Humour on a High

Writing reports was always such a hassle when I was in high school. Now that I’m in college, I can’t BS the way I regularly used to! But then, the stuff I study now requires more thinking than say, a random spiel on a 200-page coming-of-age book. Life used to be so simple before college: I had never seen a drunk person stumble around before falling down on concrete or heard people going at it next door. All night. It was like a freaking megaphone blast that night.

I found the following report that was supposed to analyze Oedipus on scribd.com Apparently the guy who wrote it was high. It is hilarious how blunt and bitter his mind is when on drugs :

Picturemania and The Happening

Weekend Photos

I went out the other day after a long stretch of not going anywhere but school, home, and work for a while! It was pretty exhilarating actually to be someplace with a whole herd of other people. I went to see The Happening with two other people. Although the film was received with mixed reviews, I would say it was well done. The only really annoying part of the film was the mandatory crying that happens in any disaster: it was visibly crocodile tears on this set, except for ones that came from the little kid. I know it sounds kind of cruel to say that I want to see real tears but it’s only expected (”real acting” is an oxymoron)! It was almost as if the character was thinking: I’m going to die alone now and I’m secretly happy but I have to pretend to be really, really sad!

That’s a little strange. Beyond that, it’s a sci-fi film with less fi than the sci. I’d recommend it for that reason alone. It has an element of the usual thriller flick in it too, punctuated by essential drama.

Has anyone noticed the hike in theatre ticket prices? It’s $10.00 now! I remember when film tickets were $5.00 and I’m not even old! I tried to use my student ID for a discount rate but apparently they’re only applicable on Thursdays. What students randomly go the the movies on a Thursday? (Don’t 18+ clubs also have college Thursdays too?) Thursday is the freakish work day before the pseudo-weekend on Friday — no one works on Friday. Why not do a Friday or a Saturday special!

After the movie, we basically hung around the mall, which is the platform for the film theatre. For 6 hours. We didn’t buy anything and entered the pet boutique to talk about Jon La Joie. We kept standing in the middle of the cramped front part of the store, though, so we decided to get out before someone elbowed us out!

I tried on at least 7 hats at Forever 21. It’s like high school when I’d try on ugly prom dresses and my friend would take pictures. I hope those photos are lost forever, since they’re technically blackmail now…

I don’t really know how to play piano.

That purple and yellow haired mannequins at Nordstrom were my inspirations. The brown haired one just looks like she was caught in an awkward moment.

*Shut up and drive, drive, drive*

I used to love Jaguars as a kid. Now I like many cars!

These and other images are on the About: Photos of Author, June 2008 SubPage.

A Tightly Coiled Pile

This story is about poop so be prepared for crassness!

There are very few things people can do to surprise me anymore, short of overt attention-whoring strategies that leave everyone in awe. From people I can’t ignore when they don’t shut up to people who are easily ignored as they stutter, there’s a wide range of personalities that warrant mockery and disdain. Someone, somewhere is probably laughing at me and you as well, right now.

It’s just that sometimes we get taken aback by behaviours from people we just did not expect in comparison to their usual outward “aura.” One of the most *gasp* moments from such a person was so very cringe-worthy, as the same situation happened not once, not twice, but three times.

In my school, we lived in dorm suites the first and second year: 4 people per suite and 1 bathroom per suite. In an earlier post, I had said that no one was on my shit list. I forgot about “Anne”, a suitmate some time ago. I think it’s only fitting that she be on my shit list as she is how I first thought of the colloquial term.

In one of my years at university, one of the girls in my suite committed a horrific act. The first two months in the suite, everything was fine and I got along well with my suitemates. The problems began in the third month, November, when I had just gotten back from class. I needed to use the bathroom since I had just gone through a 6 hour lecture marathon; I went into the suite bathroom and flicked on the light. It smelled a little strange in the bathroom at first but I automatically resolved this unsettling fact by telling myself that all dorm room bathrooms stink sometimes. Let’s face it, there were four girls using a bathroom: enough said. But spraying Lysol all over was not helping and in the one minute I was in the bathroom, I did actually just stand there and wonder if I had attained super-smelling powers. But no…

I stepped towards the toilet when I saw something terrible on the lime green bathroom mat. There sat a lump of poo, dark brown and completely gooey in texture. It looked clumpy as…shit…and steam was evaporating from the offending heap. I was petrified in mid step and wide eyed while I considered my options:

1. Ignore poo. Go back to room.

2. The poop is a figment of my imagination. I need to eat more regularly.

3. Am I on television?

4. Scream.

5. (a) scream and (b) call housing maintenance.

6. (a) scream and (b) call my mom.

7. Call police. There might be a murderer in the suite with a loose bowel.

8. Never use the bathroom again.

It was like this but steaming.

(Photo Link)

Against my better judgment, I left the poo where it was and left the suite to use the floor bathroom. Then I came back and closed the suite bathroom door. I took a piece of blank paper and taped it to the bathroom door with the words “Do not use bathroom. We need to talk.” and signed my name to it. I went to my room and did my physics problems set. Then around an hour from when I first entered the suite, my suitemates began the arrive back from class. After they all came back, I gathered them together and notified them that I had found poop on the floor. I asked them if any of their visitors had issues with their stomach or knew of anyone on our floor who used our bathroom — our room door was constantly open. Two suitemates looked very surprised and disgusted, but the third roommate (”Anne”) didn’t look especially surprised. Suffice it to say she looked very panicked. I didn’t suspect it was her but it seemed a little strange that she wasn’t as surprised as the rest of us were. Then I called maintenance and we explained to them that somehow there was poop in our bathroom and we didn’t know how it got there. Before the custodian came, the other two suitemates looked in the bathroom just out of curiosity. “Anna” seemed not to notice that much. After the custodians left, I took the bathroom mat (yes, it was personally owned and not provided by the school) and ended up cleaning it with lots and lots of detergent. When I was done, it looked pretty normal without any stains.

You would think that this would not repeat itself. But about a month after spring semester began, my other suitemate walked into the bathroom to find poop on the bathroom mat again. It was hastily scrubbed down this time; instead of a whole glop of loose poo, there was only the remains from the poo that had obviously wiped off in an attempt to clean the mat. Whoever had tried it, though, had done a very bad job as it had been just one swipe that left a smear of brown goo, like tire marks on soft mud. We talked to the other two suitemates (again) and my suspicion against “Anne” started to deepen. But it seemed so unlikely! Her dad was some corporate CEO in China or Hong Kong (I forget what city she came from) and she was insanely rich! Apparently she had a maid back home like the way royal women had ladies in waiting way back when. But still, why can’t she wipe crap (literally) in an effective fashion? Why do I always have to do it for her! I know it’s her!

normal crazy college behavior includes semi-strange bursts of being a spaz and offending the occasional innocent bystander.

(Photo Link)

In any case, no one said anything again and things went back to normal. For a while. Then in May, there was poo on the bathroom mat again! Again! This time I had about enough of this unnatural, impolite, and downright revolting habit. My bath mat had suffered enough.

I went to “Anne”’s room and demanded that she take responsibility for pooping on the bathroom floor THREE TIMES. She kept the door locked and didn’t make a sound but I knew she was in there. I have never called anyone a bitch but I came really, really close this time. I started feeling a wrath I never knew I could feel. I mean how do you miss a 12 inch hole right under you? Why does she always poop on the same spot all the time? If she has health issues, that is fine with me but why does she have to hide it –it’s not a ghost that’s crapping on that bath mat. She never opened the door to talk to me. At noon she left for class and left me in a bad state. When “Anna” came back, the RA had left a note on the door requesting whoever was “defecating” on the floor to please clean it themselves out of consideration for their suitemates. At 9 pm that day, I went to check the bathroom to see if “Anne” had cleaned it. What I found was a piece of paper on top of the pile of crap. Not just any paper, the RA’s note that had been on our suite door.

Have you ever felt the need to implode since exploding was socially stigmatized (another Asian thing)? have you ever felt like screaming and had a moment where your heart fluttered because you couldn’t? Have you ever felt that way while trying not to breathe in toxic fumes of hours old crap?

At some point, maintenance came to clean the bathroom and I asked them to please dispose of the bath mat. Better kill it now than make it suffer more later when finals made “Anne” spew. Maintenance said no, so I was forced to take it to the building dumpster myself. I would have burned her crap except feces is often used as a fossil fuel for burning; I didn’t want to be convicted of arson over my momentary rage.

A tightly coiled pile…

(Photo Link)

Today, my friends and I joke about that time when there was a tightly coiled pile on my bath mat. The Frito Lays corn spirals we used to buy all the time reminded us constantly of the girl who “shat and ran” (as quoted from someone who lived on the floor).

{shat [=] shit (past tense,v.) + sat}

Rebel Student

School is a necessary requirement for a lot of people to achieve what they want to do in life. The worst thing, besides god-awful lectures and textbooks without solutions manuals, is usually the exams. Sometime between when an exam begins and when it ends, I’ve gone through an order of (1) panic, (2) anxiousness, (3) impatience at whoever is handing out the papers, (4) a burst of mad adrenaline, and (5) fatigue as I put the pencil down. *sigh*

Minor projects and homework can be as frustrating, if not more, since they will be harder than an exam which relies on only your strength of learned skill.

I’ve never been so brave as to tell the system to talk to the hand, but sometimes I wish I could:

1. Kids who are jaded.

2. People who have too much common sense

3. Learning that senior year is all about taking advantage of the fact that you already got into the college you want.  The below image is from a high school freshman, though, since geometry is a first year math.  That person is/was screwed.

4. Finding that math is doesn’t stand for the BS (imagination…pfff) inherent in writing subjects

5. When a hard problem gets too hard, take the easy way out. Preferably so you never have another hard problem again.

6. We all know history was biased anyways.

7. When it works the first time, do it again.

All images are from Scribd.com. Not sure of exact url anymore…

The Sound of a Language

People often say that it gets harder to learn new languages after a child passes 5 years of age. Why is that? Do we get more stupid as we age? Are our brains just not as quick? Is that just a euphemism for the prior statement implying that we’re more stupid now than ever before?

Cognitive scientists think that it’s not exactly this lack of more brain cells that mainly determines this phenomenon. It goes back to how language is perfected by an individual in the first place. As children, there tends to be a time where we take in all sorts of sounds from our surroundings that we know nothing about. Over time, we begin to distinguish one sound from another. For example, when do we differentiate a /d/ sound from a /t/ sound? To better understand:

1. sound out a /d/, with your tongue as far back on your palate as possible

2. repeat step one, but progressively move your tongue towards the opening of your mouth

Can you hear when your /d/ sound becomes a /t/ sound? /d/ and /t/ sounds are a certain example of paired voiced/unvoiced vocals called a stop, where we completely withold air and then suddenly release that air. Other paired vocals include /z/&/s/, /b/&/p/, /l/&/r/, etc.

It’s not as useful to think about learning a language simply as the addition of knowledge per se (ie learning words, verbs, nouns, etc). It can also be characterized as the loss of distracting information. When we do not know the language, we do not understand the nuances in tone and sound or how to form them. Progressive mastery of a language increases as we find the relative boundaries between sounds.

In different languages, these boundaries may shift or not depending on the use within both languages. For example, have you ever noticed that many Japanese speakers have trouble pronouncing words with /l/ correctly? Instead of “library”, it may sound like “rhibrary”. This might be explained by the fact that Japanese has no character equivalent to /l/. In saying words like “sayonara” and “arigato”, they do not extend the tongue further than mid-palate to form the /r/ sound. After a time, this l-r boundary will be lost; they cannot recognize how to form the /l/ as different from /r/.

In most cases, it is more difficult to learn a sound (or how to form it) if the first language had a substitution — like native Japanese speakers compared to English — or a vocal similar to that sound. It is easier to learn sound distinctions if there is no instance of the new sound in the previous language — like the Khoisan language of some indigenous African tribes as compared to English.

As time passes and people become fluent in their languages, it becomes harder to introduce a new language that challenges the vocal phonological vocal boundaries that define their original language. But it’s not impossible; you must study for much longer to arrive at a point where a child could more quickly reach.

Tommy V2.0

Tommyv2.com isn’t really a blog but it’s not really a that far from the point of a blog either. Tommy V2 is some guy in Canada — yes, basically America without the gun-crazed people shooting people and trees (”I thought it was a deer…really”). I’m still not sure whether he is Canadian or not, by virtue of immigration from some eastern European country. I guess you could attribute his sharpness to being (a) some 20-something guy or (b) a European. I don’t see any turtlenecks, though, so at least he’s not that kind of European. From written articles and a spoken recording, he offers blunt opinions about stuff from road trip sightings & other people’s inferiority to nerd-dom & technology. And your mom’s mom. Yes, he will go there.

I first stumbled on the site ~ a year ago but I was less apt to be online then. He claims to be misogynistic but he’s got nothing on Roissy. That’s not to say he is totally a “beta.” To someone without any sense of humour, his musings on girls and magnitude of his ego will be off putting. But Tommy V2 probably doesn’t care about people who can’t laugh at themselves. That’s part of what makes his words so appealing: half of me can’t take him seriously but the other half realizes he’s on to something in his rawness.

I forever associate McDonald’s with him.

(Photo Link)

Most people have two types of friends: the kind you love to be around and the kind that you basically put up with. Tommy V2 is the latter. He’s the type of person that that you can’t stay away from because he says exactly what everyone is thinking. I’m just waiting to hear what’s going to come out of his mouth next.

“Never Again”

It was what the world said after discovering the horrors of Rwanda, where genocide and torture had invaded the lives of the common people. But Rwanda is not a closed event, its teachings are applicable to the present situation in Darfur, Sudan where millions of people are suffering from violent attacks on their person and communities every day. In spring 2006, I heard of the Save Darfur rally in Washington DC. I did not know about the situation in the area then, only that there was a civil war crisis reminiscent of the Rwandan Conflict in 1993. Recently, I’ve begun to hear increasing numbers of accounts regarding the terror in Darfur and the complex issues of ethnicity, climate, domestic politics, and international relations that surround the Darfur Conflict.

The fighting in Darfur consists mostly between two groups:
•militias of janjaweed, Muslim followers who are of the arab-nubian descended Baggara tribe nomads from northern Sudan. Famine and sudden climate change in northern Sudan have caused many nomadic people to immigrate south towards Darfur.
•non-Arab/ non-Muslim rebels mostly of the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massalit ethnic farming groups from southern Darfur. The Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement are two groups most notably associated with the non-Arab resistance.

Refugee Camp in Darfur
(Photo Link)

A history of violence between the non-Arab Sudanese, who claim “that the black residents of the region had been neglected by the Muslim central government” (New York Times) and the apparently governmentally favoured Arab descended Muslim population has occurred since the 1980’s. People from both demographics take part in violent bands against the other; villagers and nomads of both people are not inherently indocrinated into the crimes committed against the other as a part of their culture. Political instability and the prevalence of poverty have caused much dissatisfaction in the country. Violence has escalated as a result of increasing weapons availability. China has declared no breach of UN sanctions on the limitation of arms sold to Sudan but China and Russia, to a much lesser extent, were major sellers of weapons to the Sudanese government in 2005, as well as other countries in the middle eastern region. The influx of weapons to non-governmental forces by the Sudan government is evidenced by photographic surveillance that depicts arms being sent to the Darfur region, which violated a UN ban. (BBC News)

In 2003, non-Arab rebels attacked a military base of the Sudanese government for giving preference to the Muslim population while subordinating the black non-Arab people; the government was also seen as ignoring the welfare of Darfur. The Sudanese government tried to quell the rebel forces by organizing a force of the Sudanese military and calling additional manpower of the janjaweed. The janjaweed have been implicated in mass criminal attacks against the non-Arab civilian population of Darfur and non-Arab fighters have fought back accordingly. In 2004, the African Union began diplomatic attempts to end fighting between the janjaweed and the rebel groups. The UN supported the African Union, stated that Sudan was undergoing a time of extreme danger for its people. The African Union endeavour culminated in a ceasefire agreement despite pan-African military presence. The 2004 US identification of Darfur violence as genocide led a subsequent 2005 UN in-depth investigation into the Darfur conflict. The UN found serious atrocities in Sudan by the government of Sudan (which was ordered to desist military action against non-Arab resistance groups), the janjaweed, and rebel fighters against the people of Sudan. In 2006, the African Union allowed the UN to take over major diplomatic mediation. In May of 2006, the Darfur Peace Agreement was accepted by the Sudan government and a major rebel group, which would greatly increase UN presence in Darfur to protect civilians and humanitarian aid workers. In 2007, the UN and the African Union instated a UN-AU Mission in Darfur that would work to further foreign protection for Sudanese civilians and aid workers. The Sudanese government has since obstructed peacekeeping intervention through the Darfur Peace Agreement and UN-AU Mission in Darfur through aid supply and implementation interruptions.
(Eyes on Darfur)

Colin Powell as Secretary of State in 2004 at the UN
(Photo Link)

The United States has declared the Darfurian conflict to include genocide due to the definition of the opposing sides by a split ethnic composition. The atrocities in Darfur have documented the rape and murder of the non-Arabs and the razing of their villages by janaweed militias. Major human right violations have been reported, especially against women and children (The Washington Post). Aerial bombardment of non-Arab villages, as well as attacks on land have terrorized the Darfurian people (Medecins Sans Frontieres). In an effort to escape the violence, villagers have fled to neighboring Chad, which shares a border with Sudan that is largely unmarked. In this way, the fighting has spilled over from a Sudanese concern to one of international affects. The Chadian border with Sudan has been fortified with troops but there are attacks against non-Arab/non-Muslim Chadian civilians by the janjaweed, as in Sudan. The immigration of Darfurians into Chad has placed a danger in Chad that defies the Sudan government’s characterization of the Darfur Conflict as a domestic Sudanese issue. “While the Government of Sudan ‘has not pursued a policy of genocide’ ” as the UN has stated that the intent to harm non-Arabs, by the Arab-descent janjaweed, specifically for their ethnicity has not been proven. But the Sudan government “was implicated [in a 2005 release by the UN Commission of Inquiry] in numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity” (Eyes on Darfur). The government of Sudan so far has denied supporting the janjaweed violence but have also not been effectively receptive to foreign efforts to intercede. However, “the Sudanese government has so far rejected…a United Nations resolution that would establish a large peacekeeping force in Darfur to protect civilians” (National Geographic). The Sudanese government claims that the Darfurian conflict has been “overblown”, such as reportings of 400,000 casualties by moral organizations like Save Darfur. But whether 200,000 people or 400,000 people have died since the conflict began does not change the status of the situation in Darfur as a crisis which requires immediate assistance.

Destroyed Sudanese Villages
(Photo Link)

Years of negotiations and peace talks have been held, so why hasn’t peace arrived in Darfur?
In the UN, China has been the most notable supporter of the Sudanese government in Khartoum. China has petroleum oil interest in Sudan, which supplies China with 25% of its oil (Asia Times) for its commercial industries. China’s policy of noninterference, as it relates to Darfur, evaluates human rights as relative for any given country. China has been denigrated in the international realm for this policy, as well as its visible financial motivation to support the Sudan government, which has been largely inactive in ameliorating the Darfur conflict. The 2008 Olympics was seen as an opportunity for post-Tienanmen square China to illustrate its new modernity and relevance as a world power. Protests regarding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China as the “Genocide Olympics”, comparable to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by critics worldwide demonstrate that China’s participation in hindering UN goals in Darfur will result in consequences and has not gone unnoticed (Christian Science Monitor).

Comparison of 2008 Olympics to 1936
(Photo Link)

The West has so far been unsuccessful in bringing peace to Darfur. It’s not that attempts have not been made to diplomatically call for ceasefires and accords or placements of troops on the ground; there is, though, a lack of willingness to actively engage militarily in the region. So far, the world has seen the results of neglecting civil in foreign nations like Rwanda. However, there is still the obstacle of motivation that prevents the West from acting in a manner that brings results. Partially, this is due to US-China relations that are integral to US economy. Also, the US does not have a great direct financial interest in the region of Sudan. Peace in Sudan is not unwanted by the West; it is simply less enthusiastically pursued than it could be.

There have been well over 200,000 civilian casualties in Darfur since 2003. In 2006, the UN believed about 200,000 had died in the Darfur conflict.
Over 2,500,000 Sudanese have been displaced from their homes. Most have fled to Chad or live in refugee camps (New York Times, Eyes on Darfur)

Letting Darfur fade into the background is not an option.

Knowledge is power: learn more about Darfur

http://www.eyesondarfur.org/index.html
Overall Analysis of the situation and involved people through time
http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes
Blog and news about Darfur, learn about how to get involved locally
http://www.24hoursfordarfur.org/
Video documenting the area and testimonies from public figures, send your own video reaction
http://darfur.unfpa.org/jon_darfur/?gclid=CPOG37rF75MCFQwaHgodSl8qVg
Image exhibit
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/04/10/google.genocide/index.html
Use Google earth to map Darfur
http://www.darfurinformation.com/
European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council in-depth analysis

Taste Aversion

In Asia, fruits are a valued food because it is perishable and can be scarce. When people have money, they put a lot of different types of fruit in a giant bowl. It’s hard to find fresh fruit in most non-first world nations there as effective refrigeration is not as common and planted goods themselves tend to be organic. That said, the United States has little problem producing and preserving ripe fruit for the grocery store consumer.

I like most fruits a lot –> cherries, strawberries, mango, apples (most of the time), pomegranate, grapes, oranges, grapefruit, lychee, etc.

But I absolutely do not like bananas. It’s pretty much a classically conditioned taste aversion more than anything else. Most kids have no problem with them and sometimes they are supposed to be dessert items (ie banana split sundae). But until recently, I really couldn’t stand to have them at all. Not even in yogurt flavours.

Halfway through middle school and for about 3 quarters of high school, I was frequently late for school. Either it was not waking up to the alarm (which was on at about a weak 65 dB) or being slow to brush my teeth. Usually for breakfast, I used to eat cold cereal with milk. But on days when I was late, one of my parents (whoever was home that day) would have to drive me to school, unnecessarily breaking all the speed limits along the way. That’s pretty much a maximum of 50 MPH off the highway and 60 MPH on the main highway. My parents are extremely into the clean car thing so I wasn’t allowed to eat cereal in the car (I spill stuff). So I’d have a glass of warm milk and a banana for breakfast. Racing down the road at 80 MPH while I’m gulping down warm milk is enough to make me want to hurl but the banana addition made it so much worse. It’s slipping and sliding on the milk while also being smooshy itself; I developed a fear that I was going to choke on a bite of it one day and no one could do the heimlich! Why? Because I needed to freaking make it to school!

When I get desperately hungry and a banana is just there, I just eat it now. The slightly starchy taste doesn’t even bother me that much anymore. Mostly.

It’s just that when I saw a banana and milk juice drink in the Asian market, I thought,”Why?”

Shit Listed

I really hate coffee, as anyone who has known me for even a little while can tell you. It’s usually bitter and contains too much caffeine for my comfort; it also is linked to making people shorter. I have a big thing with height and the coffee thing has only aggravated my attention to it. It’s actually really hard to judge height when you’re the one who is shorter. You tend to keep looking up but you can’t quite tell how much taller people are. You just know they are taller by more or less than the last person. When you’re taller than the second person, you notice their shortness immediately. In fact, they’ll probably end up looking smaller to you than they really are. Standing next to tall people always makes me uncomfortable because of this whole comparison people do. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are taller than me, if just by a little. I compromise with my Napoleon Complex. Is that such a crime? It’s entirely justified!

Tall people aren’t really on my shit list, though. Only if they keep calling attention to me being a relative munchkin :/

freshman year (”Please don’t drop the tiramisu on me”) Note that the shirt does not say “Bitch.” It says “Busch Gardens.” People always seem to misread that…

This is also the look I give cocky tall people, complete with tilted head and furrowed brow.

I’m not even sure how my shit list evolved, but there wasn’t one before high school. Even during high school I was basically oblivious to the social machine. Now that I’m in college, I’m more aware, but I can’t say I fully understand all this social group interaction crap. I didn’t have an emotional memory at all as a kid. I remember not understanding when kids at school said something mean. Probably because I was just learning English at the time! I never really reacted, even internally, to things kids would say. Maybe that’s good; at some point, every kid is made fun of in the playground, classroom, park, etc. But yeah, I only realized what they meant years afterwards, when I’d randomly remember something from forever ago. Kids can be cruel but not eloquently so, until they reach and age with double digits.

There was this one kid in third grade who told me that I always looked sad because the corners of my lips were always turned down. He pulled down the corners of his lips to demonstrate because I was giving him this blank look like I couldn’t hear him. I felt like laughing because his face looked stupid but my face wasn’t responding. Maybe it was my child brain’s way of thinking, “WTF?” But that is right. The corners of my mouth are turned down slightly! I never noticed that before. Now when I catch it in the mirror I can’t stop from smiling a little because it is odd.

I think the problem was that I never smiled in photos before college.

It still takes a lot to get on my shit list. Not even if you put a (unused) condom on my door knob like someone did on my floor freshman year. I turned it to get out of the suite and this sticky ooze is all over my hand. Sticky ooze??? I didn’t even know what it was; the plastic was stretched to the limit over the metal. Hopkins has a habit of keeping all its dorm floors amply supplied in a huge envelope on the main bulletin board. They usually come in different colours and flavours but so far I’ve seen a packet of “special” ones every now and again. I am betting it was clean. I am praying it was clean. But to this day, I really don’t know.

The most embarrassing moment so far with condoms involves the first day of move-in, freshman year. I am forever collecting and using alcohol wipes to clean stuff. My dad wanted to help me so he saw a bunch of alcohol wipes just sitting in a bowl on a table in the lounge area. He took a bunch of them and came to my suite door and puts them in my hand telling me, “Here, you’ll need these.” At the same time, a guy in the adjacent suite opens his door to watch my dad giving me all these individual packages of colourful squares. What my dad didn’t know is that those packets weren’t alcohol wipes, but condoms. I could not even look at the kid standing in the other doorway. It got really silent in the hallway for a second before I told my dad that those are not alcohol wipes.

They might both be square but please read the label.

Embarrassing me doesn’t necessarily get you on my shit list. You have to be downright evil like coffee. Give me a high and reliably bring me even lower; then we’ll talk.

Stupid People on Television

On hot days when there’s no work to be done at work, I watch TV with (or without) patients. Today’s not hot or even slightly warm. But it’s still a day when there is absolutely no work. I always end up watching whatever the patient is watching. I no longer know when and what there is to watch on TV anymore, besides the Simpsons and SNL. This usually means a barrage of stories about women who are really really pregnant and aren’t happy about it (I am a strong supporter of sex ed so teenagers can avoid this level of ignorance. They can make other mistakes but being randomly and inconveniently a baby-maker creates problems.)

If you let your kid get this fat then you deserve to get diabetes. You are killing your child and making him/her look like the Michelin Man along the way.

(Photo Link 1) (Photo Link 2)

Or they’re happy about it but mad at the guy for running away. Or don’t know who the guy is. These baby daddy stories are kind of entertaining in their own way, surprisingly more so when the crowd starts screaming “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” and someone gets slapped with a catfish.

It’s not just dysfunctional families or dysfunctional systems, but dysfunctional people:

Host: “What is your problem?”
Guest: “I’m pregnant Maury!”
Host: “Oh that’s a cute baby. So who’s the lucky guy?”
Guest: “I don’t know…” *starts crying*
Host: *hands girl a tissue*
“<Guest> thinks that the father of this baby could be this guy…” *points to dude1*
“or this guy” *points to dude2*
“or this guy” *points to dude3*

•

•

•

“or this guy” *points to dude30/some crazy number*
Guest: “I think I have AIDS now too!” *sniff sniff*

It’s obvious this guest would have had lots of problems before the ones that made her go on national TV to air her dirty laundry. I almost feel like saying this person was asking to get kicked in the face by life. The kind of kick that surgery can’t fix but maybe make worse. How are these people still alive?

Obviously this baby is not his. But he needs to be sure. This is a classic case of denial of pwnage.

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There was this one story where a husband was incarcerated for a year and the wife was propositioned by her brother-in-law. She says she accepted the proposition to support her child (by her husband). The whole time I’m wondering why she doesn’t just go to work? The dude was paying her $300/week the first time then $100/wk thereafter. The minimum wage in MD is $6.15/hr. (Maryland Division of Labor and Industry) If the woman worked 49 hours a week (~10 hrs/day for 5 days), she’d make over $300/week before taxes. If she even has to pay taxes, she might have to work two jobs, but there’s no easy way out of making a living while keeping your dignity. Apparently her husband was not told that she was sleeping with his brother until after he was released from prison. He decides to stay with her anyway (it’s kind of his fault she had to prostitute herself) so at least that part is kind of…cute…I think…

They exchange “Babayy ah luhv yuhhh” and then major smooching in between.

The complication is when the brother-in-law is trying to seduce the wife into staying with him, even though she was obviously using the opportunistic scumbag. And then the haggard mother-in-law (mother of the husband and brother-in-law) gets involved and all hell breaks loose: The catfish starts being slapped in faced and dunked into the front of sundresses. Poor catfish doesn’t get rest even after it’s dead. It’d do better on someone’s plate.

Kill me now…

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All this time, the brother-in-law and husband are tethered to opposite sides of the stage by a wire collar. the brothers are also shirtless. Slut-wife is wearing a sundress that doesn’t quite cover all the necessary spots. The mother-in-law looks exactly like how meddling old ladies should look: frizzy gray hair pointing in a lot of directions and stretchy long skirt that bounces with her fat atop a huge umbrella-like shirt (eg. modern day witch) . I’m not fashion-crazed but there are just some things you should never wear, never mind on national TV. I had to apply the stereotypes when one woman is falling out of her clothes and one is swimming in it; one man is disgusting (incest + lard body = NO) and one has no idea that maybe he should have made sure his wife would be okay while he is in prison (Why is he in prison? Stop stealing things and beating people.).

The mother-in-law throws out the husband and wife (who were living with her with their child beforehand) but says her grandchild is staying with her. What? She’s not a legal guardian! Why do the parents feel the mother needs to be argued with? The husband shows his momma’s boy side by stating that he’s “got to stay with his mother” but backtracking when his mother tells him he’s ‘gone’. Real gangsta behavior there — I thought people went to jail to build up a street rep?

Are real people this stupid or is this staged? How could they make this shit up?

High Heeled Horror

High heels aren’t a big part of my internship environment (healthcare). It’s more populated by ugly soft brown leather flats than sky high boosting stilettos that keep a girl on her tippy toes. In fact, I’m unsure how to wear high heels. Where am I supposed to put the pressure of my body weight? The heel or the toes? It’s insanely hard to keep all the weight evenly distributed as in normal shoes because that would entail increasing pressure surrounding the foot.

That dog is my foot

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I guess its comparable to the huge pressure you can experience under many meters of ocean. Of course, there’s also the similarity of “the bends” after you come out of this high pressure area, not unlike the sickening agony you feel when removing said high heels after many hours. Your foot veins will be all poppy and throbbing…

I’m not even sure who thought of the masochistic product but every female in a culture where high heels exist will, at some point, fall victim to this torture machine. No matter how much cushion surrounds the foot, you still feel like an organ in your body is slowly being liquefied as you stand. Sometimes it’s the toes that feel numbed and simultaneously slammed by a sledgehammer. Other times, it’s the heel area that keeps rubbing against the back heel (if it’s a pump type). This feels like a rug burn! And if the shoe material sucks or the engineering did not compensate for a human, not a metal cyborg foot, wearing the thing, then the rug burn will morph into a full on skinned heel in a very short amount of time. And each step you take means you rub another layer of dermis off. Oh it gets bloody indeed.

It hurts me, I hurt you

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I once wore a pair of those cork heeled espadrilles that don’t bend in mid step. On carpet, it’s alright because the density of the floor returned the force that my foot was stepping with. On linoleum, tar (road), and concrete, and non-soft grassy areas, the cork heel basically acted as a flat foot. Slap slap slap it goes down the hall while the back heel does not conform to the arch of my foot. Rubbing my heel and skinning it with its canvas material. I swear there is blood on that heel part; I’m just lucky it’s a black shoe. At least it didn’t look like random stigmata (at a glance).

these were only 1.5″ (maybe) but the heel part was evilly stiff

I’d say the highest heels I’ve ever had to deal with were 3.5″ Granted, they weren’t quite stilettos — not the type of blade-like heel that will impale someone behind the very angry wearer of the shoe. It was still hell, but it was prom. They were the perfect looking shoes ever but I could hardly walk! The look was kind of ethereal so it must have served to look like those cool slow motion movies ( a good thing) but because I was afraid I’d trip and break my ankle (a bad thing). My only way out of literally sitting around was to take the shoes off and go barefoot on the dance floor.

My current solution to going someplace where demon heels are part of the outfit is to wear flats to the destination (if possible). Only when I get there do I change into the heels and totter around the best I can.

Deciding on a New Camera

I’m considering getting a new camera to replace my current digital camera. I’m just looking for the right one at this point, but I think I’ve found one I like! I bought my Nikon Coolpix S3 in Winter 2005, when it was basically cutting edge technology. Mine was in this sparkly cream white and it looked rather awesome. Today, it’s not even on the Nikon USA page, obsolete in regards to newer models.

Nikon Coolpix S3, my current camera

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I am thinking of getting another Nikon camera because I am pleased with the quality of the S3. It’s also pretty slim and compact — easy to handle. It has a lot of scene/capture options and basically does a good job. I looked at some Cannon cameras, which are also good. The only issue I have with Cannon is that their cameras require 4 AA batteries. These batteries can be regular alkaline or rechargeable NiMH batteries. Even though Nikon’s LI-ion battery needs to be recharged through adapter/charger, I’m biased against cameras where I have to keep on taking out stuff! Also, good Cannon cameras seem sort of aesthetically complicated. I usually like clean lines and simple buttons –> Nikon pwns most other companies here.

I am looking at the Nikon Coolpix S600, which is in the same product line as the S3, as a possibility.

Nikon Coolpix S600

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The only complaint I have against the S600 is that it’s only available in slate black. I like black gadgets, but I was converted form the dark side by my S3 which was uber cool like a summer day. This brushed black metal look is good in its own way, but shouldn’t there be more options?

Comparing the Nikon Coolpix

Fair Freebies

Spring job and internship fairs are a staple of college life; I always go to most of the big ones on campus. At first it used to be so that I could actually become acquainted with the hiring process and find employment — or at least just get my resume out there. Slowly I started accumulating a lot of stuff from these fairs though. It’s pretty much the main reason I go to them now! From flimsy umbrellas to the usual pen, job fairs offer a lot of office supplies that can be useful (or not). They even began to give out more CD holders, except now I don’t buy CD’s. I also go to the random school orientations, especially if I’m a student who’s actually supposed to be attending that one.

Most of my highlighters are from job fairs. I’ve got them in every colour and in a variety of sizes. What’s with the pocket sized highlighters? I never carry them around with me. Unfortunately, free highlighters never seem to work for very long, if they ever work at all.

I have a crapload of pens from job fairs! It’s gotten to the point where I have run out of cupholders to put them in. I’ve resorted to Ghirardelli chocolate tins and foam soda coolers (left) also from a fair. Some of these pens are just hot (right). I have more drug pens of anyone I know, although that might be due to association at work. Things get awkward sometimes, like when I was laughed at by a guy in class for using Viagra pens.

I get a lot of hand sanitizers but I had to start laying off them when my hands started getting dry from all the alcohol. I plan on doubling them as bug spray.

Orientation week always has strangely cool stuff.

brain eraser from the Psych Dept and stress reliever globe from the Earth and Planetary Sci Dept. JHU gives out a lot of stress balls.

I Recognize that Stranger!

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Gullible Enablers