La Bohème
At one of my favorite places
There are two long intermissions. People are eating their dinner/afternoon tea. I have no desire to get a drink when millions people are there.
La Bohème is composed by Puccini. I read somewhere that Puccini likes to write about little people and portrait the details of their ordinary life. La Bohème is a love story and a tragedy. So the ending is the best and mostly emotional. The story is set in Paris around 1830, talking about a few artists and their love stories. There are four scenes and is sung in Italian.
Lyrics are funny and sweet (it is so direct and makes me blush, Shakespeare has these kinds of direct love poems too). Quote some English translation below. Met has a good translation.
the paper will dissolve into ashes, and the spirit will ascend to the skies. A great loss menaces posterity … Rome is in peril! While our stove sits there idle, making no moves to do its duty, but just relaxing like some noble Lord. If it doesn't laugh and sparkle, love's feeble and gruff. She sings and smiles, and remorse assails me. I am the cause of this fatal malady that's killing her. In vain, in vain I try to hide my true torture.
Opera is a type of “weird” format of performing arts. The story is often coarse grained compared to the movies. The scenes and acting are simpler than Broadway shows, e.g., no choreography in most operas. The music including the vocal and orchestra are very important. It is almost like acting/visualize the symphony. For example, in La Bohème, the last part of music is very beautiful and splendid. I would never think that it describes the death of MiMi and the sadness of Rodolfo until I see the opera. Met operas are so high quality that you almost feel listening to a CD rather than a live version. Going to Met is such a close-heart experience. It is expensive, serious, so you don’t want to just pick up someone who know one day or two and have a party there. It is the place for your tears, your thoughts, your savorings …
BTW, my New York life is very dynamic besides the serious stuff 🙂 As an example, see this cute tea place I went this week. This tea is like some poison. At 2 am, I was still wide awake and tried to write some poem:
“I blame you crazy tea
Yabee yabee, I am drunk like a crazy foo” 😀
A stroll to the neighborhood
Glad that I am back to the east coast for now, and it indeed brings back some east coast feelings!
Some road walked by yourself
I am on the road
With mama’s biscuit and papa’s raincoat
CD plays Bob Dylan
Murmuring tangled up in blue
Evoking you think of some time ago
After many years you go back
Is the building still there
Are the people still the same
Many roads you got to walk by yourself
Like the one head down to the CT room
Like the one pushed into the operating table
What I was thinking then
probably nothing but a little unease
What I am thinking now
Probably nothing but a little peace
Growing up brings you peace
Peacefully give up the safeness
Peacefully let go the comfortableness
I am going for a walk alone
To decipher some unknown
Entering the year 3 of the pandemic
1/2/22 Visiting good will at the end of a year, smooth and pleasant 🙂
In the recent few years, everybody has many decisions and much information to process related to the pandemics. Here, I share some of my observations and personal experiences.
I see the way to avoid covid (1) vaccination (2) social distancing (3) wear masks (simple and nothing new).
Vaccination: Two of my friends went to a family party. The wife got covid and the husband did not. He just had J&J shot a week before the party. One of my friends’s officemate got confirmed after a few days of symptoms (in these few days, this officemate has been working in the same office with my friend 8/5). She had no problem. We have been in person teaching the whole semester and I often received students’ note on he/she is under covid, but I haven’t heard any of my colleagues get infected.
When came to the omicron, things are a little different. I have seen how the curve is taking off in NYC in the recent two weeks. Obviously, omicron is quite contagious and more likely break through. But if it came in so fast, hopefully it can go out very fast too. So a few days ago, I wrote to a few folks in NYC, “I am packed and can move in on Jan 2. Just waiting for the omicron waves down a bit” My landlord said “trust your instinct”. My collaborator said “Welcome to the city. I am having a Covid and currently under quarantine. I am feeling alright …” We probably can see the omicron waves soon everywhere else. Surfing gracefully, everybody!
Many people are afraid of the side effect of vaccination. There is some fake news from a doctor in Maryland who was saying how mRNA vaccination can compromise your immunization system for detecting cancer, lol. I have not seen other vaccination has been questioned that much?
Social distancing: my educated guess is that the droplets are the major way to transmit the disease (I remember early in the pandemic, the Chinese media said “we are not sure if it is transmittable among people”, I was like “come on, many people are infected, how it is not transmittable among people?”). I think in the most of the cases, it takes certain amount of exposure to get infected. So walking passing a person should be okay to me. My mom wears her mask whenever she sees a person walking towards us on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, I think eating and spending time at a crowded restaurant/bar/coffeeshop, boarding on a crowed train, parties, … the places where people can stay close for a while with talking/ laughing are dangerous. The most contagious virus I have experienced is chicken pox. I got infected during my interview trip. As far as I know, I have zero interactions with people who had chicken pox. I must get it through breathing the air in the crowded airport?! Hopefully omicron is not something like this to the vaccinated people, and then things are more under our control.
Masks: good quality masks make a difference. There was one time, I had interacted with one of my friends for about an hour, talked within one meter with our masks on. Later I knew that she was back from a party (a week ago), and already had symptoms of covid during the time we met. Luckily, I was okay. One of my son’s day care teachers was diagnosed as covid. All the kids are okay and I think the masks they wear whole day helped.
You want to see a diversity of people’s choice during covid? some of my friends never show up in front of us since pandemic for about 2 years now; some of my friends keep their kids completely home schooling since pandemic; some of my friends are still socially active and visit her friends without restrictions but test often. My parents spent thousand of dollars to quarantine themselves after their arrival before seeing us; China makes the top news and locks down the entire region every time there are a few confirmed cases …
I tried to keep the rhythms of my life and modified it a bit when the covid risks are high. I see the way of dealing with covid is don’t panic! I had friends who got covid before the vaccination era (some of them have medical conditions even). They just survived fine. A simple tip I learned is to get the virus in control as early as possible. Sleeping + a lot of fluid + vitamins are the things that will never go wrong for any type of recoveries.
Stay safe and enjoy the ride, my beloved 2022.
More beauties
12/26/21 2021 I learned if you put your happiness in good hands, then everyday you are happy 🙂
One of my favorite part of 2021 is that I drew a lot of beautiful girls 😀 Hot men are for touching, and beautiful girls are for drawing, haha.
My recent one is done yesterday and it took so many hours (credits to my parents who enthusiastically played with my son whole day, lol).
The evolution:
I think I meant to draw Asian girls, but why they all look like western girls with Asian costume, lol
Wooo, wish to have her hair 😀
and maybe her legs, lol
People’s interactions sometimes are interesting. I have a good couple friends, and after they had dinners with me a few times, they told me “hmm, you are a very romantic person!” Then I have some friends who played with me quite frequently and one day, they came to my house and saw my drawings “wow, we never knew this aspect of you” …
I started drawing by just liking to do it. But recently, I started to think the value of making art to other people. Help people believe the world is beautiful? help people heal? bring them hope? bring them warmth? teach them to be good and kind? I really like this change.
James Webb
12/19/21 Almost every final, I asked students to write a Haiku about our class. Glad to see how many students wrote that they had fun or learned a lot in the class. I used to think only surgeons can change people’s life. But now I think if I can bring a young student some knowledge, some warmth, some inspiration or even just a good day, it could also be something.
I did not yet fully learn how to use my sophisticated telescope. So this year, besides the mountains on the moon, I only have seen Saturn with its ring, the striped Jupiter with its moons. This Monday, I waited in the coldness for half an hour around 8 or 9pm. I saw two shooting stars around Geminid. One is under and left of Castor and the other is on its right. They are mostly white/silver, beautiful as firework, also like a firefly but flashing a thousand time brighter and bigger. It was a savoring and romantic moment, waited for their arrival, and then they arrived splendidly … A very dramatic week also includes a derecho and 80 mph wind in Iowa on Wed. The schools were all closed and the sirens were ringing like apocalyptic movies …
James Webb is a new telescope that will be launched Christmas eve from French Guiana, located at the north east of South America. It aims to arrive at the Lagrange Point where the gravity of earth and sun is balanced so the telescope will be able to remain in position. It is expected to take about 30 days to arrive there from its launch. Its expected mission time is 5-10 years. James Webb is 6+ times of Hubble, and will look at the universe in infrared. It is going to be launched by the Ariane 5 rocket. It will be unfold in space and has a giant heat shield to protect the light and heat from the sun, moon and earth so that it can work under 50 K. It is much further than Hubble too so that it is able to see 13.5/7 billion years ago after 100 millions years the universe was born. The Webb is developed by USA, European, Canadian space agencies and built by Northrop Grumman. It is shipped to south America using a boat going through the panama canal. It was hided well to escape from pirates’ pursuit. Currently it is planning to launch at 7:20am EST Dec 24. Totally worth to get up early to watch its launch. Considering the discoveries Hubble has contributed, I am very excited about James Webb and looking forward to its discoveries.
(Note: I did not confirm the info and numbers written above. It may contain mistakes.)
Rocky Mountain National Park (2): Deer Mountain
12/12/21 My first NIH grant!!! …… is from institute of aging 🙂
The closest visitor center to Estes Park is the fall river visitor center. Deer Mountain is the first trail coming up entering the visitor center. It does not require special time permit, but the parking lot is small, so coming out early is recommended. Deer Mountain summit round trip is 6 miles. Advice for the normal hikers, bring some water and food, wear some layers and watch out for the weather. We did none of those, and as a result, our hiking became quite dramatic.
The trail starts with the open meadows and some trees. “ha? Am I hiking in Washington State?!” I love those open view hiking trails. You can see layers of mountains and snow caps reaching the horizon, with the sun rays and clouds playing light and shadow games with you.
At about one mile, Amos starts falling behind “mama, I am tired”. Aha, I’ve got an idea! I started a timer and acted like an interval training/tabata coach. So we were at the pace walking 10 minutes and resting 5 minutes. In the second mile, there are many rocks to rest and also many view points. The rocks are colorful!
In the last mile, there are a bunch of stairs to the summit. The weather started changing, cold, windy with some rain drops. I was still in a good spirit. In some section, I was carrying Amos on the back, sometimes carrying him on the front, and sometimes sleeping with him on the rocks, and we made to the summit with lots of admirers’ smiles. The summit has an impressive 360 view point. Far away, you see a lake peacefully laying down in the arms of mountains, whispering something?!… Search “Rocky Mountain summit trails” to find more of those trails in the park.
On our way back, the rain starts coming down with thunderstorms. It is not a good place to be among the trees when there were thunderstorms. Jeremy went down to fetch food and water long ago. I was alone with my little one. I walked as fast as I could and sang some songs to encourage him to walk. Thunders and rains were threatening and the woods were just us. At some point, Amos was not able to move, we were sitting beside a puddle, being wet and cold, and cheered from time to time like a pysco when the sun peeks out in the rain …. Still we made the 6 miles!
2001: A Space Odyssey
12/5/21 Wow for an exciting week! My kayak arrived, my ICSE papers arrived, and my parents also arrived 🙂
Recently, I more and more enjoy reading science fictions. The literature such as Les Misérables and Crime and Punishment are often about complex life, characters, emotion … , while science fictions are often about thoughts and philosophy.
2001 has many ideas and predictions on important questions. For example, how intelligence is developed? what a travel to Saturn may look like? is there an alien? how do they interact with human? what is a relationship of human and artificial intelligence? Some of the ideas I still remember are (1) humans should be put in hibernation during space travel (2) ET intelligence can exist in any forms, considering Sun is not such an old star, ET intelligence may be developed long before humans (3) ET intelligence may be an influence of the intelligence development on earth (4) ET intelligence may be setting up some experiments that study humans (5) in space travel, we can use the moon as a base to transit to far space (6) you may enter a completely different part of universe by entering some magic star gate in the Solar system.
In addition to those ideas, Arthur C. Clarke throws pieces of computer science (e.g., Turing test and AI), maths (e.g., log e to the base of 10 is ….), classical music (e.g., Requiem Mass), astronomy (e.g., the moons of Saturn like Japetus), which gave me a chuckle. I had a feeling of chatting with a good friend at those moments.
The epic ending when David Bowman falls through the star gate has lots of discussions on the Internet. I was typing “2001 ending”, the google immediately completes my search to “2001 ending explained”, lol. Reading the last few “chapters”, I strongly felt a roller coaster experience I had done long time ago in “space mountain” in Disney, Florida. I wonder if the designers of the roller coaster got inspired by this book.
The TMA has a similar flavor as the God. It promoted the man-apes to have human behavior. It promoted David Bowman to be a star child. The process in which David Bowman turns to be a star child reads like a process of an epic dying. A person travels back his history, dissolves his physical existence and turns to be a star baby while his spirit and energy still remain. Is this David’s illusion or it really happens? If it actually happens in star gate, how this happens? There are three TMAs in the book, and their sizes have a ratio of 1 (1^1), 4 (2^2), and 9 (3^2). What are the relations of the three TMA? The line between a science fiction and a fantasy is subjective in my opinion. If you believe this can eventually happen, then it is a science fiction; otherwise it is a fantasy. In this sense, Is 2001 a science fiction or fantasy?
I still have questions remained after reading the book (wish I could be smarter and my English could be better :)). It will be very satisfying if one day I am able to come up or someone else can share a better thought of those.
The Colors
11/28/21 This is a friendly reminder. Don’t drive fast at the end of month or year. On my way to the coffeeshop this morning, I just received a speeding ticket of $193 on an empty street. I was told that I was driving 51 over 35 and I was not fighting back at the robbery site to keep myself safe :D. My friend said she got the ticket at the same day last year. Now we are talking about organizing an Asian Money Matters party, making some desserts of police heads and eating them, haha!
My favorite time is the sunset time when everybody has somewhere they are looking forward to go. The lights are started to turn on, warm and cozy. You almost can hear the “ci~~” sound when their food is going to the wok. It is the time I am going out for a walk, smelling the cow compost from the field and pretending I am on the philosophers’ walk in Heidelberg 🙂 The color of the sunset time is amazing like your lover: sometimes it is gentle, sometimes it is burning, sometimes it is peaceful, sometimes it is erotic, sometimes it is rebellent, sometimes it is serious, sometime it is moody, sometimes it is witty …
Talking about the colors in the countryside, you cannot avoid the trees and leaves. My neighbour grows some beautiful trees. They deal with the leaves, I enjoy the color and I hope you too.
Rocky Mountain National Park (1): an overview
The best time to visit the Rockies is June and July. Some of the awesome summits are only hikable in July. For example, the one I am interested but has not yet opened this time is called Longs Peak. The last section of Longs Peak is a giant piece of slate standing 75-90 degree. People had died from it. I probably would just stop at keyhole ;). The trail looks like this:
Time permit: The Rockies is one of the earliest national parks that implement time-permit systems. The permits are almost impossible to bid online when closing to the date of your visit (don’t waste your time to try even). So Tip No. 1, booking the permits and campsite (in the park) early, 3-6 months early. Well, no worries, if you do not have a permit, you still can visit and hike the national park happily. You can enter the park before 9am or after 3pm. For a certain area, e.g., bear lake trail systems, you cannot visit before 5pm without permits. But this area is totally not my cup of tea. There are buses shipping tourists to the trail heads due to the overflowed parking lots. Maybe it is a great area to take kids and parents. The scenery is beautiful and the water is crystal clear. I see giant fishes!! Some trails are even wheel chair accessible.
Camping: One of the nearest towns to the national park is called Aspen. There are quite a few campsites there. It is about 5 minutes drive to the gate of the national park. The one I stayed is called “Estes Park Campground at Mary’s Lake”. I have no complaints about this place. I booked a little over a month before the visit. You can bring food and lock them in the bear safe lock at night. I see a lot of birds, deer, elks but no bears here. There are quite a few good trails near the campsite that do not even need national park tickets. Some people live in the town near Grand Lakes, which is the other side of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Overview of the tails: the nature is purifying. One of my favorite trails is called Gem Lake. When going up, it had a perfect sunshine, but coming down with running under pouring rains and big hails. Cool! At the bottom, though, my clothes are kind of dry already. The Rocky mountains has crazy weather like this.
The coolest place in the park is Alpine tundra. It covered with short aged plants with some strange rocks. The wind can dump 30 feet of snow somewhere here in winter.
Of course, don’t forget to hike the waterfalls @ Alluvial Fan Trail. You can go up for a quite while following the waterfall.
Tracing the original of Colorado river, 14 miles from the trail head to the origin. See this is the river that roars through the grand canyon. The water is so cold! I will come to talk more about those trails later.
Wildlife: One of the excitement in the park is to spot wildlife. I have seen bighorn sheep, moose, deer, elk, chipmunk, marmot … bring your binoculars. The Big Meadows (if I remember the name correctly) is the place where you can often see a herd of moose or big horn sheep. I was carefully watching these big horn sheep, and somebody tapped my shoulder. I turned my head. It was my graduate school classmate. I never met him since I left graduate school.
My awesome hiking boot: One day I was at an Iowa shoe store. In some random chat, the boss said “I have one pair of your shoes. Salomon has some of the best hiking boots”. “I was just wearing this shoe hiking Rocky mountain national park not long ago, it is light, not slippery, handles all types of rock conditions, water proof, and very fast to dry..”. “Oh, you were at RMNN? You know, every summer, I drive there to hike with my sun, we do 10+ hours hike near grand lake…”
Okay, here is my awsomeish hiking boot. No need to tie shoe lace! You just tighten them and tuck them in.
