ZOMG NEW YEAR

Well what do you know, we made it another year. It's been stressed, exciting, wonderful, and just plain old fun.

Christmas was awesome. I got some excellent geeky items of clothing:


On a tshirt. I'm wearing it right now.
And I also got a most excellent apron:




I'll be baking up a storm while wearing this.


Finally, my sis got me an enormous bag of Swedish fish. YUM.

Here's my present to everyone: My favorite chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe! I couldn't find a pic of the ones I've made because they disappear before I even get the camera out.

Anne’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies 

• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 cups chocolate chips (or
chocolate chunks)
• Music that makes you want to
dance

1. Preheat oven to 350°. 
2. Crank up the music and dance around the kitchen gathering ingredients.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the butter with both sugars; cream together with a big
wooden spoon until light and fluffy. 
4. Add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed. 
5. Add flour and baking soda; mix until just combined. 
6. Stir in the chocolate chips. For even better results, chop up your favourite chocolate bar
instead of using chocolate chips – dark, milk, or white; with or without nuts or toffee.
7. Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined
with parchment paper.
8. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10
minutes. 
9. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack,
and let cool completely – or don’t! They’re even better warm.
10. Serve with a tall glass of milk or a steaming mug of tea or hot chocolate. 

*Makes about 3 dozen       By: Anne Blayney


Have a happy new year and I'll see you on the flip side.

"Here's to the new year...may she be a damn sight better than the old one..." - Col. Sherman T. Potter, M*A*S*H

Freedom!

I...I survived? What?

Now I'm home with my family and completely content.

It's nice to be back.

I went to bed with this face.

A small interlude

I just loaded the dishwasher and have discovered a few things in my sink that should not be there.

1. Several tea bags. Since we don't have a garbage disposal, they should probably go into the trash.

2. Two (soggy) cookies. Failed experiments from weekend procrastination. Again, either eat them or put them in the trash, not in the sink.

3. A piece of broken glass. I don't know what it broke from since none of the other glasses were broken. Mystery.

4. A moldy piece of...something. Zucchini, maybe? Either way, we're either discovering the next penicillin or we're going to die from a mysterious spore-based disease. Or MRSA. Take your pick.

5. The sink traps are covered in unidentifiable things. I think I saw one move. 

If I don't die from exams, my sink is going to kill me.

If only my sink looked like this...

#ohgod

Guys, exams are kind of kicking me where it hurts. This video sums up how I feel.



I'll see you on Thursday if I survive.

Cabbage medul!

It's finals time, so I am now frienemies with the internet. I need it to download course work. But then, there's this eeeeeeeviiiiill thing called youtube.

Anyways, I really like this one guy on youtube called criken2. He makes funny machinimas. Personally, I like "Romanquest," a Grand Theft Auto IV recording, quite a lot. But, he recently uploaded "Metro 2033: Criken's Quest for Cabbage." And it's awesome.

Just what I needed, another awesome distraction. Thanks, criken!



Now I destroy many other people's productivity. Go me!

Beware the seenging paipes.

My secret's been discovered!

So, I was working on a project in a group when the following text conversation took place between myself and my lovely housemate K:

K: It goes "a new hope" "the empire strikes back" and then "return of the jedi right?
Me: Yep. Planning another marathon?
K: Naw just wanted to sound intelligent in front of my nerd friends. thanks!
Me: I'm glad I'm your go-to person for nerdiness.
K: .... and culinary schenanigans.
Me: Haha, that too. We must do that again.
K: Aaaaaargh. sometimes i wonder if your the witch from hanzel and gretel trying to fatten us up.
Me: Nooo my secret's been discovered!
K: THE MUGGLES KNOW.

Mwahaha.

When I start making the house look like this, be very worried.

Image source here.

A bit of silliness

I was watching Quite Interesting (one of my favorite shows) and they brought up a hypothetical quandary. One adage is that cats always land on their feet. Another is that toast always lands buttered side down. So what if you attached a piece of toast to a cat with the buttered side up?

According to the adages, the cat will turn indefinitely.

Sigh...seriously, this isn't funny anymore...hellooooo?

Too Asian?

EDIT: Maclean's has the article back up. See it here.

Are universities too Asian? Are Asian kids forcing others out? If unis are truly meritocracies, then those who work hard will get in, regardless of what ethnicity they are. I'm of Chinese descent, but I don't consider myself Asian. I'm solidly North American without a real hint of Asian attitude. Most of my friends in high school were not Asian, and not for lack of Asians. Here at uni, I have a few chinese friends, but an equal, if not greater amount of non-asian friends.

Here's the text to a pulled Maclean's article I got from a friend on Facebook. It was reported on by Toronto Life here, so I'm not making it up.

When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”

Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.

Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”

Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.

Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”

That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.

The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.

Asian-Canadian students are far more likely to talk about and assert their ethnic identities than white students. “I’m Asian,” says 21-year-old Susie Su, a third-year student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “I do have traditional Asian parents. I feel the pressure of finding a good job and raising a good family.” That pressure helps shape more than just the way Su handles study and school assignments; it shapes the way she interacts with her colleagues. “If I feel like it’s going to be an event where it’s all white people, I probably wouldn’t want to go,” she says. “There’s a lot of just drinking. It’s not that I don’t like white people. But you tend to hang out with people of the same race.”

Catherine Costigan, a psychology assistant prof at the University of Victoria, says it’s unsurprising that Asian students are segregated from “mainstream” campus life. She cites studies that show Chinese youth are bullied more than their non-Asian peers. As a so-called “model minority,” they are more frequently targeted because of being “too smart” and “teachers’ pets.” To counter peer ostracism and resentment, Costigan says Chinese students reaffirm their ethnicity.

The value of education has been drilled into Asian students by their parents, likely for cultural and socio-economic reasons. “It’s often described that Asians are the new Jews,” says Jon Reider, director of college counselling at San Francisco University High School and a former Stanford University admissions officer. “That in the face of discrimination, what you do is you study. And there’s a long tradition in Chinese culture, for example, going back to Confucius, of social mobility based on merit.”


Take from this what you will, I guess.

Elections and Glee!

So midterm elections were today. I hope there was high voter turnout. I'm just kind of thrilled that Christine O'Donnell didn't win (and I'm not in the country, a citizen, nor do I make my home in Delaware). She was just a little too kooky and right wing for me. And when she opposed separation of church and state in front of a law school audience, that was the last straw for me.

In other words, Glee needs to have an episode centering around the jazz band and the piano player. I want to know more about them. They're awesome.

Plenty of these posters. WHERE IS THE BAND?

Star Wars!

So this past weekend, my housemate and I attempted to watch all of the Star Wars original trilogy. I managed to live tweet for Episode IV, but was unfortunately working through Episode V and we haven't finished Episode VI. But, here are my tweets for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

STAR WARS TIME! TWEETING LIVE? YES!

Epic subtitles are epic.


Wait...there's an extra period at the end of epic titles. IT'S NOT A PROPER ELLIPSE!

"did you hear that?"

oh c-3po you're so paranoid. You're not doomed. You're just being invaded by the worst man in the galaxy.

R2D2 you rascal. Where are you?

TAKE HER AWAY! People should say that more often.

Oh. My. Gosh. My roommate and I have confirmed that I am C-3PO. WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?

"All right, shut up, I'll take this one." That might happen to me.

noo artoo you're all alone!

reunited again!

No, i don't like you either. This may turn into a night of Threepio quotes

His father in him? DUN DUN DUN

I've been informed that that sounded dirty. It's not.

blast it r2, you're so rascally. Disappearing and whatnot. Trouble. Just trouble.

Luke: let's go look at danger. Come on! Me:Dumb.

and obi-wan comes to save the day! Oh alec guiness, you're so very good.

I want to be a jedi. I've never felt more connected to star wars than this very moment. =>I love my housemate.

Luke turns on the lightsaber. Obiwan does a bit of a dance going "omigod i just put an instrument of death into an idiot's hands."

The force: it's like duct tape.

"How am I going to explain this?" "Learn to use the Force." I now have the answer to everything.

No, the force may not conjure stolen data tapes. But it can choke you. PWND.

You don't need to see our identification. If only that worked in real life.

At the bar entrance, there are stairs. R2 cannot do stairs. He's freaking out silently.

Luke, you just got saved by a man who's getting "too old for these sort of things." Fail.

I don't like the added CGI Jabba scene. CG Jabba

Luke, stop pressing buttons that you don't understand! JUST STRAP YOURSELF IN AND STOP TOUCHING THINGS!

awesome monster chess! Lesson: Always let the wookie win.

LUKE USE THE FORCE AND YOUR FEELINGS. YA PANSY.

Look! A small moon! Wait a second...that's no moon. DUN DUN DUN.

Just want to say, John Williams is the man. I love the music for Star Wars.

I prove my point with http://youtu.be/PGYAPr6UKhs

Darth vader: "I've not felt this presence since..." and walks away. Attention span of a goldfish.

wait, why must you go alone obiwan? Because you're awesome. That's why.

luke, what's your grand plan. Do you even have a plan?

Waiting for the elevator. Always awkward.

Han: *tries to bs his way out of it* ah screw it, moar guns!

INTO THE GARBAGE CHUTE! SAVE YOUR SKINS!

WAIT NO NOT HEADF- oh, nevermind.

BAD FEELINGS? OH NO! That can't be good for the Force.

Leia: officially the brains. Up until now, we've been relying on a pansy and a douche.

C3-P0, very smooth. Talking your way out of that without using the force.

Obi wan, you're so sneaky.

And he has a grappling hook. In his belt. Because that's what you carry around. Just in case.

CLOSE THE BLAST DOORS! Nowaitwaitopenthemopenthem!

Han: Didn't we just leave this party? Chewie: But I like parties...

Darth: I KILL YOU! (*swing*) waitasecond. Where did he go? WUT?

So, the Death Star is super powerful and super defended. You guys are off to go fight it. In snub fighters. Good luck.

R2, you must come back. Otherwise C-3PO will be bored! AND THAT WOULD BE A CALAMITY.

Luke: use the force! Trust your feelings! LISTEN TO THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD!

It's away! Is it in? No? Just impacted on the surface? FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU-

NOO BIGGS! You're all...explodey. Crap. Now Luke's the only one left. LUKE LISTEN TO THE VOICES!

NOOO R2! you're on fire!

They're in range! Luke! HURRY UP.

As the torpedoes go in, the one lone tech left with monitoring the exhaust port is all, "WAIT DON'T FIRE THE DEATH ST-"

Award time! Ostentatious music FTW!

Well look at me getting up on my soapbox...

Sorry for two political posts in a row, but I had to share this.

Someone has been fired for saying bigoted anti-Islam remarks. No, it's not who you think, or perhaps hope it would be (cough, FOX, cough). See the full article at the BBC here.

Basically, a (previously) well respected NPR news analyst went on the O'Reilly Show and said that he got nervous if he saw obviously Muslim people on a plane. Juan Williams used to be all about non-discrimination and civil rights. But apparently only for African Americans. Not for everyone.

NPR, and I must say that I adore that organization, promptly ended his contract. One step in the right direction in ending the double standard that exists when it comes to Islam vs. any other minority.

Now, I'm not normally a political person. But I am a moral person. I feel that Don't Ask Don't Tell is immoral. Anyone, gay, straight, whatever should have the right to represent their country in whatever capacity they want. It works in other countries, why not the United States? The fact that not-straight people are in the military despite the hostile environment merely magnifies their commitment to their country.

The BBC had an excellent article profiling two U.S. servicemen who were expelled after being outed.

Please read. And think. And support the repeal of DADT.

OMG THANKSGIVING WUT?

So...

Thanksgiving kind of snuck up on me this year. Everyone was talking about going home for Thanksgiving and I was just like, "Oh yeah, I should make plans." I didn't realize it was so early this year. I'm from the States, so I'm used to the end of November being Thanksgiving. In Canada, it's usually in the middle of October. It really threw me for a loop.

Anyways,  I now have a glorious long weekend to visit my grandparents and study for midterms. I'm just glad I was able to get bus tickets so close to the long weekend.

Oh, and my housemate has a tumblr, which I may cameo on occasionally. It's a more frequent account of the antics my house gets up to. See it here.

Also, I have a twitter here. Just the random thoughts that occasionally go through my head. Finally caved to peer pressure and my Film Studies class.

Off to eat copious amounts of food, brb.

Strutting Leo makes all things better.

see more Lol Celebs

I seriously lol'd. Then I showed my mom and she lol'd. Clickey clickey.

Just one thing...

A sneezing panda. It gives me the giggles.



That is all.

A few musings...

Science and medicine are not perfect. People are constantly shown the image of the all-knowing scientist or doctor. House, Bones, CSI, etc. paint a picture of people who know everything and can do anything. In reality, science and medicine are much messier.

I’m currently at the crossroads of deciding between a career in medicine, research, or the middle ground between both. I’m weighing the pros and cons of each profession. My father is a researcher and thus I have witnessed the stresses of grant writing, the uncertainty that comes with a field where you are searching for the unknown. My mother is the business manager for a group of doctors. I’ve heard the litany of woes that stem from budget cuts, insurance companies, and troublesome patients. My mentor, who I have been fortunate enough to have known since high school, is one of the few people who brave both sides of the field, in the clinic and on the bench. And he usually isn’t terribly thrilled with either. Through these connections, I have had a relatively unique experience and have been able to witness the less than rosy side of my chosen options.

I’ve worked in a lab of some sort or another during the summers for the past five years (with one year taken off to travel). I’ve had experiments go swimmingly. The procedures are clearly laid out and the results are exactly what we expected. The change in the DNA we wanted is there. It’s an amazing feeling to know that you’ve exacted a change in the very thing that encodes all life on this planet.
Yet, there have been the annoying problems. Something goes horribly wrong somewhere in the line and your entire experiment is held up for weeks at a time. Which, when put into the perspective of an 8-10 week internship, is over half the time you are there. The core process to your experiment suddenly stops working properly. And each run to troubleshoot it takes an entire week. A cell line stubbornly refuses to flourish in your lab. In any and all cases, you systematically eliminate each possibility, which is time and resource consuming. It is frustrating and you sometimes wonder if you should just give up and pick a new project.

My current internship is closely linked with a hospital and my mentor has taken me along on interdisciplinary conferences, where people in all fields are consulted for guidance on how to proceed with a patient. I was surprised (though I really should not have been) to learn that medicine has a bit of guesswork involved. For some people, they figure that they have survived X disease and Y cancer, so they just might survive Z treatment. Other times, physicians and surgeons fail to follow guidelines in the heat of the moment. They panic and do a sloppy job, leaving others to clean up the mess. They fail to document their actions completely, leaving the next doctor to just guess at what has been tried on or done to a patient. Hospital bureaucracy leaves those who see something wrong being done helpless to do anything about it. And this has become maddeningly commonplace, to the point of being banal. Attitudes become, “Well, we’re a backwater hospital and there’s not much we can do, so we’ll just forget about it and move on.” The only thing that can shake that attitude is the omnipresent specter of being sued for malpractice.

Now, I don’t want to seem like I’m just complaining about what I want to do as my life’s work. Both science and medicine are very rewarding. The best science and medicine take place when one gets as much out of failure as one does out of success. Rather than focusing on the negatives and getting bogged down and feeling sorry for yourself, you critically examine what did happen and adjust. Change is necessary. Admitting failure is necessary. Handling both is what sets apart happy professionals from those who are rather miserable to work with.

I’ve noticed that many people have trouble with is admitting that they don’t know something and for people to accept that scientists and doctors don’t have all the answers. Not knowing something is completely acceptable. With science and medicine, the number of things to know is so vast that no one person could hope to even know a fraction of it. You wouldn’t ask an astrophysicist a question about botany. It would be unreasonable to ask a GI specialist about a cardiac problem. If a doctor is confronted with a problem he or she has no special knowledge of, then he or she needs to swallow their ego and ask for help. At the same time, patients must realize that their doctor is human and can and will make mistakes. Now, this does not excuse gross negligence, but it would render many frivolous malpractice suits moot. All data is subject to human interpretation.

The underlying question that is then asked after hearing this less than flattering portrayal of science and medicine is, why? Why do perfectly sensible people subject themselves to these stresses? For most, it isn’t about the money. Scrabbling for grants against a very competitive group of people is not appealing. Most physicians are paid decently, but only in countries with private healthcare. In countries with nationalized healthcare, the compensation is not extravagant.

My answer to that question is that people want to make a difference, to leave a positive mark on the world. There is the drive to do good. Maybe not all scientists can be Watson and Crick, Jonas Salk, or any of the other well-known researchers. But they can at least contribute to the pool of knowledge from which another may draw an equally important breakthrough. Most physicians will not reach nationwide recognition, but perhaps they can save the lives of a few people. Or make many feel better and increase their quality of life.

I'm an even bigger slacker than I thought...

Since I haven't posted in a REALLY LONG TIME, I figured I should put in a filler.

All is well in life. I've got a job in a medical research lab and it's pretty neat. But cells are tricky little buggers and you need to really keep a good eye on them. I'm trying to rescue a culture that was growing fine for a week and then had (seemingly) spontaneous cell death! Just need to learn the quirks of each, I suppose.

And as far as bioshock went...well I kind of didn't finish it. I know, I know, how could I not? But it was a borrowed game, and I had to give it back. Perhaps I'll purchase a copy and finally finish it.

BUT I now have Left 4 Dead, which has been a lot of fun to play with my sister. The sheer number of achievements makes it really addicting. Plus, the voice acting and script make it highly enjoyable just to play through and listen. Of course, we always put in our own comments like this:

The scene: Bill (the old guy) was just attacked badly and is losing health rapidly. I have a medkit and am attempting to heal him.

BUT HE RUNS AWAY!

I chase him around the area. Every time I get close, he runs further away. Finally, I've had enough. And I scream.

BILL YOU DANCING FOOL! GET BACK HERE AND LET ME HEAL YOU!

I honestly have no idea why he was a dancing fool, but it seemed appropriate at the time.

But building on that, the game feels like an excellently paced action zombie slaughter movie. The AI director fits everything into a nicely paced hour, with heart pounding action as well as tense quiet moments. I have to say that if this were a movie, I would definitely watch it (and I'm not a fan of this genre).

HALLO INTERNETS

I'm back! I survived finals and am now chilling at home sweet home. I've actually been done for over a week. I'm a slacker, I know.

Yesterday was Mother's Day! So, I hugged my Mom gave her a tree peony and a regular peony, and fixed her neck! What's the difference between a tree peony and a regular peony? Well, for starters one is $60 the other is $25. Wow. All because one has a woody stem and the other doesn't. But both are beautiful! And I lucked out since I found both with buds still forming, so we get to enjoy their flowers!

I also fixed my mom's neck, at least temporarily. She had a neck spasm weeks ago at work when she turned too quickly to pick up a file from a cabinet behind and below her. The weird thing is that the pain is not in her neck muscles per se, but in the small muscles that attach her head to her neck. I've been working all week on her shoulder and neck pain, so she could finally localize where the pain originated from. The human body is a strange thing.

Finally, I've been playing Bioshock! I know it's relatively old, but it's still an awesome game. I'm about a third of the way through and thoroughly enjoy the story and mechanics of the game. My only gripe is the weapon switching system. I find it annoying that I can't instantly switch from melee to ranged weapons when fighting. Trying to bludgeon something with your chemical pack is difficult and stupid. But this is a very minor gripe and is mostly likely due to me being unexperienced in this type of game.

Plus, Big Daddies are TERRIFYING.

But so much cuter in LEGO!

Study Mode:ON

So, I successfully made it out of the stacks! I have to say, it was pretty terrifying. But, now all of my design projects are done!

'Tis now the season for exams. Now that projects are done and assignments largely over, it is now time to hunker down and study. So once more, I say farewell to the blog for the next few weeks (though this may turn out to be a huge lie again).

In other news:

Migod...

Who thought this was a good idea? WHO?

We're doomed.

Lost in the stacks...

As I write this, I am sitting in the bottom floor of the Engineering and Sciences Library on campus. My intention when I journeyed here was to get a real, physical book (I know, shocking) in order to get some research done for a design project.

I ventured down and was immediately confronted by rows and rows of books. I knew the call number of the book I was looking for, but it was nowhere near the call numbers that I could see. I set off in the direction that looked most promising, yet did not appear to be getting closer to my goal. I nervously changed directions a few times and got hopelessly turned around.

Suddenly, the letters corresponding to my call number appeared in front of me. Rejoicing inside, I ventured into the row and found the ancient text I was searching for (published in 1955 don'cha know). I snatched up my prize and started to venture out. But, I cannot find the exit. I pass by a woman who is in at least her forties and fear starts to well up inside. What if that is me, in the future? Libraries are known to bend the space-time continuum, existing in L-space (Pratchett fans will know what I'm talking about).

I am now at a study desk and am nervously looking around for hints toward the exit. I don't have my charger for my computer, so if I never post again, you'll know where I still am.

Help...

PROCRASTINATION NATION

I'm in the last week of classes and all my design projects are due! This being Easter weekend, it is natural to assume that I am putting my nose to the grindstone and powering through everything. Clearly this is a lie, since I'm posting to this blog right now. Which begs the question, what the HECK am I doing with my time?!?

The answer to that, my friend, is frittering away precious minutes watching two guys waste their college degrees on Youtube. I present BriTANick!



This is just one of their very funny videos. The fact that Swaim from Cracked.com cameos makes it even better. They are seriously awesome.

We're frolicking through the forest! And we shimmer!

Last Sunday, my roommate and I decided to rent New Moon. She wanted to since it was her favorite book out of the series. I wanted to in order to mock it (and my other roommate who equally hates on Twilight said it was hilarious). So, we sat down on the couch with some popcorn, timbits, and nibs and watched the fantastic fail that is The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Whilst suffering from hysterical laughter, I figured it would be awesome to live-post on facebook my reactions to the movie. Here follows these posts verbatim, put into chronological order. Bolded lines were my main post and normal lines were comments on the preceding post.

Watching New Moon and live posting my reactions! 1/2 hour in: WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? Bella is a self destructive codependent mess who is also possiby schizo..

And her papercuts bleed the most.

And she has no sense of self-preservation. "I tripped over a twig! A TWIG I SAY! Now I will curl up in the fetal position and faint. And be rescued by a shirtless wolf."

Also, major kudos to her dad for putting up with her and her screaming during bad dreams

Bella and Edward kiss the most awkwardly. Taylor Lautner is buff. 'nuff said about that.


lol @awkward 2 friends competing for Bella's affections...their hands waiting for her to grasp them as they watch a terrible action movie

"what a marshmallow" as the white friend leaves, afraid of gore

and way to break up a tender moment, white kid.

who goes shirtless in the pouring rain? I mean, really, other than to gratuitously show off taylor lautner's abs?

yes bella, both of the men you liked in your life break up with you exactly the same way. Sucks to be you.

Jacob BURSTS OUT OF HIS CLOTHES!!! I AM HERCULES!!! Now what happens after he transforms back? And is...unclothed?

and she jumps off a cliff...without a spotter. Just to hear/see your vision of your lover. You are nuts.

And get buffeted by waves. You fail so much.

OMFG YOU FAIL. I won't spoil the movie, but there is so much fail.

No seatbelt? That's living life on the edge, right there.

SO AWKWARD. Way to kill the mood.

best quote: "I have never met anyone so prone to life threatening idiocy.

awww...poor Jacob. Bella, you fail to see any win in your life.

RUN BELLA! Save us from seeing Edward in his sparkly glory!

ewww....ewww. Please Edward put your shirt back on. Bring back Jacob. So much better.

migod these people can't act. It's like they're in constant physical pain.

even the other vamps are like "put on a shirt" to Edward.

we're frolicking through the forest! And we shimmer!

migod, Edward is such a creeper...creeping in Bella's room in the night. And Bella, way to forget that your dad would worry while you go gallivanting off to Italy.

And way to forget about Jacob, you jerk.

And you still kiss the most awkwardly.

"it would be nice to not want to kill you all the time"

as they vote whether or not to turn bella

JACOB IS BACK!

And way to blow him off! He got buff and cut his hair for you! FAILLLLL

"you can't hurt each other without hurting me!" Yeah, we would actually be okay with that.

"marry me bella" and end. WHAT? Is that really the end? O_O

So yeah, that was a LOT of fun! Perhaps I'll make a twitter feed just to entertain people while I watch bad movies.

Retrospective Title

So, I was poking around one of my favorite sites, Cracked.com, and found this fantastic video by BriTANick that is the Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever. It is fantastic. I figured since it was just the Academy Awards on Sunday, that it would be appropriate to share this now.

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever -- powered by Cracked.com

I have to admit that I laughed out loud during the entire thing.

VERILYYYYYYYYYYY

I was poking around Mental Floss when I found a neat article about an Online Generator with which you can create your own medievel comics. It uses images and the font from the Bayeux Tapestry, the original "comic strip" tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings. I actually had the privilege of seeing the actual tapestry while traveling in Europe the summer before I began university. It is pretty epic and extremely well preserved. In keeping with my semi-obsession with David Caruso and CSI:Miami, I bring you this wonderful piece that was generated.

Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

Musings in transit

I am currently sitting in the airport waiting for my final flight departure. This particular airport is quite nice and clean with light classical music playing. A most agreeable atmosphere to wait in. It's also great for people watching. You see families with small children, surly teens, young couples, old couples, and the gamut of stations in life. It's a small drama at every turn. See the young mother with a small child race for their plane. See the military man coming home with a spring in his step.

Another excellent people watching place is the subway. Yesterday, I spent an hour on the subway since I'm not familiar with the bus system and would thus get lost trying to find the connecting stops. It was fascinating. Everyone rides the subway. The tweens who think they're so cool in their trendy clothes. The old hobo who is riding for warmth. The businessman coming home from a long day at work. And everyone avoids meeting each other's eyes. As if acknowledging the existence of a fellow human would somehow be intrusive or wrong. Carefully staring into an empty patch of space. Surrounded by people and yet completely alone. I'm no sociologist or psychologist, but it's an interesting look into at least Western social mores.

Well, that's enough philosophical musings for today. Now watch Mr. Stephen Fry (who always brings me joy) as he trips over his own tongue to the amusement of all.

asdfghkjl;

Ugh, I am completely and totally ready for Reading Week to come. I've been through several midterms and assignments and two essays and am very excited to take a break.

One of my midterms (on Thermodynamics) was almost uniformly awful. We all thought we'd get about two hours since that was the block on our schedules for the tutorial where the exam took place. That was false. We got 1 hr 20 min. Predictably, it only went downhill from there. The average on the first question was 3/23. Or 13%. Apparently it was based on an example in class, but if everyone didn't understand how to do it, then obviously something has gone horribly wrong. In the end, the average was 58% after they halved the weight of the first question. Ugh.

I have also found out that my essay writing skills have atrophied considerably. I had to write a film review for a class and had to stretch my usual concise manner into four pages. If left to my own devices, it would have read, "It was good. You should see it."

Finally, I am looking forward to going home for the next week, but considerably less thrilled by the prospect of going through security. I just have to remember, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."


see more Political Pictures

I love...

Johnny Wander.
It's a webcomic that has already made a few appearances on this here blog. It's a lovely slice-of-life style comic that is so random yet relatable. The main cast is a bunch of friends fresh out of university who are living together. The comic is the random things that have happened to them.
I have to say that my favorite character is John and his Johnisms. I feel like I'm probably the most like him. Personality-wise that is. I certainly don't tower over anyone.


I also love the t-shirts they have in the store. I seriously want either the PaleontoLOLogy shirt or tote bag.

Plus, I can't get over Conrad's shutter shades. So. Much. Win.

Anyways, you should totally go and read their comic. And perhaps purchase a rockin' tee.

Oh, and just so you know, I scoured through my archive and added tags to my posts. If you think I should add a different tag, or forgot one, feel free to let me know in the comments or at echan1545(at)gmail(dot)com!

So I saw Avatar

And it was awesome. That is all.

...

You're still here. Fine, I'll give an actual review then. Mostly, I'm just agreeing with critics and with myself from a few posts earlier. The script was lacking, the acting okay. Sam Worthington's American accent was mostly passable, but he slipped into an Australian one about 2/3 of the way through. It's a bit jarring. But the technology used to create the images is amazing. It is a sensory feast. The tiniest details are not overlooked. Tiny images on background computers? Check. Random fauna reacting to the protagonists? Check. And the realism is astounding. For a while, I forgot I was watching a computer generated scene. The only reality check was the fact the Na'vi have tails.

I'm actually kind of excited James Cameron is planning on a sequel. With all of the framework in place, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. But, for the love of all that is good in film, do NOT let him anywhere NEAR the script. He can go nuts with everything and anything else. Just not the script.

WHY?!?!?!

Just...why?


This is a 10-year-old girl. She is Miley Cyrus' little sister, Noah. Apparently, she is a hooker. Billy Ray Cyrus officially fails at being a responsible parent. And that shade of lipstick should not be on anyone.


These are sequin shorts. Apparently they are a must-have for 2010. Society will look back on our generation and laugh. *buries face in hands*

That's it. I officially despair for our youth and fashion world.

OMGWTFBBQ

So, first post of the New Decade! Some musings I had since Christmas...

I'm repeating what everyone is wondering when I ask, what was last decade called? The aughts? I'm leaning towards that one since I think it makes us sound smarter.

Even with a full keyboard to text with, it is still possible to text something you didn't want to, a woe many T9 users have gone through. With fat fingers, it is possible to type "anything" as "anythong." Silly QWERTY.

You know what's awful? Planning a road trip with rest stops, mentally readying oneself for relief, then finding the rest stop you were expecting closed. It is agonizing. You're just ready to go and suddenly must hold it for another 30 miles. Then, fate gives you a final "screw you" by having you run into every red light/delayed green possible.

Finally, I still need to see Avatar. I'll probably post a brief review once I've seen it, but I'll try something new and predict what the review will say.

The story is unoriginal (think Pocahontas in space) and the acting is meh. But the visuals? OMGWTFBBQ! It's worth it to go just to absorb the world that has been created for your entertainment.

We will see...