2364

lomonaaeren's Frames of Mind Series - Great stuff. I have one issue with it, that is Harry's errr desperate need to be touched by anyone at all. It seems to me that since he grew up reviled by the Dursleys, who would never unnecessarily touch him, he would have grown up not liking to be touched.

Today's lunch includes chocolate foisted on me by Tuna (she posted about it), fruit, tea and coffee. It's an experimental caffiene + sugar diet to help with cramps.

So this is the first time I'm marking reports *excited*.

And immediately my eyes glaze over at the lousy grammar, weird bombastic word choice (v. singaporean), and general lack of thinking. They're doing a report where they have to come up with a hypothesis on an aspect of primate evolution.

And roughly paraphrased, the first report I've read is - the mating patterns of Homo sapiens, sp. X and sp. Y are unknown...

I, ever the model of restraint, managed to control my comment to "You are not aware of the mating pattern of H. sapiens?"

My prof suggested I put in "You may be too young right now but someday you'll find out..." instead.

I GOT MY IPOD.

I ENGRAVED IT ( It says )

In conclusion WOOO. Also, bring on the music everybody!! It's 74gigs, let's see how much it can take before I tear my hair out in frustration.

And in return I'll post my top ten overlistened songs! I have to disclaim first that my tastes are quite crap, since I resist being cool.

I left for home early today and told the professor, as I was leaving, that I was leaving to go home to sleep. Which I'm about to do after all those tiresome fussy chores one has to do to maintain soul and body/grooming to socially acceptable standards.

Worked on a bunch of dung beetles, and a. these are huge (my flies are about as big as * and are frankly, hairy miniature mosquitoes) and b. they stink like crabs. Also, c. they have a distressing tendency to break between the thorax and the abdomen.

On the positive side, they are a marvel of engineering and are very, very exotic and pretty.

During the road show there was this engineering undergrad. He liked bugs, was interested in conservation, and was tall. His voice was also pleasingly deep.

Bokurano is finished, so d/ling it. Heard that the ending was crap, but I haven't kept up with the manga for ages, so that's probably a blessing in disguise.

Incidentally, my mp3 player died along with all 20gigs of my music. I mourn for

1. all my covers of various songs. Hallelujah, Take Me Out, etc (petronia, you'll never know how much I appreciate the songs you upload. Mostly because I don't express appreciation as often as I should)

2. random songs and CD tracks I stole from people I am no longer on speaking terms with

3. my playlists

4. cds I uploaded that are now damaged/stolen/missing

5. recordings (I am a narcissist)

Am thinking of getting the ipod classic along with my laptop. When I get it. Sometime around Dec. Am deciding on the Macbook (the white ver), pending any changes of mind based on other people's information. Am going to spice up the RAM to 2GBs, too.

I've been taking evening primrose oil. It seems to do what they promise it to do, though of course it's never as effective as personal expectation. Tomorrow I shall bring cereal and milk and nectarine and pineapple and this really strange pink-fleshed orange.

It's odd looking at my brother and seeing myself and all my youthful developmental disorders through 3rd person. Being the oldest, and the sibling to one left-handed and one right-handed person, it's (wholly unscientific) fascinating to watch my brother go through the same slushy speech, horrible handwriting, social ineptitude/eccentric attitude, and physical repetitive motions as I did as a child. These were/are mostly absent in my sister.

I'd like to know more about handedness and why left-handedness doesn't go away.

Tomorrow is the day I register to become a master's student officially (no more slacking!). I've been making some inroads on the writing-fiction business, but it's all messed up.

OOOH FU- I haven't packed yet and my presentation and I go states tomorrow and tickets and and *spews blood*

Okay, I'll figure out the presentation thing TOMORROW. Now to pack, goddamnit.

NEW YORK IN THREE TWO-

( Meme tagged by jengou! )

I hate the "I'll tag you in general friendslist!" thing because I think it defeats the whole "rank your friends" point of such things, so here goes angelamori, rheow, insomniac_od, helvetius, greykings,

My aunt just died.

I have to finish some paperwork because the deadline is today.

So, this is a spastic question, but the internet is good for such things:

Anyone knows anyone who underwent open heart surgery? How long is the estimated recovery time for such things? What were the main lifestyle changes after?

Also, apparently the last HP book was leaked. My friend read it since I swore up and down that I'd never contaminate my knowledge of fanfiction with its source. I pressed her for details instead.

Sigh.

Isn't it nice to read a post not as insanely self-centred?

http://symposium.rafflesmuseum.net/ - If you're bored and have the time, do go down. I promise Gore and Violence. And Moss. Mostly gore and violence. Taxonomists have been going through lots of life-threatening situations (following the grand tradition set by Linnaeus & Co.) to get their hands on specimens that go down in flames or into the ocean or both (Wallace and Raffles, poor men).

Be enthralled by stories where people go MIA and/or die even in modern day taxonomy! In the name of some tiny creature you've never heard of that is now extinct! (Times like this I love the human race).

Sign up! There's free food (I was assured they'd find the good caterers), and you can see my face as I've been roped in to help out as usher. Plus, Gore and Violence without having to pay SGD8.50! How cool is that?

Coming fast on the heels of emotional-vacuum Clamp character identification, this:

"There are 2 huskies, 1 black Labrador, 1 zu, 1huskie terrier cross breed. They'll be put to sleep if no one adopts them, sadly. If you're interested and able to take care of them, please call Mariam at 9730 2064 for more details. Pass it around too! Thanks!"

Singaporeans-only. For obvious reasons.

Essentially there's this pet shop at Joo Chiat which is closing down. All these puppies are certified healthy, and if you've always been wanting a pet but found the initial startup costs a bit appalling, well.

Pls to be telling other interested friends

It's twelve, and I've still not prepped my sequences. Haha.

Anyway while I was walking along the corridor I saw this little guy girl, so I picked her up and brought her back for my friend to photograph.

( Read more... )

I have a callus from pipetting.

A CALLUS FROM PIPETTING.

On the inside of my left hand, fourth finger, just above the first joint. I didn't notice it till last week.

I have a callus from pipetting.

Ergo Proxy's ending was a letdown.

Today during lecture, we were discussing the future of New Caledonia's biodiversity (none), and the professor was commenting on the price of nickel soaring. Yeah, love those batteries. Let's do a little story based on New Caledonia and nickel. When I heard it I couldn't stop laughing. I love it, it's one of those cute little ironies that no one notices usually.

Incidentally New Caledonia is near New Zealand, and a French colony (not that the latter helps jack shit). When it comes to plant endemism these two islands are disgusting. Take a step into their forests, and you've trod upon and killed a a plant that is found nowhere else in the world. We're talking 9 out of 10, including one of the oldest flowering plants in the world, (as a phylogeneticist I salivate at the thought) With the ongoing mess people are making of these two islands, the herb you've just crushed has just gone extinct right under your heel.

( The little ironies )

Anyway we ended that talk with the conclusion that long, embittered and sustained butchery of each other (i.e. civil conflict/war) is the only way you can conserve anything anyway.

The other day I had lunch with a person from the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He's a psychology major, and works in our lab. He's actually studying cognition and brain genes. We were talking about consciousness and how to detect it. Anyway it went on to killing things in the name of science (i.e. if you captured something you knew was rare and had never been seen before and you know it's threatened, what would you do). And my psych friend said "Let it go" at the same time I said "Kill it, duh." The general sentiment was that "It's going to go extinct anyway, let's save it to look at."

To which it went on to my psych friend asking us how we could on the one hand cheerfully embrace destruction of life on earth and on the other work as conservationists. To which my friend said, they have nothing to do with each other. In my turn, I said, that's because we (i mean people) deserve it, and that there was no way you can ethically conserve, education (Ha! HA HA!) be damned.

It's like this: if you saw your neighbour build a house so big and grand that he had no money to pay the heating bills, and was forced consequently to take his large and extensive library which he inherited, which contains the potential cure to disease, great works of art, etc, and burn the hell out of it book by book, could you say, no, please, don't burn those books?

No. You can force him to stop, but he knows as well as you do what he's doing.

-

The nickel, China's a voracious importer. Love those pandas.

The night before, while suffering from insomnia, I suddenly started thinking about the permanent cessation of consciousness and what it would be like. For the past two days, quite a few times I'd be doing something completely innocuous and I'd think "This is finite." Fun, I tell you, my concentration really appreciates that.

I went to watch "One Last Dance", which is a really lame English translation of a more interesting Chinese title, "茶舞". To understand why, you need to know that the main character's name is Ah 查. Which is its own little joke. I really, really think Francis Ng (Even more than Tony Leung! I know! What sacrilege!) is crazily good an actor. Also have you seen his legs. He still has nice legs. Sigh.

But that aside, I liked the story. Probably will make some attempt to get the DVD.

This movie is NC16 here. I was asked by the person who sold me the ticket, are you old enough. To which I answered I was 23. This does not make me happy I tell you.

2006 was crap and a total wash, so I'm not going to say nuts about it. The only fun part was the snorkelling. The rest can go to hell.

Deep, deep thanks to the Kit, the Angie, the Wenli for the things that they know best what for. To Tunafish, who is the better half of the squituna combi set. (Remember how we kept tying the game of scissors paper stone) and how all of you guys have given me many many many many things. I appreciate it lots. Just ask me over any time to clean up and pack stuff! I'm great at that. Manual labour man, that's what I can do plenty of.

So today for the first day of 2007 I helped Tuna pack and clean up her room. By which I mean she flung clothes at me and I succumbed to the Pretty in between bouts of folding and stacking and squeeing over how cute her clothes are, and how she tolerated Her Royal Miss Anal Retentiveness when it came to hanging up dresses and loose eyes and hooks on skirts. The yaoi manga was a total trip down memory lane, by which I mean she's like "Oh my God I don't remember this at all" and I was like "...Neither do I!" and "OMG I D/LED THIS SCANLATION ETC" and "OMG THE DRAGON ONE" "OMG YAMADA YUGI" and "OMG THIS IS THE ONE WITH THE DAD!" "WHAT DAD?!?" "THIS DAD" "OOOOHHHH" and "STRAWBERRY LOVERS" *shrill shrieking into her ear*.

Sorry I went a bit nuts with the manga collection, I will keep better control of my neurosis! I forget to hug you this time. Wait till you come back. Work hard! Last year! If you can't get the One Piece Chapters I go look for them and see how! Give Gintama a chance! I <3 you!

To pile on the pressure, a note to myself: There is a conference for Evolutionary Biology in June next year in New Zealand. As usual, it's expensive, hideous, and highly stressful. Unfortunately that's the way things are (Oh, the number of people who've been horribly irritated by this trite phrase!) so deal.

Also, check out AMNH's programme. Need to see whether it'll be out early enough to work.

When I watched Yukikaze today, with yaoi filter set on high, I saw a lot of things. Mostly, I am stunned by how Yukikaze is a lot smarter and more subtle than I had thought. And that the Yukikaze -> Rei <- Jack situation is a lot more complementary than antagonistic, which was originally my point but I didn't remember noticing it in the first episode.

I am currently in the unenviable position of actually, after years of successfully not having to learn the language, maybe I should go and learn it in order to read the novels. And the manga. But the manga can be translated.

petronia, anybody? Please tell me they're selling the novels translated into Chinese, English, German. Otherwise life will be most unpleasant as there is either a. choosing to not read the novels and not getting the universe, which would drive me insane with not knowing or b. choosing to read the novels in Japanese, not that I know where and how to get them in the first place since I don't have the first clue how to order them, and taking possibly 5 years if I'm good, which I'm not.

It's the universe. It intrigues me like the inner workings of every system that has ever intrigued me. A holistic idea is just so much fuzzy bullcrap until you get the /details/.

I want the manga too. But I saw that on amazon.jp. It's one volume right? It's not going to become some 25 tankoubon monster that will kill me?

Who goddamn managed to CUT HER LIP BLOODY ON A TOWEL?

( With that level of intelligence in mind: Brave Story. Otherwise known as Yet-Another-Gonzo-Production-Fangirling. No spoilers )

Happy Birthday to me! I'm 22 and I've had an exam for the second time in a row!

birthday meanderings:
I dislike cake!
I like mian xian (rice vermicelli) with quail's eggs and pig's liver and dried shitake mushrooms and err a kind of herby leaf thing that's a vegetable only I have no clue what the name is. This birthday food is better.
I have no idea what to blackmail my mother into getting for me.
Likewise my sister.
I'd ask for time and more sleep, but what is that?
I have already had cake today. That was not amusing.
I also had a square of Ghirardelli's chocolate with caramel inside. This was.
I have exams soon, again. This compells me to get off my ass, pack up my computer, and go home instead of lying around in my hostel room.
I've been angling to get a few CDs for my own present to myself but they've stopped shipping it in.

You know what I think is truly enjoyable? When no one remembers its your birthday, and you get to buy yourself expensive stuff for fun as a treat. The problem with having people celebrate your birthday is that no one actually does it right.

( blahblah whine whine )

So, I've been watching this AMV on like, extreme repeat. This guy (?) is a genius, and the clip is extremely well done. First time I've seen subtitles used to dramatic effect. You'd never think the song fits either, considering it's hello, Rock Lee. I like him, I like Gaara. I really liked their fight. I guess there's something about Rock Lee (and Naruto) I think is very real.

-

( lame hokkien jokes. )