joshua bell

he remembered me! my sis caught up with him and mentioned the conversation i had with him - it was brief, but i made him laugh, which my friend thought would make a lasting impression (not that i'll ever see him again). *be still my heart*

take home midterm due on friday - my life can resume after that, it's been a stressful week (presented on two papers, wrote up a critique on a third paper, and a take home midterm due on Friday). grad school is harder than i thought.

standards of masculinity



a funny look at men in ballet and why men get into it. not all of them are gay! (ethan's girlfriend, gillian murphy, is a beautiful dancer).

so i saw a performance of sf ballet last week (reviewed here) that really had me thinking about men in ballet and the standards of masculinity. this quote is pulled from my sis's blog:

"Men in tights on the football field battling each other with calculated brutality and jumping into each others' embrace with screams of orgiastic pleasure whenever a point is scored are presumed to be heterosexual models for American youth. On the other hand, men in tights on the stage romantically dancing with women, tenderly carrying them overhead in apparently effortless lifts [in ballet], are presumed to be gay."

why is that? culture seems to look down on "gentlemanliness", which should be true masculinity - responsibility, sacrifice, courage, initiative, and forgiveness. that's true strength. my friend who was watching ballet with me, said that her friend who's in hip hop culture talked about the standards of masculinity there - where being too attentive to your significant other is considered a sign of weakness, because if you're a "real man", the women are supposed to fawn over the man. It has to be mutual - if a guy can treat me with respect, that would automatically happen. where did culture go so wrong, that standards of common decency are excluded from women, and this is encouraged by saying that's the manly thing to do? if a guy treated me with the deference shown on stage in ballet, it would be so easy to fawn over that, than being ignored and being expected to do so.


"The world cries for men who are strong — strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer. I pray that you will be that kind of man." -elisabeth elliot

sugary
 
on the intermediate slopes at sugar bowl in lake tahoe, CA

perfect powder snow at tahoe this weekend - it was pretty crazy tho because in early afternoon, it started snowing in drifts, which i probably haven't seen since i was... five? it was nice because it kept a lot of people from coming into tahoe on this three day weekend, so no one was there!! it was amazing, so glad i went. really got practice my turns because the snow was so powdery i wasn't as afraid to fall. definitely feeling more comfortable on blues... was even tempted to try a black diamond, but didn't have enough time (was too busy trying to get one more run in before the lifts closed...)

we went in a group of 30 people, i never recommend that (try saving lunch tables for 30 people). it was fun tho, i got to teach some beginners in the morning and then board during the afternoon (even met up with a friend), so it wasn't too strenuous. after the mini snowstorm in early afternoon though, it completely cleared up and the sun came out, which made for PERFECT conditions for boarding. some casualties though - one girl in our group broke her elbow, and i almost got plastered under a chair lift because my friend's ski tips got caught in my bindings and she couldn't get it out while the chair lift was coming, so with some quick thinking, i was able to fall intentionally and flatten myself under the chair and closed my eyes as it passed over me. (what if the chair didn't clear my face?? i'm glad i have flat nose.) i think i scared the young chair lift operator, he BOLTED towards me and immediately took my board off. i was in a bit of shock, but it turned out to be ok.

yesterday was the first time i braved it enough to carry my camera with me in my jacket - other times i totally would have smashed it to smithereens, but falls were kept to a minimum. next time i'm going without wrist braces, although now I think I'm going to get elbow pads, thanks to my friend. i guess it is a dangerous sport - last week, a friend who boarded for the first time got a vertebral fracture, but i should be ok because i'm too scared to go too fast, so i intentionally fall if i'm out of control.

good times... almost addicting, itching to go again. 

happy valentine's

i got an email today at work around 5 pm from a coworker in the lab:

subject: go home :)
What the hell you are doing here? Go home, it is Valentines Day! :)

another reminder of my singledom. hehe. going over to a friend's house to watch a pro-single episode of sex and the city, the episode where carrie appears on the cover of a magazine where she thought was titled, "single and fabulous", but really it was titled, "single and fabulous?" matt morrison has a one liner at the end of the episode. ^^

the olympics are so addicting! joey cheek won the 500 m speed skating today - not even a sport i particularly like (esp after having to compete with them for ice space in korea, man, those little kids are so fast!!) but he had the cutest smile. :) and a big heart.

"He then announced he would donate his $25,000 gold medal bonus from the United States Olympic Committee to a humanitarian organization, Right to Play. Cheek said he would funnel his money to a program to help refugees in Chad.

"I thought about this for a while," Cheek said. "I won World Sprints and I thought: 'Jeez, I might actually have a shot of doing something great in the Olympics. If I do, I want to make it meaningful.' "

"I learned there's a gold medalist tonight," he said. "And tomorrow there's another gold medalist. So I can either take the time and just gush about how wonderful I feel or use it for something productive.""

what drama at the pairs skating as well! my mom felt so sorry for the chinese with their heartbreaking stories, like their coach who was on the first pairs team in china and learned lifts using photos from newspapers, and got laughed at in their first international competition. the outcome came out well. the gold medal russian team was amazingly beautiful to watch. 

it's also nice to have a sister on the east coast, it's like having your own personal preview. the one for tonight: "OMG U HAVE TO WATCH THE PAIRS"

 
joey cheek, after winning the 500m speed skate (otherwise known as, a mad dash on the ice)

 
L to R: jeremy denk (joshua bell's accompanist, a very impressive pianist), me, and joshua bell (one of people magazine's 50 most beautiful in 2000 - probably the only person on that list that i'll ever meet!) 

 
this was my jury experience. it really opened my eyes to the fact that the legal system rests on jurors - untrained and very biased people. there really should be some training or some rules in the jury deliberation room. everything is allowed in the jury deliberation room, including coercion, which i refused to submit to. a friend reminded me of a story in the michael jackson case where a juror didn't like the way the mother of the victim shook her finger, and thus, threw out her entire testimony. it's based on whim, not logic, at all. i saw more reaction to emotion and whim than anything else. I think the people in the jury deliberation room are people who either: 1) are not smart enough to have avoided jury duty, or 2) people who really have nothing better to do but enjoy being there. it was a real eye opening experience. i guess i learned a lot, but still fairly traumatizing.

on a good note, after two days of jury duty, i got to see joshua bell play in a recital. amazing! i was so thrilled with his sound more than his technique (like arpeggios on harmonics)- his sound was very controlled yet full. in some of his recordings, i thought his sound sounded thin and even whiny (like Mendelssohn, which i used to really enjoy), but none of that came through live. the recital setting was also very intimate, allowed him to fully explore sound and technique without all the flashy orchestral background of a concerto. the recital was so sweet, and even better was meeting him and talking to him about his experiences working with kids and his appearance on the isaac mizrahi show. ;)

i've been attending more cultural experiences lately, which has been tons of fun - meeting cute performers is always fun. :) michael arden last week, joshua bell this week, hopefully sf ballet this week and the spelling bee musical next week. also been keeping up with my skating - started learning a new jump, the loop. school really gets in the way of the things that i really want to do... ^^ 

james blunt on love monkey tonight! awesome - falling in love with the music on this show. really impressed also, with the singers they have on the show - i can't get this song out of my head. joshua bell's going to be on the show too! he says the fact that he actually had lines scared the heck out of him.

ah tv. i love it.

"Nothing tastes as sweet as what I can't have
Like you and the way that you're twisting your hair round your finger
Tonight I'm not afraid to tell you
What I feel about you

I'M GONNA MUSTER EVERY OUNCE OF CONFIDENCE I HAVE
AND CANNON BALL INTO THE WATER
I'M GONNA MUSTER EVER OUNCE OF CONFIDENCE I HAVE
FOR YOU I WILL FOR YOU I WILL

Forgive me if I st-stutter
From all of the clutter in my head
Cause I could fall asleep in those eyes
Like a waterbed
Do I seem familiar
I crossed you in hallways a thousand times
No more camofloge
I want to be exposed
And not be afraid to fall"

ack, i stopped caring about this midterm tomorrow! is it bad i don't care? grad school grades don't really count anyways, right? i wonder if residencies look at these...

talked to my dad tonight about possible specialties i may want to try... i think the paths i'm either going to take is this: 1) a high paying job to pay for what i *love* doing, or using my job to follow my heart, or 2) being a ballet doctor. :) that would be amazing, altho doing choice two would limit me only to orthopaedic surgery. not sure if i could do surgery - the hours and the time and the commitment is huge, altho my dad said the hospitals are really limiting hours on all residencies now.

wonder where i'll be in 10 years...? hopefully out of school by then. ;)

cocktails at 9 am = a good start

here's to a virtually perfect weekend! it was lovely in San Diego, and I had such a great time. It was filled with good food, great theater (even a chance meeting with michael arden!!) it was a lovely sunny weekend.

back to reality - midterm on tuesday.

  

 
i miss good theater 

 
i miss coffee bean 

 

i miss liz 

water vs. coke

note: in college, my roomie and i read the following and totally started drinking more water. in less than two days, my skin totally cleared up even though we were running to the bathroom more often. :)

Water:

• 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (This likely applies to half the world population.)
  
• In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
  
• Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.
  
• One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied (in a University of Washington study).
  
• Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
  
• Preliminary research indicates that 8 to 10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
  
• A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
  
• Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.
  

Coke:

• In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
  
• You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.
  
• To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
  
• To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
  
• To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
  
• To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
  
• To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
  
• To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains.
  
• Coke will also clean road haze from your windshield.
  
• The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.
  
• To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the "Hazardous Material" place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
  
• The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!