Kending Trip No. 4
It's been over two months since I updated, but May and June were spent in the library or in front of my computer contemplating and typing up finals. I also did a presentation on tourist spots and East Coast cities in the USA for a lunch lecture thing sponsored by the school International Office, and will be doing one next semester on American music and something else about America. They're painless to do, I get to talk about places and things in english, so life's good.
I've written four flute solos since the semester ended, and all I need to do with them is add dynamic and stylistic markings, but those can be added with little effort as the markings will follow the line of the music. One piece has a Baroque feel to it, another Classical, the third Romantic Jazz quality (a la Jim Brickman), and the last was inspired by works of Danny Elfman, notably the main theme from Corpse Bride. I have a flute and viola piece in the works, but the instrument could change to flute/piano or viola/piano. It's a duet work, so we'll see what happens... I'm playing around with the timbre of it and that at the moment. Ok, time to talk about Kending
I went to Kending last week for three days with friends of mine from El Salvardor and Germany, and the six of us had a bit too much fun. It's so hard living in Taiwan studying or working and having three days to do nothing but spend them on beaches and enjoy the sunshine. When we weren't on the beaches, we were around Kending Town, go-karting, or chilling at one of the cafes without a care in the world. We did some boogieboarding and rode around the waves, mixed in some beach volleyball and soccer, and all got a little sunburned. All in all, it was a good time, and Flora, Merce, and myself went a little camera happy... we have 300 pics between the three of us over the course of three days. Ah, good times, good times.
Swing dancing's still going on and I'm at one of three locations three nights a week with classes of all different levels, from low-level beginner to advanced stuff. I can follow better than I can lead, maybe b/c I prefer to floow than lead b/c the follower gets to look all pretty on sendouts and swingouts and all that. We're doing aerials and various jumps in opne of the classes, and it's pretty easy to pick it all up! Anyone wanna come over and dance with me?
I'm working on my thesis and want to have a nice chunk of it written and edited before I head to Vietnam for three weeks towards the end of the month. I'll be working on my thesis in some of my free time while I'm in Hanoi. I'll be learning basic vietnamese and more about hte culture. I'll explore around Hanoi on weekends, and work on te thesis in the evening hours after spending time studying vietnamese. Studying and travelling at the same time's not too bad, and it's pretty cool in ways. Hopefully I'll be in Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore for winter break this year, but we'll see how this goes... trip might turn into Malaysia/Singapore, but we'll see. I have to look into info for going and all, and while I've done some looking, I'd like to do a bit more.
I've been lookng at underwater digital cameras more, and have my eye on the Olympus 850. I looked at the cost of getting underwater camera cases, and they're bulky, a pain, and when I look at the price and all, it's worth it to get an underwater digital. I did some pricing today, and will prolly make a decision by the end of the week. I want to go snorkelling, hence the underwater digital. Disposable underwater cameras take ok pics, but I figure the underwater digital is worth it. My old digital was an olympus, and it worked pretty well! My bro Rich has it now I think... left it in Buffalo when I was home for winter break in '07 and he and Kiki have been using it, but Kiki's get her own digital now. Maybe Rob's using it... no idea, but it's being used by one of the siblings prolly. It was only 1.4mpx, but it still took nice pics! Hey, I bought the camera 8 years ago, hence the low mpx and zoom. I've got a Nikon w/8.0 mpx and up to 10.0x digital zoom that I bought in February 2007. I like it and it's gotten lots of love around Taiwan.
Ok, that's about it here... time to study some italian or contemplate the thesis a bit and possibly thai food for dinner. Hope you all are enjoying the summer! Peace.