"Have you found any good men recently?" asks my one of my roommates.
I pause in the midst of mixing ingredients for a pie crust. The change in conversation from baking to lack of boyfriend issues momentarily surprises me. Then as I slowly begin mixing again, I say, "No. To be honest, I haven't been looking."
"My friend says that most of the people in your department are on average older."
"Yes, that's right." And practically all of them are attached to someone else. In fact, I'm part of the minority that isn't attached. I don't think I care about it all that much. I don't even think about it unless she brings it up in her long ramblings about lack of boyfriends, or "good men" as she calls them. Thinking too deeply about my single state leaves me feeling vaguely uncomfortable. I know I have faults and personal issues of my own that have resulted in this, but for the moment I do not want to dig them up, I am satisfied as I am--individual, independent.
I wished she had asked me what temperature I would bake the pie instead. So I braced myself for her further lamenting.
"I'm worried that I won't find anyone," she continues, no longer looking at me but into space hoping that some higher power would hear her plea. "I'm almost thirty. I'm afraid of living the rest of my life alone."
As someone who is content in her hermit status and is deaf to the biological clock, I reply lamely, "Well, some people find someone when they least expect it."
Like Bert and his bottle caps or an old woman and her cats, a cellist can never own too many versions of Bach's Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites. The Suites can be used for relaxation or analysis. Every time I listen to it or play it, I notice something different. A former cello teacher gave me a copy of the complete Suites as a going away present and it's still something I "read" and play from whenever I want to warm up or practice or simply to noodle and let my mind wander.
Recently I got a hold of Yo-Yo Ma's 1983 recording of the Suites. One can admire Ma's flawless technical prowess, something an amateur like myself would always aspire to but rarely reach. However, it was today that I realized how perfect the weather's mood was for the Suites.
This morning when I stumbled about back and from lab, it had been drizzling. The air was contemplative, morose--not like Ma's version--but like the gritty playing of Pablo Casals, the man who made the Suites famous, who studied the Suites his whole life, worrying on it like drips of water that eventually makes holes in stone. Casals' breathy version echoed in my head as I watched earthworms twitching against the pavement because their tunnels had been flooded and as I passed by a young man in baggy pants, eyes downcast, walking his pearl white pit bull with tan hindquarters. The dog had been paralyzed for a moment, frightened by the sight I made as an enormous green phantom, before scurrying behind its owner like the impossibly fast skittering of Casals' strings.
Later, the rain turned to snow and the wind blew it into my face even when I tried to duck my head down. Now this heavy blizzard was more of Ma's style, Ma's version of the Suites--manic, highly emotional. The poor earthworms that had been above ground previously, gasping for air, were slowly freezing as the temperature dropped. Most of them had rolled over onto their backs exposing tender pink bellies. The sentimental solo cello played lingering notes, mentally, at the worms' inevitable deaths.
Perhaps a Mozart Requiem would have been more appropriate for such a sad scene, but I found Bach's Suites more fitting. A choir for a requiem is a flock of harpies, an army of demons, ready to devour an errant soul. I saw none of this. The soloist is alone except for the music just as the dying earthworm is alone except for the wet snow.
Smell :: Coffee Caramel :: Square Parallel :: Lines Miami :: I hate palm trees. Sleep :: Nightmares Double :: W, vision, chocolate Kiss :: Ick History :: Ranting. That's what a high school U.S. History teacher did for most of his lectures. Vodka :: Puke Click :: Arg! Another @#&%! popup!
I recall that last year in April I attempted to do a novel in a month thing outside of November (the actual month for noveling). It was an ambitious goal--too ambitious--since I never got off the ground after the first couple of days. I don't think it was because I had more work because typically November is more hectic. It was probably the lack of motivation and that no one else was doing it then.
I'm not going to retry writing a novel this April. My goals this coming month will be much smaller. I'm going to edit one short story and finish another one. If I'm lucky, I'll get to send both of them out before April ends and start chewing my fingers waiting for a rejection or acceptance.
Anyways, some other stuff: New Hampshire Writers' Project. (via Private Ink) I'm thinking of attending one of the poetry readings around the state on April 25. Hopefully nothing will come up before then. BlogShares. (via Taco Shop Psychic) Now this raises some interesting thoughts. In one very big sense, how much your blog is worth is due to your popularity and how many people link to you. I know this is just a game, but a blog is an extension of someone. Will undervalued blogs cause their owners to feel underappreciated? Will overvalued blogs cause those owners to also have over-inflated egos? This reminds me of a rather morbid anecdote: medical schools do not pay the same amount for every corpse. Exploratorium Magazine. The current issue is interesting if you don't already know how an fMRI works. The back issues however contain articles on a variety of topics like paper, language, and chocolate--things that I don't know very much about.
I'm uncomfortable with addressing people who are older than I am by their first name. It's probably due to my upbringing where I was accustomed to addressing everyone older than me by their titles: uncle, aunt, older cousin. In fact, I addressed my parents' friends and their kids as "uncle", "aunt", and "older cousin" even though they were obviously not related. It's a sign of respect in Asian cultures. So it was natural for me to call teachers as "Mrs. Johnson" or "Mr. Smith" or "Dr. Brown." That was expected and required.
Things got sticky when I got older. Friends' parents began introducing themselves by their first name. That was weird because I don't address my parents by their first names and I didn't see why I should start with other people's parents. And then I started working at the local library and I was forced to address the other librarians by their first names because they never gave their last names upon introduction. If I had worked at a grocery store, this would not have made me uncomfortable since the clerks were typically young. However, the youngest librarian there before I came aboard was at least thirty years older.
Admittedly over time I've "loosened up" some. I call my advisors and the younger professors by their first names. I even call the secretaries by their first names (well, everyone does, although judging by the sour faces that are always pasted on "administrative assistants" maybe everyone ought to revert to addressing them in a respectful manner). However, if someone is really old, I will always by default address him or her by the title. It seems demeaning for an older person and false for me to address someone who is by far wiser and more experienced like a peer.*
However, the opposite is not true. What I mean is that I do not prefer to be referred to as "ma'am" or "miss." Not only does this make me feel older than my years, but also the person who is addressing me is according respect, wisdom, and experience that I have not earned. This is not to say that I prefer endearments either. In fact, they're worse. "Honey" and "Sweetie" makes me cringe because those "titles" relegate me to one of the masses of stereotypical girls. Once somebody called me "Princess" and I had to check my urge to shove him into the oncoming traffic.
Perhaps that is why so many people prefer to be on a first name basis. It emphasizes the person over mob.**
*One exception is older people online. I will typically address them by the handle or name they refer to themselves on their sites.
**Another exception is the prestigious title. If you are president or dean or CEO, your title says you are an Important Person. To a lesser extent, this is also true for PhDs and MDs but most "doctors" I've met are very laid back about it and prefer to be called Professor or by first name. Unless, of course, if the doctor happens to be a high school teacher who likes beating teenagers with authority problems into submission.
I am the Purple People-Eating Stealth Monkey! I am also the Fire-Eating Psycho Monkey and the Haggis-Eating Love Monkey. Get your own battle monkey(s) here (via Metafilter). If your rating is lower than mine, you will most certainly lose. Actually, I'm curious as to what algorithm the author uses to calculate what type of monkey you are. It's not associating letters with numbers because when I mix the letters up, different results come up.
The solpuga or "sun spider" in Latin means "fleeing from the sun". Another name the solpuga goes by is the "windscorpion". Its abdomen is segmented and appears to have ten legs although one pair is really the pedipalps, and solifugids like to gorge themselves until they nearly pop. Some species can even "swim" in the sand. More info and pictures can be found on arachnology.org.
Of course, it's one thing to be interested in spiders intellectually. However, if I saw "the terror of the Soudan" scurrying across my bathroom floor, I'd probably bring down the house with my screams.
Onesome: Lights- Did you watch the lights of Hollywood at the Academy Awards the other night? ...and were you surprised by any of the winners. ...or did you spend the evening doing something else?
I do not have a television. And even if I did, I'd have probably watched something else--if I had been watching at all. As for what I actually did that night or any other night, I was sleeping.
I know I'm a boring old prune, but somebody's got to be.
Twosome: Camera- Do you enjoy photography? ...and do you take pictures for your web site if you have one? Hmmm... Digital or film? Inquiring minds and all that...
Yes, but I'm only an average photographer and I would never consider being behind the camera as a career choice. I use film, but I have a heck of a time trying to find a reasonable place to develop it (they charge you an arm and a leg out here in the boondocks) so taking pictures have taken a backseat to, well, everything else. I have pictures on my Caltech website 2 X 11 and my Dartmouth website Turning. There are also some pictures here which can alternatively be accessed via the gallery on the links page.
Threesome: Action- For some, March Madness has begun. Have you succumbed to the action of the basketball tournament, or are you immune to the madness and just waiting for regular programming to resume?
The Ageless Project. (via Kalilily Time) I'm sure with the copious hints in my past posts, my age (or lack thereof) is pretty obvious. I just recently submitted this site so I'm not listed yet, but of the people who've been listed, there are only two with my same birthday, a guy who is nearing 30 and a gothy teenager. Some other people who share my birthday are over at the Globe of Blogs which include more teenagers, mothers, a sex addict, political junkies, and frivolous linkers. Wonderful company.
U.S.-German Rift Reaches Schoolyard Level. (via Metafilter) What's scary is that I actually visited that particular Tennessean high school two or three times before. My impressions of it weren't exactly favorable.
I'm aware that the original definition for a weblog is a collection of filtered links listed in chronological order and that it says nothing about commentary. However, it's frustrating that whenever I try to find the sites that trackback to the site in question to find out people's opinions, all I find is only a link. And maybe an excerpt from the source in question. How hard is it to say something about the link, your opinion, why you put the link up, anything! Is it that difficult to put up original content or is everyone cowed into not putting down their views because they might be criticized?
What use are all these weblogs if they are all just Yahoo! News dressed in drag?
Remember the three grandmothers? A young man tried arguing with them about the war. Bad idea, especially when they announced ahead of time that they stick to their guns no matter what. It's pointless having conversations with people who refuse to even peek at someone else's point of view.
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Meteora. The second effort of the So Cal alternative-rock-metal band Linkin Park isn't a major breakthrough in innovation, but it definitely isn't trash either. It's better than Hybrid Theory in some ways.
Now before people literally and figuratively bash me over the head for liking a popular band that has nothing on the "true" masters of alternative, rock, and metal, I will say that I ran across Linkin Park a full year and a half before fresh faced college students started blaring their music in the dorms.
People who don't know me very well will assume that I only listen to classical music. Well I don't. I like screaming and rapping as well as the next young person--for particular bands. Anyways, for those of you who don't like screaming and rapping, I'm sorry to say that I may have had a hand at bringing this particular band to notice.
I used to be a dj at one of the very local radio stations at my undergraduate university. I could have played classical music, but that wasn't really original. There were already other nerds playing that genre. I ended up on a slot on Friday and on midnight I played trance and dance and alternative music by little known bands. Back then, I had the impression that there weren't very many people listening to my show. The only person who called in for requests was a multi-Jeopardy! champion who tried to convince me to play Celine Dion.
Let's see, Celine Dion or Linkin Park. Which would I play if I wanted to keep any other possible listeners? Looks like a no-brainer to me.
1. Is the justice system in the US really fair? Why, or why not?
I don't know. In the media, all I keep hearing about are the unfair decisions and how the higher courts are so politicized. But what do you expect? The justice system is run by humans and humans on a whole aren't really fair creatures.
2. In a crisis are you a leader, or a follower? Why do you take that role?
Either. Whether I'm a leader or a follower depends on a few factors: if there is someone more qualified to be the leader than I am, if I'm the only qualified person there, and if someone is equally as qualified (and then this becomes an assertiveness issue). Although I was raised to be independent and I can be fiercely so to a fault (I absolutely hate following someone else's orders), in times of a crisis I will let the natural leader be the leader because there is no time for argument.
Remember kids, if you want to post via audblog too using their trial, you have to pay for long distance (unless you live in L.A. or Bakersfield) and you have exactly one minute to say your piece.
Three grandmothers loudly gossiped about their grandchildren. Suddenly an old man, thin, wearing a navy woolen cap, sitting a few rows behind them burst into ranting, about America, his dead son, and the government. The grandmothers' voices immediately lowered, but they did not give the old man any other indication that they noticed him.
The bus stopped at the town square and the old man got up and stopped next to the bus driver. For a minute, he ranted again about America and supposed miracles. The bus driver nodded wordlessly and the old man got off the bus.
"Who is he?" demanded one of the grandmothers as soon as the driver swung the handle to the left to close the door. "I saw him earlier going off at this morning's driver."
"He's like that," the driver mused. "Once he told me we could solve the energy crisis by shoveling snow up the mountain and letting it melt. He's a World War I veteran who got gassed."
Halfway awake, halfway still dreaming, I rode a thin-tired motorcycle through green hollows and hills littered with dark gray boulders as smooth as glass. A herd of something came up from behind. There were many of them. Lions.
It wasn't just a pride. It was clusters of prides moving relentlessly in one direction, heedless of me or a small family of deer nearby. The lionesses, the cubs, the lions with their shaggy manes--they moved forward toward a nearby town, leaping over barricades and fences like thoroughbred horses and then disappearing down a street that had wound over a hill.
The town was silent and empty except for me and my motorcycle which emitted a low buzz, waiting. I stayed on the side of the street, wondering if I should follow the lions to see where they were headed when several cars, gangster-like except that they were red and green splattered with mud. Each car was filled with sweaty men, unshaven, with wild looks in their eyes as they whooped and hollered, closing down on their prey.
I sped after them, and in that little town, the noise of the vehicles was deafening. A rifle was strapped to my back and with one arm steering and one arm reaching back, I took the weapon out and aimed it to my side. I neared the red car. The driver was intent on getting past the hill. One of the passengers in the backseat poked his head out, his greasy moustache flickering in the wind. He leered at me and I pulled the trigger, twice.
The tires blew out and the car screeched to a halt. I was already far ahead, hoping I could catch up with the next car.
Honey, There's a Lego in My Martini. Good grief. And I thought my parents were permissive. Usually my sister and I confined our messes to our rooms. As for my peers, their houses were also mess-free whenever I came over to visit.
I was never good at art. It's not that I realize this on hindsight, but that I always knew. Maybe I'm a perfectionist or maybe I have better taste, but I had always been dissatisfied with any sort of visual art I had managed to create despite all the fulsome praise. When I was in first grade, one of our art assignments was to draw a picture of what we wanted to do when we grew up. And when all the pictures were hung up on the hall for the world to see, I realized I had no hope of ever becoming an artist. My only consolation was that I didn't draw myself as being an artist.
I don't recall having my parents hang up any of my art creations. Instead of handing my art to Mom and Dad when I got home and being excited what I did that day, I hid it in my own room--very similar to what other kids did with their report cards if they got bad grades. I was probably too embarrassed to inflict my less than mediocre painting efforts on them on top of my daily piano practicing. The only thing that they've displayed (and still display) is a Japanese tea set that I made during sixth grade. It turned out pretty well considering I had the help of molds.
The real artist in the family is my sister. Her paintings are framed and hung on the wall for all to see. This is not because my parents favor her creative effort over my own. She's actually good. Her art has managed to win some awards and now she's actually studying to get a degree in fine arts. My parents say, half-jokingly, half-seriously, that when she becomes famous, the basement filled with her earlier work will be worth millions.
Although my parents weren't so permissive as to let their children take over their house with our projects and playthings, they did let us explore whatever we found interesting. That was liberating, because we discovered that our pursuits never overlapped very much. And that prevented a lot of angst and sibling rivalry that peppered the relationships of other children.
Wheezing, I trudged down the block under an overcast sky thinking maybe I caught a virus (or maybe the infamous virus) and that today, I was showing the first symptoms of something that would put me flat on my back. Or perhaps this difficulty in breathing was due to being out of shape although in my estimation, I wasn't more in shape or out of shape than two months ago. And then I realized I was walking downwind of a heavy smoker.
The smoker turned, finally liberating me from his foul air, and I saw that he was heading toward the local athletic center. (Strange, isn't it, that some people think that they can negate bad things by doing something good afterwards, like drinking diet soda after binging on chocolate.) The athletic center's parking lot sprouted a large banner for a home and life sale.
Traffic was backed up by neon orange vested policemen to allow pedestrians--mostly parents and young children--to cross the busy road. People carried plastic bags filled with home decorating do-dads. The sale was a simple but well-attended affair populated by ordinary people.
And it was the sight of these ordinary people, not the long-haired scientists or the trendy students or the well-dressed older people doing their civic duty, that made me almost stop on the street and burst into tears. These ordinary people didn't give away false smiles or try to talk loudly in an effort to make everyone else around them think that they were important. They were being themselves--the parents playing with their kids or holding their hands when crossing the street, the children giggling at a joke made by their friends.
It made me wish for a simpler time, when the future didn't feel so close. I wanted to be at that time and place when my attention for someone wasn't destroyed by other worries. In a way, it would have been easier to be "simple", to not understand why the adults were tying yellow ribbons to everything in sight or spilling stinging words into others ears because of something so distant it may as well be happening on the moon.
The weather was warm, the snow mostly melted finally revealing the ground underneath. Leaves, unswept from the previous fall, covered the mud in a thin, dry crackly layer. Before, they had been covered in smooth whiteness. Certainly, the ground looks ugly, but in a way, I prefer it because it is true and not hidden behind the brittleness of frost which makes you fall from its slickness.
I've actually been fiddling quite a lot with the logo since 1.5 thinking that something wasn't quite right. It was okay as layouts went, but I don't know. Maybe I was trying too hard to put some sort of picture into the site to "spruce it up". I also thought about putting in something science-y, but I'm not like certain bloggers who talk about science 90% of the time just because they could.
The current theme was inspired by other weblogs who have better and classier design skills than I'll ever have and all the books that I have piled up on my shelf that I never have time to read. And if the current layout looks a little funny, it's because I disregarded all the advice I've ever read or heard about designing webpages. I did not use a font common to every computer, I did not use hexidecimal colors in multiples of 3 for the people with monitors that don't display a multitude of colors, I only checked it out on two different browsers, and the code is probably not validated.
If something on this page is giving you error messages, let me know. But I won't guarantee you that I know how to fix it.
Making a Statement, in Absentia. College students leave cute little away messages on their instant messenger systems. Other students check up on them to read their little messages. When the student comes back, they read all the comments they get from their message. If they don't get any comments, they are thrown into the depths of despair.
Hey, isn't this a lot like blogs?
Don't people write blog entries in hopes of eliciting a response? Even if people vehemently deny it, you can't dispute the presence of all the entries in obscure and popular blogs alike either bemoaning the fact that they have no comments or begging visitors to leave comments. Sometimes it's both.
Some of these students carefully craft their away messages to uphold their reputation for the profound. Others write messages to manipulate their readers. And yet other students leave messages depicting their mood. Again, this bears a striking resemblance to blogging except for the fact that instant messaging is more in real time.
In yet another aspect of blogging, I feel as if I'm being delibrately targeted for blogging surveys. This time, the graduate student (aren't they all graduate students?) in charge of the survey claimed that she found me via Weblogs.com on March 20 and that people who updated their blogs that day got a copy of the survey. In this survey, I had to analyze my linking habits. (Incidentally, results from the survey will be posted here.)
One thing that I did not mention in the survey was that my linking habits have changed over time in one very obvious respect.
I do not often link to personality quizes anymore.
I'd hate to sound callous in today's environment of hypersensitive parents, but I say: Set your own schedule! Do whatever you want and take the baby with you as a passenger. It doesn't matter what you do since he's not going to remember it anyway.
Now before anyone decries me for being an idiot who doesn't know what I'm talking about because I don't have kids, I want you to think back and try to remember what the world was like before you were two years old. Me? I really don't remember anything before I was three. My parents didn't bombard me with Mozart and toys and special classes and I think I turned out okay. Heck, I'm pretty sure I discovered classical music by myself as my parents prefered to listen to Chinese soft rock. And I was the one who asked for a microscope and robotic kits. My parents never bought or suggested them for me in order to steer my interests in one particular path.
When I was a baby, my parents dragged me off to a lot of exotic locales all over Europe and Asia. It's a pity that I don't remember any of it, but that is the point, I don't. Perhaps things happening in our infancy may subconsciously shape our personalities (perhaps all that traveling I did contributed to my continual wanderlust) but it is not the end all of who we are. Too many people are hung up on the "blank slate" idea--that whatever happens in the first few years will be permanently etched in our psyches and determine our fate.
Unfortunately, they have forgotten the one thing that makes us human and not a duck who thinks the first thing it sees is its mother. We are adaptable in any age and in any condition. Maybe it's the fad now to play Mozart to babies in hopes of turning them into geniuses, but who's to say that there won't be any geniuses from parents who play Rage Against the Machine or the Backstreet Boys or even Yanni?
Mountain: Hey, summer's on the way! If you can get away, is it to the mountains or to the beaches? ...and even if you cannot: if you could, which would you go for?
Summer?! You must be kidding. Exactly one month ago you've been asking about spring in your New Paint Smell questions. Snarkiness aside, I would love to get away somewhere, even if it is just a week. Both mountains and beaches are good if what you're after are the three z's: zenning out, zoning out, and zonking out. However, I'd prefer to go to places a little bit more populated like cities and towns. I like people-watching. And even though I enjoy "communing with nature" every so often, I find that pondering the works of humans (art, music, buildings, etc.) refreshing after spending my working days dissecting the nature of nature.
Spring: Enough is enough! Are you ready for Spring yet? ...or are you one of the lucky ones who are aleady smelling the roses?
I'm not sure if I have any readiness for particular seasons since any correlation between my schedule and the earth's is rather nebulous. However, I am rather fed up with the interface between winter and spring--the time when the snow thaws to give way to a wet muddy mess. I've had some pretty close calls with recklessly fast drivers who hydroplane through large dirty puddles without any regard to nearby pedestrians.
Water: Domestic or bottled? Are you one of those who just cannot drink tap water and absolutely has to have bottled? ...or does any source that has some chlorine in it to okay with you?
Bottled. If it has to be tap water, it must be filtered and boiled first.
Yesterday, I was taking yet another survey and for a couple of the questions, I had to really analyze my blogroll. A curious pattern emerged: I had linked to more men then women. But when it came to linking back to me, more women did than men. The ratios, were in fact, reversed. In my blogroll men to women were 3:2. When linking to me, the men to women ratio was 2:3. I wonder if this is happening to anyone else or if maybe this is just this blog's particular weird quirk.
I have also noticed that everyone on my blogroll (with the exception of two people) is older than me. From casual observation, people tend to link to their peers. This happens more often with younger people, possibly because there are, in general, more younger people online. Am I somehow deviant in this respect, or is it more related to disliking reading about the social lives and mundane schoolwork of teenagers and wanna-be teenagers?
So who do I link to? Oh, all sorts of people. Scientists, students, feminists, musicians--people who are in many respects similar to me. There are also people who on first glance don't seem anything like me. Parents, grandparents, dissatisfied and disgruntled Gen X'ers, teachers, "laypeople", conservatives, liberals, the famous, the wise, the wild partyers. But something was there to draw me into reading them.
Funny, isn't it, whenever I think of my blogroll, I hope it isn't identical to anyone else's. I don't care if anyone links me back (about half don't). In a way, what I read is a measure of my individuality--and individuality is something that is so precious to me that I wouldn't lose it even if everyone in the world hated me.
I always hesitate about putting anything remotely political in this blog. It's not that I'm apolitical, voiceless, ignorant, or insensitive. I'm just not completely untopical. But here's the Tuesday Too:
I'm still amazed at how quickly the American administration turned from their focus of 9/11 to Iraq. To me, the relationship between the two is tenuous at best. Sure, weapons of mass destruction are a bad thing but many countries have them, including the United States. And so far, I haven't seen any of these countries behaving in a responsible manner.
I don't think war is the right answer to this particular problem, but even if war had been inevitable, I really didn't like the way they went about attempting to gain support.
As for everything else and then some, let's just say I cringe every time I think about where my taxes are going.
2. Has your position caused arguments with friends or family?
No.
3. Is there some other issue that has you grinding your teeth? What is it?
I hate it when my roommates accidentally leave the front door open and then the neighbors barge in yelling for them and then when they don't respond, barge into my bedroom thinking that I'm one of the other roommates, ready to drag their errant friend off to wherever the heck people go in the middle of the night when it's freezing cold.
Living with screaming people who have absolutely no concept of privacy or common sense totally sucks.
I feel brain dead and bone tired. True, I'm frustrated on a particular problem I'm working on now, but instead of wasting my time and energy throwing tantrums I'm attempting to think up of more solutions.
I'm used to people venting their frustrations with sharp oaths. It is only the things beyond verbal outbursts that scare me.
For instance, this morning a young woman (who I never saw before) with a stack of papers and a red pen had taken up the lab bench next to my desk. Okay, no problem, maybe she's new. I usually use a different lab bench anyway. But whenever I was at my desk working on something, I heard sighs and moans and mutterings of obscenities about students answering questions incorrectly. She gave me dirty looks as if I were to blame.
Hey lady, I may look like one of those undergrads you've TA'd (after all, undergraduates have mistaken me for one of their own), but I haven't taken any of your classes. Today's the first time I've seen you!
I don't appreciate people's insidious attitudes that reach out in an attempt to infect innocent bystanders. Sometimes I wonder if this particular attitude is the result of a spoiled childhood where she got too many time-outs and not enough swats on the behind.
Fortunately, she left before noon, before I decided to snap out of my laid-back temperament and throttle her.
CDC Issues Health Alert About Atypical Pneumonia. Of course, this eerily brings to mind the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (and a test question). How does disease successfully spread? For one, the bacteria or virus could develop epitopes that are not recognized by the immune system. Our immune system can recognize a heck of a lot of things due to various somatic recombination and selection systems, but everyone only inherits a subset of all the possible alleles that define the receptors that recognize foreign epitopes. Statistically, it's very likely that a virus could evolve into something that many immune systems have not seen before. One possible place for this type of evolution to occur is the recombination of two different strains in an animal host, say, domesticated livestock.
If I were a virus though, I would stay away from becoming another 1918 flu virus. Sure, it was successful at killing of people, but how smart is that? You're killing off your host and without your host, you die.
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Going with the flow. Via Blogdex: Word is made flesh as God reveals himself...as a fish. Um, has anyone heard of the words "hoax" and "ventriloquism"? Brawl erupts after song played at rodeo. I am sick and tired of the posturing, assumptions, and childish (or maybe more accurately stupid) behavior that we keep hearing about. A song is just a song. A word is just a word. Just because I have an irrational dislike for palm trees does not mean that I take the first flight to Southern California to chop down all of the offending flora. And then there's the issue of blatant racism. Just because some kid looks like he might be from the Middle East does not mean he is from there. And even if he was of Middle Eastern descent, that still is no excuse to beat up on a kid. English Sans French. My opinion on purging French out of English is exactly the same as purging English from French. Idiotic.
* * *
Think of civilization as a bathtub full of water. Picture some guy who says showers are better than baths pulling out the plug in the bathtub. Right now, the water is already two-thirds gone.
There will be no more spring breaks. At least for me anyway.
That makes me feel so old. And responsible. And tired.
And disappointed. I was contemplating on going to Montreal to visit some random places.
At least there are still the occasional mindless weekends.
* * *
High Bandwidth Probably Required: Fingertips Project. An ultrahip e-zine with stunning use of visuals and flash. I also like this piece on sin. The Remedi Project. A self-described online interactive art gallery, watch surreal poetry music videos, play with soundscapes, and beat Michael Jackson at chain-smoking. Happy Tree Friends. See cute animals, blood, and guts.
Other Wacky Sites: Soaked by the fountain of knowledge. Some advice on advice. By the way, I did not take my tagline from this. The catalogue of UK Entrances to Hell. "Rule 1: It may be an obvious thing to say but NEVER try to go inside an Entrance to Hell." Blogging Jobs: Get Paid to Blog. That is, if you want to sell out to some company. What color of kitten would you be? I am a lazy grey kitten. Figures. Color Harmonies. Trying to design a website and you are either colorblind or fashion-impaired? This is the site for you! IQ Comparison Site. I don't believe IQ tests indicate anything about intelligence. But it's interesting to see the results anyway (such as the observation that IQ steadily goes up every generation and then levels off possibly indicating some sort of environmental effect).
It took me a little while to catch on to what "banana" meant on a gung-ho Asian American website I had stumbled upon recently. If you haven't noticed, I'm a little slow on the uptake on slang. "24/7" wasn't in my vocabulary until it was already mainstream and I still cannot forgive one particular freshman (who has since dropped out, gotten married, and flew to the Sudan for missionary work) who single-handedly introduced the term "wicked" (as in "cool") into the Techer geek vocabulary.
Anyways, a lightbulb flashed in my brain. Aha! The old word analogy trick. Banana is to Asian American as Oreo is to African American. And then my next thought: Am I supposed to feel angry about this particular use of terminology? To be honest, I don't know how to feel. I can see it both as accurate and derogatory depending on who you apply it to.
Of course, personally I would never compare myself to a phallic piece of fruit, no matter what the silly fruit quiz results say. I don't hang out with people to be like them. Or because they are like me. So what exactly do I consider myself as?
Snow monkeys famed for soaks in warm springs. "An industrious troop of snow monkeys set its sights on the city of Kyoto, pillaging grocery stores and homes for food." I'm not sure why this is in the sports section.
Monkeys Show Sophisticated Learning Abilities. "Psychologists have found evidence that monkeys have sophisticated abilities to acquire and apply knowledge using some of the same strategies as do humans."
I know I'm guilty of not doing this more than half the time but I think more people should give more interesting answers to meme questions. In a way, they're like interview questions. And how do I know this? I actually read other people's answers.
Onesome: Blue- Mac brought color into the scheme of computer things. What color would your computer be if they offered custom colors for PC or Mac?
Chrome. With flashing blue LEDs.
Twosome: Screen- Hey how about a quick survey? What type of screen are you running, CRT or LCD? ...and what size screen would that be? Uh-huh, and that would be at what resolution? Designing minds want to know...
Geez, I thought I was done with surveys. I'm currently using a CRT screen at 1024 x 768 pixels. But if you have designing in mind, use the most common denominator. Most people use 800 x 600 pixels. Check your site in multiple browsers. Nowadays people use MSIE 6. And things look different in PCs and Macs.
Threesome: of Death- Have you ever had a catastrophic computer crash? Could it be revived or did you have to pronounce it dead?
I've had the computer freeze and give me the blue screen of death. Earlier this year, the fan died (and mysteriously rose up from the dead a few days later). But no, I haven't had a computer die on me. Yet.
This reminded me of a sci-fi short story I read in an anthology I dug up in the library several years ago. In the story, everyone had a brain prosthesis which contained the "consciousness" so that it could be moved from one body to another when it wore out. This was surgically implanted when a child was born so that this prosthesis could be "imprinted".
The critical juncture came when it was removed from the original body to be placed in the next body. What if the imprinting didn't work? Before removal, the prosthesis was disconnected from the body while awake. The main character was quite frightened by the procedure as he experienced thinking one thing yet doing another. What if his consciousness wasn't in the prosthesis? Then he would be terminated! It was a happy ending for him though, after the surgery, he woke up as himself except for the fact that he was wearing a new body.
I remember being bothered that this was less about immortality and more about a machine type of parasitism where these imprinting prostheses merely used humans as a host. Besides, I'm not sure I like this tampering of self. Sure, this will help out people with neurodegenerative diseases but how much will this change the personality? And just how biologically connected is the consciousness with the body? No one knows the answer to that, and it is exactly this lack of knowledge which makes brain surgery a lot like repairing a table (if what you're holding is a table in the first place) in the dark.
Blog Survey. (via Blogsisters) Take a survey to help a student on her thesis! Completely painless, unlike voluntarily getting electrocuted for science. If anything, the results will indicate who is more likely to take an internet survey. Too bad there isn't a phone book of bloggers so you could systematically submit a survey to every fifty. Yes, I remember Taco Shop Psychic's informal survey to determine the gender ratios of bloggers, but I don't believe it is more or less accurate even if the blogs picked were random because of the sample size.
1. What's your take on this article from the New York Times today?
I think the current climate can be likened to the human immune system. The government is trying to act like the immune system--to weed out the abnormal cells or cells harboring pathogens. In the human body, this is good since the body is a single organism and each cell is contributing to a whole. Then again, each cell is identical genetically so of course it wants to help out its sisters.
But a country's population is not a collection of cells. The government cannot act like the immune system. A group of cells will be prosperous if all abnormal cells are eliminated but not so with humans. Sure, you will weed out the terrorists, but I don't think invading privacy will solely be used for that. Humans are not identical. And if you look hard enough, based on any criteria, you will discover that everyone is a little warped. There is no such thing as a normal person. Unlike cells, I believe humans can thrive on diversity.
(This doesn't exactly answer the question on rights and privacy, but I believe we need both, even if it incurs a certain risk. Sort of like viruses inserting their own DNA into yours. Normally this is part of the latent infection cycle. But then what would you say if this foreign DNA confers a survival advantage?)
2. Network television is swimming in "reality" shows. You are the creator of the latest show to hit the circuit. Give a brief description of your show. Sarcasm welcomed.
Meet Joe Lab Tech. Just your ordinary guy thrust into the danger and excitement of a biosafety level 4 lab. Ebola! West Nile! And cute monkeys!
3. What do you really wish you were doing today?
Oh, a lot of things. None of which includes studying.
What do you write with? I typically use cheap black pens, the kinds that you find in plastic packages of ten or twenty for about two bucks or less. Sure, I like those pens that give out ink evenly and that write without much pressure applied, but they cost more than what I would like to spend.
I don't use pencils because they smear. And I dislike colored pens. Especially blue ones for some reason.
If I'm reading a book and there's a passage I want to remember, I don't highlight it. To me, marking a book with fluorescent markers is akin to desecration. Instead, I write what I need on a separate piece of paper. With a cheap black pen of course.
Although I regard the emerging phenomenon with a mixture of fascination and dread (dread--because I might get sucked up into it) I wonder how long it will remain the "big thing" before it is supplanted by something else, like video blogging or Star Wars-like holographic transmissions or even wires implanted into our heads so we could just absorb all the information subconsciously.
Audblog is a service that allows bloggers to audiopost anywhere, as long as they have a phone. Try it for free, they proclaim, hoping that users who become enamored with their services will subscribe to their $3/month plan. But your trial post really isn't for free. You have to pay for long distance charges as explained in a Noah Glass interview which really sounds more like an FAQ read by a surfer dude who's been working in the telephone operator industry rather than an actual interview. But that aside, I can see the potential for this sort of technology to enhance a blog. Some very good examples are on TestZone and Tiger Cafe where the mixture of reading material and the live voice give a more personal sense for the blog. The biggest advantage would be in news blogs where people could report a story while it is happening.
However, not everyone is going to sound so audiogenic on the phone. It's like audiotapes. The publishers are not going to hire Mr. Monotony to read Stephen King's latest. On the internet though, there won't be any discrimination. Nor are all audioposts going to be something interesting. Bandwidth would be wasted on the blabbers who have nothing else better to do than talk. Sure, maybe listening to a drunk man hemming and hawing may be amusing the first time, but it immediately becomes annoying. At worse, the net would be inundated with audio files of people who have nothing to say. Nosuch.org calls audio blogging a blogimmick and proceeds to give several points why this isn't a great thing.
My guess is that audio blogging won't be as highly visible as its creators hope. This piece of technology will simply integrate with everything else: photos, webcams, rss feeds, comment systems, chat boxes. But as long as there are people who think before they write and an audience that prefers lucidity over incoherent babble, it's going to be easier to pay attention reading than listening--after all, we're known to be visual creatures, not aural.
What if we could travel as bits of information instead of using our physical bodies? What if we could be downloaded from point A to point B using beam-me-up-Scotty technology except points A and B aren't planet and ship but locations spanning the universe?
That would be so cool.
Links: The Big Rip. What if this did happen and time warping wormholes opened up? Everybody could save themselves by traveling back through time! Origins of Science. Or rather, a wordy outline on the history of science. Computer Made from DNA and Enzymes. Well, this puts a whole new spin on the people who vehemently claim that humans aren't computers.
I know I'm not supposed to judge people on appearances, but what am I supposed to think that when I call for a taxi, a white moving van that looks like it's designed for little old ladies arrives with a driver who looks like he should be the leader of a motorcycle gang?
It might just be all for show. He probably has a wife, three kids, a dog, and half the mortgage on his house already paid. Maybe he even listens to NPR.
Onesome: Cold Are you a cold weather person and just deal with it or do you prefer temperatures closer to the century mark?
I say I like the cold, but it can be damn inconvenient at times. This morning I stepped out of the house and pretty much fell flat on my face. The entire front walkway was frozen over in clear ice. I don't even think somebody with ice picks for shoes could gain traction on it.
However, I think hot weather is worse, especially when it is combined with humidity. But when I'm standing outside freezing my butt off waiting for something, I wouldn't trade that for a steamy summer in the south even if you tried to bribe me with tickets to see The Merry Widow at the Metropolitan Opera.
Twosome: and Misty What makes you misty-eyed? Do you cry at Hallmark commercials or get all sentimental when you hear a specific song? You can tell us, we won't laugh ;)
The last time I cried was at an IMAX theater in Boston that was showing an adventure movie. That was weird because that was the first time I ever cried at a movie. My previous crying spells had usually occured while I was alone and in a fit of egomaniacal self-pity. And even those don't occur very often.
I think what's more odd is laughing out loud when reading scientific papers. This is usually due to the authors trying to make their work sound more interesting by putting in literary allusions and Star Wars metaphors when in reality, they would have been better off letting their data stand alone.
Threesome: Morning Mornings? ...or evenings? Which is your time of the day? Are you up with the sun or do you help the moon keep the night lit?
I'm in between although I'll have to admit that I lean more towards mornings. I don't get up insanely early (like some people I know), but then I'm probably already up and about for at least four hours before my roommates even think about getting out of bed.
Census 2000 to be exact. It was just past noon and I was having lunch with my roommate. The cafeteria staff had decided to serve one of their specialties, "Jurassic Chicken" (wonder how long those have been in the freezer?), so I opted to go for the vegan bar and my roommate braved the soup of the day. A lady in a suit who obviously did not belong was handing out packets to everyone she saw.
"Here you go!" she jabbered cheerily as she dumped one packet, perilously close to lunch, for each of us. "Make sure you fill these out and send them off as soon as possible!"
My roommate opened the packet and took out a single sheet of paper. "Well, this doesn't look too bad."
I opened mine and nearly keeled over in outraged indignation. I got an entire booklet. Besides my name, my age, my gender, they wanted to know my race. My religion. My income. And the rest of my social life. Ah well, I dutifully filled out all the paperwork and sent it off. The INS already has all the goods on me anyway.
I know the data has been out for a while already, but this is the first time I've actually looked at it. Now I can see hard core correlation between a lot of statistics that I often hear bandied about.
For instance, the data on age groups and sex. Overall, there are about 96 males per 100 females. That's over 5 million more women than men in the United States! Sure, you may not think of that as a lot (especially since the population is spread out), but think of it this way, it's like saying there are 5 million more purple Skittles than green Skittles. Assuming each Skittle weighs 1 gram, that's 5 metric tons. No one can ignore 5 metric tons.
However, if you look at the data more closely, you'll see that there are more males than females born. This stays about the same until you hit the 30 to 34 age bracket where there is a shift. What happened? Are males living more recklessly? By the time you get to the 90-year-olds, there are only 32 males per 100 females.
And look at this. The only places where there are more men than women are Alaska and Nevada. Very interesting. However, this information is just the surface.
I'm not even going to begin drawing conclusions.
And a census in Britain: yournotme.com So, want to find out if anyone in the U.K. has your name? I was curious. My first name (approximately 700): You are like a rare bird, Lost and pecking at nuts. My last name (approximately 250): More people probably die poking spoons into the back of their PC's every year than there are of you. My entire name (exactly 0): That name doesn't exist. Are you secret service? Don't hurt me I've seen Enemy of the State.
1. Do you know about GeoURL? Check it out to find your neighbor's blog, or the web page of a restaurant near you. Find your house with a satellite photo map, and put your self in the database if you're so inclined.
It looked interesting so I put this blog into the database a while back. However, I am not so crazy as to put in the coordinates of my house. Instead, they're the coordinates to my school. Of course, I'm there most of my time anyway so it might as well be pointing there.
2. How many times have you redesigned, or chosen a new template for your blog/journal, and are you content with your current look?
I'll be fine with Version 1.5 for at least until the end of this month. After that, I will have no guarantees as to what I will be thinking then. Just for the blog, the current layout is the sixth version. If you count the versions before I implemented blogger, this version is actually the thirteenth. Yeah, I know that's a lot, but I'm fickle about these things. I usually change things around when I'm feeling bored or when I get it into my head that I need change, but I am not adverse to changing it if there's something seriously wrong with the layout. For instance just over a year ago, I went from 1.2 to 1.3 due to some gripes from The Real Diary Critic. Of course, that was when I felt like I needed feedback. Now I do whatever the heck I want.
And for the curious and bored, here are the screenshots for my previous layouts.
3. From The New York Times February 11, 2003: "...The federal appeals court in St. Louis ruled yesterday that officials in Arkansas can force a prisoner on death row to take antipsychotic medication to make him sane enough to execute. Without the drugs, the prisoner, Charles Laverne Singleton, could not be put to death under a United States Supreme Court decision that prohibits the execution of the insane." The prisoner referred to was convicted of murder, and sentenced to death for in 1979. You've probably already heard about this, but what do you think/feel about it?
Ah, another sticky ethical question. I think jf has some really good musings on this. I don't have any answers on this either, but the forcing of a prisoner to take drugs to make him more lucid for execution even if he is a murderer already raises some warning bells.
Lately, I've just been thinking of doing things and not really doing them. Maybe it's the result of having too much cold weather. All the sensible people stay inside to prevent their toes from freezing off.
One thing I've been thinking about is learning how to play the guitar. The first time I touched a real guitar was in high school when one of my classmates in journalism brought his acoustic guitar and let everyone try it. Out of a class of about 15, the guitarist considered me a "natural" at it. I tried telling him that I played the cello in the community orchestra and he replied, "Well that explains it!"
I find the guitar fascinating on several counts. Its reputation is on par with that of the kazoo. That is, everyone who thinks they can play it says they can play it although in reality the majority of "guitarists" are just hacks who really need more practice than posturing. Second, its virtually unknown that classical composers like Boccherini actually composed for the guitar. And finally, the alternate music reading system. Who hasn't seen those chord diagrams in music books? I had always thought that they were there for the people who were either music illiterate or were too lazy to learn the traditional notation.
Besides, for some reason, guitars are cheaper than other stringed instruments. Is it because there are more guitar manufacturers than violin makers? Or are the materials of less quality (I should sincerely hope not!)?
Anyways, all this talk about guitars reminds me of the guzheng in my parents' basement. I've been meaning to teach myself how to play that thing for the past couple of years, but...I wonder if I could have it shipped out here to the boondocks? It's a whole lot heavier than my cello and almost twice as big...
Totally different: Accidental Strength. A Princeton graduate steals other people's stories for his thesis which ironically, accumulates several prestigious writing awards. The victim says, "If you’re looking for moral outrage, for a vitriolic, fire-breathing defense of the sanctity and incalculable value of an author’s written words, well, you won’t find it here. I hate to admit it, but I feel almost sorry for him. " I guess I understand why the victim feels as he does. But if I had any of my stories plagiarized, I would be furious. Perhaps more free-thinking people are just glad to have their ideas out there for others to read regardless of the "source", but I am not so virtuous. I'm rather possessive of anything that comes out of my head.
At the time, I thought it was a good idea to get a rosemary plant. Plants are supposed to be easy to take care of--you just water them and leave them at the windowsill for sunlight. Besides, I thought of myself as a plant liberator, getting it away from the store where it was more likely for little old ladies with rosemary-drenched chicken fetishes and jaded parents with grabby kids and plant-eating cats to snatch it up rather than an honest-to-goodness plant connoisseur.
But I thought too soon. While I was looking for plant care tips, I found rosemary owner horror stories instead. Unfortunately, they are all more contradictory than helpful--an indication perhaps that the seemingly hapless plant that I've acquired is more finicky than a two-year-old child.
I'm no tree-hugging hippie, but I wonder if playing it music will help matters any.
More information on rosemary: Herb data. "Rosemary is a circulatory and nervine stimulant, which in addition to the toning and calming effect on the digestion is used where psychological tension is present." How to Grow and Care for Rosemary Plants. "In cold climates, grow your rosemary plant in a pot so it may be brought indoors during winter, where it should be placed in a sunny window or under flourescent grow lights." Growing Your Own Rosemary. "I love to grow things, and I especially love to have plants around the house in the winter. I really love rosemary plants and those cute little "rosemary Christmas trees," but the problem is that I always manage to kill them!" Rosemary folklore. "Greek students believed it improved the memory, and so they wore it in their hair when studying for exams."
He rubbed his eyes, uncertain as to whether the fuzzy blob he just noticed was a co-worker or a figment of last night’s pizza.
“Morning, Roberto, what’s up?” the blob said.
Putting his glasses to his face, the blob became clearer. It was his officemate, Carrie, who had transferred from the British branch of the company a week ago. “What’s up?” he repeated. He looked up at the ceiling. “Well, there are the lights. And above that some pipes, I suppose and the roof. There’s the sky, the atmosphere and beyond that the void. Gravity makes the moon spin above our heads and we spin around the sun…”
“Oh, love, you’ve been awake all night doing work again, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, love is like gravity. Gravity brings two planets together just as love brings two people together…”
“Roberto!”
“What?”
“You’re rambling again.”
“I am?”
Carrie opened her mouth to reply when a loud moaning shriek reverberated down the hall. The frightening cry was followed by a sickening crunch as if a steamroller had decided to eat one of the copying machines next door for lunch.
Roberto frowned. Maybe it was last night’s pizza. “Did you just bark like a dog or am I hallucinating?”
“I did not bark like a dog!” said Carrie. “Something happened outside. Maybe we should go see what happened or call security.”
Footsteps skidded to a halt right outside the door. A short girl with curly hair pulled up with barrettes and a pair of corduroy overalls one size too large barged in, the top couple of papers from the stack she was holding in her arms flying in the air only to land at Carrie’s feet. Jane was one of the four or five co-op students that the company hired for the term. Usually she was cheerful and efficient, but it was unusual to see her rushing around as if gremlins were at her heels. She slammed the door closed just as they heard several other doors in their hallway also close.
The unearthly shriek was heard again, this time closer, and hard stomping footsteps accompanied the noise.
Jane slumped against the door when it was obvious whatever made the noise was gone.
“Did you just annoy the boss?” said Carrie disapprovingly.
The girl shook her head in the negative. “No. I was next door making copies and then I heard that noise. I coming out of the copier room when I saw Mr. Hemmler walking out of his office looking, well, mad. But that’s not quite accurate. Furious, maybe.”
“Jerry Hemmler?” Carrie was astonished. “Mild-mannered Jerry?”
“I’m not surprised. There have been strange stories about Jerry floating around for quite awhile,” Roberto replied, his attention already back at his computer and briefly thinking about ordering Chinese take-out the next time he had to stay late.
“But Jerry was so nice when I met him the first day…”
“Trust me, it’s Mr. Hemmler,” Jane said as she knelt down to pick up the papers she had dropped. “You just haven’t been here long enough to see the worst of it.”
Impulsive Plant Liberator
