F. Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 9, No.2 (E Flat Major)
11/14/21 Time flies, thanksgiving is coming again! Special thanks to the people who love my blog, especially when I was quite vulnerable, and couldn’t do good ones. Typically, at thanksgiving, I will be in New York City, but I guess it is no longer needed this year. WELCOME to the greatest NYC! (though I am still shivering about the recent crimes in the cities that attack innocent people during day time at the places I might also show up).
After more than two and a half years, finally, I was able to go back to the concerts and shows for the first time. Sitting in the darkness and thinking about the pandemic life people had experienced, I felt quite emotional. Frank is such a great pianist. The music is clean, vivid and touching. Especially, I had played some of the same pieces before. Compared to my 2D linear interpretation, wow, he was imaginative and had so many dimensions.
Then I went back home and also recorded Chopin. Chopin’s music is elegant, beautiful. I felt playing Chopin, the fingers that touch the piano keys should be as gentle as touching a lover’s skin. I don’t like reading music scores while playing. So memorizing pages of music is quite a challenge. In a cold and snowy night, under the warm and cozy light, I felt coming out as a different person and totally leaving the world noise behind after I played a few pieces. Cheers, dear life!
Friendly version: (2:36 min) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oJyFLb0SlLYBzka0e3-z0mHf7hAE7cuh/view?usp=sharing
Killing me version: (8:20 min) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H7MxT0xf0uwzYEgWM3_7Ty0y-mZfmMML/view?usp=sharing
The Healing Moments
What moments have influenced and touched you? Lately, I felt some changes internally. I think that’s a result of many wonderful experiences happened lately. I name two here.
The nature
Recently, I do quite a lot of kayak. It is peaceful and free when you are in the middle of water, and nobody can get close to you. You have much space to think or think nothing. I was chasing a heron, finding lots of little fishes in the clear water, and also turtles! My polarized sun glasses are just perfect for discovering water creatures. The kayak I rent is so good. The boss of the rental house copied me a name and then I ordered one myself. The funny thing is that I ordered the kayak and the life jacket at the same time, but only the life jacket arrived now. Due to the pandemic, the kayak I selected is back ordered, and I need to pay $600 to get it shipped from Florida. Now I wear my life jack from time to time as some fashion clothes and my kayak is still in Florida :). I remember someone told me that the motor boats are the most annoying thing when you kayak. Yeah, I know what it means GAGA!
The People
In a casual gathering, I was randomly mentioning that the authentic Indian food is super tasty compared to the restaurant one. The next day I received an invitation to a birthday party by this Indian lady called Soma. She said she will cook Indian food for me (this is probably only the second or third time I have met her), wow! At the party day, Soma wears this formal Indian dress. Her house is spotless clean, decorated with flowers, birthday decors. Every kid received a costume and a gift bag. Soma was telling us that she gets up 4:30am every morning to watch sun rising, wow!
Amos is barely able to write but made me buy this super expensive card for his friend.
Preface: a Raining Day in New York
10/3/21 Just submitted a paper about numerical stability. The next one should be something related to neurosciences?! lol
Recently I am looking for an apartment in Manhattan. In NYC, you may live in a basement dark like a jail or you can live in a resort-style service apartment building with indoor soccer fields, indoor tennis court, spas, health club …, just depending on how much money you have. All the lease managers and realtors talk super fast (need to improve my English, lol). Mabye influenced by the movie watched a while ago called “a raining day in New York”, I mostly just want to live near the Central Park.
The finale of the movie is set in Central Park, where Gatsby and Chan meet each other at the Delacort Clock in Central Park at 6 o’clock in the evening. Well, the two never talked to meet at the Delacort Clock, but they mentioned the Delacort Clock in a random conversation at Chan’s:
Gatsby improvised some Jazz over a piano: I love a “cocktail lounge” piano. Outside it drizzles and grey, New York City, enveloped in the light mist. Two lovers have a date to meet at 6 o’clock under the Grand Central Station under the clock, like in the movie.
Chan: I love that movie, but I see it outside
Gatsby: Almost, you are in the right
Chan: I know, I know, under the clock …
Gatsby: Which clock?
Chan: the Delacort Clock, where all the animals go around the central park
Gatsby: in my version, he’s waiting, the music plays, and she never comes; or she’s waiting, and he chooses the other woman
……
Piano and Jazz are cool in a New York apartment. Whenever I lived in New York, I mostly just missed my piano at home but not other furniture.
2022 is unknown. I got a feeling of carrying two suite cases flying to US 20 years ago, and good that I think nothing about unknown.
Hello World
I may be good at drawing but certainly not good at political fights. Fortunately, our department does not have such a one. In this challenging era, they keep sending me good news. I was just told that I am having a surprising pay raise 🙂
Olympic Spirit
8/8/21 This year, our faculty retreat will be at a winery instead of some hotel conference center, lol. Ladies and gentleman, get some wine before going to fight with the covid :). A fully opened college campus during pandemic is like a front line. Good luck!
It was a very exciting last half a month — watching the olympics! Olympic did change my life! See, yesterday, there are 3 newbies joining me at rock climbing after watching the olympic climbing events 🙂 Rock climbing is kind of expensive and maybe a bit niche compared to sports like running and bicycling. So, for a long period of time, I have a hard time to find a stable partner for belaying. Hope the newbies can keep coming 🙂
Savory moments in Olympics: Philippine got a gold medal for weight lifting. The athlete has to lift water jags during pandemic for practice. The commentator said “those water jag turned into the gold medal” Haha. ROC high jump champion Maria Lasitskene was chill and elegant like a model after every jump. After getting the gold medal, she cried loud for a long time like crazy. Syria athlete got a medal in weightlifting and showed a picture of his friend who died in the war. Chinese diver Quan wanted to make money through Olympics to cure her mother. After she got the gold, all the rich relatives drove luxury cars to visit her family. St Paul Sunisa Lee got female gymnastic all-around gold after Simon Biles’ quitting drama. The camera gave many shots to her dad, who just fell and paralyzed in an accident.
I competed long distance running in high school. So I like to watch long distance events. I remember that in my first year, I was the second in 800 and 1500 meters. The dramatic thing is that our champion did not move to year 2 because failing in her academics. Then I was the champions for the two races every year since after. I think my best for 800 meters back then was a little over 3 mins, about 1ish min behind the olympic record. People had different styles to handle long distance. In 800 and 1500 meters female swimming, champion Katie Ledecky lead from the beginning to the end. In 800 and 1500 meters male swimming, champion (Bobby Finke , US) is more fun to watch. He was just tucked in the first group the whole time until the very last 50 meters. He would use the speed of a sprint at the end of a very tiring long distance. I never can do that so I am very impressed. Wow, so much power, Finke!
Teams China and USA: those are the two of my favorite teams. I am impressed by how China can keep dominate in those traditional events like diving. The female Champion Quan got so many perfect 10s in her 10 meters diving. She said, “there are only total 5 actions that I need to work them well” 🙂 Yes, making things simple is a way to success! I am also impressed that for so many variety of events, there are US athletes competing in finals. Although there are certainly many fat non-atheletic people in US, there are equivalently many people who love sports of different kinds. You can see runners on the street four seasons even in Iowa. The outlets and department stores are dominated by sporting clothes and goodies. I have a hard time to find a professional shirt, but the cheap sporting clothes are everywhere.
Competing in style: Athletes cheers for their opponents and congratulate them sincerely. For example, in female gymnastic balance beam, you can see how Sunisa Lee and Simon Biles cheered for Chinese athletes. I found this “competing in style” in my Frisbee leagues too. The Frisbee team is a mixture of men and women. One time, our team only came two female, and the other team had 4. But the whole time, they only used 2 same female. Another time, I was “flying” out to catch the Frisbee and fell. When I stood up, the Frisbee dropped out of my hand. I was ready to hand over the Frisbee, but the other team indicates that I should continue 🙂 There is also a time when a frisbee arrived at the person in front of me, and I was suddenly yelling something loud (are you insane, W :D). My team head found me and told me that I should not do this next time. I sincerely agree that I was out of style 🙂
Personal best: I first time see PB on the scoring board, which is cool. A 38 years old Belgian marathon runner cried hard after finishing at her personal best, achieving 28th place. The Aussie female high jump athlete was so excited after passing 2:02m, her personal best. Indeed, so much fun to pursuit a PB in sports. A few weeks ago, one person watched me to do rock climbing and said, “you never fall, so you did not push yourself hard enough”. I agree! Though I don’t plan to pursue extreme weights in weight lifting. Don’t need some big muscles, haha.
Globalization and nationalism: I think the two should have a balance. If you don’t have any nationalism, you will certainly lose some excitement to watch the sports. I found many people here don’t care much about the Olympics. The US basketball team shout to the Americans after their champion”to act like it (like Americans)”. The top US baseball players are now busy at the professional leagues and cannot compete in Olympics. Of course, I am glad to see that in the US forums, people had thoughts for those poor countries, countries that used to be weak in Olympics but improved. In the Chinese forums, most of the comments are about winning the matches for China. See the culture difference?!
Eye candies: It is pleasant to see so many beautiful athletes (Chinese new generation are especially looking good and promising :)). On the tracks, the movement is so charming, so do the trending hairstyles. Lots of people in US are the fans of watching beach volleyball. Team sports are indeed breathtaking. I was shouting loud to myself in the TV room late at night like a psycho 🙂
Some fun moments watching Olympics in Beijing: I remember Haruki Murakami wrote a book about Sydney Olympics. Maybe I should write something for Beijing Olympics?! which is ancient years ago 😀
Merci Tokyo, Bienvenue à Paris!
Cooking Vegetables
8/1/21 Inspired by the Olympics, I had so much fun doing extreme boot camp, Frisbee and other sorts of sports at 95F. Sweating feels good. I go around to tell people “hey, you know, I gain some weight, and it must be the muscles” but nobody believes me :/ ;/ Probably because they all know I eat too much:D
The first time I realized vegetables can be made tasty is at this restaurant called Natural Oasis. Vegetables are difficult to cook. To motivate my son to eat vegetables, I did try to improve my skills. IMHO, Chinese cuisine does not have an amazing way to cook vegetables. So if the bellowing pictures are not super satisfying, please refer to this link for more options: https://cooking.nytimes.com/68861692/2274598-easy-30-minute-vegetarian-recipes
What are some of the tricks I found useful when cooking vegetables?
Looking for good combinations: Some vegetables naturally go together very well, e.g., asparagus and mushroom, tomato and egg, egg and Chinese leek, and okra and egg. I also like to mix beancurd with (Chinese) celery.
Stir-fry tricks: Chinese cuisine do a lot of stir-fry. I like to stir-fry different types of leafs, like bok choy, potato leafs, kales, spinach … and of course, broccoli and cauliflower. Cooking in a deep, big wok feels authentic asian 🙂 When you put it on the gas stove, the wok can raise to a very high temperature. The water in the leafs then evaporates very fast. So you actually cook the food with the steams evaporated!
When cooking leafs, I will first put down garlic with oil, sometimes also with a “Chinese thousand year old egg :)” (皮蛋). When the oil is ready, I then dump the leafs. The most important trick is that after some stir, you will need to put some broth. In the supermarket, you can buy this cubic concentration of veggie or chicken broth. You can quickly mix it with water to get the broth (small amount). Compared to add water and salt, boiling the veggies in the broth is the key to make the dish tasty.
Diversify cooking styles and food types: in addition to stir fry, I try to diversify styles: miso, tempura, bibimbap, kimchi, dry pot, soup, broil and then mix with sauces (凉拌), mixed with starches like noodles and rice, rice cakes, hot and sour, brown/soy-sauces …
miso toufu and seaweed
seaweed, japanese tofu (boil) 
mushroom and tofu (boil)
fried rice 
rice cake and rice 
noodle soup
I eat all types of vegetables in the market:
Chinese is good at making different types of beancurd:
also different types of beans:
and squashes:
Recent drawings (2)
Some of my recent drawings:
Also share the pencil sketch:
My table looks like this. I like to draw with music on:
Recommend the newest hit on the NYC street by Ed “bad habits”. Quite interesting!
Badlands Series (3): Wildlife in Bandlands and Wind Cave
6/20/21 US-China travel is tough since pandemic. I am like an CIA and investigate along which route to meet my family (hmm). My mom said “oh, it is too far for you to pick us up from Chicago” “hey, babe, we take whatever we can get!” Miss my family!! Such a luxury thing to meet them up nowadays …
Very cool to see wildlife in national parks! for example, I have seen bloody wolfs in Yellow Stone and black bear in Shenandoah! Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks (the two are only 1-2 hours drive away) are not famous for wildlife, but between the two, I saw quite a few kinds! Wind Cave National park has the world longest underground cave and is located in the black hills. From far away, the black hills are indeed looking amazingly dark. A limited amount of underground tour tickets are sold every morning 8 am in the Wind Cave visitor center. Every day 7am something, there is a long line outside the ticket office and the tickets are sold out at 8 or 9am. If you plan to visit the cool cave, you may consider camping in the wind cave so you can get up early enough to buy the tickets.
Buffalo (Tatanka): they are faster than people and very powerful. Park rangers advise people to leave them alone. Wind Cave National park has many many Buffalos and they are just chilling near the road. I saw ones in the badlands as well, but they are much further away. Wild buffalos were almost hunted to extinct at some point. These Tatankas are later introduced to South Dakota. They especially like the grass after burning. So the park actually burns down a part of the “black forest” on purpose to nurtrilize the grassland.
Prairie dogs: it is my first time to see prairie dogs. They dig many holes in prairies. So the farmers don’t like them. These holes are all connected undergrounds. There is a family of prairie dogs living near the entrance of Badlands national park for many generations. The store sells prairie dogs food so you can feed them (1$ a bag of peanuts). Some prairies dogs are brave and they chase you for peanuts. Some are shy and only hide at the entry of their holes and are ready to run away when you approach them. They open peanut shells impressively fast.
Big horn sheep: They are good looking and cool creatures. First time I saw them was in the Yellow Stone years ago. They were standing on very steep slopes.
Ground squirrels: they are very fast and live in the holes in the ground. Are you able to see him below?
Birds: there are many beautiful birds here, taking your binoculars! For example, see this beautiful Magpie. He belongs to the crow family, is very smart and can mimic people talking.
Badlands Series (2): Camping in Badlands
6/13/21 post-covid life is awesome! Weekend: rock climbing and some other crazy stuff, Mon: Frisbee league, Tue: extreme bootcamp, Wed: oh sweet Wed, chilling!! Thur (play some more outside), Fri (play some more outside) … My face is alike charcoal, my legs are alike broken. Sssssssshamelessly pretend young, haha!
Rocky mountain starts using time-permit entry last year, and all the tickets are sold out fast. I am not able to compete with the bot to get tickets! What should I do with my campsite in Ester Park?!?! (I AM CRYING)
I was lucky to get the campsite inside the Badlands national park (you should definitely book the campsite even months before your trip). There is a KOL campsite not far away, which is also a good choice to visit Bandlands. Morning and sunset time are amazing on the campsite, here is my view of waking up in the morning:
Here are the views of my cooking time:
Night-time exploration: When I was there, everyday is cloudy. But even with the clouds, you can see the beautiful stars full of the sky!! Night-time badlands are very scary. There are no people but shadows, but it is fun to get out if you have a group of cool friends.
night-mode cell phone picture comes out like this, lol 
Camping equipment: The Badlands campsite has 2 bathrooms and 1 shower, but because of the covid and going with a kid, I have updated all the camping equipment this year. This is our bath room and shower, and they work (not ideal but good enough) 🙂
This is the bed configuration to save the tent space, not gonna work for honeymoon trip though :D. There were two very heavy thunderstorms when we were there. You do need a big tent to lock healthly inside for hours.
This time, I tried some down sleep bag (bought it in case later I want to go backpacking and it is indeed super light). It is marked 15F, but I was frozen at night when the outside temperature is around 30F. Advice here, buy a warm sleeping bag possible! Starting mid/late-May, Badlands warm up fast, good time to visit!
Other stuffs: I found hangers are useful but easily forgotten. This kind of cart can be used as a closet. This bucket is useful too, as the water can be far from your campsite. Badlands does not allow campfire, so bring the cooking facilities … Big (and popup) tent and chairs are pleasant if you can fit in your vehicle. This kind of box can be used as a trashcan …
Badlands Series (1) : Hiking in the Badlands National Park
5/23/21 shall we start the week with some music and rainbows?! 😀
Here is how Iowan people are desperate about the mountains and rocks: I pretty hiked all the trails in the Badland national park and yet on the first night when I came back from South Dakota, I already booked the campsite in the Rocky Mountains 🙂 Seeking for the origin of the Colorado river is a wish I made long time ago when I saw the Grand Canyon.
Hiking in the badlands is a favorite type of hikes. No trees, a lot of rocks, you can hike pretty much everywhere, and don’t have to stick to the trails. The ranger said that majority of the injuries are ankles, so I did wear my hiking boots but it is broken at the first day 🙂 Then I survived with just sneakers. I see some people used hiking sticks. I don’t think they are necessary. In the summer, it is very hot here, so bring plenty of water.
Notch trail: It is one of my favorite trails. The official trail length is only 1.5 miles, but there is a lot of rocks nearby off-trail that you can climb on. This trail contains a ladder and then a 6-feet wide cliff trail. It can be quite a lot of wait. So I highly recommend that you go there in early mornings or late afternoons. Some travel blogs said, “don’t bring kids”. Kids are just fine if you can be careful.
The ladder:
The cliff-section of the trail:
The views along the trail:
Saddle trail: This is the most difficult trail in the park, but I totally did not prepare it. I went alone and chickened out (haha) in the middle after walking across a “bridge”, where both sides are cliffs. The problem is that this trail is very steep with small stones on the surface. So it is slippery when coming down. I did not see a single person on the trail until I decided to come back. I found two NYC young guys so I head back with them (if they were going up, I probably would’ve successfully hiked), lol.
the beginning of the trail 
trail 
trail 
view on the trail
Castle trail (and the medicine root loop): this is a longest trail in the park. One way is about 6-7 miles. It is also the easiest, not much elevation. You can see badlands and many buttes as well as the prairie landscape. The trailhead is located at the fossil trail area and also the entrance of the park. This trail also connects to the saddle trail.
Trail:
Buttes:
Door/window/cliff nature Trails: all the three trails are located near the entrance of the park. Door trail is a fossil bed, it takes about an hourish to hike but quite fun for beginners. Window trail and part of cliff nature trail is wheel-chair accessible. Window trail can see a giant canyon, and cliff nature trail sees the meadow.
Door trail view: endless badlands with an end of the trail
Window trail view:
Cliff-nature trail:
Badland rocks are dated as old as 60-70 million years, where the South Dakota area is mostly ocean. People have discovered many fossils including the extincted animals like three-toed horse and oreodont. The rocks have many layers and colors. Shale is the oldest layers. The buttes are formed where there is a very hard layer in the rock. The erosion failed to remove that layer but starts to erode away the layers at the lower part of that layer. Even nowadays, it is erode about 1 inch away every year.
