nathan chow:

thursday 4/3/08

the most awkward meal:

after the funeral, my family and relatives had lunch together. we had two tables in the restaurant, one for adults, the other for the kids.. and the undertakers decided to join the kids table.

i swear.. it was like a scene straight from a comedy movie. one undertaker was a chinese man who had a really dorky smile the whole time.. and the other two were big and serious american guys who seemed like his sidekick goons. during the first 10 minutes of the lunch, absolutely no one said anything at the table. meanwhile, all of us kids kept exchanging glances with each other, as if we were all thinking the same thing and at any time were about to crack up at how ridiculous the situation was.

my brother and i finally broke the silence by asking the chinese guy questions about chinese customs at funerals. when we ran out of questions, i asked the undertakers about their jobs and why they chose it.

tuesday 4/8/08

the most random thing:

at dinner with titi, miguel, alex o., chang, and ashley n., i was sitting at a table facing the swipe-in desk. one table separated mine from the swipe-in.. and two girls i didn’t know were sitting there. when i saw one of my friends swiping in, i waved at her.. and i guess the two girls i didn’t know thought i was flirting with them. they started giggling and whispering to each other. but i didn’t know it had anything to do with me until..

when they were leaving the dining hall, one of the girls came up to me and put a little raffle ticket on my table and said “call me.” i flipped the ticket over and saw “call me, babe! =)” with a phone number and “3rd floor!” written on it.

the friends i was sitting with were like.. wtf? minutes after the girls left, i used my friend’s cell phone to call the number. i was ready to play a joke back at the girls by pretending i was gay, but the person on the other line was a guy! i “flirted” with him and found out he also goes to BU.. so at least it wasn’t a random number. he was friends with the girls, but i couldn’t get him to tell me his name or the names of his friends.. haha.

thursday 4/10/08

the weather today was finally beautiful!

dinner with titi, giselle, giselle’s friend alex, and titi’s admissions guest sarah. i just met alex, but he remembers me from last year’s COM201 Coffeehouse Reading, where i was chosen with 3 other students out of 400 to read our memoirs as examples for students taking COM201 that semester. alex said he was able to identify with mine.

i’m so glad someone remembered my piece. one of my goals in life is to have my art – mainly my films and writing – inspire people and make a difference in the world. it doesn’t necessarily have to be featured in papers and be famous and whatnot, but as long as one person identified with it or was changed by it, i’m proud to have made it.

in the evening, we went to the GSU to watch the documentary “the price of sugar,” which is about sugar cane cutters in the dominican republic. we had a nice talk with the producer after the show.

afterwards, we went to “jamnesty” in the basement of the GSU, where i saw stephanie s., ankita, nishita, and lauren m.

later when the live band “spiritual rez” was performing, titi, sarah, lauren s., sid, and i danced together.

friday 4/11/08

i went to BU’s Campus Movie Fest finale. i was supposed to go with giselle, alex, and maria, but i wound up sitting with maria, erika, and clarissa.

we were sitting near my friend javier and his production group. they won “best drama”! congratulations, javi!

also congratulations to all my other friends who made a film, whether it made it to tonight’s top 16 or not. that would be too many to mention, but i’d like to say i really liked watching melody get chopped up in iris’s film! lol

i usually get through everything in life fine. you can throw anything at me, and either i’ll have the strength and endurance to fight it or i’ll have the attitude to not care about it. but even if i got through this week, i’ll have to admit that it was one of the roughest i’ve ever had – rough enough to leave me scarred.

i had a test monday; a paper due wednesday; a quiz wednesday; a project to prepare, film, and edit; lots of reading to catch up on; a bunch of meetings and gatherings; and my grandpa’s funeral to go to on thursday. i barely slept each night, and i had to squeeze in short naps in my little free time just to prevent my eyes from burning. having teary eyes at the funeral and standing near a pot of burning incense didn’t help much either (at chinese funerals, we burn things like play money so the dead can spend it in heaven).

to top it all off, when i was getting back into the car at the cemetery, the corner of the swinging door left a bloody scratch under my right eye. after i bowed three times to grandpa in his coffin, traditionally i wasn’t supposed to look back at the coffin. so i was opening the door while staring at the ground, and the funeral car doors were heavier and longer than i expected. the top corner scratched my face and left me an apt reminder of the battle i survived this week.

at the end of the week on friday, i fell back on my own “religions”: Kindness, Hope, and Trust. (under religious views on my facebook profile, i have “Kindness, Hope, and Trust are the world’s greatest religions.” one of my friends, a writer for the daily free press, mentioned it in her article about faith last year.)

anyway, on friday, i pointed out a dropped ipod to its owner, i helped a random prospective student and his family find directions, and i helped out a (new?) resident with her mailbox in the mailroom. i usually do stuff like that, but more than ever, this time they were nice reminders that under all the hardships and adversity, there is still meaning in this hustle and bustle we call life.

i Hope things will get better. no, i Trust they will.

my yeah-yeah (cantonese for grandfather on my father’s side) passed away last week on friday, march 28th. he lived a long and happy life (1914-2008) as an artist, painter, restaurant owner, father, husband, and grandfather.

(the photo: my grandparents with their grandkids. i’m the little rascal who wouldn’t stay in place. my brother is in checkers. the other two kids are my cousins. my sister jasmine and cousin tiffany weren’t born yet.)

yeah-yeah and i never had a long conversation with each other because of a slight language barrier (my limited chinese and his limited english), but we were still able to express ourselves with bits and pieces of chinese and english, with body language, and with touch. despite our not being close in the conventional sense, he was still one of my favorite relatives. i’ll always look up to his artistic ability, his calmness, and how he would never hurt a thing.

my mom and my sister were at his bedside in the hospital when he left this world. when he was approaching his death, my mom told him to wait for me.. and he started breathing again. i was supposed to visit him the next day, but he still left that evening =/

a few days after his death, a photo of him fell down from my desk shelf (the same picture i posted here). none of the other 50 pictures of family and friends ever fell.

yeah-yeah, thank you for everything you’ve done for the family, for your inspirational art that will continue to be passed around the world, and for just being you. we’ll miss you dearly.

- nathan

tuesday 3/25/08

i hosted danny and chris overnight. i showed them the fitrec (guests are always impressed with it), then we played pool in the GSU basement. we each had our own table and raced to see who could get all the balls in first. we.. all.. sucked..

later on we met up with giselle again so she could show them the performing arts house in south campus. both my guests were interested in BU’s theater program, but other than one acting class i took, i didn’t know enough about it, so the people at the house really helped out a lot by talking about their experiences in CFA.

late at night, we hung out in another overnight host’s room with a bunch of other people. danny and ashlie, who i just met, taught me enough sign language to say inappropriate things.

thursday 3/27/08

every month or so, BU dining halls have a special theme night or a visiting chef. some reeeally delicious theme nights in the past were lobster night (yes, every student got a lobster), western bbq night, and chinese new year night (last year’s was a lot better than this year’s).

tonight was a visiting chef night, where they served food from a famous boston restaurant – this time, toro, a spanish restaurant in the south end. i had: (most of these descriptions are from their menu)

- juicy smoked beef
- a mini kobe hamburger with smoked tomato, alioli, and pickled red onion
- a grilled and buttered cob of corn
- toasted bread rubbed with tomato and garlic, finished with spanish olive oil – a totilla espanola (egg, potato, onion omelet)
- churros con chocolate (spanish fried dough with chili infused chocolate sauce)

i’ll be willing to say that the churros con chocolate was one of the top 10 things i’ve ever had in my life. i’m kinda desperate to go to the restaurant and order just that.

it’s nights like these that make BU’s dining halls some of the best in the country. mmmm.. i go to college to eat.

saturday 3/29/08

i went to bombay cafe for dinner with mike c., katie, sabrina, sabrina’s boyfriend will, and katie’s friend danika. i had the chicken saagwala, which was spinach mixed with chicken. the “nan” bread was good to dip into the bowl of chicken covered heavily in sauce. we actually had to pay for the nan, but the waiter gave us seconds for free. the food was better than average, but the serving sizes were relatively small, especially for their prices.

at night i went to the BU dance marathon, which is an 18-hour dance to raise money for camp heartland (camp for kids with AIDS) and the elizabeth glaser pediatric AIDS foundation. i was there as a visitor for only 2 hours, but some of my friends – stephanie s., vanessa s., gabby, brooke – were official “dancers” there for the whole 18 hours. i was originally registered as a dancer, but i couldn’t make it for personal reasons. anyway, when i showed up, a bunch of my friends told me that i was called up to the stage before. i asked one of the volunteers why, and she said someone had a make-a-wish for me to irish step dance??!!

monday 3/17

one of my professors ended the 3-hour evening class early and proposed a class trip to uno’s. originally it was supposed to be a pub (since it’s st. patrick’s day) but one student was underage. it still made my day.. maybe my semester.. when the professor said “let’s go to the Dugout and finish talking about the midterm over a pint”.. haha.

my green shirt blends in with connie’s blanket. iris: “where’d nathan go? oh my god, he’s camouflaged!”

tuesday 3/18

nap party with titi and stephanie b… (don’t even ask)

wednesday 3/19

i had lunch with sarah, kayla, and amy for the first time in a while. kayla told us her starfish story.. lol.

thursday 3/20

i day-hosted eve and blessing in the afternoon. blessing’s family actually came along on most of the tour. when we got to agganis arena, eve and blessing asked what the long line outside was for. it was mostly middle school and high school girls screaming.. so i knew it wasn’t for one of BU’s sports games. i said “i don’t know”.. and then my friend michael b. randomly came up to us and said “the jonas brothers are here!” i had no idea who they were, but eve and blessing got excited and started taking pictures of the jonas brothers’ van and everything. that was an easy way to end the tour on a good note.

free malaysian food, thanks to the asian student union. the food was really good, especially the stick of chicken and the sauce i put on the rice. i sat with maria, camilo, titi, and yue. melody wasn’t at a free food night! *gasp*. i also finally met jessica, who i’ve always seen at these types of events.

when you go up in line, they ask if you want the fried rice or the white rice. most people request the fried rice. when camilo came back to our table with his second serving, he had a big plate of white rice. he was like “if you ask for the white rice, they give you more.”

friday 3/21

me: how do you know josh?
michael c: we’re both in engineering. how do you know him? oh wait, he said you know everyone in myles.
(true enough.)

i finally decorated my dorm wall with photos of family and friends. amy was working in the mail room when i got my package of photos.. haha.

marisa was finally at dinner! i’ve been missing her cups. (we already talked about how that doesn’t sound right.)

saturday 3/22

i went to titi’s get-together in her dorm. i got a chance to hang out with stephanie c., maria, camilo, jordan, liz, and a bunch of others. i also met a lot of titi’s friends and some students from berklee.

during the party, we played a movie association game. someone named a movie, and anyone else had to name another that’s connected in some way (in theme, has the same actor in it, is directed by the same director, or has a similar title). then someone else has to name another connected to the newly named one. one rule is that you can’t repeat any movie that’s been said.

i think i was the only film major there, but i was probably the worst at the game. everyone is so much more in touch with movie pop culture than i am. i usually watch “art films” and foreign films, not hollywood blockbusters. most my associations were for directors and themes.. and the former was hard whenever people listed popcorn movies by no-name directors.

anyway, the game went on for nearly two hours. i wasn’t playing towards the second half. instead, i went to talk to the berklee kids cuz they seemed left out (they came in late and weren’t playing the game). after a few minutes, i noticed a silence from the people still playing, so i asked them what movie they were stuck on. they said “six”.. and i assumed they already listed all the easy connections like “the sixth sense”, “se7en”, etc. so i yelled out “two girls, one cup”.. and basically i ended the game cuz no one wanted to talk after that! haha

spring break (saturday 3/8 – sunday 3/16):

- i took the fung wah bus to new york city with connie. then my mom’s friend drove me home to new jersey.
- i got caught up with a lot of movies i’ve been wanting to watch and a lot of books i’ve been wanting to read.
- scattergories with my siblings jasmine and jordon! jasmine totally owned us. my answers were too inappropriate.. and jordon’s were way too obscure.
- one of my friends, greg, who i haven’t talked to for years and years, found me on facebook.
- i went with my family to walk around princeton university.
- sleeeeep.
- endless snackage at home. mom’s home-cooking (especially the chinese soup she makes). new jersey buffets (why aren’t there any good and cheap ones in boston?).
- i saw connie again on the fung wah ride back to boston. mine was full.. so she had to go on the next bus. she was actually the cut-off point.. haha.

tuesday 2/26:

i’m directing a 3-minute short film based on a scene in a little-known 10-minute play that was produced on stage only once. the project is for a 500-level film directing class, and the teacher is emphasizing director-actor relations and emotional realism more than technicalities. later when we film the projects, we’re using only consumer-level video cameras.

my actors jim and kelley performed the scene in class today. we’ve had only 3 meetings together, but i think they’re doing great. to “toughen us up” and to motivate changes for the actual film, my teacher (who has directed episodes of Law and Order) heavily criticized my direction, the scene, and the performances.

the scene is about two college kids who recently broke up. the guy goes to the girl’s dorm just to pick up class notes, but the girl wants him to stay longer – and she wants him back, regretting her decision to break up. she shows him her new belly button ring, which throws him off-guard because when they were going out, he was always telling her to get it. he’s lured into gently touching her belly button’s bruise, but he also tells her that she should take the ring out even if she “wants it now.” the film is an exploration of confusing desires, the ways we change after breakups, and bruised relationships.

wednesday 2/27:

i went to the monthly Student Activities Office (SAO) consortium meeting to represent the juggling club. one of the few meetings i missed was the one where we listened to people pitch ideas for clubs and voted on which would make it. i really wanted to do that, but i don’t think they’re gonna have it again until the beginning of next year.

thursday 2/28:

marisa: nathan, what’s your middle name?
sarah: it’s scott.
marisa: no it’s not.
nathan: why not?
marisa: it really is?
nathan: yeah.
marisa: but you’re chinese, right?
nathan: are you saying i have to be something like nathan mao zedong chow?

later in the conversation:
marisa: guess what my middle name is.
(her parents are from italy)
nathan: bella.
marisa: no.
sarah: just tell him. he’ll never guess it.
marisa: magnifica.
nathan: wait, what?
marisa: magnifica.
(i burst out laughing.)

later later in the conversation:
kayla: guess what my middle name is.
amy: it’s very black.
sarah: no, her first name is black.
nathan: shoniqua?
kayla: no.
sarah (singing): it’s kaaayla. kayla celeeeste. all the men waaant her… (sorry, i can’t capture the catchiness of her personal theme song here)

friday 2/29:

i had a very international dinner. it was with two guys from italy, one from bahrain, one from serbia, one from puerto rico, one from china… and one girl from.. illinois.

i love friday night naps after busy weeks.

saturday 3/1:

i went to the chinese student association’s spicy food contest. i didn’t compete because you had to pay a small fee.. and because it was as much a speed-eating contest as it was a spicy food contest. and you all know i’m THE slowest eater ever. but i was there for free samples.. and to root for some of my friends in it. my friend rahul ahuja actually won (juggler pride!). and while i was sitting in the audience, i met one of his friends ken, an old man who was his neighbor over the summer. we had a nice random conversation about epic filmmaking, Citizen Kane, and the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski.

sunday 2/17:

dinner with sarah, kayla, and kayla’s sister briana. kayla: “nathan, you write everything in your blog.”

and that’s why right now i will tell the world that my fly was open during that whole dinner – and no one told me! people, please.. do me a favor and stare at my crotch more often. you need to tell me about these things!

thursday 2/21:

for the BU admissions overnight program, i hosted jon, a prospective student. after dinner, we went to the GSU to watch a freak talent show, but it was cancelled. we played ping-pong and pool until some random girls asked if we wanted to play “mafia” with their group of friends. i’ve never played it before, but it was a pretty interesting role-playing game.. and i met some cool people.

saturday 2/23:

dinner with giselle, josh, arjun, a (yes, A is his name..), sara p., stef, and fernando.

i was planning on watching the opera “the magic flute” put on by CFA tonight, but it was packed. my friends maria and betsy got in on the waitlist but had to sit in the handicapped section. giselle and i were turned away and decided to watch stage troupe’s “the wind in the willows.” we had a nice walk and talk from the huntington theater to the agganis theater. i like it when people prefer walking to places. the play was funny, and i saw michael from last semester’s acting class in it. (well, he was sorta in the class..)

sunday 2/24:

kelly and i saw the play “waiting for godot” directed by david gram, our teacher. i especially liked lucky’s character, played by sam perry.

i went to the oscars party at the GSU’s BU central with sarah. my predictions for winners this year were waaay off. i had only 13 out of the 24 categories correct. two years ago and the year before that, i had 19 and 20 correct and was once ranked 3rd nationally on oscar.com’s prediction contest.

i saw marisa on my walk back from the GSU. we talked about semi-colons all the way to the hojo!