Ultimate Flash Sonic. I have never played the original video game, but I do find this amusing. Minimize your browser if you want it to run more smoothly. (And it also helps if you have a high speed processor--I tried it on a PII and it was too darn slow.)
Carl & Phil: Monkey Ninjas. Cartoons! Watch them defeat the evil slime creatures in the earlier episodes.
Planetarium. "A puzzle-story in twelve weekly installments."
Interactive Fiction in the 21st Century. Great article about IF games. I'm always thinking about learning how to program one, but I never have the time. It almost makes me regret taking that physics seminar class rather than the intro to computer programming while I was an undergrad.
Handwashing Experiment. (Via Monkeyfilter) I wonder if the statistics would be any better if I tallied the habits of the patrons of the medical school bathrooms.
Women's Magazine Editors. The 2Blowhards also ask why women use so many exclamation points. I don't know, maybe they want to sound perky? Or maybe there could be a Freudian explanation? At any rate, nobody has complained about my use (or lack) of the trigger-happy punctuation so I'm not going to worry about it.
I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook. Some excerpts from a chef's experiences with the current North Korean leader. Both funny and scary.
How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement. As Caitlin Flanagan points out, feminism suffers from the differences between its ideologies and economic reality. What I wonder about is: can't a semi-solution be worked out by having the men share some of the responsibility of taking care of the kids rather than letting the women make the sole decision of either taking care of the kids, pursuing a career, or somehow juggling both? Or am I just being influenced in my views by observing couples in academia?
What's up with blogging, and why should you care? I can't believe people are still churning out these articles. Unless you've been hiding underneath a rock the past couple of years, this is akin to writing an essay entitled, "What's up with websites, and why should you care?"
Choreography: The art of symbolically representing dancing
Onesome- Choreography: What do you choreograph in your life? Your morning routine? The dinner ritual? How you study?
I schedule things, yes. But choreograph? No. I don't count the steps I need to take to get to the bathroom or the kitchen. I don't swish my toothbrush exactly 100 times to brush my teeth or measure exactly one teaspoon of oil to pour into the pan. As for studying--I don't have a systematic way of actually doing that either. And I hope I don't ever have to choreograph any of my activities. Life is too spontaneous and surprising.
Twosome- The art of symbolically: Art? Hmmmm... Sure, what do you like to have? ...or do you? ...but how about that little symbol you keep on your desk or headboard? The one you keep because??? I mean, if you can share that...
I don't have any art or symbols in my living space. If that makes me minimalist and boring, so be it.
Threesome- representing dancing: No, not 'do you dance?' (although that's fine too!); rather, which type(s) of dancing will you stop and watch for a moment? Ballroom? Swing? Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey?
Competitive ballroom dancing! Seriously, I would watch any kind of dancing as long as it's not the kind where people writhe pointlessly (and haphazardly) on the dance floor.
The sky is a washed out blue and the sun high overhead. It's warm and the buildings around me--metal, wood, stucco--sag in the heat. The buildings, decorated by small lonely trees, are empty. The streets are very dusty and I, along with the rest of the populace, are running. Kicking up dirt, sweating, slack-jawed breathing. I look back and there is a blob roiling and spilling through the streets.
This isn't your typical slimy green blob. It's pink and yellow and chunky--heterogeneous. The bits of candied warts on its hide glimmer maliciously in the afternoon.
I run. It feels as if this chase is never ending until I spot a small parking lot. A couple of people are hot rodding a green car. I hop into the driver's seat and they don't argue when I stomp on the gas pedal. There's one other person sitting shotgun and two or three other people in the backseat. I look in the rear-view mirror and see the blob.
The car spins onto the highway and suddenly I feel as if I'm in a video game for car racing. I begin thinking about need for gas, food, shelter. I ask my passengers if they have any money. They answer in the negative. We forgot about that stuff when we were running from the blob. But after a little search, they find a couple hundred dollars stuffed in the glove compartment and a small gray suitcase under one of the seats which contains a strange journal.
The highway narrows down and we're driving through a strange city with signs in a different language. One of the passengers announce that we've arrived in Laos. But how did we end up in a southeast Asian country? I'm feeling hungry, but I drive past the flashy restaurants for westerners--those would only try to rip us off.
The other teaching assistants have abandoned me. I suppose it's not surprising considering they've been complaining nearly non-stop about how the course is run and the professors' expectations of them. Personally, I also have some reservations about how the course is run (mainly the "controlled" aspect of it--how lectures are scripted and how little freedom there is to improvise) and there are times when I wonder why I'm needed at all.
Anyways, back to the other TAs. They've stopped going to lecture. All of them. It only became a big problem today when I got inundated with questions from the undergraduates (talk about a 130:1 ratio!). The amount of questions themselves weren't a surprise either, I mean, it is near the end of the term and I suppose half of them are panicking about their grades. But still. I'm not going to rag on the other teaching assistants due to their recent peevishness (and it is highly unlikely that any of the profs will find this entry before the end of this term, let alone ever) but I do feel a little resentful that everything fell on my head.
I do remember that as an undergrad, I had taken courses with singularly unhelpful TAs. One time, I was taking a quantum chemistry course (I probably posted something like "Quantum chemistry is evil!" some time in 2000 or 2001) and the TAs would tell the students, "Go figure it out yourself!" Well, most of the class went and complained to the prof who appeared quite annoyed by the situation, but I never heard that anything was done to the TAs.
I did talk to the other TAs about the problem, but I didn't think they were very sympathetic considering I always finish grading my papers before the weekend.
I trudged through a muddy stream running into a dim forest wondering if I had been sucked into a Miyazaki fairy-spirit world. I was following a webbing of twine which had been stretched along the shore like a pseudo path, but it had disintegrated into bits and pieces which disappeared into the litter of the forest floor. A school of strange bubble-like creatures with eyes popped up to the surface of the water when I walked through an intersection of two streams. They didn't say anything, but they seemed annoyed as if I had accidentally taken the wrong path.
Of course I took the wrong path! I didn't know where I was going. But then again, I wasn't looking where I was going and I tripped and fell face first into the mud.
When I came to, I found myself in a strange house. It was one of those houses you would find in a suburban neighborhood owned by an upper middle class couple with three kids and a gas-guzzling SUV. I was in the foyer which had a hardwood floor and no furniture except for a hot tub. There was someone with me in the room--a leering Antonio Banderas look-alike who struck me as being very, very creepy.
An older woman came into the room claiming that she was me in the future. She said something about going to a college in Wales and majoring in music and marrying the Antonio Banderas look-alike. At that point, I told her that this guy was evil, but she only gave me a blank look as if she'd been brainwashed. Then I ran out the front door and started screaming.
It was night in the neighborhood and all the front porch lights were on, but no one came out to find out why I was screaming. About a block away, I looked back and saw a shadow--darker than the night--in the distance and gaining. My voice separated from my body and suddenly I was the voice, an invisible flying entity. I urged myself to hide in one of the houses with an unlocked door and then I continued screaming to lure the shadow away.
As I flew toward the back of the neighborhood, toward the forest, I saw a solitary person jogging. He seemed familiar--he looked a lot like a technician in a lab I used to work at. He stopped, sensing me, and somehow I knew he could help me. I whispered in his ear where he could find me to take me home and then I flew away again, hoping that the shadow wouldn't find him first.
When I arrived at the edge of the forest, I found a beige hospital corridor had blended into the landscape. At the edge of that strange disembodied hallway, I screamed and made my voice sound fainter as if I was running further away. The shadow, which as it came closer sharpened into the figure of the Antonio Banderas look-alike, ran into the corridor not seeing me. And I flew back to be reunited with my corporeal self.
I never mean to eavesdrop, but some people just talk so loudly that you can't help but listen. One of my housemate's friends is obsessive over online dating. I have nothing against online dating except that maybe the probability of meeting a wacko is that much higher, but well this person is more obsessive over possible online dates than what would perhaps call normal. But what can I say? Everyone's obsessive about something.
The Book Quiz. "You're Prufrock and Other Observations by T.S. Eliot! Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons."
Exposure To Low-level Magentic Fields Causes DNA Damage In Rat Brain. "Prolonged exposure to low-level magnetic fields, similar to those emitted by such common household devices as blow dryers, electric blankets and razors, can damage brain cell DNA, according to researchers in the University of Washington's Department of Bioengineering. The scientists further found that the damage from brief exposures appears to build up over time."
BloggerCon. It's April 10, 2004 at Harvard (not surprising). And April 10 is a Saturday so maybe I'll go. But if I go, I would probably only make it to the afternoon sessions.
Periodic Table of Blogs. I've actually visited most of those blogs at some time or another (except the baseball blogs--why is it just baseball and not all sports?) before stumbling upon this table. I think it's a good idea, I mean, everyone should have a personal periodic table of blogs instead of the plain old blogroll. (Actually, mine are filed under the Dewey decimal system so, whatever.)
Hundreds of coins found in patient's belly. "French doctors were taken aback when they discovered the reason for a patient's sore, swollen belly: He had swallowed around 350 coins -- $650 worth -- along with assorted necklaces and needles."
The Pagan Hierarchy. This is amusing, but what's the rationale for including scholars with wannabe witches on this diagram? They're not really comparable.
News about Ender's Game: The Movie. Well, this is the first I've heard of it. Ender's Game is a good book but I wonder how well it will translate on screen. I just hope they don't focus too much on the insect-like aliens. Practically every military sci-fi has insect-like aliens and that's getting old.
Serendipity: Making fortunate discoveries by accident
Onesome: Serendipity:-- Do you believe in destiny?
No. I don't think one's life is predetermined. I am in control of my own life and if I really wanted to do X instead of Y, I would do it. Nothing is stopping me, not my peers, not my professors, not my parents, not society, not God, or any other mysterious forces.
Twosome: Making fortunate discoveries-- What is your greatest "find"? Is it an antique you discovered tucked away at a garage sale? Or maybe something as simple as the great sale on khakis or lawn mowers at your favorite store?
Well, I don't like shopping except for books and "greatest find" depends on the time, that is, when I finally find a bookstore that carries the book I want. Yes, I can easily find it on Amazon, but what's the fun in that?
Actually, what I hope will be my greatest find would be catching the local pen thief in the act. For the past couple of months, my pens have been disappearing from my desk never to be seen again. I have resorted to hiding my pen stash so they don't disappear all at once.
Threesome: by accident-- Have you ever discovered a place entirely by accident and it's become a favourite place to go now? A hidden grove in the city park, a wonderful little coffee shop or restaurant, a treasure trove of a shop?
The stacks of the biomedical library. It's cool as long as it's not swarming with industrious med students.
Or maybe I should just stop looking at my referrer logs. Sometimes I get referrals that look like a Really Famous Weblog has linked me. For about five seconds, I start panicking. How did they find me? Why did they notice? Will my host be able to accommodate all that extra traffic?
And then I look on the Really Famous Weblog's page and there is no link back. Whew. Maybe the referral log is just picking up the site the visitor had on before or after.
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Links:
Well-Designed Weblogs Volume 2. Here's the second installment of Lars Holst's collection of good design. I don't know how he does it, but he always finds the niftiest ones. Two years ago, all I had to go by was some "cool homepages" website that, well, left a lot to be desired.
Reading Design. I found this article in the comments section of the link above. Very useful.
I'm sitting in the back of the auditorium listening to a genetics lecture. Another TA sitting beside me is tapping away at her laptop. The other TAs are mysteriously absent. The rest of the seats around us are devoid of undergrads. The prof is meticulously explaining three-point crosses and my mind is going fuzzy at the edges. Needless to say, I'm not paying much attention until--
Student: So why did you figure that the "D" gene is in the middle and not, say, the "A" gene?
Prof: Pure logic.
The class erupts in laughter.
The prof was nice enough to explain the entire problem over again, but that got me thinking about logic problems. One thing I had always thought was cool about genetics was that the problems posed really are problems, that is, they usually require logic to solve. It's not that I don't think other areas of biology aren't cool too, but other areas (immunology for one) require a heck of a lot more memorization than problem solving skills.
Maybe I'm just one big kooky geek, but I really like thinking about logic problems. Perhaps all the mental grinding required to solve one of those problems gives me the illusion that I'm actually learning something and becoming smarter. Memorization, well, what's the use of that when twenty years down the road, you'll have to look it up in the book anyway?
Um, yeah, so I changed it again. And my mascot is back up. You know, I kind of hope the guy who drew him gets a deal to make stuffed toys out of his drawings. I'd buy one and put it in the window like a jack-o-lantern. Anyways, the design was inspired by a certain elegant-looking satire and humor site, and it might have been a ripoff if it weren't for my dislike of columns of a certain size, a particular default font, and my lack of taglines. I used to have a tagline, but well, it was a stupid tagline. (Actually, it's still around. It's part of the title of this page, which I have been too lazy to change.)
One of my housemates has declared war on plastic. Actually, it's not really a war--more like a boycott. She lectured me and the rest of my housemates about the danger of most plastics and that bacteria can grow on them even if you wash it several times. She's thrown out everything plastic except the ones that say "5". She says those are safe. Of course, she has read all about this in a magazine article that she can't even cite.
Yawn city. I think she forgot that I work in the microbiology department. I've been to a multitude of seminars where bacterial growth on surfaces, particularly plastics, has been pointed out and accompanied by gross-out medical pictures. (There also has been talk about adding antibiotics to plastic, especially plastic implants, but at the moment, that's going nowhere considering bacteria can become antibiotic resistant and grow on the implants anyway.)
But what I didn't know about was the plastic numbering system. If you look for the recycling sign on a piece of plastic, you will find a number in the middle of that sign. It ranges from 1 to 7. The numbers themselves designate what kind of plastic was used. A quick and easy cheat sheet to what the numbers stand for can be located at Recyclenow.org. I've also found another article concerning the safety of plastic water bottles. Apparently #1 plastic is the safest while #3 may be the most dangerous.
And what about plastic #7? #7 is "other" plastic and is used to make those ubiquitous Nalgene bottles carried by college students, hikers, and ridiculously self-conscious yuppies. (I don't own any Nalgene bottles, besides, why should I buy something that would make me look like every other drone?) The previous article mentioned research from a Current Biology paper that showed that toxins leached from compounds commonly found in #7 plastic were hormone disruptors.
And then there are those crazed animal activists who want to boycott Nalgene because it is the same company (you've heard of Nunc, right?) that makes research supplies--some of it used in animal testing. Personally, I don't know any "money grubbing vivisectionists" but I bet these animal activists would feel differently if you told them that an animal model must be used to develop a cure for a disease they might have. After all, in vitro testing only goes so far.
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Completely Unrelated:
CN Tower Timelapsed. I like watching the moon move across the sky. This site also has some other cool stuff too.
Slaves found on Brazilian ranch. "Officials said they discovered 32 slave-workers on the ranch of right-wing Senator Joao Ribeiro in the northern state of Para. They said the captives worked seven days a week without pay and had no running water or toilets."
Big bang busted in science class for high schools. I know everyone has been reading about the hoopla on the proposal to ban the word "evolution" in the Georgia science curriculum, but apparently there has also been other insidious proposals. Sometimes I wonder if creationists just want to ban science altogether and what would the world be like if they succeeded. It's enough to make one cry.
Kylie Minogue music video "Come Into My World". It's a relatively old music video (2002), but what I find interesting about it is the repetitive filming technique. And is it just me, or does all the music by Kylie Minogue sound like they're from the 70's?
Star Atlases. Here's a digitized collection of more old books, particularly those by Bayer, Flamsteed, and Reissig. There's also an online exhibit on The Face of the Moon.
Fantasy Planes. Pictures of planes that look interesting and even beautiful, but never made it big due to various reasons.
A couple weeks ago, I was rooting around in different journals searching for the latest papers on virulence factors when I stumbled upon something that was so different and strange that I just had to sit down and say, "Huh?" This something in question was a paper by Angert and Clements on the reproductive weirdness of Epulopiscium, a bacterium that I had never heard of before.
When most people think of bacterial reproduction, they think of the asexual kind called binary fission. In a way, it's like when your somatic cells undergo mitosis, the DNA replicates and then the cell divides forming two daughter cells. However, there are ways in which bacteria can exchange genetic material instead of making clones of themselves. In a transformation, you can shock the bacteria via a heat bath or electroporator into taking up foreign DNA. Or it could involve conjugation ("bacterial sex" if you want to get giggles from the undergrads) where one bacteria forms a pilus to another bacteria to exchange DNA. And yet a third way would be transduction where a virus is used as an intermediary (during an infection, the virus may take up some bacterial DNA so when it goes to infect another cell, that DNA will be transferred). Epulopiscium, on the other hand, gives birth to live offspring.
Live offspring?!
Okay, we'll eventually get to that, but first let's just consider, what is Epulopiscium?
The first species, Epulopiscium fishelsoni, was discovered by Lev Fishelson and colleagues while they were working on identifying the gut microflora of a surgeonfish species (Acanthurus nigrofuscus) in the Red Sea in the early 1980s. But among the gamut of symbiotic unicellular prokaryotes and eukaryotes, they found a gigantic cigar-shaped microorganism that could easily be seen just with a light microscope. This microbe, which was initially tagged as a protozoan, was covered in cilia and flagella which helped it to move around. Other Epulopiscium species were soon found as symbionts in other surgeonfish around the world.
To get a sense of how large Epulopiscium is, we should compare it to the "average" bacteria which can range from 0.2 to 1.5 microns. You would definitely need a microscope to see that. Epulopiscium is 250 microns long--large enough to be seen by the naked eye. But how can they get so large? A size of a cell is limited by how much material can diffuse or be transported through the surface to the interior. So a cell reaches a threshold when the interior or the volume of the cell increases faster than the surface area (consider the equations for the surface area and the volume of a sphere--the volume increases by r3 while the surface area only increases by a factor of r2). Epulopiscium gets past this rule by wrinkling or folding in its membrane to increase its surface area--not unlike the folds of mitochondria or the wrinkling of the brain.
Scientists, though, began to reconsider Epulopiscium classification. Was it really a protozoan? Pace et al. checked this by comparing genetic sequences rather than cell morphology. As a result, not only did they prove that Epulopiscium was a bacterium and not a protozoan but that it is closely related to another symbiotic bacterium, Metabacterium polyspora, which is found in the guinea pig gut as well as the more common soil bacteria Clostridium. This is going to be important later on.
So back to Epulopiscium and its unusual life cycle. Currently, it's unknown how the bacterium is transmitted from fish to fish--it hasn't been found in sea water or fish eggs or fish feces. The bacterium also follows a circadian cycle. During the day, it moves along the surgeonfish's digestive tract, following the food and growing. At night, the bacterium reproduces giving rise to smaller cells which can go through the cycle again the next day when the fish feeds. In various species of Epulopiscium, the mother cell gives birth to one to seven daughter cells. The offspring grow inside the parent until they are so large that they burst through, killing the mother.
How did Epulopiscium come up with this bizarre birthing process? Its closest relative, Metabacterium polyspora, doesn't do such a thing. But wait, Metabacterium as well as the soil bacteria Clostridium (famous members of this family cause botulism and tetanus), form endospores. Endospores form roughly the same way as Epulopiscium offspring, but they aren't exactly live. They are dormant forms of the bacteria that are released into the environment when conditions are not optimal but start up their cellular processes again when conditions are favorable. Angert and Clements performed protein and DNA localization studies comparing Epulopiscium reproduction and endospore formation. And interestingly enough, both lined up. So what does this mean? Perhaps bacterial live births derived from endospore formation. Or maybe it was the other way around.
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More (Yet Unrelated) Links:
Takagism. A very cool locked room mystery. I hope the author finishes the next one soon.
4096 Color Wheel. Yep, another color scheme website. You can never have too many of those.
Dialect Survey Results. Geographical breakdowns of what people say and where they say it.
Astronomers Spy Massive Diamond. "If anyone's ever promised you the sun, the moon and the stars, tell 'em you'll settle for BPM 37093. The heart of that burned-out star with the no-nonsense name is a sparkling diamond that weighs a staggering 10 billion trillion trillion carats. That's one followed by 34 zeros." The first thing I thought about was--space pirates!
After Packing M&M's Together, Scientists Like What They See. "In possibly the biggest advance in the science of candy since the discovery that Wint-O-Green Life Savers emit faint blue sparks when chewed, scientists are reporting today that M&M's pack more tightly in your mouth than gumballs." It has something to do with the fact that M&M's are flattened spheroids rather than perfect spheres.
Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers. I read the book reviews on Amazon, but that doesn't mean that I believe them. Sometimes I read a book that people call bad just to be contrary. And sometimes it turns out not to be bad.
Benign Viruses Shine on the Silicon Assembly Line. This has nothing to do with the viruses and worms spread via e-mail and networks. Real live biological viruses are used to grow crystals for technology that is becoming more and more miniaturized.
Desktop Is. Some screenshots of really ancient desktops.
Online Scrabble for One. I am such a horrible scrabble player. I think it has to do with the fact that the letters are mixed up and my brain isn't optimized to be an anagram generator.
So I'm currently hiding out in lab. I've been here most of the day and I haven't been doing nothing, but well, I feel like I'm the only person in the world right now. I suppose I'm just being surly because everyone else is enjoying a three day weekend while I'm working but it's not just that. And I can't help thinking that this is all my fault somehow.
What does the background image on your desktop say about you? What does mine say about me? I'm not sure about you, but I think my tastes in wallpaper pretty much say I like to drift off into lala land. I definitely don't like leaving my computer preferences on default, but once I do pick something, it usually stays for quite a while. I've had computer art, book covers, cartoons, and even scans of my own notes in a feeble attempt to rouse myself into higher productivity. Right now, my desktop looks like this. It's from the Voynich Manuscript.
From the personal computers that I see in lab or around campus, most people have used photographs of places they have been or people that are close to them. And if not that, well, it's a photograph of something. Are most people more grounded in the real? Or is it something a little more subconscious--that they are actually craving contact with the rest of the world while they are at their computers? And since a photograph would be the last thing I would put on my desktop, what does that mean for me?
Or maybe it means nothing at all. The desktop image is only a digital version of a poster on the wall. It can be taken down and replaced. It's not permanent. And since it's so easy to change, perhaps it reflects more of the computer user's mood than his personality. So what do you think? What do you prefer to be on your desktop? How often do you change it? What do you think it says about you?
It's amazing how some things can be very revealing when you're teaching a laboratory class. Take this week's worm lab, for instance. It's immediately apparent who got the better end of the physical gene pool and who got the better end of the mental one by giving them something they've never done before. Some people have no problem with working under the microscope, but when it comes to analyzing the genetic crosses they are doing, they are completely clueless. Other people are whizzes at the analytical stuff, but are hopeless at worm picking. There are a few people who are good at both--and more power to them.
And then there are a couple of people who are afraid of touching and manipulating the microscope, never mind picking the worms, and really really don't understand genetic crosses even after several people have explained it to them.
It's enough to make a TA bang her head against the wall repeatedly.
The secret of being tiresome is to tell everything. --Voltaire
Onesome- The secret of: Can you keep a secret? Have you ever blabbed? What was the consequence?
I can keep a secret as long as you tell me it's a secret I have to keep. Also don't tell me secrets if I'm really tired and/or I have something else on my mind. As for consequences, see yesterday's post. I'm totally screwed.
Twosome- being tiresome is: What's the one subject you get on your soapbox about?
I can probably blab about anything if I had nothing else to do. Of course, that doesn't mean that I know anything about those subjects.
Threesome- to tell everything. Have you ever had to fess up or come clean about something to save your skin or someone else's?
I realized that this Saturday is Valentine's Day and the mistake that I made after I realized that someone had made me into an unwitting courier to his lady love was not as bad as I thought it was. It was worse.
Yes, it was my mistake. I should have been more vigilant instead of thinking about worms, and I'm really, really sorry. And besides not being able to take it back or even trying to fix it (and I did try--I think it did more harm than good), I've realized the possible ramifications were even worse than what I had thought perhaps five hours ago. It's worse than failing an exam. It's worse than getting hung by your toes. It's worse than giving away your firstborn.
Yes, I should have known due to flashy advertisements and snide remarks, but in my defense, I didn't realize it would be Valentine's Day until just now (or rather, just before now) and I probably wouldn't have realized it until the entire holiday was mostly over because I've learned to tune out pretty much anything frivolous. The only holidays I really care about are two weeks in the summer and Christmas when I actually get to see my family. Why should I care about it besides the odd parody sites on the Internet which make me laugh when I'm not worrying about school?
But that's the entire problem, isn't it--what I consider frivolous may be someone else's necessity. I'm not pretending that I understand how romantic love works. And I'm flat out saying--I don't understand it, I have no experience with it, I find it very hard to put myself in someone else's shoes and actually know. There was some miscommunication somewhere, probably with me when I just didn't get it. And then there are the people who actually are in this emotional haze and they know everything associated with it and are living it. They can't understand that I can't understand and the end result is that people think I'm a horribly cold person who should be shoved out of the airlock the next time I board a space shuttle.
So yeah, if you don't see me around after Saturday, that would mean that the people currently furious with me have made sure that I won't be able to type for quite a while.
I feel as if all of my brains have leaked out of my ears. It's hard (and frustrating) work trying to teach people who've never looked at C. elegans to determine which worm is male or hermaphrodite. And then you have to figure out crosses. And pick up those worms--for this class, using fishing line instead of platinum picks--and put them on a different plate. One simply gets cross-eyed staring into the microscope hours at a time.
I'm sure after a while you just get used to it, but personally, I'm really glad I don't have to work with worms for my thesis.
* * *
Crazy Stuff:
Psychology Tests. From the BBC. I've been meaning to take one of these--for the humor value of course.
It wasn't just me. The other TAs also had mostly female students come ask for help. And one of those TAs had the suspicion that the rare guys coming to office hours were gay. (I'm not so sure that sexual orientation has so much to do with the ability of asking for help, but what do I know?)
And since a major assignment is due today, hordes of students ambushed us asking last minute questions. And guess what? Most of those students were also female. The only guys I saw hanging around looked like they were waiting impatiently for their girlfriends to finish panicking when we TAs dispensed our pearls of wisdom.
I recently discovered another website that ripped off the layout for my writing website. I'm not sure what to think about that. On one hand, I'm annoyed that some person didn't take a little bit of time to come up with something on their own, but on the other hand my own designs are so simple that any idiot could code something similar (like those ubiquitous blogger templates). Well, all I can say is that they could of at least changed the colors.
I am a fish out of water. The room is dark and wooden. Couches outline a makeshift stage flanked with windows. And there is a microphone illuminated by a light. Undergrads in urban ghetto and long dresses and flared jeans that come to the floor--beatniks in 21st century style--populate the poetry slam. I am the fashionless lump skulking towards the free coffee and then taking residence in the corner on a chair, the vinyl ripped on one of its arms.
I would have been a fish in outer space if I had decided to go to the semi-formal held for graduate students. A lot of money was said to be spent on it so people could have free music, free booze, and awkward conversations. One roommate agonizes about her make-up. The other one wonders what to wear. And the third is apprehensive about bumping into a business grad student she met a few days ago--the touchy-feely one with fast hands.
But I'm at a poetry slam, not sure what to expect, but the room fills until it's standing room only and the emcee repeats himself, "People standing in the back, come to the front! We can't start if people are blocking the entrances. It's against the fire code or something." I'm at the back corner, sipping my coffee, morose and uncomfortable. The event starts with undergrads coming up to the microphone to read their own poetry. Interspersed would be two professionals.
The professionals are good. Words spill over one right after the other, barraging the listener with visuals. The students--I'm impressed that they had the guts to be personal with hundreds of their classmates--warble as they sang and recited. The words are vague, encompassing, reminding me of college essays. I hear emotion but the articulation isn't there. On the surface, I get what they're saying, but I cannot emphasize with their love, anger, feelings of oppression.
People rave about their fellow students. "They're really good!" They whistle and cheer and clap. I feel nothing. I am fixated on the words themselves, words that can be read in torturous internet poems by hormone-saturated teenagers. Not brilliant. Not genius. I can't understand. When the audience disperses, I allow them to push me out the door. If I can't understand this poetry, is there something wrong with me?
Walking about in the evening is eerie. The dark envelopes and hides. And paranoia runs rampant. I am of two minds. Do I go home or do I stay out here, waiting for an event that had given the wrong time? Or perhaps I am too sheltered, too inward looking to actually notice when the time changed. I walk outside in the dark along the powdered snow darkened to wet sand, wet mud. No one is about.
I hear music. An organ. I stop. The windows are darkened. The only other sound is the snow sliding off the roof. I walk and then I stop again, staring hard at the church and straining my ears. The music is certainly there, but not the light. I am of two minds. Do I walk away or do I go try the door? What if the door opened--would I see darkness? Would I see the organ player? Would he stop playing to stare at me? Or is something more amiss? I want to quench my curiosity about the mysterious music. But something flutters in my throat.
Office Hours Demographics: I couldn't help noticing that everyone coming to my office hours was a girl except for one guy. Was this coincidence? Or is there something unconscious going here? I will have to compare notes with the other TAs before I conclude anything.
Belated Mention About Layout: So somebody asked about what happened to the previous version. I was hoping that nobody noticed. If you're curious, I was somewhat inspired by this page. It's very temporary, I've been thinking about a new design since sometime last year. Think of this one as 1.9.5.
Oh great. Just great. I got one of my manuscripts returned unread because they decided to close submissions after I sent it. Try again in 2005. And it was accidentally delivered to the neighbors first. I'm sure those med school students got a kick out of that rejection. Arg!
Onesome: Anyone-- Has anyone made an impression on you lately? No, not on the national level, but at work or school or just 'around'. ...or even here on the web?
Everyone makes some sort of impression on me. As to whether or not I decide to ignore them is a different matter.
Twosome: can Miss-- Speaking of webbish things (and of course we are !), what types of things do you take a miss on at your place and chose not to post about? Just curious...
Sometimes I post memes, but I definitely don't do it as often as some people. I rarely post about politics unless it's unavoidable or if I think it might be informative for someone. I don't post instant messages or e-mails because 1) I don't do instant messaging; 2) I wouldn't post a private conversation just because I could; and 3) copying and pasting isn't my style. There's probably some other stuff I don't post about, but it's too early in the morning.
Threesome: a Day-- On a similar note: do you post every day? ...or just whenever? ...or is every session at the computer a spur to work up a little something?
Funny you should mention that. I usually post every day, but this week has been, to say the least, very busy. I can't guarantee another post today or even tomorrow (or maybe even Saturday) so I'm not even going to try.
As for most blog posts, I typically put some sort of thought into them before I hit the publish button, but I definitely don't spend hours agonizing over every word.
Recently, someone told me that she felt uncomfortable on campus because she receives funny looks for being different and that the population here is remarkably undiverse. Okay, so maybe this institution is dominated by the bubbleheaded Abercrombie & Fitch crowd but it's nothing compared to, say, the University of Tennessee. The problem, perhaps, is that she grew up in a community where everyone was like her so that it was a culture shock coming to New England.
I grew up being the odd one out. This is not to say that I'm now used to people looking at me strangely and asking if I speak English. I completely understand how she feels. But I also take it as a fact of life and human nature to view with suspicion anyone who is not the same. Some people judge you before a word comes out of your mouth. Certainly they can change their ways, but habits can be hard to break. And some don't want to break their habits.
Speaking of habits, some people insist on playing the part of victim minority. In the age of political correctness, they can get away with pretty much anything. But I see it the same way as feminism gone out of control. Sure, demand equality when equality isn't given but don't ask to be treated better than others when you haven't done the work to earn that.
But to be honest, I'm not even sure if any of my ruminations about differentness are exactly illuminating or original. I often wonder if my experiences are too common for anyone to pay attention to because when it comes to understanding another culture people would rather turn to an Amy Tan or Maya Angelou.
The summary also mentioned that I "operate on a different time table" than others which is interesting because I often tell people that I have a different perception of time than they do. And it's somewhat odd, isn't it, that the test says I'm a right-brain person when most people (including myself) would swear that I'm left-brained?
Yeah, like those ridiculously layered cakes you find at the bakery:
LAYER ONE:
-- Name: Sya (or at least that's what I sign all my comments nowadays).
-- Birth date: Metal monkey (check the Chinese Zodiac).
-- Birthplace: This city hosted the summer Olympics in 1976.
-- Current Location: Hanover, NH (a.k.a. the boondocks).
-- Eye Color: Brown.
-- Hair Color: Black.
-- Height: Let's just say I'm short.
-- Righty or Lefty: I use pens and pencils with my right hand. All other pointy objects are used with my other hand.
-- Zodiac Sign: Scorpio, without the sexiness.
LAYER TWO:
-- Your heritage: Chinese/Vietnamese.
-- The shoes you wore today: Boots with four inch heels.
-- Your weakness: Recently, avocados.
-- Your fears: I try not to think about it.
-- Your perfect pizza: Must have pineapples.
-- Goal you'd like to achieve: Survive TA-ing without any lab accidents.
LAYER THREE:
-- Your most overused phrase on AIM: Sorry, I don't use instant messaging.
-- Your first waking thoughts: Ugh.
-- Your best physical feature: None.
-- Your most missed memory: Don't have one.
LAYER FOUR:
-- Pepsi or Coke: Neither. Water please.
-- McDonald's or Burger King: Neither. I don't eat out unless I absolutely have to.
-- Single or group dates: I don't think so.
-- Adidas or Nike: Neither. Mine are "No Boundaries".
-- Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Neither. Both of those are sorry excuses of toxic waste. I drink green tea.
-- Chocolate or vanilla: Both.
-- Cappuccino or coffee: No.
LAYER FIVE:
-- Smoke: No.
-- Cuss: Only when I'm really mad or when I'm trying to make a point.
-- Sing: No.
-- Take a shower everyday: At least.
-- Do you think you've been in love: No.
-- Want to go to college: I'm still here.
-- Liked high school: Not really.
-- Want to get married: Not for the wrong reasons.
-- Believe in yourself: It's like taking your shoes for a walk.
-- Get motion sickness: Always.
-- Think you're attractive: No.
-- Think you're a health freak: No.
-- Like thunderstorms: Yes.
-- Play an instrument: Piano, cello, oboe, clarinet, recorder (but everyone knows how to play the recorder). I want to learn how to play every other instrument in the world, but I just don't have the time.
LAYER SIX: In the past month...
-- Drank alcohol: Yeah. And my advisor made fun of me for doing it.
-- Smoked: No.
-- Done a drug: Caffeine.
-- Made Out: No.
-- Gone on a date: No.
-- Gone to the mall?: No. Malls are evil.
-- Eaten an entire box of Oreos?: No. I don't like Oreos.
-- Eaten sushi: Not in the past month.
-- Been on stage: I have lectured to college students...
-- Been dumped: No.
-- Gone skating: No.
-- Made homemade cookies: No, but I've made bread, cake, and pie.
-- Dyed your hair: Not in the past month.
LAYER SEVEN: Ever...
-- Played a game that required removal of clothing: No.
-- If so, was it mixed company: See above answer.
-- Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Does being in a food fight count?
-- Been caught "doing something": Yeah.
-- Been called a tease: No. I'm not that kind of person.
-- Gotten beaten up: No.
-- Shoplifted: No.
-- Changed who you were to fit in: No. I don't care enough about anyone or anything to do that.
LAYER EIGHT:
-- Age you hope to be married: Hope? Are you implying that getting married is a fundamental part of human nature?
-- Numbers and Names of Children: 0. I'm too young to handle kids.
-- Describe your Dream Wedding: Sorry, but if I see a wedding in my sleep, it's usually in a nightmare and not a dream.
-- How do you want to die: I try not to think about it.
-- Where you want to go to college: I'm already here.
-- What do you want to be when you grow up: I'm not looking that far ahead.
-- What country would you most like to visit: All of them.
LAYER NINE:
-- Number of drugs taken illegally: None.
-- Number of people I could trust with my life: A few.
-- Number of CDs that I own: Fewer than you think.
-- Number of piercings: Two.
-- Number of tattoos: None.
-- Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper?: A couple times, probably due to high school activities.
-- Number of scars on my body: None, but this doesn't include other imperfections.
-- Number of things in my past that I regret: None.
-- Who did you get this from: Dustbury.
* It was an interesting piece of alternative history until about 140 pages in, the author inserted an "Interlude".
* I didn't like the "Interlude" because it pretty much explained away the whole entire thing.
* After the "Interlude", reading the rest of it became pointless--that's why it took me a month to finish it instead of the usual one or two days.
* I also didn't like the premise. It was as if the author had gotten the idea while reading an e-book version of the Origin of Species and then realizing half of it was erased because he had accidentally downloaded a computer virus earlier.
* The ending reminded me of the classical quantum mechanics problem of the particle in a well. Is that a good thing? Maybe not.
