Morta, Morta, Morta

^My status as of the second week of winter quarter.  Here's my schedule so far:

I haven't had this much class/lab/section since...never.  5 classes for a grand total of 17 units.  That's Electrical Engineering at it's finest, folks.  

At any rate, I've been able to get a little recording / musical nonsense down in the first week before the madness really begins.  I recorded Desdemona on the first night that I got back, spending about 5 hours in the studio.  I would have spent more time if only my thumb didn't start profusely bleeding :/  Rockstar status, eh? heh..  Anyways, here's the live version of the song on youtube:

I wrote this song during my fall quarter of Freshman year.  I was taking an IHUM (Intro to the HUManities) class looking at music + operas.  I was studying the different character dynamics in the play Othello, written by Shakespeare.  For those of you that have never read / heard of Othello, the story goes something like this:  

It is the 17th century in Europe.  Othello, the captain of the Venetian army and surprisingly a Moor (think racial tension between black vs white), is married to the beautiful (and coincidentally white) Desdemona.  Iago, a soldier in Othello's army and the antagonist of the story, hates Othello with a passion, especially since he[Iago] is madly in love with Desdemona.  Iago hatches a plan to ruin both Othello and Desdemona by pitting Othello against his own emotions of jealousy / hatred.  Iago gets his chance by using Cassio, a good friend of Othello's and fellow soldier.  Iago gets Cassio drunk and violent, eventually causing him to get into a fight.  Othello, finding Cassio in a wrecked state, strips Cassio of his high position in the army.  Iago then tells Cassio to try to gain Othello's favor by becoming good friends with Desdemona.  Iago then goes around and tells Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair.  Throw in a sneaky wife, an innocent mistress, and a love handkerchief, and Othello eventually kills Desdemona out of his rage.  However, right after he kills her, he realizes his mistake; he has just killed the love of his life.  Eventually, everyone dies, like a good Shakespearean tragedy.

In addition to reading Shakespeare's play, I also watched Verdi's opera Otello, which is based on Othello.  The song that Othello sang to Desdemona in the moments right after he murdered her were so moving, that I was literally crying as I watched this 50+ year old sing in Italian (mind you, I know close to no Italian).  These words were burned in my mind as I watched, and I also incorporate them in my song:

Desdemona, Desdemona,

Ay, Morta, Morta, Morta

And there's the origins of my song Desdemona.  Oh, I just found out that Desdemona is Greek for unfortunate.  How fortunate!

The Night Before I Leave for Stanford...

...and I haven't even packed yet :).  It's raining outside.  I leave in 8 hours.  Next quarter is going to be killer.  It's raining outside.  And yet, God is good.  Things that have made me smile in the past 30 minutes:

- Mei Mei's note reminding me that us sibs have a breakfast tmo morning.

- Sarah Park and her absolute RIDICULOUSNESS

   Sarah, in her infinite wisdom, has bestowed upon me a M U S I C

   journal as a gift.  And what a gift it is indeed.  It is the perfect thing

   that I need right now, especially now in my life, and Sarah, oh

   Sarah, is an ABSOLUTE beast.  Please, good gentlemen, buy a dozen 

   roses, practice those cheesy pick-up lines, and start the pining away.

- My talk with Will Chen as we chatted at / rode back from City Lights.  Who

   knew that guy had something serious to say beneath his silly features ;).

- A reminder to ALWAYS trust in God, especially for the scariness known as the future.

It's raining outside, I leave in 7 hours, 51 min, I haven't packed, and it's raining outside.  But oh, how I love life.  AND!  I just remembered: I love the rain!

Proverbs 3:5-6

The (Not So) Secret Blog Society

I've finally joined the society, along with jonbaik and sanscue.  Oh, but you might say, "Isaac, aren't you a terrible, no-good, very bad, sub-par writer whose insecurity about wielding the pen (in this case the mpb keyboard) is almost as big as your ego-inflated head?"  To that question belongs a resounding YES!  <- (In case you didn't notice, that was your one and only warning about the terrible content on this blog)  To compensate for the lack of good quality writing, I was thinking about posting some pictures as well.  Since every picture is worth 1000 words, I was able to come up with this brilliant formula:

Blogger's Theorem

 - (words) + 1000 x (pictures) / [words + 1000 x (pictures)] = % of how good the blog is.  

80% or less = not worth it

But then I realized that I am as bad a photographer as I am a writer.  So, add a negative sign to the first (pictures) and there you go.  Since the forecast of this blog looks to be rainy with a high change of hail, you might ask, "Well, give me one good reason why I should continue wasting away my life reading about yours?"  To that question, I will give you 5 not-so-helpful reasons:

1 - You're probably procrastinating right now, so why not?

2 - If you (ever start || have) a blog, you'll need an example of what NOT to do

3 - I might definitely try as hard as I can to someday, hopefully post music that may or may not be original to some degree

4 - "If you were my TRUE friend, you'd [read] it" - Luke Chau, Will Chen

5 - Swoosh

On a lighter topic, since all the cool kids are giving their life philosophies about why they chose their username (and by all the cool kids, I mean Andrew), I'll give you mine.  When I was about 12 years old, my dad wanted to create an email account for me using Yahoo! Mail.  He thought he'd be clever by choosing the first two letters of my first two names (my first and middle name).  My middle name is "Yi" (meaning 1 in Chinese).  My dad's middle name should be "Superconfusingthingsupsoheadwillhurt".  Unfortunately, it is not.  THEREFORE, (Is)aac + (Yi) + Wang = isyiwang.  Call me strange, but I've actually taken a liking to the ridiculousness that is isyiwang.  Silly dad.

At any rate <- (One of my favorite sayings), here's to me trying to keep this thing alive.  Hopefully, it'll last longer than ck's beta fish did when I tried to babysit it :/.