The Mind of a Depraved One

The big 100! (No, seriously this time).

2008-05-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been meaning to update this diary for almost a year now, but never got around to doing so. As it turns out, this would be the ACTUAl 100th post, as opposed to the last one. Anywho, a little update of my life is in order.

First of all, I got into Dalhousie University for a masters program in Pathology. I also managed to get funded with the CRTP traineeship. Ironically, I almost failed out during the first semester, due to my beyond dismal marks (they kick you out if you get under 70% in any course). Luckily however, I managed to pass both courses BY A HAIR!

During the semester, I had an opportunity to witness an autopsy. Seeing a dead body disturbed me a lot more than I thought it would. One moment, the person is alive, and the next, they are gone. A whole slew of existential problems regarding what is life occupied my mind for a good deal of my time (and it still does). I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Death scares me. It is not the prospect of eternal damnation that scares me. It is the prospect that when we die, everything ends that scares me more. If a supreme being came to me and told me I'd go to hell after I die, and there's nothing I can do about it, I would actually be extremely relieved.

Getting back to the part when failing out was actually a serious threat. At that time, I actually recalled that earlier that year, I've thought about how an interesting life would be desirable. Being in a position to have recieved funding, and almost failing out, was indeed interesting. Not to mention that in the history of Dalhousie University, there had only been one other case where the grad student
failed out. And I doubt that person tried their hardest. In my case, I've put in as much effort as I could have possibly put, and still did miserably. I was making history. And in that aspect, life was fun.

Sometime in the semester, I had to receive radiation safety training. We were dissembled into groups of 2 or 3, where we had to clean up radioactive spill. One of the people I teamed up with was SCARY! He would squirt water on the radioactive area very roughly, which splashed the radioactive material all over the place. He would then wipe it even more roughly, spreading the contamination. At one time, his lab coat was actually soaking up the radioactive spill. Working with him was very tiring for my nerves. For the first time in my life, I was trembling in fear. When the safety training was over, I had to get my collegue to load my gel for me because my hands were too unsteady from the shakes.

I've thought about a few philosophical questions as well. Firstly, I thought that the fear of death is actually a good thing. To fear death means you love life. And loving life is quite virtuous.

In regards to the idea that death means the end, it would mean quantity of life is more important than quality of life. That is because it is only when you are alive, you can experience things. And to experience things, regardless of how painful or uncomfortable something is, is better than not experiencing anything.

Life is meaningless. But it is precisely because it is meaningless, that we are completely and utterly free to do as we want.

Oh, in regards to the new years resolution of 2006, I would have to say, all except one was achieved. I got a job last year, got into grad school, and kept breathing. I never actually finished my original fiction, and I'm seriously considering abandoning it. Although I love the character Tisiphone a lot, I might use her for future stories.

Okay, back to philosophical ramblings. It is not an uncommon belief that people of the echo-boomers have a sense of entitlement. Living in a democratic society, I think most people feel power belongs to the people. However, I don't think people realize that a capitalistic society is actually quite close to a despotic society. The people that are your boss control your life. You don't really have any entitlement whatsoever. It is not too unlike slavery. We are really not entitled to anything at all. But that's really not that bad. They are paying for your livelihood, so they deserve your best efforts. I could organize my thoughts and wording better in this field, but I'm too lazy at the moment to do so.

Oh, and I had a random urge to want to be a parent of a pregnant teenage daughter or a teenage son who knocked someone up. It then progressed into me wondering why people get really upset at their teenage kids when said incidence happens. This was all before I saw the movie Juno. I'm too lazy to reword the whole train of thought, so I'll just copy and paste a philosophical message I sent to Belinda:

"Anywho, there's basically 2 major ideas that brought upon this question. The first is I believe what makes life worth living is the experience it gives us. To live is better than to die. To live means to experience, and to die means to not experience. I believe no matter how uncomfortable an experience is, it is still worth experiencing, because to experience means to live. Having to deal with a pregnant teen offspring is a very unique experience that aren't experienced by a vast majority of people. That is one reason why I think said situation, although could be uncomfortable, is desirable. A second reason why I think having to deal with a pregnant teen is desirable is because I think it might be fun. It would be an interesting and unique situation to be in, to have the benefit of interacting with my grandchildren for many decades. (Although I think I'm the only one on this planet that might think this way). Teenage pregnancy of my kid would also most likely allow me to see my great grandchildren. It would be incredible to live and witnes first hand the life of many generations and how they interact.

So this brings me to the second reason. Science people are taught that everything in life is a combination of genetic and environmental factors. That is to say, behaviour is this way too. However, if our behaviours are only dictated by our genetic disposition and how we were brought up and influenced by everything around us, then what is us? We would be no different than a robot, or a piece of rock on the ground. I am uncomfortable with that, and I believe there is something more. Call it our soul, our essance, our ego, our anima, or whatever. If I was a parent, I would be confident that I had brought up my kid well enough to know better. I am also confident that my genetic disposition wouldn't dictate my kid to do that, and I'm pretty sure the girl in which I marry would be the same. Thus, taking out environmental factors and genetic factors, if my kid still do something that silly, it would prove that there is something more that makes us who we are. And that would make me happy.

The desire to want to deal with my kid being pregnant, or impregnating someone, is how the question of why parents would get upset with said situation. Personally, if I had to deal with the situation, I would first say in a matter-of-fact way, "you've been a very bad boy/girl." Then, I would point my finger at him/her, and laugh uncontrollably, saying "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! You are SOOOOOOO screwed!!" (But of course, still offer my aid as best I can). I wonder how many people on earth actually have a desire to deal with said situation."

During that period, I've asked several friends in regards to this topic. The reasons why parents are angry may be caused by shock, increase in financial stress, anger at child's irresponsibility, and anger at self for not raising child properly.

Well, that's a rather big post I think.

The Big 100!

2007-05-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, March 12 was the last time I updated this. I really should update more often. I blame lethargy and apathy, although I attribute them as being the keys to world peace. As you can see, this is my 100th post on this blog.

First thing's first. I finished chapter 6 of my story. click here for the goods.

First off, had a post from March something, didn't finish, so combining that post to this one as well:

Started this post wayyyyyy back, can't remember what I was planning to write. Ah well, just gonna post what I had written.

Hung out with Kim. She mentioned something about a friend of a friend going to Uganda with an outreach program. The outreach program pretty much said to the group that they would most likely be raped at least once during the trip, and hands them a rape kit. Kim and I were pretty much saying how "sure, I'd like PAY to experience being raped, and possibly catch AIDS!". Also, we talked of shrunken heads "I don't care about the people that died to be my shrunken head". (Oh yea, that was what I was thinking before. AAAAHHHH, I'm being brainwashed by normality that is society, 'cause I was subconsciously making arguments of how killing of those people was mean. Because you know, we HAVE to be superficial and nice).

This is why Kim is my friend. We enjoy conversations of eating people, where such conversations would disturb most others.

That ends the post from March.

Onwards!

Urgh, don't feel like recalling all those things that I meant to have written up. It's too much effort. Let's give you the shortened version of what I can remember. And skip over all those philosophical mumbo jumbo. Tried pot a little while ago. It feels like you're drunk without the disorientation. It also feels like you haven't slept for a day, but without the grogginess. You won't be able to have a decent train of thought without great difficulties. Oh, and did I mention that it totally burned my lungs? IT HURT!!!!

Had a nice drinking get together with Sylvie and Melissa on Saturday evening. Did tarot card readings. It was a blast. The tarot cards told me my next 4 months are gonna be hell, friends are gonna drift away, and I'm probably not gonna get into any grad school. October and November are months of healing for me, but sometime at the end of November something will royally piss me off, making me angry the whole December. Things however, will take a turn for the better starting January. And supposedly I'll find love in my life at April.

I can't recall the details for Sylvie's reading, but supposedly her studies will go to shits. She'll get pregnant early next year, making her parents pretty much disown her, and she's gonna elope with her mate a couple of months later.

I bet you don't get those kinds of readings when you go to a psychic ;).

Oh, and for the first time in my life I had a hangover. And a very looonnnnggg one too. It was awful! Not gonna touch ethanol for the next several months.

That's just wrong!

2007-03-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Sylvie and I went and had hot and sour soup. At the end, they gave us fortune cookies. For her's it read "Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."... in bed. WHOA! That's actually profound! It's sooooo wrong when a fortune became more profound when you add "in bed" after it.

Chapter 5 is here!

2007-03-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

Yea, exactly what the title said. Took me long enough right? I had something else I wanted to write about in this diary, but I forgot. Ah well. It's proof that I'm getting ooooollllllddddd!

click here

I need to stop thinking.

2007-03-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

It is quite annoying that in facebook, you look up people you want to reconnect, add them to your list of friends, and have them message you once, or twice if you're lucky, and then have them fall off the face of the planet again. What's the point? I want more than just a "hello, where have you been and what are you up to now?". I want to hear life stories. I demand life experiences. I want to know how people have changed or stayed the same. I want to know what makes a person that person. That isn't possible without actual conversations. If people aren't willing to converse, then they really shouldn't add you to their list of friends. The whole shallowness of facebook is a constant reminder of why I hated high school.
That being said, I have to keep reminding myself that I'm weird. My way of thinking and personality are a lot different than most people's. Most online quizzes have confirmed that, not to mention most of my friends confirmed it as well. I should not expect people to have the same values as me. Heck, I should not even expect people to have remotely similar values as mine. So, the question now becomes, what's important for people? I want to know. Is it to be appreciated by many? Is it to have deep connections with a few? Is it money? Is it success? How do you define success? What do you care about? What does it mean to live a good life?

The Problem of Evil

2007-02-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

In the past, I believed that the concept of evil is an absurd one. "There are no such things as good and evil", said I in my high school grad blurb. That was because I believed people judge acts of goodness and evilness according to their own up-bringing and personal beliefs. The flaw in that thinking was brought to light in Nietzche's idea that the opposite of good is not evil, but bad (or rather, he pointed out that in the ancient Greek, that's what they thought). Good is something that has greatness and fulfills their role (ie. a sharp and hard knife is a good knife), while bad is something that don't do that (ie. a dull and soft knife is a bad knife). Evil is something all on its own. After years of thought, I decided to define evil as the following:

purposely trying to make the universe a worse place than before, for its own sake.

Which means, the only ones capable of evil are sentient beings. Acts of evil would include burning piles of recyclable paper for the sole purpose of pumping out green house emissions onto the environment (which I've done before, after the stupid recycle truck took every piece of paper outside the blue box, but not the ones inside!). Torturing a random person for the sake of causing pain and suffering for the victim and people that loves the victim.

I'm so emo it's not even funny.

2007-02-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Bah. CURSE YOU PHILOSOPHY!!!!

Well, now I found an answer to the question of "what good is a philosophy minor?". The answer is, "allow you to form logical arguments for depressing concepts". YEA!

It's been soooo long since I started this post, I figure I should finish it. Well, I'm currently not that emo now, so the effect isn't as great, and I've probably already lost some of my original thoughts.

Anywho, these were my thoughts. Sure we seem alive, and we appear to stay exactly the same when one cell leaves us. Even if one brain cell dies, we don't even give a damn about it. So what happens when we add one more to the mix? And one more, and so on? To what point do we consider ourselves significantly injured? How do you define you?

What exactly am I? I change every single moment. I am not the same person as before. If my brain gets damaged by a pipe similar to Gage, I'd transform into a completely different person. Should I be considered alive? Having so much difficulties defining a person, I am suspect that a you-ness or me-ness is possible. In that sense, dying is really not that bad, 'cause there really isn't a "you" that dies. That is to say, since there is no beginning of "you", then obviously there is no end of "you".

That's wonderful. Made me feel slightly better about my fear of death, but now I've got a problem of self identity. There is no "me", so why do I bother living? What's the point? Sure, we act as though there's some meaning for life, but if the truth is that once we die, we die, what does it matter? You can say that sure, it matters to you personally at that moment in time, but there's problems with that idea. First, since I have a huge difficulty defining who and what I am, I'd have difficulty understanding to what and who life is important. You may say that it's important for the people around you, and for your decendents. Well, who the heck gives a damn in 100 years? 1000 years? A million years? How about a billion years? You'd think in a billion years, people will remember someone as terrible as Hitler? And your life really doesn't matter to the people around you. Other people's lives go on. You could also say that there's no proof that we don't have souls, and there's some sort of afterlife. Well, if we have souls, and afterlife exist, then I'd be very satisfied. In fact, I would give an arm and a leg and perhaps one of my eyeballs as payment for someone to come and haunt me, if that's what it takes. Oh heck, I may as well as throw in a kidney, a lung, and one testicle while I'm at it. But what I see what's in front of me, of a functional body that moves and does things one moment, and no longer doing so the next. It's exactly the same as a funtional machine, that broke down and no longer works. We see that when machines fail, it just fails. Never again funtioning. We can't imagine a machine having a soul and have some sort of afterlife, so why do we imagine our body to contain souls?

And now for something completely different.

As some of you know, my grandparents from my dad's side aren't exactly supportive of my immediate family. They give no love to their children, but demands love and money in return. They complain that their children do not honour them. I'm not sure how common their behaviour is, but I blame confuciousm philosophy in the orient. The whole idea of filial piety is bogus. Honour your parents yes, but only if they exhibited love, and thus deserve to be honoured. Respect should only be given to individuals worthy of respect.

And now for something completely different, part 2.

I wonder, is jealousy of children common? That is to say, if children are better than you in every shape and form, what proportion of parents would be jealous? Personally, I'd want my kids to be great. That is to say, be the best at what he/she do. Be it instigate a revolution to overthrow a government, or be the best serial murderer, or one who finds the cure for every diseases, or one who brings world peace at last, or the world's best con artist, or the next Hitler, or the next Mother Teresa. What ever the deed, I'd be proud. Better to be a terrible monster than to live a life of mediocrity. If my children become monsters, I'd be proud of the fact that they became an icon for society to know what not to do.

Why?

2007-02-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

Don't fix what's not broken! That's my thought. Why must we transfer to the new blogger when the old one works totally fine with me? Same with the stupid MSN that changed to Window's Live Messneger and the stupid updates for Window's Media Player. Granted I never updated to the newer versions for the later stuff, but I've heard horror stories about them.

Blah blah blah, valentines this valentines that. I hate you all, you non-single people. May you choke on chocolate and get pricked by roses. (Yea yea, one of these days my rage will subside. But before that, I shall rage to my heart's content).

Random thoughts after reading Ching's blog. I started comparing my past and present fears. I've always feared death as long as I remember, so at least that stayed a constant. I didn't used to fear flying, but in the last couple of years, during my trip to the Canadian east cost, I somehow developed a nasty fear of it. I used to fear riding on roller coasters, to the point I was pretty much emotionally scarred when suckered into going on the Mindbuster in Canada's Wonderland. However, I am now completely fine with them. In the past, I was not afraid of the dark. In fact, I would close the blinds, draw down the curtains, make my room completely pitch black before I go to sleep. I find that now I'm developing a slight fear for the dark. Although I still had a nasty fear of heights, upon looking down from tall places, I imagine what it would feel if I was to plummet towards the earth.

Random fun dream I had the other day. I was flying again. This time it was a heck of a lot easier than in my lucid dream. The method of flying is similar to being in 0g environment, and all I had to do is push off from the ground towards a wall, and I'd float to that place. Now isn't this interesting that I can imagine myself in an environment in which I have never been in, and be quite certain that if I was in that environment, it would feel exactly the same way as in my dream?

Mom's back from Taiwan. Just found out recently that 4 out of 6 of my biological aunts from my mom's side is currently battling cancer, as well as several of my cousins, also from my mom's side. It sucks. I wish the best of health and quick and successful recovery for all of them. But all in all, I'm just glad my mom is one of the lucky ones without cancer. Hope it stays that way for many many years to come. Hope also that I won't develop cancer myself, and will live a very very long time.

Been reading lots of novels. In the past couple of weeks, read Ender's Game, Speaker of the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind (all 4 books are from 1 series), and The Looking Glass Wars. Onwards to read Children of Men next.

Been working on my novel as well. Hope to upload the next chapter in a couple of weeks. For those who were wondering where the violcence went for the last chapter, well, there's a healthy amount of that in the upcoming chapter.

I want to polish my archery skills.

Who am I?

2007-02-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

Who am I? How do I know what I do is not just a series of complex responses to stimuli? Descartes claims cognito ergo sum, but how do I know I actually think? The way I see it, thought is just opening of channels and passing synapse between cells. Heraclitus claims that nothing is, and everything is becoming, and I see value in that statement. Every moment in time at any part of the universe is never exactly the same. Likewise, the me in the past is not the same me of today. No one ever think the exact same thought twice, and scrutinize it enough, you are not the same you from a second ago. So who am I?

You might think I'm being nick picky about this sort of thing, and perhaps you are right. But consider this, when a person survives a serious trauma to the brain, their personality might so drastically that they act as if they're someone completely different. Yet from appearance, we say that's the same person. To me, this suggests that we have no control of who we are and what kind of person we want to be. I am nothing but a complex robot responding to a series of stimuli. Coursing though the process of nature, flowing through time like water flows down a river. There might be certain things I find painful or fear and try to avoid at all cost. But that's just certain chemicals being directed to certain positions in the brain by other factors. So why am I here? Actually, more fundamentally, is there even such a thing as an "I"?

I am not religious, so I cannot accept the idea that we have souls, and they go on while our body decomposes, although I wish that was the case. If we have souls, why doesn't anyone try to contact us from beyond the grave? With that many souls in the land of the not living, there must be someone persistant enough to find a way to get through, but there isn't. So I am forced to conclude that I am but a pint of water in the river of time. I am bothered by the insignificance and meaninglessness that is my undefined existance.

One Down, Three To Go

2007-01-16T22:57:00.000-08:00

Cross number 2 off the list. Huzzah! Shit details!

Chapter Four is Here

2007-01-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

Well, as the title suggest, it's here. Less violent and exciting than the last one, but heck, the last chapter is gonna be difficult to top in terms of violence. As usual, comments are welcome.

Click here

So it shall be!

2007-01-04T16:35:00.000-08:00

Time for this year's new year's resolution:

1) Don't stop breathing.

2) Get employed.

3) Get into grad school.

4) Finish writing The Story.

A Very Emo Christmas

2006-12-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well, it's not Christmas anymore, but this update is around Christmas time, so there. First off, let me begin with saying that for my story, after some research, I found out that the character Tisiphone is actually pronounced Tee-Sea-Phone-Knee, with the accent on then second sylable. I've been pronouncing it wrong all this time.

Now on to the emo stuff. It pretty much has to do with me not able to stop thinking about death. I've tried to not think about it, but for the past few months/year or so, the thought of death keeps plaguing my mind. As a science person, I lean more towards the idea that death is the end. You decompose and that's the end of that. No afterlife, no existance of any sort. I want to believe there's some sort of afterlife, but without any proof to the contrary, I can only believe what I see in front of me, which is my body rotting away after I die. For that reason, I envy religious people. This is especially problematic for me because using that as a basis, I really can't see any meaning to life. I like existing. I like breathing. If you take a Dionysian approach to life, and say the purpose of life is enjoyment, then it's like giving a kid some candy which results in the kid wanting more, but then forbidding the kid to ever have candy ever again till the end of eternity. That's rather cruel.

If you take the approach of living a life of accomplishment, it is equally useless. If when you die, it's the end of you, what would you care if anything you did mattered? Also, in a thousand years from now, millions of years from now, when humans become extinct, who gives a damn what you did? I'm sure even a person as famous as Hitler would be forgotten.

Even with the most appealing of life seems meaningless to me. Not to mention that to live a Dionysian lifestyle requires lots of money, and to live a life of accomplishment needs talent. Neither of which I have an abundance of. What I see for my life is not what I want out of life. Spending a good portion of my life slaving away for money so that I can actually live. Just worrying about money will take out a good 75% of the rest of my life. Such a life really just doesn't appear worth living.

Even when you take a different approach, and say that relationship with the people around you are what makes life meaningful, it doesn't remedy the fact that when you or they die, that relationship is no more. In life, we try to hold on to what is important to us. But whatever we hold dear, whether it is physical objects or living beings, we cannot take them with us as we leave the world of the living. It is painful to live trying to hold on to the living beings around you, only to know that they will one day die. It is as if I am hanging on a rope in a room with no escape, where if I let go, I'd be fried by the boiling oil underneith. Holding on only to delay the inevitableness of no longer having anymore strenght.

As a result, I currently don't see any meaning to life at all. I currently think it is more merciful to have not been born. Reading this you might think that perhaps suicide would be preferable. But that's the thing though, on the one hand I find it irresponsible for people to commit suicide as an easy way out. Causing unnecessary grief for the people you leave behind is cowardice. On the other hand, I fear death, so that's really not an option for me. I know that sounds completely contradictory, but that's how I feel. Feelings don't have to be logical. Life is meaningless. But I like it. I don't want to die, but I don't want to live either.

Dare to Dream

2006-12-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

Lucid dream that is. I just had one as I was taking a nap. Those things are darn rare, so I thought I should record this. I realized that I was lucid dreaming when I was stuck in an underground labyrinth trying to find a power suit/ ultimate armour. The labyrinth looked like an apartment hallway, but with random mirrors at corners and dead ends. Never did find that power suit though. Anywho, the mirrors would have a reflection of some random person's bedroom, while no such objects were behind me. It wouldn't even show my own reflection. The reflection would change each time I look away, and then back at the mirror. You know, they say that as long as you know you're dreaming, you can control everything in your dream. Have you any idea how difficult that is? I tried very VERY hard to walk into the mirror, but with no success. Binded by my concept of reality, it wasn't as if everything I willed will occur. I guess the notion of the more knowledge you have, the more limited your imagination will be is true. At some point I saw a guy that looked like The Key Maker from The Matrix Reloaded, and decided to chase after him. He was very very difficult to follow, and eventually I end up losing him anyway. Without my notice, the surrounding changed to more of a mall/ department store hallway, but without any stores. I saw another similar looking man, and decided to chase after him. He got away as well, but not before allowing me to find an exit to the labyrinth. The exit lead me to Niagara Falls, where a random lady (who I will now call person A) asked me to tell her what a letter to her means. It was written in Chinese, and it was from her friend. The content more or less was that she found herself a new best friend, and that's why she wasn't spending as much time with person A. She has no idea why person A seem to be angry with her, because it's not like she was breaking up with person A (no, they aren't lesbians). She just want to clear up any misunderstandings.
At this point it was becoming more and more difficult to will myself to be in the dream state. I knew I didn't have much time before I woke up, so I quickly told her the content, and made off. I always enjoyed flying dreams, but for some reason I have a huge fear of hight (I'm not even sure when I developed it, but I also have a fear of flight). So I quickly made it to the falls, jumped over the fence, and started falling. It was summer time, and the weather was hot and sunny. The setting was weird, because below the cliff was a forest. As I was falling, I quickly willed myself to start gliding, so I did. My sister then came out of nowhere and jumped over the fence as well. But unlike me, she continued falling, and ended up crashing onto the ground. And then my sister again came out of nowhere and jumped over the fence again. This time she successfully glided away. I was lucid dreaming, but it was still incredibly difficult to increase my altitude. I tried flapping my arms, willing as hard as I can to fly up over the mountain in front of me (that also came out of nowhere. Last time I checked, Niagara Falls don't have any foresty hills). With all my efforts, I was only able to gain altitude very slowly. As I flew closer and closer to the top of the mountain/hill, it became increasingly difficult to keep myself asleep. I regained consciousness right before I made it over the hill.

How do we stop racism?

2006-11-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

That was the question that popped up in a conversation I had today. Well, in order to really stop racism, there are three ways. First, get everyone to accept differences of race in other people. Second, eliminate all but one race from the world. Third, eliminate the difference between the races. First option is pretty much impossible, for people have a natural tendency to be against something that is different than themself. So I responded by saying, to eliminate racism, kill everyone on the face of the planet. No people = no racism. Second option in itself won't succeed, because if anyone tries to implement that, everyone will try to kill everyone else, resulting in killing off everyone on the planet. But it will end racism. So then I suggested complete random breeding. If every baby that is born is a result of a random sperm fertilizing a random egg, there won't be any distinguishable race in the world. No difference in races means you can't discriminate other people due to races. That was my thought pattern. Ultimately I just answered "Kill everyone on the face of the planet, or have complete random breeding".

Fun Fun Tone Deaf Quiz

2006-11-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

My sister did this tone deaf quiz online because one of her friends wanted her to. She got 91ish% and demanded I take it. So I did. It's a rather difficult quiz where 2 musical passages are played, and you have to identify either it's the same or different. I was rather surprised I actually got 100% on it. Here's the quiz if anyone is interested in trying it out.

http://www.jakemandell.com/tonedeaf/

Chapter Three, FINALLY!

2006-11-20T02:04:00.000-08:00

Well, finally the long awaited chapter three. I know it took me almost three months to finish this chapter, but there's a good reason for it. It's more than 3 times the length of the previous chapter. It still needs a good hefty editing due to some inconsistancies with the characters' speech and action, but that'll have to wait. Well, without delay, here it is:

Click here.

Once again, comments are welcome.

Random Thought

2006-11-08T23:29:00.000-08:00

This was originally a note from my facebook. Well, it's not really THAT disturbing. Anywho, here's the thought.

If I am guarenteed to be able to take over the world for the exchange of all my ethical principles and religious beliefs, I'd totally go for it. Actually, I would first trample, then freeze with liquid nitrogen, then burn by having it enter the earth's atmosphere, then crushed via a giant steamroller, then hit it with a baseball bat (aluminum one of course. None of that wussy wooden ones), then shoot it out of a battle ship cannon at point blank range into a 10 feet thick steel wall, then expose it to the vacuum of space, and then finally nuke it with Tsar Bomba x 10, and THEN throw it out the window. C'mon, wouldn't you??

P.S. I'll try my hardest to get chapter 3 out by the end of the week.

At last, shows that put in effort

2006-11-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

Recall my rant about cartoons (and live action shows alike) can't do archery? Well, last week I finally saw a series called Utawarerumono, that actually did proper archery (well, okay, close enough to proper. Technically you're supposed to position the index finger above the arrow, and middle and ring finger below the arrow. The archers in this series only used index and middle finger. But heck, minor detail. They even made the effort of mentioning knocking of the arrows, and the archers actually drew the string as opposed to the arrow. Yes, at least the arrows would fly forward with the way they're shooting).

The same thing can also be said with incidences when people are playing an instrument. You have no idea how annoying it is to watch something, and have whatever key they are playing not correspond to the music. Even worse is when in terms of piano playing, the movement of the hands aren't even remotely close to the rhythm, or when in a melody consisting of only high notes, both hands are positioned at the low notes. I was very impressed when I saw the series Innocent Venus syncopate the movement of the player's hands with not only the rhythm of the music, but actually hitting (mostly) the right notes. Okay, in certain places they were lazy and just winged it, and some places the action and the music was off by 1/2 a beat, but in others, it was bang on. It really impresses me when someone dedicated the time and effort into little details like these.

Well, I had my first interview today. It was a lot less mean than I expected it, which scares me. I feel that the meaner the question they ask, the better answer I can provide, especially when I really prepared for it. Unfortunate really. The interview was only 20 minutes, so I don't know how well it went. Alas, no point in worrying about it now. If they like me today, then I'll be called to do an interview face to face in Ottawa. I'll be hearing back from Iogen in about a week or two.

Must... update... now

2006-10-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

Let's see, weekend was fun. But painful. Both legs cramped up during a survival tag game. Never had muscle cramp before, so it was something new to me. Very uncomfortable to experience new type of pain. It was so painful that I collapsed to the ground, unable to move. Made the smog dragon that ate me take me back to the FLASH club office, essentially making him work off the calories of his meal. That was Sunday afternoon. Pain didn't dissapate completely until today.
More news of my life. I signed up for improv lessons. Let's see how that goes.
Oh, apparently my mom is quite desparate for me to get a date. She asked me if I was interested in hooking up with a girl from Taiwan. I responded by saying not really. Apparently she didn't hear me, or ignored it, and continued on. Mommy said that she was a bit on the young side. I asked her how young, and she said a year younger than my cousin Monica.
WHA?!?!!?? THAT MAKES HER 16!!!! NO!!!!!! For heaven's sake, she's not even LEGAL! "But you can keep in contact now over msn, and develop a friendly relationship for a couple of years". NO! REFUSED! Why not just wait a couple of years later, or introduce me to someone a couple of years older?? Jeez. I also absolutely REFUSE to go out with someone that's still in the mental stage of teenage duh-ism.

I'm not dead yet

2006-10-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

You know, there comes a time in every blog post when this is the title. Anyway, I don't feel like spending too much time on this, so this is gonna be brief.

Updates of my life:
Got dragged to go see a drag show with my sis and mom last weekend. It was nifty.
Mom went back to Taiwan, so house chores increases.
Still looking for a job.
Everyday life still continues as normal, more or less.
Got drafted to work in a consessions stand in a theatre yesterday. As payment, I got to see a couple of improv shows.

So that's about it.
Oh, and for those that are interested in my story, sorry for the lag. I got lazy with the story writing. But fear not, chapter 3 is currently being worked on. No, seriously, it IS being worked on. It's going to be at least twice the length of the previous chapters.

I blame jet lag

2006-09-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, let's blame all the world's problem on jet lagging. It could work ;). Oh, if anyone is travelling in the near future to the other side of the plannet, I suggest you pull an all nighter the night before the flight. It does wonders against jet lag.
Incidently, I got drunk on the plane returning to Canada. All I asked was about a shot of sake, but they decided to give me a bottle (15% alcohol, 180ml). Thus, I was forced to drink the whole bottle. Yea, I know, I have no tollerance. Go right ahead and laugh at how little it takes to get me plastered. Further on the topic, getting drunk on the plane feels pretty much the same as the unstable feeling of riding the plane, except many more times.
Oh, from my acquisitions from Taiwan, I got many MANY volumes of manga, some cloths, and stuff for friends.
That is all I feel like writing for now.

For all you fans out there.

2006-09-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

Oh yea, lots and lots of fans are apparent, from the overwhelming comments! Well, as you know the lack of update on the story is due to the stupid trip. But here you go, the next chapter. This is my first time writing action sequences, so it may not be all that easy to follow. Once again, feel free to leave suggestions, criticisms, etc. in the comments section. Oh, I think I created a psychotic character.

Follow this and click on Chapter Two

Hate is not the cause for war

2006-08-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

Stupidity and ignorance are! That's my new theory. Stupid ignorant people who are in charge make people filled with rage. War is the perfect mean to disperse this rage. Thus, it's stupidity and ignorance that causes war.
My sister, my dad, and I had dinner with one of the people in the organization, and who was responsible for organizing the tour. The idea was to talk about why this trip sucked so much, so that improvements can be made for the next time. Of the 3 hours of the sushi buffet, only about 10 mins were allocated to talk about the trip. Why? Well, because SHE SUCKS!
In the 5 nights, the lady claimed that the policy dictates that people were supposed to have 4 people a bedroom. My sister and I claimed that they tried to fit 8 people in a room for one of the nights. She responded by claiming that it is impossible for them to do that. Dude! YOU WEREN'T THERE! WE WERE! Don't try to argue against witnesses of an event because policy said the event should be that way, WHEN YOU WEREN'T A WITNESS YOURSELF!! This occurred a couple of times.
She also didn't answer questions that my sister asked. When asked the question of "if mandarine classes are an absolute must, why did the classes start when the trip was already 1/3 over?", DO NOT answer "Oh, because the people on this trip wanted to learn Mandarine". YOU DID NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION! I don't think she even answered any of our questions.
And WTF mate! Do you honestly think people that doesn't know how to speak, read, and write Mandarine will be able to pick it up in 2 classes 3 hours each? I told her that the classes are completely useless, and really should be offed, but got the response of "Oh, but people coming on this tour wants to learn Mandarine, and therefore we MUST have these classes. The classes have always been there, and will always be there". BULL SHIT! Especially when there's another tour to Taiwan organized by the same group of people made SPECIFICALLY for people wanting to learn Mandarine! It's a 2 week program of Mandarine classes everyday. People that want to learn Mandarine will go to THAT one, not THIS ONE!
Bottom line was stated by her, that "we only take complaints, suggestions, and comments seriously if it's a majority concern. The complaints of the itinerary is never a major concern for the people, and thus won't be taken seriously. The majority of the people complain about food and accomodation, and that's the only thing that we will ever change". FUCK YOU, YOU USELESS WASTE OF FLESH OF A WOMEN! It's no wonder that your husband left you! He only got you pregnant when you were in university because he was horney, and NOT because you had even a residue of aesthetic quality, OR mental prowess!

The End

2006-08-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

Well, officially there are still 2 days left of the tour. But they are nothing but useless events that takes place in the residence. Thus, my sis and I are officially signed out by dad. I'll do a better update in the near future, since it's really late now and I'm really tired.
Oh, post cards were sent out today. They were written a while ago, but I never had the opportunity to buy stamps and mail them. You should be expecting them in about 10 days.

Troublemakers rule the world

2006-08-23T05:26:00.000-07:00

Soooo, apparently my sister and I are so disruptive to the group that the organization decided to call our dad, and tell on us. Sheeesh, are we in elementary school or something? If they think we're disruptive, come tell us for crying out loud! And it's not like we're being especially disruptive. We just decide to TELL you guys of our disappointment, as opposed to the other people who talk behind your back about how shitty this trip is.
We stopped at a hotel in the mountain, where there was some SERIOUS screw ups in the room arrangements, where some people got 4 person bedrooms with large space, and others got 8 person rooms of smaller size. People got upset. My sister decided to just move into my room. We then kinda instigated a rebelion and forced the organizers to put 6 people per room instead. My sister still end up living in my room that night.
That same night, we went exploring the mountain in the dark. We invited 2 other people to tag along. GEEZ were they slow. And they were sooooo immature too. In a pitch dark path where the only light source were my sister and I, you SHOULD NOT lag behind. If you think we're moving too fast, TELL US! I then decided maybe I should give them the flashlight and let them lead. Not the best idea either. The guy of the couple took the light and played with it by flashing it all over the place. There are other actions of them that are irritating, but I can't really put them to words. It really felt like bringing along a couple of 10 year olds. I guess it's because the majority of the people behave like 10 years olds, that the organization decide to treat us like kids. ~grin.
Yesterday we were at a hotspring pool. After about a decade of not swimming, I stayed in the pool for a good 3-4 hours. I found out that I can hold my breath for a good pathetic 1 min 40 secs.
Why in the world are people hooking up left right and centre?? It's soooo silly! You probably aren't going to see your significant other for the rest of your life after this trip! I don't know, but maybe they're embracing the idea of "living the moment".

This is what shit taste like

2006-08-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Take one overly schedualled trip, where stops are really far apart. Add ridiculously small amount of time allocated to each stop. Then add poor explainations as to why we are stopping at each place. Shake, and voila. This is what shit taste like. And to add some nice topping to it, to make it superbly stinky, whip up a lost/ nabbed cat. Mau Mau, our friendliest of the three cats, went missing since thursday. Since he is super friendly, we suspect he may be nabbed. Horrendous, hideous, and painful deaths to pet nabbers everywhere. May they also burn in hell in their afterlife. If hell doesn't exist, I'll be happy to create one, just for those people.

Why oh why do I hate people so?

2006-08-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

Well, let's continue the update. Here's a bit about the tour group. There's a 11:00pm curfew. If you want to be out of the residence later than that, you need your parent/guardian's signature. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, people my age are getting married and having kids on our own! Why the bloody hell do we need our parents to sign us out? Oh, and guys can't go into the girls' residence and vice verca. And what's with some of the events they try to make us do? Learn Mandarine? Do you seriously expect us to learn how to speak/read/write a foreign language in a couple of 3 hours classes? Seriously! Do something more productive!

I had a fight a couple of days ago with the staff members reguarding the morning calls. My room has only received a morning call on the first day of the trip. One of the staff member was complaining on how slow at waking up my room was. I told him that we never received morning calls. He then replied saying that is impossible, because he would always make sure the people in the rooms that he's responsible for would wake up on time. I responded by saying that in that case, the telephone must be broken, otherwise at least one of the 4 people in my room would hear the phone ring. I was groggy at the moment since I was just woken up, and thus didn't turn my face to look at him. He took that as an insult and start using harsher tones. He claims that it is impossible for the person responsible for calling my room to not call, OR that the phone is broken. I got pretty pissed, and start screaming back at him. He claims that the morning call is not for the purpose of waking people up, but as an assistance. Bullshit! The whole purpose of a MORNING CALL is to wake someone up. Why would you bother with a morning call if that's not the case? In the end it just went into a screaming fest. I guess I kinda needed that, to dispel some of the irritation I'm receiving from this stupid group. It ended when some other staff came in to mitigate the situation.

On that same day, the head team leader (our group is divided into 9 groups. Each group has a leader, and there's a leader for those 9 leaders) gave a speech to the group saying how he was really angry at the fact that some people locked their room and pretended to be not in the room, and thus making people wait in the group during the morning gathering. For some reason the incidence of the questionable existance of the morning call in my room was also mentioned. After the anger fest that the head team leader displayed, my sister and I confronted him. We start arguing about the whole morning call issue and pretty much cornered him and bashed him with logical arguments. We also said that his actions are unprofessional. He should have approached the people in question in private. In the end he claimed that he wasn't the one who wanted to say those things, but he was told to do so by the head organizers/ the big cheese of the tour group. My sister and I commented on how silly that is, and how big of a chicken the head cheese is. If the head cheese wanted to show anger, she should have told the group herself, as opposed to telling one of her lackies to do it for her. It would have held a lot more weight, when something like that comes from a person with the highest power, who is older. A 22 years old holds a lot less authority in a group where there are 27 year olds.

Well, regardless on whether the phone was too soft and was fixed, or the person responsible for calling my room didn't call all this time, it was solved the next day. A very punctual morning call was received the next morning.

The staff in general are sooooo square! They MUST follow the set rules to the letter, and have no room for flexibility. My sister and I are pretty much the biggest rebels in the group, causing lots of pain and suffering for the staff. GOOD! Maybe by the end some of them will grow a backbone and some brains to think for themselves, as opposed to just follow what is told.

The tourists aren't all that great either. Cliques are formed quickly, and the whole feeling is exactly the same as high school. The clique mentality isn't exclusive to the young ones, but to the older tourists as well. I sure hope people of Taiwan in general don't behave like the people in this tour group. If they do, I seriously wouldn't mind genetically engineer a biological weapon to wipe out the people of this island (yea, I know, that's going against my philosophy of genocide being bad. Give me a break. I'm venting rage).

Yesterday there was a mandatory movie watching event. I would have stayed if it were Taiwanese films. But they were foreign films (in Taiwanese standards)! My sister and I just sneaked out and ditched the "class". Today, I was confronted by my team leader, saying how I shouldn't ditch. I told her that I already seen those movies, but she continue saying how this is a class, and you can't just leave. I feined ignorance and just keep replying "oh, okay", thus stopping additional opportunities for her to say anything else.

tourist on speed and much much more

2006-08-12T05:51:00.000-07:00

If by more I mean less, then yes, it's much more. HOLY GEEZ these people don't know how to organize a tour group. Each time before we go on the bus, there would be a 10 min time spent on lining up and counting the people. That's fine, but can't they brief the group of when to get back to the bus while we're en route? Noooo, they had to have everyone line up AFTER we arrive, count up the people, then tell us to return in AN HOUR!! Sheeesh, what can you accomplish in a national park when you're given an hour?? Also, they treat us like 10 years olds. For heaven's sake, people are getting married at my age, and they put a restriction so that males can't go to the female's dorm and vice verca. Well, not exactly a lot of time to update, so I'll wrap up. Needless to say, my sister and I are pretty much the rebels in the group. I think I already made some people rather pissed at me. Yey.

Wheee, update for the story.

2006-08-06T01:29:00.000-07:00

Well, after about a month of dry spell, here's the first official chapter for The Story. I don't think there'll be any new materials for the next little while, because of my trip to Taiwan (oh, and I haven't packed yet). Well, enjoy this chapter. Comments and suggestions are highly welcomed.

Follow this and click on Chapter One

I really should update this more often

2006-06-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

Well, what can I say? Summer intensified my lethargy, and thus even though there are events in my life I just couldn't care less to bother telling the world about it. Goooo me! Here's a complete update of my life from last post to this one (well, as complete as my memory serves me. I mean, if I was somehow abducted by aliens, escaped and joined a resistant force, liberated a species under oppression and slavery, but not after blowing up 84 plannets inhabitted by the oppressors, thereby killing countless trillions, and be made a hero due to my vastly superior killing skills, but fail to remember such events, I would no doubt be able to update that on this blog).
So, I guess first thing to say is, after months of agony in fear that my grad app would not be accepted, I received the acceptance letter for graduation (the fear really have no bases on anything to tell you the truth. It's just me being paranoid). Which means I am officially graduated. And all you people will be asking, sooo, what are you going to do now that you graduated? Well, I suppose I could always see that the best times of my life are behind me, since society sucks, and it appears that I'm supposed to start my career and continue it for the next 40+ years. In which case, since the best days of my life are behind me, I could always strap myself onto a nuclear missile and fire it at some city that would cause the most controversy, such as Jerusalem, or Vatican City, or Washington DC, or maybe Ottawa (just because no one would see it coming). Alternatively, I could sit at the corner of Bay and Bloor, outside of the Manual Life Centre, and pan-handle. I heard they make a pretty good living, and I seem to have the body type for such a job. Bottom line I guess, is that I have NO idea what I'm going to do. I currently don't know what's important in my life, or what I want to achieve. So I'm just floating around in the sea called everyday life, going in the direction of whatever current carries me.
You know, even upon months of writing nothing, I have a surprising limited amount of stuff to write here. Ah well. Anywho, I decided to try writing a story, see how this path fairs. Maybe I'll have fans later on.
Here's the link: Click Here
Only the prologue is complete so far.

TV can't do archery

2006-04-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

Seriously. The bows and arrows on TV must be made of some magical materials. There is NO WAY you can draw a normal bow by the arrow, and have the arrow shoot at the target with a reliable amount of force. You would need a ridiculous amount of gripping power if you want to draw a normal bow by the arrow. What you're SUPPOSED to do is to put the index finger above the arrow, the middle and forth finger below the arrow, and DRAW ON THE STRING!!!! But NOOOOO, every single show that I came across where bow and arrows are being shot, THEY DRAW THE ARROW! (Yes, this includes live action war/ kong fu shows as well). It seriously pisses me off.

A nice dream

2006-04-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

I dreamed that I gained weight and was 49kg. That would be nice, to be in the 3 digits in terms of poundage. Highly doubt that's the case, but of course I can't test that since I don't have a scale.

DAMN IT!!!!

2006-04-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well, that was stupid. In quantitative genetics, there was a makeup assignment, and you get 2 attempts at it. I took the second attempt because I found mistakes in the first attempt after submitting it. Guess what? I didn't hit submit for the second attempt until now, when the due date was passed. DOH! The worse part is, after I hit submbit just now, it showed that I got every single question right! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and I forgot my optomistrist appointment on Friday as well. I really think I need a better brain. Mine is apparently turning into rust.

fear is the best way to get results from people

2006-04-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

Seriously. A day after I post my previous post, the comments function of the "longwindedness" post starts to work again. Go figure.

Why am I not caring as much as I should?

2006-03-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

First off, AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH, stupid blog refusing to allow access to the "longwindedness" post. I hope whoever is responsible die a horrible miserable long painful death. I hope they get disembodied AND disemboweled alive, have their wound covered in salt, and then have their corpses ground up and fed to komodo dragons (oh, be sure to wash the corpse before grounding it up. If there is too much salt left on the corpse, the Komodo dragon won't eat it). (Just a reminder to those who might think I lost my touch for colourful imaginations, that I still got it :D).
This is what I do instead of writing philosophy essays due tomorrow. I really wonder if it was worth it for me to pursuit this annoyance of a minor. Of all the different areas of philosophy, it appears only ethics hold my interest. Most of these philosophers write in such obscure sentences, or in such technical terms that it bores or annoys one to tears to have to read them. Yes Habermas, Kant, and the whole lot of you. You can all go jump off Niagara Falls! Except for Sartre. I like him.
Despite what it sounds, I'm really not in a bad mood, or that stressed out. I've got 2 essays, 1 research paper of doom, and a poster in which I need to pay for, all lined up waiting for the guilotine. I'm currently without a job waiting for when I graduate, and don't have money to apply for grad school. Nor do I really know where I want to apply. All that should really stress me out, but for some reason it really isn't. Perhaps it's almost over and I just don't care anymore. But I do care. I want to get at least a half decent result for my final semester.
Now if only this post's comment function doesn't get screwed up, then all would be swell.

Longwindedness

2006-03-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

As the title suggest, this shall be a very long winded post. Firstly, since I got tagged to do this 4 thingimabobs, let's get that out of the way. (Courtesy of Ching and Christa).

Four Jobs I had:
Music teacher
Sandwich bar person at Tim Horton's
Undergrad research assistantship
paper boy (okay I know, this one is pushing it)

Four movies I can watch over and over:
Finding Nemo
Jumanji
The Cat Returns
Terminator 2 (specifically the second one)

Four places I have lived:
Taipei, Taiwan
Vaughan side of Thornhill
Markham side of Thornhill (yea, I know, that's cheating).
Guelph

Four TV shows I like to watch
House
Fairly Odd Parents
Simpsons
Anime (there's too many good series for me to pick one favourite)

Four places I've vacationed:
East coast of Canada
Toronto (yea, you think that's cheating, but it's NOT! I vacationed to Toronto when I was still living in Taiwan, so there :P).
South Korea
New York

Four foods I like:
Pasta
Dumplings
Tomato scrambled eggs
Stew pork that my mom makes

Four websites I visit daily:
Gmail
Varios blogs
Various fansub sites for anime
Various scanlation sites for manga

Four things I want to do before I die:
TAKE OVER THE WORLD! (Obviously. Unless someone can think of a way that I can do it AFTER I die.)
Kill off the people on my deathlist. (It's a deathlist for that reason you know).
Prove the existance of an afterlife, or if there isn't one, create one.
Piss off some alien civilization so that they'd invade Earth. (THAT would stop conflicts between humans in an instant).

Four places I'd rather be right now:
In an alternate universe where I am supreme ruler of transfinite amount of subjects/slaves.
Rolling in a pile of platinum, gold, star saphire, star emerald, and star ruby in which I own.
In a deep space mission or colonizing another planet.
Antarctica.

Four people I am tagging.
Mandy O'Hara (if she ever gets long enough internet access to bother coming here and reading this stuff, and then post her stuff).
Emily Merrithew
James Feenstra (Yes, you've now been tagged 3 times)
Next person who reads this. (I can't think of anyone else in which I check their online journal that hasn't been tagged).

Well, that's all there is for the tagged goods. That took a lot longer than anticipated. Onwards to my actual post.

I guess this would be about a month ago. There was a scene in a show I was watching. Boy A said to boy B, that he doesn't understand girls at all, and asks boy B how he is able to be in a relationship when female thought are so difficult to understand (or something to that respect). Boy B responds, and says "just apologize". Boy A asks, "but apologize about what? How do I know what to apologize for when I don't know what I did wrong? What if it's not my fault?" Boy A said "it doesn't matter who's fault it is, just apologize. It doesn't matter if you don't know what you did wrong, just apologize. It doesn't even matter if you're not at fault, just apologize. In the end, it doesn't make a difference what happens, you should always apologize." (Or something to that extent). Just then, boy B's girlfriend storms out of hiding, and obviously heard everything, upset about how the apologies are all insincere, screamed at boy B and stormed out. Boy B went chasing after girlfriend, apologizing.

The scene got me thinking. What boy B should have said instead is "apologize. It doesn't matter who's fault it is, just apologize. The act of apology communicates to your girlfriend that you care for her, and that you are willing to take the load for whatever unhappiness she is enduring." Well, being a guy and never had a relationship before, I could be completely wrong. But somehow I think if person B said something to that extent, girlfriend wouldn't have stormed out.

Also about a month ago, once again during a scene in a show, but this time it was a priest that got shot by a general. I made a comment that I would not mind shooting a priest. For those that don't know me well, what I meant was that I would not mind shooting a priest more than I would any other person. Since I believe in the random reduction of the human population (well, actually, my beliefs has changed a little. I now believe that random reduction is not the way to go. What we should do instead is to apply disruptive selection. ie. culling the most average people in the population. This way, we would increase the genetic diversity of the human kind). Either way, I don't have any moral problems with killing random people that I don't care about. ie. if I was given the power to kill with no legal or vengeance consequences, and no threat to personal health, I'd probably do it.

My comment about having no problem killing a priest appeared to have offended one of my friends, and asked again "you'd have no problems killing a priest?" Of course, that got me thinking later on. This is the conclusion of my thought. I hold a person having the title of a priest in no higher regard to a regular joe. Based on me having no problem killing a regular joe, I would have no problem killing a person with the priest title. Let's also examine priests in general. To me, priests in general are cult leaders that scam regular citizens of their money. You never see a poor starving priest, and yet they don't seem to ever take money out of their own pockets to donate to the church. In fact, the donations come from poor starving attendents that donate their bread money so that the priests can have a better life. I call it reverse Robin Hood: rob the poor and give it to the rich. And of course let's not forget the high amount of priests that molests little boys. And even after they are found guilty, what do the church do? They put them back into priesthood, where they have more access to little boys. Sooo, I have no problems killing priests you ask? Of course not! I'd take my bow and arrows and shoot them in the gut.

Now if you're talking about priests in the Platonic sense, ie. the ideal priest that shows genuine concern for the well being of people, that goes out of their way to help people, kinda like Mother Teresa, then yea, I'd probably have some problems killing that type of priest. Afterall, world peace is desired by all, and it would be my best interest to preserve and propogate caring, peaceful alleles in the human population. But of course, I somehow doubt the existance of such a priest.

Lucky Me!

2006-02-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

Wheeeee! Snow day! On the most convenient day as well! There was no way I could have gotten my essay finished and having to study a rather heavy midterm, so yesterday at 3:00am I gave up on the essay and focused on the final. I was totally NOT ready for the Contemporary European Philosophy midterm, nor did I finish my essay today. Now if I get good results for my lab today, then today would be a perfect day.

BUNNIES!

2006-02-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

While many find those fuzzy rodents cute, for some reason every time I see one, the first thing that comes to mind is "oooo, food!". I mean, each time I see other people's pet rabbits, I know they're meant to be cute and be good pets, but I can only think of how tasty they would be. I seriously don't have any inclination of feeling bad or feeling inappropriate for hurting for the sake of eating such a thing. The feeling is so different from when I see cats, dogs, squirls, bears, etc.. It's quite erie, since they're all fuzzy. Heck, I don't even get those "food" response when I see pigs. And believe me, I enjoy my pork.

Annoying Phone Calls

2006-02-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, since when is Jack ever pronounced "Stacy"? I specifically left an answering machine message saying that if you're not looking for JACK, to go away. Yet today, there was a message for some person named Stacy, and demanded that this Stacy to call back. Sheesh. People just don't listen nowadays.

Popup Ad take 2

2006-01-30T17:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I figured that it was the stupid tag board that no one important uses, that was causing the popup ads. Tag board is now shot out of a cannon and into the sun. Along with those annoying popup ads! Psychopathic Puffin 1, spam 0. (well, more like spam 1, since the last time it got me. But I won the tie breaker, so there!)

Wheeeee!

2006-01-23T18:13:00.000-08:00

It's 9:15 in the evening, and I'm still in lab! Wheeeeeeee! Voted Green today. Hope lab will give me good results today. That is all for now.

Brilliant Thought

2006-01-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

I had one, this afternoon. Should have written it down, but didn't. Can't remember what the thought is now. Oh well.

What do you do when waiting for your bacteria to grow?

2006-01-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

English Genius
You scored 85% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 80% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 12% on Beginner

You scored higher than 46% on Intermediate

You scored higher than 48% on Advanced

You scored higher than 53% on Expert

Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Romantic Wedding Rings Ideas

2006-01-10T16:58:00.000-08:00

With so many people around me engaged, it got me thinking about what would be a good ring to get, if I ever find that special someone. Those who know me, all know that I'm severely against the traditional gold diamonds ring. I seriously don't understand the usefulness of the diamond. If you want diamond, a good table saw would have diamond coating on it. At least THAT'S more useful.
Anywho, I came up with a couple of romantic ideas for a ring:
1) Go to Antarctica, find a stone, make it into a ring. It demonstrates that you went out of your way to get the ring for your special someone.
2) To go above and beyond of the previous idea, go to each continent and acquire a lump of metal. Melt the metal down and make a ring. That way, you can say you went to the ends of the world for your special someone.
3) If you're against travelling, then this one is for you. Extract some stem cells from yourself, grow some bones using those stem cells, and make a ring out of that bone. It would be more than just a metaphorical meaning to the expression "I devote myself to you".

My major

2006-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

You scored as Philosophy. You should be a Philosophy major! Like the Philosopher, you are contemplative and you enjoy thinking about the purpose for humanity's existence.

Biology

100%

Mathematics

100%

Philosophy

100%

Chemistry

92%

Theater

83%

Sociology

83%

Engineering

83%

Psychology

67%

Journalism

58%

English

42%

Anthropology

33%

Dance

33%

Art

25%

Linguistics

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.com

Well, at least I know I'm going into the right field of study.

I see my life flashing right before my eyes.

2006-01-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I got several things done this winter break. Went to Body Worlds 2, went to Kathrine the Great exhibit, start and finish reading Polgara the Sorceress, start and finish Narutaru manga, beat Chrono Cross, and watch bunch of movies. Still so much undone, and probably will remain undone. Oh well. There's never enough time for wasting.
I don't know why, but for the past couple of weeks, the nagging desire to want children keep popping up in my head. Mayhaps it's the novel Mandy lend me, mayhaps it's just me, but nontheless it's a thought that I didn't think I would contemplate. People that know me would know that I hate children. They are highly irritating, and their ventures to test what they can get away with is quite tiresome. But why would people want children? There seem to be some innate pleasure for people to have progeny. In a way, it allows people to leave a legacy of themselves. But that also isn't true, since that would violate the concept of individuality. Besides, how often do children listen to their parents completely? If you think about it, your great grandchild will only have less than 15% of your genetic material. You're not really leaving anything that's truly you. Essentially you're spending all that effort raising what you believe will be your legacy, which is not really your's. All that of course, are the reasons why it would be stupid to have children.
But of course, with all that reason behind why I SHOULDN'T have children, for some reason I'm feeling this perhaps biological drive to WANT children. I can think of a couple of benefits, but I'm not sure they're genuine, or I'm just making excuses. One of the benefits is that you'll have a life long companion, who due to biological drives from genetic ties (ie. relation by blood), won't ever truly leave you. Actually, I can't think of any other reasons. I suppose it would be the same reason for wanting a wife/ husband.
This brings up a chill down my spine actually. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but the thought of living alone in a bachelor apartment at age 70 has crossed my mind. I've seen examples of the bitterness that comes from lifelong bachelorhood, and there's something unholesome and pittiful about that. On the one hand my desire for a significant other stems from curiosity, for I have no idea what it involves, and would like to experience this thing which many has both gained great pleasure, and many has gained great pain. On the other hand, I really don't want to be the bitter old man living alone in a coup.
I guess the problem partially lies on me. I'm too picky, and I don't know where to look for the type that I desire. Even if I do know where to look for the one I desire, who'd want someone that would probably be crushed by the mass of an average north american female? Who wants a person that lacks basic common sense? It really hurts the ego when no one in your life ever expressed any desire for you.
Hot damn, am I whiney and anxty today.

Lowest mark ever

2005-12-25T23:07:00.000-08:00

Well, as the title suggest, I received the lowest mark ever for a class in the course of my lifetime. Good ol' Social and Political Philosophy. Funny thing is, I really don't give a damn about it. I've said it once and I'll say it again, I really don't care about politics.
Mandy, by the way, I hate you! The book you loaned me has resulted in me getting as much sleep as if I was still in school! And I still have about 200 pages to go. I'm gonna have to get you back for that, when we next meet.
It's actually quite eerie this christmas. I received a wackload more presents than what I usually receive. A good amount from my parents currently residing overseas. (Actually, they aren't exactly presents, more like objects that I requested several months ago, which happened to be delivered at Christmas. But I'm still very excited about receiving those wonderful objects). Almost can't wait until summer to try out my electric fly swatter.
Break is already 1/2 over, and I still have so much to do. This is slightly irritating. I wish I have the power to manipulate space and time.

DONE!

2005-12-11T00:18:00.000-08:00

For the semester that is. Hopefully I didn't fail anything. Hopefully that essay in which the prof claim to be overdue will be marked, so I don't have to go through all that trouble to appeal.

No more pop-up ad

2005-12-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

What else is better to do than to kill the pop-up ad that would appear everytime you visit my blog? Especially when there is an exam in about 9 hours from now.

DAMN IT, the ad still exist.

Indulging Drowning

2005-12-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

Is a cool song! It's from the game Chrono Cross and in 5/4 time. Very rarely do you find songs like that.
Essays: done. Onwards to exams.

6:30am on the day when paper is due.

2005-12-05T03:39:00.000-08:00

I hate politics! After a semester in the study of political philosophy, I have to say, MAN, am I glad I didn't do something stupid like go into poli sci. Frankly I don't give a damn if every political institution just falls apart today at high noon. I just don't care. Politics can go STRAIGHT to hell and burn! (I'm currently 1/2 done my essay).
Meanwhile, taking a break and reading the "Wear Sunscreen" poem and writing in this blog. Random thought when reading a random line in that poem: "you are NOT as fat as you think." Well hot damn! I am soooooo screwed then.

YEY SLEEP!

2005-12-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

Wwwweeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllllllllll, my research paper was finished. YEY! Now I don't have to think about anything science for the rest of the year! (Yippdido... one single whole lousy month). Onward to the 2 gigantic supreme HUGE 50% philosophy papers (oh, did I mention that one of them is overdue?), and simultaneously prepare for the exams. Thank goodness there's only 2 exams. I don't know how I'd fair if I had to suffer anymore exams that I'm currently completely clueless about. Horray for crisis management.

what else is better to do at 3:30 in the evening?

2005-11-25T00:22:00.001-08:00

avoiding work because it's scary.

Your Ultimate Purity Test 2.0 Score Is...
	Your Score:	Average For All Users	Average For All ( total)
Dating	61.54%	33.4%	Flirts mildly, then runs away
Self-Lovin'	69.7%	61.68%	Master of your domain
Straightness	98.15%	40.45%	Just go fuck something, okay?
Fucking Sick	96.94%	90.37%	Refreshingly normal
Shamelessness	100%	77.97%	Has yet to see self in mirror
Sex Drive	100%	75.96%	Monks are envious
Gayness	100%	79.39%	Repressed, are we?
Dominant	100%	87.54%	Afraid to cross at "Don't Walk" signs
Submissive	100%	87.97%	Submits to no one... almost
Total Score	93.54%	74.5%
Take The Ultimate Purity Test 2.0 and see how you match up! (By The Ferrett)

Mildly amused at the commentary for the "Straightness"

Overwhelmed

2005-11-17T01:18:00.000-08:00

Lab's running into more troubles. Essays are over due. Less than two weeks and I have to put everything together for my research project and research paper. In about two weeks I have another essay due as well. Exams will start in 2.5 weeks, and will be done in 3. Did I mention I'm soooo doomed? Well, I suppose I can sing the doom song: doom doom dadoom doom dadoom doom doom, doom doom doom, doom doom dadoom doom dadoom doom doom, doomie doomie doom, doom dedoom dadedoom doooom!

Update of me

2005-10-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Well, it would seem I have been neglecting my blog. Well, here's a quick update. About 3 weeks ago, I had fun arguing that in accordance to Plato's as well as common ancient Greek beliefs (which was that death is good, but suicide is not, and that the best thing in life is to have never been born), that having children is committing atrocities, and that acts of homocides are noble deeds. That was fun.
Grandma passed away this past weekend. That was unpleasent, but we all knew it was gonna happen soon. Hope she's happy with her afterlife.

Can't sleep. Lab will eat me.

2005-10-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Thanksgiving weekend, and where am I? I'm in my lab trying to get some results for my presentation on Wednesday. Well, I'm not really complaining. Afterall, I did go home for a pitstop on Thursday night, went to a (rather pricy, but fun and cultural enriching) birthday party, then came back to Guelph on Saturday for The Arrogant Worms concert. Here's to working hard and playing hard.
Wow, this midi prep is taking forever. Never again will I extract plasmid using the midiprep kit. I'm telling you guys, miniprep is the way to go. It may not recover as much plasmid, but it's way less painful and less time consuming.
This is ridiculous. The time used to obtain the materials for my experiments is taking a lot longer than I thought. Stupid midiprep. I haven't even began my digestion reactions and ligation reactions. Unholy biological solid waste! From my estimation, I'm gonna be in the lab until sunrise tomorrow. Well, here's to my first all nighter lab. YEY!!

Creepy Guy at McD's and Kids

2005-09-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

That was an interesting late night McDonald's run yesterday. As my Mandy and I was ordering and eating our food, a middle aged male made several attempts in conversing with Mandy. Normally that by itself would be odd, but yesterday night's conversation included Mandy going into her flatmate's (my) room with a clever and committing homicide, whether criminally insane people are better than criminals, and other various equally disturbing topics. (Yea, and at the beginning of last year I was worried I might disturb HER). You'd think discussions of murder would deter others from want to approach you.
Today, a conversation with FLASH club people concluded that children's crys are at the same frequency as adult ear drums. That's why they are so irritating. This makes perfect sense evolutionarily. For children, they would receive more attention the more irritating they are. This is because you just can't ignore them. Thus the children with the more irritating cry would be more fit. Natural selection would then select for children that cries at the adult ear drum's frequency, thereby making children more and more irritating each generation.

start of the semester

2005-09-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is amazing. It's the second week, and I'm already camping out in my lab. Actually, I pulled a 1/2 nighter (not quite an ALL nighter, but close) the day before the first day of class. THAT, my friends, has got to be the history of lows. Well, good thing I have almost no real classes, or I'd be dead. Today, I expect to go home at earliest 2:00am. YEY!!

These death dreams has got to stop

2005-09-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Seriously, you can't really be happy with these dreams disturbing your life. And just when I came to terms with death from the last death dream. It was another thinking dream again, about death. It made me uneasy and very unsettled. That was on Thursday. To top off the goodness, I just found out that my grandmother from my mom's side is dying. I knew she was in poor health, but I never realized she's about to die any day now. Due to the fact that I live in Canada and have very little contact with her, we aren't very close. However, I still remember being babysat by her. I know her as a kind person, as opposed to the grandmother from my dad's side. Just 5 years ago she was healthy enough to travel, and came visit Canada. Just a year ago, her memory went, and she couldn't recognize people anymore. It's quite sad actually. I know she received quite a lot of abuse from some of my extended family members, fighting over inheritance. She did live to be quite old, but I think she has some regrets and several unfulfilled wishes. Mom is going back to Taiwan soon, in hopes she can visit her before she die. I would also like to go back and visit grandmother with my mom, but that's not going to be possible, due to school and lack of $$$.
Death really scares me. I sometimes envy people who are religious, because unlike them, I don't have the luxury of being certain that there is an afterlife. 50 years. That's aproximately how much time I have left, if I'm lucky. So what can you do with 50 years? Chances are, absolutely nothing. I'm not brilliant enough to do something groundbreaking. I am not charasmatic enough to influence a paradigm change in the world. Chances will be, I will not live a life of accomplishment.
So why live at all? Well, although people in general are stupid and annoying, I enjoy being with a select group of people. Interaction with people affirms my existance, and thus gives me pleasure. I also enjoy the pleasures of life. I would love to live a life playing games, go travelling, learn many forms of weaponary, SCUBA dive, go into space, go speed boating, etc., but my finances don't allow me to live that life.
Two possible way of living: to live a life of pleasure, or a life of accomplishment. I always thought I would like a life of accomplishment, but I'm not so sure. A life of accomplishment allows a person to persuit a type of immortality, allowing the person's work to live on, even after their death. But what meaning does the accomplishment have? Part of me believes that when you die, you die, which means, upon your death, your accomplishment would have no meaning to you as a person. I am not selfless enough to care what happens to the human race after I go. I don't even care if humans become extinct shortly after I go (well, maybe not too shortly. I care for my friends and family to not want them to die so abruptly. But I don't care if the rest of the planet goes). Alternatively, living a life of pleasure leaves you with no legacy, which makes the life seems somewhat not any better than being a common family pet.
As I said before, life is cruel. To receive awareness of my own existance, and to develop an appreciation and love for life, only to be thrown into the inevitable end. I sincerely hope there is some sort of existance after this life. If there is an afterlife, and I get a choice between going to heaven, or reincarnation, I wouldn't mind coming back again.

Random quiz on the internet

2005-08-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well, summer has made me ignore my online diary. Oh well. There's really nothing too exciting to update. Well, found this random quiz while looking for wallpaper for my screen. I don't think the result is too surprising. Do you?

Red! Your eyes are red! You're a very distant
person, and you tend to hunger for power. In a
Manga, you'd be the sexy evil villan. Nothing
wrong with that, although you may want to think
about toning down the killing.

What Color Are Your Anime Eyes?
brought to you by Quizilla

The New Science Complex SUCKS!

2005-07-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

Whoever designed that building must have been on crack or something. The fume hood system should not be as easily knocked out than it is. One simple lightning bolt is all it takes. When the fume hood system gets knocked out, we all have to evacuate the building. Sooooo, do you prefer death by fumes or death by lightning?
So that's what happened last Thursday. Fume hood got knocked out while it was pouring rain outside. The safety officer pulled the fire alarm because many people (including myself) was reluctant to evacuate. So, out of the ice and into the frying pan I guess. Oh, and something about the fire system in that stupid building. First, the fire alarm is timid in comparison to other buildings. Fire alarms should be loud and obnoxious to the point that you'd rather get out just so you don't have to hear the sound. Another thing about the fire system is that if you don't get out of the building in time, the doors becomes vacuum sealed. Whoever thought it was a GOOD idea to seal the exits when the building is on fire? You don't put in a fire suppression system and trap the people in a burning building!
The fume hood system was not reset/repaired for a few hours, so we all went back into the building to retreive our stuff quickly and leave for the day (with the doors vacuum sealed, and only openable in brief moments). I heard that the building is expected to last only 20 years.
Oh, the other night I dreamed of a pigeon eating the eyeballs of a baby vulture. The baby vulture then just roamed around blind.
On the same night, I dreamed of death. It was a dream of thought, rather than a dream of images. It was a dream where it was pitch dark, and I was occupied with thought of death. The concept of there not being life after death was the concern. I believe in a life after death, but the possibility of there not being one is still there. What if it's just oblivion after death? I mean, you can look at it as taking a very very long deep sleep, but that's still not enough comfort for the existential horrors of it all. Most of us fear death, and everyone that's living all have to come to terms with it within their lifetime. Death. If there is no existance after life, then why live at all? Is life good? Is it good enough to come to existance, being aware of our own existance, only to know that we will eventually end? I believe it is cruel. To be forced into existance, liking it, and knowing it will all end. It's worse than dragging someone out of Plato's cave, make him a king, only to tell him that he'll be back to being a slave in the cave next week. It's worse than eternal damnation in hell. At least in hell, you still exist and have conciousness. The dream really made me wish I was never born. But that's not possible. I am alive, and will remain so until my untimely demise, and must make the best of the situation. Am I able to live my life with enough fullfilment that when I die, I can say, "it's fine if I cease to exist, because my life was great enough that I don't mind."? That's a difficult goal to accomplish.
I really don't know why that dream made me so uneasy. I have thought about death, and had come to terms with it a long time ago. Eternal sleep was not scary. Afterall, it is nice to sleep, and death should be something to look forward to, especially if one is lazy. And if there IS some sort of conciousness/existance after death, well, that's a bonus. So why can't I use those reasons to make myself feel better?

The things you learn

2005-06-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago, my computer died on me. It just decided to reboot, and refuse to boot up windows. What's stranger, is that when I insert the windows boot disk, it can't detect a windows to detect, on EITHER of my hard drives. Even weirder still, is that when I tried to reformat my hard drive, it will ALWAYS attempt to reformat my C drive, regardless of what I tell it to do. But it won't even do THAT. It would try VERY HARD to try and reformat a drive, but fail miserably (after an hour of attempted formatting, the process is still at 0%). So, I figured it was a good time to get a new computer.
Over the weekend, I went and purchased a new motherboard, a new processor, and a pair of dual channel rams. I hit some road blocks, and decided to improve my family's piece of junk computer. In the process of improvement, I broke it. It took me a very long time, but in the end, I finally fixed it (more like combining functional parts from an even older computer, and the family's bucket of rust). It was very annoying, because the good parts which are still functional from my broken computer was too new for my family's computer, so most of my "improvement" effort went down the toilet. Oh well.
So now I have a somewhat "new" computer (the only things that were from the original computer are the case, the sound card, the ethernet card, and the floppy drive). I am very proud for building it, and making it work. Furthermore, I finally figured out how to fully use the 200 GB of my hard drive. All you had to do is go into the control panel, admin tool, and partition the unused space on the drive. You'd think there would be more places on the net that tells you to do that, but no. I've gone through months of research to find that extremely simple solution. Well, at least now I have an excellent computer (compared to my older one) that actually won't go into seizures everytime I make it multitask, and I've gained the ability to build a computer from scratch. Woot!

The long awaited lyrics quiz.

2005-05-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the long awaited lyrics quiz. For those that are doing this kind of quiz the first time, here's the instruction. For each lyric, name the song, artist, and if it's from a musical, name the musical as well. The whole thing is out of 23 (3 of the below lyrics are from musicals). Just post the answers in the comments section, or e mail me if you know my e mail. Be forwarned, the lyrics range from G rated, to very twisted. Enjoy.

1) Why bleeding is breating/ You're hiding, underneath the smoke in the room/ Try, bleeding is believing/ I used to

2) It's the oldest story/ Masses are oppressed/ Faces, clothes, and bladders all destressed

3) So, let go/ Just get in/ Oh, it's so amazing here/ It's all right/ 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

4) Agony!/ Misery!/ Woe!/ Not to know what you miss/ While they lie there for years/ And you cry on their biers/ What unbearable bliss!/ Agony, that can cut like a knife!/ Oh well, back to my wife...

5) When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,/ but they still go for penuts when coated with cyanide.

6) I like big butts and I cannot lie/ You other brothers can't deny/ That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist/ With a round thing in your face/ You get sprung, wanna pull out your tongue/ 'Cause you notice that butt was stuffed

7) The internet is really really great/ For porn!/ I've got a fast connection so I don't have to wait/ For Porn!/ Huh? There's always some new site/ For porn!/ I browse all day and night/ For porn!/ It's like I'm surfing a the speed of light/ For porn!

8) It's real early morning/ No one is awake/ I'm back at my cliff/ Still throwing things off/ I listen to the sounds they make/ On their way down/ I follow with my eyes 'til they crash/ imagine what my body would sound like/ Slamming against those rocks/ When it lands/ Will my eyes be closed, or open?

9) Since you've been gone/ Well, I feel like I've been chewing on tin foil/ Since you've been gone/ It's like I've got a great big mouthful of cod liver oil/ Well, I'm feeling like I've stuck my hand inside a blender and turned it on/ you know, I've been in a buttload of pain/ Since you've been gone

10) Spare the spud! EAT A COW INSTEEEEEEAAAAADDDDDD!!!!!

BAHAHAHAHAH!!!! That's hillarious!

2005-04-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

My goodness, that was hillarious. I never thought I would ever get something in the 90s ever again. That 90% final option for Pharm Tox WAS a good idea. And what's better? I didn't fail anything!! WOOT!!!! (Even though my grades had a wopping 25% difference between the best and the worst mark).
Well, I start my work on Monday. And I have no idea when I'm supposed to go into the lab. ~Grin. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to go in early then.
Mysic lyrics test coming shortly. Probably in a week or so.
Oh, my sister obtained a N64 system from her co-worker for free. I'm just surprised how FRIGGEN DIFFICULT it is to obtain good N64 games like Mario Kart. (This will be the very first video game system we own by the way. My mom tried very hard to stop us from keeping it. Geez, my sister is older than me, and I'm already 22, and pretty much living on my own most of the year. She must think video games are the incarnation of Satan or something).

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.

2005-04-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Killer exam part 1 done. NO MORE LAB METHODS!!!! (Oh, I definitely got higher than 30% on that exam). I swear, my bed is posessed. This morning at 7:00, right after the alarm went off, the wooden planks supporting the mattress collapsed. Thus, killed any desire for me to remain in bed to catch some extra minutes of Z's. Freaky no?
Tomorrow is scary. Another 8:30 exam (Human Genetics), but follows right afterwards with a killer 90% final for Pharm Tox. Umm, I am sooo screwed. Funny how the 90% final option seemed like a good idea some point in time. Way to end the exams this year. Me go study now.

The genetics of witchness, and stuff.

2005-04-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am such a nerd. Sometimes today, I went and ponder the genetics of witchness again. Yes, again, meaning I thought about the subject before.
Let's introduce the idea. In general, witches are female humans with magical capabilities. In certain stories, they live to be very very old. There are a lot of variety of how witches are born, however, for the sake of this study, we will suppose that witches can only be born from witches (thus the traits of witchness is entirely genetic), and there is no such thing as a wizard (male version of witches).
Several months ago, I pondered that if only females gets the trait, the gene thus must be on the X chromosome. Since males cannot be witches, the Y chromosome must have some inhibiting factors. But then if it follows that female children of witches will be witches, then there must be a bias as to the X chromosome that gets transmitted. But wait, then shouldn't there be a spontaneous case of witchery where the father passes on a "recessive" X chromosome to a female child, and thus have a witch in the family when both parents appear to be "normal? I then come to the conclusion that the genetics of witchness cannot work.
BUT, today, I thought of something that would make it work. How could I have NOT thought about mitochondrial DNA?? It fits perfectly! mtDNA only gets passed down from the mother, thus you don't have to worry about the father contributing any mitochondrial genetic materials. Thus, the gene for witchness MUST be in the mtDNA! The only difference between males and females in terms of chromosomes is that males have the Y chromosome. Thus, there must be an inhibiting factor of witchness located somewhere in the Y chromosome.
Did I mention that I'm such a nerd?
Oh, and for something completely different, I figured out why I'm still stuck with 2MB of e mail space for my hotmail account. Hotmail offers 250MB of space for the following regions: the 50 United States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (and obviously Canada, 'cause all my friends have it). They do NOT offer 250MB of space if you live in Antarctica! (Well, it seemed like a good idea to say I lived in Antarctica when I signed up for hotmail).
Well, that's enough post for me for now. Oh, and my twisted music quiz will come in a week or so. BEWARE, it's gonna consist of very twisted lyrics :D. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The beginning of the end!

2005-04-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Got 30 minutes to kill before I go off to hunt someone down. Well, the first exam was rather tough. At the very least, it was tougher than the exam the prof gave last year. That is soooo unfair. Courses that are new either begins really pathetically easy, and in the second time it's taught gets over-compensated with toughness, or vice verca. Unfortunately, it was the prior that was the case. But then why is there a bimodal distribution in terms of grades in that class? People are either doing really well, or really horrible. As for me, I'm sitting right in between both humps. Oh well. I don't care. I think I passed that exam, and that's all it matters (besides, it was a 20% final anyway).
The exam on Thursday morning will be the one that kills me (well, and the ones next week. But that's not near enough to worry me). That course should be interesting also. Without the midterm, I'd be getting an 86% in that course right now. With the midterm, I'm in the low 60s. I need a 25% on the final to pass that course. I think I can manage that.
Well, yesterday I was playing Risk with Mandy. I won the first two games, but the third game had something interesting. How in the world is it possible to fail to take a territory when the defending player had only 5 armies, and you had more than 3x the millitary prowess? Not only so, Mandy didn't lose any armies at all that battle! The game went on with my continuous rolls of 1s and 2s. It's a wonder I survived more than 3 hours.
I love torrentspy.com! I can now find loads of stuff to download that I haven't been able to find for ages, ever since suprnova.org went down. Guess I'll be abusing lots of bandwidth in the next little while ;). Anywho, I think that's enough post for now. Gotta run. Over and out.

The 10 minutes calm before the storm, and stuff

2005-04-09T19:08:00.000-07:00

This is a couple of days old, but it's still slightly amusing. A couple of days ago, Alyson and I was having a conversation, where it began with one of her class being intro to musicianship (which is a joke course). It progressed into the acronym of order of sharps for keys, which goes "Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle". We couldn't remember the acronym for the flats though, but we recalled there being a banana, a chimp, and some eating. Thus the conversation then progressed into the differences between chimp eating bananas, and banana eating chimps.
Do they essentially mean the same thing? Well not really. We agreed that if the second word is plural, then the second subject is the one being eaten. But what if the first subject is plural and the second is singular, ie. chimps eating banana, and bananas eating chimp? We also agreed that it's the singular subject that's eating the plural. But what if you have both singular, ie. banana eating chimp and chimp eating banana? How can you tell what's eating what? How about if they are both plural, ie. bananas eating chimps, or chimps eating bananas? Can you determine it's the normal event of bananas being devoured by chimps, or are those poor chimps being horribly devoured by some killer bananas?
Well, my first exam is on Monday at 8:30, in which I hadn't the time to study for yet. The reason: stupid lab report of doom that was due on Friday, and my need to go home and do my taxes. I shall do horrendously on that final, it's gonna be hillarious. (Any sadists out there)? That being said, at least I got some period of unconciousness to replenish my supply of neurotransmitters last night. Yey!

I will survive.

2005-04-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

If I can ge through until a week Wednesday, I think I'll have some break time. But before then, I think I'll have no sleep for the next week and a half. I hope my tortured mind, body, and soul will give me some forgiveness when all of this is over. Just a few days to go...

I'LL DESTROY YOU ALL!!!!!!!!

2005-03-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

Ahem, just a random post. There's no need for concern. Just get back to your daily routines, for there's nothing to fear but fear itself.

There is no such thing as a selfless act.

2005-03-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

Or good/evil dichotomy (the opposite of good is CLEARLY bad, not evil). I always find the posts such as the recent ones on the TAG and in the guestbook hillarious (YES! I'm spreading hatred and uneasiness onto the world. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!). It's amusing how those types of posts never have contact info. If I was to criticise someone on the net, I'd have the balls to leave contact info. (By the way, in the topic of abortion, I'm 100% pro-choice).
Well, only a little over 2 weeks of classes left. Which means there's only a little over 2 weeks for everything to be due. Here's what's in store in the near future: 2 lab reports of doom due next week, 1 problem based learning assingment for Human Gen due next week, the last bioinformatics quiz (those quizzes are 10% each), one presentation for bioinformatics due in 2 weeks, and independent project for lab methods due in 2 weeks. Oh, and a lab methods quiz tomorrow that's worth more than lab reports. Next week's gonna hurt.
I originally obtained a couple of helium balloons over the weekend for the purpose of playing with the helium, but it looks like the balloons have deflated. I had helium balloons before, but I never realized how quickly those things deflate (they no longer float after 1 day).
At least in the midst of all this crazy workload, Good Friday comes up. It's really a shame I don't get Easter off too. Guess Easter Monday is only a figment of my imagination. But chances are, there will be an increase in my already abundant chocolate supply very soon. (I'm telling ya, it's very difficult to consume all those chocolate by yourself. Especially when you don't have a habit of eating those for snacks). I really don't know where my sweet tooth have gone. I remember when I was in elementary school, I could wolf down TONNES of those things. But now, I can't seem to make a dent in my supply.
For the Pharmacology & Toxicology midterm where one of the 2 sections I went "huh?", the results were interesting. Well, the two sections differed by A WHOPPING 45%!!!! (So, does that mean I know the materials or does that mean I don't?) Yes, I failed one of the sections, and did really well in the other. I now really believe my grades are a function of the random number generator.
One of these days I've got to do updates for my new hard drive so it would actually detect the whole 200GB. Right now it's only detecting 130. Bah. Oh, and the rebate hasn't seem to be processed yet. I should contact them in the next few days. I don't feel like not getting my $40.
Considering everything, life really seem to be peaceful and tranquil these days. Wow, what's going on? Is the world gonna end in the near future? Maybe something like this: http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php will happen next month.

CCCCOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!

2005-03-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

NEET, I AM NO LONGER UNEMPLOYED FOR THE SUMMER!!!!

The whole ordeal started on Thursday evening, when I received an e mail from an unknown person with no subjects. I was curious, and decided to take a look at it. It was a prof saying that he still had a URA position available, and wondered if I was interested. I was shocked. I mean, heck, I thought all the prof already hired. And besides, I never applied to this prof. I met with him on Friday, and after a quite long interview, he decided to hire me! So, I'd be playing with virus at the summer time :D. The only potential concern I have would be, he wanted me to do the research project with him next year also. Thus, if there is anything I don't like when working, I'm stuck there for the whole entire year. But that doesn't really matter. I mean, it's a lot better to be playing with (grape) virus, than making bagels and sandwiches at Tim Horton's. I'd actually be acquiring experiences I can use now.

WOOOHOOOOO!!!!

Religion Sucks!

2005-03-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

I appologize first hand if I'm offending anyone. I know there are very dogmatic Christians reading this blog, and it's not my purpose to make angry people. There are very kind and decent Christians around, and I'm friends with a good number of them. But this is my blog, and I need to vent.
Last time I checked, Christianity is a religion that helps people in need. Thus, if you're one of the people in need, I don't think you should go and donate what little possessions you've got. Wouldn't it make more sense to get out of the position of need first so that you wouldn't be a burden to others?
So what's the whole point I'm making? Well, first of all, I know of no other family as in debt as mine is. Much of the debt has affected my extended family as well. So what does my mom do? She donates $200 to the church for a missionary TV station in China. On top of that, she lend $200 to another person for the purpose of donating as well. Meanwhile, whe's bitching and complaining and stressing about there not being enough money to pay the bills. Geez mom, get your priorities strait. If you REALLY want to donate those money, why can't you donate it to something more worth while? Like, let's see? Perhaps YOUR FAMILY??
Religion is a wonderful thing to brainwash the masses. Most wars in the history of human kind has been attributed to God. I hate it. I hate the fact that my mom isn't smart enough to know when to draw the line. Well, if she's just going to be giving out free money for people, then that's the last time I help her out financially, because, well, I'm pretty broke myself. And I don't want something I give, intending to help her, end up help propogating something I don't believe.
She's been forgetting plans she's made with people because of religion, and on numerous occasions, stood people up because of it. My dad, my sister, and I are all sick and tired of her behaviour, but she's too caught up by her new "toy" to even notice. And it annoys the hell out of me that she still denies being religious.

Series of Unfortunate Events

2005-03-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

Is a book series in which I have been suggested to reading. But that's something completely different from today's post.
Gosh I hate getting crappy marks for midterms. I'm really not used to getting mid 50s and low 60s for tests. This sucks. And for Human Genetics, it's not like I didn't know the answer. When asked the question of what colour Goldilocks hair is, and you answer that she saw 3 bears, went into the bears' house, ate the baby bear's porage, broke baby bear's chair, and slept in baby bear's bed, how many marks do you think you'll get? Seriously, I really need to READ the question before answering them. (DNA Rep midterm on the other hand was just rough. 'Though, I'm still upset I got below the class average of 65%). It's horrible. I've actually spent a good decent amount of time studying for these stuff too.
Lab Methods was horrid too. For the quiz, after a glance at the class' marks (not on purpose though), I realized that my mark was the lousiest. Heck, it's one thing getting a lousy mark, but it's something else when you're getting the worst mark of the class. Also, when the prof comments on how well the second lab was done by the class, and you look at your second lab mark, realizing he meant everyone did well EXCEPT FOR YOU, it kinda makes you feel stupid.
On Thursday, I wrote the Parm Tox midterm. There was 2 booklets (one from each prof), which is 50% each. As I was writing the first booklet, I thought I was doing well, since I finished 24 questions in 45 minutes. However, I found out that the first booklet was out of 50, NOT 25. Needless to say, the midterm felt like the Neverending Story (the one the kid in the story reads, not the one we read). It really couldn't have gone well, considering a good chunk of the question I went "huh? What the heck is this?".
And I'm still currently not able to find a stupid lab job. Why do I get the feeling I'm going to end up working at Tim Horton's AGAIN? Stupid world. Stupid things not going my way. Maybe Bush should invade North Korea, and trigger a nuclear war and end the world. That way trivial things like horrendous grades and unemployment wouldn't get me so down.

Owwwww

2005-02-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

All nighters before classes start hurts, and is just plain wrong.
Journal articles should be considered profanity. (I've read 6 yesterday. Over the past 2 weeks, I've read over 10).
I've got 2 days to study for DNA Replication and Repair, in which I have barely started.
I've got 4 days to study for Pharmacology & Toxicology, in which I'm not ready yet.
I've got 4 days to completely be prepared for a presentation in DNA Replication and Repair, in which the powerpoint is not even 1/2 complete, in which the group has not even run through our ideas.
I've got roughly a week to do the DNA Replication and Repair paper (10 pages) on the topic of my presentation.
Owwwwwwwwwwww.

Sweet sweet reading week.

2005-02-21T18:49:00.000-08:00

Just in time too. Whew, the past 2 weeks was definitely something. Barely had enough time to hand in my lab report of doom on Friday Feb 18. Hope the tests and midterm went well.
I really hate the new lab TA for Lab Methods. He's such an ass. He exerts his authority needlessly, has no constructive criticism, looks down on the students, and has the arogance as big as an elephant. The world would be a better place if a meteorite strikes him dead. Lab is really not fun with him in it.
I'm now in reading week (a week without classes). Good thing too, considerin the past couple of weeks, on most weekdays would get less than 4 hours of sleep (if I was fortunate). Really glad I get to catch up on sleep.
I just finished making cigarette extracts. It's for my lab methods' independent lab component. I want to test the mutagenicity of cigarettes, amongst other stuff. Supposedly the extract of cigarettes is almost pure nicotine, and if you get poked with a pindrop of pure nicotine, you'd be dead before you hit the floor. It's a shame I can't test the quality of the extract though. Testing it on the lab TA would be fun :D.
There's nothing really exciting in my life these day. Just loads more of work and stuff. Signing out.

The next 2 weeks...

2005-02-08T14:11:00.000-08:00

IS GONNA KILL ME!!!!
Due this Friday: Human Genetics assignment, Pharmacology & Toxicology assignment, lab report for Lab Methods 2, URA/USRA applications.
On Thursday there's a rather important quiz for Lab Methods.
A week Thursday: get most of the information gathered for DNA Rep group presentation (it's big) so that the meeting with the Masters student on Friday would be productive, and so that my partners won't kill me.
A week Friday: another lab report for Lab Methods 2 (yea, those stupid annoying lab reports are back...).
On a mysterious day next week, I have a midterm on some mysterious course. I haven't verified yet.
Well, we all have to go someday. I guess I should make my will in the next couple of days.
On a different note, I got stood up for a get-together with a friend of mine today.

I hate applications

2005-02-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I figure it's time for an update, since I haven't done that for a while. I don't exactly have a lot of time, so this will have to be somewhat brief.
So what's new in my life? Well, first off, I got somewhat of a nasty bug last Thursday (it got very bad very quickly), and I'm still recovering. Currently I'm going through summer lab job opportunities with profs, and in need of filling loads of applications. It's coming a lot slower than I'd like. Hopefully I'll get something this year, 'cause I really don't want to go back to Tim's again for the summer. Natalie edited my resume and it is currently no longer butt ugly.
I need several things. 1) better time management skills. 2) able to function without sleep. 3) weekends to be a couple of days longer. 4) good old time machine. Anyone have those for sale?

Computer Surgery

2005-01-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, my computer continues to annoy me. 2 days ago, files got corrupted again, and windows refused to start up, even after I tried to repair it. I suspect it's my older hard drive that was cranky, so as a result of being fed up, I decided to surgically remove that hard drive. This is so annoying. Setting up windows 2000 on the other hard drive, getting all the updates, and setting up all the other miscellaneous files always takes forever. If my action produces no improvement, then I'm taking a baseball bat and bashing this bucket of rust.
My magic 8 ball still amazes me. I asked if my computer will ever start up again if I just leave it, and it said no (and sure enough, it didn't. It only started up after I installed windows on my newer hard drive). I wonder what or who is posessing this magic 8 ball.
In DNA Replication and Repair, my group got shafted into going 1st. I hate going first, especially when student evaluation is a part of it. Whenever there's student evaluation, the first people always get horrid marks. After people have gone and realized how challenging the assignment is, they become more lenient with their evaluations. Bah. Well, at least the written assignment is only 10 pages (double spaced not including figures) as opposed to 5000 words. From the looks of it, I think this semester won't make me put ink on as many papers as last semester, so I'm glad.

Lack of Update

2005-01-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

It wasn't my fault, honestly!
Upon my return trip to Guelph, I thought I left my keyboard at Guelph. Upon arriving at Guelph, I realized that I had not. As a result, I had a computer with no keyboard, yey! Well, the good stuff is that my sister brought over my keyboard at Saturday, so all is good now.
So, what went on 1st week of school? Well, I was conned into dropping mammalian physiology 2, and picking up Bioinformatics. How did I get conned? Well, Natalie suggested that mamm phys 2 would be moving at an incredibly fast pace (similar to Speedy Gonzalas on a caffeen high), and showed me that the powerpoint notes provided would be incredibly graphic intensive and with a black background. On top of that, the magic 8 ball also conned me into taking bioinformatics. It was really erie. The sequence of questions and answers were like this:
Q: Will this semester kill me?
A: As I see it, yes.
Q: Should I switch to Bioinformatics?
A: Outlook good.
Q: Will I find a research job with one of the professors for the summer?
A: Without a doubt.
Q: If I make the switch of courses, will my average be better than if I didn't?
A: Without a doubt.
(and just to make sure the 8 ball isn't stuck at positive answers)
Q: Will I have financial difficulties next year?
A: Very doubtful.
Well, I guess you can't really argue with the magic 8 ball.
So currently there's only a couple of courses that scares the living daylights out of me. Lab Methods 2, and DNA replication and repairs. Human Genetics is given in bite size pieces, and Bioinformatics seems okay. As for Pharmacology & Toxicology, well, you can't go wrong with learning how drugs and poison works now can you? But all in all, this semester seems slightly less painful than the last one (fingers crossed). Hopefully everything will go well this semester.
That ends my post for now. Just leaving you with a quote I found from a rather twisted manga: "Apologizing is such a pain, though. That's why you should just kill her!"

The break is just not long enough

2005-01-06T16:31:00.000-08:00

It's a shame that the break is almost over. I can really do with another week. New years was fine I guess. Went bowling with my family, where we were rudely interupted by a group of drunks and kids. They were rude, and disruptive. They would hog the balls, and block our path to take a picture. Bowling was fine until that point, and we decided to leave.
We went to have bubble tea afterwards, and I taught (or attempted to teach) my family Eucher. My sister didn't enjoy the game, and my mom was at a loss. Even though smoking is banned from all public eateries, they still allowed smoking indoors. The drinks were not top notch. So we celebrated the new years at a not exactly excellent place. Oh well. It wasn't too bad.
I haven't even purchased everything I intend to bring to school. This is annoying. I need a haircut too. No, I need to get ALL my hair cut (hahaha, old joke). I'm soooo not looking forward to the new semester. It's going to be as bad, if not worse than the last one, in which I did quite poorly. Oh well. If my sinusoidal patterns of grades continue, I'll eventually do better. I just hope I reached the minimum already.
Oh, yea, and I helped my cousin write her essay on Lord of the flies the other day. Hope it was good enough ('cause I suck at the subject of English). If not, oh well. It could have been worse.

Let it snow...

2004-12-26T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess snow is better than rain, ASIDE FROM IT BEING FRIGGEN COLD!!!! Um, right, I'm fine.
So I guess since I have free time now, I should update this thing more often. Let's see, how shall I start? When I finished my exams, I started reading The Golden Compass. It was a book I read a decade ago, and I never finished the trillogy. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get on that. Upon reading the book, I thought: this is doing no improvement at the freezing feeling I'm getting. The story takes place in the arctic... brrrrr. Second book The Subtle Knife was all right though. I say, children's book are much more entertaining to read. Before I start the third one, I have to read Lord of the Flies by Wednesday so I could help my cousin do her essay.
So how did I spend the days around Christmas? Well, Dec 23 I went to my aunt's for a great diner, and exchanged gifts with my cousin. I got her a gigantic rubber ducky, and she got me a CD wallet. On the 24, my mom forced my sister and I to accompany her to the church for a Christmas eve ceremony. My sister and I were quite upset by her move, and compromised at taking 2 cars to the church, and staying for 30 minutes. I think she's trying too hard to spread religion to me. I don't get it. How do people do it? I mean, I don't think I can ever put that much effort in converting religious people into atheists or agnostics.
Today I went on a little shopping trip with my sister. Bought a deck of Eucher cards (yes, I'm a nerd. But if you just buy a regular deck of cards and play Eucher, you'll be able to tell which ones are high cards), 9 packs of Unhinged magic cards (yea, I know it's a waste of money, but it was a must have item), and saw House of Flying Daggers (movie). My sister claimed that in order for a Chinese film to be considered an epic, someone must always die at the end (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, and this one). Quite a funny observation.
Tomorrow is another day. May all my enemies parish from 3rd degree burn of >80% of their body, just for the irony of the weather.

Hope it ended well

2004-12-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

Well, after 113 pages of stuff constructed, 4 exams, numurous outrages, endless days of sleepless nights, it's finally winter break. Hope everything went well, for me and all my friends. Just taking it easy now, watching vast quantities of cartoons (got hooked on Scrapped Princess, and watched it 3x already). Made my sister watch one episode, and made her addicted to it too :D.
So far I intend to waste this break completely, because well, I deserved it. I don't even mind too much if I do semi-poorly in my courses, because they are done. Well, have a wonderful break everyone. Over and out.

'Tis the season to be jolly

2004-12-08T01:57:00.000-08:00

Hahaha, yea right. More like 'tis the season to go crazy. I'll keep this short since I'm currently tackling a massive paper due in about 12 hours.
Remind me to get better chairs for next semester. Lacking padding in my glutes really isn't comfortable, and plastic surgery is too expensive, and takes too long to heal.
Due to the lack of time, no one is getting anything from me this Christmas. This is ridiculous. I don't even have time to prepare my annual Christmas coal. Oh well, guess you all will just have to cry now, 'cause you're all bad enough to not even receive coal for Christmas.

I need a better chair.

2004-11-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, that was certainly a week from hell. From Sunday night to Thursday night, the night I got the most sleep was when I went to Kim's significant other's birthday party (bar). All other nights received 3 or less hours of sleep. Not fun. Especially when you are sitting in front of this computer for hours after hours, and realizing that the chair is not padded enough.
I just calculated how many pages of stuff I've written this semester. The answer? 90! Yes, 90 friggen pages! 73 of which came from Lab Methods. 10 more pages more to hit the big 100! Which is not hard, considering I've got one more lab report, and one more big essay for this coming week. I'm going to enjoy this winter break of no work.

I'm not dead yet.

2004-11-17T01:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the last post was some time ago. I'm still alive (don't know how though). Sorry for the delay. Couldn't help it though. Got things to do coming out of my behind one right after another. By the way, I HATE LAB METHODS!! Everytime I have something due in that class, I end up having ZERO hour of sleep the night before. So, why don't I do the lab reports earlier you ask? Well, I would if I could, but I can't, so I don't. Why? Well, if the lab report was due on Friday, and you had a midterm on the Thursday and Wednesday right before it, and you haven't study for them yet, as well as the necessity of preparing for group work so I don't get killed by my partner on the Sunday before it, it's kind of difficult to find time to construct the stupid lab report. Oh, and there was also the stupid term paper for that bloody course (ended up to be 35 pages long) the prior Friday. (That term paper also killed my sleep).
I hate that course also because of the bloody midterm. I thought I was prepared for it by studying previous year's midterm, but apparently I wasn't. I could do any possible calculations they throw at me, as well as some chemicals and what they are used for. But what did the midterm consisted of? Of course. Memorization of what each bloody chemical does and why you add them OF THE ONES I DON'T KNOW! Big long calculation questions ended up being out of 1 whole bloody marks. HOW?? And the amount of detail you needed for the explaination... GRRRR!!!
Well, so far, I'm getting a 91% in the lab report, a 72% in the quiz, and less than 50% on the midterm. Am I doing well? I can always count on this course to put me into shock. Why am I taking Lab Methods 2 next semester?
The upcoming weeks consists of presentation for Transmission Genetics on this Friday, one term paper for Population Genetics due the Monday after, one paper for Transmission Genetics as well as lab report for Lab Methods on a week Friday, lab report for Lab Methods two weeks (Wednesday), and a 20 pages essay on Ethics 2 weeks Friday. Oh, I also have the weekly Ethics reading of approximately 50 pages to do. Oooowwwwwww!!!!
I guess the $1905 bursary would help ease the pain slightly.

Bush Won?

2004-11-04T15:18:00.000-08:00

This is rather amusing, in a dark satanic twisted kind of way. Bush won. The war hungry maniac is gonna stay in office for another 4 years. How do you think the world is going to end? This is very strange, considering that every US citizen that I know hates Bush (they don't like Kerry either, but they hate bush more). We live in an interesting time I guess.
I think Bush is overdue for an assassination. What ever happened to the fatal 20s curse? I see this election as a failure in democracy. I guess Plato was right, that democracy might be one of the worst political system there is, especially when majority of the people in question are morons or illinformed.
I suppose Bush gives me an incentive to take over the world. I mean, I bet I can do a better job than him. First order of business I have is to stop all these nonsense jihad. I'm going to place UN headquarters in Jerusalem and make it a city state. Next I will demilitarize every country as well as make it illegal for countries other than the UN to posess nukes. I will also make it possible for country leaders to be put on trial for war crimes. The UN should be the only one that has military might. Maybe if I'm up to it, I'll illegalize organized religion as well. Religion makes too many angry people. The harm outweighs the benefit.

Yey, I feel slightly happier ;)

2004-11-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

Well, at least I'm no longer accused of accademic misconduct. Sweet. Thank you confession letter I made my lab partner sign.
Yesterday my prof pretty much went "so from what I get out of this letter is you (me) saying it's not your fault, and you (my lab partner) agreeing to that"? We both agreed, and I got off the hook. My lab partner got 50% on that lab report as punishment, and I got my original mark back. This almost makes me feel like I got a 41% extra free mark :D.
Hopefully my term paper that's due this Friday will go as well.

Murphy loves me!

2004-10-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well, first off, the stupid accusation of accademic misconduct has still not been resolved. That's really stressing the hell out of me. (Implimenting Murphy's laws #2"Everything takes longer than you think.").
Next, the Lab Methods midterm was surprisingly difficult. I walked into the midterm believing I'm ready for anything they throw at me, and comes out hoping for a pass. (Implimenting Murphy's laws #6 "If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.").
Also, I've gotten my Transmission Genetics midterm back (in which I studied quite substantially). Last week I came out of the midterm feeling quite confident that I didn't do too badly (although I did ran out of time at the last 8 marks question). Upon finding out the grade I got, I was quite shocked. A 60%???? HOW?? I guess there are some professors that you just can't understand what they want as an answer to a question. (Implementing Murphy's laws #5 "If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.").
To add icing to the cake, essential files that makes the computer run smoothly continue to be corrupted and deleted. I'm quite surprised that my computer can still boot up. (Implementing Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws "Everything goes wrong all at once.").

Well THAT solved the mystery

2004-10-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, I guess this is now easier to deal with. Apparently I forgot that I e mailed a copy of my discussion to my lab partner (so that he'd have some idea as to what to put in that section) along with the graphs (how I forgot that I gave him a copy of my discussion still baffles my mind). Since the results were the same (because he was my lab partner), he assumed that the discussion portion can be the same for the 2 people (he claims that it was that way for other courses). He thus copied and pasted my entire discussion section. Well, I guess this counts as a stress relief for me.

This is ridiculous!

2004-10-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

How is this even possible? HOW???? In the history of my entire academic carreer, I have NEVER been accused of academic misconduct, until now. Just, HOW?????
How in the world would my lab partner's report be so similar in wording compared to mine, when I haven't even caught a GLIMPS of his report? How is this even possible when he hasn't even seen mine??
This is really stupid. Even more so, is the fact that there are enough groups that are accused to piss off the lab instructor. I can't speak on other people's behalf, but how in the world did I get accused of plagerism when I worked really hard and spent nights deprived of slumber over this stupid lab. I'm not about to settle for anything less than NOT GUILTY!
I guess I just have to be the king of unusual circumstances... I think I ought to raise hell for the next several days.

My beliefs

2004-10-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

Oh fine, I guess there's no harm done in posting my beliefs. Well, a lot of it is posted on my site: www.geocities.com/takingovertheworldin3easysteps/index.html (beware. It has very disturbing and dark content left right and centre, even by my standards. It disturbes even some of my closest of friends. Please do not visit if you don't have a very tollerant mind. Above average won't cut it here).
Basic beliefs I have is not do onto others what you would like them do to you, but rather, take actions of which you believe would be most desirable. It would follow that you take account of the likely consequence of your actions into consideration. For instance, let's suppose you have an urge to go punch a guy. It would feel wonderful at first, but that guy might have friends who will beat you half to death the next day, so beating the guy up in the first place would not be a desirable action.
I guess you could say that I'm a consequentiallist, for being a believer that the ends justifies the means. However, I also believe that a road to hell is NOT paved with good intentions. If your intent is good, and the outcome is not good, then you are not guilty (no willful harmful mental intent). HOWEVER, if you make the same mistake over and over again, and cause bad outcome, then you are guilty on grounds of stupidity.
I do not believe in a final judge to say if you are good or not. I believe everyone has the capacity for that, and who better to judge you other than yourself? If you live a life and can honestly say "I have not committed acts against my moral principles (whatever they may be) which cannot be justified", then you have just lived a moral life. However, there's a catch. The moral principles must be YOUR'S (you must have thought critically about your beliefs). I can't stand authoritarianism. Sure you can agree with authoritative sourses such as the bible, but you must agree because you believe it is right, and not because it is the bible (or your mother, or the instructor, or someone you respect). I understand the second and this paragraph has smell, taste, and feel of relativism, and I understand the problems of the relativist theories. I know this part need to be worked on.
I do not believe in a heaven or hell, for I do not believe in eternal enlightenment or eternal damnation. I believe a conscious entity has the ability to change for better or for worse. For there to be a heaven, where you obtain eternal bliss, it would be as painful as eternal torment. This is because eternity of the same state offers no variation, and thus, no excitement. There is no drive for self improvement or to do anything, and thus existance is pointless. That being said, the other alternatives I can think of are death is the end, or reincarnation. Personally I'm more comfortable with the idea of reincarnation, for the 1st option has too much existential horror. I also like the idea of reincarnation because it offers a renewed drive for existance at every life/death cycle.
I believe that the universe runs in cycles. A cycle begins with the big bang, and ends with the big crunch. During the time between the big bang and big crunch, all the souls gather and have a festival. At the end of the festival, each soul would get a vote on who will be the next God. The one who is hated the most will be the one voted to hold that position, where he/she/it/other will have the tormentful task of regulating the flow of souls between the living and the dead for the duration of the next cycle.
Well, that's the basic synopse of what I believe. (Goodness, I hope all of those made logical sense and are to the point. I hate to be rambling on and on about useless stuff. I mean, rambling on about useless stuff and not getting to the point is you know, pointless. Personally I enjoy writings that are short and sweet. I find that many philosophical writings lack that virtue. They just go on and on for 50 pages trying to make one point. I mean seriously, we have better things to do in our lives than to listening to people pulling random flowery words out of their behind trying to prove a point, that in the end, people just gets tired of reading and give up. Or if they are forced into reading the stupid article, and end up dredding whatever subject the article is on. Seriously, how do those philosophers do it? I already ran out of useless junk to write).

Sin kills you in 3 turns.

2004-10-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well, finally there's a slight break between midterms (nothing stresses you out more than a series of midterms and/or exams. Well, almost nothing). So far one of them went quite well (population genetics), while 2 of them are uncertain. Next order of business is to work on Lab Methods.
Course selection happened today. It went relatively smoothly. However, next semester is gonna hurt bad. Why am I taking 3 credits when 2.5 is all you need for a semester? You'd thought that I learned not to overload myself from highschool, but no. Well, it's either take the 3 credits of science courses (well, I could have taken 2.75, but seriously, if I could take the lab portion for Mammalian Physiology 2 for an extra .25 credits, why not?), or take some hardcore philosophy courses (Major Text in Philosophy) for my minor. Personally, I voted to avoid Major Text.
My cat seem to be slightly more active now. I guess the treatment is having some effect. However, her hair is super matty, and she has some sort of anemia. I guess at least her health is improving, and you can't go wrong with that.
Recently, the Campus Crusade for Christ posted a bunch of "Do you agree with Graydon" around campus. Yesterday, the opinions of Graydon (a 3rd year Zoology major) was posted on the school's paper (The Ontarion). I find it to be somewhat disturbing. Although I'm quite tollerant to most beliefs, I have difficulties accepting the idea that if you don't believe in Jesus, you face eternal damnation in hell (well, the article was slightly less agressive than that, but not by much). I cannot accept that you die because you sin (No! Sin kills you in 3 turns, courtasy of Final Fantasy X :D), and I cannot cope with the idea that you are born a sinner and you are to spend your life repenting. (To anyone who belong in any Christian religion that gets offended, don't. I haven't found an organized religion that I liked, including buddism, muslim, and christianity).
I know it's not proper to critisize without suggesting alternative, but that's too bad. It'll take too long for me to explain fully what I believe in. Needless to say, it's good to have your own personal religion, since there's a very high level of flexibility while providing you with a basic standard of moral principles.

Don't fix anything that isn't broken.

2004-10-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to say that it would appear that my cat is recovering. She's taking Tapazole and has apparently gained weight from August. (Weird, I thought she has lost weight. Well, hopefully the test results will show good news tomorrow).

Several months ago, before the beginning of the semester, I decided to get a second hard drive for my computer, because it lacks storage space. I set it as my master drive, and installed windows 2k using a disk that my sister got from her co-worker. The whole process was rather annoying and difficult, and it didn't work the way I wanted it to. I then reset my old hard drive as the master drive, and all appear well (except for some minor annoyances). I then found out that if I was to set up windows from a copied disk, windows might start corrupting files. I now strongly suspect that's whats happening to my computer, for the copy of . Files are getting corrupted, resulting in windows running scandisk, and deleting the corrupt files. As a result, the computer is currently sluggish. Norton Antivirus can't find any virus on my computer, it currently can't run live update, adobe acrobat reader won't boot (and freeze web browser if I use it), Kazaa Lite won't start, my computer will at times mysteriously shut down, and sound device seem to be missing (horray for inability to play music files or any sounds). This is rather an annoying circumstance. Tech support at microsoft apparently costs money. Death to Microsoft! Death to whoever caused me this inconvenience. I hope you die a miserable horrible slow painful and lonely death!!!! (Unless they did it unintentionally, or is someone I know and care about).

I'm not letting you go no matter what.

2004-10-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

It has been a couple of weeks since I returned home from university. It was not a very happy visit. My cat has not gotten better from her thyroid problem. This is a sad moment for me, because ever since my family has gotten a new cat, my older cat has been upset. Feeling unwanted, she often is isolated. She only slowly approaches me because I felt that my loyalty was with her. I understood her feeling of abandonment, and paid more attention to her than my younger cat.
In the past 1/2 year or so, she would sleep on top of me while I was sleeping, or crawl up into a ball at my lap when I was sitting. I don't know exactly when, but I have grown to love my older cat, and would do almost anything for her. I returned home this weekend to discover that the topic of euthanasia has turned up. This pains me a lot. I understand that my family's financial situation is dismal, but a part of having a pet is to devote yourself to them. Your pet is your friend and family. Euthanasia shouldn't even be an option unless there's no way to treat the sickness. You don't put your family member and friend down just because it is inconvenient to pay for their health. That's horrendous, even by my standards.
There's no way anyone can take my precious baby away from me. Even if I have to quit school to be able to pay for her treatment. Hopefully it won't come to that.

less destroy, now that things work out.

2004-09-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

Well, it would seem that Rogers isn't charging me an extra $10 for internet. The bill was for 1 month + 7 days. Now that internet billing is all good, onward with my other stuff.

I want to destroy

2004-09-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

This sucks man. I was quoted 25% off of regular price on internet of 44.95 a month for the next 8 months. What does my bill come out to be? 44.37. Last time I checked, there's no way that's 25% off, no matter how you add the tax. There's gonna be some serious death and destruction going on if this doesn't get sorted out to my liking.

you mean I have to read the fine print? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S A $10 CHARGE ON NON-CABLE USERS????

Mammalian Physiology is wonderful ;)

2004-09-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the class of mamm phys, the prof talked about how different receptors work. It was very interesting to know that the pain receptors will not become less sensitive over time. Thus, when you clamp a vice grip on someone's finger and never let go, it will hurt them until the finger gets infected and fall off.
I then had some ideas. I asked the prof if it is possible for the Na+ ions to reach equilibrium due to the continuous opening of the Na+ channel in pain receptors. It would not, because the concentration difference is too great, and each time the Na+ channel opens, only a negligible amount of Na+ ions would cross. However, the thing that's more likely to run out is the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Even though that possibility is highly unlikely, for your nerves replenishes them quickly.
I then proposed the idea that if I was to develop a drug to puncture a hole to allow the Na+ ions to flow into the nerve, would that cause the level of pain to be at maximum. The answer is no. This is because although the amount of acetylcholine released is depended on the amount of Na+ ions, there is a maximum amount of acetylcholine that will be released in a nerve cell for each synapse.
I then proposed the idea of developing a drug that would release ALL the acetylcholine in the nerve cell, if that would cause the maximum amount of pain. The answer? Yes! Although the effect of this will ultimately kill the subject, for if that much acetylcholine is received by the brain, the brain will fry up.
So I guess it IS possible for someone to die of pain then ;).

and thus it begins

2004-09-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Greetings and salutations to all.
This is the official start of my own personal online diary. Be warned. It will most likely to contain dark (very dark) materials, as this will be a reflection of my mind.