Old Times

I had a weird dream last night where Jasmine(who went to MIT) and Ethan(who went to Princeton), both of whom I haven't spoken to in three or four years, came to work in Dr Kleinfeld's lab along with an influx of other undergraduates. I had to deal with people like my annoying physics lab TA's from last semester constantly shepherding me off. Also, there was a problem with what looked like a double derivative but apparently it wasn't a double derivative in what was apparently take home homework from the lab dealing with differential equations.

Anyways, if that wasn't strange enough for you, Julian came to work in my lab as a graduate. This was not a pleasant shock for me. In the dream I remember commiserating to my parents, of all people, that as a former undergraduate aeronautics engineer major it didn't even make sense that he would come here to work.

In real life, as in the dream, that would be horrifically awkward. The last time I saw Julian was at a 761 bus stop by UCLA. When he spotted me a smug grin lit up his entire face which changed into a "WTF" expression when it became clear I was with Chris. Anyways, that last encounter is the main reason I would never want to be in close proximity for prolonged periods of time with him- that, and the couple of other times we were at the bus stop together when I was Chris-less when the same thing happened. I could forget and forgive everything that happened in the past and interact with him as a polite and courteous human being if he just did not act like an *censored*.

Thinking about Julian made me think about Eugene, who's last name I will not put up here for the sake of his privacy. At first it was Eugene I had a crush on, a nice guy who gave me his sweater to keep at one point. I wonder whatever happened to that sweater? Thinking about it that doesn't seem like something that someone only interested in you as a friend would do, but that's all useless and pointless speculation now. He turned into a good, if not a close, friend whom I had no feelings for whatsoever, in response to your queries. So I went on Facebook to see how he was doing, but he has apparently deleted his page.

In a strange way that probably means he is gone from my life more or less forever. I like the dangling thread that Facebook provides, although I know others feel differently. I've had some great people in my life whom I barely talk to anymore but are still connected to me, albeit very loosely. If I ever wanted to rekindle a friendship with someone all it could take is something as simple as a Facebook message. It's strangely saddening to have take taken away, to know that someone whom you could have shared a strong bond of friendship has passed from your life, and the window of opportunity there is probably permanently closed.

Maybe I could run into him in Tarzana?

Castle Episode 4 and 5, Review!

So pre-cramming for more midterms and getting to other various work, I watched TV for an entire hour. Gasp. I may even watch another episode! I also re-read a lot of "Gaijin Smash" today, but that's beside the point. Anyways, the show has started to hit its stride, although for the first time I pinpointed the killer at the beginning in episode four. One thing I noticed that bothered me at first was that Beckett, the main female lead, is an outsider in the patriarchal system of the NYPD and local government. Then I realized that the "boy's club" notion actually was probably portrayed realistically. Another thing that bothered me was that Castle always seemed to be a step ahead of Beckett when it came to figuring out the murders, but I realized that Castle's daughter, who is probably portrayed with the most positive light in this series, is the person who always helps him put the pieces of the case together. And in this last episode Castle and Beckett are learning to mesh and work together as a team, giving them both an equal role in solving the case. I also want to steal some of Beckett's coats, but I'm not actually willing to pay for them.

Find your own Megavideo links here

Ok, so apparently I watched seventy-two minutes on Megavideo and can't watch anymore, including the conclusion of the last episode. I was going to watch "Parks and Recreation" instead, but decided not to. Only after this line, however: "To this day, I'm still haunted by those pensis......
.....
One penis in particular."

This show has the same format as "The Office" but other than that is funny and creative in its own right, above the standards you would expect for an average comedy show.

Quick Review: Episode Three of "Castle"

"Castle"'s directors made a wise choice picking Nathan Fillion for their lead, as I'm sure that most people could not play the role as endearing and effortlessly as he does. His natural charisma is essentially what carries the show. Though his partner's acting skills have definitely and thankfully improved since the first episode she is still eye candy and stereotypical mysterious tough-girl allure more than anything else. What I like about this show is that it's hard to predict who the murderer is from the beginning and that the one-liners are definitely improving. In this past episode the interaction between Castle's personal and "professional" life is well done and touches on universal issues of parenthood, although I believe that the official story had too many twists in it. Despite that, it was still entertaining to watch, and not implausible. The improvement between episodes is encouraging, and I actually stand to get hooked.

Watch the episode here:



If these embedded videos are slowing down your connection too much please tell me and I'll go back to links.

"When Hugh Jackman heard that 800 people lined up a day early for the X-Men Origins: Wolverine premiere in Tempe, Arizona, he personally called a local cafe and treated everyone to a breakfast of coffee and pastries. " Source

I Have Officially Defeated the Evil

So as it turned out, I had about eight minutes to get ready for my appointment. I quickly ran into the shower because I thought that my physical therapist would appreciate it, gargled with mouthwash, and threw on some clothes. The combination of mouthwash and chocolate milk apparently forms a smell like minty Robitussin, for future reference. I left and arrived five minutes late. Girls kept smiling at me on the sidewalk, which was nice but sort of creepy. I wonder if they had some sort of reason to laugh at me? Anyways, apparently the physical therapists double book their clients, which actually does not interfere with the attention a person gets. I did a bunch of exercises, got massaged and a heated back. The muscle relaxant really helped, as I got a good night's sleep and my back isn't stabbing me with knives afterward. In fact, everything hurts less. I scheduled another appointment for Friday.

I came home and spent some time on Gawker, but decided to work on the rat brain project and get it done once and for all. Let me tell you, this was no easy feat and I nearly gave up several times, but I am done with all of it. It feels extraordinarily good, especially after four and a half hours, which by the end of I was even beginning to tire of Firefly. Now I am going to go weep for what's left of my sanity. Actually, I'm probably going to do some pleasure reading of the Upanishads, then either work on my schoolwork or my other projects. A shower and watching the third episode of "Castle" from a working link sounds good, also. Although there are only a few dishesthey are starting to smell, so I may do something about that. Also, I believe Ilya and I are going to hang out on Friday because there is no lab meeting since the professor has to fly out of town on family business.

Early Morning Thoughts on Mini-mansions n'Stuff

I am always considering how America could be more economical when it comes to housing. Of course, I have to think about how any measures taken would affect me personally, because my family lives in a 3200 square foot house. So let's take a trip into Marisa's past and see if it has any baring on the condition of American real estate in general.

Until I was twelve I lived in a 1500 square foot house. This was perfectly fine with me, and I fought tooth and nail to stay there. Sadly, by the end of my time there I was only a few inches shorter than my permanent height.

The first time I stepped into the model of our new house it seemed enormous. We bought the house before it was built, so I got to witness the laying of the wood, drywall, painting, etc.

After living there for a few years I visited my first house again, which seemed to have shrunk into a miniaturized version of what I remembered. Keep in mind that I had not gotten much bigger after moving, so the theory of this house being much bigger to a child does not apply.

What does this tell us? People are getting used to a standard of living. I'm going to pretend that a recession isn't happening right now for the purposes of this entry. This may not be a brilliant conclusion, but it is one that holds a lot of weight.

And there is definitely wasted space in our house. The front room has been turned into a decorative entryway, which is nice, but we don't entertain the pope very often. Granted, in another family this room may have been put to use differently. There is also a lot of unused floorspace. Looking at this differently, this helps to give the house a very open, friendly feeling which is conducive to mental health. Speaking of mental health, there is the "teen room", my savior during my, well, teen years. Basically, it is a loft with a spiffy name, but I took it over as soon as we moved in because of its name in the floor plan and it was given to me because of my sadness at moving. I am unsure what I would have done without it. At my old house I used to wander the backyard incessantly, but the backyard doesn't have electricity,wireless, or bookshelves. In fact, my parents often called that particular part of upstairs "my little apartment", and I spend a significant amount of time there when I go home.

So what is my conclusion from this diatribe? With some architectural finagling, mini-mansions could be re-designed much more efficiently with the added mental health benefits of extra space. Now I have to call and find out when my physical therapy appointment is, because I forgot.

Later Edit: Also, when the temperature in the house is 93 degrees or above and the outside temperature is even hotter, running a fan or opening the windows is not an option. The only solution during these times is to run an air conditioner. I don't really see a low-energy solution to that problems, as we already have tinted windows and special drapes. Cooling ourselves with tears is not an option.

Doctors are Fun! End: Review, 2nd Castle Episode

From Getty Images

So today I awoke from bed, showered, dressed, and went to the doctor's appointment I mentioned yesterday. I thought that it would only take an hour in my silly, silly brain. Oh Marisa, it has been too long since you've been to a general practitioner. Even though I pre-filled out the paperwork and this was a small clinic, it took about forty-five minutes for me to be seen. In the mean time I browsed through magazines of various shape and informativeness. I attempted to give the New Yorker a chance even though it has always managed to annoy me in some way, but after the first sentence of extremely pretentious writing I put the magazine down and fumed temporarily for all the unemployed authors in the country. Then I tried the Atlantic, which had an interesting article on the fact that we need to mine or export the minerals in environmentally-friendly electronics, etc from somewhere, and, while in the United States there are many environmental regulations, in places like China where it is cheaper to obtain them from there are not. The details were new although the premise was not, as it probably isn't to anyone else reading this. I'm hoping the next phase of environmentalism focuses on ecologically friendly usage of our natural resources, which has taken a backseat for the moment. The problem was that the article focused on Neodymium, which has large usage outside of "environmentally friendly products". For those who don't know, Neodymium is used to create the strongest magnets which have many industrial and technological applications. I used to be really into magnets for a little while. Don't ask.

After finding out that I weigh 78 pounds and am still five feet tall, which took away some of my guilt for eating candy with my morning chocolate milk(Breakfast. I ate candy for breakfast.) two days in a row, I got to browse through National Geographic for a while. This magazine incorrectly identified mosquito fish as environmentally friendly which they are not since they are aggressive and breed rapidly. I started reading an article on reducing energy usage and thought about my own environmental footprint. Naturally, I try and make this as low as possible: all the bulbs in regular use in my house are CFLs(These contain mercury, in case you didn't know. Fun fact. Recycle, don't throw them out!), I've been taking shorter showers, don't run the dishwasher without a full load, etc. Basically, the worst thing I do is run my space heater because my feet are always cold and the heater is the only thing which helps them. My parents brought out the heater that kept me warm when I was a baby one winter when I was wearing a sweater and socks but still shivering. I've been hooked on them ever since, but my electricity bill still dropped $20 last month, so I must be doing something right. Anyways, the doctor was a nice man who prescribed me a muscle relaxant to help increase the effectiveness of the physical therapy.

I walked to Ralph's and bought some food and a bunch of soup, some of which I later discovered has meat in it. Then I walked home and, after reading Gawker for ten minutes, re-started work on the Rat Brain project, which is what I did until 5:00pm. My head still hurts from doing this. Went to UCSD and then to my second doctor's appointment, the one whom I see regularly. He gave me free samples so that I wouldn't have to go to the pharmacy, because he is AWESOME. Note that if I had to pay every time I got my medicine it would be $40 each time.
Now I am home and not working on the Rat Brain until tomorrow because if I do right now my head will explode all over my desk.

Watch this:


Today's Wiki anniversaries: Australia was discovered and Hair premiered today.

I forgot that I had watched the second episode of "Castle" recently. This time the writing was much better, with the exception of one over-drawn monologue by the character Castle himself. The show is pulpy, so if you like that genre, I would definitely take a look. So far, nothing besides that and Nathan Fillian stand out about the show, but I'm rooting for it to develop into something above average. I'm about to watch episode three. The song from the first one is still stuck in my head, which apparently is "So What" by Pink.

Aliens, Egyptians, and Opera

Last night I dreamed many dreams, one of which involved aliens coming to earth while I was part of a government agency based in an old Egyptian temple. These aliens actually did come in peace, despite the fact that the government tried to shoot them several times and failed to injure them. Apparently, since people on earth had started to believe in them, they had come back, and the only thing which could hurt them was the valuable metal tied to sacrifice: gold. Naturally, the government agency then used gold weapons to subdue several aliens so that they could be taken in for questioning and autopsy. But since the aliens had come back, an old Hindu god of sloth and drinking woke up in the basement and started shooting fireballs everywhere. I was with a little boy and we had a book to identify him which we hastily flipped through after another boy fell on the god and was eaten. Anyways, after the god person took down a bunch of troops and started converting people to his side, the army commander and I lured him into the river which ran through the bottom of the temple which was supposed to purify all things. This would get rid of the god for a few thousand years. Then there was a dream where I was supposed to go to the opera but my dad gave me the wrong impression and I didn't fit the dress code in a short blue dress and it looked like I couldn't go but then I did anyways and a guy tried to get me to buy magic tricks because everyone thought I was about twelve.

Anyways. You know what drives me nuts? When people consistently attempt to push their boundaries. This also inspires me to constantly try to push their boundaries. I had more to say, but I forgot. The yoga really did help me, FYI.

I will join Twitter if you give me your Twitter names to follow you.

The I in the Me

Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto are dating in real life, which I personally find really awwwwwww. I wish them luck.

I was just attempting to mediate, because, like Yoga, I've only ever heard of the benefits of doings so, and the few times I seriously have attempted to it was a worthwhile experience. The problem is that the burning thought that appears in my mind when doing so is questioning the benefit of letting go of the "I". That "I", the most objective, rational part of myself, has in fact saved me on several occasions, has helped me make the best decisions, and overall has proved indispensable in my life. Maybe the universe can make better decisions for me? I don't know, but in the portion of my life that I spent without that part of myself I felt as though I was drowning in emotions and sensations. Perhaps if I spend more time meditating I can discover the meaning of this. Enlightenment, to me, is a paradox: joining with the universe and the ultimate discovery of the self.

It's sort of saddening that this type of talk is generally attributed to stoners and lost, trendy people nowadays.

I wonder how much of meditation is beneficial because of the thought processes involved, the physical processes involved, and the placebo affect involved.

Substitution

So I failed to get a good picture of my aquarium, which means I'm going to embed this really funny Simpsons clip instead:

Tech Support People Can be *Bad Word*

This is Monkey. Isn't he cute? He's sitting on top of the jewelry box Chris's mom gave me. My mom brought the necklace in front of him back from Michigan for me and the earrings as a gift in Trinidad. I realize that I need to dust.


This morning the wifi network I was connecting to was barely working. I suppose that probably also stemmed from the fact that people were using it at that time, but either way I did not have access the to internet. After scheduling a doctor's appointment for the referral to physical therapy that my insurance is demanding I bought a new modem from the AT&T store. When I connected the new modem the power light was still red, and I then realized there was one thing I had not checked: the cable itself. Durrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Yup, the old modem still works; I just needed a new power cable. The new modem wasn't exactly cheap, either, at $79.99, and I'm lucky that my parents can afford to replace things like that after putting the downpayment on a car. I am torn between trying to returning it or keeping it as an emergency backup.

I also bought myself a new bag since my old one has a lot of tears in its seams. I have to find a way to cover up the trendy Ralph Lauren brand on it. Right now I'm doing the last vestiges of my work on the rat brain project. I haven't managed to get good pictures of my aquarium yet, so I will post those up later. I've been busy all day, whee.

Cheese and Pepper

I had a busy day today. My brother bought a new Chevrolet Malibu, which looks incredibly spiffy. My parents agreed to foot the down payment for it as long as he pays for the rest of the car himself. I had to drive to the dealership with my mom to make sure she didn't murder my dad and brother for making her meet them there. After we all got home I went to look at Gaiylee and the kittens one last time. Unfortunately, this time, the gray and white kitten, whom I had also seen earlier nursing(So. Cute. *head explodes*) tried to get away from Gaiylee and run down to me. Gaiylee forceably restrained him/her and then jumped down and snarled at me. My skirt was stuck on several thorns and since I had to untangle myself I had plenty of time to realize that she was nervous about what she was doing and that she liked me and didn't actually want to attack me. That was my parting meeting with them. Also, Gaiylee most likely moved the kittens because Snuggles marked his territory in front of the shed when he went out with my mother. Snuggles doesn't go by the rose garden, however, and comes when called.

We broke in the new car with the drive down to San Diego. Christopher has free Onstar and XM radio service for three weeks, so we listened to 80's pop music until I fell asleep. At that point my mom apparently changed the station to some sort of Christian or Country that I objected to as soon as I woke up. The 80's music reminded me of a certain someone who loves 80's music and how funny he would have thought it was when Amadeus came on. When we reached San Diego the calico kitten was gone, but we got to witness another tiny mother cat nursing her kitten. We also ate at BGs, where I sprinkled pepper into my broccoli and cheddar soup that tasted good enough to make it the title of this entry.

Then I got home to a faulty modem. After thirty minutes of tech support with accents ranging from Indian to Midwestern it was confirmed that my modem was, indeed, broken. Right now I'm stealing wireless from a suprisingly fast network. I just hope that nobody is downloading horse porn onto my computer.

When I was at home I spotted a tiny monkey peeking out of one of the Rubbermaid tubs that contains my stuffed animals and for some reason could not resist taking him back to San Diego even though he was never a toy I used to particularly play with. I will post a picture of him in my next entry, which will include an update on my aquarium. Will I ever throw out or give away my stuffed animals? No, and Chris and I already have a room in our imaginary house where we've put all of ours together to smile on shelves. With material things I don't really get attached to the fabric and wood themselves as the memories surrounding them. The objects act as an anchor for previous times, helping me to ground my past, and their disappearance is the first step for those memories fading. The objects themselves can also develop almost animistic personalities of their own in my eyes. The longer I keep something the less likely I am to let go of it, and the harder it is to get me to do so.

Yesterday Robinson Crusoe and the paper by Crick and Watson describing the double helix were published.

Today's Desirable Freecycle Entries:
Free Palm Pilot
Free 15'' CRT monitor
Free Queen Mattress
Free Spider Plants/Geranium plants
Free Worn Couch
Free small desk

Silence, Darkness, Jealousy, and Kittens

Last night the Russian Blue mother cat, who's name is now Gaiylee, or alternatively Attack cat because of a joke my mom keeps making, apparently came right up to the door to rub against and play with my sandals. Isn't that adorable?

Update 11:02: I saw the kittens for the first time. They are head-exploding cute. Gaiylee let me get close enough to the nest to see them when they started mewling in response to my "kittens kittens kittens" call.

I remember in several children's books I read a description of true darkness and true silence as something that we in our suburban lives would never experience. Besides the realization that I must have read some twisted children's books, I would like to say that this simply isn't true, at least for me. As an insomniac I woke up at all hours of the night. At these times there are no cars on the road, nobody is moving, the house is not settling, and far-off motors are muted by the walls. All there is to hear is a sort of ringing in the ears, or at least that's all I can hear. Maybe I should get that checked out.
Also, I always sleep with the lights on because I am a sissy. In my old apartment no natural light entered into my room because of the way the only window faced. One night I woke up either in the middle or at the beginning of a blackout and waved my hand in front of my face to no avail, because I was literally engulfed in that darkness which is the absence of light. I always keep a flashlight close to my bed because of an inbred fear of earthquakes, so I grabbed it, called Chris, and got out of my room and into the common area. Lest I give the wrong impression, I had just woken up from a realistic dream where someone was robbing me and the less rational part of my mind was extremely convinced that someone had cut the power and was attempting to do just that. Chris was offering to drive the hundred and twenty miles down to me because he is a sweet man, but the rational part of my mind turned down the offer.

I must say that the thought of both the darkness and the silence at the same time is intimidating.

I don't understand jealous people, which is interesting because I myself used to be an extremely jealous person. The only good thing that the experience taught me is that jealousy stems in large part not from the other person's actions. but from inner insecurity. There are, of course, natural reasons to distrust human behavior as a whole, especially since nobody is perfect and everybody is liable to let others down at some point, but jealous behavior almost always pushes people farther away, defeating the purpose. Also, it must be exhausting to never be able to relax and simply trust another person, not just for the jealous one but for the other person(s) involved. Part of the joy of being in a stable relationship is that same trust, and jealousy can prevent a relationship from reaching that level of stability.

Musings and Roly-polys

"You are what you think. You are what you do."
-The Dhammapada

I think that people forget the first part of this quote too often in our society. To me, it's very important, and symbolizes something I strive for.

I helped my dad garden today. I caught a blue pill bug and was going to keep it but it expended so much effort getting out of the container I put it in that I let it go. I love pill bugs, in part because I believe they are the only crustaceans to live on land. There is something so cool about them and it's great that they are so common. One day I want an ant farm for pill bugs.
Dirt is good for the body, good for the soul. I sang "Sunshowers" in the shower after being covered in it. Feeding stray cats is good for their kittens. Roses are fractalian shapes that are present in a wide variety of natural objects. Maybe the soul is a fractal, an overarching pattern present in chaos. I should study more now.

The Worst Porn Ever

This claim isn't something that I can verify with first-hand judgment, but the editorial entitled "The Worst Porn Ever" on Outpost Nine always makes me laugh. Many of you have probably already seen this, considering that I discovered the site in high school, but just in case I'm posting it here. The porn involves cripples, underage girls, and rape-turned on yet? All of the lesbianism in the world can't save this thing. Regardless of the twisted minds that dreamed the porn up, and God, who the hell is this marketed to? The shell-shocked editorial is hilarious.

PS In case it wasn't clear, no, I don't watch porn or want to. If you do have fun, I don't care and it's none of my business, but keep it healthy and we wouldn't be able to date.

Operation Kittens

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to search for the kittens. They had been under the shed but my mom hadn’t seen them for a couple of days and I feared that the mother cat had moved them. I started searching the backyard, which is overgrown enough that I would never find them if they wanted to hide. Then I heard mewling! I tramped around unsuccessfully, knowing that the kittens could probably hear me coming far before I could ever get a chance to see them. I tried to stand on a chair to see if they were next door but fell off and scraped my leg. After spying on the neighbor’s yard all I could see were two big, cute dogs and nowhere for any cats to hide. My mom also went outside with no success, though her method of searching was to call for them.

An hour later I spotted something moving in our cluster of rosebushes that did not seem like a plant. My mom and I trooped outside to see an adorable tiny gray cat(think Russian Blue) with yellow eyes. We decided to give her some food, which I put on the grass within her line of sight. Five minutes later she came out of her hiding place and started ravenously licking the bowl. Apparently, we have officially adopted her.

After I showered I looked in the backyard and didn’t spot her. Still wanting to steal the kittens as we will have to eventually, I softly pattered out to the square where she had been hiding. Not seeing her, I advanced cautiously, expecting a warning growl if I got too close. I wasn’t expecting her to suddenly jump out of the bushes hissing. I ran out of the clearing, then kneeled down, showing her that I was no threat, and retreated into the house.

My parents and I had then had lunch and discussed a family problem we're having(no, not Chris). I then went outside for a walk, staying far away from the cats. I sat for around forty minutes thinking about life and how beautiful certain things in the backyard were, with stray thoughts directed to the kittens. I hoped my sunbathing would help accustom her to the humans of the household and show that we posed no threat. We have many species of butterfly in our backyard: Spring Skippers, Cabbage Whites, Painted Ladies, False Monarchs, occasional Swallowtails, and around three other species I don't know the name of. A ladybug crawled up my leg. Snuggles was let outside and I stayed to supervise him, and by supervise I mean watch him poop on the lawn and then come for hugs. When he got too hot to pet I went inside and he followed me.

Vent

I've waited until the ultimate last minute to prepare my lab presentation. Honestly, I was either studying for my three midterms or trying to not be stressed. You may say that I should not need the time to try to not be stressed but I'm on medication for a reason and it actually is a requirement, not an option. And now, now of all times, my back hurts with a sharp pain. It's preventing me from working or concentrating.
Ugh. Go team Emma!

For me the line between where to ask for help and when to simply barrel through is sort of blurred. But I don't want to ask for time off. This is ridiculous, I should be able to work just as well as everyone else, not to mention that I'm sure that people I know have afflictions of their own which they don't complain about. In fact, I know a couple people reading this blog who have chronic health problems of their own. In conclusion, shut up Back. You're not special.

Conglomeration

I've changed the comment settings so that anonymous users can comment and have added a "tags" section.

The second episode of "Parks and Recreation" was much better than the first and included a lot of on-target jokes, a lot of funny happenings, and the reinforcement of the pointed message of how much effort it would take a normal person in the lower ranks of government to stay positive. Watch the episode here.

The first time we saw the calico kitten was when I held the black kitten. She was hiding in one of the tubes in the window box and Chris picked her up and held her for a little while. When I next went to visit Petsmart she started meowing and rubbing against the glass when she saw me. Today she meowed and kneaded her paws. I think I need to steal her.

It's very nice to be able to stand up straight! I am also extremely fond of baby kiwis-kiwi taste without the peeling. You can get a pack at Trader Joe's for $3.99.

So, about Reavers-do you think they breed? Because if not, all of them will die of old age within a certain timeline except for the secondary Reavers, who are much fewer. Between the exposure to radiation, self-mutilation and such things, an average Reaver's lifespan is probably at most fifty years.

An oldy but a goody:

Omegle

So, the author of XKCD linked to a site called Omegle. You are randomly connected to a chat with a complete stranger. I thought I'd give the site a try myself.

Stranger: heyy m or f

You: hello

You: f

You: you?

Stranger: ooh where from?

Stranger: m

You: CA

You: where are you from?

You: I'm engaged, you should know

Stranger: PA

Stranger: thats hawt

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

Connecting to server...

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

You: Hello

Stranger: Heyy

Stranger: Religion?

You: Deist

You: you?

Stranger: OHHH!

Stranger: I've never met a deist!

You: lol

Stranger: Do you like seriously practice it, or do you believe it?

You: I believe in one god who is the root of all religions, and I pray to that god and try to do good by that god, so I'd say yes

Stranger: Deism is believing that God created the universe and walked away, right?

You: yes

Stranger: Ohh funfunnnn

Stranger: Do you hate Christians?

You: no

You: that would be silly of me

You: lol

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: I despise em ha.

Stranger: Well

You: I hate people who are bible thumpers

Stranger: Not all of them

Stranger: Just thier religion

You: why?

Stranger: Kaythxbye\

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

I kind of gave up after that.

Today is Risque! Haha, it Rhymes

The un-accented e is making my eye twitch.
I'm about to start wearing dresses out of pure frustration. My pants are all falling down and most of my short-sleeve tops are see-through without layering. I'm sure a male audience wouldn't mind but this really isn't the image I want to project, not to mention the fact that I am in a very serious relationship. Thankfully, when I go back to LA I can regain all the clothing I left behind.
Rrgh.
But why don't you eat more, Marisa? Never! It is sort of funny that I am developing muscular arms while my ribcage is still visible, but I am just too lazy to do anything about it. But why don't you wear a bra, Marisa? That's a very personal question, Sir! I can't believe I'm posting this here, but they make my back spasm. No, it's not some feminist diatribe about how we must overcome our male oppressors. Every type of bra hurts my back.

From here

I wonder if the walls of my apartment are getting thinner. At first I could only hear my neighbors when they dropped something large. Then I could hear them while I was in the shower, because, understandably, pipes are good conductors of sound. Then I could hear them when they engaged in, um, other activities. Now I can sometimes hear them talking, and I just heard them run the ....bath-filler? What's the term for the head that empties directly into the bathtub? Anyways, I heard it from all the way by my computer, which, granted, is about fifty feet away, but still.

My physical therapy appointment went well. The therapist herself is a blonde woman with a nice smile. Apparently my back is messed up, but we knew that already. Also, I have quite a rib hump-I know about half of you just went "mmmm. ribbsss." The shoulder massage really helped, I got a personalized exercise routine, and the electrolosis therapy was really weird. The only bad thing is that right now my spine actually feels crooked. It's a weird sensation, like a constant stretch. I have to keep up my good posture habits, or develop good posture habits, one of the two.

Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and "Sit Down, Shut Up"

Here are the webisodes with Bateman, Arnett, and Henry Winkler(used to play The Fonz) talking about "Sit Down, Shut Up" and touching each other a lot. Hot. The first video is the cast talking about how much they adored Arrested Development. Hey, we have something in common!











Finally, the actual show. The pilot is not nearly as good as Arrested Development, but it has potential.

PS I knew it! I knew that the SchizotypalVamp who had registered previously on the Gawker network was me! I got really mad at a post on io9.

Black Cats, Part 2

If anyone reads my former posts he or she will probably notice that I go back and edit them occasionally for spelling and grammar. I'm pretty sure that I'm just kidding myself with the whole "people going back and re-reading posts" thing, but oh well. Here is the conformation for the hypothetical person who does.


There were kittens born in a box on our patio, bloody and without fur. Once they were old enough that we could handle them my parents and I used to sneak them out of the nest when Mother was away and then give them back to her at night.
Then the kittens started dying. Out of a litter of four, we found one dead one, then another, and then another. The last one to die lived to open her beautiful blue eyes. We had been planning to keep her and had even named her after a mother cat in one of my favorite children's books. One day I noticed she was moving slowly and asked my mother to take her to the vet. To clarify, nothing was visibly wrong with the kitten, and kittens do simply die, as is the way of nature. Another day, we looked in her box and she was not moving at all. We rushed her to the vet, but it was too late for the poor thing. Apparently since the kittens had been born in December it was too cold for them to survive. I still remember how their heads rolled when they died, back and forth, unlike the way a living kitten would move.

Spring came, Mother was in heat again and the same scene repeated itself, sex and all. More newborn kittens, another litter of four, arrived in a box on the patio. There was a black and white one who's name I can't remember, a fluffy one named Cuddles, another fluffy black kitten who's name I can't remember, and the runt of the litter, Snuggles. The unnamed black kitten died. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun with the other babies, putting them in shoe boxes, giving them baths and then watching Mother nurse them each night. Mr President sometimes came by to visit the kittens. I wanted to keep Cuddles because I was convinced he was going to grow up into an enormous, cottony kitty, but we ended up keeping Snuggles, the quietest of the bunch, because he developed an eye infection. My mom always said that Snuggles never gave her any trouble at bath time, but Cuddles would complain loudly. Either way, the decision turned out to be a very good idea.

Once the kittens were all adopted, Mother went into heat and had happy time with Mr. President again. But this time we didn't find any kittens after the appropriate amount of time. My dad said that he was glad that we could wash our hands of the matter, but my mom and I were not so satisfied.
Then, one day when I got up to go to school, I came down to find a tiny, short-haired black kitten sleeping in a shoe box. Apparently my parents had gotten up to find this little rascal with Mother and Blackie standing behind her, Snuggles, Muffy, and Fluffy, Muffy and Fluffy being our two elder cats, staring through the door, watching her bawling to get in through the glass. My parents happily obliged. Her name was Naughty Katy.

Mother transferred a couple other kittens into the yard, but we knew there were more. We finally figured out that they were in our next-door neighbor's backyard, then broke and entered to remove the rest of them. One of them, a kitten I would later name Blueders, scratched my hand in the process. This was a litter of seven, with a beautiful, longhair, loudmouthed calico in the mix. We creatively named her Calico.
Stay tuned for part 3, which won't be nearly as long!

This is Snuggles

From Gaiman's Blog

"For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, emails from my agent that forward jpgs from Germany always turn up with the colours inverted. This one -- an inversion of the upcoming German Paperback cover -- made me smile:

...ah yes, I thought. That's the sequel, all right. CORALINE APOCALYPSE."















You know, Neil Gaiman's blog is not written in a style or manner I would predict.

Edit:
I am taking mini-breaks from my studying to browse the interwebs. I just listened to Fever Ray's "If I Had a Heart"(please click and listen, Chris) and loved it. The first song on their myspace has a female singer. Also, I found this article scary:

How to Be an Indie Girl!
Excerpts:
"Regardless of the fact that indie supposedly refers to a unique quality, it has quickly developed a stereotypical style. If you're into trends, and aim to be an indie girl, get ready."

The irony of this statement is enough to send any hipster into thralls of ecstasy.

"Don't tell anyone that you oppose the mainstream music, movies, culture, etc. Your appearance, interests, books, and music should convey this. If you are caught trying to appear indie, you will be called a "hipster" or "poser," and generally, you'll look like a jackass. So this article is our little secret. Don't tell your indie friends you read it."

Oh my, there are too many ways to mock this. My head is exploding from the amount of sarcasm going through it right now.

"Get the music. This is very important. You can't be an indie girl without a large collection of obscure music.................If you are accustomed to listening to lots of pop music, R&B, or country, these bands may sound like a heap of crap."

Why would listening to music you like lead to you being judged by your friends? Oh, right, your friends are just as fake as you are!
Honestly, it did take me a little while to get accustomed to the sound of indie music when I was exploring it, but I kept listening to it because I enjoyed it, ultimately. Why would someone constantly make themselves miserable?

"After you've acquired music from these bands, begin looking for the most obscure music you can find in the indie genre. The more obscure, the better. Drop the names of the bands in conversation with other indie people. This will make you look very indie."

"I listen to bands that don't even exist yet!"-Threadless

"Buy anything at urban outfitters. It is a pretty expensive store, and they don't have many locations, but if you're lucky enough to live near one, you've instantly got indie style readily available. However, you should not tell people you shop at urban outfitters. They will call you a hipster."

Right now there is a large flashing sign saying "FAIL..FAIL..FAIL" in my head.

"DO NOT get chuck taylors (converse) shoes. These are officially out in the indie scene (everyone has them, and therefore they are no longer indie.)"

*gigglesnort*

"So you've got the clothes, the hair, and the music. What's left? You've got to pick up an artsy hobby (if you dont already have one.) This should be something like painting, photography, playing an instrument, writing poetry or stories, making films, etc. Just something artsy. Not good at art? Try abstract painting. It will make you look deep, and its very easy."

Look, my snark cannot match up to the sheer stupidity of these quotes. Let's just let them make fun of themselves far more effectively than I can.

"Your lifestyle should fit with your indie girl style. Here is a list of things to do that will fit with your indie life style:
-Watch lots of independent movies.
-Ride a bicycle everywhere. Not a mountain bike though. On old fashioned one that you bought from the thrift store.
-Be a vegetarian or better yet, a vegan
-Smoke. I know it's bad for you. But all the indie kids do it. Learn to roll your own cigarettes
-Read books. Not books like "Twilight" or "Harry Potter." Read classic novels, and books about art and philosophy. Read every Hunter S. Thompson book you can find.
-Read the newspaper.
-Develope strong liberal attitudes about politics
-Join an indie band. Learn a weird instrument, like the accordian or banjo. Weird instruments make bands much more indie.
-Hang out at local coffee shops
-Buy clothes at thrift stores.
-Pretend you are poor, even if you aren't
-If you must drive a car, make sure it is a compact car or a hatch back
-Be very, very thin. You can't look good in those skinny jeans unless you are thin. Being a vegetarian should help with this."
"Have opinions about politics and philosophy, and solid reasons why you believe these things."
"Act smart. Use big words. All the things I told you to read should help."
"Every now and again, find something very indie and say you don't like it. Give reasons why. This will make it look like you're not the kind of person who likes something just because it's indie."

YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT, IN BIG TECHNICOLOR LETTERS. To the point where I must yet again abuse caps. All your fault. I hope I never meet one of these people.

ALL CAPS

WE HAVE KITTENS

THEY ARE IN OUR BACKYARD

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

SHIFT KEY ABUSE

I AM GOING TO LA THIS WEEKEND

Edited: The author of XKCD is going to write a book

"Haha, why do I feel like “hold my hand” is just as much of a euphemism here as it was in the lyrics of the Beatles’ first #1 song? I mean, you do not have to be an especially smart hysterical teenager to figure that one out, right? “And when I touch you (on your … hand?) I feel happy, inside/it’s such a feeling that my love I can’t hide …” Ew, this song still creeps me out. “My ‘love’ (hint: boner) I can’t hide?”"
-Social A's with Emily Gould

I, um, I never put that together. Say it isn't so(yes I know that's a colloqualistic phrase)?

Edit Edit: My blue cross card was inside the Dhammapada and my flash drive was inside a book of Yeat's poetry. Lol. Maybe I should stop using important things as bookmarks.

Friends Send Me Links

Anthony sent me this Youtube video:



It's a German comedian's history of the USA and terrorism. Anthony expressed that a lot of the German public shares his sentiments. I've only watched the first video out of the series of five. The problem is that the criticisms the comedian makes are valid, but it hurts to hear them come from an outside source who may genuinely stereotype Americans unwittingly. I have many rants about the perceptions of Americans abroad. Ask me sometime.

The Enright house is playing in Los Angeles on Friday. If you're a fan of good Indie music you might want to consider reviewing their page.

I am attempting to use less colloquialisms in this blog because of a fear that they could influence my formal writing style.

Pleasure Reading

"..For hunger is death..."
-Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad

What an interesting statement. I can imagine an all-consuming nothingness, a hunger reduced to hunger alone. But is this to say that our hunger, our drive, the thing which motivates us to enrich our lives, is in itself a taste of death? I cannot imagine that "hunger" is only being used to describe humanity's longing for food.
It's difficult to put my thoughts on this quote into words.

Black Cats

Today I went to Petsmart and held an adorable, fuzzy black kitten. He purred the entire time I held him, looked at me lovingly, and when he was put into back into the window box attempted to run back to me. If I could have adopted him I would have done so without a second thought.

Like many people do, I grew up with some strange superstitions about black cats. Then, one summer, my family and I came back from Trinidad to find our backyard filled with an influx of strange kitties. These passed too and from our sight for a while until one day a family led by a small, short-haired black cat started to visit regularly. Against the wishes of my parents I left a cat treat out on the patio, and, as the cliched saying goes, the rest is history. The cats stayed with us in the backyard. I don't remember how long it took my parents to start feeding them themselves, but it was a very short span of time. We watched the kittens grow, wild and free, and leave the family one at a time until only two were left: a longhair chocolate-colored cat named Blackie*, and a short-haired black-and-white cat with "socks" named Frisky. Frisky was "my" kitten when he was growing up, but he also disappeared one day. Blackie stayed with us a long time, until after the third litter his mother(who was simply dubbed "Mother" by us) had, but he also left eventually. He had a favorite blue string which we sometimes used to lure him into the house where we would pet him while he collapsed into a fear-struck ball of fluff. One time he took the blue string and hid it. I don't remember how we go it back; I think it involved breaking into a neighbor's yard.

I was too young then to know that we should have brought all of these cats indoors and I still sometimes regret not doing so, especially Blackie, whom I adored. Having outdoor cats is difficult because if they one day disappear their owner has no idea what happened to them, whether it be they moved into a new territory or got run over by a car.

After most of the first litter had left Mother went into heat that spring. "Meow-wow-wow-wow-wowwww!" and all of the neighborhood cats lined up, quite literally! I particularly remember a gray cat and a striped orange cat that my family and I actually had names for. She tapped all of her suitors on the nose with her paw except for one cat whom we had dubbed Mr. President, and then proceeded to have sex with him on the patio. We though that Mr. President was a Burmese cat at the time, but I think he may have been a Ragdoll.
Then there were kittens born in a box on our patio.

*Blackie has no racial connotations. This was simply the name an elementary school girl gave to a huge, fluffy kitty.

I'm getting tired of writing, so I will continue this later.

The Newest Questionable Content

http://questionablecontent.net/

Goths and Me and The Hipster Grifter

A bit of news: I have been reading about Hipster Grifter Kari Ferrell who conned her way into a job at "Vice" magazine while being wanted for $60,000 of fraud and retail theft in Utah. Apparently she lures people into her net through a cleverly crafted hipster persona, posing as clever, charismatic, music-loving, and sexually aggressive, then grifts whatever she can off of whoever falls for her stories. Her favorite lies are having cancer and being pregnant or suicidal.

So we now move on to the "Goths and Me" part of the title of this entry. I am actually a bit more familiar with this subculture than people realize. When I was going through the worst part of my depression four years ago there were aspects of it that seemed appealing to me, such as its appreciation for fairy tales, the supernatural, literature, and, honestly, at the time, the clothing style, if it wouldn't have taken an hour and a half to have gotten dressed. Of course, I am no appreciator of the macabre or the overly pretentious. Dark art can be beautiful and fascinating, but it will never strike a chord like many other things do for me. In short, I am too biased towards the "light", and happy about this, to ever be a goth. Honestly, part of my reason for exploring the "dark" was because I'd never been and all I found was smoke and illusion, so I left, slightly irritated for ever wandering in in the first place. There is nowhere in me now that wonders.

Review: Pilot of "Castle" and Friday Night Foolin'

My main reason for watching this episode was Nathan Fillion from, you guessed it, Firefly. The series is about a famous murder-mystery author who is brought into an NYPD investigation after three crimes copycat his books. He instantly feels a pull of attraction and antagonism to the detective working the case. The story is not what it seems, thankfully, but what could be an incredibly witty show-and we know that Nathan Fillion can pull off witty-is riddled with cliched humor and some poor acting on other character's parts. It will take more episodes to determine if Nathan's partner-in-solving-crime can measure up to his chops. Also, despite the twist in the story, I do not like it when I can predict the characterization or joke about to follow. My impressions coming away from the show are mixed, and I hope that the following episodes can get my on their side.

To watch the episode, click here.(Host: Megavideo)

PS: Nasa wants you to "Vote for Nasa's Biggest Hits for the Home Planet". This is my email, people.

PPS: Oh my God.

Coworker #1: "Oh, I get it. They're hard core Christian books."
Coworker #2: "What's that supposed to mean?"
Scott: "Don't be offended"
Scott: "Hard core is a technical term"
Scott: "It's used to refer to Christian material where they actually show the Holy Spirit
penetrating the soul."

HEEHEEHee this does not in any way reflect my actual beliefs but LOL.

From here.

Seriously

Seriously, stab its eyes out. Violence for everyone! Picture me throwing around confetti, but the confetti stands for violence.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Edit: Thank you, Gunther, for cheering me up. I love you!

New Day, New Stories

Does this seem wrong to you? It seems wrong to me...

Today I woke up at 6:00am, 6:30am, and 7:00am. I decided to continue sleeping the last time I woke up and preceded to have multiple dreams about waking up, realizing that I was in a dream, and then "waking up "again. One of these involved the toilet becoming detached from the wall and spilling septic tank fluid everywhere and then my realizing that I was in a dream because the apartment had grown extra rooms. I was trying desperately to wake up, but by the time I finally managed to it was 9:08am. A little enraged at myself, I considered not going to the meeting and speaking to Dr. Kleinfeld afterward, but then decided that nobody would actually care that I was late. Unfortunately, it still took me twenty minutes before I could get out of bed and a Centrum tablet and two pills before I was capable of really moving around. I put on a nice top in order to hopefully avert attention off the fact that I probably smelled and had bad breath, then ran down the hill. A girl with crutches made room for me to sit on the bus-thanks!

The lab meeting was fine. As detailed before I'm having some trouble listening to lectures, though being well rested certainly helps. As an aside, I used to be very interested in topology in my younger days of exploring the wild and weird, but lacked the necessary base mathematical skills to understand it fully. I was going to re-try my hand at it over spring break, but ran out of time. It's definetly a subject I am interested in exploring more later. I got the go-ahead from Dr. Kleinfeld to redo the slides I lost and to present on the paper next week. Poor Ilya really did look very sleepy while presenting(is he reading this? I don't know).

Getting the slides/code off the computer made me fifteen minutes late to lunch with Anthony. In retrospect I could have just copied the save files, but I didn't think of that at the time. We talked about the projects we're doing and he accidentally suggested that perhaps I should look for a possible optimization point in my project, which I think could be interesting. Things ended very quickly because I had to bound off the my appointment with Peter at 2:00pm.

Peter has noticed a definite change in me, commenting on how much more animated and happy I seem. Anyways, it went well.

After school, I checked out Coast Physical Therapy, which I had sent an e-mail to but had never gotten a reply back from. I made an appointment there and spilled Indian food all over their floor. I also found myself a clinic in the same complex, so I now have somewhere to go to where I'm covered by insurance!

Good day so far.

Also, the code is so far not working on my computer and I wants to stabs its eyes out.

Pretension

I am having cramps. I know this is probably TMI for all of you, but it sort of interferes with my ability to do work in long blocks of time. Because of this I decided to visit Gawker and browse around the "Douchebag" tag, where I ran into a writer called Chuck Klosterman. After reading a few snarky articles on the man I realized that I have actually read some of his work, part of a book called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

My friends were raving about Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and Chris, in an act of sweetness, bought it for me after I mentioned to him that I wanted it. I tried to get through it, I really did, if only because it was a gift. But I should have borrowed it from the library before any sort of purchase was made because the writing was so insipid, so easily disprovable, and in parts so utterly immature that I gave up trying to finish it. No offense to anyone who loved or loves this book, of course. Feel free to have long debates with me on how I'm wrong after I'm done with my work.

For those who would ask why I'm blogging if I am busy: it's because it has a certain relaxing value for me. I could just be strange in feeling that way, although the entire reason I decided to start writing again was an article citing blogging as therapeutic. I don't entirely trust studies like this, but it may simply be proof that I am not alone in feeling this way.

I have a fear of coming off as pretentious in this blog. Actually I have a fear of being pretentious in general because I used to be very pretentious when I was younger. I have, however, decided to write as freely as possible here, especially because, let's face it, this blog ultimately is for me. I'm hoping that what I write is not simply pretension, especially because I feel as if poetical prose is sometimes necessary for me to express myself because of the way I think. Ah, yes, the vagueries of self-doubt. Writing here can also sometimes be disconcerting because of the number of "I"s and "me"s used.

And!

Another Twitter post brought to you by my email subscription to the Monterey Bay aquarium and the people who don't write me back when I need them to. Like my professor. Please hurry, Mr. Professor. I'm waiting.

This is a link to a pre-written letter encouraging the governor to support marine reserves(basically, national parks in the ocean). Click here to support this cause. Also, this is a pocket guide to sustainable seafood choices.

I sound like an advertisement.

According the the Wikipedia mailing list today is the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings and the day before yesterday Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. I'll probably take a little time off to commemorate both.

Edit 3:18pm

I think I've realized another part of my problem with listening to lectures lately. Whenever I open a book I have a conversation with it, in a way; a back and forth exchanging of ideas that I can wrestle and grapple with as many times as I wish. In a lecture ideas burst into my head screaming "Wait! Wait! She has a bad memory! Let me out of her mouth before she forgets me!" Then they are forgotten, never to be exchanged in any way. I realize that this has to be read with a certain frame of mind and that I am not, perhaps, presenting myself in the clearest sense. Having a conversation with a book versus didactics from a human being is sort of counter-intuitional. At least I know what I mean....
It's not that I am simply biased towards learning visually. The past has proven that to me.

Oddly Relaxing?

We're coming up on the end of the third week here at UCSD and it has become crunchtime. So instead of an entry, here is this video:

This is Like a Twitter Post

Self-Watering Garden(via Lifehacker)

"introSelf Watering Garden - Using recycled water from an air conditioner

Did you ever notice that your central air conditioner has a hose that connects to the drain? I never really thought about it until one night I almost tripped because ours went across the basement floor. I cut the hose and placed a trash can there to collect the water... I figured that I would just dump it each day.

I was surprised the next day to find that it had filled the trash can and made a fair sized puddle on the floor, and quite a mess with a stack of papers that was sitting there. After some rough calculations I discovered that about 350 gallons (1300 liters) was being wasted annually. (And that was a conservative estimate!)

I decided to install a pump and use this water for my small garden which was right outside the basement door. All I needed was to figure out how to spread the water evenly for the plants.

We have used this system for several years now... as soon as we move into our new home we will install the updated version described here. "

The design can be found by clicking on the link uptop.
I used to write about politics and news because they tired me. Now I don't write about politics and news because they tire me.

Breaktime! Review: Parks & Recreation

The show focuses on a slightly too upbeat member of the Parks and Recreation department in some state which I can't remember. This main character is played by Amy Poehler, who is my entire reason for watching this show (Arrested Development love. And the sooner all of you watch it, the sooner I can stop linking it. The same goes for Firefly.). The show is an "The Office" style mockumentary that it is done, for the most part, in a slightly more realistic fashion. So far it suffers from the comparison as Poehler is honestly not measuring up to Steve Carrell, but pilots generally tend not to be as good as following episodes in my experience. The best line so far comes from Poehler's boss: "...I don't want this Parks department to build any parks, because I don't believe in government. I think that all government is a waste of taxpayer money. My dream is to have the park system privatized and run entirely for profit by corporations, like Chuck E Cheese..." Also, it has that really pretty girl from "The Office" who played Jim's girlfriend Karen. I did like the way the message at the end was conveyed, as it was subtle enough to not feel cheesy or saccharine.

If you want to see the episode, click here .

Update

I only have a slight tingle of back pain left and am feeling pretty good! I met with professor Alain Cohen today-more on that later, also. The gist-I might be taking on another project, but I want to make sure I can fulfill my commitment to the lab and schoolwork before doing so.
I love sour jelly beans and already finished the box I had of them. So far today I've had jelly beans, pita chips, and feta-cheese-with-caramelized-onions tidbits. Healthy!

This is funny:

Lindsay Lohan's eHarmony Profile from Lindsay Lohan

Though I do hope this girl gets help.

My Back

I remember when I was a child suffering from a pain I didn't understand. It was present in my torso, chest, legs, and arms. Sometimes I worried that I had heart trouble. The doctors dismissed the pain when I brought it up, and, for me, it was simply a worrisome fact of everyday life.
I sprained my back and had to go into physical therapy in eight grade after being diagnosed with scoliosis in seventh. A sprained back prevents a person from running and so I was dismissed from PE for that time period, the only good thing about the experience. The doctor cracked my back for the first time, relieving the pressure in my chest and lessening my pain. Unfortunately, the pain turned from dull to sharp because of the constant shifting of my vertebrates. The doctor also stated that I had one of the most sensitive backs he had ever worked with. One day my mom simply never rescheduled an appointment and the therapy stopped.
During high school my back gave me constant trouble in marching band. However, when I entered college, everything changed. People started listening to my stories and I got a series of tests done. My bloodwork, which I have had redone several times for various reasons, came back normal except for a slight and most likely inherited anemia. I visited the orthopedic institute in Van Nuys known for its excellence in back care. However, as soon as the doctor came in and saw my slight stature in the provided hospital gown, I knew she was not going to take me seriously. Fortunately I still had a series of x-rays done on my back, which revealed everything to be normal except for the slight curve of scoliosis in my spine and the fact that my growth plates were locked. I will stay at 5'0 for the rest of my life. The problem lay in the tightly knotted muscles of my back, and I was again recommended physical therapy for which an appointment was never made. Without a car, license or income scheduling appointments independently was impossible.

Right now my back has been feeling both better and worse. The stretches have been really making a difference, much more than massages ever have. In fact, in some way, massages made the pain worse, since the constant cracking of my spine left me with a sharp pain instead of the normal dull ache, as stated above. However, my spine has still been shifting, sometimes painfully. Last night I had a horrible muscle spasm. But my plan has so far been very beneficial.
I wonder what it would be like to live without chronic pain. The thought is very strange to me. I think that I would be much happier in day-to-day life, but would be loosing a teacher that has lived with my for all of my years. I wonder if it would make me more sensitive in general to pain, or less.
My parents have become much more sensitive to the pain in my back.
I don't know why I chose to write about this, but it was just what was on my mind because my back really freakin' hurts at the moment.

In other news, the phrase "stimulus statistics" drives me crazy. I don't know why, but I wish the writers of this paper would stop using it.

Another Tidbit Entry

I dress like I feel like dressing. Usually this is my normal (literally, most of the time, because I'm late) five minute routine of throwing clothes on and sometimes putting up my hair without looking in the mirror or hoping people will take the lack of combing for a style. If I look in the mirror and something consciously doesn't match in my dress my artsy-fartsy side will go nuts in a way which I can't resist, but that's about it. Lately, though, I've been feeling like skirts, dresses, and jewelry-maybe I picked up a disease? Honestly, I blame Inara, not because of a secret longing to be a Companion as she is, but a liking of her glowing statuesque beauty, inventive dress, and graceful culturedness. I find it annoying to turn myself into a work of art- it's so impermanent. Either way, it doesn't take me any longer to get dressed unless I'm going out with Chris.

I've been doing linear algebra and continuing my love-hate relationship with matrixes, which, in my opinion, will never be as interesting as calculus no matter how much good they are good for because they just aren't as much fun to calculate, and reading the paper for my lab. Some of the wording in it is horrible, but I guess I should get used to that. The subject, of course, is plenty interesting-more on that later. What they are suggesting seems to make more sense than the previous model, at least on the first read and intuitively, which, of course, can mean nothing in science. Speaking of previous models, I should probably read about the previous models connected with this...

Brynna, Dylan's big sister, submitted an application for the Evil League of Evil and was one of nine contestants that won a free DVD! Here is a shortened version of her application: Princess Zombie

They want YOU

The San Diego Natural History Museum has a survey up asking people about how they use the internet. Click here to go to it.

Right now my priorities are watching Firefly and doing my homework. I am still tired from the exercise I did two hours ago, for some reason. It wasn't particularly stressful and I didn't forget to eat.....

Happy and Rested

I didn't realize how bad of a mood I was in last week until now that it has passed. I'm back! And actually well rested.

Saturday, a bunch of people turned what could have been a horrible day into a good one. I really am lucky to have the people in my life that I do, and also random passers-by that do u-turns to tell me that my bag is open. I wish I could have thanked them more.

Good times.

Listening

I am alert to whispers but horrible at to listening to lectures. It's great because I get access to all of this personal information which I don't want to know but have trouble paying attention to things that I actually want to learn. Part of my problem is that in order to process most efficiently what someone else is saying I usually cannot be looking at him or her because I start observing his/her* gesticulations, expressions, and mannerisms. Then I start wondering about his/her background: where he/she went to school, how he/she related to people during high school and college, if he/she is married and how happily. Lately I've also had a problem with my mind generally wandering away. There are also all of those other distracting people in the room, and, sometimes, trying to avoid staring at the person across from you to keep from freaking them out.

I guess that this means that I would be a great huntress or politician, except for all of my other qualities that would make me horrible at both of those professions. Although, huntress really isn't a profession.

*Yes, yes, pick a pronoun after the first sentence makes your writing cleaner blahblahblah can't hear you.

This is Not a Happy Post

I once talked to a married man with children who had had a stroke. He was sneaking fried food into his diet. I didn't understand why, and one of the things I said was "But...it isn't good enough to die for." His answer was "Have you ever tasted fried food?"

I will never comprehend that, and I never want to. People don't realize that when they start to kill themselves they take a little part of everyone else who cares about them down with them.

Everyone who reads this blog knows what I have been through in the past and so will probably believe me when I say that I get it, I get that selfish urge and I know how hard it is to fight. I don't know, maybe it's because I had the luck to start out as a disciplined person, but I also got how important it is to fight it. Although, it did take me a while. It is a lot easier to believe that it's only yourself that you're hurting than facing the truth.

Why I am Fairly Undate-able

Before I start the actual entry I would like to thank the random guys on the bus who leave seats open for me when they could easily take them. Random guys, you have unknowingly saved me from a bunch of back spasms, and I really appreciate it.

So, the title of this entry. I am fairly strange and am conservative in my personal habits. I eat condiments. I hate shaving because it makes me feel emasculated and itchy. I am not willing to date a person who smokes and have a problem with a serious significant other drinking at all or doing any other drug. Chris and I have successfully compromised on him drinking: though he never has in excess he drinks even less and I don't give him a hard time about doing so. It still irks me, but it's ok, and not a reason we'd ever break up.

I don't want children for several reasons. A serious significant other watching porn is a dealbreaker because, in my feelings, it crosses a line of intimacy. I want a Savannah monitor, which is a lizard that is very intelligent and becomes dog tame. It will beg for affection and can be trained in various ways, such as using a litter box. The caveat is that it grows to three feet in length.

Oh, and I need a cat, because life without one makes me sad.

:(

Television: To thee I Dedicate a Ballad of Love and Hate

I am in love with Firefly's theme song. "Burn the land, boil the seas....you can't take the sky from me-ee.."
Speaking of Firefly, I finished the series today. As a result I rented "Serenity" and am going into Whedon withdrawal. I have decided that I really prefer the characterization of Mal in the show and that the indiscretions of Jayne in the movie do not make sense considering his and Mal's history, much like River and Simon having to earn acceptance in both the movie and the series.

Random train of thought: Once, very late at night, I decided to check out the show "The Secret Diary of a London Call Girl", a Showtime re-airing of a British series. I had heard good reviews about the show and needed something humorous at the time. It actually turned out to be entertaining , but I got bored after the sixth episode where the airy fluffiness of the series triumphed over the characterization and drama of the writing. As expected, the show is a "subtle" advocate for traditional values which contains a lot of skin(though, unexpectedly, very unsubtle fellatio. As in penii are involved). Hannah, the main character, postulates that she fell into her job after graduating because her degree could not help her find another one and that she really enjoys having sex. She leads a completely separated double-life as Hannah and Belle, her call girl alias. None of her friends or family are aware of what she does. The show, at least the episodes I watched, focuses on the fact that sex is inevitably tied to emotion and the stigma surrounding prostitution beside the air-filled plot full of etiquette, "glamour", and lots of skin. There is also the episode where a client's wife follows him to Belle's apartment and the other episode where I learned a lot about being a dominatrix. Ah, theoretical knowledge, how I will never, ever, use you. Hannah seems to have some sort of sex addiction because of the amount her life revolves around the act. Also, condoms and STDs apparently don't exist.

I then learned that the series was based on a book which was based on an anonymous blog written by a real-life prostitute, Belle de Jour. Eyebrows were raised and I decided to pay a visit to the site. Honestly whether Belle is a call girl or not she is much more interesting than the Hannah on the show, with an active social life, an interest in books, a degree, and a family that knows she is involved in the adult industry. She has now quit sex work, but from what I read of her diary she never felt secretly guilty of the life she was leading and quit because she truly wants to make a difference in the world. Sex will never mean the same thing to the both of us, but if that is the way she truly feels, more power to her. I'm sure my thumbs up will mean the world to her, lol. FYI, prostitution is apparently legal in London.

This was completely not the topic I meant to write on when I came to my blog, but this is what it is, I guess.

Publish Post

Oh, and if my dreams involve this video, you will totally pay, Chris:

Recovering

Today will be a zombie day where I pretend long enough that I don't eat brains to get close to tasty, innocent humans.
But seriously, please try and be sensitive today, world.

Sorry for the roughness of the last post. It has been edited so that it makes sense.

Larry Charles, who directed "Borat" and "Curb your Enthusiasm", has a new movie coming out soon called "Winter's Discontent". The director of "The Painted Veil" also has a new movie coming out soon about Napoleon. These are going on my to-watch list.

Source

Meeting Anthony

So, I've had an interesting day so far.
I woke up late. After getting ahold of Ilya I managed to talk to Afif, who pointed out that we had section together in a couple of hours. Good job, Marisa. Anyhow, I spent twenty minutes tearing up my apartment to find the flash drive with no success, as I reported to Afif. I did not report the part where I felt horribly guilty over the situation, but I think he got the gist of "I'm sorry". I went to genetics and then the library.
I think the most normal setting which would be my preferred preference for a home would be a huge library surrounded by nature. Of course I also like having resources and work nearby, so there have to be some tradeoffs.
Also, I really like the smell of old books.
I found the Call of the Toad and then Wagner's Ring cycle, which was in a section devoted to folklore. No matter how many folk stories you read there are always more, such as the bigger and fatter book of Indian folklore on the shelf that stared at me after I finished the two hundred and fifty page book on the subject that I had bought. But I did finish the only enormous book on Italian folklore I think we have, hah! Anyways, at this point I went for the bus.
When I leave the bus a guy who has gotten off at the same stop starts to talk to me. My guard is immediately somewhat raised as my experiences with random men have not been the greatest in the past. He asks me if I go to the university and what I'm studying, then identifies himself as a German foreign exchange graduate student studying economics and psychology. We talk in nanobits about Germany, the contrasts of European and American culture, economics, and American foreign policy. As we get to the last stoplight leading to my apartment my guard raises a little further, as I don't want someone whom I have just met knowing where I live even if he seems nice enough. I ask him where he lives and he points to the complex next to mine. He's not going any further in the direction I am, though, so we stop and exchange numbers, saying that perhaps we'll meet up on Friday at UCSD for lunch. He saw my phone, which says "I love Chris" with a picture, so I'm hoping he got the idea.
The most interesting part, though, was when he noticed the books I was carrying.
"You're reading Wagner?"
"Yes, I'm interested in his literature. I'm not an anti-semite, though."
" But what's the one town you associate with Wagner?"
I don't know.
"Bayreuth. I was born in Bayreuth. Wow, that's metaphysical.
You know, Wagner was a raging egomaniac. He deliberately built a new opera house in this small town so that people would have to make a pilgrimage there."
I didn't know that either!
So that was the randomest part of my day. Oh, and I past my house and waited for a little while after crossing the parking lot...just in case he is a creepy stalker.

That Person Using a Laptop in Class

I never got how people who multitasked in class on Facebook, AIM, and millions of other programs did it. Now I do; it's just a matter of something to do with your hands. In fact, I'm posting this from class while the professor talks about discussion sections.

I have better things to say later. Let's hope I remember them.

Oh, and plenty of women are going into science, at least at UCSD. About 50% of my quantum physics class are women.

Astronaut Uses Twitter

Astro Mike is an astronaut in training. Read his Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike

Random "thoughs"

I genuinely believe that to guide someone a person has to know the path being trod. Though there are many paths, perhaps we can recognize where one is leading.

I am a person of my own designs, and that cannot be always easy to live with, but if I don't walk, I wither away. I love a person who knows when I may compromise and when to let me seemingly drift like some thing of metaphor.

Math is fun but hasn't lead to any poetical digressions or epiphanies. I don't wish to write about my day. The first part was great and the second part was thoughtful, though not all of my thoughts are written here.

Misinterpreted Humor and *Shakes Fist*

Look! It's a guy stuck in the dark ages!
I didn't even watch all of the video, because I just couldn't.



Stupid me came home and procrastinated even though I didn't want to. I will have my, um, revenge yet! I think! Also, that dress, like all tight things, made my back hurt. I should have added two and two together, but I did do my stretches.

Since I have come back my posts have been much less interesting. This needs to change.

Comics! From XKCD

PS: Everyone Should Read Basic Instructions