| A belated Boston journal |
[Dec. 27th, 2004|05:20 pm] |
| [ | vibes |
| | mmmm | ] |
| [ | airwaves |
| | The Who | ] |
Jayson's Boston trip: Winter break 2004. Thursday 16/12/04 - Wednesday 22/12/04
Thursday night: Drive there in the Kerry-mobile. Stop to visit Ben's awesome relatives on the way. Get to Kate Jensen's apartment around 1 am.
Friday: Sleep in. Go with Ben to Harvard, where we join Victor on the way to the Grad School admissions office. Walk around Harvard Square looking into interesting shops. Ben and I go on to MIT (after sampling the weird sound stuff in Kendall T stop). Wander around the campus, then down the Smoot bridge into the city. Walk around the Christian Science center and a couple of malls. Dinner at the Katsons, Ben's foster family. A traditional Jewish dinner complete with challah bread and a prayer over wine. I get to wear a kippah. Then we drive over to Ben's nerdy friends Dave and Mike and I am introduced to Magic: The Gathering.
Saturday: Take a trip to Boston Common with Ben's friends. Walk down to "The Footbridge" and the open-air concert shell at the Esplanade. Walk back to the Common to meet Victor and Celeste; break up for lunch at the food court in Corner Mall, lounge around in Borders and then go to watch Closer/Ocean's Twelve. Go to a pizza place for dinner, and to Ben's friend's house for some conversation.
Sunday: I spend the day at the Museum of Science. Meet Ben and friends for dinner at the infamous Eagle Deli. Ben gets a Godzilla burger, of course. Then we drive down to Mackenzie's house in Franklin. Play Trivial Pursuit with Kenz's friends, then drive around the streets of Franklin looking for a video rental open past 11 pm. Return empty-handed and decide to watch Horatio Hornblower instead. It starts snowing; of course Ben and I have to have a snowball fight - barefoot. Return to watch Zoolander after which Mackenzie decides we all must sleep.
Monday: Spend the morning shopping for stuff for Ben to make his trademark omelettes. Drive back to Newton to pick up Ben's friend and a couple of sleds. Go sledding on an awesome slope in a golf course. Unfortunately I manage to get my gloves and shoes soaked and get rather sick from the cold. Am resuscitated at Ben's friend's place, and then Kenz and Ben and I pick up Victor and we make for Samberg's place in Southboro. Watch the Princeton-Temple basketball game on ESPN2 (goal tending!!!), play Life, and eat lots of nachos and pizza. We get Mackenzie back home, and I get back to Kate's.
Tuesday: Wake up early to catch the local train to Gloucester where Susie picks me up at the train station. We walk down the shore to see the Fisherman's Memorial, then go to a stone quarry that has an amazing view out to sea. Wander around the downtown area and get coffee at a nice cozy place. Improvise a lunch of squash soup and bagel sandwiches at Susie's house, then drive down to the museum where I am introduced to the art of Fitz Hugh Lane. Run into Susie's sister; we hit the loval P-Rex type store where I pick up a Zeppelin concert recording for meself and a record for Blair. Get back onto the train; eat dinner at the same food court and walk down Comm Ave's row of statues. Get back to Kate's; chat with her for a while.
Wednesday: Walk with Kate to the T stop, take the T to south station where I catch a sweet Chinatown Bus. Back to New York; decide to walk from Chinatown to Penn Station. Get lunch at a pizza place, spend a happy few minutes browsing in an open air holiday market, buy meself a watch, breathe in some of New York's Christmasy feel before I take the train back to Princeton.
An excellent venture, I must say. Enjoyed every bit of it. I can't be too thankful. |
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| Whew |
[Oct. 1st, 2004|09:44 pm] |
Mad week this has been...
San Diego was awesome. Great weather, great sunsets, great beach, great game. We almost got Ben arrested too! As a result of playing in a certain library. Though those California cops with shorts look rather high-school-bully-like.
I had the weirdest dream a couple of nights ago... I watched a TV shopping network segment for the Feynman Lectures. Complete with 80s office attire and overdone makeup lady squeaking "order now for just $44.95!" at the end of it all. The strangest part, though, was that the book she was holding up had a picture of a football (that's soccer to you Americanos) player, wearing a West Germany jersey (yes, I even remember the little flag on his chest) - and that certainly isn't close to what the actual books look like. I have no idea what that could mean.
Must clean up room.
Week 3 already over... midterms this month. wtf mate! Slow down, Father Time, I don't wanna grow up.
I'm worried about how little I care about my MAE courses. Even Death Mech isn't pulling me as much as I thought it would. I'm having the most fun in REL252. I'm slowly realizing how much of my wanting to be an engineer has to do with what my parents want. I don't know how good that is, but I do know now that influence is more than I thought it was. Though it isn't as if I particularly want to be anything else. I supose I will have a good time with Engineering Design and Aircraft Design and all that stuff... I don't know.
I'm surprised how much I 'grew up' last year. I thought living away from my family for two years in Singapore had made me about as mature and independent as I would ever be, but freshman year was a rude awakening. Now I know I still have a long way to go. I'm ready for it. |
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| Huh? |
[Sep. 19th, 2004|12:03 am] |
| [ | airwaves |
| | Blonde on Blonde | ] |
Is Bob Dylan actually singing "Let's get's stoned"? Holy shit! |
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| Word yo |
[Sep. 15th, 2004|04:30 pm] |
10 hour jetlag is a fine excuse to be generally unproductive. Never mind that I landed a week ago.
The PUB has a bumper crop of freshmen - hope they all stay. Lots of trumpets, not a few woodwinds and two fine snare drummers. Even a trash percussionist. First game this weekend, then San Diego next weekend (ohhh yeah!)
Being in a single is all right. At least nobody's gonna bother about the two not-yet-emptied suitcases lying on the floor. Or the stacks of books everywhere. Or the sheets of paper flying about. Or that centipede with a weird assortment of legs that's inhabiting the space between my dresser and the wall. (Hey, as long as it stays away from my bed. I'm not into that kind of thing.)
I bought a bunch of nails to hang things up but have no hammer. My head doesn't work. I tried.
Premature course review:
PHY205 (Death Mech): Reminds me of high school mechanics in my further math syllabus. There's so much math, you seem to be forgetting about the physics. Except... you aren't. Which is why it's awesome.
MAE221 (Thermodynamics): Yawn. I don't go to lectures; I do the problem set at that time instead. Works for me.
MAE305 (Diff Eq): "Lately I get the feeling this university is becoming some sort of correspondence school. For all assignments I will be using Blackboard - (pointing backwards) this blackboard" - Prof. Kostin. He's not exactly young and sprightly, but his lectures are neat.
REL252 (Early Christian Movement): Wow. I always though this would fall short of my expectations, but it shows no signs of doing that.
PSY252 (Social Psychology): The first chapter's been telling me I'm gonna be an antisocial psychopath. Can't wait to see what I learn next... |
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| Math/bio qn |
[Sep. 11th, 2004|12:27 pm] |
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If I have to take one pill each after breakfast and lunch, can I just take two after brunch? |
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| venting |
[Sep. 6th, 2004|04:54 pm] |
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graaah I'm missing out on wild drunkenness etc. noooo fair i hate you all and may you someday be left in alcohol-less deserts or even worse alcohol seas with strict parents watching and i have three more f***ing days before i get to princeton and dentistry is a global conspiracy to rob innocent citizens of their teeth, their looks and their money and my telephone line has been down for three days and i haven't chatted with anyone all that time and my darn suitcase refuses to shut right and i spend 24 f***ing hours in bombay waiting for the next f***ing flight and did you know that God is Pooh Bear? |
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| Ow. |
[Sep. 4th, 2004|01:10 pm] |
So my teeth decide to play spoilsport on my last couple of days here - a 'I'd-better-go-to-the-dentist-before-I-take-off' checkup turned into some godawful surgery for goodness-knows-what. Must be all the chocolate. I gotta find some other addiction.
So now I have a big huge lump on my cheek that will hopefully subside by the time I get to campus... if it doesn't I'm going to shock you all with my dashing Shrek looks. But all the meds I have means no alcohol for a week or two... I'll live. I think. |
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| Life is sometimes difficult, but there are many kind people in the world. |
[Sep. 2nd, 2004|09:52 pm] |
I dug up an old thin book from my bookcase today and felt an indescribable urge to read it. The book was Emil and the Detectives - it was my aunt's English class book back when she was in 8th grade (ca. 1970). It's about a little boy (Emil) who's on his way to the city (London, I assume) with some money for his grandma. The money is stolen by Mr. Green on the train, but Emil with the help of some new friends he makes in the city tracks down Mr. Green who turns out to be a bank robber. There's Paul and the captain and Emil's cousin Polly with her new bike and little Tuesday who wanted to chase the thief but stayed at home next to the telephone for two days because that was what he was picked to do. Hidden away in the book is the contrast between Emil's small town origins and the big city, the thirst for adventure in everyone (like in the Goonies) and a little kid's interpretation of mature ideas (the boys argue whether it's all right to steal the money back from Mr. Green because it is rightfully Emil's; Emil doesn't want to go to the police because he's afraid they'll arrest him for having once painted a statue's nose red). Was an enjoyable way to spend half an hour.
Reading is fun. |
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| Why cleaning ceiling fans isn't fun |
[Sep. 2nd, 2004|11:02 am] |
1) You gotta keep your neck and hands in uncomfortable positions for extended periods of time.
2) Finding a family of daddy-long-legs right under your fingers isn't pleasant.
3) You have to turn the fan off while cleaning it, which means you work in unmellowed tropical heat.
4) All the gunk you knock off the fan falls on whatever's directly beneath it; namely, you. |
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| Two legs too many |
[Aug. 26th, 2004|10:51 pm] |
Spiders can't even die right. They gotta turn up-side-down and curl their legs up real tight and show those weird 'hip' joints for the world to see. As if they aren't ugly enough alive.
What else is creepy? The KKK lynching scene that springs right out of the the blue(grass?) in O Brother, Where Art Thou? with ominous chants and all. I watched it at 2 am and all I could see when I closed my eyes to sleep later were pointy-hat hoods with eyeholes... and no eyes!
The horror. |
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| Ick |
[Aug. 24th, 2004|10:09 pm] |
It isn't pleasant to encounter a frog making its way out of your shoe at the very moment your foot is making its way into the same. Thank goodness the frog had the good sense to jump out before it got trapped or, even worse, squished in there or I'd probably have been traumatized to the point of never ever being able to wear shoes again. Not those shoes again, at the very least.
But then it's still better than the incident of my being bitten by a spider (one of those horrendous big spindly-legged ones like those which cross-breed with the giant Amazonian spider in Arachnophobia and wreak havoc on the house towards the end of the movie) that chose my shoe for its afternoon siesta and didn't appreciate the rude awakening it got from a big smelly appendage. Bit right through my sock. That happened in the fourth grade, and it left me checking my shoes for castaways for quite a while after.
Perhaps a habit I ought to reinstate. |
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| Home... |
[Aug. 23rd, 2004|10:39 pm] |
On a way back from a wedding engagement, my dad stopped at the village he grew up in. He showed me the school he studied in up to the 8th grade - the same old classrooms; quite possibly the same furniture in them still - and the church near it where my grandfather served as a priest. My grandma taught in the same school. This setup - a church with a school right next to it - is repeated in many villages across my state, the only one in India with a significant (15-20%) Christian population, and is the secret behind Kerala's extremely high literacy rate - in most places practically 100%, much better than any other state. For the schools are open to students of all religions, and are sincerely run for the community's service rather than as fronts for religious conversion. Besides, it has led to a kind of positive jealousy among the Hindu and Muslim communities in the state to be more active in setting up educational institutions affiliated with their places of worship.
A glaring illustration of the fact that Kerala, in spite of (or because of?) its diverse religious demographic when compared to the rest of the country, with a higher proportion of both Muslims and Christians than the national average, is (dare I say completely) free of communal tensions and prejudice on religious lines is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the second most powerful political party in the country that is closely affiliated with a very powerful Hindu group and has oppenly suppoerted dirty communal tactics to garner the votes of the Hindu majority all over then country, has never ever won a seat whether in the state or the central legislature in the state. Indeed, the only violence breaking out over religious differences in the state is not between Hindus and Muslims or Christians but between two factions in the Syrian Orthodox Church (to which I belong). Some 30 years ago a group within the Church decided that respecting the authority of the Patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church (based in Damascus in modern-day Syria) was for sissies and wanted to appoint their own head to the churuch to be based in Kerala. This dispute split the Syrian Orthodox community into two, and a long legal battle began over which churches would be handed over to which side - a significant problem because there are a number of churches in the state where there is no clear majority among the parish of supporters on either side of the dispute, and neither side can afford to build one more church at the site of every Orthodox church currently standing so both groups have a place to pray. The dispute has led to many unruly scenes on Sundays at church gates with both groups showing up and each demanding 'right of way' to conduct the service. Twice the problem turned bloody, the second instance clearly a retaliation to the first.
So there it is... yet another paradox in the state that is full of them. Hindus, Muslims and Christians manage to live in harmony no matter what happens in the rest of the country, but two factions of the same sect of the same religion, worshipping the same God, until recently in the same churches, have to go at each other's throats. Amazing. |
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| How about that... |
[Aug. 14th, 2004|08:04 am] |
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Apparently the McGreevey affair is big enough to have made my regional (South India) newspaper's World page, albeit a couple days after the fact. Meanwhile, a local news story about policemen harassing gays at their favourite hangouts in my city has failed to create any discussion in the editorial/readers' response columns. The police aren't entirely at fault - they are almost certainly acting under pressure from citizens in the area who find the thought of two men holding hands in public revolting. But what is saddening is that nobody cares about the issue, apart from a few NGOs who provide support and welfare services to gays. Even the latter are forced to justify their actions by claiming that they are attempting to prevent the spread of AIDS from gays to heterosexuals to avoid coming under harsh criticism for 'promoting gay activities'. Homosexual activities are in theory illegal because of a 19th century law that criminalizes 'sexual acts against the order of nature' (a British legacy that seems to have made its way into several Commonwealth constitutions. Australia, for instance, began removing those laws from their constitution in 1975; Singapore, notoriously, continues to enforce them rather strictly, though even this traditionally conservative nation has let up a bit recently). The courts rarely if ever use the legislation to prosecute citizens, but it does give regional police forces an excuse to harass, humiliate, extort and exploit gays and transvestites. The real sad part, though, is that the public couldn't care less about the situation. |
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| I'm home |
[Aug. 7th, 2004|02:57 am] |
There's a larger blog (written over waits in three different airports) on my laptop but I've to figure out how to get my Dell to work on the mains here before I can post it, but meanwhile I'm finally home after touching five airports over the last couple days. The new house is bigger than anything we've ever lived in before and i likee. My bro-in-law is already here. My sis is coming in a couple of hours and staying till Wednesday. So I get to see everyone and it's awesome.
Dialup gets on my nerves though - pampered Princetonian that I am, I can't bear to wait half a minute for a page to load anymore though I did it most of my online life. I can't spend more than a couple of hours online every day. My body refuses to accept that I'm in another time zone and continues to be hungry and sleepy on Eastern Standard Time. It's been pouring here for days. There isn't a free closet into which I can put my clothes, so I'm living off my suitcase. During moving, the nose of my F-16 scale model broke off. Unlike our last house, this one doesn't have a basketball court anywhere nearby. The dang remote of the TV isn't working.
But I'm home and it's awesome. |
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