My last post of the year

I thought that it might be fitting to write a last post before the year is over--over here in Taiwan at least. I am once again at the airport, and I will be spending my New Year's on a plane heading back to LA. The good thing is, I get there new year's eve! So its not really like I had lost out on my new year; rather I get to celebrate it twice this year.

I think I had a good trip overall. Ate A LOT of food! And I am not exaggerating. I think that I had pretty much eaten everything I wanted to (except perhaps the durian) but heck, I had more hawker food in spore this time than all the previous times I traveled there. I met with a lot of old friends whom I haven't seen in years and it was as if we had never been apart. Strange thing I know, there's something special about shared history, after all, I have known some of those people since I was 12. And I was glad that I was able to spend the time with my grandma and aunts in Taipei. I think when you get older you value family more, perhaps because you understand them better; their motives and the reasons why they do the things they do. Like my good friend Deb said, you also see them getting older and in a way can't help feeling sad.

It's been an interesting year. I wouldn't say that it had been my best year, particularly the latter half, but in many ways it had been an enlightening one. So that is good. I can definitely say that I am looking forward to the next year, with new hopes and dreams and experiences.

I had never been into new year resolutions, but this year is a little different. Till the next post--have a happy new year!

The pigging out continues

I have been continuously gorging myself. At my last weigh in i have gained about 5lbs since I left LA. So far I have spent the bulk of my days here thinking about all the food I am going to eat. And my grandma, like all other grandmothers, has been trying her best to fill me up with food that she thinks I like. I visited Cathy, she seems well, and her lab seems to be taking off.

A sign that I am hopelessly afflicted with the need to stay connected all the time. AFter I get off the plane after an evil 16 hour flight (evil because it included a stopover at Anchorage at 2am just when I started to fall asleep), I hop off the plane, brushed my teeth and all that, then proceeded to the nearest ethernet connection. Checked my emails, wrote to a bunch of friends, yes and even found the time to catch up on all the blog reading and blog updating. Now I just have to make sure my cell works.

Concert's over! And I can say that we did well! No major mistakes--felt that the rhythm could be crisper during one chorus, but all the problems that plagued us during the dress rehearsal didn't happen, we followed the stick quite well as a whole and didn't rush too much. Don was definitely pleased, he even came up and thanked me for singing so well (I don't think he meant me personally, rather the section/choir as a whole). I think that it was definitely one of the better concerts we had done. The show will be broadcast on kmzt on 12/23 8pm, just too bad I won't be around then to hear it. I am hoping that perhaps Eric could tape it for me or I could score a CD from Rae.

Now I need to pack for my trip. Starting to get stressed thinking about all the clothes I need to bring as I am going to two different seasons, summer in Singapore and winter in Taiwan. So I have to pack both tank tops and sweaters.

At the yard house after the show 

Lizzie and Rick 

Messiah concert 

I suppose from the pictures you can figure out what I had been up to lately.

Baked cookies for some friends, and got them all nicely wrapped up.

Performed at the Holiday Sing-along concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall. I always enjoy singing there, its really a nice venue, though nothing tops the experience with Zubin Mehta and LA Phil singing Beethoveen's 9th. We messed up on the jingle bells procession. I hate it when that happens, you work really hard on something and then for some reason during the day of the performance you choke. ugh! Our messiah concert is tomorrow. I think rehearsal went well today, and I hope the concert tomorrow will as well. I have a rehearsal at 11am, so why am I doing up now writing this?

Just thinking of all the things that I would like to do as a career:
Singing
Knitting
Some kind of food related thing (after all, I love to cook and eat!)

Unfortunately last time I checked I'm not particularly outstanding in any of those. I am definitely a good singer, but to be great, that's another thing.

I think I want to be creative, to make something out of nothing, to use my brain and think about problems, to generate the most beautiful sound from a sheet of music. To be an artist (just not the drawing kind, not much good at that). And I think I'm a bit of a performer. Bobg had always said that it was why I was good at teaching, I actually enjoy being up there, though I get incredibly nervous.

I really need to start getting ready for my trip. Figured after the concert tomorrow, sunday will involve going for a nice run, laundry chores and packing! Monday I bring the babies to my mom's so she can look after them while I am go and tuesday evening I leave! It's going to be a busy 2 weeks. But I am excited about meeting my old friends whom I haven't seen in so long!

Christmas cookies all boxed up 

Pistachio spice cookies 

Gloria and Erica looking festive. 

Disney Hall Choir room 

A Loveless Marriage

I feel like I am stuck in a loveless marriage. I was thinking about this yesterday, and my current situation in my program is exactly like that. You have realised that you are no longer in love with the other person (in my case it's science), but yet you cannot leave it. Sure, you can always leave, but just like an unhappy marriage where children are involved, I am stuck in a situation where if I were to leave then I would simply have wasted 7 years of my life and nothing to show for it. So I have to plod on, but the days don't go by easy. Just way too difficult to fake enthusiasm and happiness.

Had our second rehearsal for our Holiday concert at WD concert hall yesterday. I had thought that it was going to be the usual goofy Christmas carolling, but apparently, because we are more like a chamber choir, we are expected to sing really really well as every mistake will be heard. Sigh, I guess I have to go and practice some. The only good thing about singing soprano--I get the melody!

Went to the Caltech Messiah sing along on friday. A rather laid back affair, not quite like the one at the Walt Disney concert hall that I have been to a couple of times. As it happens the evening before my departure this time I think that it is unlikely I will make it. There were in all 2 violin player and a cellist, but there were probably ~70 people there total, so it was a good crowd. As with all sing alongs, some people really know what they are doing, and there are others who are just there to enjoy the music. I got to sing the soprano part on the soprano-alto duet "He shall feed his flock." Quite fun, and I wasn't actually all that nervous and stressed about it! Perhaps my skin is starting to get thick.

Coughing

Oh yes, I have a cough. Always seem to happen a week before my concert. Trying to stay warm and hydrated with plenty of vitamin C so hopefully I would be as good as new next week. So far my singing voice hasn't been too affected, it is a little woofy, and I hope it doesn't get worse.

Latest Thing

I am now learning xhtml and css. Recently I have developed an interest in making a good webpage, not just the simple one I currently have. Also, the idea of not using one of the cookie cutter blogger templates is really attractive to me. I installed dreamweaver on my computer, and the realised that it was very very difficult to use. I also have frontpage, however, I found it too simplistic for what I would like. So I decided that the best thing to do is to learn how to code by hand. Not to say that I would never use Dreamweaver, but it seemed to me that the time it would take to be super proficient in Dreamweaver I would have learned a lot of the code anyway, so might as well. Besides, it would be soo much easier to just tweak the code in Dreamweaver if I know what to do. Yes, and I have too much time on my hands. Perhaps if I devote half the energy to research I would already have my degree by now.

My new eyeglasses. 

Wawa and I 

What I discovered from reading an LA food blog--a wonderful little all you can eat Korean BBQ restaurant LA Family House. For 14.99 you get all the BBQ you want and the usual Korean trimmings. Yummy! The owner was yelling at some rowdy customers tonight while we were there, which was slightly unnerving, but the food was still great.