Packy's Book of Days

Enya VI (for reals)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:05:14 GMT

Well this is about three years late, but I really haven't had the inclination to write a full review of Amarantine until now. Of course, there's now an Enya VII, which I'll get to soon-ish as well.

Amarantine (2005)

Less Than A Pearl
Amarantine (album version)
It's in the Rain
If I Could Be Where You Are
The River Sings
Long Long Journey
Sumiregusa
Someone Said Goodbye
A Moment Lost
Drifting
Amid the Falling Snow
Water Shows the Hidden Heart

3:44
3:12
4:08
4:00
2:49
3:17
4:42
4:02
3:08
4:11
3:38
4:39

As a devoted Enya fan, I knew this album would be different from note one. The opening 'ahhh' awash in reverb sets the tone for all the tracks here. The first track is not an instrumental, and it's not the title track, both of which have always been the case previously. Less Than A Pearl starts off soft and gentle, but the bulk of the song is quite severe sounding. It's also sung in Loxian, the language Roma invented during the production of this album.

I really like the lyrics for this song, few as they may be. 'Our words journey to find those who will listen....Less than a pearl in a sea of stars'. Right away, I notice two things about Loxian. It comes across as a language purely created for song, which Roma confirms - the syllables conveniently rhyme at the end of every line. Secondly, it's very onomatopoetic - the chorus of 'hai haaaa' translates as 'we call out into the distance'. The song ends in a super long reverb, which is used often on the album. Overall, the opening track sets the mood well for the rest of the album, both in terms of musical style, lyrical content, and linguistic versatility.

Amarantine (the song) is essentially Only Time part 2 - pizzicato strings, same tempo, about love. Except this song is maybe what you'd sing after you've found love. This song also portends what the rest of the album holds. To wit, borderline sappy lyrics about love that could have come from a teenager. I echo the sentiments of another reviewer - this song is gorgeous but lyrically embarrassing. It's definitely on the borderline of being too cheesy, but not as bad as some later songs. I like the dramatic chorus that keeps getting higher, but have mixed feelings about the huge reverb at the end. You can still hear it almost halfway into the next verse! That also speaks to the vocally sparse (by Enya standards) nature of the song, and the album in general (more on that later). Even though the song feels unfinished, I still really enjoy it. When I find my next love I want to serenade him with it.

It's in the Rain uses the same 1-4-5 progression found in countless other Enya tracks, including the one immediately preceding it. Again, it feels very vocally spare - not much backing vocals, and the lead vocal is very up front and center. The instrumentation is also pretty bare. My first impression three years ago - the dramatic chorus reminds me of early Enya (Orinoco Flow). It's nice to hear little snippets that take you back. The bridge is pretty, but the chords are all too familiar and there are no words in it.

For most songs, there is one part where I feel it all just comes together and works. In It's in the Rain, that 'moment' is right as verse 2 goes into the chorus. That 2nd chorus is like the 'best' part of the song for me. In the next song, If I Could Be Where You Are, it's that last chorus. So by now the theme of album is definitely sinking in. It's about love! Love is love is love. When composing love songs, it's hard to write lyrics that are poignant but not sappy; this song and the title track skirt the line.

The River Sings is the 'intense' track of the album, and the second of three Loxian songs. It has a tribal feel; there's the drone in C major; it feels Ebudae-esque (from Shepherd Moons), but with almost a techno/dance beat. There's some nice vocal layering here, but it's not the huge vocal landscape we've heard before. I like this track because it's loud but not brooding (unlike the dark Latin tracks), and also because the lyrics continue the theme of journey begun in Less Than A Pearl.

Long Long Journey? What's with some of these track titles? Anyway. I do like how this love song takes a different angle, that of a soldier's journey home. I don't really like how aside from the bridge, the entire song is three chords over and over again. There's that snare drum again. Personally, this song seems more loud than anything else.

A song in Japanese!! すばらしい！ Sumiregusa (菫草) is a song about the beauty of nature. Admittedly a slow melody, Eithne says that they thought Japanese would suit the song well, and it does. Plus, her accent is pretty decent. I really like this song, even the 'water sprinkler' vocalization after the third verse. Listen to it with headphones and hear it move around - it's really neat.

Someone Said Goodbye...cheesy cheesy cheesy, from the title to the lyrics. The instrumentation is actually interesting (the 'rolling' piano, the pizzicato, the cymbals), but paired with just bad lyrics, it's hard for me to enjoy the album version of this song. 'Is there a reason why a broken heart begins to cry'?? Give me a break. They actually made a remix for radio play which I like much better because it makes the lyrics less prominent. They added a drum pad and some other good stuff. The bridge is actually kind of novel too.

Ah, we've arrived. It's time for the folk song around the 3/4 mark, just like in the last two albums (Pilgrim on ADWR, Once You Had Gold in TMOT). And on this album it's A Moment Lost. Seriously, these lyrics need to stop. Okay, they're not that bad, but they're all so focused on love. The only breaks have been the non-English tracks. On the plus side, the opening vocal layers remind me of Clannad. They're nicely done.

The only instrumental track is Drifting, and for some reason it's buried down at track 10. I find this track a bit too repetitive - it could have done with one fewer 'verse' at the end. I like the bridge a lot though, and the piano and cello are an interesting combo. It sounds like an electric cello actually, as it's too real-sounding to be synthesized, but too fake-sounding to be acoustic.

Amid the Falling Snow is another nature-themed song that meshes nicely with the love theme. There's more piano/cello here, which is good to me - it's nice that they're trying new instrumentation. This song is quite reminiscent of One By One in terms of chord progression and key signature. I like how low Eithne sings here. I do wish they would stop with the cutesy rhyme schemes. I feel it limits the scope of the lyrics and makes the song sound simplistic. One thing I love here is the vocal layering towards the end, from the third verse onward. In the second chorus, one of the layers sounds like falling snow to me (the high 'ahhs' that seem to fade in and out). It's very effective, and the 'hoo's and 'haa's are neat too. The 'moment' for me in this song is the vocalization at the end. Although it's just a 1-4-5 four times, it sums up the song well for me.

The Loxian closing track shows us a nice variety in the Loxian songs. The lyrics also sum up the major themes of the album - love and journey. I find Water Shows the Hidden Heart (Syoom brraaya) quite beautiful, with some amazing harmonies. The vocals in the bridge are breathtaking. For some reason the quivering voice reminds me of the town music in Zelda 2: Adventure of Link... This is another great closer.

Overall, I find Amarantine (the album) to be more experimental than usual, in terms of language, vocals, and lyrical content. Linguistically, in place of the usual Latin and Gaelic tracks, there's a Japanese song and three in a fictional language called Loxian, which incidentally was inspired by working on Lord of the Rings. The lead vocals in most of these songs are more front and center, with much fewer backing vocals. And this is the first album to be so focused on dealing with love. Some of the experimentation works, and some not as much. One of the weaker aspects of this album is the lyrics. All the lyrics have some rhyme scheme, and it sounds too matchy-match and almost juvenile in some parts. And of course, there's a high cheese factor in half the lyrics here. I think it says something when the Loxian songs sound better in part because you don't know what she's singing. It's obvious the album is about LOVE, but I think they could have tapped into the journey aspect of love just a bit more, to balance out the sappier songs. That said, I do enjoy several of the songs on Amarantine, including the title track, as cheesy as it may be.

a midwinter night's dream

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:49:09 GMT

Happy belated holidays! I spent my break moving to a new place in the SC. I would have preferred to stay where I was, but things didn't work out that way. Ah well, I like my new place enough.

So the last time I posted I wasn't sure if I would be a TA at half- or full-time. Well it turns out that I ended up getting what I wanted - I only needed to go through 2 weeks of craziness to get it. This quarter I'm TAing full time for one class, which is taught by my former advisor. This is great for many reasons: I can focus on the one course instead of preparing for two different courses; my advisor will be able to reference my teaching experience in her recommendation letter; I can take a more active role in the course, i.e. writing exam questions and being a 'guest' lecturer for her course; and of course it's nice that I'm getting paid more. So yay for that. I just finished the first week of leading my discussion sections, which overall went pretty well. I still need to try and step back more and let the students answer their own questions, but it's a work in progress.

In the meantime I'm supposedly setting the gears in motion for finding a more permanent faculty position at a junior college somewhere in the Yay Area. In addition to the actual job search, I have a lot of material to read and a teaching portfolio to compile, so that will soon begin to occupy some of my free time.

So I met this guy at a New Year's party. He seems nice. He's cute ;) We had dinner tonight. It was the first time we'd seen each other since the party. I was hoping to get a better read on his interest level, but I'm a little nonplussed. He seems to be holding things pretty close to himself, if that makes sense. I probably should have let him talk more too. Oh well. With many things, only time will tell.

the 10 minute post?

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:54:01 GMT

Okay, I've been really busy lately and I'm probably better off grading lab reports or making a shopping list or doing any number of other things right now, but I'm trying to re-engage this electronic machination of a diary I call my book of days.

So I'm officially graduated, as of Thursday 12/11. I gave my thesis talk (two Thursdays ago), revised my thesis to address the comments given by my committee, printed it out all pretty on nice 100% cotton, acid-free paper, got it signed off, and turned it into the graduate division. So you can now call me Master P.

However nice it feels to be done, I feel like it's just one fewer thing to worry about. So I may have to find a new place to live by the end of the month. My housemates are moving out, so I can either find a new place or try to recruit new housemates. I'm trying to do both simultaneously, which is a bit tough because anything could happen.

I also have to finish my TA duties for the class I'm TAing. This means grading lab reports. Not hard, just takes a little time.

*AND,* I may be only TAing half time next quarter, instead of the full time, twice as paying, situation I wanted to be in. This is what happens when you've graduated and want to TA: the current grad students get priority. It's like I'm being punished for graduating. Meh.

Well I think that's been ~10 mins...yes. Hm.

5 minutes vs. 2 hours

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:52:43 GMT

What's the difference? About 24 - beep...beep...beep...beep...beep. Okay nevermind.

So I think part of the reason I haven't posted in about 10 years is that all my posts tend to be long and take many hours to compose. They may be well written and thoughtful, but they took a long time and I had to be in the right mood to post. Essentially I put up something of a psychological activation energy to posting because I knew it'd take so long. Well caerglas recently mentioned my dearth of LJ, so here am I.

Well I'm going to try a crazy thing like a 5-minute post. I'm already 3 minutes into this so I better wrap it up. What have I been doing the past few months? TAing - doing one last set of expts in lab - writing my thesis, getting ready to graduate. Yes, am getting a Master's. I'm graduating in...a week? Yes.

Will write more later. My 5 minutes are up.

MyDecision 2008

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:36:04 GMT

Time to make predictions for this year's elections! In 2004 I was right about the presidential race coming down to Ohio. Let's see if I can do it again.

Senate
A senate term is 6 years. Every 2 years, 1/3 of the 100 U.S. Senators go up for re-election. So this year's group was last elected in 2002. Right now Democrats hold a tiny 51-49 majority, with independents Jim Jeffords and 'Joe-mentum' Lieberman caucusing with the Dems. They will definitely pick up some seats in November. Here are the races that I think will change parties.

Alaska: poor Ted Stevens (R). With his indictment hearing to take place in Washington 4 days of the week, he won't even be in Alaska much to campaign for himself. Mark Begich (D) has this one in the bag.

Colorado: the Republican incumbent is not running for re-election, so this is an open race. Mark Udall (D) has a small but consistent lead over his opponent.

New Hampshire: Former governor Jeanne Shaheen (D) has a huge lead over incumbent John Sununu (R).

New Mexico: Incumbent Pete Domenici (R) is retiring, and Tom Udall (D) has a commanding lead over his opponent Steve Pearce (R).

North Carolina: This is my riskiest prediction. But I think Liddy Dole (R) is going down in flames. She's on the NRSC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Her job? Finding good Republican senatorial candidates to win more seats in 2006 and 2008. Democrats regained the Senate majority in 2006 and will gain more seats this year. You do the math.

Virginia: another retiring Republican incumbent. Former VA governor Mark Warner (D) has a big lead over his opponent. Flip!

For all six of these races, the seat is going from Republican to Democrat. So I bet we'll pick up at least these six seats, making the Senate 57-43. That's gotta hurt for the Repubs.

House
The Democrats will add to their majority in the House. Right now it looks like they will gain ~10 more seats.

Presidency
So Barack had better damn well win this thing. All the political winds are on the Democrats' side, so if we don't take both houses and the White House I would be extremely shocked and saddened. I'm taking a bottom-up approach - start from zero and get to 270 electoral votes.

1 - Let's start with the states Kerry won in 2004 (dark blue). These are all safe for Obama. Also, I think he will pick up Iowa and New Mexico (light blue). So we start with

Kerry states (252) +IA (7), +NM (5) = 264 EV [Fig. 1]

2 - The battleground states. [Fig. 2] I put them in 3 groups: most likely; likely; least likely to go Dem (dark blue, cyan, light blue). What is most favorable about Obama's chances is that he has many roads to 270, whereas Kerry had to win Ohio. Obama will probably only need one of the dark blue states to win:

CO (9) --> 273 EV

VA (13) --> 277 EV

OH (20) --> 284 EV

NC *maybe* (15) --> 279 EV

I really don't think Obama will win Florida, and I'm doubtful about Ohio. I think Colorado and Virginia are his best chances. Montana and the Dakotas are interesting - solid red, but this year it'll be much closer. I think Obama has an outside chance of taking Montana and *maybe* South Dakota. North Dakota...well miracles do happen. Nevada may go his way, but that would only bring him to 269. Which brings me to...

3 - The crazy 269-269 tie is very possible. If Obama:

wins NV (264 + 5)

loses NH and wins CO (264 - 4 + 9)

Obama is barely holding onto New Hampshire. I think in the end he will take it, but by a very slim margin (~1%).

4 - If you just wanted a flat-out prediction, here it is. [Fig. 3] My pre-convention prediction: 286-252 Obama-McCain
Interestingly, these are the same as the 2004 numbers, only flipped (252-286 Kerry-Bush). I have Obama with the Kerry states, IA, NM, and also CO and VA ftw. He's not going to win FL, and OH seems unlikely.

So as of now, this is how I think things will play out. I'll probably revise my predictions after the conventions, closer to November.

oh Facebook

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:30:55 GMT

I seem to be posting there these days. Anyway, here are my last two posts from said website - one about me and one about the election.

check check, 3, 4

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:40:03 GMT

Yes it does! Creepy...

insomniac musings

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:10:17 GMT

For some reason I can't get to sleep. So I thought I'd try to do something for a little while and try sleeping again. I will update more thoroughly later about my life these days.

In the short term retrospecticus, it seems that I wasn't as social during the spring quarter than I had been the previous quarters, i.e. I didn't go out as much. Perhaps I was burned out. It might also have been that I was focusing more of my social energies towards ryryduff, who visited me like three times in as many months. We also spent a lot of time chatting online. I didn't think we would become as close as we are, but sometimes we get lucky that way.

So summer has officially begun and all my classmates and I have joined labs. It's exciting and also a little scary knowing that we're now beginning the long journey to a dissertation. I just started working in my lab this week. And by working I mean staring at my lab notebook for hours trying to remember what I was doing six months ago. I decided to join the second lab I rotated in (in which I rotated?), which was this past winter, and the first thing I'm working on is continuing my rotation project.

Alright, methinks I'm gonna try that sleep thing now.

the days go by

Wed, 23 May 2007 03:01:34 GMT

I must admit, I've been updating my Facebook more regularly since it doesn't involve a great input of time. I also don't feel like reflecting on my recent past all that often, which is what I mainly do here. Even furthermore, I think this quarter has been the most relaxed this year, so there's not that much excitement in the air. Well some, like the myriad pollens from tree and grass that send my immune system into Defcon 2; but also some of the good kind, like my friend ryryduff who's coming up to the SC for the weekend. And boy will he be coming.

So most of my time has been taken up with working in the lab, reading papers for cell bio, and being a TA for genetics. My students seem to appreciate the amount of effort I put into the job. I was especially proud of the performance of one of my sections on the midterm a few weeks ago. The mean in that section was nearly 7 points higher than the class mean. And it's all because of me ;)

I think I've finally stepped into the 21st century as far as dealing with my allergies. I bought some eyedrops that help a lot with my itchiness, and yesterday I got some Flonase for my nasal issues (hm, that sounds inappropriately vague). Hopefully I'm now well equipped, just in time...for...next year's allergies. Brilliant timing that.

Yes, and the quarter is coming to an end soon. They just fly right by. And then after the last rotation talks and exams and what not, we officially start talking with various faculty and decide which lab we want to join permanently. I thought I just got here half an hour ago, and now we're almost done with our 'first year'.

on the eve of an exam

Tue, 08 May 2007 06:11:35 GMT

Mm. The last few weeks have been pretty routine, so not a whole lot to say. When I'm not about to doze off I'll go into more detail.

The teaching has taken up a good chunk of my time lately. My students have a midterm in about...9 hours actually. I have to be there, so I should probably get to bed soon. I'm very curious to see how my sections fare compared to the rest of the class. If they score higher than the mean, I'll be pretty pleased. It means I'm not only doing a good job, I'm actually helping them do better in class.

Well I'll say more about the past three weeks or so sometime later. Now I have to get some sleep.

on the mend

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:18:24 GMT

Well fortunately I'm doing quite a bit better than I was just two days ago. My throat is still kinda sore, and I'm getting night sweats, but the body aches are mostly gone. I don't feel fatigued all the time anymore. Which is good because today is the first day of class. In fact I've already been to the first lecture for the class I'm TAing. The class meets on T/Th at 8 am, which is too early for...just about anyone. I've also got two sections to teach, and office hours. This should be a fun quarter. (Seriously though, I'm looking forward to teaching.) So now I've got some free time before my other class at 2 pm. I'm kinda waiting around to talk with my new boss.

I'll catch up on the March happenings soon, in the next few days hopefully.

oh this isn't fun

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 05:34:26 GMT

I'm sicker than I was yesterday, so no LJ I'm afraid. In fact I should probably be getting to bed soon.

I've been getting the flu pretty often in the last few years. This one feels the same as the last one I had in Berkeley - body aches, fatigue, fever, sore throat and painful swallowing. I also have white spots on my tonsils... just like before. Maybe I should start getting annual flu vaccines.

mm...rrr...wha?

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 05:30:24 GMT

I'm sick :( It feels like the flu...fever, body aches, fatigue. I think I overextended myself over spring break this year. Oh well, seeing as it's my last real spring break, at least it was fun and eventful. I'll elaborate later, tomorrow probably. I think I need to sleep now.

OMGimsobusies

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 06:34:30 GMT

This quarter started out more relaxed, but it's getting very busy. Especially in the past few weeks. I'm afraid I don't have time to elaborate now, but I can sum it up:

more workload in classes
2007 Western Regional LGBTIA Conference at UC Riverside
grad student recruitment
looking for housing - having a place lined up, then having it fall through at the last second, then scrambling to find another place

Yup, that's about it. The latter two things coincided last Thursday - Saturday, which made things even more hectic.

I'm still here. But I'm gonna be super busy the next two weeks...the end of the quarter is coming up, and that's all kinds of fun.

P.S. Ooh ooh, look at this - a portable mass spec device. We're one step closer to making a real tricorder :)

these old bones ache

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:29:57 GMT

I just got back from Dakota and my ears are ringing. Rather, there's a constant high pitched sound in front of some other white noise underneath my normal hearing. I'm getting old :)

the media circus

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 06:33:52 GMT

So I wrote down a list of things I forgot to mention last time due to lack of time and interest, most likely on the part of both the reader and the author. I didn't want to make my last post even longer than it was. Many of the things on my list turned out to be about various forms of media:

Watched The Devil Wears Prada while in Arizona. I enjoyed it a lot; it was good that I'd already seen Project Runway beforehand, since the movie's about the people who produce a fashion magazine (aptly named Runway). It uses several fashion terms that would have escaped my understanding had it not been for Project Runway. It was all worth it :)
I'm now on season 6 of The West Wing. I didn't like the end of season 5 and the first two episodes of 6, but it's picked up a little since then. The show is definitely not as polished as the Aaron Sorkin days.
Started rereading the Harry Potter books. I finished Book 1 over break, and am getting through Book 2 now. I will hopefully be done around the time the last book comes out. If you haven't heard, Book 7 is titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and is due sometime this year, probably around summer. There's also a trailer for the fifth movie - looks exciting!
I went in a different direction in getting a planner this year. Every year I buy a weekly planner in which I write out my schedule and other assorted things. For the last several years I've used pretty much the same kind from the same company. This year, after being disappointed with the local selection, I looked online and found out about Moleskine journals (apparently pronounced mol-a-SKEEN-a). They were famous back in the day when Picasso and Hemingway would use them for sketching and writing. It was exactly what I wanted - a simple, minimalist design without the frilly fonts and other crap that take away from the actual space you get to write. If you ever need a simple, sophisticated journal-type thing, check them out.
About a week ago I spent almost an entire evening setting up a browser plugin called PasswordMaker. It allows you to remember just one password, and uses an algorithm to generate passwords to your other sites each time you use them, so it doesn't have to store them on your computer and risk their discovery. You can also have the program insert the password at the login screen, preventing keyloggers from stealing your password that way. It took me a while to configure it all, but I feel safer using this program, as now all my passwords are totally different and random. Oh, I guess I didn't mention this but a while ago two of my email accounts were hacked - my passwords no longer worked, and I wasn't able to change them. They weren't terribly important accounts, but I became concerned about password security. Now it should be a lot harder to compromise my shtuff.

And now a few last things... Chinese New Year is February 18 this year. It seems that both my paternal grandmother and my brother will be in town around that time. In fact my grandmother is going to be staying with my parents for a while it seems. She and my mom don't get along. My presence has been requested while everyone is in town...we'll see how that goes.

Speaking of the new year, I had no resolutions to speak of until a friend asked me if I had made any. Then I thought about it and came up with something like 'get into a ~~better~~ earlier schedule'. There was another one, but I can't quite recall it now. This is gonna work out great ;)

Can I have summore?

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 03:01:04 GMT

One of my New Year's resolutions is to post more regularly. So, more stuff coming soon!

not quite in the mood

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 06:24:21 GMT

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have to be in a certain mood to write in my LJ. When I actually want to write about what's going in my life, or other supposedly meaningful things, I can't just do it whenever I have time. Take this week for instance. My fellow first years and I get a longer than usual break for the holidays because we're in between rotations at the moment. We finished our fall rotation over a week ago, and our next one doesn't start until the first week of January, which means we get a nice long break. So I've been relaxing and sleeping for the last week and a half, but I still haven't gotten around to writing in my LJ about what's been going on with me in the past month. I guess I have to be in the right mindset to do that.

I was going to start that tonight, but I'm not quite in the mood. Not yet, but soon.

studying for finals

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 02:29:58 GMT

I'm studying for finals these days. And before I was getting ready for my rotation talk. So I haven't had much time to sit down and really talk about what's been going on with me. But I'll have time after my finals are done on Wednesday. I'll have lots more to say then :)

one more and off to bed

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:48:23 GMT

Your Seduction Style: Au Natural

You rank up there with your seduction skills, though you might not know it. That's because you're a natural at seduction. You don't realize your power! The root of your natural seduction power: your innocence and optimism.

You're the type of person who happily plays around and creates a unique little world. Little do you know that your personal paradise is so appealing that it sucks people in. You find joy in everything - so is it any surprise that people find joy in you?

You bring back the inner child in everyone you meet with your sincere and spontaneous ways. Your childlike (but not childish) behavior also inspires others to care for you. As a result, those who you befriend and date tend to be incredibly loyal to you.

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

all these goings-on going on

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:37:19 GMT

I've been keeping busy, some of it school things but mostly social things. More later, for now let's just say that I'm not used to getting this much attention ;)

Found this cute quiz:

You Are 40% Boyish and 60% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

this is a great waste of time

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 03:37:42 GMT

Some very cool and involved Flash games live here. I just spent the past two hours playing various games. Fun fun :)

Halloween costume?

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 04:54:10 GMT

So, Halloween draws near and I need a little help deciding what to dress up as for the big night. For the past several years I have had a more goth theme to my costumes - a trashy dancer with butterfly wings, a green fishnet shirt and leather pants, a deviled egg with pitchfork, horns, a tail, and leather pants, and a Dominator / Denominator with a black fishnet shirt, chains, a whip...and leather pants.

Should I find another reason to wear leather pants and black eyeliner? Or should I go with an idea I found last night with Xylar - dress up as Ash from Pokemon? I already have a stuffed Pikachu doll, so I'm halfway there.

'My special move is the Reach Around'

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 04:11:27 GMT

The Gay

Stand up and be heard! You're 59% gay!

You're gay! Deny it if you want, but it's all too clear. Our advice: embrace it. You aren't going to get away from this one.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on homopoints

Link: The Am I Gay? Test written by alone2gether on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

the 10-minute post - ¿es posible?

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 05:09:52 GMT

Usually it takes me 30-60 minutes to complete an LJ post to my satisfaction. Because of my recently acquired ~~punishment~~ busy-ness for becoming a grad student, I'm going to try to get this one done is 10 mins. This may mean it's not as well written, so aplogies for that.

Anyway, today was certainly a mixed and interesting day. This morning we got our midterms back in my undergrad course. I beat the mean by a fairly healthy margin, and did better than most of my fellow grad students, but I'm still miffed about it. I feel like the test wasn't a good assessment of our grasp of the material; it was more like regurgitating lecture notes and problem sets. Maybe this is my changed perspective of learning this the second time around. In any case, I think I did well enough not to be worried about my grade.

In my other class today, we discussed the assigned papers as usual. At one point we got bogged down on one of the experiments. I offered my interpretation of how it was set up and performed, to which the professor responded 'Yes, Patrick is right.' WooT!! First time for everything ;) It's not often that he so plainly states that someone is correct, so it was a jolly good bit of positive reinforcement.

After class, I went back to lab to develop a Western blot. Alas, none of my samples contained the tagged protein we were hoping to see. Now I have to try screening the other 18 colonies to see if any of them are expressing it.

12 minutes, not too bad. I should do this more often when I'm trying to find ways to procrastinate :)

P.S. - I forgot to mention that I'm mildly sick. *sniff* I think I've been so for the past few days. I hope it goes away soon.