KELVIN DANG

I thought it would be a terrible time when I had to come to join a recital to get some information for my paper that will be due on tomorrow. Actually, yesterday was the first time I participated in a concert because I hate the concert like that: just loud and noisy sounds come out from instruments without voices of singers would make me headache.

On the way going to the concert which began at 4:30 PM, I though when I get there it makes me easy to sleep the whole time of performance. But not, I should change my mind. The concert was very wonderful. It was a great night I have never had before when I went to Ferguson Hall for a recital called “Elizabeth Karelse, piano�. To my surprised, the main person who played during the recitals is my music instructor. Firstly, she played with a young Chinese girl, Yu-Hsuan Yang, who also played piano very well. Then, she played with Ramiro Alvarez and Lucas Shogren separately with other instrument: Cello. The players lead me follow to their feeling by the tune of the music they play. I seemed to be fascinated by the music them play. They use everything I have learned from my class. Mostly, they played alternating hands with both hands, combining with a lot of technical such as allegro, allegretto, and incorporate dynamic contrast, or staccato and legato together. Some times they used stress or emphasis, and using a melody to play with each other. Moreover, they used damper pedals to produce the blurred tonal effects to obtain the mood of the following piece and using a dynamic marking to play strongly accented some part of the songs. I am sure that there were a lot and a lot of things I have not learned yet, they used in this concert. Especially my instructor made me attractively when she played parallel motion that means using both hands move in the same direction on the piano, some time louder, sometimes softer. Everything attracted me following the music. I feel that the piano transmits the impact from the player’s fingers like the fascination of the players on the key to a hammer that strikes the string. Then it conveyed to the audiences in the room.

What a really good time I had yesterday! Going there, now I have experience in learning to read music and to play the note on the piano with any finger, in any manner. The players showed me coordinate what you see on the music page with what you fell in the piano keyboard. I also experienced from learning to use all fingers in playing these notes, first with either hand, separately, eventually together. Besides of those things, I can able have the feel (a little bit �) of the keyboard when I play a certain song or organize the major and minor keys. During the concert, I wished I could play well as my teacher. Seeing her fingers along the piano made me admire. I don’t suppose that I am being teaching by a very good instructor like that. It will be difficult to learn to play the piano on my own as an adult. However, people have done it before me, successfully. I can, too – if I am determined, tenacious and courageous enough to embark on a difficult but exciting venture. I hope I can learn to play the piano well enough and soon enough to bring me enormous pleasure and satisfaction.

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It was a great excited night at Humphrey Center. Going there, I know more about what it is called “homosexual� which is very weird (in both meanings) to all Asian countries until now. Since old people live there do not accept it. To them, when children were born, most of parents always expect their children to be what they look like. In other hand, if they are boys, they have to act as a man when they grow up, in versa. They did not know the thing people call “gay� or “lesbian� come from their mutant genes. To them, a “real man�, for instance, is the one that show respect to everyone because if he doesn’t know how to respect others then who will respect him back. A real man has to know how to control his anger, his temperature and his emotional or how to show his power in society or in his family. He should know how to hold back his temperature when he gets an angry and he should know how to control himself. But to me a real man just has to be honest, truthful, responsible, gentleman, faithful, and unselfish. Of course I have the same image of a “real man� the same as other girls that he have to look handsome, tall, muscle and tough. But that’s not important because a man with a good manner, good characteristic and good behavior is better than anything else.

I think that it is unfair for the men that they couldn’t express their emotional by crying or telling anyone about their sadness. Men are human beings, too. They have their own feelings, emotions, loves, hates and thoughts. Why they have to control themselves not to cry? That is not true if a man is crying that mean he’s weak or “girly�. Men should be tough in some situation but they could control their emotions. I learned that all men keep their own privacy to themselves and don’t want to share their feelings with anyone even their lovers. They like to keep their depression to themselves, they like to express their anger through violence and they want to look tough to everyone. I agree that men have to look “masculine�, strong and cool but I disagree with the people that said a man look weak when he crying. A man should do whatever he think that it won’t make he feel regret about it later on in his life. Whatever they say, nowadays, Asian people have an open mind about this problem. To them, although there are some arguments if society should accept the homosexual people or not, they are gradually “accepted� by other people. However, it’s just in a certain limitation not at all. To me, why do we have to distinguish them? They are also human like us. So, they have to get their human rights in society as other people do. Why not?

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It was the first time I tried Mexican food in my life while I have been learning about Mexican culture through out how to make a Mexican food when I and my friends went to a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis yesterday. That was great lesson.

There is a large difference between foods of different cultures. If you like fatty, meaty, and cheesy foods then American is the way to go. If you like wraps and octopus then Mediterranean food may suit you best. I like Mexican and Italian food. I can’t quite pick one of the two because both are so delicious. It gets kind of tough when my friends as where I want to go for dinner. It’s almost like choosing between Pepsi and Coke, or Vanilla and chocolate. I consider myself weak in that area, but today I am going to change that. I will decide weather I like Mexican or Italian food better.

Let’s start with Mexican food because it seems similarity with Vietnamese food. I love rice. I love it so much that I will eat it any way it is cooked. It can be fried, it can be seasoned, it can be lime rice, tossed with veggies, or it can be just plain with a hint of butter. It’s a good thing I like rice because it is served with almost every meal in the Mexican food group. They put it on the side or in the dish itself. Any way it is served almost guarantees delicious. Italian has its own main dish and it is very different from rice, but somehow the same.

Although rice is a carbohydrate and so are noodles they each have their own characteristics. Rice is small and chewing is necessary, white noodles do not have to be chewed and can be swallowed whole. They are squishy when cooked and hard when dry. To cook noodles you must boil water and then let them absorb. Noodles can be added to many if not all Italian dishes. My favorite dish with noodles would have to be Mostacholli. The type of noodles varies from dish to dish. For example, Penne noodles would not be used in spaghetti, angle hair noodles would. The consistency of the noodle is not the only thing that excites me.

You are eating at an Italian or Mexican restaurant and you order your meal. If the waiter brought out only the noodles or rice how disappointed would you be? That is very reason why the sauce is so important. It makes the noodles “slurp able�, and it gives a flavor to the entire meal too. In the Italian culture, most of the time the base is tomato and it is mixed with meat or vegetables. Meanwhile, Italian sauce can be very chunky, but it allows for the noodles to move with ease. Italian sauce does have its disadvantages like spilling or splashing so it must be handled with care.

In Mexican culture, sauces are flavored with spices, but they have a bit more punch to them. The main spices in Mexican cooking would have to be chili powder, onion, and oregano. These spices are mostly used to spike the meat, but are definitely present in the sauce. Mixing them all together would bring your taste buds to the floor and make them want to dance.

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