I should really update this stuff as I go, but whoever really has time to do this thing anymore anyway?…. Hope I did not offend anyone. Ok I guess I’ll be brief, or I’ll try to make it brief, one of the two. The academic year has ended and within that time span much has happened both good and bad. I’d like to say that more good than bad, which is true, but sometimes bad things can manifest itself more than the good. Did that make sense to you? But first to the academic stuff… after all it’s the conclusion of an academic year and therefore should be the focus of this entry. Took enough classes this spring to irritate me and at the same time the right classes to make me think I’m goin insane. Yet they were all interesting…. reflective, argumentative, and I guess you could say "enlightening" (literally) I’ll get to that later.
Took Biology in which it had nothin really related to my political science major other than the section on bio ethics and darwin’s theory of natural selection in which only the strongest survive….in some what sociological terms. Also took comparative politics and philosophy, quite appropriate, and as u can see the contributing factor to some of my craziness. However, there was one class I really enjoyed, not so much that I really learned anything new but it was kinda like a refresher. It brought me back to old times, things I learned from before, things I did like tutoring, and while it was review stuff for me, for some reason it almost seemed like I could not have taken this class at a better time. Much of what I learned in humanities class in a sense helped me to reflect on turbulent things goin on. I guess it’s true that we are stubborn to admit that you can learn from the past. I always knew that, but I must admit that I never really put as much as I should of that stuff to practice. And it was also great considering that I had cool friends to take the class with me, and as I said before, I already knew this stuff…so didn’t have to work as hard = P, So what exactly did I learn in this class u might ask, or relearned?
Maybe some of this might ring a bell to u all…… Botticelli? Durer? Bosch? Michelangelo? Ya all should kno Leonardo da Vinci…he’s only been the main subject for the last few months = P Also…. I stumble on thoughts sometimes so if I say Bagel I might really mean Bruegel (haha…don’t ask)
Do you remember when Diaz, the portuguese figured how to get around africa? Or when Vasco da Gama sailed around the world? Or …
Do you remember when Martin and Calvin (those idiots, yes that’s right I said it……oh no did I offend? Pshhh like I care = P) broke away from the Catholic Church and created their own religions?
Hmm….. what do you think eclectic means….. use it in a sentence.
And yes… when I say hamlet’s "thrift, thrift, horatio! The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." Yes I’m referring to u, u kno who u are….u may be reading this right now. So let me ask you this, do you kno what it means? It means you rushed into something else…perhaps another relationship….or how about this "get thee to a nunnery" do you know what that means! geee why would someone command a person to amend their life in a nunnery… I dunno, maybe because they are a…."skank" maybe. But it’s true "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions" meaning problems don’t come little by little but in waves. So for now "sweets to the sweet."
Hahaha… and if u think that Da Vinci code stuff is real, u should probably go back to school…. The only reason why people might think it’s true is because the book takes half true events or actual events and distorts them or place them in sections that look like they could be true…. If ya think that stuff is real, haha… let me be your teacher, I’ll show u better stuff…… look at the bottom right corner of the work Adoration of the Magi.
Anyway, other humanities to be familiar with…. Spring time and The Birth of Venus by….. a) Leonardo or b) Botticelli……oh I forgot the important ones, who did Madonna of the Rocks and The Last Supper. Also Pieta.
Now being a political science major, I have to be exposed to certain required reading literature etc. so having read The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, u come across some interesting teachings as…. "Is it better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The answer is that it is desirable to be both, but because it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, if he is to fail in one of the two….. Men have less hesitation in injuring one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared, for love is held by a chain of duty which, since men are bad, they break at every chance of their own profit, but fear is held by a dread of punishment that never loosens its grasp. Nevertheless, the wise prince makes himself feared in such a way that, if he does not gain love, he escapes hatred; because to be feared and not to be hated can well be combined; this he will always achieve if he refrains from the property of his citizens and his subjects and from their women." <<<< dunno about the whole thing but fo sho that last section makes hella rational sense. So keep that in mind guys. Don’t mess with me or the girl…or you’re not goin to love me that’s for sure!
"If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it" Yes I’ll skip talkin about the so-called "renaissance in the north" cause in reality…. it was all but just a few accomplishments. Masked behind that overplayed out title was the reformation. But hey…. We all kno it’s all about the real renaissance of the ones in the south not participating in that foolish reformation stuff…. Yup I’m talkin about the stuff goin on in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, etc. or I should just summarize as the Latin/Greek world as opposed to the Germanic/Anglo world. Yeah yeah… I’m not goin to go into the technicalities etc. Anyway…
This dude Bosch, produced the work Garden of Earthly Delights, which is a really funky old version of those highlights magazines u get as a kid.
So to much of everyone’s delight or annoyance, hahaha sorry u all, I made sure everyone knew where I wanted to get married. Right smack on the huge projector screen the Bernini Colonnades in St. Peter’s of Vatican City in Rome. He too also did The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, ok, I kno u all must be wondering what type of ecstasy. So the period produced emotionalism stuff as done by caravaggio and reinforced by splendor and movement by El Greco the artist, and Borromini who’s skill made tiny churches look imposing, fluid, and moving as a result the period was defined as a counter attack and defense against the reformation with a show of powerful force…..and I guess I should use a friend’s favorite word "fervor." As a result of the rise of the movement in all spheres of discipline socially, intellectually, and culturally. The period was deemed the Counter Reformation or baroque- for irregular, elaborate, and undefined.
In other paintings Poussin created Et in Arcadia Ego. And I duuno if it’s just me but it seems between Poussin and Rubens there are a lot of rape related paintings…. Oh well. Vermeer created the Woman Reading a Letter. Then there is Velazquez, Rembrandt, and more.
I guess some would be quite bored with much of the material so far discussed but did you know that Andrew Marvell’s poem To His Coy Mistress is a step by step argument in trying to get a girl to lose her virginity and have sex…. Ya, u paying attention now = P But I guess the poem most reflective was Donne’s A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning and I guess you learn that when you leave someone or someone leaves you sometimes… it’s only temporary and maybe we are closer to them than we thought and perhaps we have to leave to comeback as a better person for them.
"Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent" *
*id est "earthquakes are thought to threaten evil consequences, but the variations of the spheres from true circularity, though they involve greater motions, are not considered sinister. Trepidation of the spheres (literally shuddering) was an additional arbitrary motion of the 8th sphere, introduced into the Ptolemaic system about the year 950 to account for certain celestial phenomena which were really due to the wobbling of the earth on its axis" <<< think about it
Cogito, ergo sum was a famous phrase said by which famous Jesuit scholar a) Descartes b) Pascal. And do you know what it says…. And what it means?
Now I will go into dept a significant piece of work that both in humanities and my political science studies prove to be lasting the test of time in so much as it really does apply to a world we live in… not just in a general sense but in a micro sense, even among the people you deal with from co workers to people you kno to friends. It is so much almost a universal rule unfortunately in most cases. The work is Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan
In an excerpt of part I, chapter XIII Of The Natural Condition of Mankind, As Concerning Their Felicity and Misery
I’m sure everyone knows this famous passage that: "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." I mean seriously…need I explain? Just look at how some people act, look at what’s goin on in the world…. It’s no wonder that the news suffers from a lack of good news. Ever wonder why the saying "no news is good news" is always true. Rarely is there any good news anymore. Now think about it, what does this mean to people:
"And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science, which very few have, and but in few things as being not a native faculty, born with us, nor attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience; which equal time equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one’s own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves and a few others, whom by fame or for concurring with themselves they approve. For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty or more eloquent or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. For they see their own wit at hand, and other men’s at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his share."
Now the funny thing is… consider the next section as two guys fightin over the same girl…hahaha! This sound familiar now don’t it?
"From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only), endeavor to destroy or subdue one another ...….
Again, men have no pleasure, but on the contrary a great deal of grief, in keeping company, where there is no power able to overawe them all: for every man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself; and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing, naturally endeavors, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quit, is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his contemners, by damage; and from others, by the example…..
So that in the nature of man, we find three principle causes of quarrel. First, competition; second, diffidence; third, glory."
Now that may have been a tough read for some so if u got any questions or need some parts translated just give me a yell =P yeah there is also Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding but that’s a conversation for another time… if I ever write more interesting stuff which most of u may not care so much about.
Have u ever heard this saying?
"The mind is in its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" or know who beelzebub or mulciber is. Well….. If you have read John Milton’s Paradise Lost u would kno or has seen the more current film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
Word list: Pastoral, Pensive, Austere, Pedantic, Arcane, Effulgent, and of course Ostentatious.
Then learned some other stuff such as Watteau’s Pilgrimage to Cythera and Fragonard’s Love Letters isn’t that sweet? Yeah seems like it. Also others to note are David’s Oath of the Horatii and Napoleon Crossing the Alps. The period we know as the Rococo/18th century was one of conflicting ideology and political viewpoints. When I say such thing as …. "Don’t rebel against the establishment" the phrases is rooted in this period and I use it in context as…well, u get the idea =P
Funny thing is that I still kinda get tripped up between the differences between classical, neo classical, colonial, Jeffersonian, and Georgian architecture. But not so much the Rococo or neo baroque I guess it’s cause I favor those two the most in terms of the unit covered until contemporary stuff.
Hmmm… like that "18 dummies" song try lookin at the Church of the 14 Holy or Vierzehnheiligen Pilgrim Church, the interior is awesome and reminds u more about the power of God than those intentionally suppressed protestant churches that look weak.
So yeah… during this chapter got exposed to more haydn and mozart etc. believe me not just a small exposure but a constant bombardment of it in the form of memorizing down to the last measure certain works such as Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550. And that was not the end of it -_-
From fugue to the elements of recapitulation, I was about to blow a fuse in my head. Not to mention a crisis goin on which I’ll explain later. But I guess sometimes things are meant to be a certain way as Alexander Pope would say in his Essay on Man…..
"All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; all discord, harmony, not understood all partial evil, universal good: and spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, one truth is clear, whatever is, is right."
Remember that my dear = P … haha or the opposite could apply as said in Voltaire’s Candide or Optimism but if u think about it anyway if there are so many experiences what is the best possible world to live in?
Haha… just as long as no one resorts to Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal, it’s not so modest. He proposes eating babies especially Catholic babies… what a hater or I should say disliker <<< hmmm… don’t think that’s a word = P
Also funny how extensive study of pride and prejudice is goin on while the new movie came out. Odd I guess whatever is, is. So everyone let’s ask a few questions or trivia…. Which ever sounds more fun.
What is a requiem? What is a Mass? What is a recitative? What is the real meaning of Hedonism or what it means to be hedonistic? What is the original meaning of vulgar? What does Kitsch mean?
And then…. Ahhhh. The Romantic Period how nice. But just like for me, how turbulent a period, well for this year ups and down etc. But why am I talkin about that, this is a summary of the academic year…. Well I dunno about summary but oh well, just deal with it.
So the period is marked by the movement to explain the exotic or natural world and so paintings by goya, ingres, gericault, and delacroix reflected the emotion of it’s time, blah blah etc.
This was also an emotional period as portrayed in goya’s The sleep of Reason Produces Monsters and his other work that had somethin to do with executions. Also there is this hideous painting of Saturn Devouring One of His Sons
We were suppose to remember Raft of the Medusa by gericault but not exactly sure why… maybe it’s famous but then that’s a "geee u think!" kinda thing to say. Also there was a lot of rape paintings in this one too hmmm.. and blurry paintings.
Lots of music in this chapter and tons of opera lets just say Beethoven and Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) in E flat Major, Op. 55
Then touched on classical revival and gothic revival architecture. More poem stuff from coleridge and wordsworth. And for like the 4th time The Communist Manifesto. Keat’s Nightingale work and shelley’s ozymandias.
By this time of the year I’m pretty much done sayin Dickens’s "Please sir, I want some more" to anymore class material *_*
But moving on, we studied Poe’s The Oval Portrait and Tolstoy’s The Three Hermits which was some good stuff.
However I think I got the most heat for the reading Faust by Goethe. Haha, considering that much of the story had to do with a guy having relations with a much younger lady. Hmmm… could that sound familiar = D seeeee…. It’s ok = P so what does this excerpt mean:
*In mass* "when you came here all innocent to the altar, out of the worn-out little book lisping your prayers, half a child’s game, half God in the heart! Gretchen! How is your head? And your heart—What are its crimes? Do you pray for your mother’s soul, who thanks to you and your sleeping draught overslept into a long, long pain? And whose blood stains your threshold? Yes, and already under your heart does it now grow and quicken and torture itself and you with its foreboding presence?" hehe …gee I wonder what it could be talkin about = P
To the modern time (just not modern as today yet) are probably the artist most of u are familiar with such as manet, monet, renoir, gaugin, van gogh , degas, matisse, Cézanne etc.
As a reactionary movement of the modernizing world, the artist of the time depicted natural settings in the environment and methods to dive into the human psyche.
Famous paintings such as dejeuner sur l’herbre or luncheon on the grass by manet, produced a certain type of scandal. Degas drew people in action during daily life. And Seurat drew A Sunday on La Grande Jatte in dots….well, colored dots. But among all the impression and post impression work is perhaps the most recognized painting of them all:
Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, this painting must be popular with Asian girls cause I seem to run into it everywhere….so perhaps maybe it’s a really cool chick magnet and should be used as a gift = P .
OF course everyone is familiar with Picassos’ cubism so won’t talk much about that. But if u really want to see some seriously weird and unusual modern art, try an art form called Dada. They use anything from paint to contraptions in demented figures to make a message in the most bizarre way.
Perhaps the most meaningful work of art a friend and I would agree is Dali’s The Persistence of Memory cause I can say with some comfort that our memories have not served us to well or to kindly lately.
In terms of architecture, we touched on stick style, prairie style, Romanesque, Chicago, shingle style, art deco, beaux-arts, and international style. I must say that it gets to the point where it’s hard to distinguish between Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style and International style but then again it’s getting late in the school year
In music memorized to the measure Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod- Tristan and Isolde, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, and Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2
We had to but up with some interesting read too! Such as obscene material and two seminarian clerics in training for the priesthood showing off their intelligence and wit in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Covered poems from Emily D., Ibsen’s Doll House, and Chekhov’s The Bet. Now from Kafka’s The Trial consider this:
"K. asks why the priest was recently so friendly and helpful and now so indifferent. The priest reminds K. that he (the priest) is connected to the Court, and that "the Court wants nothing from you. It receives you when you come and dismisses you when you go."
So overall, from running around libraries and bookstores to symphony halls, hills and lagoons to contemplate thought and diets of In and out burger. I guess I could say I more or less enjoyed the school year.
And by the way….Sarah Chang is HOT!!! Yes the violinist!
Many may be askin…why the Catholic rhetoric in some of my writings, well….. I guess it’s easy to see that this one racist/ bigot denominational calvin based "reformed" protestant church I encountered on 18th st in SF got nothin on Catholics or me. and they are a sad excuse for Christianity to me I think they resemble a bunch of hicks
And btw Catholic schoolgirls kick ass…so if u are or was one props to you!
So now that we are at the end of this entry I guess I could say that this year was pretty much well. It could have been better but at the same time it could had been worst. Somewhere there was someone special to me that got lost in the storm of things early this year. I miss her and I wonder if she misses me. But for now it is what it is and now…for some strange reason, things got better and things just get better and better now… yes it is someone special… I kno I kno…."I never get a break" = P
Ok no more writing way too much
By the way…. BJ’s restaurant’s design is art deco in interior and exterior mural design.
Thank u chiu = ) | 
