Georgetown, Bermuda

A time ago, before all of this happened, Shaun and I were together in OBS (Outward Bound School) trying to get through a 5-day 4-night camp. About midway through the experience, he told me that he was experiencing something very odd; he told me that it felt like his soul had departed his body, leaving behind his flesh as an empty vessel. While we were going through BMT together, he reported feeling the same thing at the times when the strain was the greatest, when he felt he really could not take it any more.

Going through 48 hours of traveling to get here was exactly like that, and I have this to say about it: Never Again. 2 hours in Changi + 13 hours to Frankfurt + 3 hours layover in Germany + 8 hours to JFK + 7 hours layover in New York (+ delays) + 2 hours to RDU + 7 hours of helter-skelter scrambling to get everything packed + 2 hours to Philadelphia + 10 minutes to hurtle across the airport to make my connection + 2 hours to Bermuda is Too Much Traveling. Too. Much. Traveling.

Towards the end, I literally felt like the Living Dead.

It exhausts me just to think about it.

Anyway, for better or for worse, I'm here in the Bermuda Biological Research Station, warm, clean, nursing myself back to life. I missed the orientation this morning, but the gist of it was filled in for me. Managed to accomplish a trip to St. George (20 minutes walk away) to procure a bus pass together with 3 of my 6 companions this semester. It's windy and rather chilly out, but the weather is expected to warm up by the weekend. Even so, the seaside views are gorgeous, and being indoors just because of a little rain seems quite a waste.

What have I seen so far? The houses are pastel-colored, the roads have no pavements, the people are absent. Prices are jacked up, time is slowed down. No one walks, yet only one car is allowed per household. I had the good fortune of landing a single room, number 314, pi, to match the irrational nature of my decision to come here, leaving behind what is certain and loved for the murky possibility of potential enjoyment.

Well: upstairs to rest, and to see what tomorrow might bring.

Last entry for this semester! It's been a restful one in general, so thank God for that.

I gave up the ghost and got about 3 hours of sleep in the end. My usual pre-flight adrenaline is keeping me up right now, though. Finally finished the mammoth task of organizing all my stuff a few minutes ago, with the exception of bedsheets and pillowcases tumbledrying downstairs.

So now it's lunch and the lucky red shirt, then RDU, LaGuardia, Amsterdam and home. Thanks for reading, and happy holidays! I'll be back on January 7th.

~J.A.L.

Well, I'm trying this whole "not sleeping in order to counter jet lag" thing.

I bet you the bank that it doesn't work.

Ah yes, that old primary school feeling of exams being over. Philo. of bio exam was OK, a few curve balls but otherwise a fairly reasonable paper. Finished it by 11 and went out to the mall to spend my Waldenbooks voucher. Decided (partly because of a recommendation from Minz) to get Haruki Murakami's After the Quake. He's written a bunch of other books which I shall peruse if this one is good. Just being at the mall infected me with a rabid case of consumerism, and in the spirit of this, here's my Christmas List (2003);

1) DVDs...any are good, but my top 5 right now are
(a) Pirates of the Caribbean
(b) Pulp Fiction
(c) Forrest Gump
(d) The Lion King
(e) The West Wing Season 1 Boxed Set.

2) Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando for the PS2

3) Sandman:Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman

4) an IPod

5) Tooth whitener (that actually works)

6) A nice pair of black dress pants

7) 20 GB of extra memory for my hard drive

8) A 256 MB memory card for my Palm Pilot.

9) A tie with a design on it that's not
(a) violently purple or
(b) covered with cartoons

10) Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men

Any generous soul willing to provide any of these items should e-mail me ASAP to get a shipping address.

Spent half the afternoon in the Regulator reading Daniel Wallace's Big Fish over cups of coffee. This was the first time in forever that I've got to read a book cover to cover in one sitting, and it made me very happy indeed. The book caught my eye because of the trailer I saw for the movie based on it. Ewan McGregor! Anyway, the trailer was rather incomprehensible until I read the thing and realized that it was a series of vignettes narrated by a son mythologizing his father. The story and structure are quite original, and Wallace sets up the contrast between adulation and reality well - it's not overly maudlin, and the humor is just right, not over the top. I approve.

Anyway, enough jabbering. I need to get packed.

I'm going to oversleep my exam tomorrow. I can feel it in my bones.

Just sent my m-bag in to the post office...didn't seem that heavy at first but everything weighs a blasted ton when you have to haul it halfway across campus. Sort of almost prepared for my exam tomorrow, though I seem to have lost most of my metacognitive skill when it comes to these things, so for all you know I'm headed for a C+.

Oh, and my LAST RHYTHM AND BLUE REHEARSAL EVER was yesterday...kind of sad. I'll miss that group tons...dunno how I would have survived freshman year without it. Sigh. Nostalgia.

For people who liked Carnivale, fill in this survey to tell HBO that you loved it. For those who have never heard of the show...WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?? You just missed out on one of the best. Series. Ever.

Heh.

Oh, and the packing foam is gone.

Over lunch at Elmo's, Han invited me to spend a week with him in Kuching, Sarawak, in his little bucolic abode. It will be fun, he says. We'll go trekking and have the blood sucked out of us by leeches and make tiramisu and go and eat laksa and generally be indolent and unproductive. It sounds tempting, but some of the other Singaporeans are going which is rather a disincentive. Besides, I'm going to be communing with nature for the next 4 months following break, so I figure I'd better get my bi-annual dose of Metropolitan life while I can.

Very sleepy through most of today because of staying late at Jeremy's Christmas party last night. Betsy loved the lava lamp, and Simon gave me a voucher for Waldenbooks. He originally bought me Neil Gaiman's Good Omens, which I read way back in Sec 4, and had to return it after craftily eliciting that information from me in an IM conversation on Tuesday. I told him that the gift was perfect, and that it's kind of difficult to shop for books for me because I do tend to have read them (especially if it's something I'll obviously like). Other presents included: oatmeal raisin cookies and beer, an (intentionally) bad DVD ("The Punisher"), earrings, a Playboy bartending book, Jose Cuerva tequila, body lotion, shot glasses and a Curious George mug.

Anyway, aforesaid sleepiness led to rather low productivity in terms of studying and packing, although it's kind of OK because there isn't a whole lot of studying left to do. As a matter of fact, I'm feeling kind of guilty because everyone else is piled nose high in textbooks while I'm prancing the halls making fun of them. Bad me.

and no one knows
(tiddly pom)
how cold my toes
(tiddly pom)
how cold my toes
(tiddly pom)
are growing

~ a. a. milne

I really don't need 50 e-mails a day telling me to buy Vicodin, thank you very much.

And, on an entirely unrelated note, shout-out to the first responder to my Nov 27th request.

Last day of classes. Last day of bio tutoring. Returned access card for BIAC. Bittersweet. Weather very dreary and bitingly cold.

Finally confirmed that Dr. McCarthy's done his work and submitted my things.

There are a lot of little white bits of packing foam in my room that have blown all over the place. Only vaguely festive thing around at the moment.

Threw away an accumulation of 2.5 years of junk today with a mixture of nostalgia and despair. The human propensity to hoard things is simply amazing. I have no idea how I'm going to make it in terms of packing space, and if I go overweight on my suitcases again I'm going to cry. Last summer that happened to me, and I stood there unpacking in the airport lobby, stuffing things into plastic bags to bring on as carry-on items while everyone looked on thinking who's this crazy Asian buffoon who doesn't even know how to pack a suitcase.

Many abortive attempts at "Carol of the Bells" later, I'm convinced that the song was just not meant to be sung.

Found this while clearing out freshman year stuff:

"My Lord God
I have no idea where I am going
I do not see the road ahead of me
I cannot know for certain
where it will end
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that
I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.

And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything
apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
for you are ever with me,
and you will never
leave me to face my perils alone."

Thomas Merton

yes when you start jumping around in the halls you have decidedly had Too Much Caffeine

Physically went to Dr. McCarthy's office to see what's going on with my recommendations. Out of town. His secretary says that they are on his to-do list, meaning that they might or might not be to-done. On top of that, Dr. Buhusi just emailed me to say that the Harvard online recommendation thing has not been sent to him, despite the fact that I sent it out twice. I could cry. It's like my undergrad applications all over again. Why can't life ever be simple?

Free coffee week is wreaking havoc with my nerves as usual, despite the fact that I have nothing in particular to be stressed about. Little things are bugging me. Justin sent an Amazon.com order to me without asking if I would transport it for him...as if I don't have enough stuff to carry back over winter break already. Devils' Duplicates is bereft of boxes for me to use as shipping containers for books. There seems to be rheumatic pain or something in my right instep.

Chris is gone, spirited away by a taxi at a time of night when sensible people should be asleep and not hurrying to the airport. His leaving brings about the advent of exam week, which, for me, is going to be far more relaxing than it historically has been. I'm well ahead of the game with my papers - in fact, my main preoccupation is going to be the vexing question of what to do with all my stuff. I honestly feel like putting everything out in the corridor and having a huge jumble sale.

On the university front, Dr. McCarthy is missing without a trace, and goodness knows what he's done with my recommendations. Minz continues to message me twice a day to get frantic about her personal statements. It's a wonder any of us get into graduate school at all. Or maybe we don't. The process seems to weed disorganized people out just by virtue of its very nature.

Movies:
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs

went to northgate mall with chris to search for a gift for rhythm and blue's "secret santa" party next week. looked at a stained glass triptych, a dancing hamster that sings "tequila", a desk clock, hello kitty slippers and tacky hallmark merchandise before settling on a lava lamp for $9.99 (just under the budget). pleasantly surprised to find such a bargain since i always thought that lava lamps cost at least 30 bucks. resisted temptation to buy a used video game costing $14.95. walked back to east campus in the freezing cold.

Metaphysics
I was talking about blogging with Chris on the bus back from Chapel Hill yesterday. I asked him if he still read this blog; he said that he used to but doesn't really follow it anymore. We then started wondering if there's anyone else out there in the world who keeps us with it. He thinks the odds are that at least one other person out there is reading this religiously; I decidedly do not. The only thing going for it is that I update it regularly, which is more than can be said of the Wasteland of dead blogs out there. On the other hand, it is obscure, makes plenty of references to things that would make no sense to anyone who doesn't know me, and is generally rather unentertaining. So...who's right? If you are reading this blog and do not know me personally, e-mail jzl@duke.edu and give me a shout. I won't think that you're extremely sad/stalking me, I promise. This is just to settle a debate.

Elsewhere, we had thanksgiving brunch in Han's apartment (with some chicken and lots of dessert) and thanksgiving dinner in House H (with lots of everything, including candied yams). So now, it's the whole post-prandial trytophan-induced soporific reverie of repleteness. Joy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

New look!

I mailed in my Johns Hopkins envelope today, which means that I'm done! Done, done, done!

Now all that remains is to wait for the rejection letters. Which I will receive days later than anyone else because they will be forwarded to Beaufort. What a suck.

Chris arrived safely a few hours ago. I showed him around a little bit and we got dinner with Gab and Waihay and watched some anime and now he's curled up asleep while I type manically away at a paper and my blog and some other miscellaneous writing.

The campus has quietened down considerably since yesterday, with people leaving for the Turkey Day Holidays. Exodus, with suitcases. I hate that. Cf. Parents' weekend.

Books:
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

Sick. Runny nose. Sore throat. Coughing up my lungs. Still, I insist on singing in our dorm concert. Ah well. One of the last times I get to sing with my group.

Chris comes tomorrow.

we didn't place in sojam, but it was totally worth going anyway. the other college groups weren't too much to speak of, but the professional show was amazing. andrew chiakin used a loop machine to do a one-man a cappella song, including vocal percussion. da vinci's notebook was hysterical. the amount of talent all these people have is awe-inspiring.

so, one weekend of gallivanting later, it's actually time to get down to some real work now. if my next few entries are short, it's because i'm doing some hardcore mugging.

Reason to hate Singapore #23987417

you know, it struck me, after reading a friend's blog, that i'm only going to be studying in durham for another 2.5 weeks. after that, singapore, then bermuda, then beaufort, then god knows where. should i be tearing up? i am strangely unmoved.

Despite having the clunkiest title for a movie this year, (thanks, Pat O'Brien) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World actually does live up to its positive reviews. Best member of the cast: Paul Bettany for creating an incredibly sympathetic character out of the ship's doctor and Russell Crowe's main confidante. Kudos, all around, and my grudging hats off to a Russell Crowe movie that might once again beat out my Lord of the Rings in the Oscar race.

In other news, SoJam is tonight, and Speak of the Devil has somewhow wangled themsleves a full page article in The Chronicle detailing their elaborate preparation. Whatever, guys. It's called having fun. The whole festival is being held at a rather unfortunate time, because I really do have to get these papers of mine done before Thanksgiving (and Chris) descends. To hear Da Vinci's Notebook though? I'm willing to stay up long nights on subsequent days for that.

For the dead and injured in Istanbul:

there is a balm in gilead
to make the wounded whole
there is a balm in gilead
to heal the sin sick soul

~ african-american hymn, from jeremiah 46:11

Laid down three tracks in the recording studio last night till 12 before staggering to Verde's only to discover that they stop serving food at midnight. Proceeded, exhausted, to Torero's where there was partaking of fried peppers and ice cream and cheap wine that tasted first like cough syrup and then cleaning fluid as the night wore on. That was my second dinner: I had to get doggy bags and bail out of the first one because I was running late. This first one was in Bakus, the tapas bar I went to several months back. This time, though, my professor was paying (the one teaching the graduate seminar I'm in: she brought us all out as an end-of-term gesture), which made my early departure seem even more inappropriate.

Recording itself was a worse experience than in the past. Overdub Studios assigned us a new technician who clearly didn't know his stuff as well as the old guy, and it took us forever to get set up in between takes. We barely squeaked in everything we wanted to do in four hours, and ended up ruffled and in need of sustenance - both in solid and liquid form. Thus, Torero's.


And now, I sit in front of my computer waiting for inspiration to hit so I can finally be done with this last application. It has taken altogether too long for me to get it together, and all I want to do now is get a snack and then go to bed again, beautiful tornado-less weather outside notwithstanding.

Meanwhile, I claw my way laboriously through completely rewriting my statement of purpose for Johns Hopkins since it is the only non-clinical program I'm applying to. Boo.

I was listening again just now to the Raffles Concert Singers' recording of its debut (and only) concert and marveling at how collectively Singaporean the choir sounds. For instance, as a nation, we don't seem to have the concept that 's' at the end of some words is actually phonetically /z/. Thus: "He's got the whole world in his handsssssss". Very unprofessional. Also, in retrospect, the American way of pronouncing words like "pass" and "class" sounds so much more natural when singing than the very classical, Anglicised, /pahss/. Maybe it's just the song, or several intervening years of being surrounded by a different kind of speech, but it really does rankle now.

The only section that sounds markedly different from the others (and you can hear this in our first verse solo in "He's Got the Whole World", as well as in the Latvian song), is the tenor section. Jiahao, Jonathan, Chester and I provide pretty much all the volume for those bits, and with the exception of one singer (who shall remain unnamed), the rest of us all pronounce words...um...correctly. The difference in quality shows. Yeah, yeah, blowing my own trumpet and all that, but it's true. And that's another thing Mr. Toh has to work furiously on if he ever wants to assemble a world-class choir.

1 application to go. I'm so excited I could wet my pants.

Books:
Love - Toni Morrison

I just found about 5 more forms that I have to fill in for my study abroad next semester that I had no idea even existed. It's almost as if Duke admin purposely hides things from you in the hope that you'll screw up.

I have changed my mind again with my last 2 applications: I have decided to do Yale and JHU instead of MIT and JHU. I will just have to live with the fact that the research in Yale is not entirely related to mine and go for a slightly different angle in my personal statement. Their clinical program really is too delicious, and MIT is just a little too ridiculous for my taste, all things considered. I mean, come on, they call their buildings by number instead of name.

From Travels With Charley, on diaspora
The place of my origin had changed, and having gone away I had not changed with it. In my memory it stood as it once did and its outward appearance confused and angered me.

What I am about to tell must be the experience of many in this nation where so many wander and come back, I called on old and valued friends. I thought their hair had receded a little more than mine. The greetings were enthusiastic. The memories flooded up. Old crimes and old triumphs were brought out and dusted. And suddenly my attention wandered, and looking at my ancient friend, I saw that his wandered also. And it was true what I said to Johnny Garcia - I was the ghost. My town had grown and changed and my friend along with it. Now, returning, as changed to my friend as my town was to me, I distored his picture, muddied his memory. When I went away, I had died, and so became fixed and unchangeable. My return caused only confusion and uneasiness. Although they could not say it, my old friends wanted me fone so that I could take my proper place in the pattern of remembrance - and I wanted to go for the same reason. Tom Wolfe was right. You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.

in the interest of providing opportunities for socializing (as our job descriptions say that we should) my fellow members on the singapore student association committee and i had organized a trip to 'penang', the new franchised pseudo-south-east-asian restaurant in chapel hill. this happened today. 15 people came along, and for one of the few times in my time here at duke i felt that grotty sensation that comes when too many singaporeans are clumped together in a foreign land, like being on one of those chan brothers tours to europe with the big buses and the ample, nouveau-riche aunties fanning themselves with brochures and conversing loudly in teochew and buying baubles and trinkets from the gift shop for the nephews and nieces back home. our waitress sequestered us in a corner of the restaurant where we could do as little damage as possible and was quite rude, interrogating poor ailian about why she had reserved a table for 18 and only 15 people showed up (not her fault, some irresponsible people RSVPed and didn't make an appearance). i felt quite irrationally embarrassed by the whole affair, not on behalf of singaporeans, but just for the fact that race and culture are such a big deal here and that i still can't walk around with my asian friends on campus (or in the mall, or down franklin street) without being conscious of segregation and clique-mentality and other such sententious labels that americans quite unwittingly conjure up without even really considering why, or what they mean.

on the bright side, the food was really good.

Something cool. I solved it in 3 hours. Heh.

Math test

Our abnormal psychology lecture today (yesterday) was on schizoid personality disorder, where the disordered individual is more or less a recluse, participating only in solitary activity and experiencing little in the way of mood change, either positive or negative.

If someone with those symptoms feels no distress, can he really be called "disordered"? He's not causing anyone harm. He still contributes in a positive way to society (although limited in the type of job he could succeed in). No deficits in intelligence, industry or anything much else. What's the big deal with diagnosing someone like that? Doesn't the mental healthcare industry have anything better to do?

Food:
Lamb vindaloo

after five years of being pestered by von, i have finally relented. thus:

Books:
Travels With Charley - John Steinbeck

6 down, 2 to go.

5 universities down, 3 to go. Discovered today that I had put 37c stamps on all my envelopes when 60c ones were required. Bought the post office out of 23c stamps and went hunting for professors.

I didn't even know that 23c stamps existed.

Library research for independent study more or less done after much hard labor over past 2 nights.

Too much on plate.

I go to rehearsal.

This Be the Verse, by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Sunday. Church with Kevin Bong and Clarence, another ex-RJ kid, then a walk with Von and his hallmates (led by Mike Sullivan) through the arboretum in the freezing cold.

Kevin gave me a ride back to the airport. Arrived back Durham at about 9:30. Got back to Duke at 11 (ish). Immediately started doing work (over pizza) till the early hours of the morning.

To sum up: Harvard = fantastic. Very glad I went.

Dr. Pelphrey put my name on a poster of our study while I was gone, despite the fact that I didn't do any work on it. I think he's really trying to give me things to put on my applications, which is nice.

Stuff. Lots of stuff. Info package on Bermuda arrived, which means another influx of administration to worry about.

Sleepy.

Von brought me on the fast and furious food tour of Boston this afternoon, a whirlwind journey through the back streets of the North End in quest for the best pizza in Massachussetts and cannoli made-to-order. We meandered through Boston Common along the way and stopped for a brief chat with Mora from Von's host family over superlative caffe latte. All in all, a day well spent, although the sudden drop in temperature was something I did not quite expect to have to cope with.

I'm not sure why I hate to admit it, but in many, many ways this place is so much nicer than Duke. This is despite the cramped dorms, the strange housing situation, the elitist Harvard image and general preppiness. I feel more at home here. How do I explain it? I feel like I have fallen in with "my people". This really has no bearing on grad school application, since I know that the life of a PhD student is very different from that of an undergrad; what I think I'm trying to express is regret that I wasn't accepted here, independent of the irrational desire to be in a "brand-name" school (which Duke kind of is anyway). It's a ghost road that Von got to travel down separately from me (after my being in the same class as him from P4 to JC2), and one that I now have a glimpse of, right here in front of me, and yet not.

Books:
When the Emperor Was Divine - Julie Otsuka

MIT is as unusual as the stereotypes make it out to be - geeks who spend most of their waking lives buried in seeking solutions for esoteric problems. Minimal social interaction, maximum obfuscation -- calling buildings by number instead of name, pride in UNIX being the official OS on campus, I.M. Pei buildings that were brilliantly conceived in theory but structurally unsound in real life. It is similar to Duke in some ways. Aramark caters (yuk) and administrators are heavy-handed on controlling certain aspects of social life *coughalcoholcough*.

Kevin Bong, old classmate from 4I, took the time to show me around. He seems to be doing alright, though I guess that it's very much an issue of personality matching. I.e., if you want to learn something, if you want to make an erudite discovery (and be one of three people in the world to understand it), go to MIT

Or...back right now, seeing as I have internet access.

I very nearly overslept this morning after going to bed in the wee hours of last night. Was rescued by my roommate pottering around and yanking me into consciousness. Set the record for fastest time going from sound asleep to overdrive. Luckily, was not too late, and still managed to meet my ride (a friend) going to the airport. After all that, my flight here was delayed by an hour and a half, but you know what they say Delta stands for (Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport).

Navigated the subways and met Von at about 2 in the afternoon. He is thriving, as always. Grabbed a bite to eat and then went to have a chat with one of his tutor friends who graduated with a PhD in Sociology from LSE, and apparently is the second smartest person in Portugal (or something). Adjourned to Von's grubby little dorm room which is almost the messiest place I've been in this semester (see fall break for the messiest). Had (free) dinner in university cafeteria, discovering that it puts The Marketplace to shame.

Random elements of the day: mint and orange jelly, hypomania, a hip flask, alewife=fish?, nathaniel hawthorne, someone applying to the (duke) nicholas school of the environment, molecular systematics and a lot of people who hate the third matrix movie.

Going to Boston. Back on Sunday. See ya later, troopers.

I have 4 bio students now. And it is not fun. Even for $10 an hour.

Headline on Yahoo news:
Scientists say video games are addictive.

Um.

I checked the online status of my UPenn application today and two completely random recommenders had appeared together with the names of my professors. These two recommenders had big check marks next to their names alongside the word SUBMITTED. Curious. I did a Google search for these professors and found that they teach English.

Curiouser and curioser.

Anyway, I emailed the graduate admissions person-in-charge and she clarified that -- shock, horror and coincidence -- two people with my name are applying to UPenn grad school this year. What are the odds?

Read into that what you will.

Books:
Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

10 things I hate about Halloween
1. Sponge Bob Square Pants
2. Bad horror movies (see below)
3. Traffic jams in UNC
4. Beeriness
5. A glut of cow costumes
6. It usually marks the start of plummeting temperatures
7. People who pretend that you're dressed up when you're not.
8. Pseudo-racist comments
9. Nun suits
10. No two people are not on fire.

Showing in Griffith this weekend

Um. Happy Halloween, yo.

Something exciting! We are in the finals for SoJam, a huge a cappella festival in the Southeast! We sent in an audition tape that we had just randomly made from one of our performances, and they actually picked us as one of the 6 best groups. Now I don't really get excited about things that easily, as you know, but this really is something. The judges include Sean Altman, founder of Rockapella, the big daddy of all modern-day a cappella, and Andrew Chaikin, the best vocal percussionist born on this earth. Which is, like, wow. And whoa. And to top if all off, Da Vinci's Notebook are performing live. It's an absolutely fitting way for me to round off my time in Rhythm and Blue. Without bragging, I feel that the group has come a long way since our freshman year, and I would not be at all surprised if the group became a household name in collegiate a cappella in the next few years.

By the way, fun factoid: the meteorite that hit the Earth 65 million years ago in the Gulf of Mexico would have generated winds up to 40000 mph in the immediate vicinity of the impact, and 600 mph as far away as Texas. A 600 mph gale is 3 times the force of the highest measured wind speed on Earth in modern times, and would have been sufficient to literally blow a dinosaur off its feet and away.

I love Bio.

Rain, rain, endless and dismal.

From Brick Lane:
"What I did not know - I was a young man - is that there are two kinds of love. The kind that starts off big and slowly wears away, that seems you can never use it up and then one day is finished. And the kind that you don't notice at first, but which adds a little bit to itself every day, like an oyster makes a pearl, grain by grain, a jewel from the sand."

Parents weekend is depressing, although this year's was a marginal improvement over the last. Our concert last night was one of our best performances this semester and we sold a bushel of our new CDs. I got to meet Jon's parents. They're rather elderly and remind me of someone I know back home (but can't put my finger on it). After-concert gelato and bizarre animation ensued.

Today was all about catching up on sleep (courtesy of DST). I had one meal the entire day: chicken cacciatore. I only mention that because it's fun to say. Cacciatore. Heh.

From Brick Lane :
Bibi was looking at the snowstorms on his desk. There was a line of them along the back in every sahde of colored glass. They were arranged by color, running from clear glass at the far end to a small black dome over a frozen winter garden. He picked out one and offered it. Bibi held it on the flat of her pal, and peered at the little lattice-worked tower inside.

"No, no. You shake it." Dr. Azad explained that he had got it in Paris. They watched the snow swirl around inside the galss and come to a peaceful arrangement at the bottom. "That's it." He took it back. "That is like life," he told Bibi. "Remember that is just like life."

"Why?" said Bibi, surprised into speaking. She swallowed with difficulty.

Dr. Azad picked up another snowstorm and shook. "If you are strong you withstand the storm. Can you see? The storm comes and everything is blurred. But all that is built on a solid foundation has only to stand fast and wait for the storm to pass. Do you see?"

Bibi nodded, so slowly she might as well have shaken her head.

"And do you know how to make a solid foundation?"

Again, Bibi gave her slow, negative nod.

"Then would you mind," said Dr. Azad, "telling me just how to do it?"

Sprained my leg a little while running today. Cannot locate a single tube of muscle rub in my entire dorm.

Our CD is finally out! If you want a download, go here and you'll find a track. (Don't go in scripts, that's just some rubbish).

Going to Boston on the 6th. Sigh, I am very poor.

The assistant attorney-general was our guest du jour in Psych 238 today and damn it was dull as ditchwater. I weary of classes. It's that time of the semester where one is suddenly stranded in between breaks with no source of revitalization.

Exchange in Psych section today:
TA: I've looked through next week's test and I think it's easier than the first one.
Girl in corner: (suppresses a giggle)
TA: What's so funny.
Girl in corner: Oh nothing...just that I got a hundred for the first test so if it's even easier...

And...some people don't know when to shut up.

It was a gorgeous day today, one of those rare late October afternoons where the sun actually decides that its job is to provide the little creatures below with warmth and light. Laptop and reading in hand, I sauntered off to the new cafe in Duke Gardens to see if I could get some work done. And it was shut! Nasty, cruel Duke Dining Services. Humph.

I received the "course selection form" for Beaufort next semester and there's this course on sea turtles that I want to do but can't because it's being offered on mainland U.S.A. when I'm going to be in Bermuda. Damn! I wonder if I'm going be able to update my blog in Bermuda. I suppose they have internet access. Anyway, I'm thinking Marine Invertbrate Zoology, "Light and Life" (half course), Marine Ecology, Coastal Ecotoxicology and Pollution (maybe) and something else which will bring me up to 34 course credits and graduation. Yay.

Watched Tarantino's new offering today and feel in need of a good cleansing. All in all, it's been a good week for movies: Pirates of the Caribbean for a dollar in the BC yesterday, School of Rock (downloaded) and Full Metal Jacket (downloaded).

Books:
Brick Lane - Monica Ali

Four hours scanning people is not the best way to spend a Saturday morning, I'll tell you that right now. Nothing else terribly interesting going on at the moment.

Oktoberfest! Beer on points!

I have given out my last set of recommendations (to Dr. McCarthy) so I'm home free on that front. Dr. McCarthy is such an enigma -- I know he's a really friendly and approachable person, and yet he has this aura of scholarly impregnability that makes me so anxious every time I have to meet with him. He was so nice about agreeing to write my recs, though, and I'm extremely pleased - he's incredibly influential in the academic world, knows so many other professors, and is certainly going to improve my chances.

GRE score reports are in the mail.

Things have been quiet since fall break otherwise. Went to Ailian's room to profer freeze-dried bak kwa but she was feeling under the weather. Also,could not find anyone to have dinner with so had a rather solitary day. The weekend is here again, though, so I guess I should appreciate the time to chill and be by myself for a while.

Books:
The Book of Illusions - Paul Auster

The trip, in brief:

University of Richmond, 10/10
4 hour drive. Partook of Frosty Dairy Dessert (Wendy's) and listened to a lot of Three Doors Down and John Mayer. First to arrive. Movie being shot on campus: Living the Lie - small indie film for some festival or another. Sang - made a pig's ear of concert because of (a) poor acoustics, (b) turned-off crowd, (c) dispersed standing arrangement. Went back to dude's apartment (402). Jeremy and Dan played beer pong with Richmond folks. Knuth happy as the Cubs won in 11 innings. Some sketchiness and rum and assorted people making out in the kitchen. Rum and Coke(s). Smirnoff Ices. Wafflehouse run with Andrew and Knuth and Xander at midnight with promise that said Wafflehouse was fifteen minutes away. Drove for half-an-hour before conceding that we were lost and asking directions from Asian dude outside 24-hour pharmacy. Found that Wafflehouse was 15 miles away. Went there anyway. Found that there was a line for the place at 1:15 in the morning. Waited, amidst smoke and grease and the unemployed. Read a travel magazine on South-East Asia, felt momentarily nostalgic for home and, of all things, satay. Seated at 1:30, ordered hash browns, scattered, smothered and chunked. Discussed, among other things, Steve Buscemi, Andrew's father's new movie (set in Russia) "Love and Honor", Christopher Walken, maple syrup, carjacking and homestyle cooking. Drove back, caffeinated. Arrived back at apartment 402 at 2:30 to find no available space to sleep. Tried to sleep in armchair downstairs but failed because of incessantly chatting people, in particular this one Richmond dude who was convinced that Rebecca (one of our freshmen) is a lesbian, and was trying to get her to admit it. 3 a.m.: Xander gave up, and fled upstairs to the one available bedroom; went to sleep on floor. 3:05: Discovered that toothbrush was in Jeremy's car. Brushed teeth with finger. Stole someone's sleeping bag. Finally got to sleep at 4-something, downstairs.

Princeton 10/11
Woken up 8:00 (inadvertently) by Dan, who had to leave to get back to Duke for other rehearsal (The Wiz). Couldn't get back to sleep. Showered. Felt like hell and craved coffee. Searched for coffee; found none, only beer (everywhere). Waited as people woke up one by one about an hour-and-a-half later. Much passing around of Ibuprofen. On the road at 10 in car with Simon, Lindsey, Ryan and Kristen. Stopped at Cracker Barrel for comfort food: apple pancakes, ham, sausage patty, eggs (sunny-side up) and much needed caffeinated beverage. Tried to solve a Rubik Cube; failed. Tried to finish arranging score in car in afternoon; failed (battery died). New Jersey turnpike at 6, Princeton shortly afterward (New Jersey, state of no left turns!). Dinner at crappy school cafeteria, but good ice-cream afterward (peanut butter) at quaint Princeton pub. Pictures of cows of wall. Had strong craving for eggplant parmigiana sub, but too full. Sang in arch with Princeton Roaring 20. Very good that night, despite Jeremy forgetting pitch pipe and needing me to give pitches. Blend, volume, performance, energy: all spot on. Eating clubs afterwards (like last year). Terrace. Sketchiness in basement. Beer on tap. Place hot as hell. Gyrating, etc. Exact details of debauchery not included. Fast forward several hours - back in Elizabeth (our host's) apartment. Fell asleep almost immediately on fancy-shaped chaise-lounge - Liz's brother took the futon (visiting for Parent's Weekend) and everyone else was consigned to the floor. Heh. Middle of the night: Aditi (sophomore, our grp.) gets up, exits the apartment, knocks on the door of the adjacent apartment, and drunkenly spends the night there. Rest of us wake up following morning wandering where in hell she want. Found her. Story of the tour, etc.

Columbia 10/12
Left Princeton 11 a.m. following morning, after bagel, cream cheese, and exceedingly good brew. Anticipated 2-hour drive to NY, gridlock in Lincoln Tunnel bumped it up to 4. Dropped Andrew off to see his mother, and went to Thai restaurant with Betsy and Knuth. Had 100% genuine keropok, and fake, but nonetheless satisfying, Pad Thai. Took subway to Times Square. Walked around, shopped, marvelled once again at the Consumers Paradise that is the U S of A. Decided to see new Tarantino movie when back in Duke. Concert: 8:30 p.m, Lerner Hall. Sang - performance decent. Missed Yisheng, who had gone to see me, because I had to leave as soon as the concert was done (Knuth needed to get back to work on Monday). Roy Rogers at midnight. Duke at 5:30. Slept like death until afternoon.

I think that covers the barebones of it. It's hard to write in detail about anything on this crummy site, so that'll have to do. Live with it.

Gave Dr. Pelphrey the recommendation forms with little ado, and got much done in lab today. Progressing very well with independent study; it looks like getting a paper out this semester is very possible.

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the premier scholarly publication for neuroscientists: "Brain activation during Human Male Ejaculation". Methods, and I quote: "The volunteers were asked to perform the following tasks twice: rest, erection, sexual stimulation, and ejaculation followed by sexual stimulation. To minimize motor activity by the volunteer during the scan, sexual stimulation was provided by his female partner by means of manual penile stimulation in the tasks stimulation and ejaculation. Manual stimulation was continued through ejaculation. The volunteer's head was maintained in position with a head-restraining adhesive band, and to minimize visual input, volunteers were asked to keep their eyes closed." Um, right. I'm amused. And wondering how they got funding for the study.

Anyway, on that lovely note, I'm off to New Jersey and New York, so don't expect anything here till next Monday, earliest. Adios.

Dr. Buhusi talked to me for 1.5 hours today to try and discover my motivations for going to grad school.

Me: blah blah blah blah clinical programs blah blah blah good of humanity blah blah blah improving the state of mental health care in singapore blah blah blah passion for research blah blah blah blah blah blah etc.
Him: But are you really sure you want to go?

And then we started talking about how I didn't believe that science was a paradigm which could explain everything and he went on about how if you're a real scientist you wouldn't want to subscribe to philosophical beliefs, and how if you're a psychologist you don't want to depend on the "soul" as the motive force behind behavior and blah blah religious impinging on my personal beliefs fishcakes.

Anyway.

One down and two to go. I rather dread having to ask Dr. McCarthy because he has this stern disapproving way of looking at you even though I know he's very nice. But well, one at a time. Dr. Pelphrey tomorrow.

Am arranging a new song despite having a midterm on Thursday. Perfect prioritization of time, as always.

Got a haircut.

Finished putting together teacher recommendation packages; hope professors are satisfied. Going to see Dr. Buhusi tomorrow to hand him his package and say nice buttery things to him so that he'll forget for the few hours that he's writing my recommendations what an incompetent I actually am.

Music:
Kingdom In the Sky - Da Vinci's Notebook. Among others.

I was fixing my recommendations to give to professors just now in the commons room and this girl who's studying there remarks that it looks like quite a hefty operation. I agree, and she asks me if the entire application is in the envelopes and I sort of goggle at her, like, um, hello, you haven't seen the half of it, dear. Sigh.

Books:
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde

Music:
American Tune - Simon and Garfunkel

Sang in Southpoint for 3 hours yesterday. Earned $50 (unsolicited) tip from one gentleman whom we suspect did not know how much he was giving, and handed out numerous business cards. Excellent exposure, although experience exhausting. Waffle House afterwards.

Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield win Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering MRI

After a very filling (and very late) dinner last night I declined to write anything. Chow this morning was at an SSA picnic, where Ailian and Shiying had apparently gone crazy with the food-buying. The menu: proscuitto ham, French loaves, pound cake, carrot sticks and about 6 kinds of cheese, spreadable and otherwise. Fancy. People turned up late because of partying the night before, and a lot didn't come because of studying (lousy excuse), but enough: Lipyeow and his wife, Shiyi, Swee San, Shawn, Yaoquan, Rivai, Kelvin, Alfred. Rushed off halfway through the meal to be in time for a concert for P-frosh, which was good, but short. Andrew Wallace's father, the director was there, hearing us for the first time.

First draft of my personal statement is done, thank goodness. It was such a pain to write. I'm getting my recommendations in to professors next week as well as getting GRE scores sent, and then I should be nearly set, except for all the fastidious little details I've forgotten that will no doubt end up taking longer to fix than the "bulk" of the work itself.

Books:
The Horizontal Instrument - Christopher Wilkins

Oh, and by the way, I got my AMEX working again. It was something to do with them not having my address, which was mysterious, but at least I fixed it.

Question of the day

If you take a rocket ship to Alpha Centauri and find an organism there that has exactly the same genetic makeup as a robin on earth, is it a robin?

Food:
Cheesecake

Books:
Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
~which incidentally is very lovely, but hard, because it presents us which such a complicated picture of love, something that we want simplified nowadays, cut into little squares, wrapped in rice paper and packed neatly in an elegant gift box. Shout out to Minz for finally getting me to read it.

Apparently "more worst" is part of her repertoire too.

I know I complain about this every year but my room is a refrigerator and damn housing services refuses to turn on the heat.

There really is nothing to do in my independent study until we get more data, but I decided "show face" in the lab today anyway. I am really concerned that I'm not doing enough work, but (a) I don't know how to bring it up with my professor and (b) I'm not sure there is any more work for me to do even if I did bring it up. I don't particularly care about my grade because my GPA from here on in is moot anyway (my senior grades won't be on my transcript when grad schools evaluate them) but I need my professor to give me a good recommendation. Thus, the showing face. As long as I maintain the illusion that I'm trying to be industrious, his good impression of me carried over from last semester should hold out. I hope.

Oh, and Gabriel, ex-roommate, asked me to write him a recommendation for some mission trip, which made me think about how my professors will be sitting in their office thinking of good things to say about me in the near future, which made me nervous. As I actually wrote the thing, I had to keep checking myself because every single positive thing I wrote down sounded phony and disingenuous - things you say only because you're filling in a recommendation. Dammit. I'm all in knots. Time to do something else.

The temperature has dropped precipitously.

Have been rather short of time to write in here lately, but suffice it say that my weekend was full of wine (free) and song (the Ciompi Quartet playing Dvorak's Opus 81).

I've finished Oryx and Crake and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, though I do recommend it. On the one hand, I'm not sure what sets it apart from the rest of the dystopian literature out there, and on the other, it is true that Margaret Atwood did establish herself as one of the seminal writers of the genre when she did The Handmaid's Tale. I'll have to think on't a little more. I really want to read Brick Lane as well but the damn library copy is loaned out and not due till next month.

I participated in a most evil study today. First, they showed me these two advertisements for sports drinks and gave me about 5 minutes to study them (they were approximately the same). Then I was put in this room and made to eat crackers (brand A and B) and fill in questionnaires about how salty/cheesy/spicy, etc. I thought they were. Then came this computer divided attention test. Finally, they brought "actual" samples of the two sports drinks out (one was clear and the other was orange) and told me to taste them and fill in a questionnaire about which I preferred, etc. Now, the evil thing was that almost all of the experiment was just a distraction from the fact that during the divided attention test, they were flashing subliminal messages at me (the cooked-up brand name of one of the drinks). Then, the test was which of the drinks I would try first and which one I would drink more of. Damn psychologists. Oh wait, that's me.

Books:
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood (good!)

It is bad enough that my professor has used the phrase "more better" at every conceivable opportunity in the last 5 weeks, but I really draw the line at "more best".

I skipped abnormal psych section today to go to an information session for applying to Berkeley grad school and offered to do a 2-page paper in exchange (because attendance at section is worht marks that count towards final grade etc.) I half expected the TA to be like whatever, you don't have to hand in a paper, just make sure you read the articles, but evilly, she really is making me do it. Damn. Obviously the honor code counts for nothing in this school.

I grin madly at the fact that I earned more money in three hours today than a lot of people do working a ten hour shift. Heh heh. Of course, getting scanned for two hours was not the most fun thing ever, especially when it was a passive viewing experiment and all I got to do the entire time was stare at this man reaching towards an object over and over and over again.

Am trying to compose e-mail to grad school professors to tell them how madly in love I am with their work, except that I keep getting distracted my people messaging me and TWOP forums and writing in blogs. Must concentrate.

Bleh.

Everyone has such interesting things to say about themselves compared to the mundanity of me. E.g. Minzhi's blog There must be some explanation for it. Perhaps it is psychological, like I filter out the exciting things and leave the dregs of routine behind.

To anyone who has HBO: can I recommend you watch Carnivale just because it is so fresh and different from anything else on television at the moment. And it teems with religious symbolism, which of course I can resist as much as a kid can resist candy.

Books:
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Songs:
Slumber My Darling - Alison Kraus

I finally managed to persuade Han to accompany me to the new tapas bar on Ninth Street. The concept of tapas is quite delightful to me. The restaurant's name is "Bakus" which puzzled us greatly because we weren't sure if it was a pun, the Spanish spelling of the Greek god, or a mistake.

We had mostly vegetarian stuff (because of Han), and it was fine, a little below my expectations, but worth the visit. The desserts and the sangria were excellent, so I guess that alone made it worthwhile. Question: what is a compote, and how do you make one?

The waitress who served us was the same one who was invited to my psychology class as a guest speaker (to talk about how she applies memory strategies etc. in her job), so it was a bit of an embarrassment that she forgot part of our order and then messed up the check. We didn't call her on it though.

The rest of the day had a lot of fallen branches and cups of coffee in it.

Damn weather.

"MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. - Traffic streamed inland from the vulnerable Outer Banks on Wednesday as thousands of residents and visitors alike headed for higher ground ahead of approaching Hurricane Isabel. Thousands more were ordered to evacuate in Virginia.

By midday Wednesday, more than 200,000 people in North Carolina and Virginia had been told to evacuate, with orders stretching beyond the coast into low-lying inland areas and islands deep inside Chesapeake Bay.

Forecasters predicted little change in strength before Isabel, the biggest storm to hit the region since Hurricane Floyd in 1999, makes landfall sometime Thursday morning along the Outer Banks, the thin, 120-mile-long chain of islands."

Hurricane Isabel is headed for Duke. Beaufort might be evacuated. Are hurricanes very bad news? I can't say I've ever been in one.

My AMEX card got suddenly and mysteriously cancelled, and I can't figure out why. I paid all my bills on time. I never went over the credit limit. The expiration date is two years from now. It's quite beyond me, and the customer service hotline is horrible. Poop.

Still on money news, I did a study today where I got paid $4 to watch an episode of Friends and answer some questions after that. And then I gave an hour of tuition and realized that I've forgotten half my stuff from Bio 25 and should go and do some actual reading before I try to teach other people things I don't know. Ooh...and I'm going to be scanned as the first subject in my own experiment next week (for $40). Cheap and cheesy. High science!

I just came back from hearing Nancy Cartwright give a talk! (And if you don't know who Nancy Cartwright is you should go stand in a corner) She was very entertaining, and she did all her voices, including Mindy from Animaniacs. Prize winner for Worst. Question. Ever. during the ensuing Q&A was this gem: "What would you say is the theme of The Simpsons?" Um. Hello. Earth to Nerdsville. This is your captain speaking. Get a life. Oh, and grow a brain while you're about it.

And then Karen went to get hotdogs after that and we totally squicked ourselves out talking about the manner of processed non-meat that probably goes into them. And nitrites.

There are 99 cent DVDs on sale in half.com. My eyes are misting over.

Books:
The Problem of the Soul - Owen Flanagan

It is inexplicably chilly in this room. And I'm annoyed, not just because of the chilliness, but because of the accumulation of all the annoying things in my life: that I don't have a car, that I have an underbite, that I have to do laundry, that other people are, a lot of the time, jerks, and so on. I don't feel like doing work, even though I'm supposed to program an animation of blinking and moving dots, which, incidentally, I don't have the foggiest idea how to do. If anyone reading this knows VisualBasic, by e-mail is jzl@duke.edu. Thank you.

Songs:
Shelter From the Storm - Bob Dylan

Almost finished with UPenn form.

You know that new SARS case? I think the ward he was working in is right below the Brain Center. Hmm.

Sang at birthday party of someone called Richard. They hired our group for $30. Then we went to Rick's and Rebecca and Kristin and Jeremy told gross stories which I shan't repeat here, and at least 2 people in our group admitted that his or her IQ is more than 135 (although I suppose that should be rather quotidian in Duke University).

So the Chronicle today runs this huge front page story about how international enrollment has increased x-fold over the past few years due to intense recruiting efforts by the International Office in Asia and Europe and blah dee blah. Accompanying it is this lovely colorful graphic with the number of students from each country in 2002-2003. It says that there were 21 undergrads from Singapore with the Taiwanese flag next to the country's name to emphasize the point. An e-mail has been sent to the editor.

I really have to force myself to go and fill in those forms or I'll die later in the semester.

Full of sangria and quiche and canapes.

Updated list of grad schools:
Yale
Harvard
U Minnesota
CMU
MIT
Berkeley
Johns Hopkins
U Illinois
U Penn

Is there some way to stop yourself from drooling in your sleep? Because I'd like to know it. Drool is gross.

So no, I'm not taking any other course to replace the one I dropped. I figure I'll just do 4.5 next semester. I can even do that at the Marine Lab if need be so whatever. I'm not going to look for creative ways to torture myself.

I met my Independent Study prof. for the 1st time today...and got 120 pages of reading for my trouble. Not that I'm complaining...the BIAC people are great, I might get an opportunity to publish something under them this semester, and they may well be my ticket into grad school. I will do my reading. Happily. Or as happily as I can. Mmmm...coffee.

Books:
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant

i dropped my house course because the teacher was full of bullshit, pardon my french. thus the dilemma: do i sign up for another 0.5 credit course this semester or leave it till next? none of the other house courses look particularly interesting. i could do a pe course...or a music course or take something pass/fail...

yuk.

aargh.

i mean, i hate to drop courses once i'm in them but this guy was just going on and on about how he changed the lives of all these students who took the course under him before and he [i]cried[/i] while he was reading one of his own stories and i was like oh my god shut up already you pretentious buffoon.

aargh.

in other news, i was talking with this grad student who's studying clinical psych and she was told to apply to at least 10 schools to stand a decent chance of getting into a good program. my list, therefore has expanded to include upenn and u illinois (urbana champaign)

gululugulugulugulugulugulugulug

I am being nerdy, despite myself. I am trying to completely cover one of the walls of our room with poetry. Clearly, I have too much free time on my hands. The poetry goes like this:

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

Songs:
How Can I Keep From Singing - Enya

And that no matter how much you scream inside, sometimes you just don't get what you want.

In fact, often.

And that wanting something can be like ten thousand needles pricking into your heart.

The lesson for today is as follows:

You can never have too much cake.