2012-02-26

Hunting for Goodwill

I am going through the process of cleaning things off of my table at the moment, in accordance with New Year's Resolution #1: Simplify my life. And that means I finally managed to finish reading the program I picked up at the performance of Cloud Gate 2 at Mandeville Auditorium on 2012 February 22, Wednesday.

The performance was incredible in several different ways, and I am glad I got to see it. (I'm also unhappy that I only stayed until intermission...but with my resolution to simplify my life, I hope that in the future I will not have to forsake such a wonderful performance for things like reading for class, grading papers, etc.)

Cloud Gate 2 is a dance company founded by the founder of the original Cloud Gate, Lin Hwa-min, and the late choreographer and dancer for Cloud Gate, Lo Man-fei. Cloud Gate 2 showcases young choreographers and dancers, and lucky for me, through the ArtPower! series, the performance was accessible even for a grad student like me living in southern California.

The three pieces I saw ("Wicked Fish," "Tantalus," and "Passage") were intricate yet simple. I mean, there were many, many details to each piece—and yet they fit together so nicely, the attention paid to each aspect of the complicated choreography so meticulous, that it was like watching one smooth mass of...well, maybe a really dark and creepily beautiful cloud. Forming. Moving. Looming over you and yet always on its way somewhere else.

Ah, the magic of "keep it simple, stupid." That's what I need to do with my life (and, most notably, my apartment). I am donating to Goodwill clothes I don't need that can still be worn, books that I won't use for research (since most books are accessible from one channel or another nowadays), and other items that I hope someone else can use—because I sure have too much stuff lying around that isn't contributing to my life in any way.

I'm embracing the spirit of the 100 Thing Challenge, which means I won't necessarily reduce my belongings to 100 things, but I will think about what's important in my life so that I can devote more time and energy to those priorities. And if I am lucky, sticking to this Resolution #1 will help me stick to the other four...

[A still from "Wicked Fish"...::sigh::]

2012-02-10

writing...

...is supposed to help me heal the soul. I think.

I saw this fuzzy plant yesterday (though only the newer leaves, I think, were fuzzy), and I thought it was cute. The photo's a bit overexposed, but it gives me a happy feeling.

Right now I'm attempting to read up on cultural critique in Japan. What an odd feeling. I should know more the vocabulary that is used by cultural critics/social theorists in Japan, but I'm still only managing to translate them inside my head. The really jingo-heavy ones will just have to wait...

But then, most of the jingo is just Western words transliterated into katakana, so maybe it's not so hard. What is up with Japanese theory anyway? It really is a case in which everything is so heavily Westernized...

2012-02-05

The Year of the Dragon

This year is going to be the best one yet. I can just feel it. You know why? Because this year, finally, I am actually sticking to my new year's resolutions.

But before I get on to talking about my new year's resolutions, I just want to ruminate a bit on writing a blog. Right now I've got blogs out my ears, which makes me rethink the reason I returned to Blogger in the first place. But then I remember that I have kept journals since I was young, since when I was in elementary school in Riverside, around 10 or 11. (I can verify this, since my journals are all sitting in my bookshelf back at my parents' house.) The point, I guess, is that I've always found it helpful to write down my thoughts, my anxieties, my hopes—particularly if no one read them, since that would make me write more honestly.

Writing a blog isn't much different from writing a personal diary or a journal, since no one reads this blog except for me. But I suppose it makes me feel more accountable for what I say. And so: I am going to use this blog from now on to commit myself to things. Like: I shall practice writing in languages here, since even if no one reads it, it is still embarrassing to write stuff that is filled with simple grammatical errors.

(I also want to write more about the history of journal writing, soon, soon. I've already downloaded scholarly articles and looked up books about this topic...)

Now. My resolutions.

1. Simplify my life
2. Make productive use of time
3. Treat my body well
4. Spend good time with good people
5. Use language carefully

I spent a minute or two rearranging the order of the above resolutions. That alone was an interesting exercise. This is a busy but exciting quarter for me, and through it all I want to come back to writing about each one of those resolutions. What they mean, and why I have them.

After all, as E.M. Forster once said, "How can I tell what I think until I can see what I say?"