Essay essay

As of yesterday, I've chosen the topics for the three term papers that I have to write (Arabic being the exception, which is a mercy since typing 200 words on Elias Khoury took me two hours). And the topics have been approved by course conveners, apart from this one prof who never seems to reply my emails, but whatever lah. :) Now I know where to focus my reading and I am happier.

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Events log

[which I am noting down more for my benefit than yours, since it's faster for me to type than to handwrite]

Thursday evening: Four years in Singapore taught me (among other things, of course) that if you can get GBP132 seats for 10 quid on student standby, you grab them. So a Polish postgrad and I went to the Royal Opera House for a double bill of L'Heure espagnole (Ravel) and Gianni Schicchi (Puccini). It was my first time seeing real opera on stage -- assuming deliciously bawdy comedies qualify as "real opera" -- and it was stupendous. Absurd premises and props, glorious voices, marvelous comic timing (, impressive subtitle machine). And, during the intermission, exciting life stories from my friend.

Friday evening: Met up with a former classmate whom I haven't seen since our PMR, and then followed her to Overseas Christian Fellowship -- where "overseas" basically means Singaporean and Malaysian, so I ran into two other former schoolmates from A-level days. It was unnervingly familiar and I experienced major which-country-am-I-in issues, but it's always cool to reunio ... ite with people after a while and see what they've been letting God do in their lives.

Saturday afternoon/evening: One of those days where I did insufficient research and had a blast with the nagging sense that it could have been better. To wit: went to the British Museum with my cousin. Found out that half the existing Parthenon carvings are five minutes from my uni campus (and felt like an idiot for not searching them out earlier)! And also that I seem to really like glassware. Saw a tonne of other beautiful arresting foreign old things in that wonderful building; thought very conflicted thoughts about what colonialism does to culture.

After munching our way through hot dogs in the museum steps, we deduced that both of us would far prefer an evening of good cheap music to an evening of homework. After some dithering on my part, my cousin remembered that there was student standby at the London Philharmonic that night, so we sped over there and paid our four pounds each and dropped in our seats moments before the conductor came out, with very little idea of what would ensue. It turned out to be the premier of Rautavaara's Incantations (my first percussion concerto and a fascinating feat of dexterity; liked the third movement a lot better than the first two) and Bruckner's Eighth Symphony (gorgeous but I neither expected nor had the stamina for a >1.5 hour piece).

Sunday morning: Together with my cousin I visited the Hillsongs church, in the same auditorium that hosts performances of We Will Rock You. At concert-services like this one it's always a struggle for me to focus on God when the lighting team is practicing their art and lead guitarist's solo is projected on a larger-than-life screen and the sermon poses no intellectual challenge (yeah, my ego grosses me out too). In settings like this -- where so much attention seems directed to styles of musical worship -- it's also an insuperable challenge for me to neither judge nor feel judged. But clearly they're a platform that shows God to throngs of people, and clearly I don't yet see things with His light.

Sunday afternoon/evening: Did most of the Jubilee Walkway with a SOAS friend. Embarrassingly we got lost at the beginning, attempting to traverse the very short distance between Trafalgar Square and Admiralty Arch. But yay London! And yay walking. Downside was that it was the first day that Daylight Savings started (/ended?) so it got dark super early and we decided to cut out walk short. But two bonuses: (a) outdoor secondhand book tables between the National Theatre and the River -- I caved in and bought Heller's Portrait of an artist, as an old man (really liking it so far) and a book that I've been wanting to give one of my friends; (b) after lots of uninspiring menu-gazing at Covent Garden, we found this affordable Turkish-ish restaurant that is apparently very well-reviewed and I had a wonderfully succulent lamb tagine (howsay).

Wednesday evening: Benjamin Bagby's Beowulf at the British Library! Concession tickets for GBP7.50. I don't know recall I know about Bagby -- possibly my good friend who'd read Beowulf and consequently told me lots of interesting things about the Merovingian et al on the way out of the cinema after we watched Matrix Reloaded together -- but I was really really excited before and not at all disappointed after (notwithstanding the considerably less classy subtitle projector haha). His incredibly sonorous voice and mobile features traversed such a range of registers and characters, accompanied by this cool reconstructed 7th century six-string harp (which kept making me think of one of the Chinese orchestra instruments that I can never remember the name of). And of course it was fun listening out for understandable Anglo-Saxon snippets (the syntactical ordering seems really different); everyone chuckled at something that sounded like "beer drunken". After that I had a bunch of Malaysians and a Singaporean, ranging from a relative to a completely new acquaintance, over at my place for food and talk.

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Side note: might anyone know the name of this cartoon character in an animated short which ends with him saying, "Consume, conform, OBEY"? One of my friends showed it in class back in MG Singapore, and over the years it's bothered me a handful of times that I only remember him as Mr [something or other].

Oh wait nevermind! I just googled and his name is Mr. Snaffleburger. I now feel very satisfied (if slightly peeved that I let myself fall prey to search engines again). :)