aisyalam

Not much to report about. I took care of some busy work in the morning, tidying up a few things after yesterday (like returning Khong’s projector), rapping with colleagues (John Hii stopped by and gave me a bunch of pictures and some movie clips of yesterday’s show), and so on. It was Stella’s last (half) day of school (where she rec’d a “Head of the School” award) so we all went up to pick her up & out for lunch. In the afternoon met with Keh Siong, some confusion about the database and filetypes, trying figuring out how it is all going to be presented—either WWW or CD-ROM (answer: hopefully both), but he needs to re-work part of the applet because it was made for the .wav files, which are prohibitively large and take much too long to load. So, not quite there yet—hopefully in a week’s time will be complete (we meet again next Friday to finish it). After seeing Keh Siong, a bit of time to get some things organized in the office, do some database chores, and then met with Lydia, Forest, and Koo for a long tea time (and delicious dried coconut cakes) discussion. They were enthralled by the show yesterday and wanted to know all about it—how I managed to write the poems, what inspired me so much, how I was able notice profound little details captured in the pictures, and so on. I explained that I’d had great teachers, and other influences that really helped, like Blake, and friends who steered me away from mathematic abstractions and toward artistic ones, the importance of the “minute particulars” (which led to talk about the impossibility of real objectivity), the importance of invention, and a lot of other things. I’m going to miss all of these people, and such fun, friendly meetings, for sure.

I compiled the Malaysia poems into a single .doc file, 30 pages. I am planning to post all of the materials soon, but figure no harm in sending up the text tonight, as I am looking for feedback. Take a look at http://web.njit.edu/~funkhous/2006/13states.doc and send me an email about them (funkhouser@adm.njit.edu) if you’re inclined—I may take this file down when the database materials are uploaded, but for now the poems are there.

I’ll probably be off-the-blog (though not offline) for a few days, as we’re heading to Thailand again for a family holiday (love that beachside wireless). Time for a little conventional pleasure! My 42nd birthday comes on Monday & planning to celebrate (over a few days) with elephant rides, snorkeling, and a few massages. There’s some work to be done, like prepare a syllabus for my NJIT graduate class that starts the first week of July, but mostly taking it easy before a whirlwind July or lectures, performances, and finishing up stuff here in this wonderful country formerly known as Malaya…