Day 48

can i just say that i've been trying to download the sex and the city season finale all bloody day and that as of 9:41 p.m. it is only 77% done? i want my fast lan connection back, dammit. what are we paying all this good tuition money for?

Day 47

Things I will miss about Bermuda:
* the ocean view from my window
* free flow of coffee and tea 24/7
* Sopranos marathons with Geordie and Nathan (and free wine)
* all other free alcohol, regardless of source
* Kelsey and her endless stories (alcohol-related and otherwise)
* the Railway Trail
* long, free afternoons
* the secondhand bookshop in Hamilton. Oh hell, and the rest of Hamilton too.

Things I will not miss about Bermuda:
* having to haul my laptop downstairs to download torrents
* Bobby the cat, Peppermint the rabbit, and that damn smelly dog
* dying of cold
* 4-hour labs
* sack lunches - I don't even want to hear about ham sandwiches for the next 3 months
* missing Duke games (grr...)
* two words: Environmental. Policy.

Day 46

papers papers papers

Day 45

i couldn't very well leave bermuda without trying rockfish, but it was a bonus to have it paid for out of our activities fund. i was expecting something sort of swordfish-like, but it didn't come in steaks and was not as firm in texture. the fish was good, but the mashed potatoes that came with it were decidedly instant and the vegetables sad and overboiled. it was one of those things that had to be done though, and it certainly beat the hungarian goulash that was on offer in bbsr not to mention having to elbow ones way through 20 senior citizens just to get to the counter.

dream i had: where i walk into a restaurant in my army uniform and all the people i knew from 1 pdf are there even my MO and i'm obviously late or something because everyone has ordered their food already. it arrives, and everyone has ordered the same thing, which i gather is the house special - it's this huge crusty ball with stewed apples and cinnamon and caramelized sugar and some white creamy stuff mixed in and it's sort of smooth and flaky and sticky all at the same time although how i know that i'm not sure since i never actually taste any. anyway, i go to the counter to order my own food and i start walking past these seemingly endless glass displays with sausages and sandwich meats in them and somehow end up in what seems to be an emergency room or something because it's all chaos and dying people and nurses running around with drip stands. the place is vast - i don't even remembering seeing any walls - and the further i walk the more patients i see, most of them obviously in need of medical attention. i feel like i should be doing something, but i don't --

There was definitely more that I don't remember, but that particular bit stayed with me till morning. Just thought I'd share.

One of the (many) problems with Americans is they think too much about what they eat, which is why they have the worst cuisine in the world (and are proud of it). Take lamb, for instance. What's so terrible about eating lamb? "It's baby sheep." So? I can understand not eating something for religious reasons, or because the animal is endangered, but to abstain from something because of a concept? I don't know. Finicky eating is rapidly turning into one of my pet peeves. Don't like curry, don't like chutney, don't like 'strange' sauces, don't like tilapia - the list extends beyond the point of reason. "All I want is to go to Applebee's and have half-price appetizers." Smack. It seems criminal to hanker after something so culturally generic and ubiquitous, like Singaporeans who go overseas and then say they miss the Wheelock Place Borders. Am I being too judgmental? I think the amount of work we have due next week is making me excessively cranky.

Day 44

The strong winds have returned with a vengenance, though that didn't stop us heading out to Walsingham Pond to collect specimens. Phyla of the week: Bryozoans, Hemichordata and Chordata (minus subclass vertebrata, of course). Hurricane Fabian decimated a lot of the pond wildlife last year and not a whole lot of it had returned. On top of that, the water was colder than anything I've been in in my life - and all for a science I don't even particularly care about. Sigh.

Day 43

Take the Death Test

Day 42

eating cheesecake in the afternoon i think of justin and the raspberry new york cheesecake in our favorite dessert place which is his favorite cheesecake because it's not heavy but is also real and not that frozen rubbishy stuff, not to mention that it's flavorful as opposed to cloyingly sweet and has genuine rapsberries on top not the ones that come out of packets - anyway, i think that it would be nice to be eating cheesecake - real cheesecake - with him, or maybe the grand marnier souffle with vanilla bean sauce which is top notch as well and a pot of darjeeling tea and talking about life and bridge and whatever. i don't know why i have this sudden crushing need for familiarity but it is now manifesting itself frequently during the day and apropos of the oddest things - snatches of music, snippets of conversation. i went online today in the afternoon, bored, and sussed out a bunch of random singaporean's blogs and read them from start to finish just for the sheer hell of immersing myself in the familiar. one of them belonged to an rjc kid who had just finished bmt and had been posted to smm - recapitulating my own steps through ns - and i felt oddly connected to this stranger even through the gulf of cyberspace and five years. memories are odd: they cheat and lie, they entice you to walk into the tripwires of sentimentality, they are temptresses away from the here and now. but i couldn't help myself, and i went back to my room and listened to blur and jewel and looked at photographs and got weepy at stupid things and then felt vindicated and dumb at the same time.

over dinner (manicotti), the girls staged a coup d'etat and took over the remote control so that they could watch trading spaces on tlc which just made everything so much worse. i hate trading spaces, and even the combined veto power of james wood and tom and nathan was useless against the tyranny of females. and so i'm here, being stupid and spilling my guts online and i bet you someone in singapore is reading this and saying what a stupid shit he is to be overseas in bermuda and complaining like that. except that i'm not complaining really, just venting, and this is just a phase that will pass, i know, it's just weird because as i said yesterday i never feel this way in duke only here.

Day 41

More new people, this time an invasion of geriatrics participating in the "Elderhostel" program, where they get to see foreign countries on the cheap. Because of them, we've been evicted from the dining room during mealtimes and are forced to eat from plastic trays on our laps, sitting around the TV and watching the History Channel . It's annoying. My personal theory is that youth is the time best spent traveling the world cheaply, and that senior citizens' vacations should be spent in lavish surroundings, sequestered in cruise ships or casinos or 5-star hotels where they don't get in the way of Other People. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when I'm 65 all I'll want to do in the way of holidays is put my feet up and sip champagne from those cute little flutes and eat fancy hors d'ouevres and play bridge by the pool. Gadding about and staying in hostels? Not so much.

I'm beginning to realize more and more how bereft of good company and conversation I am here. Back home there are my Humans friends and even in Duke I know that I can walk down the hall or across the quad or meet someone in Starbucks when I need to share something, but all the talk here has been insipid as cardboard. I've exhausted the excuse that I'm "having fun" (which I am) - I can now feel, quite acutely, that something is missing.

It might just be that there are no guys around. Monday movie was Terminator 3, not a film that I was dying to see, but what else is there to do in the evenings...anyway, Miranda complained that Chris Gerbing (movie person) shows nothing but 'guy movies', and all the girls (except Kelsey, who is way cool, btw) boycotted the film to go and watch The Goonies - which by the way I refuse to see ever again unless I've had at least 5 drinks ahead of time, preferably tequila. It is kind of true (last week was the Farreley Brothers' Kingpin) - it also highlights the fact that there are no Duke kids who I can hang out with to do 'guy' things. Damn gender roles. I guess there are the British lads (who have now run off with my Sopranos DVDs), but they're not always around and it's not quite the same as having people your age and I guess what I'm saying is that I would give an arm and a leg to have Choonping or Jiahao or even Kevin Tjan here so that I stop feeling like my eyes are going to fall out of their sockets every time someone opens their mouth.

Oh, and one day I'm going to write a book entitled: 'A Salt and Empty Earth', just because.

A running joke in the Bermuda Army Regiment is that they should have special uniforms when training for urban warfare that are pink on one side and yellow on the other so that they can camouflage themselves against the buildings here. It rather amuses me that Bermuda has an Armed Forces at all, though I suppose that they get called in after hurricanes and whatnot to clean up the mess.

Day 40

Last 2 weeks. This coming one is the last week of classes, and we have exams and final presentations starting on the 23rd.

I have neglected to mention this, but it would be remiss of me not to note that the weather has been really good this past week, and continues to get sunnier by the day.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Day 39

after shopping at the dockyard i sit down in this outdoor pavillion to have lunch and feed the pigeons and i see this sign in bold black letters hanging on a grille:

NO ALCOHOL IS TO BE CONSUMED

which i thought was really very funny, as if declaring a universal prohibition, an old grizzled man waving a puny fist in the sky decrying all inebriation that was, is, and is yet to be.

Curry features a lot on the menu here, something most of the girls don't really care for. Among themselves, they were trying to puzzle out why it should make such regular appearances. Trying to be helpful, I said that with all the Britishers here it's not really surprising, what with curry practically being their national food and all, upon which Miranda does her condescending frowny thing and tries to inform me that curry originates from India. Well, thank you for that bit of gastronomic trivia - I really wouldn't have known otherwise. Of course, all subsequent attempts to clarify the situation just make things ever more confusing, so I give up stormily, resigned to the fact that such miscommunications are the story of my life. No matter where I go. I've sort of come to the point where I'm sure the fault lies with me but really don't care - people just need to grow eyes and ears and common sense so that we can have conversations without me wanting to bang my head against a table every 5 minutes.

Day 38

the cable went out last night, leaving us staring in dismay at 76 channels of black and white snow just before the one with phoebe's wedding. no howls of anguish could persuade the satellite dish to pick up the lost signal, leaving lori and miranda to go upstairs and sulk and he rest of us to continue with my sopranos dvds, on which half of the bio station is now hooked. i go to download friends, and possibly survivor as well. at first i thought that the technicians would descend upon me for using up their bandwidth with bit torrent, but after 2 weeks the axe has not yet fallen, so i take it i'm in the clear. in any case, this episode of friends is too important. it's phoebe's wedding! to paul rudd! 5 episodes left!

Accepted by the University of Minnesota. Now the tough part begins.

Miranda, despite suffering numerous bruises every time she goes out to play soccer with James Marquez and the rest of the boys, still insists on these regular bouts of masochism. I'm not impressed. No one is; neither are we threatened by James' Wood's insistence that he'll take 10 points off our final test if we don't play.

Books:
The Shadow of The Sun - A.S. Byatt

Day 37

Phylum of the week is Mollusca. Excursion of the week was a pre-dawn jaunt to the rocky coast near Spittal Pond to survey for chitons, limpets, sea snails, and whatever else we could find. Our survey area was treacherous to say the least - jagged rocks, slippery surfaces, and the tide washing in and out as we clung to our equipment and tried not to suffer any twisted ankles or necks. Even if it had been nice, it was too early in the morning to appreciate any natural beauty - I think all of us would much rather have been appreciating warm blankets and pleasant dreams.

Riding to a movie just now, it came to my attention that I had not been in a car for 5 weeks prior to that, quite possibly a record for me. The movie was Big Fish - adaptation of the book I read back in December. With Ewan McGregor, Alison Lohman, Steve Buscemi, Danny Devito, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange and Helena Bonham Carter in the cast (and with Tim Burton at the helm), there was no way they were going wrong. Nevertheless, it was a very good translation of a story that did not look like it would survive the adaptation to film. Read it, see it.

Feel free to comment on anything!

Day 36

sitting in the riker room, lulled by the interminable policy lecture, i begin to think about food that i miss. for a number of days now, i've been hankering after zhu2 chao3, or else those silly stalls that call their ware "scissors curry rice", and imagining what i would order if i were going for lunch at one of those - hainanese porkchop, sambal brinjal, kang kong, fried eggs with their insides so runny one wonders if they have been cooked at all. rice is one of the worst things to miss; whenever i get rice in the states it's never quite the same, and one is left with the annoyance of having something a shade off verisimilitude, like an itch you just can't get at no matter where you scratch. i know the exact stall i want to go to. it's the one that i used to eat at on the days when mike had his violoin lessons, and when i had to wait at jurong east, after school, for the rest of the family to arrive. wait, with book and homemade barley and steaming food, happy as a child, sated.

Day 35

Can I just say that Finding Nemo is a whole new experience when viewed in the company of marine biologists?

Nothing from Illinois! Not a peep!

Day 34

I seriously don't understand the logic of airline websites charging US$3000 for one-way economy class tickets from Europe to Asia. Who's going to buy them at those prices? Even a cursory look at the morbidly expensive tickets on Travelocity will tell you that you're being suckered. Does anyone actually think that it costs that much to fly? Seriously now.

Was somewhat disappointed with the epilogue of A Fine Balance - Maneck's suicide was entirely unnecessary, I think, and quite unsatisfying, especially the way it was written. Oh well. Next.

Books:
House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III

I get downstairs at 8:45 today to discover to my horror that it's pouring with rain. Never mind, I think, I'll brave it, but a quarter of the way down the driveway I realize that I'm going to be a lot wetter than I can tolerate for one hour of church. Back inside, I attempt to beg, borrow or steal an umbrella, but between George the cook, Kelsey and the six girls all we can come up with is a slightly torn trash bag, by which time I have missed the bus. Curses. I really hope God gives out marks for effort.

Day 33

Quite honestly, I know that alcohol figures a lot in these Bermuda entries, but that's only because there's nothing else very interesting to write about.

Mamie brought us out to meet her friend Cosser, Duke alum', class of 2003, and ex-Brownie/Stoner/Brownstonian. The evening was slightly ruined by being with people we knew, because it meant that random men didn't approach us to buy drinks for the girls, which in turn meant that we had to pay for our own drinks, which in turn meant there were fewer of them than was desirable.

Day 32

James has a new 23-year old intern named Kelsey - she hails from Perth, Australia and is here for 6 months tagging squid. Her decision to come was based on nothing more than wanting to postpone entrance into Real Life, so in that sense I completely empathize with her.

Our first substantial conversation took place this morning after she had stumbled downstairs in her bedrobe in search of sustenance, still completely drunk from the previous night's Bacchanalia. The high points:

* cell biology sucks
* "Fountains of Joy" in Thailand are deadly, as is the weather
* if you ever want to succumb to seasonal affective disorder, live in Melbourne
* Malaysian roommates are the worst
* everyone, yes, everyone, should watch the Discovery Channel

I have decided, for the first Friday evening since getting here, to just stay at BBSR, chill for a while, maybe get a couple of beers at the wind, finish Rohinton Mistry, and have a good night's sleep. After the stress of last week, that's all I need. Just thinking about it makes me very pleased.

Lab today involves 2 huge lobsters - pulling off maxilla, mandibula, maxillipeds and trying hard to reproduce them, unmutilated, as drawings in our book. More fun is the aftermath where we haul out a gargantuan grill, sizable enough to BBQ dinner for most of the island's population, and proceed to cook the crustaceans with plenty of butter and garlic and tender loving care. It is delicious. We polish it off quickly and with much smacking of lips.

Day 31

Duke graduation speaker 2004 is Madeleine Albright! Read about it here

So, it seems that I'm going to Johns Hopkins from 4th-6th March, all expenses paid. Sweet.

Day 30

There's really no nicer feeling than being dry and warm after two futile hours of trying to collect shrimp.

The phone interview with Dr. Heller (UIUC) went about a million times better than my conversation with Angus McDonald, supporting the theory that practice does indeed make perfect. Or near enough. She says that I should hear of their final decision by next week.

6:45: On board Henry V Stommel, ocean churning behind us, moon obscured by clouds. We're towing for plankton with a net that looks like a giant condom; it trails behind the boat causing us to tip and yaw despite the relative calm. Copepods and decapods are lifted, hapless, from their peaceful pelagic life and brought back for us to kill with soda water and scrutinise under the microscope. Miranda sings a version of "Lean On Me" that I fear will raise the dead. Lori launches into:

This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
To the New York Island

Kelly: I don't know that
Miranda: And you call yourself American? What ever happpened to elementary school music class?
Kelly: I must have skipped that day.
Miranda: In grade school?

More aphony. Do you remember whe-en...we used to sing: sha la la la la la la la la la di da. I try not to go deaf. We talk about whether Jesus would disapprove of people getting drunk on Easter Sunday. We draw arthropods for 2 hours in the lab.

JHU says that

"I'll have our grad program administrator, Joan Krach, contact you directly to make the travel arrangements. Most students come on Thursday evening and leave on Saturday."

if March 5th is OK with me. Does that sound to you like they're paying for my flight?

Day 29

of course, a mere 3 hours after i post about having no news i get 2 emails, one from johns hopkins, the other from illinois, both requesting interviews. are interviews really a good thing? obviously that means i'm on some kind of shortlist but how short is that list? despite reassuring myself 20 times a day that none of this really matters, that applying to grad school was just a fling, a stab in the dark, that acceptance rates start from 10% and work their way downwards, when it comes to it i still find myself palpitating at the thought of having to speak to professors. strangers. i'm a mass of contradictions. i go to get tea.

"...a fine balance between hope and misery..." Indeed. I'm enjoying that book more than I really should.

Grad school? No news.

To regular readers: I'm considering a couple of measures to make this blog more public; address any complaints about waning exclusivity to me pronto before the dirty deed is done.

Day 28

Although I have not by any stretch of the imagination been cured of my inveterate coffee-drinking habits, the rather repulsive and acidic instant mix they serve here has certainly diverted me to other sources of caffeine. I've settled down to study with tea on several occasions now, and am slowly developing a nostalgia for those silly tea parties I had when I was younger with the Scotch eggs and jam tartlets and whatnot. No Scotch eggs here, though, only PBJ sandwiches pilfered from the kitchen in between meals, and definitely not as much appetite while reading about parastic Trematodes that grow up to 20 meters long in a human gut.

While on the topic of invertebrates, can I just say that I'm sick and tired of hearing people whine about how much memorization there is in this course? I know that I'm guilty of it myself at times (cf. Jan 23rd), but honestly, what are you going to do about it? It's a taxonomy class. Americans, IMHO, have been spoiled silly by this whole 21st century learning nonsense. Now no one wants to take tests anymore, everyone's all about understanding concepts rather than remembering facts. All well and good, I suppose, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet - a good memory is well correlated with other measures of intelligence in any case. It's not even as if they're being asked to take the 'O' or 'A' levels. Now that was hardcore memorization. 2 years worth of lessons for one exam, and 10 subjects to boot - pure insanity. There would be rebellion here at the very mention of the idea. Nowadays, you ask Americans to commit a few scientific names to memory and they're off crying to their mothers. Pete's sake. Grow up already. It's called education.

Day 27

From lowbrow to highbrow

- I did a commando-operation download of the Survivor All-Stars Premiere this afternoon because I couldn't wait to get back to Duke to watch it. I've abstained from Survivor for several seasons now, but getting to see some of the season 1 and 2 folks again is definitely a big incentive for following this one.

- And then watched (for the first time) The Mission (Robert deNiro, Jeremy Irons). It was very skilfully filmed and not so bogged down with details as the book. Thus, the story was more sparse, but the overall effect more powerful. I don't seem to recall the book ending the way the movie did, but perhaps my memory is faulty. Can anyone confirm that?

Selamat Hari Raya, to those for whom it's important!

Day 26

I realized a couple of days ago that Shaun's acceptance to Caltech was probably not abnormally early. A more detailed look at the websites of schools I've applied to say that they call accepted students for tours during the last weekend of February or the first one fo March. Which means, well, you know.

Anyway, while I've been online fretting about this, everyone else has gone to watch the Superbowl, which I can honestly say I don't give 2 hoots about. Even as an excuse to get drunk (which I can't afford tonight anyhow). I'm not sure how that particular cultural phenomenon osmosed over the 650 miles of Atlantic Ocean between us and the land of Dubya, but every sports bar in town is lowering beer prices and running Superbowl Squares tonight, the Passin' Wind included. What. Ever.

Day 25

ineluctably, i have been sucked into the dark world of souvenir buying.

the problem with buying gifts for people is that there's always a chain reaction: getting something for person (a) then necessitates getting something for persons (b) and (c) who will otherwise be upset, which then of course involves persons (d) through (w) and before you know it you're knocking on the door of that guy you haven't seen for 6 years to deliver sherry pepper sauce.

Books:
It's been on my reading list for several years now, and has finally made it to the top: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Oprah's Book Club, though. Hmm.

Day 24

Bermuda's Crystal Caves are strikingly impressive, even if they have been done up (expensively) as a tourist spot. The story goes that they were found by 2 teenage boys in 1907 who rappelled 120 ft into the darkness of a hole down which they lost a cricket ball. They got in free; 96 years on, Bermuda charges $12 for entry and a 15-minute tour, and thousands of visitors a year get to goggle at artificially-lit stalactites and stalagmites and have calcium-carbonate deposits drip on their head for good luck. I would have complained that it was a rip-off, but the BBSR paid for our trip on the pretext that caves are an important habitat for invertebrates, and thus something we ought to know about (yah, right). You can see Mamie's photos here

Random stuff

* Miranda confirmed my suspicions that she was named after the character on The Tempest, making it especially apt that she should be a young, eligible girl on the very island that inspired the play.

* RODPFBSE x lots. I have this down to an art, ladies and gentlemen.

* The British culinary odyssey continues for the Americans with grilled tomatoes for breakfast and meat pie (not for breakfast).

* Paris! Whee!

Day 23

5 minutes from the BBSR is the causeway linking St David's to St. George's; below that causeway is a stretch of intertidal mud flats, and under rocks and buried in sand on those mud flats are a hella lotta worms. These we collected, by the bucketful. We only had to wade this time instead of snorkeling but it was just as bad in terms of the cold, and towards the end we were all shivering by the shore cursing at the truck for being late.

I never thought I'd be excited by a platyhelminthes or polychaete, but it was kind of fun cracking open the rocks to get at the creatures inside them, sort of a Halloween-esque equivalent of an Easter Egg hunt. We were hoping to get a 15cm long Sipunucula, but no dice - the biggest specimens we managed were only about 8-9cm long. Anyway, now that the oohing and aahing is over, we get to memorize another tome full of phylum/order/species names. Good times.


The Colby kids have left.


Also: the plan goes apace.

Day 22

So, yeah, there's no news.

Day 21

3 weeks. I can't decide if they've gone quickly or slowly.

Books:
I have capitulated due to peer pressure and agreed to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I have no doubt that I'll sunsequently read all his books and look back on myself with disgust as I did with such notable non-writers as Stephen King and John Grisham.I don't even know if you would call it a guilty pleasure. Life's too short for trashy novels.

Day 20

Environmental policy is turning out to be quite a bore...I usually give an instructor a while to settle into a rhythm, get his teaching style settled, but 5 lectures is really the limit. I suppose it's just as well though, because inverterbrates is a lot to handle on its own.

Visited the Perfumery which is up the road by the Swizzle Inn, and received the briefest of tours from a sullen West Indian woman who looked like she hated her job more than anything on earth. I was rather severely tempted by the cedar wood cologne, but decided not to get it unless I have some spare spending money at the end (yes, I actually am on a budget this semester).

"Ambergris" is a good word.

Oh, and incidentally, here's the reason why there are no fast food restuarants in Bermuda. (scroll to bottom of page)

Lord of the Rings takes the Golden Globe!

Day 19

Seems that Shaun's been accepted into grad school at Caltech.

The newest addition to the growing menagerie of Bobby (the cat), the dog-with-no-name and Tweety the Wonder Chicken is Peppermint the Rabbit, who I am sure will be subjected to the same abuse as all the rest of the animals in short time.

Day 18

9 p.m.: Docksider's; nice little watering hole on the far end of Front Street, mostly expatriate, non-skeezy crowd, a little more diversity than the other places (an Asian couple and at least 1 Hispanic-looking person) darts, blackjack machines and (relatively) cheap drinks. Tried the Dark n Stormy which was quite yummy even though I'm not usually a ginger beer kind of a person. Commented on general obiangness of people's outfits. Noted that bar gets ESPN (Clay, Mamie and I swear that if we miss the Duke-UNC game, we will die, instantly. Poof. Dead.)

9:45: Flanagan's. No sign of Andrew and his friend (whose name I have no clue how to spell. Broar? Bruer?) No food, either, apparently, which sucks for a restaurant on a Friday night. Anyway, round of drinks (ROD), and Phil and Tom (both doctors visiting from the UK...not "Ross Perot story" Tom) arrive to keep us company. The girls tried to dance but kept getting approached by weird fat 50-year old drunkards who looked like they wanted to grope them, so that didn't work for the time being. ROD. The shouted, semi-lucid conversations about everything and nothing that are replicated across every bar in the world.

10:15: Jeff and Steve, Miranda's friends from last week (made at some point when I was not there) appear. This is good news for the moochers, since they're (a) people we know with (b) deep pockets. Round of drinks paid for by someone else (RODPFBSE).

10:25: Bathroom.

10:38: Bathroom

11:10: Lori* and I step outside for a breath of fresh air. "I think it's the coolest thing," she had told me earlier, "that you know how to sing are willing to admit it. Not many guys are willing to do that." Hmm. It's freezing by the water, and with it not being International Race Weekend, there's absolutely no one on the street. Hamilton really is a bit of a ghost town in the winter. I'm shivering within 2 minutes of being outside.

* Only found out that her name is not spelled "Laurie" yesterday. Oops.

11:15: RODPFBSE. The Houston Rockets win by 4; I pretend to care, and have a whole conversation with Phil about the NBA even though I know next to nothing about the league.

11:23: Mmm...Blackhaus.

11:45: Bathroom.

12:20: Kelly and I start propagating the story that we are twins separated at birth - our mother was a Vietnamese prostitute and our dad an American GI fighting in the war. I was raised in Singapore; she in the States, and by complete chance we found each other in the BBSR and were reunited after 21 years. At least 1 random person is drunk enough to believe us and buy us a round of drinks to celebrate.

12:45: "Please finish my drink," says Lori. People have been buying her stuff all night. I'm more than happy to oblige.

1:10 a.m.: Flanagan's closes, and we get dragged to Blue Juice. It's crowded and smoky and has a strange psychedelic display above the dance area which puts me off. Besides, I hate dancing, and the place is almost exclusively a dance club. It's fortunate that I'm too tipsy to really care.

1:50: "Please finish my Smirnoff," says Miranda, and I hate Smirnoff, but well, why waste good alcohol?

1:55: Cab.

2:25: Fumbling for money in the dark, and discovering that counting is quite a formidable task when under the influence.

On the way back from Harrington Sound on Tuesday, Miranda lost one of her earrings in the cabin and started searching for it while the boat was still doing the shimmy out on open waters. Um, someone notes, remember the good idea/bad idea segments on Animaniacs? This is around the time when those stick figures start popping up.

BBSR's big ol' data collecting ship, the Weatherbird II has come in to port, complete with skeezy deckhands and James, our instructor for the second half of the course.

Test over. Weekend here. Sweetness and light.

Day 17

a storm whips around outside, i have a test in an hour and there's no way in hell i'm going to remember kingdom phyla class order for the 8,000,000 bermudan species we're supposed to have memorized not to mention life cycle defining characteristics reproductive patterns anatomy.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Day 16

"Don't sit there," Mamie tells me, "that's where the chicken took a crap."

Which prompts us into a discussion about the kids of one of the employees here. Said chicken (Tweety the Wonder Bird) is owned by the youngest of the three - she has painted his claws blue, and apparently allows him to shit all over the furniture at will. Miranda pointed out to us over dinner that all this is symptomatic of the fact that their parents exert almost no control over them - letting them watch HBO programs without supervision, leaving them without superintendence at a bowling alley, etc.

"What's a slut?" the little girl asked Miranda yesterday in the lounge, and really, how do you answer that question for a 9-year old kid?

"A woman who does very bad things with men," was the reply.

Insouciant: "Oh, you mean like sexual intercourse?"


Anyway, the reason I was trying to sit down on the sofa with the crap on it in the first place was that the Duke-Maryland game was on last night, and we had high hopes that the newly installed cable (illegal unscrambling) would have the right ESPN channel. It didn't. Cursing at the television, scrabbling to find a radio so that we could try and listen to it.

Installed upstairs with a tiny receiver desperately trying to pick up the broadcast, I commented on how 1967 this all was: huddled around the wireless, feet being warmed by a space heater, wooden floorboards, scratchy blankets. We tried to order a pizza to make it seem more like being in college, but at $18 for a 10", we decided that there were better ways to spend our money. Insufferable sadness, but at least Duke won.

Day 15

11 students from Colby University in Maine are joining us for 10 days. Studying rocks. All of a sudden invertebrate zoology is cool.

Books:
Super-Cannes - J.G. Ballard

Day 14

So I retract the statement, made a year-and-a-half ago, that "this is not an online journal".

The winds finally abated today, and we got to make up the field trip that we missed last week Thursday. Boat trip to Hall's Island in Harrington Sound was a choppy, 45-minute affair in the R/V Henry Stommel, piloted by a local named Alfred and nicknamed Barbara. We were soaked to the bone before we even arrived, and "not gusting", of course, is far from the equivalent of "pleasantly warm".

Actually, to be honest, I nearly died when I first hit the water -- if Hell ever had a winter, it would be that cold. Twenty minutes into the collection, Clay had lost all feeling in her hands, Gretchen (grad student from Harvard) had given up the ghost and climbed back on board the boat, and Laurie looked like she was in danger of losing a couple of toes from frostbite. I was supposed to collect Niphates erecta, but underwater sponge identification is not the easiest thing when one is in danger of succumbing to hypothermia at any second. I compromised by cutting off a piece of something long and purple before getting out of the ocean. (Incidentally, after peering at it in the microscope, I'm 75% sure that I got the right species after all.)

And then we stayed in lab until half-an-hour ago cutting everything up, which begs the question: Why am I sitting here writing about all this when I should be in my room consuming analgesic medicine and appreciating the fact that I'm dry and warm?

Day 13

The Plan (Tentative)
Feb 29th: Bermuda --> Durham, NC
Mar 10th: Durham, NC --> Beaufort, NC
Apr 29th/30th: Beaufort, NC --> Durham, NC
[Myrtle??]
May 10th: Durham, NC --> Berkeley, CA
Jun 1st: Berkeley, CA --> Boston, MA
Jun 1st/2nd: Boston, MA --> Paris, France
Jun 9th: ???, France --> Rome, Italy
Jun 16th: ???, Italy --> Madrid, Spain
Jun 22nd: Barcelona, Spain --> Hong Kong
Jun 24th: Hong Kong --> Singapore

...subject to massive changes depending on price, availability of flights, Justin, and a host of other factors.

Day 12

Got my act together today and found Stella Maris* Church in St. George's together with Laurie. It's a small parish with lots of boisterous kids and rather egregious singing, but it was Mass and I was happy to be there. The rest of the town was closed, even at 10 a.m. when we got out, so my plans for getting Chinese food for lunch were thwarted. We only get packed lunches on weekends (sandwiches), and those are getting boring fast.

Books:
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor

*Question: is there a difference between Maris Stella and Stella Maris? Shouldn't it be the latter seeing as it's supposed to be "Star of the Sea" as opposed to "Sea Star"? Or does it not matter?

Phew...that was a lot of writing.

And in this gift shop on the Western tip of the island I made friends with the cashier, who is Jamaican. "Lots of research going on in Jamaica," she insisted after finding out I was with the Biological Station, "you should go there. Genetic experiments with cows. We have lots of cows."


"My family has a long history of marryin' Chinese fellows," she told me. "Some of my best friends when I was young were Chinese. I remember going to one of the weddin's once, where they have the rice and all the courses...you know de ones I talkin' about."

I admitted that I did.

"And I try some of the food, and one of my friends warned me, she says that you better not eat that. And I ask her why, and she bring me round the back -- I used to work in the veterinary clinic -- and hangin' there are all the heads of all these bull terriers that I been lookin' after every day. So I asked her why all these heads were hangin' here, did somethin' happen to them? and my friend said no...that's what your eatin'."

I told her that I'd never eat dog.

"Well, it was someone's wedding so it would be rude not to eat. And anyway, it was quite tasty."

And then she told me about one of the Indian women she knew (her mother was Indian), and about how when her husband died they made a big pyre for him, and she decided to commit suttee because she could not bear to be alone. Threw herself right into the fire in front of a policeman and a huge crowd and no one stopped her and she was engulfed in flames with her dead husband and both their souls went into the next world together.


Oh, and the rest of the dockyard experience was fun as well - we saw the maritime museum and a pottery place, and hideously overpriced local crafts and a cakery and dolphins and got rained on a lot.

Over breakfast this morning, Tom told us about all the famous people who have residences in Bermuda. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones - "I saw him in the supermarket one day buying tinned goods. Tinned goods! It's nice to know that really he's just an ordinary bloke" Bloomberg, mayor of New York. Ross Perot, who has a cigarette boat and an aquatic trampoline. "Great fun that trampoline," said Tom, "we were poking around at his house once and he let us use it. Great guy, Ross Perot."

Day 11

The ferocious winds from the north-west continue to hit us hard. It takes about twice as long to walk to the BBSR from the main road than it should because of being blown in the other direction.

Despite the adverse conditions, 4 of us decided to check out the nightlife in Hamilton last night. Tom (who works in the BBSR) told us that Flanagan's and Blue Juice were worth checking out, and to stay clear of a seedy joint on the corner called The Beach. Fair enough.

Arrived in town to find barriers and teeming throngs of spectators for International Race Weekend - race as in sprinting/marathons and not as in social divider. The fact that it was inhumanly cold outside (and pouring with rain) didn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasm for the events (Bermudians are a slightly eccentric bunch). Nipped into Flanagan's (which conveniently enough had a balcony directly overlooking the finishing post) and settled in to get sloshed. A couple of drinks later, Miranda and Kelly had become fast friends with two expatriate guys (from Ottawa) who had come to cheer on their colleague, Derek (and to boo someone else who, in some complicated soap-opera tangle, had become their nemesis in the past few months). Both were working in accounting. Both were, as it turns out, quite obscenely wealthy (Bermuda, by the way, has the second highest per capita non-adjusted GNP in the world). They bought the girls a round of drinks. They bought the girls another round of drinks. We talked about the Biological Station, and weather, and Buffalo, New York, and marathon running. I bought myself a drink because no one seemed very interested in buying me one. The large green umbrellas on the balcony did not keep the lashing rain off very well. Derek came in second. Someone won the women's one-mile race in 5 minutes and 10 seconds. I bemoaned the fact that guys generally do not get bought drinks.

Tore ourselves away from the expatriates at close on 9 o'clock to explore the rest of the street. Found Blue Juice: empty except for two gay guys sitting at a table among a lot of empty martini glasses and assorted other debris. Left. Found The Beach, and, forbidden fruit being the sweetest, decided to go in. In the continued spirit of Bumming Stuff Off People Who Don't Know Any Better, Kelly finagled a cigarette off a local, and a light off the bartender. Bought ourselves a round of drinks. Reggae music. General sketchiness. Bought ourselves another round of drinks, decided we were bored, and left.

Ended up back in Flanagan's where the expatriates, who obviously thought Kelly was hot, or were very drunk, or both, bought us all another round of drinks. Finally experiencing the benefit of being the only guy amidst a gaggle of girls in a bar, I played along with the game and chatted with Andrew (one of the expats) about his *wonderful* experiences working in Bermuda. "The great thing about being in a place like this," he said, gesturing around the room, "is that you get people from all over the world. Canada. Britain. America. South Africa (where he was originally from). Singapore" [laughs]. "And you discover," he continued, "that in the end, deep down everyone's the same." "I'll drink to that," I said, and he bought us all another round of drinks. Three cheers for bottomless wallets.

Kelly and Miranda, who had by now made friends with everyone in the bar, including the DJ, had started the dance party. The music was lousy, but after being bought another round of drinks, no one really cared. "Want another beer?" Andrew asked me. "Water's fine, thanks," I said. He came back with a Corona which he pressed into my hand. "Thanks so much," I said. Beer is $4.50 a bottle in Flanagan's. It's no wonder the bloody GNP of the country is so high. Miranda started dancing on top of the speakers. I decided that I wanted to leave. No one else did, so I caught the last bus back myself. After the fact, felt terribly guilty about leaving the girls alone, but the bar wasn't sketchy and the guys weren't sketchy (sort of) and really, in that kind of a situation, rationality takes a back seat to really, really wanting to sleep.


(In the end, the expatriate guys gave the girls $50 for the $40 cab ride home, which meant the girls made a net profit on the evening. Pays to go out! God bless all the generous rich people of this world.)

And then of course, there was lab in the morning, where I discover that I still can't really do good bio illustrations, but have since learned how to fake that I can. Drawing things in class, as Mamie points out, really brings one back to being in grade school, even if the drawings are of choanocytes and being done in the name of serious scientific endeavor.

Day 10

Telephone conversation with Dr. Angus MacDonald:
hello...hello...can i speak to j______ please...speaking...angus macdonald here...nice to talk to you at last...enjoying bermuda?...yes, but it's a little cold...not as bad as minnesota i bet...high of degrees...etc. small talk...no face-to-face interviews, thus this conversation...invitation extended to all those accepted in march...look around the campus, meet the people, feel for the program etc...kind of research we do...schizophrenia...collaborative efforts with cognitive neuroscientists, genetics labs, twin studies etc....physiological markers of psychopathology...why did you apply to a clinical program seeing as your focus in duke was research...fumble...hedge...want to give something tangible to society...where i envisage myself working...so is it the methodology that drives you or the interest in clinical work...fumble...oh, definitely fMRI is my passion...forefront of scientific discovery...where all the most exciting findings are being made...so much more to learn...etc...coupling of my interests...not a whole lot of opportunity to work with patients at Duke...('disordered individuals'? why did i call them that...note to self: learn how to talk)...funding...full funding even for international students...blah blah blah...you have much potential as a scholar...call me again if you want to chat/ask about anything...blah dee blah...have a good semester...exciting decisions in the next few months...bye...bye.

$0.58 a minute * 25 minutes = quite a lot of money put out by Minnesota for that one call.

Day 9

Our first field trip was slated for today, but 60 kph hour winds off shore unfortunately put paid to those plans. The alternate trip to the more sheltered Concrete Bay also fell through when the storm landed ashore; as a matter of fact, as I type this, the computer lab is slowly flooding with water, and the palm trees outside sound like they are in danger of being blown entirely away. Much as I hate to fixate on the weather, that's what has dictated the activities of this course so far. Because of our confinement, we have likened ourselves to a retirement community, and the metaphor grows increasingly apt.

Marine Invertebrate Zoology is turning out to be quite a lot to handle. The course proceeds at twice the pace that a normal course would at Duke (since we're only here half a semester), and every other word in our notes is something that I don't have in my scientific vocabulary. Do I really care if this microscopic organism is an pseudo-coelomate deuterostome? I suppose, though, that hard years of taking the 'O' and 'A' levels have trained me to be able to acquire an interest in anything if I try hard enough; also, I do have a long history of fooling myself, so what's one more semester?

In other news, Miranda and Kelly have got themselves hooked on this Cindy Crawford workout video, a video which reportedly has zero value as for one seeking to improve aerobic fitness because the camera is always trained on either (a) Cindy's ass, or (b) Cindy's boobs. The Chinese takeaway sells fried rice for $10.50. Bermuda has more televisions on the island than people, yet the newest television in the BBSR is older than than all of us. George Bush is an idiot. CBS is a money-grubbing network, but I know I'm going to tune in anyway. That is all.

Day 8

Resolution: Learn how to play croquet.

Day 7

It continues to amuse me greatly that the buses that ply the main road outside the BBSR do not have numbers - buses at the pink stops head towards Hamilton and those at the blue stops head towards St. George's. They also drive down the skinny roads like doomsday is approaching, missing most oncoming vehicles by mere inches. The trips I make into town are thus at considerable risk of life and limb, today's only just compensated for by a thick slice of lemon meringue pie and a rather good cup of coffee.


Meanwhile, in a continuation of the graduate school applications saga that I have missed talking about for a while, Dr. Angus MacDonald of the U of Minnesota has e-mailed me to I show a lot of "promise" and that he wants to chat with me. Just as I feared! I sent him a rather sheepish reply telling him that I am not in the States, and asking him to advise me on what to do next. No doubt he will have me call him (at considerable expense); either that or I will have to face the insurmountable difficulty of persuading the lady at the reception desk to patch the call through to a phone I can use, and of course the permutations of Things That Can Go Wrong with that arrangement are endless.

Sigh.

Books:
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

Day 6

The sun made a brief cameo appearance during lunchtime today, sending us all slinkng like pudding-bellied tabbies out to the front porch. Finished my Amis, which I enjoyed thoroughly (where has he been all my life?) and tore through Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire which I've been wanting to read/see for a while. Otherwise, time here continues to be a blacmange: homogenous, viscous, yet sweet. Everything here is langorous: it's not just that nothing happens, but no one expects anything to happen. A couple of days ago, I got to see one of the few turtles (120 years old) that actually came originally from the Galapagos Islands (the one, incidentally, in that famous picture with Shirley Temple riding on its back) - and his existence typifies, no, exemplifies the Bermudian way of life.

Classes-wise, I'm quite chuffed with the fact that all our instructors are British, since it means that for once, all my classmates are the ones who are fish out of water. We deal in kilometers, celsius, pavements and the letter 'zed' now, and I stand triumphantly spanning two continents, translator for those unschooled in the use of "real" English. There is a certain pride one feels in being a citizen of the world, but it has only really come to the surface here, at a place that has both British and American influence, but really is entirely unlike either.

What I need now, I think, is a Michener or a Clavell or some other similarly sprawling epic tale.

Books:
Visiting Mrs. Nabokov - Martin Amis

Day 5

The pride and joy of the BBSR, the Passin' Wind, turns out to be little more than a glorified hole in the wall with TV, foosball, a dartboard and a Buddha which looks like it has seen better days. Its one saving grace was that (last night anyway), they were offering free Foster's from a crate that was apparently donated to them/stolen/washed up ashore. Aside from us American/international riffraff, there were three British guys in their 30s playing neverending games of euchre on the bartop. I suppose they've been lacking a 4th for a while, because it wasn't long after they saw me eyeing the cards that one of them asked if I "play Spades, wee man." I confessed that I did, and they told me that they would cut me in. The euchre went on a bit too long, though, and I decided that I was tired and left. It seems that there were inquiries later on in the night as to whether I'm "good with cards" and a "gambling man": do I give off some Vegas vibe or something because of my long bridge-playing history?

Day 4

On food:
The woman serving the food in the evenings has clearly decided that I'm a "growing lad" or something, and I consistenly have to forcibly restrain her from piling ontp my plate about twice the amount I can actually eat. Tonight's meal was veal or eggplant parmigiana. When I asked for the vegetarian option, though, I ended up with both kinds of cutlet on top of enough spaghetti to feed a small Italian village. She will have to be told. Firmly.

On water:
Kelly: So, just out of curiosity, is the drinking water purified?
(We have been told previously that all the fresh water we have is collected on site, from rainwater that runs down from the roof)
Chris: Actually, no. Well, there's this wire mesh thing downstairs that filters off all the large chunks.
Kelly: That's it? Is it clean? Surely there's birdshit and stuff on the roof.
Chris: Yeah, and the birds walk around up there a lot too.
Kelly: Don't people fall sick?
Chris: Not often. I guess sometimes a rat or a cat gets down there and dies and the entire lab comes down with something...that's when we know to check the tanks.

The city of Hamilton, about 5 miles southwest of St. George, is a lot like Palo Alto, although chances are this will mean nothing to readers who have seen neither. The bulk of the place is spread along 3 parallel streets and a waterfront. The only concession to the American fast food joint is (mercifully) a KFC (very popular with the local school kids), and McD's is nowhere in sight. Praise the Lord God Almighty. Marks and Sparks has pride of place, although there are fewer British shops and goods than I thought there would be - no Holland's pies in the supermarket, although there is the English selection of Cadbury's candy bars (Blokie's: not for the ladies!), bakewell tarts, and a proliferation of salt and vinegar potato crisps. As usual, though, the Americans are the ones who seem to have had their way for most of the brand-name G+S stores. Eating places are mostly unreasonably expensive, and feature less seafood than I thought they would. Though I'm dying to try the fabled Bermudan rockfish, $23.95++ for a portion at the pub we went to seemed a little too exorbitant for my first week here, and I settled for a tepid pasta instead. Rum swizzle is also on the must try list, since it is to Bermuda what the Singapore Sling is to, um, Singapore.

(Winter) books:
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson
The Following Story - Cees Notebloom
South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami

Day 3
It is a well-known literary motif that to name something is, to some degree, to take possession of that thing, to claim it as ones own: casuarina, wahoo, chordata, pappadum, magazine, sargasso.

It is actually rather comforting to be able to write here. I wonder why. Even one-way communication into the void of cyberspace appears to be better than solipsistic silence.

Did not mention this earlier: all 6 coursemates are girls. Mamie, Ann, Laurie, Clay, Kelly and Miranda. Fun bunch in general, although male companionship would have been appreciated.

Introductory lectures in the morning, then a free afternoon spent exploring Horseshoe Bay and surrounding areas. The shores here are quite literally wind-swept, and the paths sometimes treacherous. We went into and around several of the 17th/18th c. forts built to defend Bermuda in colonial times, now dark, crumbling, and full of broken beer bottles and graffitti crying out for the legalization of ganja. A quiet late afternoon, before euchre in the evening while the rooms grew steadily colder. There isn't any heating (or air-conditioning) here, and the portable heater that was doled out to me gave up the ghost almost as soon as I turned it on. Will say it again: do not understand how this place is such an icebox. Weekend forecast: gale-force winds.

Food:
Mango chutney

Changed time zone to GMT (-4:00)

Day 2

Woke up at 4 in the morning because of howling winds and inexplicable cold, but somehow managed to get back to sleep. Jet lag moderate. Missing things intensely when I stop to think about them, so trying not to.

Perused eclectic collection of trashy novels and "recreational items" in the commons room before breakfast. Known authors include: Ayn Rand, Jeffrey Deaver, John Grisham. Unknown authors include: lots. "Recreational items" include: old Springbok Star Wars puzzle with half pieces missing, old VHS tapes of HBO series I've never heard of, "Sequence", the board game, a 2-year old daschund, and a black-and-white stray cat.

Books:
The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields

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.