gory gory glory

hey! Christmas is fun.

spent an extremely pleasent few days with my familiy being shunted between parental units but totally unstressed.

ate way too much, drank way too much.

Didn't play enough scrabble, although I did get a scrabble dictionary! anyone want to play? Pender maybe?

played with little kids including an adorable 3 year old who lives with my mom. the cutest little kid, with psuedo agency, and big eyes that you can't say no to. I haven't played or twirled so much in years. I refused before to make new years resolutions but I have one now ... to twirl more.

I also got the wickedest present, given to me even though I had asked for nothing: a digital camera. so excited, because I have been trying to convince myself for months (unsuccessfully) that I could afford one.

anyway, here is the first picture I liked:


now to try and become a happy photographer. weee!

sure. I'll party with you.

parties beckon, an all night rave in a place called blood alley somewhere in gastown, and my semi-drunk self cannot drive and this semi-young city doesn't provide transit at this semi-late hour.

all night dance parties are my favorite.

the last few days have been filled with joy and good conversation, the stimulation of old friends who have pursued diverse paths and want to share.

commercial drive in its slowly gentrifying glory. potlucks and sushi and jelly beans and galas and skinny dipping and mountain biking ... oh my.

it has been sensational. i don't want it to end.

i really must sober up. I hate to miss a good party. and marissa and andrea and elfred. I haven't really seen them yet. this is why I want to go. people I love who happen to love dancing. peas in a pod.

The bright brightness

Vancouver! Vancouver!

It is comfy here, but there is a distinct worry that this feeling comes directly from how relaxing it is. I have nothing to do. Exams ended 6 days ago and I have done nothing at all.

excellent.

A few nights ago, after spending the evening with Azim, Kater and Norah doing cryptic cross word puzzles, yelling at cryptic cross word puzzles, and somehow staying up to watch the entire Battlestar Galactica miniseries, I decided that I really wanted to walk back to Kerria's. So, at 4 in the morning, decked out in Azim's warm clothes, a glass of wine settling nicely in my belly and an ipod full of music, I set out.

The path took me across the bridge into downtown and then along the water into china town before depositing me on east pender, 15 long blocks away from commercial. The walk was somewhat as expected, beautiful and thought provoking across the bridge (metaphore for life), amusing and absurd along the water (penthouses and roof top gardens and impeccable lighting and boring aethetics and fast cars), and scary for the rest, full of shadowy figures and odd stumbling and averted gazes and strange body shapes.

Nothing happened, and 2 hours later I walked in, trying to be as unscary as possible. Certainly not making videos and sending them to kerria and her roomate.

A few days earlier, I had wandered down to the docks just after the sun had gone down and watched the activity from the bridge. It was fascinating, small trucks moving masive containers and sirens indicating that work was underway and it was bright and busy and beautiful. I didn't want to leave but it was cold and I was hungry.

But what did I get out of this? I wanted to walk for hours. I wanted to watch us take control. I think I expect too much. I expect there to be no mundane, for every moment to be impregnated with meaning. For the twitch of an eye to signal something more important. Where has this belief in the ubiquituousness of meaning come from? I am pretty sure it is a deeply rooted narcissism. damn it.

Moving on:

I think that my life is based solely on doing things I haven't done before, or at least doing whatever other people aren't at that moment. This, I doubt I need to tell you, makes lots of things difficult because there are plenty of people and they are all doing things. Two years of travelling before university? 6 years of university? I mean, I succumbed to university, but I am a terrible artist. I wasn't about to make it based on things I could make for others to enjoy. So, I needed some formal training, but I wasn't about to do it easily. Now what, a lawyer / doctor. There ain't many of those. So lame.

Anyway, I am trying to get better. I am trying to become less insular, which seems weird to say, because most people seem to look at me at some sort of incredibly social creature, but a comment was made that people know me ... I often don't know them.

So dinners at my house and more walks and less partying where no connection can be made. groups are bad news ... they make me crazy ... socially crazy, true, but different nonetheless.

That said, I also want more adventures and more spontenaity, just only with a few people: last night, for example, I came back to Azim's after a going to a party around the corner, to find Kate and Azim curled up on the couch. As I put my stuff down, ready for bed, kate mumbled something about a club downtown. of course, was my obvious reply, which she seemed shocked by, but invitation given she could not go back and so, at 1:30, we found ourselves walking across the bridge again on the way to the straight night at the gay bar. Danced for a bit, although I mainly looked shocked at the terrible music and then spazzed out and kate laughed at me. Back across the bridge where another random kate suggestion caused us to be swimming in the ocean at 4 AM.

I think there is a point to be made, somewhere in here. I just am not 100% sure what it is.

the beauty of study

The above is a crashing wave, the colour caused by a bloom of bioluminescent dinoflagellates in California. True, they make the water super toxic, but so beautiful.

And yes, this is part of my studying ... I needed to find out about the dinoflagellate life cycle:

Dinoflagellates have a peculiar form of nucleus, called a dinokaryon, in which the chromosomes are attached to the nuclear membrane. These lack histones and remained condensed throughout interphase rather than just during mitosis, which is closed and involves a unique external spindle. This sort of nucleus was once considered to be an intermediate between the nucleoid region of prokaryotes and the true nuclei of eukaryotes, and so were termed mesokaryotic, but now are considered advanced rather than primitive traits.

finally, I can eat the entire bag of chips.

a paper from harvard discussing small molecules that allow the simulation of a caloric restricted diet (which I have vainly tried to implement). actual paper. I don't think this is necessarily a weight loss tool, but rather something that will make your body believe that you are eating less and thereby slow down various metabolic processes (including food uptake). I think. It might just slow down food uptake in the intestine, which was previously done by simply cutting out most of the intestine. eww. anyway, I am procrastinating, not researching so don't blame me. If you know, let the world know.

oh, and it is in red wine, although:

Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes and as a constituent of red wine but apparently not in sufficient amounts to explain the “French paradox” that the incidence of coronary heart disease is relatively low in southern France despite high dietary intake of saturated fats.

ps: video, 3 posts down.

Hermes Trismigestus

This guy was my favorite teacher even before I saw this.

The humour there, admittedly somewhat derivative, is exactly how he acts in all his classes. He seems too smart to function normally, but accepts it with grace and humour. Some people are bored by him, but I don't stop chuckling softly the whole class. It is great.

WATCH THE VIDEO! (2 posts down now) I love that dance, but have become a post-whore. So, I will remind you all to watch the video in subsequent posts until I tire of it, just so that it does not get lost in the ether.

Maids and Marions

So, the dance below, it is called the madison.

The Madison is a novelty dance that was popular in the late 1950s to mid 1960s. It was created by a very famous hairdresser of the time called Malcolm Stern. Whilst travelling extensively in Spain on a dance exploration holiday he and his team found the dance so inspiring they brought it back to the West End and it was first performed at Le Discoteque in Wardour street, Soho, London. It is a line dance that features a regular back-and-forth pattern interspersed with called steps. Its popularity inspired dance teams and competitions, as well as various recordings, and today it is still sometimes performed as a nostalgic dance. It was demonstrated in a famous sequence of the Jean-Luc Godard film Bande à part, as well as in the John Waters movie Hairspray; and it continues to be performed in the Broadway musical Hairspray.

The dance is referred in the film Rocky Horror Picture Show.

In the 1970's the dance re-emerged as "The Nutbush", performed to Tina Turner's song Nutbush City Limits.

It was renamed the "Nutbush"? How odd.

Also, I think that more people I know should go on "dance exploration holidays." Come on people. Get on it.

examography

4 classes down, two to go and I barely looked fazed. No bags, no worries.

It might be bad that I feel almost no stress at all. Last night I watched Bande a Part with Tippi. Me, watching french new wave movies during the exam period? Me watching french new wave cinema at all? What kind of evil robot has taken my place? Tippi and I figured out our costumes for next halloween ... or the next french new wave party. Tippi: we should throw a french new wave party. I can't stop saying french new wave. We need a funky girl to make this costume work. Who will it be? You have to do this:

half man / half wobble

Apparently, according to the movie "Manufactured Landscapes," the filling of the Three Gorges Dam in China has caused a wobble in the Earth's rotation.

According to this post, when the Dam is filled, the time of the Earth's rotation will be changed such that an amature astronomer will be able to measure it.

That is a lot of water.

Mankind is fucking crazy.

I just finished reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicles which was absolutely amazing. I get into this mode where I want to only read about "real" things and I avoid fiction. But every once in a while I get given a great book that draws me in. I couldn't put it down. I love fiction. I also assume that I love wells. And crazy out of body experiences.

Thanks exams. You have ressurected the blog.

the alchemist goes on an adventure

Exams are upon us. god, they fill me with dispair. but, they also allow for plenty of procrastination. Which is nice. Unfortunately, at the current trajectory (ah trajectories), I will be doing them for years to come. Whose idea was this?

Looking forward, very much, to the upcoming break. To spend a significant amount of time with people I haven't seen in a while (here's looking at you azim). Watch movies and make cook books and generally enjoy the city.

So, what am I thinking about, you are certainly asking yourself. I shall tell you now:

the real basics. the oddity of power. the simplicity of action and the complexity of reaction. the perverse sensuality of sinusoidal curves, coming at you wave after wave. the adsurdity of cliche. loss and gain.

things like that. Not, unfortunately, about contract theory or how ATP is made. Which, by most measures, would be the more efficient and rewarding things to be thinking about.

I watched 2 movies last night at chez tippi, while ostensiably studying. A doctumentary on Idi Amin, who was presented as a beast, more animal than man. Innocent, somewhat, perhaps unable to prevent his own atrocities. He may have caused the deaths of 500,000 people. and then we watched the Wrong Guy and I laughed. Rapid switch. Concerning.

edited.