biennial poems

When I was reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar for the first time around June 2021, her poem Mad Girl's Love Song was included in the foreword (or maybe afterword?). Her verses stood out so much to me at the time, that I immediately sent a photo of the poem's text to my friends. Plath's villanelle is as follows:

Mad Girl's Love Song

By Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Now, around two and a half years later, Mad Girl's Love Song has risen from the disk drive to the L1 cache of my brain. It is intriguing to recognize these cyclical patterns of emotion as I get older.

Aside from the catchy repetition of the parenthetical "I think I made you up inside my head", and prose reminiscent of 20th century Olivia Rodrigo, one of my favorite lines is "The stars go waltzing out in blue and red", as it reminds me of the blue and red shift phenomenon of stars, where their perceived color changes depending on whether they are traveling towards or away from us, similar to the Doppler effect for sound. To again state the obvious, such a shift in perspective applies to people as well.

The overall celestial imagery (stars, moons, heaven and hell, thunderbirds) is very dramatic and grand, and it delights me to see that Plath wrote the poem around the age of 21, the very age I first encountered her words. Though Plath was subject to mental illness and a tragic ending, at a surface level, her words can echo an embrace of angst that cycles through various mediums in popular culture. In other words, we can all individually wallow as a collective!

For the overthinkers, those experiencing paralysis by analysis, or those second guessing gut-based decisions, cheers to 2024!

Milo was annoyed at the sound of my typing interrupting his sleep, so now I will sleep.

"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" [SAD MOTH CH. 2]

*I wrote this in a semi-stream-of-consciousness that emerged from a sense of relief and hollowness somewhat specific to ending approximately 18 years of continuous education and consequently experiencing confusion about what to do with myself. Some light edits have been provided for coherency. Honestly, at some points (now 3 months later), I have no idea what I was trying to say. You are welcome to cringe alongside me.*

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musicals and books and more stuff

I've been catching up on some musicals recently (some bootlegged, some legitimate highlight clips on Youtube), and it's been really entertaining! This realization had popped up not too long ago when I watched a dance choreography showcase at school hosted by the Theater and Performing Arts department, but once again, I was put in awe at the beauty, coordination, and creativity that the human form can achieve. Some musicals I watched included:

1. Hadestown (in its entirety, I especially loved Amber Gray and the number "Way Down Hadestown", and bits of her dancing reminded me of the Wednesday Addams dance in the recent Netflix adaptation (though of course, Hadestown came first))
2. clips from Mamma Mia (before we left for winter break, my normally very quiet apartment-mate was blasting the soundtrack from her room and it was fun to sing it with her)
3. A Very Potter Musical (*chefs kiss*, I've weirdly listened to entire podcast episodes featuring the StarKid Productions actors without actually watching AVPM, but it was lovely and definitely should replace Cursed Child in canon. Also I never made the connection between Darren Criss -> Glee -> AVPM and it was very enlightening). 
4. "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago (many, many renditions and all are fantastic with their quirks. I especially enjoyed the Miscast Killer Kids 2016 and Broadway Backwards 2015 renditions.)  

It was only a few years ago when I learned that Mamma Mia was a jukebox musical, and it got me wondering if someone could write a lofi jukebox musical of Keshi, Joji, khai dreams, etc. But the crisp articulation of musical theater might not blend well with dreamy and half-mumbled bedroom pop? Hm. 

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Below is a "Library Wrapped" of books that I read from the library, and other titles that I borrowed from friends. I might be missing a few titles, but that's alright :)

1. How Not to Fall in Love (Jacqueline Firkins): enjoyable, light read! I usually will pick up a YA or romance book to ease my brain into reading before trying to parse more dense texts. (This is coded language for: I like reading YA and romance).
2. Gallant (Victoria Schwab)
3. The Anthropocene Reviewed (John Green): saw this in a bookshop in Vermont, read an essay on Green's experience as a chaplain, and checked out the book later from the library
4. The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah): read this while camping
5. A Far Wilder Magic (Allison Saft)
6. Love in the Big City (Sang Young Park): cigarettes, blueberries, friendship
7. A Darker Shade of Magic (Victoria Schwab): reread
8. A Gathering of Shadows (Victoria Schwab): reread
9. People We Meet on Vacation (Emily Henry)
10. A Conjuring of Light (Victoria Schwab): reread
11. Nothing Personal (James Baldwin)
12. Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
13. Circe (Madeline Miller)
14. The Midnight Library (Matt Haig)
15. The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)
16. The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart (Chesil)
17. Once Upon A Broken Heart (Stephanie Garber)
18. The Upside of Unrequited (Becky Abertalli)
19. The Wedding Party (Liu Xinwu)
20. The Kidney Hypothetical, Or, How to Ruin your Life in Seven Days (Lisa Yee)
21. All My Rage (Sabaa Tahir): I think I cried, recommend! 
22. Almond (Sohn Won-pyung): reread
23. The Mirror Visitor Series (Christelle Dabos): my fantastical reread series that has replaced Potter since donating the box set rip
24. The Ballad of Never After (Stephanie Garber)
25. Babel - Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (R.F. Kuang): thoroughly enjoyed, has footnotes, maps, academia, and low fantasy
26. Magpie Murders (Anthony Horowitz)
27. Faker (Sarah Smith)
28. Mother-daughter Book Camp (Heather Vogel Frederick): nostalgic reread
29. How Not to Kill Yourself (Set Styes)
30. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin): game dev + love!!!
31. Everything I Know About Love (Dolly Alderton)
32. Faust (Goethe)
33. God Is Not Great (Christopher Hitchens)
34. S (J.J. Abrams)
35. Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
36. Lost And Found (Orson Scott Card)
37. Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir): enjoyed!!! robots :D
38. On The Road (Jack Kerouac)
39. My Mechanical Romance (Alexene Farol Follmuth): research purposes if I want to write YA romance about a high school robotics team?
40. How Not to be Afraid of Everything (Jane Wong)
41. Gender Queer (Maia Kobabe) 

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Cheers to 2023! Vague goals for the upcoming year? >:D

• employment lol
• practice I Will Follow You Into the Dark to the point where it is recognizable
• develop the film rolls
• functional uncertainty

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Fun pictures from 2022! (December to January)

Apparently "Tahoe" is Washo for "lake", so we've been saying Lake Lake this entire time.

First and Last >:D

Zareen's

upside down (:

lol

Pinnacles

half moon bay

oslo :o

strictly lab business

mickey mouse!

pancakes

2022 :3

parties

In addition to my power electronics and MEMS classes (which would be interesting to write about in a future post), I also happened to enroll in a Cancel Culture seminar run by the Theater, Dance, and Performing Arts Department to fulfill a breadth requirement for my Masters degree. 

If you wish to read about SOIMumps processes, how to wind an inductor, or wrangling with TPUs, please let me know. As no one has reached out to me about those topics yet, I'll ramble a bit about college parties and why I mildly dislike them despite attending a few with people whose company I enjoy. 

(Update: someone has asked me to talk about TPUs!)

I cannot think of a witty caption for this inductor.

I mention the Cancel Culture seminar above as we often talk about cancellation as a from of performance. A selection of ideas brought up in class on the nature of cancel culture includes collective movement, fulfillment and subsequent breaking of roles, performance of complicity vs rage, and elements of opportunism.

In terms of how this relates to college parties: yes,  I am Holden Caulfield. But also, I am explaining to a void why I don't enjoy parties so who's the real phony? 

Anyways, the following will enumerate a few of my social incompetencies for archival purposes.

Collective movement: 

• A culture necessitates a collective of people, preferably heading towards a common location, such as a house that is hosting a party. Time of arrival varies by commute distance, transportation method, and general mood, but can range between 1-3 hours.

Fulfillment/Breaking of roles: 

• I prefer to skulk in the corner, annoying the roommate's cats and eavesdropping on conversations. Imagining everyone else at the party fulfilling the same role elicits some shame, so I push myself in baby steps, first reading the labels on all the liquor bottles before settling on 100% juice concentrate, then asking the host if I can help prepare anything or wash their dishes. Eventually, I remind myself I am an adult with thoughts and opinions. Et voila, pleasant conversation. Before long, I flirt with the idea of attempting to sing karaoke, but thankfully my senses are recovered and I retreat back into the corner. 

Complicity vs rage:

• Complicity towards the assumption that I am not a frolicking type of person has permeated my subconscious to the point where I've convinced myself that I am genuinely out of words on some occasion. Rage (or middling motivation) to contradict that would be misplaced, as it seems like I have plenty of words (as evidenced by this blog) but not much faith in people being interested, and thus preemptively choosing silence. Oops. 

Opportunism:

• In seminar, we always ask if the timely cancellation of a public figure benefits some power structure in the shadows behind them. Whether feigned or genuine, levity (particularly of the inebriated variety) does provide the opportunity for enlightening tidbits of information to be dropped. 

Complaining aside, I appreciate the people who try to pull me out of the shell and take my atypical conversation responses in stride. 

I am filled with determination.

Happy Thanksgiving! 😀

~~~ Encore ~~~

If you're happily anticipating the oncoming season of festivities and group activities -yay! Otherwise, I recently spent a Saturday reading this book, finishing at 1AM, realizing no one was awake for me to talk about the book with, then texting five separate people the same message about my feelings about aforementioned book.   

While criticisms and ways to find fault with the book is always possible, I really enjoyed it! It had a lot of elements that I cherish in books (world-building maps, dark academia vibes, footnotes!!!, some historical elements, long-winded technical explanations, fictional death). >:D

Who needs Goodreads?

when you're older :)

Apologies in advance for being self-referential. 

A lot of the posts on this blog communicate a youthful anxiety about the present and an optimism about eventual clarity in the future. Somewhat subconsciously (or as the master procrastinator I am), I left it to my older and wiser self of the future to sort out my motivations and justify why I am as I am and why others are as they are. 

Growing older has given me more tasks for daily passage of time. I want to compost to reduce my carbon footprint, forsake single-use plastic, and listen to NPR to avoid living under a rock. I try to grapple with schism between the scope of my daily struggles/pursuit of happiness in context with the larger suffering of the world. I think I am virtue-signaling to myself that I am alright, I suppose. 

Taking cues from current discourse on how to navigate a relationship between oneself and the world is one approach. Religion or philosophical theory may offer answers to others. In order to shed self-responsibility for my outcomes I've been tending to go where the wind blows, which while freeing, is also constricting to a certain local landscape. 

Sometimes it does feel a little bit hmm-inducing to continue down your track, too afraid to step off the track. So you look around at others on nearby tracks, but they are also looking around and convincing themselves that the track is fine. And so it goes (oh no!) 

To sum it up, I want to live more intentionally but having intentions sometimes seems excessive. [Come back to this in a few years.] 

Maybe that is the nature of fragility? The context of this piece is different, but I like how it encapsulates a fatalistic trend towards disorder, so you try to hold still to avoid hastening an outcome. "To leave a support system can mean to become more fragile, less protected from the bumps of ordinary life. And though fragility might be a consequence it can be recruited as cause: as if you willfully caused your own damage by leaving the safety of a brightly lit path."

updates IV

The neighbor in the apartment next door has been practicing Clair de Lune most evenings for the past week or so.

They've been gradually improving and it's pleasant to listen to through the intermittent cricket chirps.

If they take song requests, I think Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor would create an appropriate ambiance for stormily working the nights away.

Monolith, Frogner Park, Oslo, Norway

In any case, they must be Debussy fans since they're playing Golliwogg's Cakewalk now. Or maybe our piano teachers were friends, who knows. 

September has been a pretty quiet month, save for external events. As this is yet another procrasti-blog, I was wondering again whether a marker of adulthood is doing things that are not instantly enjoyable, but somehow peaceful because you've trained yourself to enjoy it. A sort of self-inflicted Stockholm situation of habituation. 

An escalator in Stockholm. 

sporadic attempts to discuss matters of the heart (SAD MOTH ch 1)

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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

TLDR: This is definitely not about me lol

 ~~~

Act one begins fall semester, October 2021. Manifestation began in quarantine, spawned from idle thoughts in an empty living room. Sitting in my make-shift living-room-turned-bedroom as my roommate isolated, I considered some items left on my college to-do list. I had already done some classes, attempted some research, went on adventures with friends. Pulling an all-nighter was left unchecked, but seemed massively unappealing. SO really, the next thing to attempt was a college relationship, right? Realistically considering the sample space of people I actually interacted with on a semi-regular basis, I honest-to-god flipped a coin and thus manifested a crush. Let's call them the hedgehog since hedgehogs are cute.

I told you they were adorable.

With any decent rom-com, the meet cute is imperative. Some may say it was inevitable, really. If your brain is working hard enough to manifest a crush, it will definitely be able to do the mental gymnastics to construct the cutest of meets from the most innocent situation.

"You drink water? I drink water! What a coincidence."
Credit: https://xkcd.com/1592/

There is no Austenian ending to these stories, so there is not much to look forward to aside from a vicarious speed run of emotions and retrospectively funny events. I thought I would be fed up with the foolish human construct of love, but James Baldwin convinced me otherwise that love is a decently difficult, if not respectable, endeavor. I guess this is a self evaluation for future reference.

As for the initial condition, I was in that peculiar hazy state of awareness, in which you know of a person's existence, but you aren't entirely sure if they know of yours. Normally, that would induce some sense of sneaky superiority within me, but for the purposes of gaining someone's attention, I had to somehow change that.