Jean's Weblog

Read an article in a recent New Yorker magazine on traffic of Moscow:”Stuck“. It reminded me of Beijing. The similarity amazes me. How both countries, after their corresponding rigid communist central planning years, their capital both decided to abandon all concepts of urban planning and embrace “market” when it comes to car and road. Yet, results of the before and after seem to have some similarities too.

We’ve been here before. The cars standing in endless lines on the crowded Moscow streets: they resemble nothing so much as the people who used to wait in endless lines outside the Moscow stores for Polish coats, Czech shoes, and, famously, toilet paper. Now, more comfortably, they wait for the light. They are willing to endure all manner of humiliation to keep driving.

1.
The weekend started off nicely with a gorgeous sunny day in San Fran on Saturday (what a rarity in summer!) when Alice arrived. I finally made it out of the house and visited the Farmer’s Market on Alemany Saturday morning. How wonderful it was to be finally out and about.

Noah happened to born into the most gloomy month of the City – July. We were lucky to be treated to a couple of sunny ones when he was discharged from the hospital. But ever since, we have been mostly sitting in the glooms.

But since autumn just started yesterday, we seem to have entered the real warm month of the city. Hoping to see more sunshine as well. fingers crossed.

2.
Suddenly I’m following three TV series: Mad Men, Rubicon, and Sherlock by BBC.

Mad Men season four has been a huge disappointment to me so far. I think i finally figured out why. There hasn’t been enough advertising cases in the show! There used to be at least one advertising case study in each episode, and turned out that’s one of the major reason drew me to the show.

In the first three episodes of the new season, there has hardly been any advertising case at all! it is all about the melodrama of Don’s life, which i only care as a side show. :-/

Rubicon is a bit slow after the more engaging/thrilling first episode, but I’m giving it some benefit of doubt and hoping it will get more interesting soon.

The New Sherlock from BBC, where Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were placed in today’s London has been spectacular! Episode one especially, episode three was wonderful too. episode two is a bore. I guess the script writer really matters for a TV show, like the director to a movie.

3.
I’ve heard so many great reviews of Inception, the movie, that I came to the theatre with high expectations.

I was disappointed.

It is intricately built. It is clever. But it is soulless. There is nothing human about the story, nothing connects me with the characters. It is a show, in which i have no part of. I feel sympathy for no one in the movie. I couldn’t care less whether any of them made it out of their self-built maze.

Many has compared Inception to the Matrix. I try to remember why i enjoyed the Matrix so much. ZM thinks it is because the Matrix has simplicity, audience could actually enjoy the entertainment. Inception is too exhausting, and at the end, all that mental effort produces very little reward. What’s the point of it all?

Loved this “counter-inception” via Twitter today.

July 15, 2010

It is 1:44am, i’m writing a blog entry in my PJ, wide awake even though i haven’t really slept for more than 3 hours in the past 24. Living on something a little more than adrenaline: we now have a new member in the household!

Tonight was the first night this week any of us has slept at home.

I plan on start a new blog for all Noah related writings so i can keep my current blog(s) still about me.  But setting up a new blog will take a little more time than i could spare at the moment. And a few of you out there has been wondering what has happened.

So here is a quick intro, and hopefully “Jean’s Weblog” will resume its usual random program when life becomes more sane.

It has been a roller coaster week. I had no idea how we had managed to pull through all these so quickly. Luckily we did and things are looking up (at least at the moment, i’m in the optimistic cycle of the mood swing).

Noah has been a model baby. Even nurses in the hospital were telling us how calm and pilot Noah has been. He rarely makes a fuss about anything and the only thing really bothers him has been hunger, even that he protests in a very restrained way.

He has this amazing highly choreographed facial expression plus elaborate hand gesture reflex that totally blew us away.  80% of his time since being born has spent with an IV tube taped to his left hand. So we always thought he only had a single hand gesture routine, which often mimic either a passionate speaker or a symphony maestro. What he couldn’t talk, he made up using his facial muscle and intricate finger language. I often said he had an obama routine where you could imagine an Obama speech was given.

But since last night when his left hand was also freed from the iv, we realized it was really a double hands gesture routine that he was excelling at. definitely a maestro.

Tonight i discovered something else, he can pull a super vivid and accurate marlon brando Godfather routine with his facial expression and his hands and shoulder. And he only does that when he was pooping.  It was hilarious.

Unfortunate Noah has been a complete night owl, to witness any of these performance, you have to be present around 2am.

July 18, 2010
There are so much i wanted to write, only if there is some kind of thoughts->words program so i can dump everything in my mind in words without actual sitting down and typing them out…

Since Thursday night, i’ve been struggling between co-oping with Noah’s feeding schedule and keeping my own sanity by sneaking in as many naps as possible. I’ve realized that if i wait till i have enough time to make a proper introduction and recording all the little things i want to say about Noah since his birth a little over 6 days ago, i would have to wait for a long long time.

so here are some vital stats:

Noah Tian-Yi Zhou (周天翼）
Born on July 12th, 2010, 15:05
Weight: 3.895Kg (8lb, 9.39 oz)
Height: 54.6cm (1′9.5″, i.e 21 and 1/2 “)
APGAR (okay, i know this is too “typical asian parent” to include such stats, but just for the fun of it. I will try not to do it again):
one min: 7
five min: 9

Since Thursday night, he has been doing better at waking up occasionally during the day too. So to give Grandma Aiqi a glimpse of what he looks like when he is happy and awake!

Holding Noah in my hands, i am still awed by this reality, it still feels like a miracle. Surreal.

Went to see “Birth of Impressionism” @ de Young with Gui since she has a membership at the museum and offered to bring me in for free! We were hoping today being a weekday we might be able to see the exhibit without the crowd.

How wrong we were! It was totally “people mountain people sea”!

Luckily the exhibit itself is really good! Both the quantity and quality of paintings are not to disappoint. Quite a lot of them were new to me even though i’ve been to d’Orsay a number of times before. Made us looking forward to the next installment in late September: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay.

Sisley and Cezanne are still my favorite. I also enjoyed quite a few Manet (e.g. The Fife Player), The Magpie by Claude Monet (1868), American expatriate Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black, known to many as “Whistler’s Mother.” The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)…

San Francisco is not so bad after all. Gui and I were content as we walked out into the dismal summer afternoon of SF: cold, windy, and cloudy.

The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)

The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873–1876)

The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)

Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother by James McNeill Whistler(1871)

Was clearing out closets over the weekend, and uncovered a past issue of New Yorker. Before discarding it to the recycle bin, i browsed through the content and read one article: “Heroes and Zeroes”. It is a book review on “Lords of Finance” which is about the world first batch of central bankers from countries like USA, UK, Germany and France.

The book and the review both sound just okay. But one sentence in the reviewer’s 2nd paragraph caught my eye. John Lanchester was trying to illustrate a point of how hard it is for ordinary people to grasp the difference figures in millions, billions and trillions.

A million seconds is less than twelve days; a billion is almost thirty-two years.

I think that’s by far the best illustration i’ve heard on the delta between a million and a billion.

Now that issue of New Yorker can go in the recycle bin.

Tim Howard will be key in the long-awaited World Cup rematch against England next week.Psychologically, goalkeeping is the toughest spot on the field. Howard has Tourette's syndrome, which he feels may help him stay alert and reactive.

After Gui alerted me to the June 7th issue, i read this article about USA soccer team history, their match against England 60 years ago, termed as “Miracle on the Grass”, current team member such as Tim Harward and Landon Donovan. Fascinating read.

One interesting piece of information is about the USA’s jersey. Not sure if i’m the only one puzzled by the USA soccer jersey design this year. It looks odd and even ugly to me. But turned out, this year’s USA uniform, “made by Nike, is styled after the 1950 jersey, with a vintage sash across the front.” So that’s it, “echoes of history”. Hoping for another Miracle on the Grass… If USA could play the way they did during the second half against Slovenia, then a Miracle seems very possible…

Go, USA!

- Read the Abstract of this article: Hampton Sides, The Sporting Scene, “National Defense: Can the United States’ goalkeeper produce another Miracle on Grass?” The New Yorker, June 7, 2010
- Listen to New Yorker Podcast: World Cup Kickoff

- More World Cup Roundup @ The New Yorker.

Here is the backcover of the latest New Yorker magazine! The text at the bottom says:

Three exceptional journeys. One historic game.
Café Maravillas, Madrid.
Follow Pelé, Zidane and Maradona on louisvuittonjourneys.com

Pelé, Maradona and Zidane by Annie Leibovitz for Louis Vuitton

Turned out the photo was by Annie Leibovitz.

Cool!