haomajun

I just thought of the best signature ever for my emails. Are you ready for this?

-C_C-

It's my name, in a smiley. The babes are going to be all over me.

 True to my word, I'm typing something about my life. It should really be something that's not school, either. School's going good. I think it is a little over the top with the classes, but I'm happy with the broadening they're forcing me to do. I feel I ultimately learn much more from groups than I do as a solitary scholar, although I will admit I get most of my best work done and my most original ideas when going at it alone. What I learn from groups I tend to recall thus, "I don't know if this is true or not, but I remember hearing from someone that..."

But life is good. Andrea and I went down to Home Depot and got lumber to raise our bed off the ground, and suddenly, there was storage. I feel like the whole apartment breathed a sigh of relief. Bringing in a bit of order always makes me feel good, even if it's just doing the dishes or putting away some boxes. I feel determined not to let my life become all about school, but it's an uphill battle these days.

I always manage to relieve at least one piece of my nostalgia at any one point, usually in isolated chunks. Sometimes I just drop everything and play a video game all night. Over winter break I played as many Mega Man games as I could before I fell asleep in front of the screen. Sometimes I'll actually get a new song done. Right now I'm reading Piers Anthony again. Phew. Easy to laugh at now, but there's no dissing teenager fantasy novels just for being cheesy.

 Well, after much humming and hawing, I think I have my class schedule worked out. I'm basically sticking with the insanity I posted before—Language in the morning, library work in the middle, studies at night. French and Italian back to back, Persian and Arabic on the off-days. Afternoons, Canterbury Tales, followed by Italian Humanism. Friday, I TA and lead the Arabic Circle.

The way this will work, I tell myself, is that I'm only Really taking 3 of these courses. Italian is an audit, the prof who teaches Chaucer literally said he doesn't give a shit whether I'm registered or not, and French is there, but is not particularly high-impact. If it is I can drop it. Humanism will be interesting and engage my butt into writing my Masters Thesis, so that's a good thing anyway, Arabic is my strong suit, and Persian literature looks like it will be rather light—just read read read and come to class having read. I'm good at reading. Ultimately, most of these classes look like they'll be good classes that won't take a lot out of me outside class time.

I hope.

I always find myself torn between taking all the courses I want to take and remembering that taking them all will do me in. On top of that, I have Arabic Circle, my Persian class, MEME, my Master’s thesis to write, my library job, and Arabic tutoring—not to mention that I keep whining that I don’t have enough time to play fiddle music anymore. And what about that rock band I keep meaning to form?

I’m looking at 5 courses, although the recommended load for a Chicago quarter is 3. However, a good chunk of them are language classes, which are hard work, but significantly, they don’t demand huge research papers at the end of the term—they represent more a steady process of chipping away, 1 hour per day. That’s the sort of studying that I enjoy and I’m good at managing. If I were to do these classes, they would be

• Italian, MWF 9-10 (possibly just an audit)

• French, MWF 10-11

• Arabic grammar, TR 9-11

• Persian (TAing), just once per week on Fridays

• Modern Persian poetry (no long research paper, we hope, just lots of beautiful poetry)

Obviously this alone is five classes, but TAing Persian doesn’t count like a class, per se, although it’s a lot of work, and it’s been agreed that I can audit the Italian, although I’d still be doing the work. So we’re down to three, leaving theoretically zero remaining choices, but I’ll list off the other courses anyway:

• Dante

• Italian Renaissance Humanism

• The Canterbury Tales

Now, I really ought to take an Italian lit class, ideally one close to what I want to do for my Master’s—If I pull it off, I can hopefully make the paper I write for it the second component of my overall thesis. And honestly, after years with Nezami, Dante, Boccaccio, Ibn Sina, Ibn Hazm, and Kay Kavus, how can I not take a class on the Canterbury Tales? I mean, come on. Srsly.

So… five courses? Am I being sane?

cross-posted from K Salib

Hello! I've decided to put an end to my year-long vacation from blogging. I don't know why, but ever since coming back from Egypt last year, I really felt the need to withdraw, and even though I continued to post for a few months, it was mostly despite myself. It was a pretty cool year, too, so it's a little bit odd that I didn't feel compelled to share. Maybe I just needed a break. Fortunately, one can always rely on the simple yet elegant bullet-point to recap the State of the Cam:

Apartment: Looking fabulous! Next door to the Obamas for another year. (Pictures to follow)

Arabic: The Nadwa went well enough, no disasters. Really enjoyed working with Farouk this year. We read some Naguib Mahfouz (who y'all MUST read, everything he's done has been translated), and I translated بيت من لحم by Yusuf Idris.

Egypt: Went back for 5 weeks to do some research on contemporary Egyptian literature. Also had a good time, met lots of good contacts, and it was good for my Arabic.

Italian: I really got back into it. I took a course on Italian cinema and the literature of Italo Svevo.

Kurabiye: She's no longer a cute kitten; rather a mean cat. C'est la vie.

Music: Snail-like progress. I really, really need a quiet space to practice and record in. I have been learning the setar, though, which is a blast. And hard.

Persian: Wrote a paper about LOVE and its political implications within the philosophy and court poetry of 13th century Iran. Presented said paper at MEHAT, and I hope to turn it into my Master's Thesis once I bring in some more sources. Also translated two stories by Bozorg Alavi, hopefully for publication.

Rea: Engaged! (as of July)

Work: Stumbled into an amazing job at the library, working in Arabic language acquisitions. What a cool field. Maybe I should be a librarian... So, you know, good stuff. In any case, I'm going to start writing again, although I doubt I'll follow the day-to-day grind unless I have something I really want to share.

We got a cat!



Last weekend, Esra and Baris had a cat follow them home. She was a little girl kitten who clearly had had an owner, since she was already litterbox trained and wore a collar. But after a week of posting ads outside, at the vet's, and online, there was no response from the owner. They couldn't keep the cat themselves, but they had gotten attached to her and didn't want her to go far, so they asked if we could keep her. It worked out really well -- Andrea had wanted to get a kitty, and now here was one practically falling in our lap. She's a really sweet, playful kitty. Her name is Kurabiye (Turkish for cookie) and except for some destructive episodes, she's been a total pleasure to have.

Andrea's job hunt began in earnest this week. She applied to a school down in Lake Shore -- it looks good but very intense. She has the job offered but she hasn't yet decided to take it.

I reconnected with my university life. I saw my Persian prof., had tea with Ustaz Farouq, and began regular lessons with Ustaz Mustafa. I've spent a lot of time deliberating what courses to take and where to focus my efforts first, considering all the languages I need to be competent in.

We also spent some time with Ariel. We had dinner together, then the next day went thrift-store shopping up on the north side. After getting a desk, some lamps, and some other useful things, our apt. is finally starting to feel comfortable.

After a rough start, in which emotions were raw and tempers short, things started to settle down. We got our phones and internet working and were about to get our gas turned on. We had met our neighbors and I got in touch with my professors. Ramadan began and I started taking Arabic lessons with Ustaz Mustafa.

We also got some furniture. We went down to a local thrift store which holds lots of cheap stuff and found two chairs, a couch, and a bookcase. They agreed to deliver on the next day, but when they showed up, Andrea saw that the stairway was blocked by someone who had just varnished their table and had left it out to dry. She gingerly moved it to the bottom of the stairs so that we'd have room to take up our couch and other stuff. I wrote a note to put on the person's door, but when I went down, the table was already gone. I assumed the person had come out and taken his/her table. I left the note anyway to explain what had happened.

That night we were busy scraping the paint off my built-in bookcase and began to paint the one we got from the thrift store.

The next day I got a call on my intercom. It was the neighbor below us.

"Hello, is this Kamran?"
"Yes..."
"Yeah, I had that table that you moved..."
"Yeah..?"
"It's GONE."

After talking, Andrea suggested we go back to the thrift store -- that was the only place she could think it might have gone. I was unhappy with the idea, but after some sighs, I drove us down. Sure enough, there it was. The movers had taken the table out with them on their way out. We returned the table and in return got invited to watch some jazz with our neighbors up at a free concert in Millennium Park on the weekend.

Our social life started to get better at that point. We saw some jazz, visited Esra and Baris over the weekend, and on Sunday went up to the TACA (turkish american cultural assoc.) party up in the north side. While we were there, we drove over to the Arab neighborhood on Kedzie and picked up some good supplies. Suddenly we were equipped to smoke shisha, bake bread, and cook a mean dinner.

Sat, August 23rd

Arrived in Chicago. Same old drill -- unload the car, heave all the boxes up, look around with no idea where anything could or should go. I was pretty unhappy for this part. Nothing was in its place, and I didn't even have a place to put it in. We had no phone, no internet, no gas, so we were living off of microwaved eggs and fruit salad. Every day we got a few more things put up, got a little closer to feeling like we lived here. Even though the weather was great, I didn't go out much.

Today I left Colorado. The final pack took longer than it should of, mostly because of me. I hadn't packed up a lot of my stuff yet, and I was really sluggish in getting it all put together this morning. I was honestly really sad to be leaving, and as we pulled out and I looked out at the mountains heading down for the last time, I suddenly started sobbing. I'm really attached to my home, and it was so wonderful to be back here, even if it was only temporary. Now I'm back on my own, just me and Rea.

I spent the day at Chris' house for my fiddle camp. It was really good. I feel like I have tons of stuff to work on, between the sheet music, recorded tunes, and things that Chris had me look at. It's mostly just the trick of finding time and a place to practice.

I was there till super late. When I got back, Andrea had already packed the car and was in bed. Wow. We're leaving tomorrow.

Today I was supposed to have a lesson with Chris but she had to move it back due to family stuff. So, we scooted our whole schedule back -- Instead of this weekend, we'd leave on Wednesday after my lesson.

Which was probably a good thing, since Andrea's computer decided to crash. Specifically, her hard drive decided to fail. Fortunately, Dad had just had his hard drive fail and had bought some good data recovery software, so we have the resources to recover her data over the weekend.

This morning Erik, Rea, and I headed up to Dave/Lauren's place. It was a good day, with frisbee, movies, chatting, etc. I also drove over to Boulder and spent a few hours with Dee, who I hadn't seen in 2-3 years? It was really nice. I think we still click the way we always have.

...

Very thoughtful these days. It's like watching my life go by, different stages and friendships and ages flitting in front of my eyes. None of it was really attached to me any more the way it had been... I dunno. I couldn't explain how I felt coming back home and now I can't explain how I feel leaving it.

I had my last jam session of the summer with John and Christine. It was really sad to see the period end, but even if I wasn't going to Chicago, this is it; christine's moving up to fort collins this weekend and John's leaving for a contest in New Mexico. We played in Christine's backyard until it got dark, then I hugged everyone goodbye. Rea and I drove over to Erik's so that we could all see Lauren and dave tomorrow. I was feeling pretty despondent.

I had an intense couple of days. I had to get all of our sheet music organized, and on top of it John gave me all of his old fiddle LPs to digitize on mom's new turntable. Records, as it turned out, took much longer than I had anticipated. I was in my studio with a royal mess of papers and vinyl spread out all over the place. Nobody saw much of me.

this is a week that was all about music, as well as being bookended on either side by fiddle contests. On August 3rd I went down to Kiowa with John, which was the first contest I think I had either won or did really well in and began my good streak as a contest fiddler for the next 5-6 years, back when I was 16. I happened to win my division again, but the feel was completely different. It was just me and Syd and John competing in our division -- the old group dynamic had fizzled away. Eischen beat me out in the final round, so I ended up with a 2nd overall place -- which I don't really care about, by then it was 4:00 and we were exhausted and just wanted to go home.

Over the week, I set up a home studio in Dad's office. I knew this was the last chance I'd get to record in a private and quiet location -- all that would disappear when I got to chicago. With a tremendous amount of time and work (and it didn't feel all that much, but I really did spend most of the week in that room) I got a number of demos completed. A lot of them feature fiddle, cello, guitar, and other acoustic performances that I hope to preserve and use in the final takes. Electronic stuff can be recorded anywhere; acoustic's much harder.

Then, on August 9th, I had my last fiddle contest of the summer. It was out in Strasburg, a nice little town in Eastern Colorado. It was a new contest, but it generated a huge crowd. It's amazing to me how much traditional American folk music still appeals to these communities, both old and young. I got to see Ricky and Ahrun, who I hadn't seen in years. John and I grabbed some Mexican food with the Carters and then headed over to Chris' house, where I believe we stayed up most of the night playing music and talking.

Well, time has gone by quick. I've mostly been busy with music, although I had some neat things (such as turning 26) happen along the way that I'll blog about eventually. In the meantime, I want to get to the cool stuff:

NEW MUSIC

by ME

http://haoma.neonphog.com/music/bwren/demos.html

You can find demos of 12 new songs ready to be listened to and critiqued. I'm hoping to move this project into a full album ready to give to friends within the next month or so. To that end I'll try to get the remaining 6-8 songs I'm working on ready for listening by the end of next week. In the meanwhile, ANYone who is interested in eccentric, violin-based rock is welcome to listen to these tunes and send me feedback, from how the songs are played to their organization to their lyrics to their titles. It's all very useful for me. Enjoy!

Dad's leaving tomorrow for Ecuador, so we decided to celebrate my birthday a day early this year. I'm about to turn 26. Wow. I've been journaling in one form or another for ten years now. It's kind of funny thinking that I've generated so much text and yet so little of it is really much beyond what goes on in my life. I'd really like to start an art blog or an essay blog or a news blog or something that does more than simply record my existence. Well, here's some photos of what we did.



Considering that I love Colorado and actually sort of realize how lucky I am to be here for a summer, all I wanted was to go driving up in the mountains somewhere and have lunch with my family. We decided to go up Guanetella Pass and cross over into Georgetown, a delightful little down about an hour away from me.



We had some massive ice cream cones and did a little shopping. In the rare section of the local book store, I found a really funny book -- a travelogue of Egypt written by an English tourist in 1898. It's a really interesting read; the author is definitely informed by the whole "white man bringing civilization to the benighted Africans" outlook, yet he's remarkably perceptive in acknowledging that under British rule Egyptians really had no rights, money, property, or power. Yet it's totally okay, in fact, good. What's impressive is that what he describes from a hundred years ago is more or less how the country looks now, from a class and economic standpoint.

Rea and I got to spend some time with Kevin yesterday and today. I had to be in the area anyway to get my fiddle fixed up and so it was great that we could hang out with him. I have to say, I really enjoyed getting back in touch with him. His family had a reunion that same day we were over, so I got to see him mom performing in a barbershop-style quartet:



We're interested in collaborating musically again. Now I just need to finish up recording my demos so he can hear what I'm up to.

Rea and I went on a beautiful hike with Erik. There were raspberries.

Fun summer activities:

a walk around my hometown of evergreen! (jul 19)



a trip up to boulder, where we saw the artists' festival, I bought lots of frisbees and aerobies, and then we lost one of them in the creek. The next day dave introduced us to Heroes and helped me install Linux on my pc. (jul 20)

judging a fiddle contest in canon city (jul 26)