ha, since when was i this enthu about sch? i just knew how to fall asleep...

i had a very good day at sch. and i just feel this sense of euphoria that i'm majoring in whatever i'm majoring in...although lotsa science majors would prob disagree with me, i feel that i am getting such a good education taking the two social science majors i'm taking... i prob would hav been really dull if i were.... say.... a Math/Engineering major or something. ok nmind, should not make generalizations like that. but in short, i love my majors lah.

sorry this is going to be long, but i really have to blog about some things that happend in class today. first, i really admire profs who sometimes have to be really patient or manage to keep a straight face even when students ask stupid questions. well, i guess i mean it's part of the job... but it also requires some skill.... so today ken chay was asked some repetitive questions by a student in class and so even though he just explained the concept like 1 min ago, he redid it without showing any sign of disgust or like impatience... and i was really impressed. well maybe also cos i already have a colored 'vision' of what he's like... like somehow perhaps cos of what other ppl have said, i get the impression that he has the potential to be mean. and then in Chinese class i witnessed another instance of the professor being really professional... (erm no word play intended) ok. so we are all supposed to each do a 10-min presentation of a city image for this class... to capture say different ways one can look at the city... and so this girl, not only did she not really do the assignment properly (cos she did a whole slide show that took up a lot of class time) she also did some self-promotion which was totally bewildering and immature in my opinion... as in.. there were 2 slides of herself wearing some flowery tank top against background of SF... which served NO purpose at all... but the prof just patiently waited for her to finish the whole presentation... then attempted to construct some meaning/ argument that could link up the somewhat random images in her whole presentation... like halfway through i already felt like laughing.... (yes i am very bad)... anyway the point of all this is that i really admire profs, or just people who can put up with such things... like i'm sure at some point in time i've also said stupid things or really DUH things... and i'm thankful to ppl who didn't like totally shatter my EGO by telling me that i'm really stupid or something...

ok i was totally carried away and forgot to explain why it was a good day at sch. so anyway, in Chinese class, we also analyzed the film we watched... and while the prof was pointing out things that i saw but didnt' really see in the film... like the juxtapositions of certain images... and asking us to ponder over the intentions of different settings and stuff.... i just thought what incredible pieces of works each film can potentially be... like these film-makers... they spend so much time trying to portray things to get a certain msg across... like it's just so amazing. but then sadly what percentage of their audience 'gets' it? i have to say that i prob didn't really appreciate half the things i've watched so far...
and i really like my history class. i've read so far, two books that led me to think more critically about Sun Yat-sen and Mao... and even though both of them kind of shattered the predominant founding father type images of these two 'cult figures'...(and as my GSI reminded me, which could also be biased since it's still say, one scholar's opinion...) it's kinda 'mind-liberating' to come to the realization that a lot of mainstream icons or things that we are so used to thinking (say, due to like general images/ideas circulated by the media) might just be totally inaccurate or distorted....

nmind. i think i'm talking too much. my 2 other econ classes are good too, though i dun really blog much about them. i think that i now appreciate my classes a lot more. a bit late, but never too late... and i've also found that doing all my readings and actually saying meaningful things in class can be quite rewarding... sadly it really takes me so much time. but somehow i feel quite happy to do all the work... so i intend to be nerdy the rest of the year and try to do all my readings... but i think it's actually worth it =)

i knew there must be loads of like-minded (and cheapo? haha) individuals out there unwilling to pay for NYT op-eds... here you go...

Cheapo Chinese?

was reading an article on Hong Kong Disneyland in The Economist when i came across the following...

The park's layout and opening date are ruled by strict feng-shui principles, but Disney may need more than this to persuade the cost-conscious Chinese to spend. Rather than buy official photographs, they tend to snap their own, even posing with shop toys which they then do not buy...

the image that it evoked just really tickled me... =P hey jun, if you ever visit Disneyland during your stay in Hong Kong, it would be really funny if you happen to make similar observations =P

i think it's infuriating we now have to pay for the used-to-be-free NY times op-eds... =( not that i read them religiously everyday.... but I kinda like Kristof and Friedman...esp issues Kristof writes about. i wonder if there's a way to read them for free?
i dunno if i have reason to be happy but i was really thrilled in Auffhammer's office when he said, hmm... this is so much better than last week.. and i think you have something interesting there... after wading around in literature broadly related to rural poverty in china, poverty alleviation, decentralization and peasant tax burdens for the past few weeks, i finally have something that i can delve into... question is still broad, but now i can finally approach ppl to ask them what they think of my question! and narrow down, if possible. so i'm excited. but i hope i'm not too optimistic though. can't believe one encouraging sentence really made me feel motivated once again...i guess it need it cos it's one long journey ahead...

I wanna gobble up the whole thing...

had a mini MAF celebration at home with my landlords and Kai, after discovering that they haven't tried mooncakes before...we weren't exactly very successful in convincing Kai that he prob shouldn't eat the whole thing at one go, but not that it really mattered anyways...(the pic above was very intentional though... i just had to get a pic of the mini cultural exchange tonite) it was fun watching him get all excited over these miniature mooncakes... which came in 4 diff flavors... my landlady liked the red bean paste one... but the date paste one was perhaps just a little too exotic for our liking. i wished though that i still had my little lanterns. happy mid-autumn festival. =)