blog.marcwiesner.com

HAHAHA YES!

I’ve finished my last written final. A three hour final exam slashed to peices in less than half the alloted time. Paragraphs for short answer, essays like they were nothing; ah! I love chinese history.

I’m freaking DONE, baby!

Oh my freeking goodness this movie is good. It’s got just about every element an entertaining movie should have; humour, kick-ass kung fu, romance, gangsters dancing, a smoking bitch of a landlady slapping punks around, EVERYTHING! Funny and poingnent, might even get you to squeeze a tear out. There’s even character development, well written backstories, tons of sweetness.

Buddha even works his way in!

Rent, Watch, Enjoy, Repeat

Didn’t today start great. I went up to San Francisco with some friends for a nice Chinese breakfast and a visit to the De Young museum. Before the soy milk we had to run a few blocks through a crowded sidewalk (part of which was obstructed by vendors setting up a farmers market) for the train that we nearly missed, committed a few minor federal offenses, and almost got hit by a car making a left turn from the second lane.

The museum was enjoyable. They had interesting sculptures in their gardens and an impressive collection of art from a great array of periods and cultures. Some of the pieces I found notable were the paintings from 20th century America, the glass work, and the African pieces (which I had very littler prior exposure to).

The architectural style of the new building itself was a topic that was well debated within our group. My first impression was that it looked like a prison from a Kurt Russell sci-fi movie. The walls were large flat metal sheets with convex and concave dimples, some with perforations and a tower. From the tower, a shelf of this metal sheeting kept a person from seeing the sky, forcing them to look down at the rest of the structure and the gardens. The interior of this structure similarly had a way of forcing the patron to move and look in a certain way. The rooms were thoughtfully layed out and were intresting spaced in their own right.

To anyone considering a trip to the De Young, go with friends because it’s better when you can talk about it. Oh, and uhhh….don’t try to hold the train.

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So far I’ve been up for 34 hours. Not to prove any point, not busting my ass on an assignment, just because it hasn’t really been convenient for me to sleep lately. On Friday I woke up at 1 PM. A good friend of mine, Tse Lao Shi, had to get to a test early Saturday morning and it just made sense to stay up though the night rather than chopping up my sleep into a four-hour block. After I dropped my friend off I got back home, finished the movie I started the night before, and did some work on my blog. When I ran out of stuff to do TLS called letting me know she was done with her test and we went out to play bones and grab lunch. After lunch I dropped TLS off at her place which is on the way to my place and got home around 4 PM.

Now, one of our Santa Clara boys, Stephen, had a birthday today and I had planned on heading down to Santa Clara, meeting my bro and Cpt. Wu, and proceed to the soiree. Since that was happening this evening and it was already 4 I didn’t have time for sleep so I showered, played with the formatting on my blog some more, and headed out to meet the guys.

And that brings me to now. I just got back home, I’m shaking from the cold, and I’m physically fatigued but not yet feeling tired. I’m sure though that sleep will quickly overtake me once I’m in my comfy bed.

晚安大家

Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, the Guomindang (國民黨, GMD, or KMT in the old rominazition system) seems to have done a tidy job of sweeping though Taiwan’s recent elections. Most American’s who remember the GMD from the histories should recall that it was the GMD who was forced out of China by the Communist Party in 1949. The appreciable irony is, though, that the GMD’s victory could mean an easing of tensions between the two nations (notice my bias).

The reason for this is because a strong victory for the GMD this year could carry into the 2008 presidential election. Since 2000, the office of president has been occupied by Chen Shui-bian (the circumstances of who’s re-election are quite fascinating) of the Democratic Progressive Party (民進黨, or Min Jin Dang). While in office, Chen has been remarkably vocal in his desire to see an independent Taiwan.

Should the GMD grab the presidency in 2008 and advance its holdings of legislative seats a more cooperative Taiwan may emerge at a time when China’s rising economic power gives a bonus to friendly relations

For months I’ve seen this coffee shop on one of our major thoroughfares, El Camino. A great looking, small coffee shop squeezed into a space so narrow I doubt you could park a car in it. From the outside the place always looked interesting because of its bright yellow paint and sign simply declaring Sufi Dripped Coffee. In an environment where most coffee shops are either Starbucks or Pete’s Coffee, an Indy joint is always interesting.

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Just a post to record a series of minor changes that I made to the layout of my blog.
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