the long entry: the week of 7/10 to 7/17

I've been so absorbed in books and entertainment recently that I haven't been able to meet my quota of 500 words per day. In order to compensate, I'm shooting for a really long entry that hits 3500 or so that so on average my goal isn't completely abandoned or hopessl Actually, I think I might also break up these 3500 words into two entries, because goodness knows I do have the start of a novella to sort out from the manuscript. There's sideways notes, so many words replaced, that it takes a while to figure out what the final version of it should read like. In this blog entry, I'm going to recap my week.

Last Tuesday, July 9, after I received the new hard drive in the mail from HP, I made a trip to the library, deciding to rent out a couple of chick flick movies and some audio books, because I so enjoyed listening to Stephen King’s Joyland recently. Then, over the next three days, I completely indulged. On Wednesday, I replaced my laptop’s hard drive and started reinstalling the system and drivers, which took from morning to afternoon. Then, in the afternoon I started downloading and installing World of Warcraft on it, which did not finish downloading/patching until almost around midnight, although I did get to raid on Whisperwind while it was still doing that.

I finished listening to The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua first. It reminded me of a world from which I was exiled. I was disappointed, however, in that it was a memoir more concentrated on her daughters’ achievements rather than more of an expose on the parenting styles and attitudes Asian mothers have. Still, I was glad her sister was able to beat leukemia and have that bone marrow transplant. It’s also nice to hear that her daughters were free to have fun and make their own choices. She ends up perpetuating certain stereotypes and underscoring the fact that if so many Chinese mothers and didn’t try so hard, their children would be nowhere near as accomplished. I myself think that Asians succeed because they have this culture that pushes them to work hard, but on the outliers and the black sheep like me unwilling to subject myself to such total obedience and selflessness, that pressure can be almost unbearable.

Thursday and Friday I reviewed Spanish, which I am picking up on along with German. Since about a year ago I have suspected that one of my ancestors was China’s first diplomat to Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands as well as Russia. He didn’t speak Russian but was purported to be excellent in German and English. I am working on a cocktail of foreign languages to have something to work on during my long drives between Sacramento and Bakersfield. Since I already have Spanish, I am looking to learn French (to better sing Zaho songs and maybe eventually read Victor Hugo in his native language), German (because I’ve always wanted to read Herman Koch’s Het Dinner without buying the translation; it has such a kick-ass concept as a book), and Italian (hello operas and Dante)! I’ve also really wanted to learn Russian for Pushkin’s poetry, but I would have to learn a new alphabet for that, so I’m putting it off until sometime later.

Also on Thursday and Friday I played World of Warcraft with two friends while listening to Living History read by Hillary Rodham Clinton. I thought she was honest but awfully single-minded about some things. It reminded me of this TED talk on “The danger of the single story” from Chimamanda Adichie. Politicians so often just take one story, one side, form their opinions prematurely without giving themselves time to understand a more complete picture, which is probably what disinclined me towards politics. The only people that I have actively liked that worked in government have been diplomats in spirit, not evangelists for democracy and “freedom”. Otto von Bismarck, Henry Kissinger, both the Roosevelt presidents, and some other consultants and diplomats I have all admired, but not the people who take just one side while entirely discrediting the other side of the story. I believe sometimes, as in the case of Falungong, one side is pure bullshit, and I agree that the Kenneth Starr thing was bullshit, but I disagree with the foreign policy decisions that Hillary Clinton threw herself behind 100%. I may not vote for her the next time she runs for president, if there will be a time like that. It would be amusing, for sure, to see what a First Husband would do in the White House, someday.

I also watched the chick flick movies. To my surprise, I found Letters to Juliet heart wrenchingly moving and beautiful in every which way—plot, characters, cinematography. It’s one of those rare movies I would watch again. And what a delight to Google the actors and find out that the movie plot was pretty close to Vanessa Redgrave’s real life! I found the British actor absolutely adorable and thought that this movie completely blew away Dear John (even though that one had starred Channing Tatum!). Even now I can’t think of a single romantic Hollywood movie I’ve enjoyed more; for me it was on par with Casablanca. The other chick flick was pretty forgettable in comparison. I got some laughs out of it, but it didn’t leave me with a strong impression; I won’t mention the title in case one of my girl/guy friends get offended that I didn’t like the film. I once had a guy friend who joked about a reference to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which I completely missed because I can’t remember a thing about that movie either even though I have definitely watched it before, maybe even twice, with different girl friends.

Let me just say again that I LOVED Letters to Juliet. It made me cry: tears of anguish, lament, relief, and joy. Only the best scenes move me in that way, and there were a lot of scenes like that in the movie.

Friday and Saturday I raided Throne of Thunder with my Mannoroth guild, but my priest friend wasn’t around. I started listening to Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and had many moments of hate for the strict adherence of Islam and the outdated Koran, which forever treats women as worth only half a man. I have serious doubts about any holy text, but the way so many branches of Islam expect people to obey without ever questioning assumed beliefs and practices goes against my capacity for reason. I can accept if enlightened, educated Muslims want to follow their cultural traditions, but many people in countries in Islamic nations in Africa and the Middle East are never really given a choice about what they can learn, say, and believe. In Saudi Arabia, I learned through the book, women are stoned and people have their hands and feet cut off in public, which to me is redolent with the same barbaric stink of the Mayans and Aztecs and their human sacrifice rituals that they treated as sport.  I haven’t read the Koran, but tell me, does it explain just how Allah is merciful? Or is it primarily a rulebook about what people must believe, or how people should live their lives without any justification other than that’s what the holy prophet Mohammed said?

Please don’t get me wrong, I understand that there’s a diverse range in the way that Islam is practiced. I don’t want to condemn the religion itself. But when it is pointed out to me that the Koran has passages that indicate it is OK to beat one’s wife and that a wife may not refuse sex to her husband at any time except for religious times, and during her period, I have real issues when those passages are interpreted and practiced in a literal sense. It’s unfair to women that way. It seems to me that Islam is the largest religion that tolerates violence and justifies that violence, such as honor killings when a young woman in the family is unfortunately raped. Really, then, are those women just liabilities that serve no other purpose than to bring shame upon the family the moment that she is violated? Does it automatically restore honor to the family as soon as that woman is killed? These things do not make logical sense to me and the best explanation seems to me to be Hirsi Ali’s, that Islam is used to justify the enslavement of women in nations that are less enlightened and want to hold on to their status quo in rejecting modern ideas and preventing any dissent.

Saturday night I was up until 5AM, by which time I was sleep-deprived and I didn’t think I was even sane anymore. Hearing Hirsi Ali’s story made me think of how I was unpleasantly manipulated in the past by someone I loved, and how we are now forever estranged because I realized he never treated me with sincerity and respect whenever those would inconvenience him. He’s not the type to apologize, either, since he’s so far up his own smug, self-satisfied, amoral, jaded ass to care about the effects of his actions and words. I let slip some imprudent remarks in my bitterness, to an online friend, who might know that same person. However, I felt much better on Sunday when I drove to the Bay Area to meet two friends I had only known online before this. What was to be an afternoon of hiking actually turned out to be a brief tour of downtown Berkeley, hours of playing board games, which I immensely enjoyed, some sightseeing by car, and a nice dinner followed by a visit to Fenton’s for ice cream. (That reminds me, I still want to see the movie Up.) Between a hot dog lunch from Top Dog, dinner, and part of a Black-and-Tan, I definitely surpassed my daily calorie count, I think. The nice lady who made us dinner intimidated me, but the leftovers from the ice cream and from the dinner (soft tacos and burritos with chicken and pico de gallo) took me through breakfast, lunch, and dinner the following day, Monday. I was still in a food coma Monday and my sleep schedule got messed up very badly.

Monday I caught up on a number of shows, both in English and in Japanese. I finished watching Galileo 2 (Fukuyama Masaharu is fantastic) and 35-sai no Koukousei (Yonekura Kyoko is one of my favorite Japanese actresses, especially with her performance in Koori no Hana, which is one of the darker movies in which a pianist gets away with murdering her husband, who murdered her uncle, and also gets away with murdering a lesbian blackmailer friend/lover from her university days).

Monday night I mailed back the defective hard drive to HP from the FedEx office, and got a fresh batch of books, CDs, and DVDs. I listened to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which created a dark and somber atmosphere as I gamed. Tuesday I began reading a couple of different books, one of which was Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, which I have yet to finish. I also started to do a little research related to the project I should be working on full-time soon, and dug out some notebooks whereupon I rediscovered my as-yet untitled science fiction novella. I am only going to be at around 2000 words by the end of this post, so I will probably edit or rewrite the beginning of that novella for the remaining 1500 words. What will be coming up this weekend is a visit to my family, some consulting, and a lot of tutoring for my brother.

I also hope to visit the Bay Area again with my best friend next week or perhaps next weekend, and to start and finish the Firefly series I checked out from the library. The Cuckoo's Calling from Audible is my next audiobook...I still think it’s strange to be writing and posting what essentially belongs in a diary online, but it is much easier counting words this way.