Oh yeah, I might as well mention why I went to campus yesterday: it was for a presentation simulation, a warm-up for Tuesday. Truth be told, I absolutely loathe presentations. It's hard to explain, but for some reason I find them about as appealing as a second, anaesthesia-free circumcision. But it's a necessary evil if I want to graduate, and so I'll just have to prepare and hope that I won't end up screaming like my first anaesthesia-free circumcision.
After that, went to a farewell party for several assistant lecturers who're about to leave overseas on scholarships. One of them is about to take her doctorate...and she's only two years older than me, and I haven't even graduated my bachelor's degree! Oh, the inadequacy...
Then it was on to Cilandak Town Square, for a couple of things. One was a meet-up with Citra, who had info regarding a potential scholarship opportunity (ooh, planning ahead!), in addition to something she felt the need to talk about in person, namely how she finds me amazingly wonderful. (In case it wasn't blatantly obvious, I'm kidding.) The second was this acoustic thing at the Barca cafe, featuring several bands, two of which involved people I'm acquainted with. One was Simple, a Pearl Jam cover band with my neighbour and college pal Willie on guitar, and the other was The Seltaeb, featuring Ridzky (late of Tiket) on vocals and his brother Shanda (ex-Wong Pitoe) on bass, who played everything from The Police to Counting Crows and the band from whom they got their name (hint: read it backwards). Entertaining stuff. Plus there was Tor and C'mon Lennon too, and though I would've been content to watch on my own, fortunately Citra to keep me company and laugh (polite or otherwise) at my commentary (witty or otherwise). Company is good.
As I write this, MTV's showing the Beastie Boys live at one of those $2 Bill concerts they occasionally show, usually when an artist's got a new album out (the Beasties' new one is
To The 5 Boroughs). A nice way to cap off the Beasties-related kick I've been on for the past two days.
Going back a bit: well it's the first Beasties album in six years, so naturally they've been getting all sorts of mainstream exposure. Yesterday morning before leaving for campus, I re-read their feature article in the latest
Spin with the obligatory mention of how great
Paul's Boutique is. So before leaving, I made a point to dig through the closet and find my copy of it, which I hadn't listened to since after I bought it, which was, like, in '95 or '96, when I first got into them and they happened to perform over here in Jakarta, along with the Foo Fighters and Sonic Youth (for the measly price of Rp. 40,000! Man, those were the days).
Anyway, I probably just didn't get it the first time around, so it's nice that I could dig it out after all these years and give it a spin (and on a side note: hopefully all the tapes I've only listened to once or none at all will one day get their due). The thing is, I'd give it a spin if I could find it, which I couldn't. Failing that, I tried looking for their double-sized Best Of compilation,
The Sounds Of Science,
but could only find one part. Decided to put the search on hold and just listen to the Pet Shop Boys'
PopArt compilation which had been idle in the car's glove box, and made a mental note to put my tape collection into some semblance of order.
The search resumed this morning, and after digging through several possible places, I managed to find what I was looking for...and decided I might as well dig out their other albums I had, to boot. I put on
Paul's Boutique, and even though I knew some of the songs (well, at least the choruses), it was like listening to it for the first time. Maybe I've been biased by all I've about it, but yeah, it's a great album. I'm not a hip-hop nut by any means; heck, I can't remember ever listening to any entire hip-hop albums aside from the Beasties'. But based on whatever I've heard over the years in that genre, this album just pisses all over it. In fact, just about everything the Beasties have done pisses all over the rest of whatever passes for mainstream hip-hop nowadays. I guess I can safely say that the Beastie Boys are the only reason I listen to hip-hip at all.
Spent the past few days getting things in preparation for my presentation. Getting all that annoying paperwork out of the way is one of the most satisfying things in the world. Of course, I wouldn't mind having to do tons of paperwork in exchange for the thesis, which has been an experience akin to teeth-pulling. The topic of what I'm going to do after graduation is one that's been bounced around frequently as of late, with continuing school being one option. But I must say that I'm not particularly keen on academia, especially considering I spent six years trying to get out of it. Of course, unemployment and a hostile work industry could freak me out and make me want to retreat to the relative certainty of school, so I dunno. We'll see what happens...
I've also been suffering from the flu, which has apparently been going around a bit lately. Actually I had a throat infection first, and it stung like hell. Mum II gave me medicine for that, and now my throat's just fine. Unfortunately I can't say the same for my nose, which has been running like Maurice Greene. Mum II prescribed some more medicine, which I'm supposed to take three times a day. I took the first dose this morning, but was out for most of the day (see above paragraph). So I took two doses in one go after getting back, and now my legs feel like they're heating up. Hmmm...
