Person of the Day: Norman Borlaug (1914- 2009)

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/14/local/me-norman-borlaug14

Parents' parents

Essentially what is happening in such cases is a switching on, at full, blast, of long-lost infantile security, taken from those moments when a tiny child feels the great upwelling of happiness in the tender, loving embrace of a protective, all-powerful parent. This is something that we all secretly miss more and more as we grow up, and which we unconsciously continue to desire throughout our lives.
-- The Nature of Happiness by Desmond Morris

After reading this, I feel sorry for my dad-- both of his parents passed away long time ago. I imagine there must be moments when he was totally sleepless in the bed, staring at the ceiling and desiring being hold by Grandmother.

Dance videos!

I bought myself new gifts: L&L's Dance Bible and Max & Yulia Latin Variation DVD's. Now it's time to self-learn and rock!!!

I always drop by Rendezvous on the way to my office for a cup of medium Chocolate Raspberry-flavored brewed coffee. $1.59 after tax and it never fails to start up a day of work.

Garam Masala

After a night of getting solitude and relief after reading the desperate life of the heroine in Eat, Love, Pray, I decided to invite my old friend Michael to my place for dinner this evening. I checked my fridge, and the only dishes that I have ingredients for are cauliflower soup and chicken and noodle. However, I did not have garam masala, "mixed spices" in Indian, for the soup.

I went to Village Corner but only found curry powder. One of the clerk, who has an Irish red beard, stopped me when I was at the checking counter and complaining for no garam masala; he instructed me the spices to make garam masala. "I used to have an Indian restaurant." It was to my surprise. So I got cumin, coriander and curry powder because it has clover in it. The base for garam masala is 50-50 of cumin and coriander and a good amount of cinnamon and a pinch of clover. I also added dill, red chili, the curry powder and black pepper. It was fun to taste and mix up the spices-- it almost felt like raising a favorite pet when I mixed up the spices and made my own garam masala.

The cauliflower soup was easy to make and tasty, and this dish means so much to me that the story of the soup and me involves a boy, some doubts and a movie. Now, also because of this soup and garam masala, I made new friends in Village Corner-- I wonder if cauliflower soup is some motif in my life sent by the Great Void.

Re-launch of the blog

My graduate research assistant Noah said I should have a blog and keep writing down all my "goofier ideas" compared to his. In order to impress all my young friends with my college stories when I am in my 30's (an threshold age of nascent authority), I should update my blog more, and, stick with it... but not try to start another new blog with a hope that I will be a more dedicated writer than I am now.

No, I have to start from where I stop.


I will try not to bombard you, if you did exist as the reader of this long-abandoned blog, with all my college student frivolous ennui and melancholy, and, phew, I think I have nothing to write if the previous part of this sentence is true! I am kidding-- pretty much trying to practice my poor humor sense, mocked harshly by my American fellow and dubbed as "the emotionless Asian ping-pong ball-sized humor."

Let's start with some story happened to me today.

This morning I struggled to wake up at 9:50 and rushed myself to the ballroom dance team fundraising dancing at the farmer's market. The donation received from our dancing performance will go to National Wildlife Federation to help saving the animals affected by the BP oil spill, which happened 47 days ago. It was a nice day out and Ann Arbor residents were generous, so we ended up collecting a handsome amount of $254 from two hours of dancing. I was fully passionate for holding the sign and howling for donation-- I was really thinking, while I was howling to the passers-by, maybe I should go for public service someday. The apple cider and donuts sold in the farmers' market were yummy-- I split a blueberry donut with Curtis, and later on on our way to his car in the garage he patted my head and told me I did a great job promoting to donation-- all these made me happy.

In the afternoon I went to dance practice by myself-- with a new goal. Basically, I have grown ennui toward knowing only 5 or 6 steps in cha cha cha after nearly two years of dancing and being partner-less (the 101 question everyone asked me is if I found a partner yet, and the frequency of the question has far surpassed my tolerance), I decided to learn some routines from YouTube clips, for the sake of fun. Today was the first day and I had my Bryan Watson cha cha cha routine and Sergey-Melinda samba routine on the laptop. Golly, it was a tough time trying to catch the steps even they were played in slow motion. However, it is just a start.

I am quite proud of myself somehow: now I can do 30 seconds of Bryan's jive routine (I practiced that with Curtis when Carey was on her vacation in Rome), 2 eight counts of his cha cha cha and some steps from Sergey's samba which were done today. Well, if Steve knew what I was doing he would probably fulminated with his perfect Scotish ironic humor, but I guess we all need some dream to pursuit, such as catching seventy shooting stars and hoping for world peace.

Later tonight, just about four hours ago, I was caught by a quaint distress and sadness as I was all alone in my apartment (Joseph called it my 'summer shaggin' palace), listening to Chopin and studying for GRE. I went out to the library because Curtis said he might go there as well, and I straddling in a stupid sleeve-less rain poncho in a tornado-warning storming weather. Tornado in Michigan summer? How random! ("Oh but it's Michigan you are talking about!" True, nothing can be too surprising.) I was alone on the second floor of UGLi in near midnight, reading Love, Pray, Eat. The heroine was totally a miserable person. I felt it really sucked to be her (yeah, that was what I really was thinking) and suddenly felt contented about my situation and I left for home at 1:30.

I allowed myself to eat, but you have to believe me that eating sugary stuff is not a good remedy at all-- it just made me feel fat and sleepy because of over-sugared. Damn those 3 granola bars and oatmeal-- wow, did I just eat all those?

few quick notes

Eric is back for four days, and I am super duper excited to see this beloved former president again. I still remember when I was new to the team, I was always intimidated when Steve asked us to grab someone to dance. And Eric always helped me out. I think if without him, I probably would not survive my first ballroom semester. The team has changed so much with different president-- different leadership, different team atmosphere. I definitely feel the atmosphere of competitiveness is much more with Alex as the president-- it's not a bad thing because the team needs to stay competitive to earn the scholarship, but I sometimes feel a bit tired and useless because I am just not a competitive person.

Joseph threw his graduation party. It was alright-- basically just drinking and "dancing" while you could not move your feet at all in a student apartment living room packed with 70 people. The cop came, and we were off.

I have to start a partner search again, but after this semester, I feel tired of dancing on the team. I feel I was thrown into a team that is too high for me, and the partnership made me very weary and somehow lose confidence. I want to get back the feeling of love and dance. As a slow learner, I want to take it slower. But I really love doing ballroom dancing, so it is really a dilemma.

Although it may sound like a loser, but I really like one of my friend/teammate's comment on competition for us who learned dancing for a short time-- "It's like you learned how to play the piano for 3 months, and then you were crying for losing the competition of playing Do-Re-Me and could not understand how come other people play Do-Re-Me so well." Well, I guess it is somehow not that true as for the ballroom case, but it is definitely very comforting.

Today I watched the clips of WSS 2009 of Yulia, Joanna, and Anna dancing Rumba. I like Yulia and Riccardo's the best. Joanna and Michael are amazing in speed and precision, but it just did make me feel that touched as I was holding my breath when watching Yulia and Riccardo. Slavic is in a new partnership, but they are good.

We need the old members to come back!!

It's the competition season, and this weekend UMBDT will lead a 60-person group to wipe off the dance floor and claim all the prizes in the Purdue Classic. I am only going to OSB, which is two weeks later. Since Joseph can no longer dance in bronze, we are going to compete in silver and gold (for standard only). I guess Joseph, subconsciously, wants to leave a glorious record in his last semester, so it has to be something challenging.

Yesterday we did a few rounds of mock competition at the DTS and realized that once our dance fell apart once we needed to floor-craft. Bad! But we will keep practicing and see what will happen.

I miss the ballroom team that has Stacy and Eric all in a sudden. I hope you all have a good time no matter where you are!