Just been reminded that today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (which, as we all know, the Hoff single-handedly brought about). Now, don’t get too comfortable just yet. There still are some more to knock down.

In the meantime, here’s something I can’t celebrate the occasion without.

I watch talent shows. With so many offspring, their charm is wearing thin now, but call me silly, the romanticised notion of unearthing a raw gem still works on me.

Among the X Factor contestants of this year, my favourite is Stacey Solomon. When this 19-year-old single mum from Dagenham came on stage for an audition, it felt as if she was put there to enhance the curious stereotype of ‘Essex girls’ (and I bet my money that there was some intentional editing).

When she sings, however, she is like a totally different person. Of all her performances so far, I like the first audition the best. I have re-watched it more than a few times and every time I did, I found myself humming it for the rest of the day. Perhaps this is because of the fact that the chosen song – What a Wonderful World – has such power, but I am sure that part of the delight definitely came from her making the song her own.

Having said all this, I like her off-stage self even more. She is just everything I am not. Don’t get me wrong; I have no problem with who I am or how I am. This statement is more to be read in the sense that “Opposites attract”. Let me put it this way: she is someone I could be, er, in a parallel universe or something.

Anyway, when she babbles, it’s so cute that I can’t help smiling. You still don’t see what I see? Then why don’t you take a look at her signature babbling here? Fascinating.

Don’t think it odd,

That I believe in God,

The God of sky and sod,

The God of whale pods,

And bean pods,

And all in between pods.

          His evidence is everywhere,

          His absence is no where,

          He is here, He is there,

          He’s always been there,

          (Before a “there” existed)

          And He’ll be there,

          After “there” has persisted.

                – eab, 8/27/06

Strawberries!

I’ve been watching that big one since it was but a flower, and now it has friends! The other night I was joking with Matthew that I might get a whole half-punnet of strawberries this year. And I was proper chuffed about that, too. Now I’m thinking I might get a whole whole-punnet!!

Beans!

Last year I had no luck with beans at all. This was primarily because I was trying to grow them indoors, with only partial sun and companion planting with garlic — not exactly the right conditions! This year I wasn’t going to bother, but on our last trek out to the Dulwich garden centre with Lou I saw these wee beany sprouts and they were only £1.49, so I figured I might as well try them. Then they were just a couple of teeny leaves, now they’ve got pods! Pods!

My concrete garden!

I really need to do a proper garden update like Lou did the other day, because there’s an awful lot that’s happening! It must wait, however, as I’m off to Robynn’s and the first Purlescence Open House since wee Claudia was born — talk about things growing, she’ll be a huge proper baby now!!

Worldly friends of mine have been tut-tutting and telling me that charity efforts of the 21C are, in many cases, not as transparent and efficient as we are made believe they are. I am sure there must be more effective ways to distribute resources than relying on Red Nose. Still, I would like to rather naively believe that all the media fuss over fundraising could be the first step to devising a larger-scale, more systematic approach to a given cause, whatever that is. Besides, we would have all missed out on something like this!

For their video conferencing feature, to be precise. And I have a strictly personal reason for this statement. One of the very few things that keep me sane in this insane world is to meet my 10-month-old niece through Skype. In front of my webcam, I do EVERYTHING to win her smile, however faint it might be. Usually baby-talking and singing. That’s right, I sing. Milk Song (the lyric of which goes, roughly, “I don’t like Coke. I don’t like tea. How about coffee? Oh no. I don’t like hot chocolate. I don’t like lemonade. How about milk? Oh yeah [...]” – Isn’t this brainwashing in the most obvious form?), Carrot Song, Number Song, you name it. While I sing all these songs, my niece stares at me making a fool of myself in the monitor on her end with such a serious yet cool look on her face. It’s almost like being judged by Simon Cowell. Her current favourite is this one below, which I therefore have to master tonight!

Although I’m pretty much under her spell, I wasn’t thinking of writing a blog post about her – until yesterday I came across, via a friend’s Facebook feed, an article about a couple arranging an exhibition for their toddler’s *abstract* paintings. Scott Adams (of Dilbert series) once wittingly put it (1998: 157), “I’ve heard it said that kindergartners already know how to sing and dance and paint. But as you’ve probably noticed, that only applies to your own kids. Everyone else’s kids are just scribbling, shouting, and jumping around.”

Admittedly, I am just another palbulchul (팔불출). Hmmm, here comes another untranslatable word. Rumour has it that this word originally meant those who were born before due time, which later evolved to discriminatingly refer to someone “a screw short”. The current usage has, however, nothing to do with premature birth nor stupidity. It now very specifically designates “people who self-praise”. And the ’self’ here is meant in an extended sense. It is frowned upon to boast about not only you yourself but also your spouse, your children, your siblings, etc.

Despite the risk of appearing like a complete palbulchul, I still can’t resist showing off my baby niece, who can tell when people make international calls (e.g. to me, the auntie in England) from usual domestic calls – by observing the different lengths of telephone numbers dialled, that is. Genuis, huh? Would this have anything to do with the whole “digital natives” thing? Well, she certainly likes sitting on a laptop, if that counts for qualification.

Ah, the first post of the new year. As it is going to be a sombre one, let me start with a little joke. I’m not sure how old this joke is, but I only came to know it a couple of weeks ago through a friend’s Facebook feed.

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. ‘House’, for instance, is feminine: ‘la casa’. ‘Pencil’, however, is masculine: ‘el lapiz’. A student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?” Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether ‘computer’ should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was also asked to give four reasons for its recommendation. The men’s group decided that the computer should definitely be of the feminine gender (‘la computadora’) because: (i) No one but their creator understands their internal logic; (ii) The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; (iii) Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval; and (iv) As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it. The women’s group, however, concluded that the computer should be masculine (‘el computador’) because: (i) In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on; (ii) They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves; (iii) They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem, and (iv) As soon as you commit to one, you realise that if you had waited a little longer, you could have got a better model. (By the way, for your information, it is a masculine noun.)

A friend of mine once described his attachment to his laptop as “like having an asexual girlfriend”. Well, I giggled at that time, but come to think of it, I have a worse case. My relationship is even maternal in nature. If I share an anecdote here at the risk of sounding crazy, my sister once walked into my room and ’caught’ me placing my ear on my then laptop. She of course couldn’t help commenting, “What now? Are you listening to his heartbeat or something?” (I started to refer to my laptop as ‘him’ – and insist that others do too – way before hearing the above joke.) Not only that I am caring and protective towards him, but also that when he seems unwell, I too feel unwell. Literally. Recall the scene where Elliot and ET get telepathically drunk together. It’s just like so.

[* Image: book cover of Reeves and Nass' The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places]

For the last few days, my one-year-old Macbook has been making an awful lot of noise – as if it is about to take off (as in the sense of leaving the ground like an airplane). The helpline told me after a few troubleshooting routines in vain that I must take him into one of their technical units for a thorough checkup. I’ve already made an appointment and everything, but as you can imagine, I’m having a bout of lethargy.

Female literature before the ‘modern’ era wasn’t exactly robust in Korea and the only few remaining pieces are hardly talked about other than in school curricula. Among the pieces, there is 조침문(弔針文), a letter of condolence by an anonymous lady (aka Mrs Yu) for her broken needle[!]. When I was first taught about it, I didn’t care for it because I could so easily picture this lady in my head, who was most likely isolated from social interaction for conventional reasons and keeping herself occupied by sewing.

However, now I’m a lot more sympathetic to the authoress. Now I can see that it wasn’t about women’s self-emancipation; it was about a relationship with an object close to one’s heart. I, of all people, should have appreciated it better.

Internet access in the student halls of residence was down over the weekend. As an official Internet addict, I was feeling disoriented and unsettled, evidently. You might be thinking that my thesis must have finally received my undivided attention that it deserves, but the thing is that nowadays even my writing doesn’t seem to advance much if I cannot do occasional Web searches along the way. I kind of laughed off when I came across an article in Telegraph about the Queen’s visit to the Google headquarters scheduled for next month, but perhaps it was more illustrative of the technological influence we are under than I first noticed.

Anyway, since I had no other choices, I went through the old stack of papers – the academic articles and reports that I have collected and labelled as ‘to-read’. Funnily enough, the first one I ended up reading in bed was E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (1909). If you have read it, I’m sure you’ve got the irony already. If you haven’t, you will see the irony as soon as you start reading the first paragraph. The story was just so very fitting for me to read under the Internet-deprived circumstance. It’s not the only story that describes the future with human-beings’ growing technological dependency, which eventually leads them to commit themselves – whether knowingly or not – to the point of being controlled by “the Machine”. Still, it’s quite impressive given the fact that this particular piece was written a century ago.

I wouldn’t paint such a dark picture of the future. And despite the growing cynic in me, I would certainly never compare the Internet with “the Machine” or any other mean mechanical villains in sci-fi. However, the thought that occurred to me on this occasion was that I might be looking for some sort of assurance, if not anything else, when I’m taking in information delivered by Web search engines. This could potentially be a dangerous thing.

Why am I suddenly getting all philosophical about technology? Well, I’m not. This whole yada-yada is in fact a *prelude* to the song below: The Humans Are Dead (by Flight of the Conchords).

How could you not adore them?

With a lot of contests happening on TV, I’ve learnt that it’s kind of more fun watching them if I have a particular contestant to root for. Then the contest you watch will have, how can I put it, a Dragon Ball feel to it. I usually don’t follow such programmes, principally because I hate to watch judges being mean and rude to their participants. I know, I know, that’s necessary for the drama the programmes aim to deliver; it’s just me believing that truth should be served warm (and preferably wrapped in bubble wrap ). Anyhow, I ran across this Boyzone act on Britain’s Got Talent a couple of weeks ago and knew that I’d be watching the next weeks’. And last night, I found my team!

My answer to “What do you want to become in the future?” has always been a publisher. I might not be able to right away, but I will at some point in my life. To be precise, I would like to run a company that publishes commercially less promising books. Not that I have low regard for crowd-pleasing material. On the contrary, I admire Stephen King, who once described his works as “the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries”, for his obvious talent. It’s just that there will always be companies waiting for writers of his kind with open arms somewhere. I have encountered many brilliant yet undiscovered people along the way. I hope I will be able to provide resources so that such people can offer their brilliant stories and ideas to a broader world. This whole motto has become kind of shaky though with the advent of blogs. Let’s not spoil my life’s ambition for now.

This is part of my bookshelves in progress. It should be noted that most of the items here are still in my wish list.

Probably the most quoted man in history. When I was young, I heard people saying “Oscar Wilde once said, …” all the time, but never got around to reading any of his works – except The Happy Prince, that is. To be frank, I suspected him of going largely on his reputation.

My first real encounter with him was, funnily enough, in an Art History class when I was in Angers, France in 2003. In that session, the teacher was showing us Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings, one of which was La danse mauresque (below).

(Displayed in the Musée d’Orsay; photo from insecula.com)

While telling us every story behind this piece, she briefly mentioned the gentleman standing to the left of Jane Avril (the woman in black) was Oscar Wilde then living in exile in Paris. What the teacher wanted us to understand was how the painter had always identified himself with the marginalised in society by placing himself with them both inside and outside of his paintings. It would have been pompous of me if I had pitied either HTL or Wilde. I didn’t. However, the latter kind of stayed with me.

Last March, I happened to pass by Reading prison (above) and learnt that one of his famous poems The Ballad of Reading Gaol had been written based on his experience of imprisonment there.

And last Thu, I went to my office and found a new poster on the wall. A colleague must have put it up. It was a simple collection of Oscar Wilde Quotes. He really is everywhere…

I still haven’t read any of his works, but I can say in the least that his wit is not overpraised. I carefully read all of the entries, and some more on the Web. I was particularly happy when I found the “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes” one, which seems to support another homemade theory of mine: practice does not make perfection but desensitises us to our imperfection. Anyway, I am now officially in love with him.

At the risk of sounding like a moderator for a self-help group, I have to say that addiction is a pain. Giving something full control over you. I think I’ve managed to stay away from anything addictive in my whole life. I might not be a strong person in spirit, but I am wisely cautious. However, when it comes to chocolate, I just totally give in. I often stop and wonder what’s so special about it. Voilà, here’s a list I’ve found.

• Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.
  – Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), Forrest Gump
• Will work for chocolate
  – Esther Schindler
• Put a smile on your face, make the world a better place.
  – Hershey’s Chocolate
• Life is like a box of chocolates .. full of nuts!
  – bumper sticker
• All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt!
  – Lucy Van Pelt (in Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz)
• Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.
  – Michael Levine, nutrition researcher, as quoted in The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars
• Don’t wreck a sublime chocolate experience by feeling guilty. Chocolate isn’t like premarital sex. It will not make you pregnant. And it always feels good.
  – Lora Brody, author of Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet
• Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies..
  – John Q. Tullius
• I never met a chocolate I didn’t like.
  – Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation
• It’s not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let’s face it, far more reliable than a man.
  – Miranda Ingram
• Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment.
  – Unknown
• The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.
  – Thomas Jefferson
• There are four basic food groups, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.
  – Unknown
• Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces
  – Judith Viorst
• Other things are just food. But chocolate’s chocolate.
  – Patrick Skene Catling
• If one swallows a cup of chocolate only three hours after a copious lunch, everything will be perfectly digested and there will still be room for dinner.
  – Brillat-Savarin
• Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso.
  (Ideas should be clear and chocolate thick.)
  – Spanish proverb
• Biochemically, love is just like eating large amounts of chocolate.
  – John Milton, The Devils Advocate
• If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?
  – Marquise de Sevigne, February 11, 1677
• Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.
  – Truman Capote
• What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.
  – Katharine Hepburn
• Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power. it is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.
  – Baron Justus von Liebig (1803-1873), German chemist

My all-time favourite song.

A little sitemap kind of introduction. In this category, under its rather corny name*, I’ll talk about things that I love. (* A mot-à-mot translation of a Korean equivalent to “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”.)

Attachment? Boy, I am a connoisseur in that department.