一個中國人, 這是我的故事
Sigh.
I’ve been doing release and packaging work for Mono for about two years now, yet things are still a bit of a mess:
My summer internship will be ending in two weeks. I’ve been trying to implement System.IO.Compression but haven’t made a lot of progress. I think, if there is one thing I’d like to fix up before the end of this summer, it should be this every continuing packaging and installation mess.
Wish me luck.
I read this last night and thought I have had very similar experience before.
I’ll be heading to Paris in a week. I don’t think the in-flight announcements in French and English will deviate as much as they do in my Pacific flights. I always have the most fun flying to Hong Kong from Tokyo: the announcements come first in English, then Japanese, then Mandarin and Cantonese.
The Mandarin announcer is almost always better than the Cantonese announcer. With Cantonese, there’s always a lot of ahem, ah
pauses; the Mandarin announcer (probably from Mainland China) probably had a lot more training in public speaking than the guy from Hong Kong.
WordPress is pretty nice. I was even able to import my LiveJournal entries from last month.
I need to work on a way to syndicate my content here to Live Journal now. I can’t find a plug-in yet, but it shouldn’t be too hard to write a hook to do a post on LJ when I post a new entry here.
The short version: I pee’d next to Zhang Yimou tonight.
The long version:
I went to my favorite Thai restaurant with Danny on Sunday. As we walked towards the restaurant from the T station, we passed by the Coolidge Corner theatre and I noticed that they are doing an event about Zhang Yimou this week. Having re-watched Zhang’s latest film, Hero recently, I was pretty excited.
I came home and googled for the event. A few clicked later, I got myself a ticket to see Zhang Yimou.
I got there by 7:45 (a mad dash from the office), and was greeted by possibly every single Chinese person in Boston, the place was packed
. I queued up just like everyone else and waited patiently. Next to me was this couple, Kim (Asian, short hair) and Mark (tall, white guy). Turns out they’re big fans of Chinese cinema — they love to watch kung fu movies (Mark’s impersonation of Cantonese and Mandarin is absolutely spot-on, he attributes it to watching each movie twice, once in Cantonese and once again in Mandarin)
The show started at 8:05 and didn’t end until 10. It started with a lengthy introduction by Carma Hinton, an American filmmaker who grew up in Beijing (it was odd to hear a Beijing accent in her English). Afterward, various speakers came to the podium and gave a 5 to 10 minute speech about a certain aspect of Zhang’s work.
There were various performances, in between the speeches. The first one was the usual Chinese folk dancing bit (boring), and the next one was martial arts demostration by Donnie Yen’s mom, master Bow Sim Mark. The performance itself wasn’t all that amazing, but when I realized that Master Bow must be in her 50s and she can still do a split effortlessly (some I sure can’t do), I felt pretty impressed.
During the last performance, an er-hu recital, I got up to use the restrooms. I had my camera in my shirt pocket, but I decided to leave it in my bag (a big
mistake).
At the restroom, as I was washing my hands, I saw a man in a dark suit standing at the urinal. Short hair, dark suit, not especially tall. I got a glimpse of Zhang Yimou while waiting in line. That man looked like Zhang Yimou. I looked at the other Chinese man in the restroom, I mouthed to him in Mandarin: This is Movie Director Zhang?
and he replied, Yeah.
I washed my hands meticulously and slowly dried them, carefully turning my hands, elongating the process. After I walked out, I saw the woman who introduced Zhang to the ceremony. After a brief chat with her, Zhang finally came out of the restroom.
I shoke his hands and told him I’m a fan of his work. After some polite smallltalk, he was shoved back into the theater by the show’s coordinator.
Even though it was great to get to see him in person, I wish I had left my camera in my pocket. Oh well, c’est la vie.
After the show, I got to meet Richard Gordon, husband of Carma Hinton and a personal friend of Zhang Yimou. He told me he will see him tomorrow, and could get me a autograph. They are showing Hero at the Coolidge tomorrow, but it’s sold out already, but I guess I’ll still head over there tomorrow night and try my luck.
Sigh, I’m late.
50 minutes late.
I was supposed to have dinner with Anthony, but I was late.
I feel so bad.
I stayed home today because DHL said they have a package for me from Apple. I’m getting a free replacement for the busted iPod remote control.
Over the weekend, the wireless reception at home got really bad. My cellphone is down to two bars from the usual four, and wireless barely works — I have to use my laptop from a specific corner of my futon to get connectivity.
The DHL man just buzzed in and I went downstairs to pick up the package.
I checked my mailbox on my way up, and whoa! I got a piece of mail from my friend Teresa:
I haven’t opened it yet, the hand-made envelope looks so pretty and I don’t want to cut it open…
I just read her letter, it is great. Teresa, you have good handwriting!
Some friends at school got a spare invite on gmail, so I have a gmail account now:
duncanmak @ gmail dot com
.
Alex — if you want in on orkut, write me an e-mail so I can invite you.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Cynthia:
> when do you take the bus? > When I go to work in the morning, ahem, i mean, afternoon. I'm still on Hawaii time, I need to fix my schedule badly.
Cynthia writes back:
dude, you've been on hawaii time since i've known you.
I got to the office by 11:30 today. I’m starting to shift to PST. Just a handful more timezones, and I’ll be fully adjusted.
p.s. Alex definitely fucked up last night — it got so cold all of a sudden.
… Wong Kar Wai.
If I were in NYC, I’d be there right now
.
p.s.
this is the same set of escalators used for Wok boarding.
I just took a Colorquiz. The results, as always, are eeriely correct.
Mom woke me up with a phone call this morning. She told me to call her around 10am, when they finish having dinner, so that I can say hi to my grandma. They finished dinner at 9 instead. After a bit of semi-conscious slurring in Fujianese with my grandma, and wishing my mom a happy mother’s day, I tumbled around my bed, read a bit, and then went back to sleep.
I didn’t sleep that well last night. Didn’t get to chat. I ended up reading chat logs from the past week. It wasn’t as good as the real thing.
Your Existing Situation
Insecure. Seeks roots, stability, emotional security, and an environment providing greater ease and fewer problems, but is either unwilling or unable to exert the effort.
Your Stress Sources
An existing situation is unsatisfactory but he feels unable to change it without cooperation; the need for understanding, for affectionate give-and-take remains unfulfilled. This not only depresses him but makes him irritable and impatient, producing restlessness and the urge to get away from the situation, either actually or, at least, mentally. Ability to concentrate may suffer.
Your Restrained Characteristics
Circumstances are restrictive and hampering, forcing him to forgo all joys and pleasures for the time being.
Your Desired Objective
Feels the existing circumstances are hostile and is exhausted by conflict and quarreling. Wishes to protect himself and hides his intentions to avoid exposing them to attack, so that they will be safer and easier to achieve. Careful to avoid stirring up any opposition which might endanger his plans.
Your Actual Problem
Anxiety and restless dissatisfaction, either with circumstances or with unfulfilled emotional requirements, have produced tension and stress. His attempt to escape from these consists of creating at least an outward semblance of peace by refusing to allow himself to be involved.
Your Actual Problem #2
Needs to protect himself against his tendency to be too trusting, as he finds it is liable to be misunderstood or exploited by others. As a result, he adopts a critical and stand-offish attitude, being willing to participate only where he can be assured of sincerity and trustworthiness.
Jeri has been writing a lot more than I have, so I figured I should keep up with my own journal as well.
Saw Mean Girls With Miguel and Maria-Laura tonight. Surprisingly good movie, but my friend Jinn is correct, there is a strong jailbait flavour to the movie (although not as strong as New York Minute). Lindsay Lohan is 3 years younger than me, and she’s like, rich and accomplished. (this is her 5th movie)
I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. According to the rule, the other person’s age must be half your age plus seven
. I turn 21 this July, and Lindsay turns 18 (OMG! We’ve the same sign!). My lower limit is 17 and a half, so Lindsay just made it.
But still, it feels kinda wrong.
Changing the topic here, I was talking to Jeri the a few nights ago, and was reminded of how good the writing in Lolita is (oh god, this is not good…) I planned on buying The Short Stories of Vladimir Nabokov today, but they didn’t have it at Trident, so I got Vintage Nabokov instead.
I re-read parts of Norwegian Wood last night (it was sitting on my nightstand). I really liked the bits in the middle, the conversations between Toru and Midori. I was in Porter Sq. on Friday, and I tried to go to Sasuga to get a copy of it in the original Japanese, but I found out that they moved all the way to Waltham. Sigh.
I got a dingus in the mail the other day, and now I can send files to my phone from my laptop; I’m still working on having it work the other way around. Once I get it going, I’ll post my ongoing collection of phone-cam snaps of Vespas in the city. By the end of the summer, I want to make a collage of all these Vespas.
