Quarantine diaries, day 2

My fever started to subside but now comes the cough. ugh.

I managed to finish "Fellow Creatures" just before 2021 ends so I could add it to my Goodreads quota. I managed to beat last year's reading record by >1,000 pages read, thanks to the long epic novels I read on my ferry rides. Anna Karenina, A Suitable Boy, Gone With The Wind ...

I stayed awake longer today until after dinner, which was pho, but then fell asleep at 7 pm and couldn't wake up to do yoga or shower. So I just brushed my teeth and kept sleeping. Jan suddenly called me at 12.30 am to wish me happy new year and I thought it was an emergency call. Jeez, what a way to start 2022.

Comments

The Painted Door - Sinclair Ross (from personal journal)

(Originally posted on 10/1/2009) ( Footsteps in snow. S orry, can't find the photo taken by Wayne R. Bilenduke that was printed in my book. Alternative photo.) I think this is by far the story I have to spend the longest time reading. Mr. Guraliuk was right, this is a very sleep-inducing "short" story. "It goes on and on and on and on… like forever". But, paradoxically, that's what makes it such a brilliant short story. When you read Sinclair Ross's lines, you feel cold. You can imagine the coldness of hard window glass pressing against your fingers as you look out to the freezing white snow-covered endless landscape and long for the person you love to arrive. You can feel your eyelids heavy as you watch the time go by; your heart heavy with sadness and loneliness but still not letting go of that weak hope, the only hope that keeps you still alive amidst the brutal coldness of winter. Of course if you've never been through a cold, white and l...

Numbers

After this academic term, which I call the worst academic term since I was born (for various reasons), I have come to the conclusion that this is how my teachers give me marks. I have done well in courses I know I am pretty incompetent in, and done badly in courses I know I am pretty competent in. As I move up to more advanced math courses, I start to realize the divergence of 'math' and 'numbers'. In the courses I took this term, statistics is the 'mathy' course most concerned with numbers. There is an entire field dedicated to numbers because it is so mysterious - seriously. “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” ― Aaron Levenstein How do you know when you look at a set of data if there is a pattern or not, and if there is a pattern, if it is significant or not. Even just looking at my marks this term, I cannot compare them to last term, because the two set of data are different in fundamental ...

the sun is back in the city

(originally posted on 3/20/2011) " And the sun is pouring in through the window and right onto your skin and I've never seen a portrait quite so picturesque ." - Chase Coy, Picturesque. We walk hand in hand along 4th avenue toward the west. the sun set beams with soft layers of purple, blue and gold. before saying goodbye to you, the sun stops for a while, looks into your eyes and blows gently onto your face a kiss of new, warm, spring sunlight. then, before I had time to chase after her, she winks and fades sneakily into that distant horizon. looks like the sun is back in the city and I'm going to have to share you with her for the next half a year, darling. i wish you could wear my kiss on your cheeks all the time too; i wish i could embrace you all day like she can; i wish i was the sparkle in your eyes like she is. I think she misses you after such long months of snow and rain. the sun's been absent while i took my chance to hold your hand. whe...

Amy Do Nguyet Anh

Search This Blog