You can buy millions of dollars worth of those “underworld” currencies from the street vendors.) etc. along the years this festival has evolved to include other activities as well, such as 荡秋千 (playing on a swing set, more for kids, especially girls), 踏青 (hiking in the fields, literally it means stepping on the greens), flying the kites, many of which are spring related, fitting for the time as early spring.
I’ll start posting the poems on next entry. |
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| Qingming series (清明节系列) 1 |
[Feb. 19th, 2005|05:51 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | 平和 | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | inner universe | ] |
I have decided to post a series of entries dedicated to the history and poems of Qingming festival (清明节), a long-lived Chinese tradition to honor and commemorate the dead. Partially this is due to personal sentimental reasons as well as an inner urge to write a bit; also largely because eveninghawk’s mentioning about the festival tickled the right nerve. Anyway, I’m going to start with a brief intro of the origin of this festival, then follow up with a series of poems extracted from memory, books that are collecting dust on the bookshelf and other sources. I would like to make an effort to integrate as much Chinese with English, just bear with me if anything doesn’t make sense.
At the beginning:
The original story was recorded in shiji (史记, literally means history records), a monumental tome of historical stories (also regarded by many as superb literary pieces as well) that was edited by Sima, Qian (司马迁, 145 B.C. ~ ?, a legendary historian who overcame great personal and physical tragedies. I would include an entry just for him later if I can manage). 史记was first finished around first century B.C. which recorded more than 3000 years of Chinese History from the beginning of tribal wars to Han dynasty (汉朝). A must read for students in the centuries to follow. Although some stories might border on the margin of folklores, it is still considered one of the most accurate recording of ancient Chinese history.
Sorry, I digress.
The story started around 656 B.C., at the kingdom of Jin (晋国), a medium sized kingdom amongst more than a dozen various sized kingdoms consist of midland china at the time. These were monarchic kingdoms/states that constantly forged alliances and waged wars with each other. They were kind of like modern provinces, maybe a bit smaller. Sorry, digression again.
One of the king’s favorite concubines, Liji (骊姬), conspired to elect her son to the throne by setting up the lawful successors in a staged assassination plot. The king’s oldest son, shen sheng(申生) was ”given the right to commit suicide” ( in other word, forced to kill himself by the order of the king). The second son, a well regarded young man, chong er (重耳), escaped the country with his loyal followers and servants. The gang of the deposed wondered through other kingdoms, some political opponents of the 晋国, gathering support, dodging assassins, enduring hardship. After 19 years of exile life and several晋kings went through their short, often tumultuous rules, 重耳 finally returned and claimed the throne in 636 B.C. His ceremonial celebration was soon interrupted by complicated foreign affairs and warfare. In重耳’s words, in the midst of confusion, he neglected to reward one of his most faithful advisors, Jie Zitui (介子推), as he did to most of other followers that stood by his side during the 19 years of exile. 介子推 soon left and became a hermit. Eventually 重耳 was reminded or thought of his mistake, and sent for 介子推. 介子推 declined and went deeper into the mountains. In a desperate effort to find or in other words, forced 介子推 out, 重耳 took the advice of setting the hilltop ablaze where介子推 was hiding. (now I really start to doubt his intention or intelligence. Well supposedly he set fire to 3 sides of the hill, left one side open. But the blaze went on for 3 whole days. So haray to the master pyroman) After the ashes had settled, they found介子推, unfortunately, very much dead with his back to a willow tree and his mother, also dead, in his arms. In the hollow hole of the willow tree, 介子推 left some writings, using his blood on a piece of cloth, to the king with some sage advice include the sentence:
勤政清明复清明 ( be diligent at administrative duties and be honest and perceptive)
Deeply saddened by介子推’s death, (hopefully his own stupitidy as well), 重耳 decided to make this day hanshi jie (寒食节, cold food day), a day that no food can be cooked over fire (maybe because he had used up all the fire possible for the entire kingdom?), to memorialize his ill-fated loyal friend. The next year, 重耳 returned and found the willow tree came back to life and sprouting new branches. So重耳 rededicated the day as清明节, a national holiday until nowadays. On a happies end note, 重耳, his kingly name 晋文公, later became one of the wisest and most influential rulers for his age.
Reference:
白话史记， 冯作民译注，1982
http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/qingming.htm
http://www.3qq.cn/mu/jr0405.htm
Footnote:
Supposedly, one day during 重耳’s exile days, at the brink of being starved to death, 介子推 cut off a piece of his own flesh from his thigh to feed 重耳 and thus saving his life. I haven’t found this in the 史记, but I have an abridged version and my ancient Chinese skills are fading fast. So forgive me for not mentioning it in the article. Although doubting its truthfulness, I have to admire 介子推’s loyalty and selflessness. Being a scientist by training, though, I have to marvel at the miracle that介子推 survived the incident. A man, half a step away from death by starvation, with blood pouring out of an open wound in the thigh on top of substantial muscle loss, without any antibiotics, living 2500 years ago on a treacherous journey, survived this unthinkable ordeal yet later to be burned to death on a hilltop by the very friend he saved. Isn’t that life’s irony?
Sorry, I digress again.
I apologize in advance to anyone being offended by my light-hearted approach to history. To me, history is what historians wrote, it could be as close to truthful facts as to complete outright lies. So I just can’t help but throwing in some of my personal comments. |
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| 有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎 |
[Feb. 15th, 2005|07:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | improving | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | dropkick murphys | ] |
so last week a good old friend came to visit. first time in many years that i actually celebrated chinese new year, kind of, at least got the eating part done, definitely not the cleaning part for those of you out there that understand the traditional ritual.
lots of good food, both in and out, good drinks, more in than out luckily, and good conversations and movies... all in all, it was a blast. i have to admit that for a long while, i haven't laughed this hard and had this much fun packed into 5 short days. i don't usually consider myself a lucky person but i have to say i am damn lucky to have a few friends that i could just let myself be and have tons of fun, good jokes, bad jokes, slapsticks, it doesn't matter, the synergy is there and the laughs just follow.
what a fun time! |
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