wasted days

So today we went up to Little India. First we tried to find a park, but as far as I can tell parks are not something this country excels at. The park I found was just a big empty field. Nothing interesting at all. It’s a shame, too, because in this climate you could grow some stellar public spaces. But they’ve opted for concrete scenery and more of those fucking shopping malls instead. Ah well. I’m happy to just go shoe shopping anyway; it’s too hot to really be outside for most of the day. Especially when there’s no shade.

Anyway, the Indian quarter was sorta interesting. This one funky building, maybe a temple? Shows my ignorance, I suppose. Zuke bought a random CD, I think it’s guitar music. He listened to it later this afternoon and said it had a lot of high-pitched whiny-type singing. I forget the right word for that kind of music, those non-Western chords. I saw a T-shirt that I should have bought, but just passed it by. Perhaps I can find it somewhere else.

In the spirit of all the commercialism around us Zuke and I are getting more and more absorbed in shopping. Zuke keeps buying Kung Fu VCDs and music, I keep looking for electronics I don’t really need and shoes. I bought a pair of knock offs for S$15 (which is maybe US$10). That made me happy, but breaking them in today hurt my feet.

My dad’s over an hour late coming back from his daily meetings. Which is still better than yesterday. Ah, the phone is ringing. Shit, I missed it because I decided I had better type what was going on. Fucking stupid sometimes. At least they left a message…

background noise: A Grand Don’t Come for Free, The Streets

So yesterday I had one of the more bizarre culinary experiences of my life. Zuke and I went to lunch at a sushi place. It was all very nice and the food was pretty good (although, I don’t have very much to compare it to, having rarely if ever eaten most types of sushi). What made it so novel was that the food came out of little plates on a conveyor belt that went around the bar where people were sitting. You just picked what you wanted off the belt. It’s really rather fun. I’m sure anyone who is not a tourist would just regard it as gimmicky, over priced and not all that good of food, but I enjoyed it and I didn’t get food poisoning, so it’s all right in my book.

I’m off to go explore again. Violent #$%! going down in S’pore.

So here I am in sunny sunny Singapore. It’s hot and humid, as predicted, but nothing too unbearable. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon dodging in and out of shopping malls. Which is not terribly hard, given that there are an insane number of them here. In this area there are quite literally dozens of major shopping centers, generally one on every block. Why would a country possibly need so many malls, you ask? A good question. And the answer is I have no fucking clue. Shopping must be the national past time around here. There’s a cricket field a couple blocks from the hotel, but I get the sense sports must take a back seat to simple consumerism around here. Maybe I’m wrong, after all I’m judging a country after having only been here a day, but a retail-obsessed nation is the only plausible explanation I can come up with for this density of largely identical shopping centers.

That’s not to say there must be some other interests as well. There was in one of these sprawling retail behemoths a huge line of people waiting for, much to the surprise of my father and I, a church service of some kind. In the mall. Unexpected, but whatever works I suppose.

There is much more to say, I am sure, but I am also very, very tired. The flight here was 24 hours and I’m still not on the time zone, so I’ve really only slept about 6 or 7 hours total in the past two days. And much of that was cramped up in a plane. Regardless, I’m hoping to be adjusted by tomorrow. But at the moment, I’ve really got to go to sleep.

Zuke is due to arrive tonight. We should be having a good time tomorrow. Today I took some photos, they’re online at http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~twiltziu/personal/pics/singapore. I hope to add new pictures daily.

Well, tomorrow morning at 10:15 a.m. I’ll be off to Singapore. It’s a 24 hour plane ride and you cross the international date line, so via some complicated math mumbo jumbo I apparently arrive at 1 a.m. on Saturday, according to the information I was given. I don’t think that’s right, though. I think that means 1 a.m. on Saturday night, which is to say, Sunday morning. That makes more sense. But, who knows? Time zones get tricky when the distances stretch to this size; apparently Singapore is 13 hours ahead. So actually now that I think about it, 1 a.m. on Saturday local time would make sense. That’s about 2 in the afternoon Central time, which is a little over 24 hours after I would have left. Which, indeed, is how long it’s supposed to take. So that makes sense.

Anyway, I’ve picked out most of my clothes so now I need to go pack. But first I want to get a start on selecting music for this trip. I’m just going to fill my mp3 player and use that for the whole week. No fumbling with CDs. So 512 megabytes of music I need to come up with in the next 15 minutes or so. Because I’m really tired and need to go to sleep soon. At least I get to sleep in a little tomorrow. Barely, though, because I’ve gotta go to the airport early and all that.

I’ve got the Bittorrent bug recently. I’ve been downloading entire albums and episodes of Home Movies (I highly recommend it, although it was always funnier when it was actually on TV. Go to www.myspleen.com if you want to try downloading a few episodes. I’d give recommendations, but I can barely even see this screen so I’m not going to bother to think about it). I need to get some souveniers from Singapore. But I’m pretty sure all there is there is food and cheap electronics. But hey, that’s something.

I’ve never been to the Far East before. Indeed, my only experience in Asia was a brief morning visit to Turkey on our cruise of the Aegean on the trip to Greece last summer. God, that was a good trip. I’m hoping to go to France next year, and if it’s half as good I’ll be thrilled.

Well I’ll take tons of pictures and put them all online for you to see. Zuke and I are going to live it up.

Finals. Mmm-mmm good, just like a skyscraper. Jesus Christ pork fat pornfest indeed, that’s such a good song. So is “I Hope You Die” by the Bloodhound Gang. It’s a song dedicated solely to a death wish. I won’t even bother to quote the lyrics, you’re much better off just downloading the song yourself. It’s good.

Summer is so close I can taste the boredom. The premonitions are coming on. It’s long days of coding useless applications on the computer and driving around this town contemplating how little I have to do. But that’s all right. Singapore in 3 days. The later on a nice trip to the East Coast (with a brief return here to remind me of where my home is). And at the end a trip to Europe. So roughly 6 or 7 weeks here altogether, and the rest in various parts of the world. It should work out pretty well. And I have a project (Agorazoar), a mission (volunteer), and plenty of possibilities for recreation. Best of all, I don’t have to think for the next 3 months.

OK so now I’m going to go study for the two hours of hell on earth that is a math final. I really don’t want to complain, though. So that’s not a complaint. It’s a mild passing observation. I’m trying as hard as I can to be indifferent about the whole thing. It doesn’t have to be so bad, you know.

There’s a heron in the backyard. Or a crane. Does anyone know the difference between the two? There was one here last summer as well. They’re pretty birds, big and graceful when they fly. I just was struck by the urge to write a short story from the perspective of the bird sitting on the side of the pond in my backyard. Luckily, my better judgement (and laziness) crushed that idea before I had the chance to waste any brainpower on it.

It’s the last day of normal school today. A few more days of finals and we’ll be finished. And that will mark the halfway point in my Uni career. Well, there are worse ways to spend two years. Although God knows what the future will bring.

This past week has crawled by. Today will be nice, methinks, but the next few days of finals might be a little painful. Or not, I don’t know. As soon as it’s over I’m off to Singapore. I’ve more or less finalized the rest of my plans for the summer. The 26th of June through the 4th or 5th of July I’ll be on the East Coast, then again from the 16th opf July to the 8th of August. I’ll take a trip of a couple days to Long Hill in very late July and very early August. Probably the 30th through the 3rd or 4th. Let me know if you’re going to be around, if you live there.

background noise: “DC Sleeps Alone Tonight” The Postal Service [DJ Downfall Remix]

A couple nights ago the nastiest thing happened. I swallowed a couple of pills, then was brushing my teeth. About a minute in, I burped, and one of the pills came back up into my mouth. “Well, that was interesting,” I thought. I just swallowed it again, although that was difficult with toothpaste in my mouth. It was interesting.

Nothing like waking up early after a tiring week to run a 5k. I ran sub-24, which is plenty good enough for me. I think my goal in life is now sub 20. I do not intend to achieve this goal any time in the near future, however. So now time for a shit and a shower, then waste my dad until Big Show’s second performance tonight. I encourage all of you to come.

Big Show! Our first night was largely a success. Considering how frantic tech week usually is, it’s amazing I’m not more tired than I am right now. Then again, I guess I’m really not accustomed to going to bed before 11 on the weekend. Still, I best be getting along to bed so as to ready my body for the 5k tomorrow morning.

background noise: “Talk show host” Radiohead

The AP was yesterday. It was all right. At least it’s over. One less thing to think about. Now it’s all about Big Show, for the next week. And in that spirit, I’m off to the work day.