The Argument for Cooking

I love food. Like, I really love food. I watch cooking shows for fun and began developing the skill when I was as young as three years old. I've noticed that a lot of my peers lack learning to make food in their upbringing. It's never too late and there are multiple pros.

1. Your chances of starvation of decreased

Honestly, I think that being able to make food should be a basic skill, as food, oxygen, and water are three crucial keys to living.

2. Save money+control

Frequently eating out is incredibly expensive. Also, you never really know what's been put into your food. When you cook, you reduce money spent on eating and have complete control over what you consume. Thus, you can adjust things to your taste and preferred diet.

3. Share with friends

There's a great feeling of accomplishment when your product is not only useful to you, but to people around you as well. Cooking for friends is an excellent bonding experience and expression of affection. Your friends will (/should!) appreciate the fruit of your labor.

4. Accomplishment

In any context, pulling something together to create a finished product brings a sensation of success. The actual process can be very

relaxing too, even more so if you cook with good music playing.

5. Multitude of recipes online

There are so many free recipes on the internet, so you can never really run out of options. When experimenting with recipes, you truly become an explorer.

Pinball 1973 (Haruki Murakami)

I read Pinball 1973 as a part of the 2015 Wind/Pinball joint binding.

The setting of Pinball is somewhat confusing if you dive in right after Wind. Wind's brief epilogue launches years into the future, post-Pinball 1973 and pre-A Wild Sheep Chase. Like Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball isn't dynamic in plot. It switches between the unnamed protagonist/narrator and his friend, the Rat. The pacing is very slow, and perhaps a bore at times, but there are profound moments. Philosophy is prominent throughout the book, regarded both reflectively and humorously. After all, the main character has an attachment to Kant, so his philosophical interest isn't a surprising one.

The Rat's story isn't the most interesting venture. Basically, he begins dating a woman, faces a sort of existential crisis, and eventually skips town. In the previous book, the Rat was given basic character traits, but like the other characters in Wind, he's not illustrated with depth. Thus, there's little attachment to him as a character. His story offers a little clarity/backstory for readers of A Wild Sheep Chase, but there's not much past that.

Though there's no true thrill in the main character's story, it's fitting. Throughout Pinball, he's found himself at a state of life where each day seems to just be a copy of the former. To use an excited tone would be inappropriate. For reader who crave action, this would be a massive turn off, but in the context of drifting, Murakami captures the feeling perfectly. Repetition is a large theme, present in the character's descriptions of his daily routine, the identical twins who just appear one day and live with him, and finally, the numerous pinball machines near the end.

Obsession is another major piece of Pinball 1973. The protagonist shares, 

“On any given day, something can come along and steal our hearts. It may be any old thing: a rosebud, a lost cap, a favorite sweater from childhood, an old Gene Pitney record. A miscellany of trivia with no home to call their own. Lingering for two or three days, that something soon disappears, returning to the darkness. There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts. Birds fly over them."

That object of his obsession is a model of a pinball machine. The protagonist's intense journey back to his love, the machine, seems to be fueled by extreme nostalgia. He even has a crucial heart-to-heart conversation with the machine from his past. A proclamation of love and farewell.  It's an odd love line, but what can you expect from Murakami?

Hear the Wind Sing (Haruki Murakami)

After reading Dance Dance Dance and A Wild Sheep Chase, I wanted to read the other two Rat-related books by Murakami. All four books have the same unnamed narrator, friend of "the Rat". Breaking my pattern of reading the books in reverse chronological order, I started Hear the Wind Sing just yesterday. Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 are the two first novellas in Murakami's career. Deemed unworthy by Murakami, the books were limited edition in Japanese and very rare translated into English. Perhaps due to pressure from publishers, fans, or both, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 were re-translated into English and released bound together in as Wind/Pinball last year. It's assumed that readers of the two stories are avid Murakami fans.

I've been reading a lot of Murakami, but have made a point to avoid the majority of his most popular words like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, etc. I did start with Norwegian Wood, but then read South of the Border, West of the Sun, After Dark, Color Tsukuru Tazaki, Dance Dance Dance, and A Wild Sheep Chase. Whether I've done this to train myself fro 1Q84 or to save the best for last, I don't really know.

I have to say, first of all, Hear the Wind Sing is not a great book. It's very apparent that it's the author's very first work, and he himself knows of its shortcomings. The style is undeveloped, and it's just very choppy. There's a lack of plot and a great deal of disconnect throughout the novella. A sense of flow is absent, and many of the sections seem random, and not in a humorous way. Not a lot happens, and the characters aren't terribly interesting. The story is under a month in length and it's not hectic in the least.

Flaws aside, Hear the Wind Sing has its own strengths as well. There are some very relatable pieces on the ache of growing up, the passage of time, and being at a loss for a concrete meaning to living. Though there's disorganized randomness, there's some sporadic. humor as well.

When Short of Creativity

Especially during the school year, I fall into an artist's block. Finding inspiration isn't an easy thing to do, but there are things that may help.

1) Collab with a friend
I'm lucky to have a lot of artistic friends, but I've also done a pretty cool painting with a "non-art" friend. Harnessing the separate skills a friend has to offer leads to new products and variety. Combining separate skills can yield a pleasantly unexpected product. Keep in mind that if creating a product with meaning, you're taking two different perspectives and meeting in the middle.

2) Watch movies and view existing art
Observing movies and art is largely beneficial in developing or trying out new styles, aesthetics, and interpretations. Several films offer ideas of color palettes and strongly connect the mood of a scene with its environment. Especially with art films, film makers use techniques like framing, repetition, symbols etc. to convey a message or feeling important to the story or a character. With art, you can view textures, arrangements, etc.

3) Read books 
Books are always open to interpretation, simply because there's never a completely concrete image. Due to the nature of the medium, though, authors go to great lengths to describe scenes and emotion. This, and figurative language often inspire me when I'm stumped on how to portray something.

4) Listen to music
Music is a mode of sharing emotion, which often helps in birthing a story or a moment.

5) Try to be more observant of the surrounding world
It's a wonderful world we live in. Though it sometimes seems plain outside, the most beautiful moments are fleeting. Most definitely worth a share of patience.

Norwegian Wood (film)

Norwegian Wood was the first of many Haruki Murakami books that I read. It's simply a gorgeous book full of quirkiness and interesting characters. This past weekend, I decided to rent the film by Tran Anh Hung.

I fell asleep twice while trying to watch this film. It's most definitely not a bad one, but it's definitely slow and walks the line between relaxing and boring. Aesthetically, Norwegian Wood is striking. Really, it's absolutely gorgeous. The music has tragic impact, but is not overdone. The locations are so very pretty, and the colors are just wonderful.

Where Norwegian Wood falls short is the plot. It's sparse to the max. The book is a complicated one, but the movie excludes almost all of the book's happenings and rich descriptions. Key moments form the book, like important back stories and key events like when Watanabe and Midori watch a fire from her apartment are excluded. Midori's family's bookstore isn't even included. It's understandable, as the film is already a little over two hours, but it's disappointing. The only character given the smallest fragment of a personality is Naoko. The effect of this results in forgettable characters and a forgettable film. Important scenes were also changed in location, like Midori and Wantanbe's dramatic scene in the pouring rain. In the film version, they instead have a quiet exchange in heavy snowfall. 

The transitions are also very confusing, even for someone like me, who's read the book. I assume Norwegian Wood's audience is intended to be people who've read the book, but it was still very confusing when you go from Naoko's dead body to Wantanabe chilling in a cave and screaming by the ocean with literally no narration. 

Norwegian Wood is beautiful in aesthetic, but just so tragic in the execution of its story.

The Great British Baking Show versus American Cooking Shows

The Great British Baking Show is a masterpiece. I started watching it a few days ago, after watching all of the Chopped episodes on Netflix. As well as a fair amount of Cupcake Wars and Cutthroat Kitchen. The differences were drastic.


1) The Setting
The first episode of The Great British Baking Show was absolutely shocking. Not only was everything pastel, but they were actually outside in a pretty tent. Everything fit a pastel/pale aesthetic, whereas on Chopped for example, the room is fairly packed, with a heavy aesthetic. The transition scenes on TBBS (it's a lot to type) consisted of baby goats, plants, small animals, etc., while Chopped literally just pans from the contestants to a cleaver wedged in the wall. 

2) The Contestants
The lack of rivalry is a refreshing one. Cutthroat Kitchen literally pits contestants against each other, forcing them to steal equipment and/or ingredients, as well as sabotage their recipes.Cupcake Wars and Chopped also mostly consist of false (or real) arrogance and boasting, as well as talking competitors down. TBBS instead has a comfortable friendly atmosphere. The interactions are lovely, and everyone is reluctant to see their competitors go. It's like they're teammates rather than competitors.

3) The Amount of Preparation
Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Cupcake Wars all force their contestants to create in an insanely short amounts of time (30 minutes, for example). Their ingredients are completely wild and are always a surprise. On TBBS, the bakers not only have a sufficient amount of time to create quality foods with gorgeous aesthetic quality, but they also get to practice at home before each episode.

4) The Hosts
On American shows, I've really only seen the hosts hang back with the judges and comment on the chefs from afar. They're lovable and lively, but much less interactive than the comedy duo on TBBS. TBBS's hosts are full of innuendos and puns. They sometimes act like a couple, and frequently interact with the bakers. Occasionally, the hosts will even assist the bakers, contrasting with the hands-off American approach.

5) The Judges
The judges on TBBR are honestly so chill that if you aren't listening closely, you'd think that everything they said was a compliment. Even the criticisms are delivered so pleasantly. They walk around the tent and come to each baker to chat and taste their food. The judges on American shows instead sit behind a long table, distanced from the standing chefs. There's a prominent divide, and the judges are also sometimes pretty darn mean. It's their job, yes, but sometimes the mean humor is literally just to maintain their image as a harsh judge.

A Trainwreck, But an Enjoyable Trainwreck

I wrote about the preparation for this post's happening, or lack of, here.

The stage lights were blinding. Joyce and Claire were playing Butterfly Lovers on horn and piano. After my completely improvised ribbon solo en pointe, and Jasmine and Morgan's parasol duet, it was time for our fan dance trio.

We had a lose idea of what we were going to do for out Chinese New Year festival performance for two months, maybe three. There were going to be parasols for sure, and the song we chose was Butterfly Lovers. We had arranged for Joyce to play piano, and for Claire to be on French horn. That much was organized until the two weeks preceding the event.

The first day in that two week crackdown period was a Sunday. The basic sequential aspect of our act was devised. I would have a ballet/ribbon solo, Jasmine and Morgan would do their parasol work, and then we would join together. Claire's music was not yet arranged at this point, and the fan choreography was only in the beginning stages. The parasol dance was loosely created.

The fan choreography was not completed until the midnight of the Friday/Saturday transition, the weekend before the Monday festival. I knew this would be a rough performance. We learned the whole set of choreo on Sunday and didn't even manage a full clean run through. I still hadn't heard the song all the way through.

On Monday night, we had a vague idea of what we were doing. In regards to my pointe solo, I just winged the entire thing. I also fell at one part, but I mean, it happened. The parasols were rather okay, but when it came to the fans....yeah. Right before I went onstage, when the curtains were about to open, Morgan told me that she had completely forgotten the choreography. In the pictures I had my friend take of us, you can see clearly what was happening. There were pictures where I was doing the dance, and both Morgan and Jasmine were standing there, blatantly staring at me. In most, you can see us looking at each other laughing. On stage.

You'd think that it'd be an embarrassing event. It wasn't. Coming off stage, we just gathered together laughing so hard, not in shame, but in genuine amusement. It was hilarious, but had enough parts that were actually quite nice, so it wasn't completely tragic. People that had watched us told me we looked good, or that it was a pretty performance, but the whole thing feels like an inside joke. Overall, it really exercised our existing friendship, and made for a good memory, especially for Morgan, who is graduating this year. 

Spring Memories (Jasmine)

These are Jasmine's spring memories. Morgan's are here.

"When I lived in Chicago, we used to live right next to our cousin's house. It was like our house, a neighbor's house, then Kevin's house.This was when we were really young and we didn't know a lot of English because we only spoke Chinese. What we'd do every single day when Kevin got out of school was go to Kevin's house for like five hours. He's just have to hang out with us for like five hours and not do his homework, which was terrible. At the time, we didn't know it was terrible. So we were like, okay alright. So,  because he wanted to get his homework done, he'd send us on these 'missions', in which he was like 'Okay guys, get me these things' and they were like stuff he needed for his homework. We'd be like 'aight'.And that was all that we would do, and then he would play video games while we just watched. That was my childhood."

"How old were you?"

"I don't know, like five? Smol child."

"So you didn't speak very much English as a little kid?"

"Nah, we started in preschool. So, 4? Yeah, preschool was not fun, but kindergarten was a little more fun."

"So what were those journeys like?"

"My journeys? They weren't really anything. They were just kind of like, sub-par make-believe adventures? Sup-par...at best. There was one time where he actually tried to make a game for us, but we just weren't having it. It was really late and we were just like no. It was a make-your-own-adventure type of thing, and it was really neat, but we just gave up on it like two acts in." 

Spring Memories (Morgan)

I, a person incredibly susceptible to nostalgia, feel some sort of sensation with the transition of seasons, four times a year, every year. Summer is about wonder and adventure, Autumn is somber, Winter is rather bleak but has it's moments, and Spring possesses a distinct fresh feeling. Memories of mine include new beginnings and rudimentary childish joy. Today's scene included a half grass half snow landscape, a blue sky, and a temperature in the 40s. Thus, the feeling of spring began to manifest within me. I asked a couple of my friends what kind of spring memories they had themselves. First was Morgan.

"What were some lovely childhood memories that come to mind when you think of spring?"

"So I used to live in this small town when I was in first grade or second grade. It was at our house in Forest City."

"Oh...hm"

"Never heard of it?"

"No..."

"Great, so we had a cherry tree out in front of our yard, and every spring the cherry blossoms would come. And then when the cherries were finally there, we picked them, and then we would freeze them with sugar, and then make cherry pie. Those cherry blossoms were the best."

"That sounds so nice! We used to have a crab apple tree, but it died."

"Aw, well we moved. I miss that cherry tree. We also had honeysuckle growing on one side of the house, and lilac bushes in the back. Spring was the best. IT was beautiful, and smelled so good. That was one of my favorite things about that house. We played outside a lot, because my mom would throw us out of the house all the time. We were home schooled, so we did school in the morning, then she would throw us out in the afternoon. We'd play, my older sister and I. It was the best. That was the best house we lived in."

"Did you guys move a lot?"

"We did. We lived in South Dakota, I was born there. We moved like three times, but only twice when I was alive. Then we moved to Iowa. Six times total."

2.14

Valentine's day is actually my favorite holiday, which is ironic as it's considered one of the most commercialized holidays, as well as a sad day for singles. I'm someone who hates Hallmark movies (no plot variety, come on), always happens to be single in February, and despises materialism. Why do I like it so much? I don't exactly know.

Perhaps this is because of my upbringing. My parents were somewhat strict and devout Christians. Of course, Easter and Christmas were celebrated in our household, though Christmas has always been kind of eh to me, and Easter was a lot of fun, but also resulted from Jesus's death three days prior. My parents are also rather patriotic, so United States-centric holidays were acknowledged as well. The secular and non-country related holidays weren't played up too much on the other hand.

When I was young, there was an excitement in preparing my little Valentines cards. Though the folding and taping was rather repetitive and boring, receiving them from others was so much fun. Even more enjoyable was making the container which would hold the accumulation of Valentines. Arts and crafts were my thing as a kid, so I really got creative with these.

As I got older, the romantic aspect did become a little obnoxious, but I could look forward to having a nice dinner with my best friends. The general theme of love manages to reach my stone cold heart, I guess. We'll see how this year's pans out.