Let the sunshine in

For someone who does keep a daily diary, I would think that keeping a regular blog would be a piece of cake. Evidently not.

Here's a collection of ramble-thoughts accumulated over the past month, with my reviews/impressions of two productions I saw recently.

It's times like this where I wish I kept some sort of longer-scale record (ex. a blog) during freshman year, since my worries now are just a continuation of those from 2013. On my plate: academic achievement, letters of recommendation, med school personal statement, med school this and med school that. 2013: will I be able to volunteer at the Free Clinic, will I be able to find a research lab? 2015: am I an adequate de-facto leader at the Free Clinic, will I be able to conduct my own research project effectively?

My worries stem from the fact that I am applying to med school this summer, my ultimate dream for most of my life, my one and only North Star. This situation has been made more dreadful (not dreadful as in plummy, archaic dreadful, but dreadful as in it fills me with some kind of dread and anxiety and eagerness) because my boyfriend has almost exact opposite problems (they stem from indecision and uncertainty in his career goals).

Anyhow, these things, as well as my recent feelings of scholastic mediocrity have put me in a sort of dreary, gloomy mood. To combat this melancholy, I talk to my roommate, my friends, my boyfriend, go visiting. And for something completely new: I went to two shows (a concert and a musical) and they were spectacular.

Bach Mass in B Minor

One of the last of Bach's compositions, the Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) is a complete setting of a complete Latin Ordinary Mass, consisting of the usual movements:

1. Missa (Kyrie and Gloria)
2. Symbolum Nicenum (Credo)
3. Sanctus
4. Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Dona Nobis Pacem

At the risk of sounding too weird about synesthesia, B minor is a grim, stately, blue key, and through it, the Mass achieved a level of cosmic grandeur that I can't attempt to express here. I attended the University Chamber Chorus and UC Berkeley Baroque Orchestra's performance of this masterpiece, and I don't think my evening could have been better. As a note, with each movement, the Latin lyrics and translations were projected above the stage, which deepened my understanding for this musical wonder.

The Ordinary Latin Mass spans a wide spectrum of the relationship between Man and God, and it spoke pretty strongly to this agnostic. Solemn supplication and mourning for the sins and suffering of Man and Christ (B minor) yield to the hope for deliverance and miracle by the grace of God (D major).

A few of my favorite movements: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Cum Sancto Spiritu, Crucifixus, Et resurrexit, Et expecto, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Dona nobis pacem

Hair

Not as much to say on this one. AB (roommate, CivE) and CB (EECS) and I went to Barestage's production of this musical that CB's roommate was in. A summary: Vietnam War draftee meets a tribe of long-haired hippies and they sing about society and their time, youth and their struggle to find their place and purpose. Given Berkeley's history of protest and involvement in activism during the Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and anti-Vietnam movement, I was already engaged with the material.

Interesting thing about Hair is that it was written and debuted on Broadway in 1969, and I was astounded to see how meta their entire analysis of that time was. Anyhow, the female vocals completely hit me, and gave me some genuine chills. The playbill included a lengthy introduction about the modern interpretation of some of the problematic content, including racism and cultural appropriation in the script and staging.

A few of my favorite songs:  Aquarius, I'm Black/Ain't Got No, L.B.J., Hare Krishna, Let the Sunshine In

Afterwards, we got doughnuts, explored an underground parking lot, and watched CB fly a fighter jet around Vinewood, shooting missiles at the city (Grand Theft Auto V, a favorite pastime of the EECS house). A good night.

And now, the two of them together: the Mass began with the choir lined behind the audience in a pitch-black concert hall. One light was shone onto the conductor, and at her first baton drop, the hall rang with the first note of the Kyrie eleison, and it was as if a choir of righteous, solemn angels had descended onto our mortal congregation. And truly, it was a surprise, and nearly got me God-fearing. On the other side, Hair ends in a surprisingly somber way, and the final song, 'Let the Sunshine In,' read as a desperate plea for peace, love, and understanding -- and mercy. It was a demonstration of tragic solidarity (no spoilers here) and the cast took from the stage running helter-skelter to reassemble behind the audience, ending the song without musical accompaniment.

So, perfect bookends. The symbolism was not long-coming; not to mention, Hair ended, too with dim lighting.

Kyrie eleison -- Lord, have mercy. I still think about these two shows. What an experience.

Puerto Vallarta 2014

Left: Phoenix Sky Harbor
Right: mountains and desert
Left: agriculture
Right: coastline of Jalisco, MX
Left: a villa in Puerto Vallart
Right: statue - of who, I don't remember
Left: umbrellas on the beach
Right: un edificio
Left: Los Milenios
Right: La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Guadalupe

My diary and the definition of privacy

First post of 2015 and I write about the most egocentric thing possible - my diary. As a bit of background information, I have kept a daily diary since 2006, but only in 2008 did it become truly a daily diary. To get pedantic about it, the terminology of this whole business of writing thoughts down in a book to keep for all posterity does differentiate between 'diary' and 'journal,' and up until recently, I didn’t think there really was a difference.

I think that matter of wording is a discussion for another time, but essentially, what I do - and what many, many others before and after me have done/will do - is a mix of what 'diary' and 'journal' suggest. Every night, shortly before I go to sleep, I write an entry into a book. The entry accomplishes a few things:

1. It serves as a record of what I did in a given day

2. It logs my emotions regarding what I did/observed/experienced/thought about in a given day
3. It keeps track of persons of interest - more on this later

4. It is a genuine and near-perfect representation of who I am on a day-to-day basis. It is honest. It recreates the individual that I was - mental, emotional individual - with the highest fidelity. It is unrevised and uncensored

For most people who keep a diary-type thing, the concept of someone else reading these texts is pretty darn abhorrent. What more personal document can there be? - and by what sense of entitlement does someone ask to read someone else's diary?

Recently, a friend of mine named ZZ asked to read my diary. We were talking about writing and how our styles/content/relationship to our work is about as different as potted plants and bubblegum. He, like many people that know me in real life, knew that I kept a diary, and then he asked to read it.

I've been around him enough to know that there wasn't any sort of ill-intent, so I laughed at him, told him how preposterous his request was, and told him no.

"Why?"

It's personal stuff, and it's private. And still, "Why not? Can I just see today's entry?"

So I gave him a description of that day's entry, which was a laundry-list of my activities for the day. Since I was around him for most of the day, it was no news. But then, he asked, "If it's just that, then why can't I read it?"

I wasn't going to budge, and gave him what I thought was a pretty good explanation for why nobody is entitled to read another person's diary - and that seemed to satisfy him. Here is something like it, but I've added some other thoughts:

The whole point of a diary for myself and myself only. It's the only place/object thing that contains this pure, unaltered version of myself beyond the confines of my own brain. I can share my body and I can share my thoughts by talking to other people - and that's physical and emotional intimacy there - but those things are not as private as my own brain, the sum total of all the things I've experienced and observed and gave a first, second, nth thought to. All that is private, and that's simply impossible to share. When I write that down, I share these things to an inanimate object, whose only measure of life is the one that I give in that moment, and the next dose when I read it over again.

Surely all that is too cerebral - and that's my joke of the entry - but even as I told ZZ something along those lines, I got to thinking about how it is I even value privacy at the level that I do. Surely, by all the things movies and literature have told us, diaries are private. If the heroine's sister peeks at it, she'll wallow in misery and throw a fit. If the heroine's crush reads it and finds out all the soppy details of her unrequited love, then she's mortified but the plot moves along.

Fiction establishes a precedent for taboo, but privacy and violation of it serve as points of drama. It gives a template for normal folks like ourselves to relate to and react to the words we put out, personal diaries and journals or other. Privacy - define it as you like.

Nowadays, people pour their emotions and personal matters out onto the Internet. I write these little things on this blog, and my sister writes essays. She writes extensively about her thoughts/opinions/criticism/analysis of topics that may or may not have a direct influence on her life - and still, it's more personal than anything I'd like to write for the Internet. One of my friends puts his familial agonies on the same Tumblr that has his face on it. Another friend of mine shares her love poems, but without her name or her face.

All these - different definitions of privacy. At the end of it, who could possibly, speaking from a point of logistics and practicality, read my diary but someone who knows my full name, my face, and have some level of intimacy with me? That's too much for me. And, as I said to ZZ, the only person that has looked inside that sacred document, was my sister, and only then with the purpose of finding a password that I thought I lost.

A [baker's] dozen of the best Moby-Dick art

So my favorite piece of written anything is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, or The Whale. I read it every Christmas as a birthday treat to myself. It's a work that demands your full attention for long stretches of time, no slacking off on deck, keep your eyes peeled at the horizon. There's a gold doubloon for you if you spot the beast. Harpoon at the ready.

About a week ago, I went to an impromptu dinner with some of my friends, and I learned just then that one of them, DK, was reading Moby-Dick for his English class. At Berkeley, engineers do have to take some humanities classes, and it always seems like we mope about them rather than enjoy those courses for what they are. To my delight, DK, an EECS through and through, loved reading it. We spent dinnertime talking excitedly about Moby-Dick, from spout to fluke, every symbol and sign and every theory we had, and we got DK's CS project partners, new friends of mine, eager to read this book for the very first time.

A clump of engineers talking about Moby-Dick over burritos and chips - now that's something I live for. I love that book. I love it. It's cliche and it's bombastic and operatic and so heavy-handed, but I love that book.

Anyhow, this post is really just to get me excited for my birthday read. From Pinterest, I culled my favorite pieces of art for or inspired by Herman Melville's leviathan.



12. Japanese cover - unsourced

The only one here where Moby-Dick is not a white whale. A stylistic choice here, and I do like the woodblock-effect. My favorite theme of the work appears here - note the stars in the water. The ocean as the Universe, Moby-Dick himself as the Universe, as God, the Creator, the Destroyer.



11. Moby Dick - Max Bardin

The baleful whale. The only Jaws-styled piece that I'll include here, though you'll see many diving poses in this post. Anyhow, this is very moody and very simple, which is fine by me.



10. Rockwell Kent, one of many

Rockwell Kent has done quite a bunch of Moby-Dick pieces, but I liked this one for the very Art Deco look. It's different. I sort of like it a lot.



9. Moby Dick, Erika Gallagher

Again with the woodblock. This one is more striking and frenetic, which fits the situation. Whatever sort of maritime feelings it stirs in me - and it really does inspire me to quit college and run off to 19th century Cape Cod...sort of - I can't ignore that it looks like Moby-Dick has baleen, and that the boat has a sail.



8. Moby Dick, Rachel Shankman

I like this style. It's modern and I particularly like the colors. Of the pieces shown so far, this has got to be the most oversize whale, but given that we are told that the whale can smite folk with its fluke, that's no issue.



7. Moby Dick, Umberto Scalabrini

This one. Now this one gets it. It's so simple, but it's so effective. It's striking. Look at it. Who is that in the whale's eye? Is it Ahab? Ishmael? Starbuck? Me? Probably me. How are we compared to the whale? To the Universe and God? What does that eye see? Questions. Mysteries upon mysteries.




6. Various, Barry Moser

Again, I love this style. Woodcut/block-like. Also, look at the dude riding the dolphin,



5. Moby Dick, Rachael Wong

Truly this is the white whale. I think the way everything is staged, the wake and the deep, the beast itself, everything looks good. However, I have no idea what that boat is - the harpooners' boat or the Pequod? Really, I'm wondering.



4. The Penguin Classics edition

One of the most common covers you'll see. It's a beauty. It's so clean and simple. It's beautiful.



3. The Folio Society - unsourced

The Devil's in the details. I've mentioned stars in the water, but here, with the stark white of the White Whale, the utter lack of title, we truly have a representation of the Universe on our hands. Vassal fish by the fluke, and a stream of water/bubbles/energy/whatever from the blowhole. There are harpoons on the spine, and all in all, it's a beautiful, beautiful cover.



2. Unsourced

It's a shame that I can't find who made this - and the other unsourced ones, of course. This one is great. The various characters scattered about Moby-Dick really make it for me. Note the small Queequeg in the corner, floating on his coffin. Retroactive spoiler alert.


1. Both unsourced - of course

Just look at these ones. By now, you'll know I love the Moby-Dick is the Universe/God/everythingandnothing but the first one really hammers it home. The White Whale takes up the sky, the entire space. There is nothing but whale. The bottom cover is one that I see quite a lot in stores, and it pretty accurately/comically portrays the last standoff between Moby-Dick and the men of the Pequod. It's a wonder. They're both wonders.

Thanksgiving weekend

The view from my workspace

So Thanksgiving came and went, and in a few hours I'll be back in Berkeley bracing myself for the last week of classes. Getting Thursday and Friday and the weekend off really did wonders for my sleep debt - I got about ten hours of sleep each night I was at home - but I hardly got anything done. It seems that my professors all took Thanksgiving break as an opportunity to give heavier assignments, which sort of makes me sour.

I guess I took Thanksgiving differently this year than I did in previous years. For the first time, Thanksgiving break came in the wake of a few very important, very pervasive social issues that mean a great deal to me. The Ferguson saga continues with the non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the UC Regents recently approved a $3000 increase in tuition, 43 students remain missing in Mexico, and, on a personal level, the return to the Peninsula for break.

My family recently moved south along the Peninsula, and now I am a good half-hour away from my hometown. Now, even returned home, I am removed from my old friends and old haunts, from the boutiquey, bougie downtown of my teen years - so, I guess, peace and quiet. I did a lot of relaxing at home with my sister and parents and cat, a lot of dodging of homework and projects and obligations, and some meager attempts at writing.

For quite some time now, Black Friday was a social event for me and my friends. It wasn't so much about actually buying massive amounts of stuff, since I don’t really enjoy shopping with other people, but every year in college, I find that I do some of my only clothes shopping over Thanksgiving break. I didn't go shopping with them this year - late night/early morning is not for me - but I did manage to spend a lot of money on Saturday.

So, with all of the recent public/personal criticism of the consumption circus that is Black Friday, why was it that I willingly participated? I commend the protestors and the die-ins and the calls to action, but I did just what they were trying to advocate against.

Short answer - I've had specific items that I wanted to acquire, and prices are low this weekend. I also seldom have the time to dedicate to truly fastidious shopping for myself during the school year.

Long answer - ...not really sure.

I listened to this album over and over this break. It's rare that I show my sister music that she actually ends up tolerating.

UC Botanical Garden

We went to the UC Botanical Garden last week.

Left: my friends in the arid house. I think my height is almost precisely the mean of our group.
Right: Lithops, a genus of succulents.

Left: the Puya raimondii, the 'Queen of the Andes' 
Right: the SF Bay in the background. On a clearer day, we'd be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Left: in the tropical house
Right: still in the tropical house

Left: in the carnivorous plants and bromeliads house
Right: the redwood grove. Redwoods should feel old hat - our apartment is surrounded by them, and they're all over campus - but even a cultivated grove is pretty spectacular.

My roommate and I went to the UC Botanical Garden last week with some friends and got to play amateur botanist for awhile. The UCBG is one of my favorite places in Berkeley, and while I've visited several times since the summer, I always learn something new with each trip. My roommate and I started the day off right by making the 50-minute trek up to the UCBG from our apartment. For those unfamiliar with UC Berkeley geography, the gardens sit up on the hills by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Strawberry Canyon, so we had our fill of redwoods and oak brisk morning air.

Simply put, there is no way to see our diverse collection in one visit. I often recommend a 2-hour visit with the expectation that you will return again and again. With our 12,000 different kinds of plants, a 2-hour (120-minute) visit would require that you see 100 different kinds of plants per minute to experience our entire collection.

Dr. Paul Licht, the director of the UCBG, put it well.

I think I'm about done with strolling and looking at plants - we didn't have time to go through the self-guided tour, but next time, I'll pay more attention, and go through the garden with the aim of learning a thing or two. Field trips in elementary school had the right idea.

It was a good day. A few days later, I returned for a Bio 1B (botany, ecology, evolution) field trip where we walked around the garden listening to pairs give presentations. The areas of the garden that we covered were those that I never paid much mind to - California chaparral and alpine ecology - but I'm more motivated than ever to learn about it now. My next visit will have to be more attentive.

Early evening walk

Left: the view from right outside my door

Right: outside my apartment

Left: about-face from the previous picture

Right: Soda Hall 

Left: some very fragrant jasmine outside Etcheverry Hall

Right: a beautiful house across the street from Etch

My apartment got ridiculously hot at about 6:30 PM so I decided to take a very brief stroll. I intended to drop by lab for a second, but time got the better of me and by the time I came out, the sun had sunk down pretty far and my plans for walking around the big houses a few blocks north campus were shot. Those will have to come later, but it was a good, brief breath of fresh, crisp air, and a good chance to stomp around in my new boots.