Adi Parva Done

After a marathon session today, I have finally completed Adi Parva of The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa. This means I can finally start on the next ``big'' book of some importance: Deep Learning by Goodfellow et al.

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but literary style of The Mahabharata is very similar to that of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night---there exists a large framing story that contains the main narrative, followed by sub-narratives that come in as and when obvious unresolved hooks appear. It reads pretty fast for a large work, but it still is a large work.

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Today we had our reunion lunch at my sister's place together with my brother-in-law and nephew. This is not normal, because we usually have my mum cooking and having my sister's family over instead. Thanks to the nonsense that is COVID-19, and my mother's recent medical issues, it was just not worth it to have it done the way we normally did. Instead, we ordered catering from Chilli Api Catering Pte Ltd. Ordering was relatively pain-free, and the delivery was prompt. The food that was delivered was still warm, was delicious, and was of the advertised quantity. Overall, it was a good experience---I think that we can seriously consider them for other such events in the future. Let's see if they can hang around long enough for that to happen again.

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I was supposed to write an entry for yesterday, but I was just so tired at the end of the day. So I suppose I will write about it now then.

I spent much of the early afternoon on Saturday playing my various dizi, working from the 倍大 C and slowly making my way down to the 小 C, playing most pieces from memory. At the 曲笛 range of 大 C, I just played quite a few Chinese New Year pieces, changing keys without using the ``correct'' dizi. The C 曲笛 can comfortably play the keys of C-major (筒音作5), F-major (筒音作2), G-major (筒音作1), D-major (筒音作4), B♭-major (筒音作6), and E♭-major (筒音作3). But these are really nothing new---at this point, all these different fingering patterns are already innately understood and easy to apply by me. What is a little different is the need for the increased compass required when playing some of the Chinese New Year pieces using a different key---there is often times a need to jump to a high-octave tonic. It's not impossible, but it does take good control.

And it took me a while to get back the good control. A good warm up is always necessary before I can get a good tone, and that happens whether or not I have been playing throughout the week.

The late afternoon/early evening was spent at service at Pasir Panjang Christ Church. Main thing that I want to remember in public is the Thaxted tune that was used in the hymn O God Beyond All Praising, and that the hymn book is indeed Hymns of Praise, but is from Christian Nationals' Evangelism Commission (CNEC). No wonder it was this much harder to find it online---it is a very regional thing. What to do with this information, I currently do not know, and will just keep it here for future reference. God will guide the way forward.

Anyway, I subsequently met up with YT at Blk 340 Ang Mo Kio Ave 1 to check out the Deli Kopi Shop. Specifically, we were looking at the Mentaiko Maki from the ``Hot Jap'' stall. The price point of SGD8.90 for a basic Maki is reasonable, considering that the basic Maki itself had 8 pieces, each was larger than what I would normally put into my mouth. While there, YT introduced me to lok lok, which is basically JB-style skewered junk food; the stall in question was ``Loklok 1991's by Daniel & Meng''. The short answer is, it tastes damn bloody good. The way the skewered food items are cooked give them that nice char-feel without actually being so dry that they lose their original texture. The closest analogue I can come up with is, the texture of those so-called vegetable chips but with more ``natural'' flavour.

We did not happen upon them in a vacuum: review of the Maki, and the review of the loklok from Mothership respectively.

It was a good meet up with YT, catching up a little bit more on the goings-on since the call that we had with roticv. She's hanging on, I'm chillaxing, and we sort of co-bitched about the situation around us. But that's life after all, we talk to people, we commiserate with friends. And those of us who are believers will go to God in prayer to seek direction and clarity, knowing that while we have the agency of making our own decisions, that in the end, it is still the sovereign God whose Will determines the outcomes.

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Oh, before I am done with today's entry, I want to add that Ding did send me a belated birthday greeting.

Till the next update I suppose.