Yesterday E said: Do you know what [advisor] said about you? He said you never have anything bad to say about anything or anyone. I told this to bossy, and bossy said, "Your advisor is a moron." Yes, I agree that he seems to have the wrong idea.

I was in a foul mood earlier today, but I am in a good mood now, because I have tied a rope around Badtz-Maru's neck and am hanging him from the window handle. See? This is so I don't have to stick my hand in the gap between the window and wall, risking crushing my precious fingers when I close the window because I cannot reach the handle. Now Badtz can sit on the window all day and get some sun, and if I get rageful I can just whack him really hard and watch him fly out the window.

I finally finished Mishima's "Forbidden Colors" which I recommend if you happen to want to read about immorality and the hopelessness of life in the context of Japanese homosexuals in the 1960s. Now I am reading something that's been on the stack for a long time, "About a Boy" which is complete fluff but a page-turner. (Notice obligatory condescension towards best- sellers.) If I can finish it this weekend, I will start the book I got from the Main library today, Dostoyevsky's "The House of the Dead."

God dammit I'ma slap somebody if I get tapped on the ass again -Em, "My Ballz", The Longest Yard Soundtrack, courtesy my supplier

On Sunday I discovered a few great Pearls Before Swine strips, which I have pasted here.
Here's the official site.
Rat is pretty cool.

From Bartleby.com:
Cast not your pearls before swine.
An adaptation of a saying of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. The entire passage reads, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
(Yeah, rend you!!)

The meaning of the passage is disputed, but seems generally to be that the followers of Jesus should pass his message on to those most likely to accept it. [Whoa, anyone looking for something to reply to the ABSK recruiters? ... sorry]

Generally, to cast pearls before swine is to share something of value with those who will not appreciate it.

***

Yesterday morning K asked if I wanted to play pool that night with his friends. Paralysis ensued. List of things that normal people do for fun and I avoid like the plague, (probably because I am in the lower 10th skill percentile): pool, cards, frisbee. You could throw bowling, golf, video games, singing, and drinking beer in there too. Man. Well, I'm pretty good at sitting in the corner quietly and judging people. I said yes, for a dose of humility. It's funny because my bro really likes pool (has a table in his basement), cards (plays poker with his buddies), and frisbee (used to play ultimate every week). Once he noted this, (along with my disgust with fantasy and science fiction) and asked "How can you be my sister??!!"

We went for a few games, and I saw Alexi the eps russian mafia guy there.

Yesterday was a pretty cool day at work despite wanting to kill global mapping tools and all map projections.

Today was pretty good. I woke up and came to school to look at my baby - the new monitor that has introduced, literally, a bright spot into my life. The fact that I am so happy about this monitor tells you that I'm lame. I stared at it lovingly for hours.

Also, I got a tan while watching K's psych dept graduation. I played cards with his friends (War: the mention of that card game always makes me think back to that book about the bro and sis that hide in the Met, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The bro plays War in the back of the bus.). Some inspirational things were said. Lots of names were called. People and family and friends were happy. Lots of happiness all around. K said he felt "good."

What's the name of the children's book where the swan (goose? duck?) gets lost from the migrating flock, checks into a hotel, and orders watercress sandwiches? Someone has got to know what I'm talking about... [OK I just searched amazon.com for "swan watercress sandwich" and out popped E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. Man I love search engines.]

I don't want to leave my monitor...

My monitor came today! My baby... I was so happy. Maybe I'll go in tomorrow morning just to use the dual monitor.

The department graduation was this afternoon, on the 8th floor of Barrows Hall. Nice view. It's funny because before the ceremony, there were these two profs (two of my favorite profs) in their cap and gown saying, "do i look good?" "yeah, do I look good?" ha ha haha. during the keynote speaker, i asked M, "so when do i have to hand the scrolls to barbara?" (because that's my job) and she said, "uh.... i left the scrolls in the office" (across campus). so loopy and i ran over to retrieve them. it was pretty awesome. on our way there, we saw prof. and his grad student headed over with red cups (presumably filled with something alcoholic). that prof. later had to give a citation to his graduating ph.D student. student looked very scared at what his prof. might say. prof. delivered a funny citation. i recently learned that said prof. has been banned from ever having female graduate students for imaginable reasons.

we were two scrolls short because some people showed up an hour before graduation saying, "hey i'm gonna walk today!" so we had to steal the scrolls back from two people and give them back to other people.

It's that time again, once every so often, I make an attempt to be more positive. Therefore, I will think only positive thoughts, or at least bite my tongue the rest of the time.

Here's my review of the 5th Anniversary Report, which I received in the mail yesterday:
Bossy: wins the originality award for working in "forty ounces, weed, and hoes," probably a first
Skoo, Jimbecile, lywang: win awards for terseness, or, absence of an update
KW and acpan: honorable mention for terseness
hfu: huge award for writing more than one sentence

Originally, that review had been more negative, but I changed it around to POSITIVE.

Any suggestions for an alias for my calmail account... Would you like to receive emails from and send emails to rock.a.ho@berkeley? Hope that's not taken. atao tells me she has an account with her advisor's name. nice.

signing off, positively.

i made a promise to myself to stay in the office until 9p even if i didn't do anything productive. (i did have a nice nap earlier today on the couch.) i haven't stayed late in the office for ages. no real reason to, i can bring the office home (and nap there). right now i'm thinking of breaking my vow. go home, have a couple of vodka-cranberry juices and fall asleep. that sounds good.

i bought a 19-inch flat-panel from dell.com. The image contrast ratio is 1:500, if I wanted 1:800 then it's $100 more. I definitely didn't deserve that, but I'm gonna get it. hah! Dual monitor here I come.

margie sent a link around, pointing to a news story: "Girls scoff at science theory/They display no fear of seeking careers in traditional male field"

I thought it read "they display no desire of seeking careers in traditional male field" and i was thinking, right on, who wants to work with stupid males! ...hm, probably not a good sign. i would prefer a traditional non-person field. rocks was the closest i could get. Who chose that title? I'm glad that girls are "scoffing" though.

The m-w Word of the Day for May 17 is:
faineant \fay-nay-AHNG\ adjective
: idle and ineffectual : indolent

Example sentence: Leslie preferred a life of faineant self-indulgence to the pressures of a career.

Did you know?
You've probably guessed that "faineant" was borrowed from French; it derives from "fait-nient," which literally means "does nothing," and ultimately traces back to the verb "faindre," or "feindre," meaning "to feign." (The English word "feign" is also descended from this verb, as are "faint" and "feint.") "Faineant" first appeared in print in the early 17th century as a noun meaning "an irresponsible idler," and by 1854 it was also being used an adjective. As its foreignness suggests, "faineant" tends to be used when the context calls for a fancier or more elegant word than "inactive" or "sluggish."

This is why I like this Mishima guy (yes I am still reading that book from about 6 months ago, i'm nearing the end):

...he had come to all the ready-made understandings: the emptiness of wealth and fame and position; the hopeless ignorance and stupidity of mankind, particularly the worthless existence of women; and the way life's tedium gives substance to all its passions.

and

Suddenly she had the strange power to see everything as worthless. Another day was ending without incident. Only capricious, dispirited memories - lackadasical, intermittent, and perhaps based on nothing other than weakness of imagination - would be left.

I got some meds from the doc and I am feeling better. I bought apricot scone mix. I went to the gym for the first time in ages. I wrote a b-day card to angelac. I made the scones.

If my self-worth comes from making webpages and playing bball (arguably the truth), then I'm nothing right now.

K has taken to reading Mankiw (Ec 10 textbook) for fun.

I want to find something funny about the world. I want to do some volunteer/tutor type of thing during the summer. I want to stop feigning disinterest to cover up for being gutless.

Would you find it disconcerting if you called your bf just to see how his day went and he answers, before you can get a word out, "Hello? Oohhh Fuck! I'll call you back, i'll call you back..."

I wanted to write something on Tuesday but I never posted. I wanted to give respect to wmg for getting her own /. thread due to being in the NYT about the hacker. Tres jealous.

Also shimi sent this link about a drug, Adderall, that "increases alertness, concentration, and mental-processing speed and decreases fatigue" but also "has been known, in rare cases, to make people obsessive compulsive, and even occasionally to cause psychosis". Difficult cost-benefit analysis.

On Tuesday:
Today I feel like lying down on the floor and not moving all day. It would probably be time just as well spent.

I am pissed off at the world and pissed off that I am pissed off at the world. Wow I wonder if I could be recursively pissed off.

But now it is already the end of Friday the 13th. Now I really feel like it is summer, since I took my final this afternoon. It lasted a good three hours and some people stayed for almost four. Alas, my freshman-year zeal for performing my 110% best is gone, and when almost three hours was up, I surrendered. It was an open book test, but I still have no idea what some of the variables in the equations I tried to use were. That's sad.

Tonight shimi, loopy, vlee, pjlam, feinberg, allison, and i went to zellerbach to listen to Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd have a conversation about "Being Opinionated in America." I once read a piece by Dowd and thought she was a little over-the-top-liberal-bush-bashing (but funny). Sort of like the Cal publication The California Patriot is over-the-top-conservative-bull-crap-not-convincing-anyone-of-anything. Shimi has hero-worship of Friedman, and Loopy thinks Dowd is hot (and smart). She was wearing a shiny sparkly green shirt with yellow skirt and yellow sparkly open-toe shoes which nicely offset her bright red hair. She is not super eloquent but can really dish out the one-liners. Sarcastic. Friedman had a lot more to say. I think I came away from it with more respect for both of them. This must be the first non-school and non-pop-culture event that I have attended for, um, 4 or 5 years. Sad, 1-dimensional rock.

2 days ago I slept from 7pm to 8am. 1 day ago I stayed in my pjs until 6pm and almost didn't leave the house, until K and I went to Manpuku. Tomorrow I think I shall make my weekly pilgrimmage to Tang Center just so they can tell me to drink more fluids. I think I will be a rebel and not use the humidifier tonight as to enhance my symptoms.

My WOTD:
Main Entry: polemic
Etymology: French polémique, from Middle French, from polemique controversial, from Greek polemikos warlike, hostile, from polemos war; perhaps akin to Greek pelemizein to shake, Old English ealfelo baleful
1 a : an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another b : the art or practice of disputation or controversy -- usually used in plural but sing. or plural in constr.
2 : an aggressive controversialist : DISPUTANT

Today:

My hero:
Today, --- --- wrote an article saying that the only reason that Steve Nash beat Shaquille O'Neal for NBA MVP is because he's white. Now that's just stupid and asinine, and that pisses me off. - Charles Barkley, TNT commentary.

Today, I received the alumni donation report for CEE. '95 only had 8 alumni donate. C'mon now. I can't believe that there are actually people out there cheaper than I am. That's just sad. Donate to CEE! Update your contact information!

Today, I spotted a book on the Engineering Library shelf: Consitutive Modelling of Granular Materials. The first chapter is entitled: The misery of constitutive modelling. I checked it out, along with the crowd-pleaser Dynamic Response of Granular and Porous Materials under Large and Catastrophic Deformations. I don't understand these books, but I feel the need to check them out.

Today was the second-to-last day of classes. No wonder it's been so quiet. Another whole class about to graduate. Thrust into the cold and unforgiving world. My graduation was... abrupt. Nevermind senior week, class day, etc. etc. etc. My thesis was due on May 5th, the same day as the Winthrop Spring Formal. At 3am on May 5th I visited Kinkos to make bound copies of my thesis. At 2pm I had to go back because I corrected some mistakes. At 11pm I was at the formal in the courtyard. At 1am I was telling a sophomore that I wasn't that drunk so go back to your own room goodnight. I don't remember the exact date of the graduation ceremony. It was sunny, I was seriously sleep deprived, not from partying, but from packing up my room. I felt a serious disconnect from the other graduating seniors in my house. After the small ceremony in the courtyard, I got in the car with my parents and drove back home to Dartmouth. Not much desire to hang out, drag out the whole process. Goodbye, nice knowing you. I was about to join Moe for part of the southwest Let's Go circuit, mess around in Norway for 6 weeks, then move to Arizona. Geology adventures in the future, why think about the past or present. Graduations are weird though. A strange way to end things.

Economist article speculating that Bill Frist is becoming more conservative because he is positioning himself for presidential candidacy:
...And now he is in the Senate - a club whose inhabitants think about becoming president as often as normal humans think about sex.

My bro sent me a link that calculates how many calories you should consume per day: http://www.prevention.com/caloriecalculator

Today's Friendster Scorpio horoscope:
The Bottom Line
It's shocking but true: Your opponent may be stronger than you. Be smarter.

boo.

Photos from stupid Vienna:
freaking slow today: rocks.blogs
better: socrates.berkeley

My jasmine tea is bitter.

I like the milk commercial which shows several scenes of men frantically cleaning out the milk shelves into their shopping carts, stealing milk from a milk truck, fighting over the last milk carton, etc. and then the screen says, "Studies show that calcium in milk can reduce the symptoms of PMS." "Got milk?"

I found some dang gui (angelica root, mmmm...) and gingseng seasoning in the cabinet, so looking for chicken soup recipes on the web. Meanwhile, came across this in wikipedia:

A Cantonese cough remedy
Dried duck gizzards, watercress, apricot kernels:
* Alleged effects: relieve both Yin (resulted from cold) or Yang (resulted from dryness) type of coughing.
* Watercress is for removing excessive yang in the body.
* The sweet apricot kernels and bitter apricot kernels target the lungs.
* The dried duck gizzards are used to balance the Yin Yang of the recipe.
* Watercress is available in most supermarkets while the rest of the ingredients can be found in most Chinese herb stores.
* The ingredients are slow cooked for couple of hours into a soup, a small piece of pork is optional for flavor.
* Do not use beef or chicken in this recipe because they nullify the effects of the water cress.

Useless week.

Staying at home and not goin' anywhere.

I wrote a semi-long diatribe in Dulles Airport but now it seems stupid. I will post it anyways because I am stupid.

4:38pm EDT Dulles International Airport - May 1

I am misery defined! I bought some Nyquil and will take a dose as soon as I get on the next plane. At least I talked to my mommy and she was sympathetic. (And you wonder why they still treat us like kids...) My flight isn't until 7 because I was afraid there wasn't enough time to go through customs for the 5:15 flight.

I'm listening to California (Phantom Planet?) over and over on my laptop, I saw the video for the first time on VH1 Europe, but I heard it for the first time on the O.C. soundtrack while driving up to the Eel River with Loopy. How appropriate ("California here we come...") How come they don't write songs like that about Massachusetts? :-/

I don't have good memories of Dulles. It's dark and dirty. I just remember how during senior year in high school I missed my connecting flight here, from San Diego (some science-y thing - luke and r.kim were there...). The people in the front of the plane made the connection to Boston but another girl and I who were in the back didn't. Then Aram showed up, drove in from Potomac as a surprise after calling the airline to find out the flight info from San Diego to Dulles, and he was happy that I missed my connection but then got mad that I stood in line trying to get a new flight instead of giving him my undivided attention. Then later he used that night as an example of "sacrifice" in a relationship (how i never gave any but he always did), and how he didn't get an 'A' on an English paper that was due the next day (God, call the freaking press). Also he got mad because the other girl mentioned matter-of-factly that she wanted to go to H, and he got huffy since hadn't gotten in, and that it "wasn't that easy." Good ol' 9-years-in-the-past angst.

Oh my goodness I can't wait to get home. K will accompany me on the BART ride... [he was late (subtract points), but he brought me food (add points) jk.]

PITY ME PITY ME. I FEEL TERRIBLE. [pathetic - don't pity me]

I watched Bridget Jones, Meet the Fockers, and Electra on the way here. [and Coach Carter on the next flight]

*** end Dulles diatribe ***

I actually ran into Ivy and Jimmy Q. in Dulles. Ivy was one of my freshman year AACF seeker-study leaders. What a coincidence. Very very strange, have not seen them in a long long time.

There was once a rock that said "leave me alone" all the time until the rock had no friends left.

Should get back to that hmwk. I think I will eat some chocolate ice cream first.

The m-w Word of the Day for May 02 is:
troglodyte \TRAHG-luh-dyte\ noun
1 : a member of any of various peoples (as in antiquity) who lived or were reputed to live chiefly in caves
2 : a person characterized by reclusive habits or outmoded or reactionary attitudes

On Friday afternoon as the conference was ending and I was hacking/squeaking while trying to speak, Doug said, "You know, some people suffer more than others." read: you are the type of person that brings suffering upon yourself. Dammit.

We had reserved seats on the train, but not in a sleeper car. There were 6 seats in the car and one guy had his mountain bike with him. We were like, uh... move the bike. Finally he moved it in a position that was out of our way and most likely to topple onto himself, which we found satisfactory. He had been biking around the Himalaya but we didn't feel like talking so we ignored him.

The train pulled into Zurich a little after 6am. I went to the Apotheke and bought some drugs and tissues. I said goodbye to E (she is staying a few more days to process some samples) and went to my hotel. They were nice and let me check in early in the morning, and I proceeded to sleep from 9am to 4pm. haha! At 4 I went for a walk by the river. It was hot, above 70 F (343 K). Tons and tons and tons of people, lots of women walking around in heels on gravel pathways. Walked about 2km down the river until a place that has a great view of the Alps in the distance. That was cool. Had a chocolate ice cream cone. Came back... going to chill here until I go to the airport tomorrow morning (yay yay yay thank you thank you thank you). Some people may say that I am "wasting" this time in Europe. That's okay. I think I'm xenophobic. I think the European mountains would be fine (no people), but the cities aren't for me.

The best thing about the trip was an ice cream cone practically every day.

None of my photos came out stunningly well.

When I think of Europe, I am going to think of one big ol' cigarette. When I smell cigarette smoke, I think of car(t)man saying I just wanna take a fire extinguisher and spray it all over their faces!

The Word of the Day for Apr 30 is:
bereft \bih-REFT\ adjective
1 : deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something
2 : lacking something needed, wanted, or expected
3 : bereaved

it's my last day in vienna!!! (sorry, shouldn't be so excited about that.) yesterday morning elowyn and i went to a couple art museums and saw some "art". my favorite was someone who had made tens and tens of huge canvas (10 feet by 7 feet?) paintings of web news pages (like Yahoo!), including the ads. it was supposed to be political because it was all about the War in Iraq. but i just liked the colorful web-like aspect of it.

i had my poster session last night and it was nice, talked to a mix of people i already knew and some new people. i see a pattern, people i already know think the research is pretty cool but people i don't know think it's a load of crap. all i have left is one meeting and sitting through an afternoon of debris flow talks.

my health update: whatever i caught is in the dying stages and i'm left with a stuffy nose and hacking cough that is probably really annoying to anyone around me. it hurts less than it used to. i should probably be back to normal once i get home. i think i was being punished for travelling and i should never travel again.

we take the overnight train to Zurich tonight. 9pm to 6am.

Last night I thought that maybe after 10 years or so, I'd be over the trauma and would be able to visit Europe again. Maybe. Yesterday's weird and exciting events were a huge blood boil that spontaneously appeared on my tongue (I was eating peanuts, so it wasn't spontaneous...) really really gross, i had to pop it 'cuz it was so huge. Nice, huh. Then sat in a smoky restaurant and think i broke out into a mild full-body rash because of it. (It's all psychosomatic.) My bank has cut me off from the ATM even though there's enough $$ in the account. No relatives to throw money at me this time... I laugh at my combined misfortune and incompetence.

Things are getting a little better, I'd be really pissed if they weren't. I had a creme caramel eis. And an evil empire chai latte. Then this morning I took an hour or so to walk around, old Vienna is in this big "Ring" that used to surround the city. So a bunch of impressive-looking buildings are close together. Sunny today. The guide-book reminded me that Franz Ferdinand was the dude that got killed, starting WWI, and not just a band!

Will look at a few posters, then watch friends' talks (elowyn, dougj, and tp go today).