Into each life

The carnival was still there when Kate and I went to downtown San Jose earlier today. We went to the art museum, which had a De-Nature exhibit that was pretty neat. I didn't quite understand the Miro exhibit, but the permanent collections had a few paintings that were awesome -- there's also a photo (or one of a photo from a series) that I remembered seeing in a gallery in downtown San Francisco two years ago. (Which reminds me, if you've never seen Andy Goldsworthy's sculpture / photography collections, check it out. It is Great.)We also went on the ferris wheel that was downtown and noticed that there was another ferris wheel not two blocks from where we were, once we had reached the highest point of the ferris wheel. There was also this mini-ferris-wheel for kids behind us which was cute (it's TINY). Then there was food at the library cafe and the Dr. King Library. I missed it, from the basement up to the weirdly angular and glassy roof, and it was reassuring how little it had changed.

Recap (Thursday now, I believe?):

On Thursday I drove Kate to Valco -- excuse me -- Cupertino Square, where we met Victoria and, after some confusion about the location of "inside of Sears" met up with Kateryna and Lusine as well. I think this was where the person who was selling mops was -- either that or I'm confusing this with Tuesday, but it was kind of boring so I got distracted by the framed prints that was nearby and found duplicates of anatomically correct plant sketches from the natural museum of France and the something botanical society of Britain. Or maybe it was London. (The sketches are pretty.) Whether this happened on Thursday or not, what definitely happened afterwards was Kateryna driving all of us over to Cupertino High School, where school is still ongoing, where we wondered around and visited teachers. We had no idea where Mr. A, Mr. Morse, or Ms. Uji were, but did see Mr. Ferrante, Ms. Mandison, Sr. Murillo, and the French teacher whose name I didn't remember. The high school students were louder than I remembered and unbelievably energetic (did we really act we're high on sugar all the time back then?) but the school itself is pretty much as we remembered it. Except for the fence. Now there's a fence around everything and I think it was either Kate or Lucy who had remarked that now school is more like a prison than ever.

Then we went to Cupertino Square and watched Enchanted, which was ... very Disney. I liked the chipmunk, but the Queen is a bit overdone and the rest of the plot line can be considered amusing, if you turn your brain off (but then, it's Disney). (The tower scene is just...there are no words, but the scene with spontaneous downtown New York parades is hilarious.)

Kateryna, Kate, and Lusine wanted food afterwards, and since Victoria and I didn't, I dropped her back at her place before driving back to Cupertino Square to hang out with the others who were still at Fresh Choice. There were a lot of references that I didn't get and people were amusing themselves with deserts (can you eat jello with a fork? Yes you can -- if you do it fast enough). I drove home afterwards.

There was

The hospital trip yesterday led to a diagnosis of tendonitis, a shot of cortisone, and a prescription for physical therapy for my mom. I learned that mom is even more squeamish than I am when she made the "eww" face and twitched when the doctor brought out a plastic model of the tendon-bond joint in question to demonstrate why she (mom, not the doctor, obviously) was in pain. The doctor said it was partially due to bad design of the human bone structure there and, of course, I immediately started thinking the intelligent design vs. natural selection argument in my head. The engineers may have something to say about putting a tendon between two bones, but the evolution biologists would most certainly point out that considering the joint in question was intended to be used in a life style significantly different from what we're currently putting it through, all things considered, it's doing fairly well.

Phone calls for appointments and things will follow.

Now, for the next recap:

Wednesday was the time-honored Lunatics Movies Day. Kateryna arrived with Lusine. Anna arrived with Malvina. I'm not entirely sure how Victoria arrived but she came also, while I arrived with Soniya. There was food and movies and every one liked Victoria's brown cake. (We had some fun trying to figure out, ahead of time, if there was anything else edible besides chocolate that'd make a cake brown.)

We swapped presents and Anna, despite of being sick, remembered to bring the Hello Kitty coloring book that we got at the arcade in Golfland over the summer. Along with coloring implements. For those who are less familiar with the antics of the Lunatics a coloring book seems harmless enough, if not downright tame and boring. They would then, upon taking a look at the content of the book, be forcefully reminded of the fact that while the Lunatics are many things (loud? Sometimes. Strange? Most definitely) boring is generally not one of them. Ever imagined Hello Kitty with an evil smile? Emo-goth Hello Kitty? Aquamarine bears and Hello Kitty with chicken pox and some sort of Russian remedy that's apparently GREEN plastered on top of each pox?
Like I said: boring is...not so much of a problem.

We watched Ratatouille (Kate hid in her room, courtesy of having watched it a few times too many already). We watched Spongebob (Victoria, Soniya, and I spent different amounts of time occupied with things that are not located near the direction of the TV). Anna threatened us to color the coloring book, or ELSE (everyone laughed, but everyone colored a little too.) I think we watched Meet the Robinsons that day too, though my recollection of the order of movies we watched is a little hazy by now (I watched more movies that week than I did in the six months before). There was a strange pizza for lunch. It was very geometrical with whole basil leaves and perfect transverse cross sections of a tomato fruit laid out on top. It was my first encounter with pizza precision geometry. (Though if Mike knew how to bake pizzas and made pizza for himself when bored he may lay out the topping in some sort of fractal configuration.) (This will only ever occur if no one else is around and is likely to be around for a while, of course.) Anna brought chocolate, which came with a CD of classical music, and we imagined someone sitting alone in a room eating chocolate while listening to...what was it? Mozart? Beethoven?

...actually that would be a very depressing scenario -- eating chocolate alone with classical music.

Eventually the party tapered down to four people again and we watched Pushing Daisies until my dad came and picked me up. Photo from the day:

It's practice

Have finished what I can with the thesis at this point. Later this afternoon I'll be going with mother to the hospital for her checkup, since she has decided that she lacks the proper words to describe her joint ache. (The hospital waiting room is SUCH a depressing place. I'm bringing a book, even if there's a chance that the wait won't be that long.)

A new lavender plant has sprung up in a corner of the garden that's almost (but not quite) at the furthest point from where the original lavender plant is. You have to wonder about that. I've been trimming the bush steadily this year so it hasn't had the opportunity to produce seeds. It could be the roots but then, it's all the way across the yard....

Right, recap time!
Let's see... Tuesday:

Kate's place. I think she warned us that there's not much to eat there right off of the bat. I dragged over all my presents and put them under the tree for Movie Day the next day. I also brought along candy canes (fruit flavored, multicolored ones since the peppermint ones are getting boring) which Lusine and I each had one of when we went to Valleyfair in Kateryna's car.

Valleyfair is crowded. By crowded I mean that it's better than the day after Thanksgiving but there are still enough people around to make you think of a school of those tiny tropical fishes milling around a coral reef. Kate needed to buy presents. Lusine's there to...I'm going to say "soak up the atmosphere", since she did miss Black Friday and I'm sure she's missed the feeling of being stuck in an overcrowded mall (aHEM). We went to the Mac store where both Kate and Lucy immediately proved their ...I don't know what to call it... by using the web access available to the computers in the stores to check livejournals and school grades/email. Kate demonstrated the thing that is the new Mac OS to me. It's very pretty and (I think) much better than anything Windows came up with after 2000. However, being the geek that I am, I remained very sceptical (because really, just how flashy do you need a pictorial interface to be?) and was accused of being a nitpick (while wondering when the heck I'll get to try Ubuntu because really, WHEN?). The new ipods are there. The new iphones are there. I'm not sure if they are the type with or without the phones and either way don't much care.

Food court that day was empty enough (a relative term, I assure you) that we had indoor seating. The guy at the place where I got my food didn't quite know how to use the cash register and I felt bad for him because the line was REALLY building up there. Lusine had something from McDonalds, which Kate was empathetically Not Happy about and expounded to at length why she was Not Happy about it (while I was amused to realize that my mind's somehow established that Kate ranting over her food is a "comforting" sight). (Normality was redefined sometime last year, I think, after the Cake That Would Not Bake incident and before I got used to the toaster.) There were discussions about Christmas decorations in a store, which I really didn't follow, and Spiderwicks movie posters everywhere. We only had to use the cell-phone-location once (like echolocation except shinier and ... not) to locate Kate before we left for Kate's once again.

I think we were warned, once again, that Kate Has No Food In House, Yes. Either way we stopped at the plaza by Homestead and went to Blockbusters where we tried to pick out movies. The actual process isn't so much "picking out" as grabbing all potentially fitting movies and shuffling them through a random elimination process. (We kept Ratatouille, which I was really happy about because I really wanted to watch that.) The Blockbuster place also sold Shrek character shaped candy dispensers with little fans on top which is...neither here nor there, but I remembered it, so you get to read about it. Then, because as Kate has said, No Food, we went to Safeway (conveniently in the same plaza) and got food which isn't really food. By which I mean we got a lot of junk food (no pies though, despite of Lucy's assertions about Pushing Daisies). (I talked my parents into watching Pushing Daisies with me. After three episodes my mom and I went out and bought a pie.) We dumped the lot at Kate's place, petted Kate's rabbit, and rediscovered tinsel. Or at least Kateryna and Lusine did. It comes in different colors and is very...um...shiny. And sheds a lot less than the one we have in the kitchen in Davis and so probably made a better feathered boa. We started to swap presents.

I'll end this recap with a photo from the day:

Check marks

I forgot to include the approach and objective in the introduction portion of my thesis. In a scientific paper, this is essentially the same as writing a literature paper without including a thesis in the introduction. You might be able to figure out what's going on by reading the context but really, it's just a whole lot of wondering what on earth was I thinking when I typed the thing up.

That bit of the editing process didn't feel much like fixing an error. It was more like preventing a pyroclastic explosion.

...

I wonder if I should attempt to recap last week. If I were to describe everything in as much detail as I generally do for the gatherings I suspect I'd end up typing here all night (so, so, should NOT have let the entire week's events pile up but then again -- when would I have found the time and mind set to sit down and TYPE?). If I skipped out all the details then the entire thing can be wrapped up in one paragraph. It will be cut and dry like a page tore out of my agenda... and about as interesting (but definitely neater and easier) to read. There is a magic percentage of details to include for these sort of things but since I don't think I'll be able to find it any time soon I'll, for the records, lay down the basic events and go back and flesh it out over the next few days whenever I feel like it.

Hm. Sounds reasonable.

Let's see then: Lusine arrived on Monday I think. Tuesday I went over to Kate's at noon-ish and met Kateryna and Lusine, and then the four of us went to Valleyfair. We also rented the movies on that day and grocery shopped. Wednesday was Movie Day at around eleven. Soniya, Victoria, Anna, Malvina, and Victoria all made it in addition to Lusine, Katerina, and I. It was at Kate's house again (we did go over there a lot this break, didn't we?) and there was chocolate with a music CD and lots of movies and junk food. Thursday Victoria, Lusine, Katerina, Kate, and I visited CHS, went to Cupertino Square (still getting used to the name) to watch Enchanted, then there was Fresh Choice. Friday was our SF day trip with Victoria, Lusine, Kate, and I. Pier 39...we came back early to Kate's and...I drew on napkins. (It makes more sense with explanations. Or maybe not. Oh well.) Saturday Kateryna, Lusine, and I went to Kate's to hang out. We watched the Simpson movie (DVD) and watched Lucy run around in the backyard. Lusine left Sunday morning.

Monday I went to Shoreline Park with my parents and yesterday, Tuesday, was Christmas. That seems to cover the basic gist of things so, next time will be the details.

When the tea is hot

I haven't typed anything here in a while. Compared to when I started blogger or when I was in my first year at college it'd probably seem like I'm slacking off. In fact, I am slacking off on my posts. I don't update with clockwork regularity anymore and sometimes I wonder if I should. It's as if another small piece of structure-ness is gone from my very scheduled and agenda-ed life and I miss it even though I don't, really. I think a little bit more spontaneity will be good for me. (At least, at this stage.)

I have missed my long, drawn-out, and thoughtful (i.e. reflective and boring) post this year on Winter Solstice. This is my make up post. You have been warned. Flee while you can.

No really, I've given some thought about my blog posts (probably more than necessary). On one hand I think, with some perseverance and self-discipline, this is good writing practice. On the other hand, there is, of course, the time issue. It really doesn't have to be that much of an issue. I don't have to type an entire essay every day (though some of my posts will inevitably ramble on and on, take a detour, get lost, consult a map, wander some more, realize that the map is upside-down before eventually finding their way and getting back to the topic). I CAN type only a sentence one some days (though I'd have to make sure that that sentence is grammatically correct in every which way or else I'll NEVER hear the end of it). It's definitely doable. The main question is, why should I bother? Is the incentive to improve my writing (free-style, no less, and therefore not very applicable to my foreseeable future) enough for me to post 365 times, if not more, per year? Increasingly my decisions are based less on what others want and more on what I want. I'm beginning to do a lot more things for my own sake than for others. I think it's normal. I wonder if it means that I've grown more selfish over the years. I meant to write those two sentences in that order. I start a lot of sentences with "I."

Without doubt I should try to improve grammar for my own sake, even if I wish Kate would stop making those really awful pained expressions every time I trip over my conjugations and declensions. (I think my mistakes actually cause her physical pain. I don't know whether to be worried or amused about this and I suspect I never will -- know, I mean.)

I'm not sure yet, but I suspect I may start developing some sort of a schedule again, starting next (school) year.

I think an extra bit of structure will be comforting then, no matter where I end up.

Right now? Right now I've reached the stage where I'm hit by a wave of nausea every time I think about my applications. I KNOW this isn't healthy and I KNOW it's just nerves and I KNOW I can get it under control in a week, if not less. I'm just not sure if I want to become blase (someone please tell me how to do the little accent marks in the "edit html" window of the blog post window) about all this. It feels good, in a way, to want something this much. In order to have this, however, I'd have to accept the negative side -- the stress and disappointments -- too, and I don't want to deal with that, yet. It's childish, but I want to hold on to this jumbled ball of oh-my-god and what-if and I-hope for just a few more days because right now, this tells me (loud and clear)how much all of this matters to me. I can achieve zen (and maybe talk to one of the Zens; somehow I suspect that Lucy's Zen'd be the one with the most optimistic outlook so maybe I'll try contacting him). It's simple. I just have to enter the mind set that This Doesn't Matter. Nothing to it. And so...I think, "a few more days."

Have I changed at all within the past (calendar) year? I have. Is it for the better? I would like to say yes, except I can't in honesty say that because I have no idea. (How do you add up an irrational infinite series that alternate between the positive and the negative? How can you know, in a sequence of random numbers, whether the final sum would be positive or negative?) (And why yes, holiday time is Writing Time, don't you know? Guess which character I'm working on.) I have no idea about a lot of things. It's very unsettling even though I know that everyone's...in the same boat, so to speak, but then that isn't very comforting either and I'm not the sort of person who's easily comforted anyway so somehow, in the overall scheme of things, it all works out: I don't know if I'm becoming a better person, but I know I'm still trying and that I'm not giving up, no matter what, and that's (almost) good enough. I am still thankful for my friends and family, I still accumulate books and plants (despite of my attempts to stop with the plant accumulation, but I enjoy it too much and so didn't try very hard). I despise exams and enzyme kinetics. I still forget to close the trash lid all the way sometimes but at least I remember to wash the dishes very conscientiously. I still over think things but I'm, finally, beginning to figure out how to simplify some things so that the equation doesn't just overwhelm me with the sheer number of variables that I have to keep track of. Mike would be proud of me. Mike grew three more leaves. (There are many Mikes around.) In the overall scheme of things, another year has ended and... well.

That's pretty much it. Just "well."

Cheers.

Feels like vacation

Worked in the garden yesterday and planted some stuff, reseeded some stuff, weeded a lot (per usual), and harvested peas. We will have a lot of peas. If I don't manage to come home regularly for winter quarter we'll probably have a lot of pea seeds too, later into the year.

I think my dad has finally picked up on my fondness for sci-fi since he drafted me into watching Laserhawk yesterday. We made popcorn from the really colorful popcorn kernels that I grew in the backyard (yep the ones that are practically all shades of the rainbow) (it was actually pretty good) and ate that while watching (I ate most of it, parents being not as fond of popcorn). Yes...popcorn and really bad sci-fi. It's a match made in heaven. Pity that dad can't follow along the English dialogue / plot line (or whatever passed for a plot line) that well, so I was too involved explaining the movie to have much time to point out all the holes in the plot and scientific inaccuracies, which would've been really fun.
I think I enjoy myself a little too much on those occasions but really, why else would bad sci-fi movies be worth watching, if we can't make fun of them?

I watched Paprika just now (thanks Lucy!) and that was much more interesting (my mom finds that kind of stuff too freaky and cannot understand my fascination with them) what with the discussion between dreaming, reality, and the idea of self. (Or maybe I'm over-thinking it, but that's okay, I still enjoyed the anime.) After yesterday's encounter with Laserhawk I'm once again reminded of my belief that...well, if it's sci-fi and you can't do a good job with the CGI, you should just do it animation-style because it looks so much cooler. (But that brings up the whole other issue of the connotation associated with animation and the targeted crowds and so on, so huh, guess not.)

Slightly more yard work, then reading, then maybe something else today. We'll see.
Oh yes. And Lunatics get-together this week!

Why hello there

I am at home now and am slowly coming to terms with the fact that, what do you know, another quarter's gone. (Eep.) I've one book that I tried to sell back this quarter but, of course, it's ended up being the one that has a new edition coming out so they're not taking it back. I was left with a very heavy book, feeling very foolish, mostly because if I had wanted to keep a genetics book I would've kept the one from bio sci 101 which covered pretty much the same material as this book but had much better explanations and diagrams. Kate knows it as the book with the "glowy worms" on the cover, while my current book is, I think, known as the one with the "colored spaghetti" so there you go-- there's further proof that the 101 book is superior since glowy worms beat colored spaghetti any day. (FYI, it's Genetics by Hartl & Jones vs. Introduction to Genetic Analysis from 101 by I don't know whom.)

The cats are been housed at the vet hospital over break. They looked at me most piteously when I dropped them off at Elk Grove but at least they didn't cry (I think being in the carrier that long finally wore them out).

I can't remember what else I was going to type but, essentially, I'm home, my parents try to feed me a lot (currently have a bowl of pineapple on my desk with toothpicks), I've books, and seeds, and a draft of the introduction part of my thesis that I probably won't be touching at all until next week but you know what? Right now, I don't care.
(Ha yes. Be proud of me.)

Getting distracted by the shiny

Get Your Own! | More Flash Toys

Spotted it over at Lucy's and of course went "Ooo well-made flash graphics stuff". The results of which you see here.

If this should be thee, Malvolio

I am finally and temporarily caught up on all my emails, though I'm far from being caught up on my to-do list. Oh well. My schedule is beginning to run away from me, as in, for instance, yesterday when I had class, a hour long break to cram, a hour long meeting with my thesis advisor, a three hour long lab final (which took up nearly all of three hours for me), followed by another two hours in the lab, making buffers and autoclaving things. (And someone took my favorite microscope AGAIN -- this never happen during the normal labs!)

The professor's chemical cabinet smells like the university hospital from when I was little. I don't know whether that should reassure me or worry me. Somehow, I think it might be the latter.

I have one more form to turn in and three more finals, and then it'll be the holiday break for me (well...more or less, anyway). Meanwhile, I think I'll go and do the cyberspace's equivalent of MIA again, just for the next week or so.

Seriously?

No, no, really, I am still alive. I still exist. I panic, therefore I am, etc. The past week has been pretty hectic and while this week looks like it may turn out to be slightly less eventful, for some reason the stress-level has not abated at all (is it better to have a break in-between or to just maintain the same stress-level straight into the finals? I really don't know).

I have had one biochem midterm. This time the average score is much higher at an astronomical 50%. The professor reminded us that she doesn't curve and that, really, we shouldn't panic because there's always the final which is 40% of our grade and so, despite of the final being cumulative, we still have a chance to raise our grades, really.

Monday, when we all got our scores back, was not pleasant.

Today is a mishmash of things. For one thing, it turns out that everyone thought everyone else was going to order micropippets and so, of course, no one ordered them and so I called the company because we really need micropippets. Accurate ones that have been calibrated. And of course the company that does the calibration for pippet brand A doesn't sell pippet brand A, but it does sell B, and C, but not A. The original company informed me that no, they don't do distributors in US anymore so if I want to order anything I can be nice and modern and do it online. They even gave me instructions on how to order things online. It was very nice of them, except the phone call took way longer than it should and I exited the building realizing that A) I have left my bike at the rack across from campus because it was raining earlier and I didn't want to brave the on-campus traffic near the silo and B) I am going to be very, very late and C) that I left my lab keys in the lab and had effectively locked myself out.

Anyway, three hour lab today, and then it's to make copies of this new protocol because we have to switch the DNA extraction protocol since the researcher who came up with the original one informed us that the original one didn't really work that well and this other one works better. The copier machines hate me and one jammed four times in a row (you know those huge xerox machines in the libraries? Now I know how to take out the paper trays and side panels -- all of them) while the other one flat out refused to print. The person who is supposed to fix the machines is as confused as I am and so I trudged back to my mentor to explain that I found primary source for the protocol but the ridiculous compilations of circuits and plastic have me beat and, by the way, I left my lab keys in the self-locking lab.

I suppose that I must look fairly distressed by that point, because Dr. Berry just laughed and gave me a piece of candy.

And then I came home and realized that it isn't even Wednesday yet so, oh boy, tomorrow is definitely going to be fun.