Let me tell you a story about two pens

Once upon a time (because no story is complete without a once upon a time), I had a pen called Pilot G1 precision 0.5 and I wrote with it all the time.

I wrote my exam answers with it, I wrote quotes from my favourite books and movies, I wrote daily tasks and activities on my organizer.

I could not, for the life of me, imagine myself without my G1.

And then I came to Columbia, Missouri, with only one G1 pen and no spares (one has to question the sanity of one who, instead of bringing a spare G1, had brought packets of instant soup that landed her in hot soup at the US Customs only to let the said instant soup languish at a corner of her bookshelf). And I lost my only G1 pen.

I thought, nevermind, I'm sure Brady Commons Bookstore would have it.

But I couldn't find any G1 in the bookstore. And I needed to write because I couldn't possibly go to class and sit there doing nothing and, when asked by the teacher why I am sitting there doing nothing, say that I absolutely refuse to write without my G1.

So I tried a Pilot G2 precision 0.7 but the tip was not precise enough. I tried my room-mate's Uniball pen but the ink was not pure black. I didn't even bother to try roller-ball pens because I knew it'd only make me want to roll around on the floor and scream for a G1 to drop from heavens.

Finally I picked a retractable Pilot V7 precision RT and told myself I'd just have to live with it. For the time being anyway. So I started writing with it, and at first I kept comparing it with G1. I'd think, V7's ink is too thick! My G1 would never have produced this sort of ink! Ooh, what wouldn't I give to have my G1 back!

I can't find a more decent picture of a black V7

But a few days went by and I thought, hey...maybe it's not that bad. I kind of like the way V7 scratches the paper and emits the krrk krrk sound. And I like how I can retract the V7, as opposed to having to bite the cap of G1 when I'm not writing on a table. And after two weeks now I'm doing fine with my V7. In fact, now I can't even decide if I'd want to write with a G1 again if given the chance.

I guess that sometimes we have to stop thinking that there'll be a bookstore somewhere around us that sells our favourite pen. Once that happens we'll realize that either we find another pen or we don't write at all. So we are forced to use a different pen that we think is so much worse than our favourite pen and at first we keep comparing the two pens and feel really sore about it. But sooner or later we'll be able to live with our new pen and more importantly we get to write things that we need to write with it.

I hope you like your pen just fine.

Miss Wonder Librarian pisses me off

I woke up this morning and saw rays of sunlight entering the room through the slits of the window blinds. And I thought, ah, it's a brand new sunny day!

And then suddenly I remembered that the deadline for my History research proposal was at 2 in the afternoon and I had only finished about 20% of the entire proposal. And I thought, darn, it's a brand new shitty day.

So I skipped my Political Science discussion and chionged to Ellis Library. But lo and behold! There sitting on her throne was the Librarian from Hell.

She looks something like this. Only about 30 years younger.

Okay, fine, I was holding a lidded cup of coffee and was not allowed to bring it to the Reference section. But Miss Wonder Librarian was so rude and patronizing even though she's about my age. And that hybrid of a girl/grandma was the same librarian who had asked me last week to come back to the library and lift my bag above the sensor line on the alarm detectors just because I was holding my bag like a suitcase and apparently it had not crossed the Sacred Sensor Line.

Normally I can't be bothered by such people because my theory is that people who are so anal about such things are likely to have a major inadequacy in their lives. If it's a guy most likely he's impotent. If it's a girl it might be premature menopause. But when some hotshot librarian tries to make my life difficult a few precious hours before my deadline, I really can't help but wish that a heap of Campbell Biology textbooks would just drop on her head (that book can really kill people).

Fortunately I was able to finish my proposal 10 minutes before the deadline, largely thanks to the wonderful woman (I'm not being sarcastic here) at the Reference Desk who helped me to find all the sources I needed.

Just a thought:

I hate the smell of reference libraries, and oddly all the reference libraries around the world smell the same (Okay, actually I've only been to Lee Kong Chian Reference Library in Bugis, Singapore and the Ellis Library here). The smell brings back bad memories. Plus it's like one of those hooky pollen grains that cling to the back of insects during insect pollination - I couldn't shake the smell off my jacket and a few hours after I've come home I still feel like I'm a walking Ellis Reference Library.

We are so much and so little

As I read my Singaporean friends' blogs, I was reminded of how life is like there: assignments, tests, quizzes, projects, 1001 academic nitty gritties that never seem to end (much worse than here). It's like being a hamster in a ball, always running, running and running.

Who doesn't like getting good grades? More than anything, it's a validation of your hard work, proof that you're on the right track, a pat on the back after a long hard slog.

But I guess that we're all multi-dimensional creatures. Grades are only reflective of one dimension. I can't tell if a person is funny or moronic or witty just from his As, Bs and Cs. I can't tell what kind of music he likes, what kind of food he likes, what kind of movies he likes. What makes him laugh, what makes him cry, what makes him who he is.

Yeah, I am an idealist. Too much and too little sometimes.

My very first progress report

I guess it's time to update about my academics here. Just to let you know that it's not just been all play and no work.

J2000: Cross-cultural Journalism

We have quizzes every week and we need to post our comments on selected articles on the discussion boards every 3 weeks or so. Yi Wen and I just had our first exam which carries quite a lot of weightage. On top of that we have a major project that we have to submit by the end of the semester. My group is doing a two-part story on diabetes in the African American community.

Actually there's a girl in my group who has all the makings of a Megalowoman (Yi Wen said she and Megaloman might even be a couple), but thankfully the whole group agreed to split ourselves to do the two-part story. Which makes sense, doesn't it? If there's anything I've learned so far, it's that when there's someone who is as stubborn as you are, and who most of the time disagrees with you, it's better to just agree on an over-arching plan for the project and do separate stuff. That way you both just have to agree on one major thing, rather than having to agree on every single thing along the way, which is of course a recipe for disaster. Don't think the group will enjoy seeing a fireworks display every week.

So far there hasn't been any fireworks yet, thank God. But yeah, I do realize that, for all I know, someone else might label me as a Megalowoman too. Mirror image, as political theorists would say.

J4658: International Journalism

Every week we have to write a beat memo on our choice article in any newspaper. But of course along the way we kind of know the newspapers that Loory favours, so most of the time I do a comparison between The New York Times and The Guardian on a selected coverage. So far I've written about Afghanistan, the Iraq War, Putin and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

We also have to write a final beat memo, which is a portrait of the press culture of a country we'd want to work in. I like Germany so I'm doing a portrait on that. But then again a lot of things might or might not happen, so I'm keeping my options open. Que sera sera. And 25% of the final grade is based on participation.

POL1400: International Relations (Political Science)

I love this course because there are no projects, no discussion boards, no weekly quizzes. Basically no yayapapaya stuff. There are only 2 lectures and one discussion session every week. Our final grade is spread over 4 exams, so screwing up one exam doesn't spell instant death. But the exam really covers everything: lectures, readings and the textbook, so skipping lectures is kind of an academic suicide. And I can't remember the percentage for participation. 15% I think.

HIST4004: History of Europe and Decolonization

We have a final exam which is the be-all-and-end-all exam. Screw it up and you're literally history. We also have to do a research essay on a selected topic. I haven't come up with a research proposal yet, but I think I'm going to do something on the Malayan independence. After all it did form a large part of the history of Singapore and Malaysia, and I guess it really doesn't make sense for me to know more about European history than my own region's history. I think the percentage for participation is also 15%.

So far I've been getting As for all my stuff, so hopefully it'll remain that way.

Shopping at the Ozark

On Sunday Anni's English class was going to the Lake of the Ozark to see a cave and a castle. Each student was allowed to bring a friend, so Anni asked me along. But the really suay thing was that it was snowing heavily last night and the ice had blocked the road to the cave and the castle so we couldn't go there. In the end we went to this shopping area near the lake where nearly all the shops were having a clearance sale, with 70 per cent discount upwards.

I bought two sweaters, two pairs of cargo pants, a pair of slack pants and a thicker beanie (FINALLY) for about 35 bucks. I think I saved about 100 bucks there. So yeah, there's a silver lining on every cloud.

I defied all expectations by buying a chick-lit. And not just any chick-lit, it's P.S. I Love You (yes, the movie adaptation starring Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler is out). When I showed it to Yi Wen she "rolled eyes dramatically". She and her Beowulf and Norton Anthology of Literature and Kazuo Ishiguro. But the funny thing is that she hates Shakespeare so I enjoy torturing her somtimes by reciting some Shakespeare stuff to her.

Anyway, I read 120 pages of P.S. I Love You while waiting for everyone else to finish shopping, and right now I'm still on page 120. Will have to get around to finishing the book soon. It's not that bad, it's actually quite funny. But it's still a chick-lit so it just doesn't stay with you for very long.

My monkey slack pants. Bought it for 6 bucks.

If you can't see it clearly, it's a monkey dancing inside a snowball. Gah, even the close-up picture is bad. Fujifilm camera's resolution belongs to the Stone Age.

Umbrellas and drums make for good company

Girls' night out at the Memorial Union

People decorating umbrellas, lanterns, fans and drums

I'm proud of this thing, okay

This Chinese girl made an amazing calligraphy of my Chinese name: Rao Yan Hui

Me shamelessly posing with Rachel's umbrella

Yi Wen said the umbrella is so Rachel and the drum is so me. Don't want to know what that means.

Me, Saori (Japan), Ivan the Serbian Husky, Aurelia (France), Anni (Finland)

And oh, pictures courtesy of Yi Wen, Aurelia and Anni.

Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?

Introducing Laws' Iron Chef!

Noodle cooked al dente and served in triple-boiled chicken broth

Another satisfied customer!

Okay, okay, before someone reads this and reports to the Real Laws' Iron Chef (Yuko-san), I was just kidding. I can't cook to save anyone. And by the way, Tiger Thyme won Mizzou's Iron Chef!

And in case I don't see you: good afternoon, good evening and good night!

"You can't be ordinary if you tried."

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind."

"Stupid is as stupid does."

"Are you dying?"

"Lightbulbs die, my dear. I'm departing."

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

"Paris, I love you."

"I hereby declare this planet...Trumania."

"Baby, you're gonna miss that plane."
"I know."

Ideas are nothing without clear expression

I realized that I have a decreasing tolerance for academics who seek to confuse, rather than enlighten, with their fancy jargon and round-about arguments that would put a Nascar rally car to shame.

Case in point: Primitive Partisans: French Strategy and the Construction of a Montagnard Ethnic Identity in Indochina by Oscar Salemink for my Europe and Decolonization class.

Each paragraph is about half a page long. It took me about four pages before I knew the reason of existence of the readings. Salemink happily sprinkled the readings with alien terms and untranslated French words (he thinks we students are all Grandeur incarnates).

The one good thing about journalistic training is that it teaches people to write and be understood. You can have the most brilliant ideas, but if you can't make people understand them, then what's the point? It's like having an alexandrite of a thought and keeping it in a maximum-security vault made of jargon and incomprehensible language.

Hence the title of this post.

Iron Chef

My Cross-cultural Journ test today was all right, I guess. After that I went to watch Iron Chef, this cooking competition held at Brady Commons.

The theme was Oranges. All sorts of oranges.

Team Carribean Jerks (I love their name). One of the team members turned out to be my History classmate. My classmates seem to be popping up at all the weirdest places.

"Hooo...look at those, like, buns of steel!"

"Yeah, man. I don't care who wins this competition, man. Those two guys are MY Iron Chefs, youknowwhatImean?"

Disclaimer: I made it up.

Team Le Cordon Zou

Team Yum Yum. With a name like that, the food has better not be Yucks Yucks.

Team Tiger Thyme

Team Fantastic Four. Actually I think it should be Team 1 + 3 because the guy in white is the defending champion.

The final touches

I tried a bit of the pasta and it's pretty good. It has a tinge of orange taste.

Sushi wrapped with I don't know what.

The yellow thing is sherbet.

Risotto with beef, I think

I don't know who won though because I left before the final judging. There were 3 teams that were still cooking when I left. I mean, it's from 4:30 to 7 pm.

I brake for Halley's Comet

Miriam (Germany) with her beauty queen smile

I had dinner with Miriam at Noodle Company. She has a sarcastic sense of humour, which may be the reason why we hit it off so well. We were talking about F1 (her last name is Schumacher so I always tease her about it) and she said she bet that the American guys at the restaurant can't name any F1 driver to save their lives. So I dared her to ask the guys sitting around us. Only 1 out of 4 guys we asked knows, and even that one person doesn't know that Michael Schumacher had retired. I lost the bet.

Then I went to the observatory to see the lunar eclipse with Janos (Hungary) and Jan (Germany). Actually I had a Cross-cultural Journ test the next day but I thought, sod it, the next lunar eclipse here will be in December 2010 whereas I can have tests almost ANYTIME.

Janos

Jan. He was closing his eyes because he said the flash was "very disturbing".

The big-ass telescope

I saw Saturn, which to the naked eye looks like a star below the moon. Through the telescope lens it looks like a tiny yellowish green ball with a ring around it.

This nice uncle gave me a Lunar Eclipse 101. The lunar eclipse basically occurs when the Sun, the Earth and the moon are perfectly aligned and the Earth's shadow is cast upon the moon, hence blocking the sunlight from being reflected by the moon. The Earth makes one complete revolution around the Sun once a year and the Moon orbits around the Earth once a month so lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth and the Moon happen to bump into each other during their orbit.

Which somehow reminds me of Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart:

"I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again."

The eclipse was total at around 9:10 pm here, which is 11:10 am in Singapore. The moon turned red because the Earth's shadow is actually red. The sunlight had passed through the Earth's atmosphere.

I Brake for Halley's Comet

Halley is coming back in 2061. The last time it came was in 1986, one year before I was born. So it comes in a 75-year cycle. You only get to see it once in a lifetime, so I'm pretty bent on living till 2061. Oh, and I don't want to die before I see Aurora Borealis too.

An astronomer's toy

Pedrag (Montenegro): my so-called Art professor, Gospodin, tooth paste model, Poltergeist, hamster, and now belly dancer.

I was sitting beside Yuko near the heater and waiting for my brain to thaw after the walk home from the observatory. Then Pedrag just walked toward us and did a belly dance. He's funny in a mentally unsound way.

My psychotic grin

The face of Megaloman

Since Dee Dee had asked for a picture of Megaloman:

"Me Megaloman, you lazy journalist."

I just had an out-of-body experience

I had my Political Science test this morning and it went pretty well, I should think. I was quite surprised that there were so many questions: 50 MCQ in 50 minutes. But at least there were no essays.

Anyway I've been receiving emails from passionate students who are looking for study buddies. This one made me laugh at 1 in the morning:

"I am XXX, a passionate student~
Right now, I'm at the Ellis Liibrary.
If anyone wants to study with me~
I am at the second flour where all the computers are.

call XXX-XXX-XXXX (call only for study purposes!)"

Apparently she's not as passionate about spelling. Too busy baking a cake at Ellis Library to spellcheck, perhaps? And I was toying with the idea of asking one of the guys at the lounge to call her and say "Will you marry me?" in 7 languages.

That said.

Today in my International Journ class I decided to do something different and sat at the back of the class.

I had read this New York Times article on Russian President-soon-to-be-Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin and I was struck by how well the journalist observed the atmosphere at the news conference.

Little nuances like how Putin tended to answer questions from foreign journalists with an insulting undertone, how the Russian journalists treated Putin with a mix of respect and adoration, and how self-assured Putin was in letting a journalist from Chechnya answer a foreign journalist's question about the recent election in Chechnya (a breakaway region from Russia) - these make a difference in making an article more insightful.

So I thought I'd try to keep my mouth shut and observe the class. Throughout the class I discovered that:

My teacher, Stuart Loory, tends to scan students' faces while someone is talking just to gauge their reactions. By the way, I really like and respect Loory. He was one of the old guards in CNN; he came up with the initiative of opening CNN Moscow; he was the White House correspondent for the LA Times, meaning that he had access to the Secretary of the State, National Defense Chief and the likes. And he's old and has a cute round face too. I don't know why he reminds me of a panda, especially when he walks. Anyway, he seems like the soft-spoken grandpa figure who lets grandkids climb all over his laps during Christmas. And he's like my late English tutor who taught me when I was a kid.

Loory is in grey.

Megaloman went full steam ahead today and said quite a lot of things. There was this debate over how much background information journalists should include in a story, with the starting point being the recent article on Iran's satellite program.

Megaloman was kind of saying that when journalists don't include background, it smacks of lazy journalism, and the moment he finished talking 3 hands shot up like there was a tight spring in each elbow. I was laughing at the back of the class because it was kind of funny. I mean, imagine 3 people sitting in a row and all 3 of them raised their hands in reflex at the same time.

Anyway with regard to this issue, I stopped being an observer for a while and said what I had to say: The 3 students came from print and broadcast backgrounds and they raised a relevant point about time and space constraints in newspapers and especially broadcasts. But, I can't believe I'm saying this, I actually kind of agree with Megaloman that background or context allows us to have an idea of whether the particular event is part of a larger pattern.

Like Iran setting the building blocks for the space program from years ago. This girl in my class was implying that the journalist was being biased or making a mountain out of a molehill by giving the impression that the program is part of a long-drawn Iranian agenda to subvert the US. But the point is that you never know. Is the satellite program a one-time event or a long protracted process? What is Iran's motive? What are the implications? We can't make a guess without sufficient background information.

And Megaloman did raise a relevant point too. Just look at the Iraq War. How many newspapers out there just vomitted out the information spoonfed to them by the Pentagon, which had turned out to be wrong? When you exclude the larger context in which things are embedded, you're more likely to miss the connection between events that might prove to be crucial.

But I would be more cautious about labelling it as lazy journalism because, hey, journalists are humans too. When you're working under a tight deadline and a boss who is so anally retentive that his butt can repel bullets, who can blame you for wanting to get done with your job as fast as possible and come home to your family? Like what Yi Wen said, not every journalist is Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward.

So anyway, back to my observation:

The girl next to me who is a regular back-seater was checking out Facebook throughout class.

When a person talks and he or she kind of goes off track people tend to look away, around, downwards, anywhere but the speaker, and that should have been a warning sign.

When I see certain people during class I have this image of cogs and wheels turning above their heads. It's kind of obvious that they are thinking hard about something. But when I see some other people I have this image of several question marks floating above their heads.

That's all for now. Byebye.

You open a book at random, you consult randomness

The following post is totally random because I'm taking a break from studying for my Political Science test tomorrow and my brain is currently not in order.

At the risk of sounding like a bimbo, I think my face is turning into a ball. Ball ball, boing boing. And it's not just my own observation. Maybe I need to clamp my cheeks and leave them there for a week.

I've been learning to speak in many languages:

"Will you marry me?" in 7 languages (Russian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Italian). I don't know how to spell though.

It all started with an innocent question asked by my friend when we were in line to see Bill Clinton.

She: "What should I say when I see Bill?"
Me: "Will you marry me?"(Just to clarify: I do not want to marry Bill Clinton. My first name is not Monica and my last name is not Lewinsky, and I'm not a Democratic candidate)

So it started my personal "Will you marry me?" project.

And some other sentences:

Omae wa aho no makeinu ya ("You are an idiot and a loser" in Japanese).

Anata wa kire kute, kawaii kute, yasashi kute, zenbu saiko ("I think you're beautiful and cute and sweet and everything nice"). I said omae wa aho no makeinu ya to a Japanese friend and she said "Hoooo (the Japanese have a habit of saying Hoooo)! I'm shocked!!" so apparently I had to make her happy by saying nice things.

Tobioricha dameyo! ("Don't jump down!"). Won't tell you why I bothered to learn that.

Elegano preponyero ("elegantly overstuffed" in Serbian). I don't know how to spell it in Cyrillic so I just spelt it the way it's supposed to sound.

Gospodin ("Sir" in Serbian). Ivan and Pedrag taught me Serbian history and art history so I call them my History and Art professors. ("Yes, Gospodin Ivan, can you tell me why the US bombed Yugoslavia?")

Okay, Schumpeter, Machiavelli and Kant are calling me from the dead.

Chinese New Year

I know this is very late, but better late than never. I went for a potluck celebration with Asians in Columbia. There were people from Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc etc.

Harum, Kelly (US), me

Lynette, president of the Hongkong Association, Yi Wen's ambassador from the J-school, Broadcast major. The school is sending her to cover the Beijing Olympics, how cool is that.

Yi Wen, me, Valerie, Lloyd (the two Singaporeans who have been really nice to us. I'll tell you why some other day).

Belated suggestions for Valentine's Day poems

Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.

- Shakespeare

La Promessa (The Promise)

That I will never be able to stop loving you
No, don't believe it, beloved eyes!
Not even to joke would I deceive you about this.

You alone are my sparks,
and you will be, beloved eyes,
my beautiful fire as long as I live.

- Gioachino Rossini

Sonnets from the Portuguese XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

- Elizabeth Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

- Elizabeth Browning

Life is a joy between Bacchus and Amor

I've been slacking in updating because my slackeraline gland has been secreting a disproportionately high level of slackeraline hormone lately.

The previous sentence is a partial fabrication because there's no such thing as a slackeraline hormone.

In any case, I'd better pull up my socks, my long-johns, my beanie and basically anything that can be pulled because I have two tests next week: International Relations (Political Science) and Cross-Cultural Journalism. True enough, I only need to get a pass for all my exams here because the credit transfer is only concerned with the number of credits, duh. But I think it's only decent that I put in enough hard work because I really like the teachers here.

Harry Rosenfeld, former editor of The Washington Post and former boss of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. They are the two legendary journalists who brought the Watergate scandal into the open, which infamously led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Anyway I really like Rosenfeld, even though I didn't have the chance to talk to him much. Yi Wen said I have a thing for old men with round faces and I think it's true. Not in a reverse-paedophilic way of course, but more in the grandpa sense. I just think that old people have such a treasure trove of knowledge and experience that the possibility of tapping into it makes me quite giddy with excitement.

If you had read Yi Wen's blog prior to this, yes I did get involved in another argument with Megaloman in class over, as ridiculous as it sounds, gypsies. He said something to the effect that "All gypsies are criminals."

Contary to popular belief, I do not enjoy arguing with people like Megaloman. It is emotionally and physically tiring and has the potential of shortening my life span. No thanks, I don't want to die before 2061. But sometimes I get carried away in the flow of the moment, so it is quite difficult to just sit back and watch.

And contrary to another popular belief, I do not shoot my mouth like a malfunctioning geyser anytime anywhere. I did try to control myself for about 10 minutes till Megaloman finished his speech, and I did wait till some other classmates say something first. But when someone says something as bigoted as that all my synapses are jumping all over the place like cacing kepanasan - Bahasa Indonesia for worms on a hot frying pan.

Is it fair for me to say that "All Americans are Megalomen and idiots."?

No need for examples for Megalomen, but let me illustrate the idiotic point: I was sitting at the cafeteria reading the newspapers when a friend's friend (of whom I didn't have a particularly good first impression) came over and asked if she could sit down and eat with me. What could I do? Roll my newspapers and swat her like a fly? So she sat down and in the next half an hour or so managed to produce such pearls of wisdom as:

"MacDonald's came to the US."

"Wow!!! These things are floooatiinng!! (while scooping out bits of potatoes and vegetables from her bowl of soup).

"I'm really amazed that you speak English so well! I didn't expect to be able to communicate with you because honestly I had difficulty talking to the other international students."

Frankly the only person I have difficulty talking to is her. Of course, not all Americans are like her. But still.

Generalizing people and putting all of them under one umbrella term is not just inaccurate, it is also insulting. Call me self-righteous or more-moral-than-thou or pseudo-Che Guevara, but I'd rather have more backbone than a chocolate eclair.

And a fast update:

I watched a play called Tango by Slawomir Mrozek, which belongs to the Theater of the Absurd.

Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play". (Source: Wikipedia).

The really cool thing is that one of the actresses turned out to be my Political Science classmate. She is very very pretty, with blue-grey eyes.

I spent Valentine's Day with about 20 people at this Indian restaurant.

I had coffee at Starbucks with Melissa and Anais and talked through the night. Well I didn't exactly drink coffee. I drank green tea latte, which they call Broccoli latte because of the colour.

I had a talk over coffee (again I didn't have coffee. I had chai tea latte) with an International Journ classmate, who told me and Yi Wen about her horrific car accident when she was 8. Wear seatbelts, people.

I watched Mostly Bach to Baroque as part of the Odyssey Chamber Music Series at First Baptist Church. The star performers were Chad Payton (countertenor) in Vivaldi's "Cessate, omai cessate"; Steve Geibel (flute), Eva Szekely (violin) and Peter Miyamoto (piano) in Bach's Concerto for Flute, Violin and Piano in A minor, BWV 1044.

Odyssey Chamber Ensemble with Bach Collegium Choir

Fed-ex me some sunshine

Living in Columbia means subjecting yourself to all sorts of weather tantrums. It's almost as if the weather here has a bipolar disorder.

A few weeks ago the sun was shining and the flowers were singing and the temperature was a warm 20 degree Celsius, so people went to school in the morning in shirts, shorts and flip-flops. Only to stare at a swirling snowstorm in the same evening.

There is the snow/rain that someone calls "hailing". You feel like you're under an artillery attack, with hundreds of mini-Mentos pellets hitting you in the eyes, the nostrils and the mouth when you couldn't hold your breath anymore.

There is the wind that whips your face left right upside down and everytime you reach your class you look like you've just survived a Slapping Deathmatch.

There are the snow flakes coupled with strong wind that fly toward you in a horizontal direction. I kid you not.

There is the freezing temperature that literally freezes your butt if you're foolish enough to wear less than four layers of clothings (long johns, shirt, jacket, winter coat).

But Columbia also has the bluest of blue skies and the nicest of purple, pink and orange sunsets.

Oh, by the way, it's -8 Celsius right now. Now I can sort of understand why people here are so obsessed with weather forecasts.

Cherry Street Artisan

I went to Cherry Street Artisan, a famous arts cafe in downtown Columbia which shows live bands, plays, poetry slams and so on. I would have gone there a few times a week if it weren't so far from Laws Hall (about half an hour's walk). Anyway sorry about the poor quality of the pictures. It was pretty dark and I didn't want to use flash in case I distract the dancers.

The performance last night was called Belly Dancing with Hillary Scott. The dancers basically danced with Hillary singing in the background. My favourite songs were Damien Rice's Cannonball, her self-composed Jezebel, and Gary Wright's Dream Weaver.

Hillary is amazing. She plays the guitar...

...the piano...

...and the violin. Anyway she played an electric violin, which sounds a bit unnatural to me. I don't like electric violins.

Actually I don't think it should be called belly dancing because these dancers moved every single body part. The thing about belly dancing is that the moves are very fluid and continuous. It's like a human interpretation of waves.

Everything was going fine till Hillary started singing Hallelujah and this granny with long dyed hair and heavy make-up and a push-up bra (she looks eerily like Cher) stepped into the centre. (I don't have her picture because my camera battery went flat on me right then and there. Nuria are you reading this?). The irony and obscenity were not lost on me.

She twirled and gyrated and shook her booty.
She threw her shawl on a man's face and kissed him smack on the lips.
She pulled a young man up and made him dance with her.

I was rubbing my temple the entire time because if she wasn't embarrassed for herself, I was. At one point she spun and spun like a human top - I counted 10, 20, 30 times. I honestly feared that she would crash into the coffee table in front of her and was getting ready to siam because I was sitting on a sofa right behind the table. I mean, I'm a civil person. If it were a normal granny falling on top of me I'd definitely catch her. But this one is different.

Luckily she didn't abuse the table. She only collapsed on the floor. I kid you not. Well she did make it look like it's part of the performance but we all knew better. Granny didn't know her limits.

I'll definitely come back to Cherry Street Artisan. To see creative people like Hillary, not the granny.

I believe in the death penalty

Many people had criticized Singapore's death penalty. Here are the common arguments and my answers to those arguments.

No matter what, taking someone's life is wrong.
"An eye for an eye makes the world go blind" - Mahatma Gandhi.

From a moral point of view: I believe that the sanctity of life is not absolute. It is proportional to the actions you take in your life. If you kill someone out of perversion, if you brutally rape a kid, if you exterminate an entire population because you don't like their skin colour, you have automatically signed a waiver to the sanctity of your life. You have dehumanized yourself, so why should people respect and treat you as a human?

From a legal point of view: The law is iron-cast. You bring drugs to Singapore, you die. But people still do it anyway, so is it Singapore's fault to enforce the law? People made the choice to die, so don't shoot the messenger.

From a utilitarian point of view: Singapore has a zero-tolerance policy because it cannot afford to tolerate drug abuse. Singapore's most precious resources are people. Obviously a whole lot of people will suffer if Singaporeans start dying of overdose. It will affect the economy, and we all know how pragmatic Singaporeans are. Better a person who chose to die die than let many more people suffer in his place.

Death penalty is expensive.

It is expensively precisely because the anti-death penalty camp keeps filing lawsuits and counter-lawsuits and counter-counter-lawsuits till it reaches counter-lawsuits to the power of 10.

You sue someone's butt off until you get to the Supreme Court, if you have that much money why don't you just give it to the victim? Why throw your money to lawyers and judges? Many are already over-paid anyway.

And seriously, this may sound crude, but how expensive is it to hang someone? You don't exactly hang someone with a golden rope, do you. All you need is a stool, a high horizontal bar, and someone who can make a decent loop. People don't even complain about the fact that Singapore imports foreign talent to cane prisoners, and now you're complaining about this?

If you compare the cost of death penalty and the cost of life imprisonment, it's a no brainer right? If the prison is a private system, then the business people would just have to take care of someone for the rest of his life. If the prison is run on taxpayers' money (as often is the case), are you actually saying that decent working people have to pay for the living expenses of some degenerate low-life? Give me a break.

Isolation is worse than death.

Imprisoning someone for life essentially means taking away his quality of life. Quality relative to whose life?

Who suffers more?

Someone who gets locked in a cell most of his day (prisoners are allowed to walk outside in the sun for a period of time so they can, I don't know, photosynthesize or something) or someone who is afraid of stepping out of her room for the rest of her life for fear of being brutalized again?

Someone who can sleep soundly on a decent mattress at night or someone who gets nightmares and wakes up screaming every single night?

Someone who can meet his loved ones once in a while or someone who can never see his loved ones again?

Someone who has lost his freedom or someone who has lost his will to live?

Taking someone's life will not bring back a person's dead loved one (the one argument I REALLY hate).

You are only qualified to say that if you are the victim yourself. Otherwise, don't ever ever think that you know a victim well enough to say that he is, or, worse, should be benevolent enough to let the killer live while his loved one is six feet underground.

I hate it when people say to a mourning bereaved: "I understand how you feel." No, you don't understand and you'd never want to understand. Sometimes I think people can do more good to others by keeping their mouths shut than trying to be Dear Abby.

The death penalty is in place precisely as a deterrent, so that people won't have to lose their loved ones again because of some manic sub-human psychopath.

If you strongly disagree with me, feel free to attack my ideas with your ideas. If you can't convince me, then, as Yi Wen has always advised me, we should just agree to disagree.

house party

I went to a house party with the French girls and Anni. I've never been a party person, so it was a new experience. The place was really small though - everyone's personal radius was about 2 to 3 cm, maybe.

I met 3 German girls, one in law school (Sylvia) and the other two from the J-school (Miriam and Sara).

How not to start a conversation with someone called Sylvia:
"Hi, I'm Eveline."

"Hey, I'm Sylvia."

"Like Sylvia Plath?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You know, the famous poet who killed herself?"

"...."

The German girls are nice though. Miriam is actually a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a political party in Germany that is part of the ruling Grand Coalition with the SPD. Chancellor Angela Merkel is from the CDU.

Sara said that many people had labelled Miriam as the next German chancellor. Obviously I'll keep her contact. But it's really weird. Of all places, I met these people at a house party?

Anyway, Miriam's last name is Schumacher, which I think is really funny. When we promised to meet for lunch or dinner I asked her to fetch me from Laws Hall in her F1 car.

The J-schoolers said they might go back to Germany and work for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or Der Spiegel, a newspaper and a news magazine that I have high respect for. The Spiegel Affair was a landmark case in press freedom in Germany.

The host played Hip-hop music, which is never my favourite. Everyone started dancing and there was this girl who was pretty bent on making her personal radius 0 cm from any guy.

We didn't dance at all. We just sat on a sofa and observed people. Plus I only drank a few sips of Smirnoff Ice and that's it.

I may seem very anti-social or the anti-thesis of Cool or whatever. But, honestly, different people have different ideas of fun. Their idea of fun is drinking and dancing, mine is something else, so that's that. And the last thing I wanted to do was to get drunk and make a fool of myself in a foreign country. I don't understand people who get drunk and drop on the floor like a dead elephant. I mean, it's not nice to make your poor friends carry you all the way home.

As the night got older, luckily this girl and her boyfriend gave us a lift back to Laws. Anyway I'm not going back to such parties anytime soon because there are so many more fun things to do here.

international dinner II

There was a picture of me hugging Truman, but my lousy Fujifilm camera screwed up on me!!! "Card reader failure" my bloody foot. Give me back my Truman!!! Anyway Truman felt very warm. I wanted to bring him home.

Anais is the cutest person ever. Whenever she cracks a lame joke and nobody laughs, she'll make this crashing cymbal sound and sing "Parapapapapa!" She said it's a French tradition.

Aurelia has really beautiful eyes. They are green in sunlight and brown indoors. I told her they're like this gemstone called the Alexandrite, which was named after Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Alexandrite is pleochroic - if you see it from one angle it appears red, but from another angle it appears bluish green.

I'm a Japanese Sushi Master!

Actually I koped this from Yuko, who was at the Japanese booth preparing sushi.

Mardi Gras

I went to a Brazilian version of Mardi Gras last Friday.

Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday") is the day before Ash Wednesday, and is also called "Shrove Tuesday" or "Pancake Day". Mardi Gras is the final day of Carnival, though the term is often used incorrectly to describe the days and weeks preceding Fat Tuesday.

Carnival begins 12 days after Christmas, or Twelfth Night, on January 6 and ends on Mardi Gras, which always falls the day before Ash Wednesday. Perhaps the cities most famous for their Mardi Gras celebrations include New Orleans, Louisiana; Venice, Italy; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Source: Wikipedia).

I met Zainab in my International Journ class. She's from Iraq and she was working in the LA Times before she got a Fulbright scholarship to study here. Obviously she has a lot of interesting things to say, but I don't think it'll be prudent for me to disclose it.

There was a Brazilian live band. The songs were all very lively and fast-paced. Obviously I don't know what they were singing, but there was this chorus that sounded very much like "Ayayayayayayaya!" and nothing else.

These Brazilians love to dance, clearly. You should have seen the little girl. She was like an Energizer Bunny running on nuclear fuel.

I wasn't being cock-eyed. The mask was covering my eyes.

I got a free Polaroid picture

We made wax hands for free. I had to dip my hand in a tub of freezing water for about a minute. My expression of agony was too graphic so I'm not going to post the picture.

After that I had to transfer my hand to a tub of wax, and then put it back into the tub of freezing water. Back and forth about 20 times. Then dip the wax hand into different tubs of paint. At first my hand was a a beautiful green and yellow. And then I got greedy because there was still an empty space. So I dipped the whole thing in the tub of red paint, and when it came out I got the shock of my life. It looked like my entire artery had exploded.

I wanted to make the Alien sign, but my fingers are too fat so they all look lumped together. Oh well, at least I had fun scaring people with this hand. My roomie screamed when she saw it.

gong xi gong xi gong xi ni ah

happy chinese new year, everyone!

i've totally forgotten about it till i saw my friend's blog. well you can't blame me. the CNY spirit here is really non-existent, and honestly i'm not that bothered because i've not been very big on celebrating CNY anyway. no relatives in Singapore = no angbaos = no fun.

things have been happening at such a breakneck speed that i'm finding difficulty in updating, especially since readings and assignments are beginning to pile up.

soon.

good riddance

Bill Clinton came to the Rec Centre to campaign for his wife on Friday. I was toying with the idea of dressing up as Monica Lewinsky (with the Blue Dress!) but wisely decided against it. For a picture of him, hop over to Yi Wen's blog. I gave up trying to snap him because I was too far away and my camera resolution is nothing to be desired.

I bought this for 5 bucks while waiting in the snaking queue.

All presidents screw up at one point or another, but the difference is that Bush screws up all the time. To prove his unpopularity, wherever I go people said they liked the badge, and some asked where they could buy it.

Clinton raised 5 points:

1. Universal health care
2. Restoring the middle class
3. Recalling the US troops from Iraq
4. Improving education, especially in Science and Technology
5. Promoting the use of bio-fuels

I won't elaborate because I'm sure you can google those. I'd rather talk about the impression that I got.

Throughout his one-hour speech, he naturally lavished praises on his wife. The words that came up again and again were "world-class change maker".

As a seasoned politician, he offered a glimpse to Hillary's personal life (that's what I call strategic communication). He said that when Hillary was a young lawyer, she was sick of seeing one abused kid after another enter the hospital she was working in. So she helped establish the State Children's Health Insurance Program and the Adoption and Safe Families Act.

By any standard, Bill was an excellent speaker. He had the entire speech memorized, or, rather, he didn't need to memorize it at all. He cracked jokes (and the audience laughed), he made it seem like he was talking to you and only you, he spoke in undulating waves of prose and persuasion. He knew which buttons to press when it comes to dealing with an audience. Talking about Hillary's personal life is one of the most important buttons.

Why?

Because Hillary has been criticized for being too robotic, too detached, too emotionally composed. Which makes her tears at the New Hampshire Democratic Primary close to one month ago all the more invaluable in helping her to shed that image. If that was an orchestrated performance, then she is brilliant. She surged ahead of Obama during the last stretch.

You might wonder why Bill had bothered to come to this so-called 'ulu' city of Columbia, Missouri.

As Yi Wen had pointed out to me before, Missouri is a 'bellwether' state. It means that Missouri has been very accurate in voting for the eventual president from 1904 onwards, with the only exception of 1956 . I talked to Rachel and Jeanne and they said it's because Missouri has a fair proportion of Democrats and Republicans, and this reflects the broader political spread in the US. Some states are highly polarized so they are not a good gauge. Texas, for example, is a staunchly republican state. It is a mostly agricultural society and these farmers are generally more conservative. By the way, Bush is from Texas.

Hillary or Obama?

Frankly, I'm not sure. But as long as a Democrat wins, it won't be too bad. You can be assured of the intelligence of these two candidates (unlike someone who got through most things in life with the help of his father). They both know what they are doing.

The Republican camp has a low chance of winning, really. McCain, the current Republican leader at the polls, is running out of funds. Romney is too Mormon for people's liking. Giuliani had dropped out of the race - which is an exemplary case study of putting all your eggs into one basket - and had given his endorsement to McCain.

This Tuesday is Super Tuesday, where candidates will go all out to win the vote of 22 states and, most importantly, the delegates that come with victory. The stakes are on a super scale indeed. The thing about such an event is that no candidate can afford to spend too much time on any one state. So forget about coffee-shop talks and baby-kissing (there was this funny picture on The New York Times showing Romney addressing the crowd while holding a crying baby, and the mother had this expression that seems to say "It's okay honey, just bear with it." Seriously, if you don't have a way with children, abandon all thoughts of trying to look good coddling a baby. You'll look more like a baby-snatcher than a baby-smoocher).

What you need is monster publicity. You need to bombard all the 22 states with advertisements of you looking all tough and intelligent and presidential. And of course you need to have super dollars to do that, especially in important and expensive states like California and New York.

Hillary has been counting on a small pool of rich donors, but the problem is that most of them had maxed out on the donation limits. Obama, on the other hand, has been expanding his grassroot support. In other words, a huge pool of middle-class donors. And online donations had injected millions of dollars into his campaign.

Super Tuesday is going to be really interesting to watch.

snowing, snowing

thanks, Yi Wen!

snow angel. not mine though.

the proverbial poor writer who has to work in the cold

i drew that. then i walked away as fast as i could in case the owner doesn't like smileys. it's a draw-and-run thing.

i call them "The Hardcores"

my legs disappeared!

hymn to nature

i did something that many would label as crazy yesterday.

it was snowing and everything was white and peaceful like something out of Winter Wonderland. so i decided at the spur of the moment to take a walk outside at 1 in the morning.

when i was walking i saw a group of people sliding down the slopes near the football field on trays. two tractors clearing the snow to make pathways. rows and rows of cars with white roofs.

then i stood at the center of the snow-covered field and just felt the snow flakes rushing to my face.

Hymn to Nature

"Nature!
We are encompassed and enveloped by her,
powerless to emerge and powerless to penetrate deeper.
Unbidden and unwarned,
she takes us up in the round of her dance and sweeps us along,
until exhausted we fall from her arms.
She has placed me here; she will lead me hence.
I confide myself to her.
She may do with me what she will; she will not despise her work.
I speak not of her.
No, what is true and what is false,
she herself has spoken all.
All the fault is hers; hers is all the glory."

- Goethe

a squirrel's diary

Dear Diary, yesterday evening I was happily eating an acorn on my favourite tree branch.

AAAHHH!!! Intruder!! Intruder!!

So I climbed up the tree to a taller branch. Hopefully I can shake that intruder off.

Oh my God of Squirrels. The moron actually climbed the stone wall! She just won't give up!

Oh no! More people are coming this way! I'd better run away.

Okay, a bit of stretching first. 1, 2, 3...3, 2, 1...

Are you watching this, you morons?

I think i'll hop to that branch.

Or maybe that branch.

See me glide gracefully along the branches!

Damn, I'm good at this thing.

Okay, time to rest.

Gah, my tail is itchy.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"..." (Note from The Moron: the squirrel was perfectly still for about 5 minutes. I thought he was contemplating the philosophy of a squirrel's life).

(But then I realized he was actually shitting. How did I know? Because little black balls were dropping from his butt. And no, they didn't drop on my head).

The End

the Greek chamber

Wednesday was pretty packed. I went to the Museum of Art and Archaeology, bought posters at this poster sale, celebrated Yuko's birthday, and watched a basketball match between Mizzou and Nebraska. For the basketball match and Yuko's birthday, I think Yi Wen will be posting pictures soon. Or maybe she already had, so just hop over.

Entrance to the museum

Winged Female Figure (1898)

Jamb Figures (King Solomon and Queen of Sheba). A jamb figure is a statue carved on supporting posts that flank doorways and windows.

Flagpole Base by Alessandro Leopardi (1501 - 1505)

The Chartes Tympanum.

A tympanum is an area enclosed by an arched doorway and a lintel. There are 3 tympanums at the Chartes Cathedral, an early French Gothic architecture.

The picture above shows the central tympanum, which depicts Christ's Second Coming, enthroned in a mandorle (a large almond-shaped halo).

The 4 apocalyptic figures flanking him are described in the New Testament Book of Revelation and they are widely believed to be an allegorical representation of 4 evangelists: Matthew the Angel, Mark the Lion, Luke the Bull, and John the Eagle.

Busts

Sophocles, the ancient Greek playwright who wrote Oedipus

The play is really twisted though. Oedipus falls in love with his own mother and out of jealousy he kills his own father and in deep remorse he blinds his eyes. Anyway that's how the term Oedipus complex arose.

Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine

His Roman name is Bacchus. The Renaissance artist Titian made this painting titled Bacchus and Ariadne. To cut a long story short, Ariadne helped her lover Theseus to defeat the Minotaur of Crete by releasing a golden ball of thread to guide Theseus out of a labyrinth. But now that Theseus was a hero he dumped Ariadne, and the heartbroken Ariadne fell into the arms of Dionysus. Greek mythology has so much drama.

Pericles, the General of Athens during the first 2 years of the Peloponnesian War

Narcissus

The Greek Chamber

The Archaic Period (750 - 480 BC)

The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages, and saw significant advancements in political theory, and the rise of democracy, philosophy, theatre, poetry, as well as the revitalisation of the written language (which had been lost during the Dark Ages). (source: Wikipedia).

Kouros from Tenea (575 – 550 BC)

Archaic sculptures are very rigid. Most of the statues are standing in an upright position and they are generally expressionless.

The Classical period (500 – 400 BC)

In the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the classical period corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (the most common dates being the fall of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). (Source: Wikipedia).

If you notice, the classical sculptures have a more detailed anatomy than the Archaic ones. The expression, however, is still generally quite stoic.

Athena (490 BC) , Goddess of Wisdom, War, the Arts, Industry, Justice and Skill. Also the favourite child of Zeus.

Apparently she's a multi-tasker. Anyway I think Harry Potter fans might be interested to know that Minerva is the Latin name of Athena. Minerva McGonagall. Rings a bell?

Athena Velletri by Kresilas or Alkamenes

Caryatid from the Erechteion in Athens (421 – 406 BC)

Hermes and Dionysus by Praxiteles (350 – 330 BC)

Hera, Zeus's crazy jealous wife wanted to kill Dionysus because he was fathered by Zeus with another woman (Zeus is a chronic adulterer). So Zeus sent Hermes to rescue Dionysus. Hermes is known as the Winged Messenger of the Gods. Also known as the handbag that makes women go weak on the knees.

Ludovisi Hera (4th BC), the crazy jealous wife of Zeus

Satyr Pouring Wine by Praxiteles (Ca. 370 BC)

Diskobolos or Discus Thrower by Myron (400 – 450 BC)

Apollo (465 – 457 BC), the Sun God. Also known as Helios.

Artemis of Gabii by Praxiteles (360 – 330 BC), the Goddess of Hunting and twin sister of Apollo

Artemis had some sort of a love affair with Orion, the Great Hunter. You can actually see the constellation of Orion pretty much everywhere. Anyway, Apollo tricked Artemis into killing Orion. The jerk.

The Hellenistic period (323 – 146 BC)

It was the period between the death of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) in 323 BC and the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence. (Source: Wikipedia).

Hellenistic sculptures were carved in very intricate details.

Zeus Battling Giants; from the frieze of Altar of Zeus and Athena, Pergamon (Ca.180 BC)

Homer (Ca. 150 BC), writer of Iliad. Not Homer Simpson, doh.

Apollo Belvedere (200 – 150 BC)

The Roman period (146 BC – 330)

Roman Greece is the period of Greek history following the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC until the reestablishment of the city of Byzantium and the naming of the city by the Emperor Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire (as Nova Roma, later Constantinople) in 330. (Source: Wikipedia).

Borghese Warrior by Agasias (Ca. 100 BC)

Laocoon and His Sons by Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodoros (late 1st century BC – early 1st century AD) , my personal favourite.

Laocoon warned his fellow Trojans against the wooden horse presented by the Greek, but to no avail. Minerva, who was supporting the Greeks, sent sea-serpents to strangle Laocoon and his two sons.

Their expressions of anguish seem very real, and that's the amazing beauty of Roman sculptures.

Son looking to his father

Strangled slowly to death

But the father was powerless against the coiling serpents. Here he seems to be looking up to heavens, begging for the gods to save him and his sons.