it struck me at dinner today (nara: good japanese food -- uni even! -- but pricey) -- i can actually have interesting conversations with the other first-years in my department. and not just about psychology, also on topics that i could never, ever hope to talk about with so many other people (excluding you guys, and you, and you, and also you). the disconnect that i sometimes experienced at duke -- where i felt so culturally different from a lot of my classmates, particularly the americans -- that's disappeared...and i think (perhaps because of being more mature?) we have all tacitly tarred that over with the culture of being interested in each other. i can't even begin to tell you how excited this makes me, because getting along with random people, i've learned how to do that, but sitting down with someone and weaving a tapestry, playing a duet, knowing not just the chords but the harmonic possibilities: that's something you don't often find, and something you learn to treasure.

red tape

the first draft of my project proposal is due next friday, so It officially Starts. the honeymoon was nice, though, and longer than expected. the accelerator gets stepped on in psychology not because of reading (unlike in the humanities), but because of the logistics of working with human subjects -- U.S. institutions in particular make you jump through an infuriating number of hoops before you can so much as lay eyes on a human volunteer (we have the nazis to thank for this, by the way). i am glad, though, that it's not reading that i'm going to be crushed by -- vic tells me that he burns through about 600-700 pages of text a week, and although i'm sure that minz will tell me this is not uncommon, it is nonetheless staggering and not a thing i'd particularly relish doing.

the first-year project is due in may '07, which is a pretty short time, particularly for a multi-day imaging study. i foresee: 2-3 months for planning/back-and-forthing on the IRB and 3 months for data collection, minus the christmas break, which leaves frighteningly little time for analysis and writing. all this for a study that will likely not even be publishable because we will not yet have enough subjects for a random-effects analysis at the end of it. this is rather frustrating -- i'm used to having the peripheral bureaucratic annoyances kept to a minimum so that i can focus on the actual data, but penn apparently believes in such irrelevancies as "sharing equipment" and "ethics".

it is rather discomfiting when bits of the city you live in start blowing up.


the temperature crept its way down into the 50s today. for all its promise of good insulation, this apartment keeps in no heat whatsoever. this probably means that somewhere down the road, there will be a slice of time before the day central heating comes on in which staying indoors will be intolerable. (not that i'm unaccustomed to this.)

in any case, this was incentive to stay in the lab for most of the day, where i was good and read all my perfusion papers, even though i didn't understand half of what i was reading. i think i need to sit down with someone who knows this stuff and just spend an entire day asking him questions, because right now i'm sure that misconceptions are sprouting in my head like toadstools after rain. geoff aguirre or john detre would be nice, but i will settle for lesser beings as long as they know what they are talking about.

i was in the kitchen today chopping vegetables when it suddenly occurred to me that the last time i had done that i was being ordered around by su-lin amidst general chaos. chopping is not usually my job, but i was early to that dinner. my hands had smelled of onions for days after that -- i don't know if this happens to everybody, but no matter how much i wash the odor lingers with extraordinary tenacity. it stayed with me on the plane ride, and only disappeared a day or two after i arrived here, a frail olfactory filament dissipating with exquisite slowness as i made my way around the world.

#31 - Without a doubt, the Internet: for its ridiculous cornucopia of free entertainment, for putting infinite space in a nutshell, for being the enchanted place.

From The Rural Life, Verlyn Klinkenborg:

A conscientious journal keeper is really the natural historian of his own life. His model is the amateur naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, writers like Gilbert White or collectors like George Eliot's Camden Farebrother. It often seems as though science in this century has little use anymore for amateur observers of this kind, that science has grown too institutional, too complex, to value the private watcher of a small patch of ground. It seems that way too when it comes to our own lives. They're cross-referenced, indexed, cataloged, and witnessed by the public and private institutions whose job it is to tabulate and codify us. Even the task of introspection has been jobbed out to the professionals. A personal journal in our time comes to seem less like a valuable cache of perceptions than a naive recitation of symptoms that the wroter lacks the authority to analyze.

But many of the great journals - I think especially of Samuel Pepys' seventeenth-century diary and James Boswell's eighteenth-century journal - are not marked by self-consciousness. They're marked by a dogged absence of self-consciousness, a willingness to suspend judgment of the journal itself, if not of its author, in order to keep the enterprise going. The value of Pepys's diary and Boswell's journal is the world they depict and only incidentally the depiction of their authors. Their journals weren't read until long after the authors had died. Both men wrote for an audience of one. Judging by my own fragmentary journals, that's one too many. It's not enough that I should be dead before anyone else reads them. I should be dead before I reread them myself.

#30 - Bach

Sleeping Beauty problem

Sleeping Beauty agrees to take part in an experiment in which the following things take place.

Sunday:
Researchers give Sleeping Beauty a drug that puts her to sleep. They then flip a fair coin.

Monday:
Sleeping Beauty is woken up. She is then adminisered a memory-erasing drug and put back to sleep, (without any memory of being awakened).

Tuesday:
If the coin flip came up tails, Sleeping Beauty is woken up again, and again put back to sleep.

Wednesday:
Sleeping Beauty is woken up, and the experiment is over.

When Sleeping Beauty is woken up for the first time, what should her degree of belief be (as a fraction) that the coin toss came up heads?

(If you care, you can check out current opinion on the answer here, and here, and finally here.)

can i just say, von, that i really very much envy your gastronomic adventures -- there is unbelievably good food in center city, or so i am told, but i will have to take it on faith until i find some rich patrons (now accepting applications).

in case you have not done so already

you should, indeed, go here, and click on it. it reminds me very much of the time when the other brother and i were trying to come up with lyrics for "there is a whiteness in god's mercy".

justifying my decision (to myself) (again)

there was a cookout today next to hill house, mostly singaporeans, but also free food, so it was a tough decision. my wallet won. a couple of first-year grad students were also there, so we stood baking under the sun (the temperature exploded into the 80s today), eating half-cooked hamburger and discussing why in heck we wanted to spend five years of our lives studying our own miserable quarks in the vast cosmos of scholarship (most probable answer: we're sad). victor is a history major, studying the spread of islam in china in the 19th and 20th centuries, and KS is in computer science, dealing with the mumblemumblesomethingartificialintelligencehebbianlearning- neuralsomething, and how to represent that algorithmically, and why deep blue is not blue, and whether robots will one day take over the world, so the conversation was desultory, its only real nexuses being traffic laws in manhattan (or lack thereof), why a*star sucks donkey balls, and episcopalianism.

it is comforting to know of people who made the same decision as i, and the more people i get to know the more comforting it is. it is funny what one will do to mitigate the sense of loneliness -- not physical loneliness, mind you, because i have met more people here in three weeks than i thought i would -- but the loneliness of being different, of being forced to belong on other people's terms. and the very fact of knowing that there are other people who left behind home, employment, familiarity to come here validates that decision in a way, and the more similar the person is to me, the greater the validation. this may seem ironic when you read this over -- is that not the very definition of belonging on someone else's terms? -- but the distinction is subtle -- the first instance being "me defined as grad student in the psychology department", and the second being "me defined as someone rejecting the well-travelled road of career, rat race etc.". the second, of course, being the critical decision (and thus, the point of commonality with victor and KS), and the first its logical, necessary but entirely incidental consequence.

so akeelah and the bee has restored my faith in how awesome laurence fishburne is, the matrix parts ii and iii notwithstanding. cp: how was othello?

it continues to amaze me that there is such a wide variety of quite decent food within a three block radius of my apartment. on 42nd and chestnut is a place called kabobeesh, a converted american diner that now sells fairly authentic tandoori and naan. admittedly, there could have been more meat, but it was the real stuff, and at $9, enough for two meals. next to it is a little indian minimart type thing that has such wonders as curry powder, gaulb jamun, frozen roti, basmati rice, maggi stock cubes, and horlicks. also: about eight shelves of bollywood vcds, which interested me not.

in other news, my kitchen looks more like a kitchen now, in that it actually has food in it, and things with which i can cook said food. this is good news for my body, which has probably doubled in sodium content since i got here, despite my best efforts. (how do americans not die at the age of 25?) i also am the proud owner of my first ever potato peeler (su-lin will attest to the fact that i had never used one before that last party with the gumbo and "fried""chicken"), which i will use with gusto, once i have some potatoes.

for su-lin:

the new ben and jerry's flavour is turtle soup, and i had a scoop while thinking of you. chocolate turtles!

friday night

four of the second- and third-year psych students occupy an entire house not 3 minutes walk from where i am. the owner of the place just graduated with a phd in medieval history, and is taking a year off to "find herself" -- obviously something only a person who owns a bloody house in the heart of university city (at the age of 30) can afford to do. there was a party there last night, and i got my first peek inside the building. the decor was mismatched, the furnishing eclectic, but all this is par for the course for grad-student-tenants i suppose. to be fair, all the rooms did feel lived in and homely. we packed the place to the rafters, spilling drinks and pepperidge farm goldfish all over the beautiful hardwood floors. there were too many limes, and too much chambord. also, the ice-cream drinks were brought out and consumed towards the end of the party, a fatal mistake for many.

i spent a lot of the evening in the kitchen, partly because it was rather difficult to get out of it, and partly because that was where the jose cuerva was. it was there that sean told me the Quite Interesting fact that dave brainard's other big achievement (besides creating psychtoolbox) was acting in the film fat man and little boy, starring paul newman and john cusack, in which he had a very important line counting down the alamorgdo, NM test launch. six degrees! (another quite interesting fact which i learned from richard powers: the trinity test site was named that by oppenheimer because he was reading a lot of john donne's poetry at the time, and had just got to batter my heart, three person'd god. digression: jy gets lots and lots of points for telling us the oppenheimer story while we were enjoying the sunset in angkor wat, the one where he tells how the nuclear blast reminded him of the bhagvad gita quote: now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds, (a) because it was apropos, and (b) because i realise that we were all a little ignorant in not knowing that, and now we are a little less.) anyway, david brainard. searching imdb tells us that he was also in chicago hope and sex and the city, but i will take that with a pinch of salt until i get to ask him personally.

towards midnight, i found myself telling army stories about decapitations and sliced scrota (don't ask), which usually means that it's time to go home, but i was accosted by ewa and somebody's boyfriend at the door and got sucked into a conversation about whether it's better to live and work in warsaw or gdansk (answer: if you want the cultural immersion, gdansk). by the time i got walking, it was after one, and a light mist of rain was falling, giving the streetlights that lovely, hazy quality, like being in a poem. a group of intoxicated freshmen staggered by, singing the national anthem at the top of their lungs, and i thought: i could live here.

bsg webisodes

for the battlestar galactica fans not in the know, sci-fi is running a ten-part series of webisodes. new ones every tuesday and thursday running up to season 3. get excited!

eta: if you are not in the usa, you have to go here instead.

article in the new yorker on neuroeconomics. the subject matter is interesting (i.e. it's sexy science), but the piece has some distressing inaccuracies, so don't take it as gospel.

i have two offices - one in the psych building, and one in my lab; neither department, however, has provided me with a workstation, and if not for wanting to make my presence felt a little in the lab i would honestly prefer to work from home. (the psych department office is totally hopeless - collapsing shelves, a refrigerator from the 1980s, and large plastic storage boxes that no one dares to touch). maybe i will for a while: i have no data, and my advisor has gone gallivanting to austria or god knows where for the week. real work will take place, though. promise.

#29 - Travelling

the first-year advisors brought us newbies out to dinner at lemongrass, a thai place up 36th and lancaster. everyone was scrupulously late, except poor melissa who paid $9 for a cab to be 5 minutes early. melissa has, i think, the most interesting history among us, having lived in ireland for 7 years on an extended hiatus from real life. i can identify with the sentiment. we trooped in - almost 20 of us - and took up about half the restaurant. the food was very good, although as one might expect, not completely thai -- intrusions included something that looked and tasted suspiciously like siew mai, as well as orange duck. we coaxed grad school stories out of the professors, including someone's confession that he "doesn't give a shit about gerbils". (jason: that's ok, i don't think gerbils care very much about you either.) later in the evening, while asking someone about psychtoolbox (which i have been using for several years), i discovered that dr. brainard, its actual programmer, was sitting three seats down from me. i am very foolish. people started dribbling away after a couple of hours, leaving the stragglers to order dessert, which i did, for myself, in thai, "mango with sticky rice" being one of five things i can actually say in the language. (the brother and the other brother will laugh at me -- but come on: you guys have been there for years. also: one of the other five things is pineapple. i confessed all of this at the table.) hilary and sara had coconut-and-ginger ice-cream, and everyone else had chocolate cake, and everything was excellent, particularly considering that i'd been eating leftovers all weekend. and now to work.

II

But that is not the question. Why are we here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come.

I

From Watt, by Samuel Beckett

(because of the centennial, and the strangely profound influence waiting for godot has had on my life)

But our particular friends were the rats, that dwelt by the stream. They were long and black. We brought them such tidbits from our ordinary as rinds of cheese, and morsels of gristle, and we brought them also birds’ eggs, and frogs, and fledgelings. Sensible of these attentions, they would come flocking round us at our approach, with every sign of confidence and affection, and glide up our trouserlegs, and hang upon our breasts. And then we would sit down in the midst of them, and give them to eat, out of our hands, of a nice fat frog, or a baby thrush. Or seizing suddenly a plump young rat, resting in our bosom after its repast, we would feed it to its mother, or its father, or its brother, or its sister, or to some less fortunate relative.

It was on these occasions, we agreed, after an exchange of views, that we came nearest to God.

running route

after some experimenting, have worked one out that involves minimal crossing of roads and pleasant scenery - 3 blocks south, into clark park past the farmers' market and family cookouts and multi-racial basketball games, over the trolley line into the university of pharmacy and science: brick facades, open spaces -- a couple of rounds there, then back into the residential area on 40th, up to market past the furniture stores, south again on 43rd and back home. i figure it to be about 3.5 miles, and i will use it till the winter forces me into pottruck and onto the treadmills.

#28 - Sitting in the stillness of an empty church

i found out just two days ago that marty seligman, founder of the school of positive psych, and president of the APA, also happens to be an avid bridge player and once-partner of the great paul soloway. this is very exciting to me, especially since his students insist that if i bring up to him the fact that i love bridge as well, i will get his immediate and undivided attention. as a matter of fact, his attention is often taken away from his students by online bridge, a distraction from work that i heartily approve of.

#27 - Free food, of any kind.

outlets of penang (the restaurant) are spreading like kudzu over the continental united states, and people keep wanting to bring me there. the branch we have here seems to be better than the ones i've been to in NC and NYC, although they did manage to ask us about a dozen times if we were done and needed the check (we weren't). the nasi lemak was tasty, and incredibly good value for money. out-of-town andrea showed up late because of a delayed greyhound, and picked disconsolately at the remains of a yam basket while we talked about the beckett centennial and N's bizzare love affair with the music of bob dylan. there were enormous bowls of green tea ice cream afterwards, which i could not manage because it was about my third dinner for the day. no one had a car, and to prove how safe the city is, someone insisted that we walk at least part of the way home, which we did, and it is.

#26 - Coming to the end of a physically exhausting day, and looking at bed, and contemplating what a wonderful, wonderful thing sleep is

boot camp works!

i don't know why anyone would care! but it does!

QI fact of the day

courtesy of daniel: thanks to ground beef, there is more feces in the average american sink than there is in the average american toilet bowl.

first day of classes

Philadelphia has an a east-to-west continuum of safety that starts at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell (arrested if you even think of the word bomb), and goes all the way down to 61st Street and beyond (personal firearms recommended). This is not as bad as it sounds -- at least it's an organised progression, unlike in certain cities where you may get caught in crossfire if you walk down a single wrong city block. Things start getting hairy around 47th, which is unfortunate because there is a fruit seller parked there who sells extraordinarily fresh produce at a dollar a bushel (figuratively). Also, at 50th is a very unique grocery store that has no (a) shelves, (b) organizing principles, (c) guarantee that they will have what you want at any given time, even if it happens to be peanut butter, or paper towels, or bread. They compensate for the fact by selling it all at about half the price you would pay at another grocer's. Long-term cost-benefit analysis may yet prove that it is worth the risk of assault to shop there.

On campus, a mere 2 miles away, everything costs the earth, except for coffee which is most considerately made free to grad students 24/7/52. Classes started today, and Melissa arrived in Stats clutching an $8 notebook she was forced to buy from the Penn Bookstore at the very last minute. Once again, the boy scouts win it all.

Stats is a Wharton class (OMG I'M GOING TO SINGAPORE). I suppose all roads to lead to Wharton at some point here, but this was rather soon. I was vaguely hoping that I could place out of the course, but this seems not to be an option at this point, unless I switch into Mathematical Statistics, which: I dohave my limits as well. So, first-year solidarity, etc., and at least I get a formal run-through of inferential stats, something the ex-boss never really bothered with, his policy being: do first, understand later. Taking the easier course also will probably free up some time for research and all the other junk I have to get done, so, yay for not killing myself 8 seconds after I got here.

#25 - Wireless hardware

I found this among the information in I-house on study abroad in NUS:

Students must be willing to live according to local conditions, which may lack amenities and differ from their expectations at Penn

Really? Makes it sound like we don't have running water or something. Unless by "amenities" they meant "human rights".

it transpires that for one reason or another i will not be able to take any neuroscience classes this semester. this is slightly ridiculous, given that i am a neuroscientist, but there you go. i say again: social psych is fluffy as dream whip (although the social people among the first years are admittedly rather cool. one is from poland).

across the street

-- and one block away from me is the other green line, a charming coffeehouse with free wireless internet, large cups of java, and mandelbrot, meaning it is my new Favourite Place. i sat there reading outside for about an hour before the sun started going down, and then went to quest for dinner. i didn't have to go very far -- next to it is koch's deli, where i bought the best hot pastrami on rye (with munster cheese) i have ever had in my life. the deli seems to be famous -- pat sajak has visited, and the cast of everybody loves raymond (yuk), and the walls are plastered with a zillion newspaper reviews and e-mail endorsements from penn graduates going back a good fifty years (the graduates, not the endorsements). lou, the original owner of the place, passed away a couple of years ago, and for a while there was doubt as to whether it would remain open, but bob, his brother, took over the reins, and was at the counter handing out free slices of salami when i went in. the sandwich took a long time to make, but that gave us time to talk about escalating rent prices, and the art of sandwich-making, and, very importantly, WHO THE HELL all these people were watching everybody loves raymond. some things in life will forever remain a mystery. i promised to return, often, and he made me promise to show him some singapore dollar notes (it is one of this Things to Do Before He Dies to see Singapore and HK). they have a chopped liver and ox tongue sandwich that i noticed only as i was leaving, and which is definitely what i am going to have the very next time.

#24 - Eggplant parmigiana, but only when it is done right.

WH and i went to pietro's for dinner - salad with mozarella slices and very sweet peppers, and a pizza so large we could barely finish half. WH is a second-year med student who works incessantly (and spends the time when he is not working fretting about it. you know the type). unfortunately, he has also recently discovered pratchett, so this is a bit of a crossroads in his life. the kicker, though, is that he has watched all the clips of QI on youtube, and was practically on his knees in the restaurant begging me to give him the three seasons that i snatched in a desperate orgy of copying from su-lin's hard drive 2 days before i left. if he does not get at least one B this semester, i will not have done my job.

#22 - When problems have elegant solutions...

#23 - ...which I am able to find on my own.

There was a Child Went Forth

There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many
years, or
stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of
the
phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal,
and
the
cow’s calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious
liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him.

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;
Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the
garden,

And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries,
and
the
commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had
lately
risen,
And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.

His own parents,
He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and
birth’d
him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him.

The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her
person
and
clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling
heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought
if,
after
all, it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what
are
they?
The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the huge crossing at the ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three
miles
off,

The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide—the little boat
slack-tow’d
astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by
itself—the
spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will
always go
forth
every day.

                                                 Walt Whitman

incid.

If anyone wants to see anything in particular in the little boxes with question marks on the left, please do leave a comment. All my ideas are horrible, but they will be used unless folks come up with things.

caving in to the hoarding instinct

rained the whole of last night and the whole of today as ernesto met the cold front coming from the northwest. this was extremely insalubrious weather in which to be hauling heavy furniture about, but the thrift store three blocks west of me was having a blowout sale, and i absoultely had to have a chest of drawers, von be damned. the trip was worthwhile -- everything was going at half-price, but only cash-and-carry. the cash part was ok, the carrying part a bit more of a struggle, but i made it, and now my socks and underwear have a home. i even went back for a second trip for an ironing board ($3.22), a small round skillet ($1.40) and a crimson-and-black bean-stuffed pillow ($0.86) that had been disinfected to standards acceptable by whatever federal agency it is that governs these things.

oh, and WH was not free today so i got takeout chinese and my fortune read: "Your home is a pleasant place from which you draw happiness."

#21: Going to church. It actually does. I know you're skeptical. You. Yes, you.

it's amazing how many things one uses in everyday life that one simply overlooks when they're there. trash cans, for example, and dish drainers. i have never in my life thought: wow, i really need to buy a dish drainer.

*

von called just now. i could not imagine who the call might have been from, and answered rather sheepishly with the expectation that it would be a wrong number.

von: you sound just like i did when i first came to the states.
me: what, completely at sea?
von: exactly.

advice from von: before buying anything, stop. wait two weeks. by this time you will not need it, and will have saved a lot of hassle and money. me: does this apply to trash cans? (i realise that i actually know the answer to this, but i will leave it to minz to link to the entry that tells you what it is because i can't find it in her blog). answer: yes. von is particularly proud of the fact that all his worldly possessions fit in the trunk of his car, this being, apparently, a badge that you have to earn at the School of Peripatetics, or something. me (ever smaller voice): i can at least get a chair can't i? von: get thee to a garage sale. and then he dashes off for a meeting, and i'm left contemplaing the emptiness of my apartment and how i now have to feel poor AND guilty whenever i make a purchase.

i have moved into my apartment, but it'll be unfurnished till tomorrow, so i'm still in a hotel for tonight. the apartment is very empty, space and space and nothing to fill it with. even though i'm the kind of person who craves room, i also have unexplainable compulsions to fill it up once it's available to me. prognostication: rainforests in my backyard, should i ever have one.

Philadelphia, PA

So. Here's how it is.

I am not brave, or strong, or good. I'm basically a twelve-year-old stuck in a twenty-six-year-old's body. I crave security like a drug, even though I know that true security does not exist. I would like nothing more than to be looked after, mollycoddled and pampered all the days of my life, safe in the arms of people who I know I can trust, fully and absolutely. I want controlled measures of excitement, while knowing I can flee to safety at any point I choose. I don't want to have to think for myself. I want dinner on the table, money put into my bank account every month, friends and family a bus ride away.

On the other hand, if I sort of twist my mind in a different direction, the way it was twisted when I ticked 'yes' on the card they sent me asking me if I wanted to enrol in Penn, I do still want to do this, with every fibre of my being. Because, as the old chestnut goes, everything in life worth doing is scary. Because, in a masochistic sort of a way, I like the thrill of knowing that there's not so much of a safety net now, that if I screw up I have to bear the consequences. Because just being in this city, being back in the States, reminds me of what life was like as an undergraduate, and how excellent that life was.

It's a delicate balance. It would help if I learned to be brave.

From The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne

"Hallo, everybody," said Christopher Robin - "Hallo, Pooh."

They all said "Hallo," and felt awkward and unhappy suddenly, because it was a sort of good-bye they were saying, and they didn't want to think about it. So they stood around and waitied for somebody else to speak, and they nudged each other, and said "Go on," and gradually Eeyore was nudged to the front, and the others crowded behind him.

"What is it, Eeyore?" asked Christopher Robin.

Eeyore swished his tail from side to side, so as to encourage himself, and began.

"Chrstopher Robin," he said, "we've come to say - to give you - it's called - written by - but we've all - because we've heard, I mean we all know - well, you see, it's - we - you - well, that, to put it as shortly as possible, is what it is." He turned round angrily on the others and said, "Everybody crowds round so in this Forest. There's no Space. I never saw a more Spreading lot of animals in my life, and all in the wrong places. Can't you see that Christopher Robin wants to be alone? I'm going." And he humped off.

Not quite knowing why, the others began edging away and when Christopher Robin had finished reading POEM, and was looking up to say "Thank you," only Pooh was left.

"It's a comforting sort of thing to have," said Christopher Robin, folding up the paper, and putting it in his pocket. "Come on, Pooh," and he walked off quickly.

"Where are we going?" said Pooh, hurrying after him, and wondering whether it was to be an Explore or a What-shall-I-do-about-you-know-what.

"Nowhere," said Christopher Robin.

So they began going there, and after they had walked a little way Christopher Robin said:

"What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best - " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have; and so, when he had thought it all out, he said "What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What about a little something?' and Me saying, 'Well, I shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it eing a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing."

"I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, nothing,' and then you go and do it."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh again.

"It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Oh!" said Pooh.

They walked on, thinking of This and That, and by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted because nobody had been able to count whether it was sixty-three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of string round each tree after he had counted it. Being enchanted, its floor was not like the floor of the Forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth and green. It was the only place in the Forest where you could sit down carelessly, without getting up again almost at once and looking for somewhere else. Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons Lap.

Suddenly, Christopher Robin began to tell Pooh about some of the things: People called Kings and Queens and something called Factors, and a place called Europe, and an island in the middle of the sea where no ships came, and how you make a Suction Pump (if you want to), and when Knights were Knighted, and what comes from Brazil. And Pooh, his back against one of the sixty-something trees, and his paws folded in front of him, said "Oh!", and "I don't know," and thought how wonderful it would be to have a Real Brain which could tell you things. And by-and-by Christopher Robin came to an end of the things, and was silent, and he sat there looking out over the world, and wishing it wouldn't stop.

But Pooh was thinking too, and he said suddenly to Christopher Robin:

"Is it a very Grand thing to be an Afternoon, what you said?"

"A what?" said Christopher Robin lazily, as he listened to something else.

"On a horse?" explained Pooh.

"A Knight?"

"Oh, that was it?" said Pooh. "I thought it was a - Is it as Grand as a King and Factors and all the other things you said?"

"Well, it's not as grand as a King," said Christopher Robin, and then, as Pooh seemed disappointed, he added quickly, "but it's grander than Factors."

"Could a Bear be one?"

"Of course he could!" said Christopher Robin. "I'll make you one." And he took a stick and touched Pooh on the shoulder and said, "Rise, Sir Pooh de Bear, most faithful of all my Knights."

So Pooh rose and sat down and said "Thank you," which is the proper thing to say when you have been made a Knight, and he went into a dream again, in which he and Sir Pump and Sir Brazil and Factors lived together with a horse, and were faithful knights (all except Factors, who looked after the horse) to Good King Christopher Robin...and every now and then he shook his head, and said to himself, "I'm not getting it right." Then he began to think of all the things Christopher Robin would want to tell him when he came back from wherever he was going to, and how muddling it would be for a Bear of Very Little Brain to try and get them right in his mind. "So perhaps," he said sadly to himself, "Christopher Robin won't tell me any more," and he wondered if being a Faithful Knight meant that you just went on being faithful without being told things.

Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world with his chin in his hands, called out "Pooh!"

"Yes?" said Pooh.

"When I'm - when - Pooh!"

"Yes, Christopher Robin?"

"I'm not going to do Nothing any more."

"Never again?"

"Well, not so much. They don't let you."

Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.

"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh helpfully.

"Pooh, when I'm - you know - when I'm not doing Nothing, will you come up here sometimes?"

"Just Me?"

"Yes, Pooh."

"Will you be here too?"

"Yes, Pooh, I will be really. I promise I will be, Pooh."

"That's good," said Pooh.

"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."

Pooh thought for a little.

"How old shall I be then?"

"Ninety-nine."

Pooh nodded.

"I promise," he said.

Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.

"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I - if I'm not quite -" he stopped and tried again - "Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"

"Understand what?"

"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"

"Where?" said Pooh

"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.

So they went off together. But whereever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

more miscellaneous - and also final - bits

6. my unit is still trying to call me back for mob manning, even after umpteen telephone calls telling them to PISS OFF. i mean, dear god, why?

7. altogether, my luggage weighs close to 80 kilograms. it is almost certain that i have bitten off more than i can chew, but i will rely, as i often do, on providence and the kindness of strangers.

8. i was reading through old journal entries, and have concluded that i was more terrified the last time i left, but less sad. i told yen (and a few other people as well), that it is different this go-around. when i went to duke, i was in step with everyone; i was entering a new era together with friends, so that although we were geographically distant, we were still in the same phase of our lives. of course, as the mother pointed out, this is kind of an illusion -- the dephasing will happen ineluctably anyway, it's just that i'm the first one to get out of line (to be precise i guess the credit for that has to go to people like von and john p. and billy and minz, but this is my day to be a cynosure, so leave me alone). knowing it is an illusion, though, is still very little comfort.

9. to su-lin: thank you -- again -- for everything, and stay well, and never change.

10. and to everyone else who reads this damn litany of crap: thanks for sticking on, and keep in touch. i'll be online, and blogging, and keeping the dream alive for as damn long as i possibly can. love you all.

#20: you. all of you.

miscellaneous bits

1. re: transubstantiation and chopped-up tables
i have tried hunting for more information on the spatial relationships between accidents and essences, but google is for once useless, and the summa theologica too thick for casual bedtime browsing. also: no word on whether the water co-mingled with the wine obtains the essence of Christ, or whether it was plasma that flowed from His side, or whether the tradition is related to the spearing. to be looked into further.

2. there have been a lot of goodbyes. i was losing track for a while, but i think i am more or less done (except for you, minz).

-- not farewells, clarifies cp, because after all, what are years nowadays? (cp: it's going to be six years before my sister actually becomes a proper doctor. me: oh! i'll be working by then!)

3. re: time perception as we grow older. see this for a good summary of logtime.

4. i am as ready, i think, as i ever will be. ready to start work again -- i don't think i even really saw these couple of weeks as a holiday, just a necessary interlude. i could have used more sleep, and more time to read, and certainly more time to look through notes, but that is water under the bridge now.

5. to various people: thank you for making time for me, and giving me sweet little trinkets, and being indulgent when i go off like a bullet train about things like cognitive prophylaxis, and handing out exercise tips, and believing that i'm not going to go to penn to make a complete ass of myself. and i will see you next year, if the fates allow.

#18 - Knowing this: "I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name." Isaiah 49:15-16

i was absolutely sure that i had read a poem once that started "remember me when i am gone away", and i had! not that it's at all appropriate now that i've seen it again, but it is rossetti. didn;t we do this for prac crit at some point?

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad

#17: meeting people who have an actual sense of humour

everyone

1 week left. i've been swanning around town with my mom's friend and her family (just in from the uk) while sweating and baking in the unbelievable heat. we did the tourist loop round chinatown, through orchard road and down to the bay, where we were finally done in by the weather (and for them, the jet lag). then su-lin called, and i thought she said she had bought me eight pounds of chocolate, but it turns out that wasn't the case.

***

in the museum in the raffles hotel, there is a newspaper clipping from the straits times (i think), circa 1910. it reads:

BOAR HUNT AT RAFFLES

No sportsman in Asia should miss paying a visit to Raffles, for he never knows what a rare bag may be picked up on the verandah of a morning before breakfast. Within the past few months we have had occasion to chronicle a tiger hunt under the billiard room and a lively python chase in and about the verandah. Yesterday morning there was an exciting wild boar hunt, including a separate conflict between the monumental Sikh jagah who stands at the doorway of the hotel and the extraordinary brute that sought to pass the portals. This jagah in question who is known to practically every globe trotter on earth as well as to residents in the Peninsula, hails from somwhere near Peshawar, and stands over six feet in his stockings. His girth is generous and he weighs about eighteen stone. Recently he came into a legacy from an appreciative guest of similar dimensions to his own. This legacy consisted of a full dress evening suit, whic, when worn in the morning in conjunction with an immense puggree, a sash and new lemon-colored boots, lent to the naturally imposing form of the jagah an additional air that was bizarre and picturesque. In this attire he met the wild hog.

The circumstantial details of the combat as purveyed by Mr. Chaytor and other officials of the hotel management who were eyewitnesses to the unusual spectacle, furnish mental pabulum which will rejoice the soul of every shikari, and every student of wild animal life when such life is considered under the contorted conditions which must obtain with wild animal life when combined with life in a first class modern hotel.

It seems that at about three minutes past nine o'clock yesterday morning Mr C. Chaytor was attending to routine duties on the verandah of the billiard room when he was amazed to hear the voice of the Sikh jagah uplifted in a great roar for help. On looking down at the spot whence the roar emanated Mr. Chaytor was still further amazed to see the jagah - dressed in his best suit of clothes - but wrestling despearately with a wild hog. The situation so far as Mr. Chaytor was concerned stood absolutely without precedent. Neither the tiger nor the python had wrestled wiht the jagah. Therefore he simply waited and watched. Presently, the jagah cast aside the hog and panted. Then still panting, he rooted up one of the stakes supporting a climbing orchid, couched the...

#16: A place for everything, and everything in its place.

i have been ruthless with my packing. but a handful of books are traveling with me:

1) seligman's abnormal psychology
2) the apa style manual
3) huettel's functional magnetic resonance imaging
4) my statistics book (granvetter)
5) the catcher in the rye
6) of mice and men
7) the bible (student edition)

and the mysterious flame of queen loana (umberto eco) which i will read on the plane. everything else is clothes, and shoes, and some dvds, and an external HDD, and my playstation, and the most important mementos including photographs, justin's glass swan and gershwin the weightlifting frog. i don't dare to weigh anything yet because i am mortally afraid that i will exceed my allotted 64 kg, and need to leave behind more stuff than i already have decided to. there will be tears if this happens. there already almost are tears.

Currently reading:
The City of Falling Angels - John Berendt

#15: Puppies

last night

-- had wine and leftover liquer chocolates and milo ice cream, laughing at the '98 gp bulletin, british stand-up comedy. various conversations started in hushed voices so as not to disturb su-lin's sisters which ended up being rowdy anyway as we rounded midnight. it was being 20-something, the muscle memory of what college was like, respite from Other People tinged with the dull anxiety of being labeled elitist by them, the unspoken longing for things to be this way always.

incidentally

this 40 things that make me happy business is an exercise i've set myself, and is not happening because i've gone sentimental/soft in the head.

#14: long bus rides at night

Currently reading:
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Monica Lewycka

Victor Frankl:

Logotherapy, keeping in mind the essential transitoriness of human existence, is not pessimistic but rather activistic. To express this point figuratively we might say: The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadmess that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think, "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy."

i was on the 153 on my way to church this evening when i espied su-lin sitting at a bus stop and muttering something to herself under her breath. this was most amusing, so i called her immediately to let her know this. where are you? she says (looking around, i imagine, for binoculars behind curtains), and then: i was singing to myself. anyway, i'm sorry if i startled you, my dear, but it was charming and will make me smile when i think about it on lonely winter nights.

#13: something that always made me extremely unpopular in JC, i think -- finishing papers a day before they were due, and then feeling smug about it.

note though:
1) this did not happen often
2) i would invariably get 13/25 for them

denial

2 weeks more. i have confirmed my flight on the 30th. i'm not certain if i'll be allowed to carry hand luggage with me; it will be a major blow if i can't. my instincts for avoidance behaviour are kicking in full force, which means that instead of worrying about what i'm going to bring with me and what i'm going to leave behind, i have (1) finished the amos oz book, as well as shusako endo's silence (so much more intense than the power and the glory (2) watched requiem for a dream and i heart huckabees (bizarre) (3) gone (impulse) shopping, and (4) doubled my daily caffeine intake. not good.

#12: the smell of paper

thursday was my last day at work. now that i've gone through three jobs in two years, i can say with some confidence that the novelty of last days does not wear thin easily. quit your jobs! because scientists are stingy bastards compared to HR executives, or because the folks in [that place] just liked me better, or something, there were no lavish celebrations, just bak kut teh and well-wishes. i think the 'something' is that people in our lab feel that the tentacular influence of our boss over continents and ages means that no one truly leaves, that this is not so much 'farewell' as 'how soon will you be recalled?'. which is comforting if you think of ex-colleagues as useful connections, and horrifying if you consider the situation from any other angle. i am addicted to clean slates. as one gets older, one finds that they get less and less desirable, and harder and harder to obtain.

never-ending fun

it's 10:46 a.m. on national day

why aren't you wasted yet?

on ubin, we took a break at one of the various ramshackle kampung huts for drinks and respite from the heat. one of our number had admitted shamefully that he did not know how to ride a bicycle. on aggregate, sympathy won out over derision, but only by the slimmest of margins. so we walked, and were more tired than we needed to be, and the ice lemon tea was very much a necessity by late afternoon. we sat down next to the only other party in the shelter: three civil servants immersed in a very earnest discussion about educational policy and overseas scholarships, and once again it struck me: the administration here is the graveyard of shibboleths. occasionally, one of a family of mongrels would trot up to us and inquire in a doggy way whether we had any food. we did not.

the elderly drinks seller, who also happened to live in the place, soon decided to be chatty. he was awfully robust for someone who looked like he was pushing 70, and talk oh his health soon revealed the fact that apart from his day job, he also happened to be an apothecary of sorts, and for 22 years has been busily doling out cures for all kinds of maladies, including hypertension, malaria and cancer. we sieved through his herbs, and a. took some photographs, but my camera was messed up so i can't post them here. they were more weeds than herbs, really, nondescript, and a cactus. people come to me, the apothecary-of-sorts said (in chinese), telling me that they have intestinal cancer or leukemia and that the doctors say that they only have 3 months to live. i tell them to take these and they come back in 6, completely well. the weeds are brittle, and to be honest, look like they contain the medicinal properties of a twig. still, the man is charming and twinkly, and we ask lots of questions and buy another drink.

do you think? i asked a. as we were walking back to the jetty, that he tells that story to everyone who will give him an audience. almost certainly, he said, so back at home, i googled singapore ubin cure cancer and got at least several hits for blogs telling the same story (i'm not going to link to them; you can go yourself if you care). the internet really does take the numinousness out of everything. i bet that if you found an oracle in kathmandu who told you the meaning of life someone will already have blogged about it. some stories are cheapened with retelling. it's so much more romantic to believe that we had chanced upon someone who really had discovered a panacea, and that the secret belonged only to us; it's fun once in a while to just suspend disbelief and murder rationalism and live, momentarily, in a space where the impossible is not.

#11: When someone opens a gift you get them, and you can tell from that instantaneous look on their face that you have got them exactly the right thing.

i am watching the australian version of the mole. though lacking anderson cooper, it is almost as good as the original abc edition, one of the top contenders, i think, for a dead before its time award. it appeals to me mostly because of my soft spot for classic detective fiction/locked-room mysteries, plus it is a much purer game in terms of interpersonal dynamics than, say, survivor (which is probably rigged from start to finish). the greatest pity is that editing 21 days down to 8 hours does not even begin to capture the intricacies of suspicion and strategy that i'm sure must run frighteningly deep as the game progresses.

Currently reading:
Fima - Amos Oz
(by the bye, von, i went to read simmel's stranger after you mentioned it to me. it's marvelous.)

i am told that the media has announced that the national stadium will "literally go out in a blaze of glory" on august 9th. finally, something worth watching on national day.

#10: christmas carols

i do slightly regret saying that i prefer german to italian food, because i think it depends. if i were on death row, and had to pick between the two for one last meal, i would have to go with the sauerkraut and dumplings; however, if i had to pick a country to go on a gastronomic tour of, italy would of course win hands down. it's comfort/carbohydrates vs. freshness/subtlety, and i think i was in need of comfort when the question was asked (scones, jam and cream helped.)

comment

von emails me to say that my perception of gep-ers is warped, that there are numerous high-functioning, well-adjusted, useful people out there in the working world now, and that we are unfairly projecting our personal angst on people who have none. this may well be true, but because there is very little way for us to prove this empirically, i'm afraid the debate might have to rest there.

t.s. eliot:

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

#9: spending time with the very precious few people who actually do care about me.

ran into elwin c. (BONDED) at a Thing yesterday - elwin is one of those folks who keeps popping up at random moments in my life, and who i will no doubt bump into one day while bound north fleeing justice, or some such thing. he was, as always, solidly normal (digging through some old notes, i discovered that i once remarked, after finding out that he had gone through ocs, that i could "never imagine him leading [soldiers] into war, not because i believe him incapable of it, but because i could never see him as anything other than a person"). he is one of the few gep people to emerge from the programme personality unscathed, i would say -- or perhaps as some think there is an element of self-selection and the smattering of normal people -- elwin and yuexiang and andy, off the top of my head -- are the anomalies.

Currently reading:
The Frozen Deep - Wilkie Collins

the interns have left, which is as sure a sign as leaves turning that summer is dissolving into fall. we had a guest prof from wayne state U over this week to host some lectures and discussions for the aging group, so it was all commotion upstairs and relative quiet for our team. i shattered that quiet for myself midweek by discovering that i had used a formula in error when analysing the results for my experiment, and for a while it was recomputation and hair-tearing and e-mails to statisticians and the reviewers. this is when you get when you unleash ignorant people (i.e. myself) into academia.

and friday was the first of many goodbyes, to justin, over tequila shots, and game theory, and ruefulness that this country has such a death grip on the people it so purportedly loves. who was it who said that letting go was the key?

#7: the where in the world is carmen sandiego theme

#8: finishing a crossword, and getting it right.

the second half of the stimulus set is to be houses, hundreds and hundreds of houses, and all from singapore in case there are cultural differences in the way the asian brain perceives american architecture. i volunteered to do the driving, in part to get out of the office, in part because i had designs on motoring down to sunset way for durian ice cream (which i did). the daily scoop also had lychee martini on offer, but i wisely decided that nothing else either does, or should, interfere with the perfection that is frozen d24, and i was right. hk had bailey's, which was also excellent. i popped over next door in the hopes of buying a box of yam cake studded with tiny bits of lap cheong and topped with sliced chili padi and crispy fried shallots, but was foiled by a big sign on the door that said CLOSED ON MONDAYS. i will return.

we drove around sunset way, with S. popping out of the car every few meters on commando raids to snap photos of suitable facades, criteria for suitability including (a) no cars in the driveway, (b) no gates obstructing the view (c) no dogs (d) no humans (e) no vegetation etc. this was harder than it sounds. most houses in singapore have ridiculously short, virtually purposeless driveways, fronted by enormous obscuring gates. those we eliminated immediately. even at the places with long driveways, we had to get right up to the gate and take the photo between the bars in order to get a decent picture. also, despite us going around in the middle of a working day, more places than you can imagine violated (a) and (d); i.e. singaporeans have way. too. much. money.

down dunearn road, and into all the small side streets, where we got barked at by alsatians, schnauzers, a corgi, and 6.8 million golden retrievers. also a cantankerous pyjama-clad auntie who would not believe that we were with a research lab, even after being presented with identification, and who chased us halfway down the street threatening to call the police. a while later, we found ourselves making our way down yarwood avenue. you should take a walk there if you haven't -- it has lovely, palatial houses, and i would absolutely live in one of them (if they were in, say, roanoke). not so much because of the house -- small living areas i can abide -- but because having a yard to romp around in with dogs and family and friends should not be a luxury; everyone should have sprawling, open spaces where they can breathe, and read, and think, and live.


#6: Those days when I wake up and think: "Wow...I can do anything I want to do today." (Not that I even recall when last that happened).

one man's opinion

Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew (on why S'porean "lit" should be included in the school syllabus):

"We can't deny the value and appeal of canonical texts. They're absolutely well-written, and generations of Singaporeans have grown up on those. But if you want to develop critical, analytical skills, you can't only be exposed to Wordsworth anad Shakespeare"

Discuss.


#5: Books and plays that are absolutely well-written.

at haagen dazs

(-- where the brother and i went last night after waiting in vain for a table at bakerzin. it's $4.50 for a single scoop and $6.70 for a double, prices i would pay for no flavour other than midnight cookies and cream, the only sin that justifies such extravagance.)

(this, btw, was a fairly extended discussion which i condense for clarity:)

me: so can i get a double scoop and have you split them into 2 extra cups?
counter guy: sure!
[cashier then proceeds to try and charge me for 2 single scoops]
me: no, i don't want two single scoops, i want a double scoop in 2 cups.
cashier: i'm afraid we can't do that
me: well can i just get a double scoop and pay for an extra cup then?
cashier: i have to ask my manager.
me: you can even have the wafer back.
cashier: i have to ask my manager.
me: this is not that hard. i want you to sell me a double scoop and an extra cup (subtext: which costs you 0.24 cents to make)
cashier: i have to ask my manager.
[manager arrives]
me: i want to get two scoops, in two cups, and be charged for a double scoop
manager: i'm sorry, we can't do that.
me: well, that's ok, because now i'm not going to get any scoops. goodbye.

i really don't understand why this is such a constant problem in this damn country -- i mean, i'm not much of a businessman, but let's think about this for a second.

Option #1: Sell the customer what he wants at the same fucking inflated price you would have originally, minus the cost of a paper cup, or
Option #2: Make no money at all.

now, i know what i would choose, but who knows, maybe there's some top secret sales strategy they teach you in nus business school that the rest of us just don't know about.

From The Sea, John Banville:

'You live in the past,' she said.

I was about to give a sharp reply, but paused. She was right, after all. Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, for cosiness. This is a surprising, not to say a shocking, realisation. Before, I saw myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass in my teeth, but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze and the harsh air's damagings. That is why the past is such a retreat for me, I go there eagerly, rubbing my hands and shaking off the cold present and the colder future. And yet, what existence, really, does it have, the past? After all, it is only what the present was, once, the present that is gone, no more than that. And yet.

#4: Unexpected twists in conversations that lead one somewhere new, to the bizarre, or things hitherto unconsidered.

From The Sea, John Banville

She stood in the middle of the floor in her coat and scarf, hands on her hips, casting about her with a vexed expression. She was still handsome then, high of cheekbone, her skin translucent, paper-fine. I always admired in particular her Attic profile, the nose a line of carven ivory falling sheer from the brow.

'Do you know what it is?' she said with bitter vehemence. 'It's inappropriate, that's what it is.'

I looked aside quickly for fear my eyes would give me away; one's eyes are always those of someone else, the mad and desperate dwarf crouched within. I knew what she meant. This was not supposed to have befallen her. It was not supposed to have befallen us, we were not that kind of people. Misfortunes, illness, untimely death, these things happen to good folk, the humble ones, the salt of the earth, not to Anna, not to me. In the midst of the imperial progress that was our life together a grinning losel had stepped out of the cheering crowd and sketching a parody of a bow had handed my tragic queen the warrant of impeachment.

She put on a kettle of water to boil and fished in a pocket of her coat and brought out her spectacles and put them on, looping the string behind her neck. She began to weep, absent-mindedly, it might be, making no sound. I moved clumsily to embrace her but she drew back sharply.

'For heaven's sake don't fuss!' she snapped. 'I'm only dying, after all.'

The kettle came to the boil and switched itself off and the seething water inside it settled down grumpily. I marvelled, not for the first time, at the cruel complacency of ordinary things. But no, not cruel, not complacent, only indifferent, as how could they be otherwise? Henceforth I would have to address things as they are, not as I might imagine them, for this was a new version of reality. I took up the teapot and the tea, making them rattle - my hands were shaking - but she said no, she had changed her mind, it was brandy she wanted, brandy, and a cigarette, she who did not smike, and rarely drank. She gave me the dull glare of a defiant child, standing there by the table in her coat. Her tears had stopped. She took of her glasses and dropped them to hang below her throat on their string and rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. I found the brandy bottle and tremblingly poured a measure into a tumbler, the bottle-neck and the rim of the glass chattering against each other like teeth. There were no cigarettes in the house, where was I to get cigarettes? She said it was no matter, she did not really want to smoke. The steel kettle shone, a slow furl of steam at its spout, vaguely suggestive of genie and lamp. Oh, grant me a wish, just the one.

'Take off your coat, at least,' I said.

But why at least? What a business it is, the human discourse.

I gave her the glass of brandy and she stood holding it but did not drunk Light from the window behind me shone on the lenses of her spectacles where they hung at her collar bone, giving the eerie effect of another, miniature she standing close in front of her under her chin with eyes cast down. Abruptly she went slack and sat down heavily, extending her arms before her along the table in a strange, desperate-seeming gesture, as if in supplication to some unseen other seated opposite her in judgment. The tumbler in her hand knocked on the wood and splashed out half its contents. Helplessly, I contemplated her. For a giddy second the notion seized me that I would never again be able to think of another word to say to her, that we would go on like this, in agonised inarticulacy, to the end. I bent and kissed the pale patch on the crown of her head the size of a sixpence where the dark hair whorled. She turned to face up to me briefly with a black look.

'You smell of hospitals,' she said. 'That should be me.'

I took the tumbler from her hand and put it to my lips and drank at a draught what remained of the scorching brandy. I realised what the feeling was that had been besetting me since I had stepped that morning into the glassy glare of Mr Todd's consulting rooms. It was embarrassment. Anna felt it as well, I was sure of it. Embarrassment, yes, a panic-stricken sense of not knowing what to say, where to look, how to behave, and something else, too, that was not quite anger but a sort of surly annoyance, a surly resentment at the predicament in which we grimly found ourselves. It was as if a secret had been imparted to us so dirty, so nasty, that we could hardly bear to remain in one another's company yet were unable to break free, each knowing the foul thing that the other knew and bound together by that very knowledge. From this day forward all would be dissembling. There would be no other way to live with death.

Still Anna sat erect there at the table, fcacing away from me, her arms extended and hands lying inert with palms upturned as if for something to be dropped into them.

'Well?' she said without turning. 'What now?'

#3: Being useful, in ways big and small

because i don't often say how much i love toad

We spotted the ocean at the head of the trail
Where are we going, so far away?
And somebody told me that this is the place
Where everything's better, and everything's safe

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

And half an hour later we packed up our things
We said we'd send letters and all of those little things
And they knew we were lying but they smiled just the same
It seemed they'd already forgotten we'd came

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

Now we're back at the homestead
Where the air makes you choke
And the people don't know you
And trust is a joke
We don't even have pictures
Just memories to hold
That grow sweeter each season
As we slowly grow old

40 things that make me happy
#2: Being mentally 18.
Real jobs are overrated.

as we grow older, it becomes more and more apparent that our generation is not going to evolve into a facsimile of the last, that i am not going to become my father. this may seem a trivial statement, but when i was in school i always assumed that a switch turned on when you reached a certain age that made one act like an "adult" -- it's obvious now that there is no inflexion point, that our generation is capable of stretching in different ways, but never of holding dear the same things that our parents did. this is either distressing or an incredible relief depending on how you think about it. distressing because the goals of our parents - particularly growing up in the 60s and 70s - were attainable, whereas ours are either nebulous or ephemeral or both; a relief because we have nothing to live up to: by having a mutable benchmark for success, we also excuse every one of our failures.

i suppose this is nothing new for, say, americans - they've had generation gap issues arising from dramatically time-compressed changes in inter-generational opportunities for decades - but it is new for us, and i don't think that we cope as well with the disparity. maybe it's to do with having the whole confucian values story force-fed down our throats from young, but the people with whom i've discussed this seem far more fixated on the distress than the relief. on some level, they wish they did have the same desires as their parents, and balk at how easily realised these are. those not in the upper class are glad to be their father's second chance.

we are afraid to own up to our differences to ourselves, and yet we still carry the obvious and indelible marks of having grown up in a different world. i peruse the blogs of friends and acquaintances, some pushing 30, some married, and they cheerfully admit to playing WoW while pondering why their existence seems so dull and dreary. they're still waiting for the switch to flick on, while in the mean time the goalposts have moved, and the world is waiting for them to realise that.

Currently reading:
The Sea - John Banville

40 things that make me happy
#1: Coffee
Especially that very first taste in the morning, the sip that tells you that the night is over, and that makes the day possible.

racism

[over hummus and shawarma last night]
the brother: shouldn't it be "lightly row, lightly row, all the way from mexico"?

we are parking ourselves in the sgh lobby next week to take face shots of volunteers -- one face shot = one candy bar. it's not saving the whales or the amazonian rainforests, but drop by on wednesday if you're free and want to contribute to science.

the paper went in for peer review this afternoon. this made me much happier than i thought it would, not just because it's done (for the time being anyway), but because i feel that at last i've accomplished something in life that's not just getting an A on an exam -- this feels somehow real. it's ironic, i guess, that this satisfaction has been granted to me through academia, which many people would sniff at as being the most unreal pursuit in life, and once again i find myself taking stock to make sure that the feeling does not arise simply because i cannot successfully do anything else. those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, do research. if you can't wrest the swings and see-saws away from the rich and handsome people, make your own playground. and in a sense, it's all my own personal playground from here on in, isn't it, all internal measures of success, quiet victories won where no one else can even tell triumph from defeat?

yet another DSA, this one an acquaintance from the army, re-appeared in my life this week (incidentally reaffirming my belief that stanford is, indeed, camazotz). his undergraduate thesis, which is being published in a peer-reviewed journal, involved exciting electron spins uwith laser beams, flipping them to a high-energy state, and measuring their subsequent relaxation time. this is apparently of vital interest to the computer industry -- controlling the spin/anti-spin configurations of electrons is the basis of building quantum computers (because there are only two possible energy states, these can function as the binary operators upon which all computer systems run. well, almost binary because the bits in a quantum computer can hold a superposition of the two states, which is the nifty part, but also another story for another day). IBM has already created a prototype of this -- a soup of 7 carbon-based atoms which has successfully factorised the number 15. a computer significantly larger than this (perhaps created using semi-conductor technology) would essentially be able to zip through online security systems decrypting previously-unhackable passwords in a matter of minutes and completely changing the landscape of information security as we know it. lovely. unfortunately, DSA the second will play no part in this revolution, because, like most capable singaporeans, he is BONDED, and will be shuffling papers in a small cubicle overlooking marina bay for the foreseeable future. this story is becoming all too familiar.

the conclusion, after extended consideration

nothing rhymes with purple

From Wiki, on Penn:

Penn's motto is based on a line from Horace’s Third Ode, quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ("of what avail empty laws without [good] mores?") From 1756 to 1898, the motto read Sine Moribus Vanae. When a wag pointed out that the motto could be translated as "Loose women without morals," the university quickly changed the motto to literae sine moribus vanae ("Letters without morals are useless"). In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised, and as part of the redesign it was decided that the new motto "mutilated" Horace, and it was changed to its present wording, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae ("Laws without morals [are] useless")

i dragged the usual suspects (minus addy) to a nearby nonya place for lunch yesterday, to the tunes of the typical complaints. (cp: why don't we ever meet at junction 8 for lunch? me: you mean aside from the fact that there's no actual food there?) the restaurant is new, which meant it did not have jy's mom's stamp of approval, but we took our chances anyway. over-ordered, but only a little -- ayam buah keluak (strange...darker and more viscous than the traditional variety, but they were v. generous with the nuts), otak (good bite), fried nonya zhang, terung goreng (texture just right -- the skin is always tricky), babi pongteh and sweet potato leaves. and, a little unnecessarily, i felt, dessert after: pulot hitam and a weird banana-gula melaka thing which even su-lin wouldn't eat. it was a little pricey ($14), but we did order a lot, and they have cheaper set meals that i may go back for at some point.

Currently reading:
The Assualt - Harry Mulisch

of course island creamery has bandung ice cream, and it is v. good, though i must say that i do still prefer the version that walls used to make many years ago.

i really need to locate a church that says mass the pre vatican II way if not in latin, then at least using the gorgeous english translation on that page. i've mentioned some of my favourite lines, but look at how they used to read:

Into their [the saints'] company we implore You to admit us, not weighing our merits, but freely granting us pardon.

Let not the partaking of Thy Body, Lord Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but through Thy loving kindness, may it be to me a safeguard and a remedy for soul and body, Who with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, forever and ever. Amen.

May Thy Body, Lord, which I have eaten, and Thy Blood which I have drunk, cleave to my very soul, and grant that no trace of sin be found in me, whom these pure and holy mysteries have renewed: Thou, Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.

and everything else. this is too good for me, i would die in ecstasy in church if words like that had to come out of my mouth, and yet i must find it.

mostly for the brother (you lucky sod)

was co-opted to take part in today's saf day parade, which meant (a) going spelunking to retrieve my number four from deep storage and (b) triggering ptsd-esque flashbacks of those 2.333 apocalyptic years. the ceremony consisted of, (in approximate chronological order), bullshit, propoganda, and the most atonal rendition of majulah singapura ever. it did, however, remind me that i had a bunch of passages about, or associated with, the military and my time in NS that i've wanted to share with everyone for a while, so here they are:

this one's from catch-22. You can see immediately why I liked it:

“Clevinger was a troublemaker and a wise guy. Lieutenant Scheisskopf knew that Clevinger might cause even more trouble if he wasn’t watched. Yesterday it was the cadet officers; tomorrow it might be the world. Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times. Such men were dangerous, and even the new cadet officers whom Clevinger had helped into office were eager to give damning testimony against him. The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with.”

east of eden, steinbeck

“ You’ll go in soon now – you’ve come to the age”

“I don’t want to,” said Adam quickly.

“You’ll go in soon,” his father went on, not hearing. “And I want to tell you so you won’t be surprised. They’ll first strip off your clothes, but they’ll go deeper than that. They’ll shuck off any little dignity you have – you’ll lose what you think of as your decent right to live and to be let alone to live. They’ll make you live and eat and sleep and shit close to other men. And when they dress you up again you’ll not be able to tell yourself from the others. You can’t even wear a scrap or pin a note on your breast to say, “This is me – separate from the rest.”

“I don’t want to do it,” said Adam.

“After a while,” said Cyrus, “you’ll think no thought the others do not think. You’ll know no word the others can’t say. And you’ll do things because the others do them. You’ll feel the danger in any difference whatever – a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men.”

“What if I don’t?” Adam demanded.

“Yes,” said Cyrus, “sometimes that happens. Once in a while there is a man who won’t do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of this difference. They’ll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can’t finally give in, they’ll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside – neither part of themselves nor yet free. It’s better to fall in with them. They only do it to protect themselves. A thing so triumphantly illogical, so beautifully senseless as an army can’t allow a question to weaken it. Within itself, if you do not hold it up to other things for comparison and derision, you find slowly, surely, a reason and a logic and a kind of dreadful beauty. A man who cannot accept it is not a worse man always, and sometimes is a better man. Pay good heed to me for I have thought long about it. Some men there are who go down the dismal wrack of soldiering, surrender themselves, and become faceless. But these had not much face to start with. And maybe you’re like that. But there are others who go down, submerge in the common slough, and then rise more themselves than they were, because - because they have lost a littleness of vanity and have gained all the gold of the company and the regiment. If you can go down so low, you will be able to rise higher than you can conceive, and you will know a holy joy, a companionship almost like that of a heavenly company of angels. Then you will know the quality of men even if they are inarticulate. But until you have gone way down you can never know this.”

isaiah 2:4

Insofar as men are sinful, the threat of war hangs over them, and hang over them it will until the return of Christ. But insofar as men vanquish sin by a union of love, they will vanquish violence as well and make these words come true: “They shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.”

and finally, my mom sent me this passage from the sacred romance (curtis and eldredge) some time in 2000 (I think). it was exactly what i needed (thanks mom!):

“Life, said Woody Allen, is divided between the horrible and the miserable. A cynical assessment, perhaps, but if we're honest we'll have to admit our journey is hardly along the primrose path. Pretending that life is easier or more blessed than it really is hinders our ability to walk with God and share him with others. Faith is not the same thing as denial. Blessings come, to be sure. But they tend to be infrequent, unpredictable, and transient. In the day-to-day pattern of things, our journey is shaped more often by dragons and nits - crises that shake us to the core and persistent troubles that threaten to nag us to death. Dragons and nits: Are they tragic events and random inconveniences, or are they part of the plot through which God redeems our heart in very personal ways?”

i vaguely remembered reading somewhere that von had started blogging again, but it was only today that i investigated the rumours and found them to be true. this is excellent -- not just because i now have a way to waste an entire afternoon, but also because it gives me ammunition to use to persuade other people who have left the blogosphere to return. (jy: you're the first -- the threat of incarceration is no excuse.)

submission of my manuscript has been set back a few days because the boss decided at the last minute he wanted to send it to journal x instead of y -- this necessitated reformatting the abstract and figures, renumbering the references so that they appear in chronological as opposed to alphabetical order, as well as correcting a bunch of other fiddly miscellaneous details (why do journal editors want to know the highest degree conferred on the various authors of submitted papers? shouldn't they be judging the paper on its own merits, as opposed to introducing an unnecessary element of bias? i'm sure it's not because they grant leniency points to lowly educated people such as myself.)

i think i have reached the stage where i'm just heartily sick of this paper. in college i never had the patience to revise my work more than a couple of times, and now that i have to do it i find that i lack the discipline to comb through the manuscript weeding out tiny details that i've missed. i hope this doesn't mean that i'm not of the temperament to do research, because this would be quite a bad time to discover that.

i apologize for the infrequent updates -- i have been out of sorts and short of time. my head is fuzzy and i've been saying weird things at random times -- all signs, i think, that my brain senses a big change coming and is putting itself into a cocoon to brace for impact.

***

i probably didn't think about this the last time because i wasn't the person paying for anything, but applying for a U.S. visa is expensive. ouch.

***

to cp, i reassert: the moral high ground has nothing to do with it.

***

we have a visitor from MGH giving a training course downstairs for a week - which means the sleep team has been relegated upstairs into the tundra-like frigidity of the morphometry room. this is actually not as bad as it sounds - we are, at least, out of sight of our boss, which means i get to put my visa documents together in peace. (kc: if you are reading this i trust you won't tell ;) )

Currently reading:
The Wild Geese - Ogai Mori

more bsg

title theme:
"OM bhur bhuvah svah tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayat" (from a Hindu mantra, translated as: "May we attain that excellent glory of Savitri the Goddess / so May she stimulate our prayers.")

from Wiki

almost all the stuff that penn sends me is tailored for undergraduates. which is fair i suppose -- it doesn't make sense to make separate brochures when all the relevant information is in the undergraduate material -- the problem is that all the extras are indulgences and fun activities and nuggets of tlc. the message to grad students obviously being: now you are grown, time to put away childish things, get your ass into gear and do something useful for us, etc.

i have fallen madly in love with the battlestar galactica soundtrack, which now plays on itunes nonstop while i'm at work to shut out the voices of people i don't want to listen to. celtic and gaelic music has a special place in my heart, and pan pipes have been one of my favourite instruments since the days of pastime (with good company), which means that wander my friends (the lee-adama theme), is of course the track i like the most:

(original Gaelic)

Siulaigi a chairde, siulaidh liom
Mar cheo an tsleibhe uaine ag
imeacht go deo
D’ainneoin ar dtuirse leanfam an tsli
Thar chnoic is thar ghleannta
go deireadh na scrib’.

(English Translation)

Wander my friends, wander with me
Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally
Despite our weariness,
we’ll follow the road
Over hills and valleys
to the end of the journey

by the way

the new flavour is nutella, and it's amazing.

(via sms, re: Island Creamery)
me: every time i come here there's a new flavour
su-lin: stop gloating
me: su-lin, you can walk here from your house
su-lin: i could, but 33 doughnuts would be jealous

welcome home :)

nowhere to hide

i have discovered, to my immense horror, that

(a) in penn, students are asked to evaluate their TAs
(b) these ratings go up, not just in printed form, but on a website,
(c) with comments, and
(d) students are encouraged to select their classes based on these.

i don't think my ego can handle being crushed so badly.

food list (cont'd)

- margaret drive guo tie and suan la tang (of course)
- circular road lor mee
- haig road market oyster omelette
- maxwell market for the egg custard douhua thing (don't know what it's called) and superlative zha yu pian mi fen

england vs. paraguay with dukegabe and one of his friends, a Distinguished Stanford Alumnus. i've concluded that everyone who graduates from stanford shares a part of the same consciousness, so that at least a portion of all their actions is governed by the Mother Brain, or something. this particular DSA won some favour by having heard of bandura and zimbardo, and their work, unlike one other current student (who shall remain unnamed) who couldn't even point me to the psychology department.

as you know, the match was dull, and by the second half we found ourselves whipping out the rulers -- aka talking about our lives to date (it's so hard to disentangle the two things nowadays, isn't it? i need to meet more people who don't collect prizes like panini stickers. either that or we need a standardised way of scoring these things. +10 points for a psc scholarship, +2 points for graduating from rjc, +6 points for being under-14 windsurfing champion, +457 points for saving a village in a small african nation from the clutches of tyranny, etc. then we can paste the scores on our foreheads save simply barrels of time. how beauteous mankind is!) i know this all reeks of cynicism and jealousy, but that's exactly what this is not -- what i'm trying to say is that in our circle, all this generic stuff gets in the way of getting to actually know people. i hate all this mental adding-up of points, and even if neither person is doing it, there's always the secret fear that the other person is. you are not what you do!

anyway, this is why, privacy issues aside, DSA was DSA -- because he was, ironically, nearly indistinguishable in 2 hours from every other DSA i've ever met.

a letter arrived for me in the mail today from mindef: i've been posted to with all the attendant responsibilities of ict and mob manning and what have you. this is, of course, a cause for mourning, except...hang on a minute...oh yeah, SEEYA SUCKERS, YOU'RE TWO YEARS TOO LATE!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAH -- [gets escorted away by men in uniform]

i have been fussing over the figures in my paper for the better part of a week now - and this is after spending simply ages just getting everything in alignment and making sure the fonts aren't wonky and cursing microsoft powerpoint for being so bloody awful when it comes to rendering straight lines. i know that there comes a point where you just have to say that enough is enough and throw yourself at the mercy of the peer review process, but there is no doubt now that i'm trying to delay the inevitable moment. editing is a form of escapism - as long as you're still judging it yourself, other people have no right to judge you, because, well, i just hadn't caught that mistake yet. but time is running short, and this simply has to go out within the next week -- so i will work on it today, and maybe through the weekend, and then call it quits. and then someone will have to pick up my bullet-riddled body after people with phds and tenure have looked it through and informed me of what an absolutely stupid twit i am and how could i have even thought.

wasn't it only yesterday that i died?

for the overseas types who may not have seen this yet: the ad that's causing all the fuss. you know, considering the media restrictions we have in this country, nus really should not be allowed to masturbate on my television.

in tomorrow's news: a rain of frogs, and the rivers turn to blood.

1001 posts!

hmm.

other notes

in another notebook:

11/11/2000

Hosp. attachment
-> civ. to hops., then change. No boots!
-> report 5 minutes b4 time to A+E dept
-> Bring lunch

(c. Feb 2001)

Visiting hours: 12-2, 5-7
P-cases: no forks!
Pts. going out for lunch
-> only with parents, collect IC

(c. March 2001)

[a sketch of Maslow's hierarchy of needs]

i said a long time ago that i wasn't going to post about europe, and there was a very good reason for that, but i do want to say this one thing. i was clearing out some of my stuff just now, and i found the notebook i was keeping at the time, (sidebar: yen, i notice you did the same in cambodia -- i saw those pages unintentionally while i was doing the accounts. did not read anything, i swear), and on the 5th of June, 2004, in Beauvais airport, i had this to say:

...Feeling bloated and v. thirsty despite earlier rehydration efforts. $ talk - beware what set heart on. Airport - sketch. Waiting room = tent. Boarding soon

i wish i remembered that conversation more clearly.