Boredom News #2

 

After over a year of not doing this, I’ve decided to start doing this again. Here’s Boredom News #2.

A man in the states had his fears of height worsened, when the bungee jump that his very thoughtful girlfriend arranged for him for got stuck, leaving him hanging upside down for nearly 3 hours. A tortoise had its front left leg amputated due to some sort of illness. However it can now roam quickly and freely with the help of a wheel attached on his shell.

Meanwhile there’s a survivour in New Zealand, two goldfish survived the initial impact of the earthquake in Christchurch, stuck underneath rubles for 134 days without anything but each others company before being found. And the world’s smallest Horse, Thumbelina, enjoys to play with Cocker Spaniels more than flirting with the bigger stallions. While we’re on the world of animals, a bald eagle had a complication on its operation, but thanks to the “mouth-to-beak” procedures, she was saved and breathed again.

World's Smallest Horse

#1

Der 13. Mai war ein besonderer Tag für Peter, ein Tag, der sein Leben ewig änderte. Des Morgens um 6:00 öffnete seine schon herumnörgelnde und wegen seines Zuspätaufwachens genervte Mutter die Tür seines Zimmers und weckte ihn. Während er noch versuchte, langsam wach zu werden, ließ ihm die noch ärgerlichere Mutter wegen seiner Schläfrigkeit keine Ruhe. Doch konnte er überhaupt nichts hören, weil er wegen der gestrigen, anstrengenden Party, auf der er mit seinen Freunden den letzten Abend seiner Freiheit zusammen feierte, noch ziemlich schläfrig war. Er trank schnell den von seiner Mutter schon auf den Tisch gestellten Kaffe und floh schleunigst ins Badezimmer. Trotzdem kam seine empörte Mutter ins Badezimmer mit und zwang ihn, sich zu beeilen.

“Putz dir sofort die Zähne! Schnell! Geh duschen! Zieh deinen Anzug an und komm umgehend nach unten! Ich warte auf dich!” schrie ihn der weibliche Teufel an.

“Ja, Mama”, antwortete er erschöpft, da ihm die Klagen seiner besitzergreifenden Mutter eigentlich schon reichten.

Als er aus dem Badezimmer herauskam, stand die jetzt schön gekleidete Mutter schon wieder vor der Tür, die Hände im Schoß zusammenfaltend.

“Noch 5 Minuten!” warnte sie ihn.

Er flüchtete geschwind in sein Zimmer, zog seinen Anzug, band sich die Krawatte und rannte aus seinem Zimmer und aus dem Haus.

“Du bist 5 Minuten spät, wir sind schon eine Stunde spät, heute ist ein sehr besonderer Tag für euch und ist das nicht wichtig für dich, sollte ich denn allen Gästen sagen, was für einen nutzlosen Sohn ich hab’? Deine Verlobte ist schon seit Stunden in der Kirche…” so setzte die Dämonin ihren teuflischen Geheul fort, während sie zur Kirche zusammen liefen.

In der Kirche saßen schon alle Gäste. Hochzeitskleid gekleidet mit einem riesigen, bunten Blumenstrauß in den kleinen Händen stand die überglückliche Braut neben ihm. Hinter ihm war seine Stolz auf ihn lächelnde Mutter, sie war außerordentlich glücklich darüber, dass ihr schon über 40-jähriger Sohn endlich eine junge, schlaue Frau heiratete. Währenddessen wusste Peter, der Bräutigam, schon, dass er vor dieser entsetzlichen Wirklichkeit nicht mehr flüchten konnte. Mit seiner mitleiderregenden Zukunft wird er nimmermehr zufrieden sein.

Deutschland

Weil ich seit ungefähr 1 Monat in Deutschland bin, möchte ich ein Blog auf Deutsch schreiben. Mein Deutsch ist leider noch nicht so gut aber ich möchte das probieren. Und deswegen korregiere ich dies hier nicht, auch wenn ich weiß, dass es viele Fehler gibt… (ich muss einfach vermeiden, es zu lesen…)

Seit Weihnacht bin ich in Deutschland. Ich bin hier, weil ich Deutsch lernen möchte. Obwohl ich Deutsch bei Colón in Hamburg lerne, wohne ich bei einem Freund in einem Dorf in Schleswig-Holstein. Es heißt Sankt Michaelisdonn, oder St. Michel. Also fahre ich jeden tag mit zwei Zügen nach Hamburg für meinen deutsch Unterricht. Es dauert ungefähr 3 Stunden hin und zurück. Ich habe doch kein Problem mit das haben, weil im Zug ich meine Hausaufgabe machen kann.

Hamburg ist sehr schön. Es gibt viele Kirchen da: St. Michaelis, St. Jacobi, St. Petri, St. Nikolai usw. Am schönsten ist St. Michaelis. Sie ist eine barocke Kirche. Auf dem Turm kann man die ganze Stadt Hamburg gucken. Im Krypta der Kirche legt die Leiche von Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, der Hamburg/Dresden Bach.

Ich habe eine Oper gesehen: Wagners Parsifal, die 5 Stunde lang Oper… Simone Young, eine Australierin, war die Dirigentin der Oper. Die Musik war sehr schön, aber das Geschichte war sehr langsam. 5 Stunde ist ja sehr lang! Und ich glaube, dass Gurnemanz ein bisschen krank war. Haha. Eine Konzerte habe ich noch nicht gesehen, aber vielleicht bald! Hoffentlich.

Na gut, es ist sehr spät hier. Ich muss jetzt duschen und nach Hamburg fahren.

ST

iPad and iNdonesia

Well, first things first, I’ve been converted to an ipad user. I’m loving it! It’s a really great machine that I’ll definitely bring everywhere. However, since I am now in a very technologically advanced country, Indonesia, my iPad is full of apps! With Twitter and wordpress… And, safari… Um… That’s about it i guess. So I’ll have to download them when i go to Singapore, where their internet technology is even more advanced than indonesia’s.

Anyway, returning home was great, at least for the first few days. The airport was as beautiful and welcoming as ever (see one of my earliest blog posts). But thanks to my dad’s friend, i got to skip the immigration lines and I didn’t even need to fish for my luggage by myself, for someone did that for me!

Food’s always good in indonesia. I’ve had many great food since i came back: mixed rice for breakfast, padang rice, durians, char koay teow, soto, etc. However, that might be my demise. After merely 6 days of eating Indonesian delicacies, I fell sick. Funny enough, the last meal I had before I started getting so sick was the vegetarian food i had with Felix and Yenny. Don’t i at least get a nice karma for not eating animals? Grr. I think I’ll just eat meat more often now!

Two more days before i leave Indonesia for Singapore. But thanks to our family doctor, I’m feeling much better. I was given four types of medicines to take. And after taking some of them, I’m already feeling much better, with much sleep too, of course. I am looking forward to be completely recovered by tomorrow, if that were to happen.

So I’ll sign off now, and just for showing off purposes…

Published from my iPad.

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki

One of my favourite composers Górecki died two days ago on the 12th November 2010, just less than a month short of his 77th birthday. It’s funny how I always joked to Julia (my housemate who’s Polish) that I will visit her if she could get me a meeting with Górecki. That won’t happen anymore, I suppose (unless a visit to his grave).

Górecki was born in Czernica i 1933. His early music was pretty much like any of modernist/post-war music in Europe at that time: violent, dissonant, etc. Even Boulez approved of his early works. However, one thing that remained the same was how Polish the music is. He rarely quoted folk tunes, but some of his melodic writing is very folky. He once said that, “you can’t hear that my music is Polish, but you can certainly smell that it’s Polish.”

Górecki came into international acclaim when Symphony No. 3 – Symfonia pieśny żałosnych (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) was recorded and sung by Dawn Upshaw and David Zinman. It remained the only classical music that crossed over into the popular music listeners and even reached number 6 on the pops chart.

Nathan, a fellow composer, and I are organising a concert as a tribute to Górecki. It’ll be on the 5th Dec 2010 in Hartley Concert Room. Anyone in Adelaide is welcome to come. I’m gathering a group of 10 or so people to sing Górecki’s Szeroka Woda and Wisło moja, Wisło szara, and maybe Totus Tuus too… if possible!

Symphony No. 3 has touched many people in the past, and it will still continue to do so. Górecki’s music lives on.

gimel, zayin, yud

Gimel, zayin, yud (גזי,)is the short form of the Hebrew proverb, Gam zeh ya’avor (גם זה יעבור,) which can be translated into “This Too Shall Pass.”

A king requests his wise men to make him a ring that could turn his sorrow into joy and his joy into sorrow (I don’t even know why he want to be sad if he’s happy, but oh well…). What these men came up with is a simple ring, but with simple, yet magical words: “this too shall pass.”

I find it amazing how strange and seemingly improbable the request is, but yet, how simple the solution is. I suppose, Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” reflects this proverb the best.

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

So what’s the moral? I guess, whatever your situation may be, it will most likely going to pass. If you’re in an unfavourable situation, the thunderstorm and clouds will clear away for the sun eventually. Similarly, the sky won’t be blue every day, it won’t just be sunny all year long (unless you’re in the pole, I suppose).

p.s. I apologise for the Hebrew, it’s written from left to right, instead of the usual right to left, wordpress wouldn’t let me change it (more like I can’t be bothered to find out how).

Boredom News #1

Boredom inspired me to read up on some news and starting this “Boredom News Series” (I might think of a better name soon!). Of the most interesting one was the plane crash of a Polish Tu-154 that carried Polish president (now ex-President, I assume), Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and many Polish government officials. It crashed on Saturday while attempting a land in spite of the heavy fog.

I decided to click on the “weird” news section and found many lighthearted ones more suitable for a Sunday morning. An old woman in China has been growing a long, left devil horn. There is also a short one on the right side, which isn’t as prominent in length and size as the left one. In England, a “trespasser” was reported to the police for rescuing a student who was stuck on top of a tree. So, apparently the school’s policy prevents teachers from rescuing the child. Instead they should “observe quietly” from distance to avoid concentration loss from the child that could result in him falling down from the tree.

In Sweden, a rather horny rail network worker was caught watching too much porn and caused a great railway network disturbance! While a very interesting chef in New York offered a “homemade” cheese to go with his dishes. “Homemade” here means it is was made from his wife’s breast milk.

Anyway, that’s all for today. Going to work.

Fringe 2010

It’s that time of the year again: The Fringe Festival! The period of a month where Adelaide springs out to life! The time when the otherwise sleeping Adelaide zombies walk the earth and terrorise the innocent, unexpecting civilians who clearly don’t know what is happening in the city. I love the sudden outbursts of music, dance, art, etc. in the corners of Rundle Mall and squares around the city.

So we performed during the pre-Fringe festival bash. They got a few performers from various Fringe shows to perform snippets of their shows to promote their shows, while also entertaining the thousands and millions of crowds we attracted. They also had some raffles going with the prize of the tickets to see many of the Fringe shows. Of course, there out of the billions of people attending, most bought at least a dozen of raffle tickets. So when they picked out the tickets, more than half of the tickets went to the organisers of the bash; while three consecutive tickets went to the same family! That was how crowded and enthusiastic the crowd was!

The logo for this year’s Fringe festival is an astronaut (female, I presume) wearing a ballet skirt/tutu thing (whoever decided this is rather silly). And if you have a lack of imagination, feel free to take a look at the photo I put up on the photo “gallery” below. What is really ridiculous, worse than the actual logo itself, is the mega sized logo that they erected up on Victoria Square. It is a purely titanic and grotesque figure. I wish I had taken a photo of it when we passed it today. It would have been quite a priceless photo to put up here.

Well, I now am going to give you some excuses to explain why haven’t I been updating this blog. No, I haven’t abandoned this blog yet, neither have I lost interest in this blog yet. I know I have had a very promiscuous past with blogs (I have at least 10 of them!), but that was the past. I can now gladly say that ever since I switched to WordPress, I was sucked into blogademia (not blogging about what I ate this morning or what I am going to do when I go out today) and I can say that I am a changed man. But anyway, the excuse is because I have been busy with music rehearsals for the Fringe show too! The company is founded by my friends and it is called No Tenor Allowed. Their/our prémiere show is the Double Bill: Cox and Box by Arthur Sullivan and the Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti. My role there is as the musical director of these operetta/operas. Our opening night is next week’s Thursday. It’s going to be fun, I am sure. So, if you are in Adelaide come and watch us. If you are not, what are you waiting for? Book your flight and come to Adelaide already!

So, pardon me for the lack of updates. I know I apologised in my last post before and I am apologising here again, and I might be apologising for the same reason again on my next post. But I do sincerely hope that I will be updating more frequently, and with better posts too! Really!

P.S. Toreador is cool!

iPad and iTennis

Just a short commercial shoutout, Apple’s newest product, the iPad, marks its market expansion to a whole new world of women personal products. Sources mention that the new iPad can be easily hooked on to wherever it is meant to be hooked on to and is able to download protection for up to a thousand periods. And for those who are worried about viruses, each new iPad comes with vaginal firewall protection. So why still use the normal pads, get your newest iPads in your local Apple Stores.

Anyway, I’ve been watching some Australian Open matches these few days. My housemate was rather surprised since I actually hangs outside my room (the telly is in the living room). To those who know me personally, I am not really sporty at all. Neither do I care much about sports. But I recently found out that I can enjoy a Badminton or Tennis match quite much. Well, the only Tennis that I would really try to watch are probably the matches that involves the Williams sisters. And no, I do not watch the matches because of their squeals and moans. I just find them amusing to watch. Williams vs. Henin in the final was definitely a great fun to watch. One Henin supporter shouted at Henin, “You can beat her, Justine, she isn’t that good.” That propelled Serena to win the games and sets. Some supporters are probably the most idiotic people out there. Saying stuffs like that would most definitely spark motivation to the person they aren’t supporting. That said though, Justine Henin was playing amazingly too. Just like Serena said, she is definitely back in the court.

One of my greatest disappointment is not to watch Williams vs. Azarenka, which was quite a close one for Serena. Lost the first set and was losing 0-4 in the second. But she fought back and won the set and the next one. Must have been quite an amazing one!

The other match I watched was Federer vs. Murray. The result was quite expected, but I was rather disappointed that it lasted for only three sets! Oh well. Federer was quite smart, mentioning the fact that the British haven’t won yet since 1936, putting a lot of pressure on Murray. The tears shed at the end was rather silly but expected.

Oh well, sorry for this rushed, half-arsed and belated post. I’m rather busy these days, especially with a lot of rehearsals. But not to worry, I am sure I will be posting more soon!

Printing Fiesta

Ozzyfrog showed me the Oatmeal comic page Why I Believe Printers were Sent from Hell to Make Us Miserable just a few days ago. And I can totally relate to that! Well what happened was I went to the uni today to bash the piano for a bit. I wanted to print out Lieberstraum (by Liszt) so I could perhaps start practicing it or something. Walking from the Rundle Mall through Kintore Avenue, I went to the Music library. Of course, it was already nearly 5 and the Music Library was closed – not very surprising at all, they don’t open that often at all. I would probably not want to go there anyway, since the printer is always marked with a “Temporarily Out of Order” sign; I think they actually meant “Eternally Out of Order.”

So I carried on to Schultz Lv. 4 where the other printer is. I have some reservations with this, after all, there were no papers in the printer the two out of four or so times I went there. Feeling really positive and optimistic, I went up to find that there is, of course, not a single blank A4 paper in it. So, I lugged myself down and went to the computer suite in Barr Smith Library. The distance wasn’t that far, but it definitely felt like walking from Adelaide to Melbourne. On the way there, I thought: it will take only 5 minutes, log in, download the PDF, click print, take scores, log out, leave – but oh boy was I wrong.

Upon my arrival, the computer suite was much quieter than usual, since it’s still holiday. There weren’t many computers available though, so I took the one closest to me. Typed my username. Typed in my password. Clicked enter. I thought it was that easy, but it turned out that I have forgotten the new password I changed on the university’s request. After ten minutes of trying to figure out what my password was, I managed to gain access to my own uni desktop. Just as I clicked IE, a very typical and familiar Windows Error pop-up appeared, telling me that the connection to the printer is cut off and I had to relog-in. I did that and the same infuriating message greeted me. So I left in search for another computer. Found one. Sat down. Repeated the logging in steps, only this time I remembered my password. The same aggravating pop-up welcomed me. This time, I didn’t bother to try my luck and went out of the computer suite immediately.

My next stopover was one of the suites in Union Building. To my excitement and relief, it worked! It really did take me only 5 minutes before I eventually left that building.

So this was what happened today, during a holiday season, when the number of library users are considerably less. Imagine how it is like during normal uni year, when everybody sits on the computer lab doing their work (or not), while a great number of people just stands around waiting for a computer to free up so s/he can print their assignment, chat on FB or do research. It is hell. I do not like printing! They are always jammed, out of paper or not working somehow. There’s always an excuse to not work when I really need to print out assignments too. Oh well, but that’s Murphy’s law for you.

p.s. my UPS parcel was delivered this morning at 7:45. I beaten it by 15 minutes, woke up at 7:30AM.