What I'm Reading - October 2014

I've been reading a lot recently.  Here are a few of my recent reads.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
I read this book after watching the movie.  I liked it a lot! It was an easy read, and it was pretty much identical to the movie, so I don't have a lot to add.

Inamorata by Megan Chance
I read this as one of the Kindle First free books.  This book was following in the vein of recent young adult fiction.  The characters weren't very well developed and the story took a while to get into.  It also was kind of weird - there were some vampire-like fantasy elements, and strange relationships between a woman and her brother.  Once I got into the exciting part, about 2/3 of the way through, I couldn't put it down, but it wasn't very well written nonetheless.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
This was yet another book from the Kindle First collection.  I really enjoyed this book! It was fairly well written for a young adult novel, and the story was very whimsical and imaginative.  I really enjoyed this, and if there is a sequel I will definitely put it on my reading list!

The Bling Ring by Nancy Jo Sales
I really didn't like this book.  I feel like everything in it could have been easily condensed into a long-form article, and there was no need for the book format.  It repeated a lot of information throughout and had spoilers, and additionally, didn't present the story chronologically, or seemingly with any thought for how to best lay it out.  But a good gossipy beach read I guess...

25 Things: Fireworks!

This is another of the things that I actually did a while ago, but never wrote about.  Unfortunately, I also lost all my photos of this when my old phone died, so you'll just have to be content with this image I found on Google.

Two summers ago (2013) I happened to be still at my parents' house when the local fireworks stand got set up for the summer.  I went there and bought 2 small rockets with a friend from high school and then set them off in the street by my parents' house.

I enjoyed it, though I was a little scared that something bad could happen.  I also loved the smell, weirdly enough.  Would do again.

25 Things: Watch Star Wars (part 2)

Wow. So I just watched all six Star Wars movies in five days, and I survived to report back here!

It was really amazing to witness the progression of special effects, costuming, and realism of violence between the 1970s and the early 2000s.  The last movie felt like it was made today in terms of the gratituous violence, and the lack of plot-driven action in favor of lots of big explosions.  I was amazed by some things that must have seemed obvious or not really noticable in the time period in which these were made - for example, the fact that Luke's aunt works as a housewife in such a futuristic time.  Also, the nonchalant sexual harassment of Leia is pretty unbelievable with 2014 eyes.  You'd think that women would have broken the glass ceiling by then...  It also bothers me that characters speak in different languages, but everyone replies in English.  I also appreciated the abominable snow monster, which looked like the one from the claymation Rudolph movie.

In the early movies, the acting was much better than in the modern ones.  It was strange that Luke looks to be about 30 in the early movies, but I guess that's preferable to the terrible acting of Anikin in the later movies, which may partially be due to his youth.  It was also odd for me to recognize many of the actors in the later films.  I really liked both of the droids a lot, and in fact, the early movies where not as fun without them there.  It was interesting how R2D2 has a periscope that looks like Wall-E.  Accidental? I bet not!

The music was really great! I loved the obvious leitmotives for each character.  It did get a bit over the top after hours and hours of the same themes, however.  It was also interesting the use of the Vader and Anikin/Luke themes woven together in different ways, especially in Episode 3.  Also, I finally heard the cantina theme in context, which was nice.

There were lots of famous quotes here that I didn't know were from Star Wars, and some that I knew were from this franchise but didn't know exactly what they were referring to:

"May the force be with you."

I find your lack of faith disturbing."

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Turn this ship around!"

"The force will be with you always."

"The force is strong with this one."

"There's something familiar about this place."

"Do or do not; there is no try."

There were also so many parallels between the two sets of movies that I think each could stand alone.  Not only were there similarities in the stories of Anakin and Luke (too many to outline here), but also between young and old Obi-Wan.

I'm really glad I watched the movies in the order that I did, though it was terrible to end the series on such a sad and depressing note.  I can see why people say the old movies are so much better, but I don't think the new ones were that bad.  I've definitely watched many worse movies, and I don't think if I had watched episode 1 first, that I wouldn't have wanted to continue watching.  In fact, I would have been totally compelled to watch episode 4 right after finishing 3, since it ended on such a terrible note.  After episode 6, I didn't really have a huge desire to immediately watch episode 1.

Well, thanks for reading! Let me leave you with this Palpatine soundboard.  I had a lot of fun checking this off my bucket list, and I recommend these movies to anyone else who has never seen them!

25 Things: Eat Lobster

I actually completed this item on my bucket list back in the summer of 2013, so technically before my self-imposed deadline of my 25th birthday.  However, I never got around to posting about it until now.

At a gig I was playing with my woodwind quintet at a summer festival called Norfolk, which I may or may not have mentioned on here before, we were offered lobster rolls.  I found them to be super duper delicious! But I'm always really picky about texture (see my post about trying sushi for the first time) and for me the lobster was a bit gummy.  I would love to try some bisque or something one day, because that would eliminate the element of texture, and thus I might like it even more!

25 Things: Watch Star Wars (part 1)

Things I know about Star Wars before watching the movies:
-Darth Vader is a man who wears a black suit and breathes heavily.  He has his own theme song.  I guess he's the bad guy.
-Luke Skywalker is Darth Vader's son (thus the "Luke, I am your father" quote that everyone knows) and seems to be the good guy.  He has a girlfriend or something who is Princess Leia, who wears her hair in two buns.  They both wear white robes all the time.
-They have a few friends that they travel around with - Chewbacca, a giant monkey-creature who makes a weird growling noise, and two robots, one who looks like a roomba but larger in the vertical dimension, and one that looks like the tin man, but gold.
-Their weapon of choice is the light saber.  There are different colored ones, but I don't know if that means anything.
-There is a wise man named Yoda who is a little green monster who speaks in backwards sentences.
-The opening sequence has words traveling through space as the all-too-famous to all brass players theme plays in the background.
-The premise of the movies, I believe, is that they all travel around throughout the galaxy? universe? and fight the bad guys.  I'm not sure what exactly the bad guys threaten, or how they travel, but I think they encounter lots of strange creatures along the way.

I know that there are six movies, and movies 4-6 were made decades before movies 1-3, so it's debatable the order in which i should watch them.  But after reading various internet commentary on the issue, I decided to start with the 4th movie, and go in the order of original release.

What I'm Reading - September 2014

I've been reading a lot recently! Here is the next installment of what has been on my Kindle these past few months.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I actually read this book a really long time ago and didn't take the time to write about it here, so I've probably forgotten some things about it.  I remember liking this book overall - it's kind of a fantastical look at the modern world.  There were some twists that I didn't see coming, and by the climax of the story I was definitely sucked in, but the beginning was a bit slow going for me.  Recommended, but probably a bit long for some people.

The Fracking King by James Browning

I got this book as part of the Kindle preview program, where Kindle users get a free download of one of four books each month.  It was a very easy read, but not very well written, and not the world's most engaging story.  The characters weren't very deep, but I would say this is good beach reading - light and easy but not super deep.  The whole premise of the book as well was a bit strange, and not necessarily very realistic.

The Barkeep by William Lashner

This was another book I got from Kindle First.  Like the one discussed above, it was very light reading - not super compelling, but also interesting enough that I read the whole thing.  It was an easy read, and I got through it very quickly.  Recommended for beach reading (not till next year, I guess) or reading while drinking.  Interestingly, each chapter is named after a different cocktail.  It would be fun to play a drinking game with this one, and it goes by so quickly that it would be easy to get really wasted while reading.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

I read this in translation from the original French, obviously, but I got it for free since it is in the public domain, and I'm not sure of the translator.  This book has a plot that is generally exciting, especially since I had never seen the movie and generally didn't know what it was about.  However, in my opinion, it was far too long, and I got really bored about 1/3 of the way through and stopped reading it for a few months.  When I came back to it, I read another third before getting upset about one plot point - at one point, the story's hero rapes a girl, and it is presented as really no big deal, whatever, hahaha.  This bothered me a lot, and so I took another break from reading it.  In the end, I just finished it so I could be done with it.  But it is a good story, so I would perhaps recommend watching the movie or something like that, so you can get the benefit of the story without the long-windedness or the nonchalant rape.

25 Things: Go Gluten-free! (part 2)

A few weeks ago I published the first post about trying a month of eating gluten-free.  Well, I tried following all those restrictions for a full week.  It was so hard, which I was expecting, but what I didn't expect was how much it would affect me physically.  I thought it would be tough that I might feel better.  However, I felt constantly hungry, even when I ate plenty of protein, and I was sleepy all the time as well.  Starting on day 2 or 3, I also got migraine headaches every day! I guess eating gluten-free isn't for everyone, or maybe I was doing something wrong.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to continue with this, since it made me feel so bad.  I have a lot of work to do, and I'm a firm believer that your body tells you hat it needs.  If it made me feel awful like this, probably it's not right for me.  I'm glad I tried it though, so I know what the hype is all about.

What I'm Reading - Summer 2014

So it has been a long time since I wrote about what I'm reading! Thanks to the Kindle I got for Christmas, I've returned to my voracious reading habits from high school.  I'd like to review some of the books I've read recently.

The first thing I did after getting my Kindle was download all of the books the series Game of Thrones was modeled after.

I watched all of the Game of Thrones episodes that had come out by the time I was reading the books (through season 3).  The first two books were what had already been covered in the television series, so it wasn't too much new plot.  However, I was surprised that I didn't feel bored by it even though I already knew what was about to happen.  It was even more exciting when I got to the new plot materials in the later books.  I have read other fantasy series in the past such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the Game of Thrones books were much easier to read.  There are a lot of characters in these books, which has gotten criticism from some of my friends who have read the books and found it confusing.  However, since I watched the show first, I was able to keep all the characters straight since I could put a face with all the names.  I highly recommend these books to anyone who likes the show, or anyone who likes fantasy novels.

I'll be back soon with review of some of the other books I've been reading these past few months!

September 2014

After a busy summer, I was really hoping for some time to rest up and recover from being sick and all the strenuous travel.

Immediately after arriving home, I had to move apartments.  I love my new place! I have a 500-square-foot one bedroom apartment.  It's really great to have a place to myself.  Of course by this point, I'm all moved in, though I still need to hang up some of my decorations.  I'll try to post a house tour up here sometime soon, once I hang up the artwork.

Unfortunately, I had scheduled my recital for just one month after my return, and I hadn't had practice time to prepare before I arrived back at school.  The recital was on September 29, and it went pretty well.  Everyone was really complimentary, and, though everything wasn't perfect, I was happy with my work considering the difficulties of the program and the short time I had to prepare.

Also, it turned out that I had some unforeseen issues with my classes, which necessitated major schedule changes and caused a lot of bureaucracy problems.  Due to this, it wasn't until the first week of October that I was able to actually finalize my schedule for this semester!

I also had to take a huge doctoral exam in music theory.  I felt like I did ok, but I got a borderline grade, so they made me retake part of it.  Finally, I ended up passing, and I got the news just as I came off-stage from playing my recital!

With some collaborators after my recital

Despite all this business, I've also been doing some of hiking, sometimes alone, and sometimes with friends.  One weekend, a group of use went hiking and then had a barbecue in the state park.

Hiking in a state park with some friends

I've also been doing some home cooking in my new place.  I made some delicious Brazilian rice and beans, which you can find the recipe for here.

Beans and rice

Following my friends' and my monthly schedule for organized fun* we had a chamber music party near the end of September.  My friend had the cutest dog who loved the music and all the attention we gave him.

Cute doggy!

Ms. Haydn came to the party

What a crazy busy month, with no time to rest! October is going to be pretty busy as well, but with no recital prep, it should be slightly more manageable.

*Our monthly organized fun schedule:
First Wednesday: play pool
Second Thursday: attend a concert
Third Friday: movie night
Fourth Saturday: chamber music party
Fifth Sunday: brunch

Summer, pt 4

My summer was crazy and full of different activities! I'll cover what I did in 4 separate posts.
Part 1 - Oregon
Part 2 - Colorado
Part 3 - Germany
Part 4 - France and Germany again
---

After the end of my festival in Germany, I had five days free before my sister returned to Germany from visiting the United States.  I decided to visit an old friend, Pierre, at his family's house in the Alsace region of France.  He had told me all about the beauty of the area, but I thought he was exaggerating until I went there myself.

On the first day there, Pierre took me to a castle overlooking the valley where he lives.  The castle was built in the twelfth century, and was absolutely amazing! The views from the top of the mountain were also georgeous, despite the cloudiness, and from up there we could actually see Germany and Switzerland!

 I loved visiting all the small towns in this wine region.  Each had its own personality and features.  This town is where Pierre went to high school.  He told me they would sometimes cut class and climb up to these two castle ruins to hang out and explore.

Pierre's family's kitten, Milka, absolutely loved me, and I loved her! We spent lots of quality time together in their beautiful home.  I loved their home.  They had chickens and geese in their yard, as well as a lot of fruit trees and grapevines.  We ate one of the chickens for dinner, and Pierre's mom cooked lots of delicious, typically Alsacian food.  Yummy!

This is architecture typical of this region.  This defensive wall runs all the way around his village, and many of the homes include this ancient wall as one of their home's exterior walls.

In Colmar, one of the larger towns nearby, there is a ton of stuff celebrating the creator of the Statue of Liberty, who was from there.  It was bizarre to be driving down the roads and see this huge copy of the statue in a totally foreign country!

 Directly before my departure from Alsace, we went on a short hike up to the aforementioned castle ruins.  Pierre told me the story (of questionable veracity) of why there are two castles from the same time period that are so close together.  The lord of this area had two sons, and so they each had their own castle.  They used to play jokes on each other.  They started getting up in the morning and shooting an arrow at their brother's window as a prank.  One day, one of the brothers accidentally killed the other! This started a war between the two brothers.

It was so cool to be up there wandering around.  I could really imagine how the people lived at that time.  It's amazing to consider how the average person's life could be so extremely different just a few centuries ago, which is such a short time in the context of human history.

Before I left, I had to have a pretzel, which is typical of this region.  It was great to see and spend time with an old friend again!

Next, I took a train to Paris, just a few hours away.  After all, how could I go to France and not visit Paris?!? But it was a little strange being in such a stereotypically romantic city alone, but I still had a good time, though Paris wan't my favorite of the cities I've visited.

 My first activity was of course visiting the Eiffel Tower.  I decided to take the stairs, which I really liked.  It was cool to have a panorama of the city, and fortunately I had a map so I spent a long time at the top orienting myself in the city.  I liked the Eiffel Tower as an architectural marvel, but to me it was a little underwhelming because there is so much media hype regarding its beauty (see: every rom-com ever).

 They say Paris is the city of love, and I met the love of my life there.

 I spent a few hours at the Louvre, which I really enjoyed.  Some areas of the museum were waaaay too touristy, and it bothered me a lot how everyone was just taking pictures and not actually enjoying the art.  Thankfully I was there alone so I didn't have to worry about satisfying someone else's desire to see the Mona Lisa or any of the other famous pieces at this museum.

 My favorite thing I saw in the city was the Notre Dame cathedral.  I loved the feeling of this place .  Even though I'm not Christian, I really felt something special here - maybe just the centuries of history.  I also was lucky enough that there was a concert happening in the cathedral on one of the nights that I was visiting.  It was really an incredible experience to hear the sacred renaissance music I've studied in the venue it was designed for.

 Of course I had to enjoy some escargot in Paris!  I was practicing my French during this week, and got good enough to be able to order my food without using any English.

 I loved this cathedral and was living within walking distance, so I spent a lot of time in this garden.

 I loved this banana and Nutella crepe!

One more view of the cathedral, from a bridge covered with locks of love.

 Next, I returned to Germany to take some lessons.  However, the teachers weren't available until right at the end of my trip (thus the whole long stay after the festival), so I went to Frankfurt to visit my sister for a few days.  She had to work (she plays in an orchestra), so I watched some of their rehearsals.

 Their concert that week was at a refurbished monastery, so during their dress rehearsal I wandered around a bit.  This room was the monks' dormitory.

The stage at the monastery.

I then had a quick trip to have three lessons.  My favorite of the places I visited, I liked Essen-Werden the best.  It was a really cute little town, though Essen itself wasn't so beautiful.

Back in Frankfurt, I had one day free to spend with my sister.  We walked around a nearby park, where we saw river otters.
We also went on a bike ride to a really nice Biergarten on the river.  It wasn't very cold but I was by this point very sick from all the travel, but I wasn't going to pass up the chance!  Actually, after the bike ride, I felt so awful, I passed out for a few hours on my sister's couch.

On my last day in Germany, my sister and I spent a lot of time playing backgammon.  She beat me every time! So sad.































Altogether, I had a great summer! It was a lot of travel, and at the end I got really sick, but it was a good experience, and I'm glad I did it.

25 Things: 100 push-ups, part 1

Today was the first day of my quest to do 100 push-ups.  I'm following the schedule on this website.

Since today was the first day, I had to do the initial test.  I was able to do 11 full (non-modified) push-ups.  Honestly, I was surprised that I was able to do so many, and in fact, I probably could have done some more if I pushed myself.

Because of this, I'll be following column #3 in this plan during weeks 1-2.  I have to do push-ups three times per week.  I'm aiming for Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, because those days are when I usually have the least amount of work and/or driving to do.  Here's the plan for the first two weeks:

Week 1:
Day 1: set of 10, set of 12, set of 7, set of 7, as many as possible (minimum 9)
Day 2: set of 10, set of 12, set of 8, set of 8, as many as possible (minimum 12)
Day 3: set of 11, set of 15, set of 9, set of 9, as many as possible (minimum 13)

Week 2:
Day 1: set of 14, set of 14, set of 10, set of 10, as many as possible (minimum 15)
Day 2: set of 14, set of 16, set of 12, set of 12, as many as possible (minimum 17)
Day 3: set of 16, set of 17, set of 14, set of 14, as many as possible (minimum 20)

At the end of week 2, I have to do a follow-up test, where I must do as many as possible.  That will tell me what to do in the following weeks.  I'll check back in soon to share my progress!

Summer, pt 3

My summer was so crazy and full of different activities! I'll cover what I did in 4 separate posts.
Part 1 - Oregon
Part 2 - Colorado
Part 3 - Germany
Part 4 - France and Germany again
---

After a super-early morning departure from Colorado, I took three flights to arrive in Dresden, Germany.  Organizers of the festival picked me up at the airport and took me to the small town of Moritzburg, where the festival took place.

There are a lot of things I could say about this festival, but this is the internet, where nothing ever goes away, so I'll just stick to the good things - I made a lot of nice friends, and I got to visit a place I'd never been before!

This is the castle in the town of Moritzburg.  To me it seemed more like a palace than a castle but apparently they are the same word in German and for some reason they translate it as castle rather than palace.

As participants in the festival, we got to see a lot of cool stuff in that area of the country.  One highlight was touring an instrument factory! The tour was very brief and there were lots of people crowded into small rooms, but it was still interesting to see the pieces and get a general sense of how things are made.

One of our concerts was in a VW factory.  It was awesome to see all the old cars on display, and to see the new ones being manufactured!

Another concert was at another castle/palace, which had a vineyard in back.  The grapes were really sour.

We had one free day near the end of the festival, and I went with some friends to Dresden.  It was amazing how old the buildings seemed, though they were pretty much all reconstructed after the bombings in World War II.

I also had a good time playing with the other horn player at the program.

And what did I do with the rest of my time, you may ask? Drink, is the answer! Not just beer (which came out of a vending machine in our dorm)...

...but also at cafes all over the place!

At one of these cafes, I discovered one of my favorite beverages in Germany - the Eiscafe.  Unlike an American ice coffee, German ice coffee is basically a coffee float.  Yummy!!!

After just about two weeks at this festival, it was finally time to continue on to other adventures.  Check out the next installment soon at Part 4: France and Germany again!