Loud Things...

I had to escape my apartment today. I was working on a paper for class, when the jackhammer started across the street, again. There are buildings going up both in front and behind mine, and it seems that all too often lately it's just non stop hammering. So I grabbed the computer, came down to a coffee shop downtown where I like to work. Great idea, except for the very loud DJ that is doing some kind of promotion right next to here, popping balloons, yelling into a microphone... This city... some days...

Really though, has been a fantastic couple of weeks. Busy as ever, more so even, but really good. I spent the bulk of last week and the week before working on a project for my Malaysian Government and Politics class. I gave this presentation on Saturday, and for the first time presented in Malay. I did presentations for my language class in Malay, but this is the first time I've done them for my masters program. I stayed up the entire night on Friday finishing it, and my friend helped me edit it at 6am Saturday morning. Put the final touches on it that afternoon and presented it at 3. I think it this case the sleep deprivation was actually a good thing because I was just too tired to be nervous about it. But how strange it felt giving a presentation to my all Malay class in Malay, about their government. Great experience though. For a change, the entire class got involved in the discussion afterwards, and we talked for so long class ran over time. Trust me when I tell you, this never happens.

Some other cool experiences I had over the week. A Chinese friend organized a "Loh Seng" dinner (I hope I wrote that right) for about 22 people earlier in the week. It was a traditional Chinese New Years dinner, seven courses, that started off with a traditional group salad tossing. Yes, I said group salad tossing. We sat around a round table (redundant?) and the server brought out this huge platter with a special chinese salad (including raw fish) all divided up on a huge round platter. We all got our chopsticks and proceeded to toss the salad up in the air. Was like a legal food fight... Tons of fun. And very good. We also were lucky enough to be sitting in the middle of a Chinese wedding. About half of our group were local Chinese, the other half a mish mash of people from all over. The wedding was fun to watch. My friend Raj sitting two chairs down provided incredibly crude and hilarious commentary throughout... Anyway, all and all a very cool new experience.

I was also lucky enough to be invited to see the Malaysian Symphony Orchestra on Saturday after my class finished. This too was a new experience. The orchestra is a semi-formal affair, so women wear nice dresses and men, suits... or batik. One of Malaysia's traditional arts is batik. It can be seen everywhere and is accorded the highest esteem. To the point that for men and women batik clothing is considered a type of formal wear. They are bright, multicolored shirts, that can best be described as looking something like Hawaiian shirts. But they are handmade and have very ornate design. Regardless, I thought it was a cool thing to see at a formal event because the audience was so colorful... (though it is still so much like seeing people in Hawaiian shirts that it did seem a little odd) The Orchestra Hall itself is a beautiful design that could best be described as Sarawakian Longhouse meets chandliered theater. It's all wood inside, mostly bamboo I think, with tiered boxes all along the top level. It is located inside of the Petronas Towers/KLCC complex. The Symphony was beautiful, but there was that one issue for me, I hadn't slept in 40 some hours. Add to that a nice dinner and bottle of wine beforehand... three guesses how long I lasted before I started dozing off... I felt very bad, but my host was gracious and understanding. ... And amused every time I would jump when I was startled awake again. Truly though it wasn't that bad, I stayed awake for most of it... and it was really beautiful.