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Another two weeks without a single blog entry. I'm sure this has devastated any sort of regular readership I had. Oops. Everytime I get busy, blogging is the first thing I decide I can't make time for. In the future I should just do a quickie 10-minute short entry every few days. So, what's new since I last blogged:

Last week I got all gussied up and went to see Stravinsky at the Met. They did three pieces by Stravinsky, not all of them operas, but all with beautiful sets. In the picture above, on the left you'll see their modern-ballet choreography for Rite of Spring; in the middle, an uncomfortably super-orientalized but still wonderful production of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy-tale opera Le Rossignol; and on the right (with 50-strong Greek choir seated along the bottom) their set for the oratorio/opera Oedipus Rex. The best part of the night, of course, was when Oedipus tore out his eyes.

In other news, Elliott Smith and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek died. I strongly recommend a full reading of Madame Chiang's NYTimes obituary -- a really interesting personal look at Taiwan/China/US relations that makes me want to read more about the Soong sisters. Of course, now there's political hubbub about Taiwanese president Chen (political enemy of Chiang's party) coming to NYC to pay his respects, whether draping an ROC flag over the casket would anger the commies on the mainland, etc. Even Bush paid his respects: "Laura and I were saddened to learn of the death of Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Madame Chiang was a close friend of the United States throughout her life and especially during the defining struggles of the last century."

I sometimes watch the Chinese-language TV we get in NYC -- usually state-owned CCTV4 (where I saw a Barbara Walters-style interview with the Chinese astronaut), or the privately-owned Phoenix TV (hipper, with cute presenters), or other local & Taiwanese news -- but I digress. I heard about a memorial service to be held in Manhattan on Nov. 5. Hmm, I wonder if it's open to the public and if my Mom, a stalwart KMT supporter, would want to go. Luckily the current Taiwanese president won't be present: "the family did not want to invite Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian to the memorial because of their deep political differences."

Back to me: today at work I was asked to go to the Supercomputing Conference in Phoenix, Nov 15-21. They're demoing the new hardware with some pretty molecular simulations, and need someone who knows the system software to be around in case something breaks. So that person happens to be me.

Sounds like fun, except that was when I was planning to scheduled my GRE general test. So I registered today to take the general GRE on Wed, Nov 12 -- a few days after I take the CS GRE on Nov 8. Apart from vocabulary, there's not much to study for on the general GRE so a few days of all-out studying at work should be fine (combined with my pretty-good GRE verbal score from two years ago -- can you submit combined "best of" scores on your apps?). If I don't feel prepared perhaps I can reschedule the test for Phoenix...

Posted by cce at October 30, 2003 05:49 PM | TrackBack