Yesterday, I was in Chinatown first for dim sum, then to stop by the Boston Opera House (I never realized how close the Theater District was to Chinatown). I spotted a hair salon in Chinatown called Hair Adventure. I'm not sure that I ever wanna try that salon... unless I'm feeling particularly adventurous with my hairdo. I also got bubble tea at a restaurant in Chinatown where they gave me a straw that wasn't big enough to fit the tapioca pearls... what?! Sigh. Then I coincidentally ran into Guoqing! Totally unexpected - it just reminds me of what a small world this is.

I've been obsessively checking out flight prices to VA for thanksgiving. This is what the flight prices were in the past 40-some days (thank you, farecast). Currently the lowest available flight is... $414?!? That is just ridiculous.

Ooh, so I am playing the cello in a Brahms piano quartet. It's a whole different experience being a cellist in a chamber group - besides just the fact that I have to lug around a larger instrument now. The biggest thing for me (which I wouldn't have expected) is the intonation issue - perhaps it's just because I'm used to being a violinist for countless number of years (and playing the uppermost line, clear and piercing), but it is so difficult to hear myself and tune funky notes that are many octaves below everyone else's. I have to actively try hard to tune my notes, especially since I am not playing a melody most of the time. Usually, this wouldn't be too problematic for me - in fact, playing countermelodies or accompaniment lines are really fun, especially if the harmonic sequences are very interesting. I might even go as far to say that as a longtime violinist, I was deprived of playing anything but the melody :) However, given the low range of the cello, its sound gets buried effortlessly when mingled with other instruments' higher notes, making it hard to not make myself seem tone-deaf. But!! this is a really fun experience :) I also love Brahms - the cello part in this quartet is quite beautiful.

I have been reading about and listening to some piano quartet music recently. Of the few that I've listened to, Brahms No. 1 and Faure No. 2 definitely won me over! (both in g minor, coincidentally)

I've only been obsessed with the last movement of the Brahms 1, which may just be the most well-known movement of all his piano quartets - the "Gypsy Rondo." There's so much adrenaline rush, especially with the piano cadenza and the acceleration to the finish line. But now I'm realizing what a gem the first movement is! It opens with a simplistic yet melancholy presentation of the main theme, but reaches its first high point very soon. So many beautiful and fiery moments develop from that point on. Ahh, Brahms is so amazing.

The Faure - wow, I don't ever remember being impressed with any of Faure's works before. However, his Piano Quartet No. 2 is incredible, incredible, incredible. Of course, I am mainly talking about just the first movement, which is the only one I've listened to carefully so far. It has a clear sense of Romanticism with its sweeping melodies, but with glaring hints of French Impressionism (this piece sounds so very French... whatever you make out of that). For a good part of the movement, the piano part sounds like something rumbling underneath several layers of the strings parts flowing on top... It's such a colorful piece. I can definitely see how one would call Faure as the missing link between Brahms and Debussy :)

Now, a good question for tomorrow is how in the world I am going to sight-read through these piano quartets (mostly from the Romantic period)... on the cello. I realized I am really, really, really, not a good sight reader on tenor clef. But I'm excited nevertheless.

Yay! I finally made it to the Harvard music library earlier this week... an item that's been on my "should-do list" since August 2009. The sheet music collection here is pretty good, and the selection for music literature is also good! Later when I have a few free hours, or need to get work done and get nostalgic for my "old" college days, that's where I might be! (though, as with the UVa music library, I might waste more time browsing through the collection than getting work done)

However, I do not like the "CDs are available for in-use library only" rule here. Also, it was ridiculously unoccupied (probably because it was a Tuesda evening): I saw one guy plunking away silently on a keyboard with his giant headphones, and another guy scribbling on large orchestral-sized staff paper. That was it! Part of what I liked about the UVa music library was always bumping into the small number of "regulars" who essentially resided in OCH, I wonder if that happens here too. Well, anyway, I was quite amused by the homey bathrooms in this music library. It was one of those unisex bathrooms [an actual bathroom, not a restroom] that you would expect to see in a personal home or a bed&breakfast :)

On a whole different note, another season of premeds interviewing at Harvard Med School begins. The other day I saw a bunch of guys and girls dressed in black suits, wearing name tags and carrying a briefcase. This always puts me in a funky mood.

Okay okay, I have been very bad about keeping up with this blog. I will revive it soon(ish), though my experiences have ceased to become very Boston-specific.

Experiments are still failing; future is still uncertain; music continues to be my best buddy; Andrei and I started dating. I think that just about sums up my past few months :)

Trader Joe's Southwest Salad is amaazing. I don't know what's so amazing about this particular one, but it's the only salad I've ever liked :D

Current weather in Boston is disgusting. It's 80-90% humidity and 80+ degrees Fahrenheit... gross. It has also been thunderstorming a lot overnight, which always wakes me up. It's cool though - I like watching thunderstorms, as long as I'm indoors. Recently I got reminded of Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek (such cool harmonies), and I've been listening to it on loop - it's so melancholy though... goes well with the gloomy weather I guess.

My rental wooden cello bow started falling apart, so I went to the rental store to get a new bow, and decided to try the carbon fiber bow. While I'm not a big fan of the carbon fiber instruments (they look so... unnatural), I've heard some good stuff about carbon fiber bows (they're more stable/reliable/consistent, they can sound much more powerful if they are well crafted, blah blah blah), so we'll see how this goes :) I am also getting tired of the wooden bow expanding like craaazy when the weather gets warm and affecting the playing.

Speaking of which: this weather (high humidity and temperature) is really shitty for cello playing -- cello in particular because it's easy to sound dull on the cello I think, because of its lower register. Everything I play sounds sooo clumsy and dull no matter what I do. Oh well.

Eunyong says in a month or two, we might think about moving onto a different project because this current one "isn't moving forward"... he's working on a publication right now, but once he's done with that, he'll actually do benchwork with me on this project, and if we can't make progress in the following month or so, we'll ditch it and move to something different. This is why crystallography projects suck - it's an all or nothing deal, and if it doesn't work, god knows why it didn't work... there's not much we've "learned" in the process. I also feel bad that after 9 months of being in this lab (and 7 months working on this project), I haven't really been able to make any intellectual contribution to this project :-/ Hmph.

After an exciting 3-day weekend with Ana and Scott in Boston I was totally exhausted, and since this was the first Monday I didn't go into lab in a long time (if ever?), my sense of timing was totally screwed up. I completely forgot we had our group meetings on Tuesday mornings, and I freeeeaked out when I realized that this morning, but then I regained sanity when I remembered that our group meeting was postponed to Wednesday, just for this week. Phew.

I bought the cutest plush seal doll at the Aquarium, and this will have to serve as my furry friend for right now because I can't afford a real pet :) This seal is adoooorable.

Ana reminded me I had a twitter account under the username of "raurenree" haha :) And my tweeting stopped back in November, with the last tweet being: "ate too much." Typical me.

I have found my love at Harvard Square - a whipper. Make fun of me all you want, but this guy was cute ;) But then I saw him smoke a cigarette afterwards. So, moving on :)

A full week of not biting my nails! I am proud. Seriously. I've had this habit for as long as I can remember, and wasn't able to quit. I don't know what inspired me recently other than "I want pretty nails," though this has never worked long enough before. Not that I want to jinx it.

Lastly - June is here! This means we are already 42% done with year 2010, which is a scary reminder of how fast time goes by. But back to happy thoughts - this is the month when I go back to VA twice for family and friends :) I am super excited. I haven't been back at UVa for over 6 months, and there are only 23 days left till I revisit Charlottesville (soon to be 22)!

Weekend in summary:

1. Went to cello lesson -- I am at the same position I was in a couple of years ago with Mr. Colwell on Bach. Siiigh. But no matter what anyone else says (!!), I am very big on the super-mushy, heavily-romanticized rendition of Bach. The end. Ok, well, HHahn overdoes it just a tad, and MMaisky is just really, really, too indulgent sometimes, but... I still insist that the "historically accurate" performances just don't have the same level of intensity (I know half the world, if not more, disagrees with me on this one :P).

BUT! Despite my failure to play Popper #2 to anyone's satisfaction (unless one is deaf), my teacher gave me another one to work on - a whole page of double stops (with occasional left-hand pizzes. so cool so cool). It is a very pretty etude :)

Sadly, I have not touched the cello since that Sat AM lesson.


2. Went out for a drive -- sad story, but it was fun. Let me preface this by saying that I did not have a GPS or a map. Only written directions. So when I made one wrong-turn in a neighbor full of one-way streets or unlabeled streets with cars tailgating behind me because I'm going at 15 mph trying to figure out what turn to make, I was really lost. It became pathetic when I got lost multiple times :) But I somehow made it back. I also pulled some dangerous maneuvers on the highway -- at one point, I really just thought "ughhh I cannot miss this exit that's 3 lanes over that's coming up in 1/4 a mile. I'll have to change lanes now and pray I don't get hit." And I didn't get hit. :) Oh well. You can only get better at driving through practice, riiight??

But anyway, the route was pretty scenic :) And I've now gotten all desire to drive out of my system. I no longer want to drive for a while haha.


3. I am on a streak of FROYO obsession! The word "froyo" is soooo adorable. Anyway - now that the weather's getting warmer, I've been wanting some every day. But this isn't boding very well for my plans to lose belly fat. Hm, I guess it is non-fat frozen yogurt though. :) Ok, I just need to go exercise - that's all!


4. I cannot believe the class of 2010 just graduated!!! Where is time going?? (though, Happy Graduation to all those who graduated this past Saturday!!)

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Sol is having his defense next week (already!)! He sent out an invitation for a party at his house that weekend. The options for the RSVP were:
- "my test tube runneth over!"
- "depends how the experiment goes"
- "sorry. i'll be in lab"
And the party is scheduled for 9:30pm-9:45pm on a Saturday :)



PS: when I hit the low point in my day, I went into the lunchroom, and shortly after, Robin walked in with a cup of Starbucks coffee, and upon my "omg is that coffeeeee?!" he decided to share the coffee. That totally made my day :D

Okay. So Facebook is getting creepy (though not very new or surprising):

On a different note, it's a little creepy that people on Facebook -- all 400 million of you -- are unwitting participants in these research studies, isn't it? As if there weren't already enough performance anxiety when writing one's status update. Now you've got to write about what you had for lunch and worry about what researchers think that says about your happiness level. Link

Apparently, facebook statuses were "studied" to come up with a statement that "getting engaged makes women unhappy." This is so ridiculous in many levels.

Also, Facebook/Zuckerberg "knows" who I'll date next:

“By examining friend relationships and communications patterns (Zuckerberg) could determine with about 33 percent accuracy who a user was going to be in a relationship with a week from now. To deduce this he studied who was looking which profiles, who your friends were friends with, and who was newly single, among other indicators.” Link

Seriously? -_-

I guess the internet is a creepy place in general. "Academia" lets me know when people google search my name, and I got googled twice this week. It also told me what search terms they used and from the fact that both searches were made in the U.S. :P I'm not sure why one would google me.

A bunch of random notes again!

- apparently I do not need a permit to busk at Boston Common, especially if it's just an acoustic instrument that's not amplified. Well, the info desk person sounded fairly sure (though not 100%). As long as I don't get arrested...

- I remember seeing posters for Wicked coming to boston in Sept/Oct. I really wanna go!! And well, I will :) I was listening to the original cast recording today, and it's sooooo good. I never ever want to be a broadway musical musician myself (can you imagine performing the same show night after night for months??), but it must be amazing to be in a show like that at some point in your life.

- I finally found a book of Killer Sudokus at Brookline Booksmith!! After my first purchase of it, ever, during 1st year at UVa (and another one-time purchase of it at a B&N in Mville), I literally have not been able to find a book of it at ANY bookstore I've been to. It's a shame because it's so much more fun than the regular sudokus :)

Some wonderful quotes from "The Cello Suites" (by Eric Siblin):

"We find a world of emotions and ideas created with only the simplest of materials." ~Laurence Lesser

Prelude of the Second Suite: Three notes establish a gut-wrenching sadness. There's a slight tremor on the fingerboard, the bow harbinger of difficult news. The cello, wavering at first touch, recovers its equilibrium and reports a painful chronicle. ... The listener is forced to imagine what is going on. There are hints, gaps, half-uttered statements, and fragmented lines in the Cello Suites. This stems from the cello itself, which is a melodic instrument, melodic because no more than two strings can generally be bowed at the same time. ... Harmony was Bach's specialty. So how does Bach accomplish harmony with just one cello? He does it by creating "implied harmony." He hints at it, suggests it, plants the seed of harmony. He removes as many notes as possible to strip the polyphony down to its bare essentials and let the listener fill in the blanks. 

I think this is why the second suite, in particular, is so challenging to play. There aren't very many notes on the page, but there's so much that the performer has to do with the sparse notes in order to fill in the blanks and make the performance convincing. Literally, "music is silence between the notes" (yay Debussy).

There seems to be suggestions linking the Second Cello suite (d minor) and his Second Partita for unaccompanied violin (also d minor) to the death of his wife that he's been married to for 13 years and had 9 kids with. Sad...

I had no idea Felix Mendelssohn had Jewish roots:

As the grandson of the Enlightenment's most famous Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, Felix was an unlikely spark plug for Bach's posthumous glory. Although his family had converted to Christianity, Mendelssohn remarked on the irony that it had taken a Jewish musician to introduce Germany to its most impressive Christian music. In fact, Mendelssohn had Bach in the blood. His great-aunt, Sara Levy, studied with Bach's son C.P.E. and knew his eldest son. Mendelssohn's mother had studied music with one of Bach's most devoted pupils, and Mendelssohn himself was technically a great-grandpupil of Bach.

Apparently I have biceps tendonitis on my right side. This is in addition to the previous diagnosis of a right wrist tendonitis + thumb pain. Of course the only thing they told me today is to take pain relievers, do ice massages, and do less of the pain-inducing activities. Siiigh. Not useful.

Yay! Group meeting presentation is overrrrrr. After what was one of my worst procrastination period of all times (seriously, I don't know what hit me), I managed to present without major problems. Well. Introduction/Background Info was just bad. It occurred to me during the presentation (oops) that I was not familiar enough with the material to fluently speak about them... and as I was babbling on, I realized what I was saying was very confusing, mixed-up, and nonsensical even to me, but I didn't know how to revert the situation. And I don't know if this is the normal perception from the speaker's point of view, but everyone in the room had this "what the hell is she talking about..." look. But then afterwards everyone said it was very good, including Tom and Eunyong! I think that's partly because they had low expectations from me considering I knew squat when I joined the lab... haha, but anyway. Time to catch up on sleep.

The guy who works at Starbucks is very cute. And tall (which, as you know, is an important criterion for me). However, he makes the wrong drink most of the time - it's very disappointing. Of course, when I mean "wrong" drink, the situation is not as critical as water versus juice, but more like regular milk versus nonfat milk. But you know.

Okay. Now that I've done everything around the house in avoidance of the actual work I have to do (the list includes, but not limited to: doing 3 loads of laundry, 3 big rounds of dishes, emptying the refrigerator that I've been meaning to do since March, sweeping the floor, throwing out lots and lots of trash, and finally arranging good riddance of my 100 pounds of MCAT books. All today), I guess I should go get real things done. After practicing :)

Hm... having 2 emails all forward to my UVa mail and viewing these on an email client application and also my blackberry is getting confusing to sync properly.

UVa Mail tells me I have 16523 items in my All Mail box, taking up 32% of my 7451 MB space because I don't delete anything!! I should un-clutter this some day.

It's been a weird few days with a surprisingly low level of music in my life. Yes, I've still been practicing; Yes, I fooled around with the garage band program; and Yes, I am excited (so far anyway!) with the Popper etude that I got started on (because it's... Popper. and my first one ever.)! So perhaps it's more appropriate to say that I haven't been as available for or excited about music emotionally. I'm not sure why. :-/

I'm definitely living on the edge... financially anyway. It's gonna take me some time to recuperate from the Mac purchase (!@#$%). Ok, so that's it, I wanna play gigs! I've put this on the back burner before because I figured there are so many professionals and conservatory students in this town. However, as part of my "think positive" plan, now I am thinking: so what? what if I didn't graduate from NEC, CIM, or Curtis? It doesn't take a prodigy to play Ave Maria, really :)

Back to the Popper etude - ... #2 and it's already hard o.O.
The biggest problem is that there are just so many accidentals that I have a hard time knowing where I am tonally. There are too many instances of the hard-to-hear notes like G-flat, D-flat, and C-flat at the top of a large shift, and this is all the while trying to maintain smooth grace with the bow arm. :) But the occasional thumb position is cool. Oh Mr. Popper.

Personally, I don't know how many of the Poppers I can go through, given its reputation:

Popper's intention in composing the etudes in the Hohe Schule was to meet the needs of the virtuoso and to help his students deal with "…the technical problems which Popper had met in the music of…Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Schumann, Saint-Saëns, and Volkmann…"... Whether or not Popper intended it, the study of his Hohe Schule has now become a rite of passage for all cellists.

That's right. I glanced at some of the latter etudes; they are devilish.

On a random note, I bought a peach pie a few days ago. I keep eating just the crust though :D The peach and the syrup-y stuff inside is too sweet.

Reading the news these days is giving me a headache - really, from the oil spill story to the flood in Tennessee to the Arizona immigration law to the NY bombing incident to Yeardley Love's murder to the craziness going on in Europe? What a mess!

I made so many decisions in the past few days! I'm getting better :)

First and foremost, I'll be applying to med schools this summer, even if I still have residual anguish towards the admissions system...

Secondly, I'm not going back for a re-perm (or more accurately, a re-re-perm). If I don't have much perm left by June, I will just admit the fact that my hair is a wimp.

Third, I'm gonna take a light load (bench-work wise) in lab this week and not feel like a slacker for it :)

Fourth, a trip to Charlottesville this June is in order (I am thinking either June 12-14 or June 25-27).

-------------

Positive thinking, positive thinking, positive thinking. 

The Nanocourse that I went to today was surprisingly therapeutic. It was a 4-hour session on how to give good scientific presentations from the perspective of an actor -- that is, how to think about scientific presentation as more than just a dry powerpoint session where you just click click and ramble away dense material, but making it an engaging and communicative story-telling session where you show your passion in the subject, like a performing artist. But a lot of suggestions made today are things one can apply on a daily basis - not just during a presentation - especially for a person like me :P

And well, most of it wasn't very new for me. A lot of them were things I was taught by music teachers anyway - how to cope with stage fright physically and mentally, etc - but it was not something I made the connection with scientific/academic presentations. It was cool to see the relevance.


On a similar note, the big "conclusion" at the end of my last cello lesson is that I just need to relax and take it down a notch. It happens particularly when I am playing Bach... though it shows up when I'm playing anything at all more intense than Twinkle Twinkle.

I think all Bach Suite movements build up in intensity fairly gradually, over the course of the whole movement: there's usually one big climactic moment, and it calms down to the conclusion from there. In my opinion, the fact that Bach builds up the intensity so slowly over a long period of time is what makes the climactic moment all so amazing. But it's also what makes Bach hard to play (among many other things) because it is hard to pace myself -- it's hard to play the movement if I get so worked up over every note that's "special" because not only do I run out of somewhere to go prematurely, but it's really draining mentally and physically.

So I need to learn to know when to take it down a bit, just so I don't die by the end of the movement :) Same thing with my work habits I guess. I think learning to relax on the cello will also be pretty therapeutic :)

Okay. Boston. Really? How dare you inconvenience me.

Apparently there is an 8-million gallon water leak from the main water source for Boston, so we are now getting water directly from a reservoir (i.e. untreated water. gross.). So... they recommend that we wash our hands (and of course brush our teeth) with bottled water or pre-boiled water. Apparently it's okay to do laundry with this water or shower (as long as you take minimal time and don't let water go into your eyes or mouth). To wash dishes, however, we have to soak washed dishes in bleached water for a couple of minutes and let air dry.

Siiiiigh. I was going to do a LOT of dishes and potentially 3 loads of laundry today and tomorrow. Bad timing I guess :( I should go buy bleach tomorrow.

My neighbors (who generously gave me like 20 bottles of water), who were just coming from the grocery store, told me that the grocery stores were wiped clean of bottled water within like the 30 minutes of the announcement. Apparently, people were literally fighting over the gallon bottles of water; asking their spouses and children to carry as many bottles as physically possible, etc.

Yay!!!! I bought the new Mac :) Shortly after, I received this email:

We detected irregular activity on your Bank of America Check Card on 05/01/2010. For your protection, you must verify this activity before you can continue using your card.

Haha thanks for checking, BoA.


PS: I fiddled with it more, and I'm loving it!! I can record videos! And I really like the screen :) And the new magnetic power adaptor? It's beeeautiful!

After long day #1000 in the lab, I go to the bus stop at 10:26pm. No bus came until 11:09pm. Needless to say, I was really pissed off by that point, and I wanted to say something mean to the bus driver when the bus came, but I refrained. But really, *three* buses went in the other direction during this wait! Shortly after 11pm, a bus in our direction *was* seen, but it prematurely made a turn and never made it to our stop for a mysterious reason. Oh well.

My wrist is in terrible pain today - it actually started before the mad pipetting began, and it hasn't gone away yet :(

I'm gonna call up the salon and tell them my perm is almost gone already, again -- today is day #8 after the re-perm. But I am afraid my hair might fall out if I perm *three* times in a month, and I will probably piss off the stylist at this salon. But... I paid my money and the service was ineffective! Of course, it's not the stylist's fault per se (though ideally, they should know enough about the different kinds of hair out there  and how to work with them) - my hair is just that resistant to perming reagents, I guess - but that doesn't make it any more satisfying from my end.

Tomorrow is probably gonna be a no-work-gets-done day... a seminar hosted by our lab in the morning; OO club noon-ish; structure club mid-afternoon; happy hour early-evening.

My entries are so sparse now! There hasn't been too much to update, really. My MCAT score came out yesterday, and (thankfully?) it's not horrendously low to the point where I cross med schools off of my list ;) But I *freaked out* for a few hours surrounding the score release. And apparently, some people responded accordingly:

Rolando: hey lauren

Rolando: are you alright?

Rolando: listen, if you are really upset about this all we can consider giving it away to adoption ... or even abortion

Well, in any case. It's decided - I'm gonna go buy the 15" Macbook Pro this Saturday, with the glossy screen that it comes with, with iLife, and without Applecare.

Apparently, there's a Brookline Symphony Orchestra that's making a comeback after a 10-year hiatus. The obvious advantage to this - it's in Brookline, so I won't have to travel all the way to Newton, Cambridge, Longwood, or whatever the alternatives are. It looks like they have some Wagner, a Mozart Symphony, and Beethoven #7 (!!) on the first program, and they plan on having just 3 concerts in the upcoming season. I'm debating whether to audition or not (audition date? it's really soon, May 9 or so). My poor violin hasn't been touched in... 2 months.

My yield at this point in the purification is unbelievably high. I remember this batch of cells grew really fast also (by more than 33%). I wonder why they are so happy, if that's what this even is!