Ujima show last saturday!

Another blog

Hi Readers,

I am keeping another blog for my writing class this term. The posts are more intellectual motivated and less personal, however, its another way of learning what I am doing on campus and what I am learning!

Enjoy.

Si Jie

Have I lose....(click)

my habit of blogging?

Time never seems to be enough for me when classes are on.

But when I have them, over the spring break (the past 2 weeks) essentially,instead of blogging, here's what I did:

1) Overslept till 2 pm due to watching late night movies from iTunes rental store
2) Spent the first few hours upon waking up cooking, shopping for food, and eating
3) Watched more movies
4) Repeated step (2) for dinner, sometimes cooking for a big group of friends

5) Okok I did meaningful stuff too: phone interviews for summer internship (positive:P)
6) Organized late night hang out, dancing the night away with African music
7) Drove 2 hours to Boston to shop for shoes, belts, bags, jackets, and Chinatown food supplies
8) When not shopping in Boston, ate African food in Ethiopian restaurant and Chinese dim sum the next morning
9) Moved into a new dorm where I am hired to be a UGA
10) (since am on the R boat)Talked about future plans involving big words such as "coordination" and "commitment" which is yet to be determined of course

So enough of reflection, what's popping for Spring term (starting tomorrow)?

1) Newly hired as a UGA, basically am assigned to take care of a floor of residents
2) Applying for grants to work in New York for the summer
3) To help envision better network/organization for international students
4) Perfect my dance moves for Ujima ( a dance group i just joined)
5) Continuing to get paid working different jobs on campus
6) Taking exciting classes such as Painting, Writing with Media, and my first LAB CLASS with my bf as the TA (lol, very tricky:P)
7) Embracing Raggae, Bob Marley for the upcoming WMPE concert
8) More future planning...
9) Keeping up with friends...

Ah..the list can go on...But if you don't see me blogging anymore...refer to the list and you'll know why...

Friendship- pause. stop.

Has it ever occur to you that friendships, as emotional attached can one be to them, has pauses and stops? I define friendship as a constant interaction between two people, where potentially through increase interaction, have increase importance in each other life.

Its very obvious in where I live, where the D plan makes it totally possible for you to be in touch or out of touch with someone for a long time. You could be 'best' friends and keeping track with everything each other do by simply being in the same class, doing the same activities. But once the term ends, and you take different courses, you can hardly even find time to catch up when you bump into each other on the streets. Occasionally you might suggest a lunch/ or dinner. But when that happens, you have maybe 8 weeks of gap of stories to tell. Eventually, you don't even bother update each other about your life anymore.

Perhaps I should thank the frats and sororities for holding all the dance parties: it happens almost every weekend, and presumably you go every weekend, you are bound to catch up with people at least once a week. What if you don't drink as much and find the basement sketchy and stinky?

Thinking out of the Dartmouth landscape, I now have friends across the globe where I proudly claim to be good friends with. With the little chance of traveling, the time we could possible meet with each other is when I happened to be in a nearby city our country- I could fly over to visit the place , and also this friend, kill two birds with one stone. Then I find myself over the stretch of few nights, listening to stories stretching as far and 3 to 4 years back. When we finish our stories, we realized, our friendship has paused 3 to 4 years ago, and resumed for that few days. We love and appreciate each others' company but know that we will resume to the 'other' life fairly quickly as we part.

Maybe what I said is not fair to the friends who are now continents and oceans apart, where it's almost impossible to keep in touch frequently. But doesn't it make you think that,being in the same place, same city, same campus, there should be more motivation for us to keep up with friends, and depend less on coincidence?

I never stop wonder what stops us from sending that one blitz/email across for a get together or a lunch date?

Chinese New Year and Valentines:P

Oh forgot to put some pictures from the two BIGGEST occasion in February:P

Africa Meets Asia!!(click for more videos!)

Hi, so I am uploading all the songs we played on last friday's concert! It was a huge success. Sorry for the bad audio quality, this is what happened when you can't make it to the live concert!

Please search for the rest of the video clips on youtube using keywords " Africa Meets Asia" , More to come!!!

When is it okay to be emotional???

When you are a person who get affected by others so easily, you tend to be very emotional. The force of emotions that starts from deep inside the heart find its way to your angry voice, frown face, shaky hands, and maybe unstable waves of feelings that linger in the head....

Once it start, its really hard to stop it. Sometimes you can't sleep. If you do, you wake up continuously feeling like shit. You try to study, work, attend classes...but the emotions follow you like shadow, its hard to dismiss it. You try to talk to close friends, helps to throw something out from the chest...but maybe not all...At this point, you may already know the source of pain, but you can't exactly blame others for feeling this...everybody has different perspective...what's so obvious for you to feel emotional might be very ridiculous for others...maybe its a gender thing..maybe its a personality thing...maybe....all you need is to find ways to channel those burning emotions out.

I walked into the art studio..the nude lady stood still in the middle of the studio..waiting for me to draw her...big sheets of paper were laid on the floor...charcoal are tied up on a long stick...I picked the stick up...breathing hard...the emotions flow down the veins of my hand...I start drawing...fast bold strokes, heavy, black strokes. I underlined her curve, her shades of pink on her breast, her thigh, her skin.

I did not erase a single stroke...I continue to release my emotions to the paper. My professor walked over. Looked. said," she seems to be moving around when she is actually standing still". Guess that describes my lines, my strokes...its not very settle...its in all directions...I successfully put my emotions on my drawing..

and later my drums...my dancing..
That might really explains why artists are weird and hard to understand.. The have mood swings..and they actually need mood swings to channel their skills into good use...Some say its creativity...I say its expression....

Sorry to those who find me hard to get, hard to understand...I guess art can rescue me from you....