muyaoteng

[muyaoteng]

I ran into this video called “Grammar Nazis”. Basically, it is about a Frenchman, a German, and a Jew arguing about grammar in English. Impressive and funny. I love the parts of the subtitle that says “You see grandma is very important to the Nazi Party". I have actually made all of these mistakes when I started learning English. And I still do! This is going to be the last of this COVID-19 dairy. I am still in this quarantine but at least I have a flight to look forward to. I hope all of you are staying safe and making it safe for others. (Yes I’m addressing you beach boys, get the hell out of there and stay at home). 

[muyaoteng]

This is a song from Cowboy Bebop, which is a Japanese animated television series directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto. The series follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071. It has been strongly influenced by American music, especially the jazz movements of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and the early rock era of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Many of its action sequences, from space battles to hand-to-hand martial arts combat, are set and timed to music. It’s pure American blues jazz, but from Japan.

[muyaoteng]

So I was going through my Youtube recommandation and I found this guy playing Debussy's famous "Clair de Lune" on a instrument called Theremin. It appears that it is a very, interesting if not weird, musical instrument that was invented in the 1920s by a Russian scientist Leon Theremin. You can play it without even touching anything through electromagnetic fields, which is generated by two antennas. (So he basically plays AIR)  On the vertical one you can control the pitch, and the other one for the volume. I guess it is what it sounds like when the ghost haunting your house is a really big romantic. 

[muyaoteng]

This is a piece called Tank!. It is originally written by Yoko Kanno for the iconic show Cowboy Bebop, arranged by Rasmus Faber, and performed by Platina Jazz. They are absolutely brilliant with the great arrangement and performance. This might just be one of the best version in nearly 20 years, really. For a long time I wasn't so pleased to listen to these covers available for my favourite pieces. There was no covers of such level, I monitor all Universe when it comes to Yoko Kanno and Cowboy Bebop. Frankly, no exaggeration. It would be a interesting topic to look at the history of jazz in Japan. 

[muyaoteng]

This trio is also the one that played Ronnie Scott's' club in late sixties. It has Eddie Gomez, Paul Motian, and Bill Evans who later took them to Europe. I hope I was born eariler to have the fortune to sit to sit just a couple feet away from his keyboard. My music theory teacher in high school always saves the best seats cloest to our concert for us musicians waiting for our term, who he knew would sit quietly listening, instead of talking and distracting. Imagine those who had the fortune to listen to Bill Evans and his cold jazz, not knowing that history was being made there right in front of them. 

[muyaoteng]

This is a well known piece composed by Maurice Ravel called Pavane pour une Infante défunte, performed by the Ottawa Guitar Trio. The arrangement was made by François Lacelle. Credits to these three brilliant guitarist in the Ottawa Guitar Trio: François Lacelle, Alexandre Bougie, Nathan Bredeson. This soft and gentle piece suits a peaceful night with clear moonlight. I really miss going out for a walk, hanging out with friends, laying down on grass, playing tennis on a warm but cloudy Saturday afternoon. People don’t often realize how important those daily thing are, just like how we don’t often appreciate the clear moonlight unless in a night of insomnia.

[muyaoteng]

I have been listening to this album for a while. It is some cool concord jazz good for spending time at home during social quarantine. There's nothing particularly unique about the style or songs, but somehow it has this sleepy, cozy, nocturnal feeling more than any other album I can think of. I could fall asleep to this every night. Somehow Youtube recommands a lot of these kinds of albums to me. Reminds me of those times back then in highschool when I went to our prairies on a Saturday morning to play guitar. Beautiful mountains we have in Colorado Springs. 

[muyaoteng]

Another day in social quarantine, I am just bored. So I have been watching almost too many Youtube videos, especially this one in which the guy makes fish, out of fish. Cooking videos and cat videos seem to be the few things that really cheers me up. Above everything, I really hope that I can be at home early as possible and that this COVID-19 outbreak can end soon. I am tired to see politicians talking shit about each other and worry only about their party and their votes. This entire outbreak could have been so much easier to deal with. 

[muyaoteng]

To be honest I am so glad that it is finally Friday because I am seriously running out of things to post. I am still stuck in school, not able to reach my family back home. And I’m tired of homeworks and games and the view around me. I guess it is a good chance to reflex on this practice of raising pets in our houses, especially cats since some people believe that cats should not go outside. I cannot speak to cats but from my experience so far, staying in a place for months may be fine, but if I have to stay at home for years like a cat, I would probably go insane. 

[muyaoteng]

I was going through forums for my game and I saw this guy creating a virus flag using the Chinese national flag. He replaced the five yellow stars on the original flag with the coronavirus. I clicked to see his profile and found out that he himself is Chinese from Hong Kong (OK from my experience this type of people often prefer not to be called Chinese). This hurts my feeling, seeing such horrible people. Apart from the obvious fact that you shouldn’t paint someone’s national flag as virus flag, his unfathomable stupidity shocked me. He assumes that China is lying on its numbers, accuses the government for doing so, and blames China as the origin of the coronavirus. He does all of that statement without ANY evidence to back that up. I feel terribly sorry for his lack of education and intellectual capacity to able to read any of those scientific articles indicating the complex origins of COVID-19. I honestly should not even waste my time respond to or reflect on his opinion, and rather support those around me and those back home, but these opinions are too unfair for those doctors and nurses in China fighting the virus in Wuhan and warned the world two months before any outbreak outside of China. 

[muyaoteng]

So I have been watching a lot od videos talking about how you should tak care of little kittens. There’s a lot that we need to know about the food, the environment that the kitten is going to live in, and the vaccines that it needs to take. I feel busy yet contented. This little boy that is going to be in my home would probably be named Van Gogh in memory of this great artist who hold light and optimism even in the darkest of his life, as his painting expressed. I chose this name because its birthday is only a day before Vincent van Gogh’s. 

[muyaoteng]

I love this version of Sound of Silence. It’s super creative to have this shot in snow.  Imagine being stranded in the middle of the blizzard and hearing that in the distance, I would be like, " Well I guess God's finally here to pick me up. "

Plus, being a guitarist myself, I know how hard it is to play in such cold condition. It must be hard keeping these fingers moving. Talking about that, I really should get back to my routine of guitar practicing. I haven’t been doing so for a while. Maybe that would help me feel better since we are all bored to death. 

[muyaoteng]

So my family have made the decision of introducing a cat to my family last month. It is somthing that I have wanted to do for years. While we are looking at cats, I watched this video of a guy cooking cat food for his cats. I thought it would be really cool if I get to do the same thing. So now I’m studying nutrientions and cat diets. This guy also mentioned that if you let your cat smell the ingredients they would be more interested in what you are doing, since cats often stayed at home without much fun. 

[muyaoteng]

I have a lot of regrets. I regret napping, regret procrastinations, regret wasting time when I really should instead study, regret eating too much lemon bars, regret doing stupid thing on parties. I also regret saying things that I really didn’t mean to, regret not spending time with things that truly precious, regret not making the hard right decision. At this specific moment, I really regret not flying back home when some of my friends decided to do so, regret ever being so far away from home and family, regret the fact that I could have been home to participate my grandfather’s farwell. Now that he’s gone, I can never, ever, retrieve what is lost.

[muyaoteng]

I was trying to play tennis today with my friend since we both just went through a lot of due dates and seriously need to take a break. However as we marched all the way to the tennis courts we found out that the court was closed. The door was tied and had a sign saying that it’s closed due to COVID-19. With that being said I realized that there is really nothing that I can do on campus. Playing tennis used to be the closest thing to my life without COVID-19 and it’s gone. I guess everything has changed. Really hope that we can get back to normal.

[muyaoteng]

I lost my grandfather about 7 hours ago. 

He died of Aortic dissection. 

I will always remember his love. 

Sincerely, R.I.P 

[muyaoteng]

So I’ve been playing the newly released Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord game. It's really classic game that greatly depicts what life and battles would like back in the ages of cold weapons. It does a excellent job creating the physics of this game that is really close the reality. Actually being in a battlefield back then really helped understand important historical components such as why horses are so valuable and why killing more than one enemy in a battle was considered such a honor. These understanding comes in handy when we try to study the history and comprehend the logic behind them.