Archive for October, 2010

flames of the square.

There isn’t ever any green in NYC, except for in parks and Columbia University. The nearest park in NYU’s vicinity happens to be Washington Square Park. As I was walking back from Weinstein, something caught my attention but I didn’t immediately realize what it was that was different. After a few seconds of deliberation, I began to smile to myself in anticipation of more surprises to come. Because today was the first time I had noticed shades of yellow and red embroidering the tops of the trees around Washington Square Park. Perhaps they have been there for a while already, but I just never noticed. Anyhow I take the colors red and yellow as good signs then =)

To address my previous, previous entry on GPAs…. disappointments can and have happened will happen. But as I push these gloomy thoughts to the back of my mind and focus only on nature’s colourful endowments, it soothes me to know that all I can really see in front of me right now is glee.

peking opera.

I watched a Peking Opera show today. I must say, to be able to watch any show in NYU Skirball for only $12 is a real steal. Well, this show was free anyhow so no complaints there ;p

I keep watching these Chinese shows. I mean I have watched some other shows in NY, but there really is something about Chinese performances that stir a gut feeling within me. You’ve probably heard part of this before in my other post on Lunar Splendour, but I just can’t help thinking and feeling my ancestral line calling out towards me. I know I will never be a true Chinese because duh, I wasn’t brought up there. But my upbringing, my education, the very foundation of who I am, mostly lies on this platform of golden yellow. I cannot and will not ignore my bloodline.

I have a lot of intellectual interests, learning about my bloodline is now one of them, but I also get bored of them quickly. I just learn what beckons my attention at the moment and hope to satisfy my natural curiosity for anything and everything. So many a times I also find myself not intelligent or intellectual enough to understand things at such a deep level, and I get frustrated. So I guess we can only ever endeavour to be the best selves we ever get to be, and that is enough for me. Long past childhood dreams of longing to be out there and known for a famous discovery have naturally been poured out the window. I have come to realise life is much more than fame and fortune. So much more. And there are so many more things harder to accomplish anyhow.

I don’t know why I am rambling so much. But I’ll leave you with a picture of one of my memories tonight. Something for me to think about, something to urge me to discover more as the next 4 years of my life unfold here. And also something for you to imagine and reconstruct in your minds in case you were wondering what a Peking opera is supposed to be like.

Sun wu kong 🙂

of classes and GPAs.

Not long ago if you had asked me about GPAs, I would have told you I don’t have much of a clue. I’ll just go to America and figure it all out.

Before you know it you’re in college, 2 weeks in, still getting used to classes and your roommate and the sickening food and your dirty laundry… and then you’re told midterms are coming up soon.. and you go WTH!?

If you ask me about GPAs now, all I can think about is how the hell am I going to get a good GPA for this semester? A few seniors have warned us that GPA matters, and just because you want to challenge your intellect and learn something interesting, does not mean you should. BECAUSE, these classes will most likely harm your GPA and your ego in ways you had never known before, and will leave you speechless at how ruthless a few numbers can affect your soon-to-be gloomy future, looming all around your clouded mind.

For me, I did not intend to accept the intellectual challenge first semester into college. But maybe my subconscious subconsciously did so for me already. That is why I am here today.. pondering upon my GPA, telling myself it’s going to be okay. Because it is okay. Next semester there will be a different awareness within me when selecting courses.

 

Consider myself warned =)

nothing new.

what drives us to live out each and every day?

Is it the knowing that you’ll wake up and see familiar faces that make you smile? Is it passion for something? Is it the lack of choice? Is it just natural instinct or something ingrained in us to do?

*gap in thoughts* =p

why do all living beings have the need to populate? what is the point in having miniature copies of yourself? Would you consider that an inherent narcissism? A need to make sure that we never get lost in the shimmer of life. That part of ourselves keep flowing in the cycle. That need to be real. To exist. To save ourselves and our ancestors before us from being forgotten.

Blood line upon blood line,

threaded into a gossamer mesh of tangled net

Coursing through our ever-overflowing veins

impounding us with the lives of a million memories from an ethereal past.

 

Caught in the vanity,

surging with insanity.

 

Little homunculus,

there is nothing new in what you say or do.

 

There is only  reiterating of reiteration,

and that’s what makes you blue.

 

I would rather choose to not exist. I don’t need to remembered. There is no honour or glory in it for me. But not existing would just be the easy way out. and I guess I know of no other way.

 

 

 

gray area.

There are certain lines we cannot cross no matter how near we tread on them. Sometimes you find yourself treading on them willingly unwilling and then taking a step back to consider the consequences. And then you think that perhaps there is no line, because what is this line except a figment of our paranoid mind’s imagination? Why must there be a line in the first place? Is it really that wrong to have a line? Can we make it thinner or thicker at our will? Can we shift it according to situations and our emotions at the time?

If there is one line for every situation no wonder we feel so trapped all the time. I don’t know about you but I’m imagining the star we usually draw with line intersections that form a pentagon in the middle with me, stuck in that pentagon in the middle.

And if you finally cross that line.. what should you find at the other side? Release or retribution?