seantime

Program 1 (Wed, 1/28) was nice but unexciting. I don’t think Prism is Tomasson’s best (but certainly not his worst either), and neither is Diving into the Lilacs the best from Possokhov. Balanchine’s Four Temperaments was danced well, but seemed to lack that special something. It took me a while to recognize Elana Altman as Choleric (maybe I should get binoculars or something). I really like her stage presence.

Maria Kochetkova, one of the newer principal dancers (and apparently the darling among the ballerinas) is quite sprightly, and was the big surprise for me in Diving into the Lilacs. She also seems to be very much on the internet, with a blog, facebook, etc. Now that Molly Smolen is gone, I think I will be keeping my eye out for Kochetkova.

http://www.mariakochetkova.com/

I’m pretty excited about Program 2, mainly because of William Forsythe’s in the middle, somewhat elevated, which is supposed to be a modern ballet tour de force. The other two pieces, which are repeats from the New Works Festival last year,  I don’t care too much about.

An old “Curtesy”:

Why The Fifth Element is such an awesome movie:

http://www.doubleviking.com/real-men-love-the-fifth-element-6198-p.html

• SF Ballet season starts this week. I’m a little excited, but also trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to get to SF on time each night. Also, I need to figure out what night to go to.
• So some people in my stats class study group busted out Fubini’s Theorem, which evidently is a real theorem. I thought they were joking around, like, you know, DeDerp’s theorem or something. It’s actually a pretty cool result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubini%27s_theorem
• Rainy days are kind of miserable.
• No one wants to hire a statistician for a summer internship. This is depressing and also very confusing. I’m pretty sure what I’m learning is very useful, yet all companies seem to want are programmers.
• I need some other extracurricular activity besides TKD. I really have no idea what else to do, though. Sitting alone in the apartment all weekend is kind of depressing, but I guess that’s life.

• I don’t think Taylor Swift uses “scarlet letter” correctly in her song “Love Story.” I mean, is it adultery if neither parties are married? I don’t think it is. And if Romeo in her song is married, then that just makes the entire thing kind of creepy.
• I feel like I’m stuck in a pit of indecision and sadness. Time has become much more tangible since I’ve started TAing, and it does not feel that great.
• To my dismay, not much news on the Marit Larsen front.
• I think I’m going to not do too well in a lot of classes this quarter.
• I am eagerly awaiting a thermos tea tumbler that I ordered. I’m hoping it will keep me awake during late afternoon classes.

Courtesy of Curt

The most viewed video of all time on youtube is:

Avril Lavigne – “Girlfriend”

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F16%2F1619254&from=rss

Keanu Reeves as Spike Spiegel? Really? Really?

This sounds like a disaster in the making. Yet would I watch a live action Cowboy Bebop? Probably.

• First sections as a TA for me start tomorrow. I’m a little scared. I also hope my sectionees aren’t stalking me already.
• Pretty tired of classes already. Too bad I can’t even get an internship anywhere.  All I really want to do is watch Gossip Girl, which is kind of a terrible show but I can’t stop watching it.
• Evidently it slipped my attention that Chrono Trigger was made for the DS. That should be exciting.
• Tina LeBlanc is retiring this season. She’s 42?!?
  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/09/PK7L1524FT.DTL&hw=tina+leblanc&sn=001&sc=1000
• SF Ballet season is starting soon, which will alleviate some of this boredom of mine.
• My fantasy basketball team has somewhat stabilized into mediocrity, which is fine by me if I can make it to the playoffs.
• I’ve been trying to work on the Netflix prize, but I just can’t seem to get enough motivation to make any progress. And now that schoolwork is ramping up again, I think this may be a doomed failure.

Haven’t read the comic in years, so I started catching up. This is gweat.

Things that would make my year:

• If I met Marit Larsen.
• If Taylor Swift sang “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.
• If Stanford women’s volleyball doesn’t lose to Penn State in the finals again this year.
• If the world were less shitty than last year.
• If a black guy were elected president of the US in my lifetime.

New years resolutions:

• To go to Norway.
• To get a girlfriend (a perennial favorite!).
• To task myself to be a better man than I was the year before.
• To figure out what the hell these bugs are that seem to appear out of nowhere and end up in my closet and floor.