Let's see if my writing improves under the influence...hehehe
In the yearly competition for the Saddest. Chinese. New Year's. Eve. Ever, a bunch of us went out for Chinese food at this place that cooks EVERYTHING with brown sauce (much like the Chinese restaurants we went ot in Alava, Spain). No yu sheng. No mahjong. No ten million aunties and uncles. Just random quarrels about whether or not to order the tilapia (mispronounced to the umpteen squillionth degree) and a tiff with the waitress about who could or could not drink wine at our table.
I have a new tutee for biology who knows everything and just wants a "study buddy" so now I'm getting paid to sit around with her for an hour and do, essentially, nothing. Milk and honey indeed. I need more jobs like that. Keep 'em coming, Peer Tutoring Center.
In other news, I am halfway caught up with Six Feet Under. And though it is not quite as good as The Sopranos, it is very enjoyable nonetheless, much more so than the garbage we are inundated with on network TV. (Yes, Dawson's Creek people, we're looking at you).
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Dr Alberts, on the Panglossian Paradigm, as presented by Stephen Jay Gould: "There are some traits that will never arise in evolution. For example, there are some animals that will never acquire the ability to fly. You're never going to see flying snails."
We took the Singaporean freshman into our group. His name is Xander (as in "Berkeley", or Buffy the Vampire Slayer"). I suppose that for the rest of my time here, I'm going to have to patiently explain to everyone that the dice were not loaded during his audition, because people just don't get it.
I keep having the urge to say mean or snarky things about people on this blog, and the only reason I refrain is because of the completely irrational fear that the snarkee will chance upon it will surfing through blogger. Does that make me a cynosure, an snob, a coward, or all three?
Also, I do realize that none of these entries have any thread running through them. I had no idea I could accomplish such profound levels of randomness.
Music:
For The Longest Time - Billy Joel
Food:
Moussaka with Rice and Couscous
We took the Singaporean freshman into our group. His name is Xander (as in "Berkeley", or Buffy the Vampire Slayer"). I suppose that for the rest of my time here, I'm going to have to patiently explain to everyone that the dice were not loaded during his audition, because people just don't get it.
I keep having the urge to say mean or snarky things about people on this blog, and the only reason I refrain is because of the completely irrational fear that the snarkee will chance upon it will surfing through blogger. Does that make me a cynosure, an snob, a coward, or all three?
Also, I do realize that none of these entries have any thread running through them. I had no idea I could accomplish such profound levels of randomness.
Music:
For The Longest Time - Billy Joel
Food:
Moussaka with Rice and Couscous
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Gabriel (roommate) has gone to Boone, NC for the weekend. Room to self. Enjoying the peacy and privacy while I can.
We called back 9 people from Wednesday's audition, by the way. One of them's a freshman from Singapore. I'm having a extremely awkward time of that because I don't know how I would feel if he got in. You know, on the one hand this, on the other hand that. I really dislike auditions in general simply because you've got to make some people unhappy. I hate making people unhappy.
Books:
Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
Food:
Spicy eggplant
Sleep:
As ever, not enough
We called back 9 people from Wednesday's audition, by the way. One of them's a freshman from Singapore. I'm having a extremely awkward time of that because I don't know how I would feel if he got in. You know, on the one hand this, on the other hand that. I really dislike auditions in general simply because you've got to make some people unhappy. I hate making people unhappy.
Books:
Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
Food:
Spicy eggplant
Sleep:
As ever, not enough
Thursday, January 16, 2003
It's snowing.
The MRI class? 10 kinds of cool. Seriously. Coolest. Lab. Ever. They made us watch this safety video that's made in the same style as all the health -ed videos that they show Americans in grade school to stop them from having casual sex
[Enter nurse]
Nurse: (heavy Southern accent): Ah had no idea that the magnet was turned on all the time in the room. When ah went in there with my scissors, they just flew raght out of mah hand into the machine. It's lucky there was no one in there, or they could have been seriously injured. Next time, ah'm going to make sure ah know all the safety procdeures before ah go near there agayn.
Sign Language? Also really enjoyable. I don't believe I've dragged my feet about learning it for this long.
By the way, if anyone knows how to prevent oneself from being zapped by static electricity every few minutes, could you please tell me. I am beyond annoyed.
The MRI class? 10 kinds of cool. Seriously. Coolest. Lab. Ever. They made us watch this safety video that's made in the same style as all the health -ed videos that they show Americans in grade school to stop them from having casual sex
[Enter nurse]
Nurse: (heavy Southern accent): Ah had no idea that the magnet was turned on all the time in the room. When ah went in there with my scissors, they just flew raght out of mah hand into the machine. It's lucky there was no one in there, or they could have been seriously injured. Next time, ah'm going to make sure ah know all the safety procdeures before ah go near there agayn.
Sign Language? Also really enjoyable. I don't believe I've dragged my feet about learning it for this long.
By the way, if anyone knows how to prevent oneself from being zapped by static electricity every few minutes, could you please tell me. I am beyond annoyed.
Monday, January 13, 2003
1) So I managed to read an entire book for my C.S. Lewis class before discovering that it was the wrong book. Moral of the Story? Being in college doesn't necessarily mean that you can read a syllabus.
2) Not too many people are signing up to audition for us on Wednesday. Bad News. All the auditionees we have so far are a handful of girls with the collective talent of Jacintha Abishiganaden. Which is to say not so much.
3) I am officially signing on with Dr. Buhusi. It is a little scary because I think I'm going to be his only research assistant, and my lack of experience isn't doing wonders to my confidence either. I guess buried under all the nervousness I'm also really excited, but perhaps that part comes later.
2) Not too many people are signing up to audition for us on Wednesday. Bad News. All the auditionees we have so far are a handful of girls with the collective talent of Jacintha Abishiganaden. Which is to say not so much.
3) I am officially signing on with Dr. Buhusi. It is a little scary because I think I'm going to be his only research assistant, and my lack of experience isn't doing wonders to my confidence either. I guess buried under all the nervousness I'm also really excited, but perhaps that part comes later.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
It's like "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" in here.
To provide a clarification: this is not an "online journal". It is a concatenation of narrated events and pontifications, some or none of which may be true. So, moving on:
"We must never make the problem of pain worse than it is by vague talk about the 'unimaginable sum of human misery'. Suppose that I have a toothache of intensity x: and suppose that you, who are seated beside me, also begin to have a toothache of intensity x. You may, if you choose, say that the total amount of pain in the room is now 2x. But you must remember that no one is suffering 2x: search all time and space and you will not find that composite pain in anyone's consciousness. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it. When we have reached the maximum that a single person can suffer, we have, no doubt, reached something very horrible, but we have reached all the suffering there ever can be in the universe. The addition of a million fellow-sufferers adds no more pain"
--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
To provide a clarification: this is not an "online journal". It is a concatenation of narrated events and pontifications, some or none of which may be true. So, moving on:
"We must never make the problem of pain worse than it is by vague talk about the 'unimaginable sum of human misery'. Suppose that I have a toothache of intensity x: and suppose that you, who are seated beside me, also begin to have a toothache of intensity x. You may, if you choose, say that the total amount of pain in the room is now 2x. But you must remember that no one is suffering 2x: search all time and space and you will not find that composite pain in anyone's consciousness. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it. When we have reached the maximum that a single person can suffer, we have, no doubt, reached something very horrible, but we have reached all the suffering there ever can be in the universe. The addition of a million fellow-sufferers adds no more pain"
--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Friday, January 10, 2003
Dr. Buhusi, the professor I'm hoping to work with, showed me around his lab today. After a year and a half of psychology, it seems I might finally be getting to play with the famous mice and rats that everyone's always asking me about. That's the other thing that people always think about after Freud when I tell them I'm reading psychology. Rats.
I suppose that the two most salient things about them are that they're
a) huge, and
b) smelly
So now, I get to read "Temporal Integration as a Function of Signal and Gap Intensity in Rats and Pigeons" (Journal of Comparative Psychology 2002) and then decide whether I want to work in the lab, or nada.
That twitch you're feeling, by the way, is the tic of the voyeur. Don't try to get rid of it. It's good for you.
I suppose that the two most salient things about them are that they're
a) huge, and
b) smelly
So now, I get to read "Temporal Integration as a Function of Signal and Gap Intensity in Rats and Pigeons" (Journal of Comparative Psychology 2002) and then decide whether I want to work in the lab, or nada.
That twitch you're feeling, by the way, is the tic of the voyeur. Don't try to get rid of it. It's good for you.
Thursday, January 09, 2003
I seem to have scooped up quite a wacky collection of professors for myself this semester. Prof Kuhn, who is teaching for Drugs, Brain and Behavior, kindly informed us that we can be as salacious or explicit as we want to in our homework assignments, because nothing we say is likely to upset her. Prof. Wesley Kort, who is to provide enlightenment on religion in the works of C.S. Lewis, has a bizarre way of leaving every sentence he starts unfinished, not to mention doodling hieroglyphics on the board that bear no relation at all to what he is talking about. Prof Alberts (Evolution of Animal Behavior) spent an hour talking about baboons and her work in southern Kenya.
Anyway, who really wants to hear about classes?
I have misplaced my nail clipper. I'm sure that I left it in my drawer before I left for winter break, but it is not there any more. Not good at all. I'm not sure where one would purchase a nail clipper around here. In the mean time, I'm sure that my nails are growing at an accelerated rate on purpose just to vex me.
I forgot to mention that I got dragged to the Duke-Georgetown basketball game in Cameron last night (this was before rehearsal). The friendly line monitor gave us $40 tickets and we very nearly squeaked into some very good seats, but as luck would have it, we were thwarted at the last moment and ended up in the usual rows reserved for non-paying students.
We won the game, if anyone cares.
Anyway, who really wants to hear about classes?
I have misplaced my nail clipper. I'm sure that I left it in my drawer before I left for winter break, but it is not there any more. Not good at all. I'm not sure where one would purchase a nail clipper around here. In the mean time, I'm sure that my nails are growing at an accelerated rate on purpose just to vex me.
I forgot to mention that I got dragged to the Duke-Georgetown basketball game in Cameron last night (this was before rehearsal). The friendly line monitor gave us $40 tickets and we very nearly squeaked into some very good seats, but as luck would have it, we were thwarted at the last moment and ended up in the usual rows reserved for non-paying students.
We won the game, if anyone cares.
Most of yesterday was a haze of jet lag, including rehearsal, which was my first as asst. musical director. Praise the Lord for artificial stimulants and midnight runs of Jimmy John's for those of us who think that lunch time should fall around then.
First class of Spring 2003 starts in a couple of hours. I have wild swings between looking forward to classes because they're interesting and dreading them because I'm going to have to work again.
One of those meta-creative things I can't seem to avoid, ever, no matter what or where I write: how long are these entries typically supposed to be? I've seen people go with "short, but frequent", but then again these are people whose language skills are woefully lacking:
("Today was a nice day. We went to Sentosa. The weather was fine. Etc.")
On the other hand, sprawling epics seem somewhat inappropriate as well. Hmm. We shall see.
First class of Spring 2003 starts in a couple of hours. I have wild swings between looking forward to classes because they're interesting and dreading them because I'm going to have to work again.
One of those meta-creative things I can't seem to avoid, ever, no matter what or where I write: how long are these entries typically supposed to be? I've seen people go with "short, but frequent", but then again these are people whose language skills are woefully lacking:
("Today was a nice day. We went to Sentosa. The weather was fine. Etc.")
On the other hand, sprawling epics seem somewhat inappropriate as well. Hmm. We shall see.
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
All of the information in this blog is true, except for the bits that are made up.
The true things:
I am a junior in Duke University, NC, USA
I'm a psychology major, with a minor in biology.
The not-so-true things:
My self-esteem permits me to publish a complete and unedited account of all the salient events that happen in my life.
The things that are evidently false:
You'll know them when they come up. Maybe.
Anyway, please don't get hung up all that. Remember: "Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer."
The true things:
I am a junior in Duke University, NC, USA
I'm a psychology major, with a minor in biology.
The not-so-true things:
My self-esteem permits me to publish a complete and unedited account of all the salient events that happen in my life.
The things that are evidently false:
You'll know them when they come up. Maybe.
Anyway, please don't get hung up all that. Remember: "Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer."
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