Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Yes I am a Biology Nerd

I had smile the size of texas (or some comprably large place) when I Stumbled Upon this (yay for firefox extentions such as StumbleUpon)
it is a map (a diagram if you will) of all of the metabolic pathways in the human body, as a biochemist I am not, this could be extremely useful, and despite the extreme nerdyness, If I do double major in NPB ( which is seeming more and more likely every day) I will definately either buy the poster, assuming they begin to sell it again, or print out every single portion of it and put it all together on my wall.

for all you other biology nerds, medicine nerds, science nerds, chemistry nerds, and just generaly awesome people like that, go check this out

(sure you prolly won't be so giddy about it {so giddy I would have had to wipe my coke bottle glasses on my shirt right below my pocket protector, if i had either of those items} but it'll prolly seem pretty cool anyways)

Biochemical Pathways - Metabolic Pathways
there is also
Biochemical Pathways - Cellualr and Mollecular Processes

lyrics to "Our Cardinal Virtues"

I tend to do blocks of posts. I'll post something on one day, and then i'll post somethig else shortly after, and then I'll not post for a good week or so, (depending on inspiration level and the such). I don't quite know why this is, but I think it has to do with downtime, when I get downtime, it is bunched rather closely. I expect this will be even more true once I start with my double major, and subsequently start either med school or grad school. (assuming I have down time at all).
It might also have a bit to do with my compulsive tendencies, sometimes I feel that I HAVE to post. (even though my readership is either sparse or non-existent) I also tend to be a bit obsesive (isn't there a disorder for that? [ah the joys of sarcasm])
This is one of the compulsion posts.
here are some lyrics to the songs of the band which I shamelessly plugged, they're good, well I think so because I wrote them, but I think they're good, you might too.

I'll just get the lyrics to all of Our Cardinal Virtues (the album name) on here, because I might as well, and I'm feeling unproductive now and this might make me feel better

Prudence (say it again)

The Last time you said this
I ended up face down

the last time you said this
I ended up windblown

screaming is passe, pain is over done,
sorrow's too dramatic and I think you've won

So say it again
lay me out facedown

say it again
forsake me to wastelands

cold is the night soul rent between justificications


say it again, say it again


Fortitude ( attempts to sustain)


Knife like an ice pick

a meat hook, a spear
eyes are like toy balls

a childhood revisited
asking “where's my red flyer”
my Lego's my notebooks

and gone is my past
forever buried
under piles of things
attempts to sustain
attempts to remain back there.

Phone calls and emails
and conversations at dawn
are gone beneath junk
a counterintuitive stop gap
against time



Justice (past sayings repeated)

I'm having aural hallucinations again
repetitions of past sayings
my name called over and over


I turn to see no one
I turn to see someone, but no one's there.

They have no precedent for rose colored head phones


my ears deceive me
what to follow
my ears, I trusted, betrayed me
I'll pull a Van Gogh
I'll end up like Hollyfeild
but that won't save me.


I turn to see no one
I turn to see someone but no one's there



Temperance (here be monsters)

This life is unmapped
so much filled with warnings of
Here be monsters

Uncharted waters move
tideless unseen.
I am left
no skill in cartography
to map this void
this future that is mine
caution on excess and life is wasted
caution underused shall
lead to disaster


To map the void
the fate of all
cartographers or armatures
all must fend for
themselves.



I play the laptop

This is a shameless plug for my new band The Hemlock Catharsis. I do feel bad (a little) for plugging my band on here, but not bad enough not to do it.
As the title of this post suggests, I play the laptop in this band. as odd as that seems, it makes quite a bit of sense. I also play the bass, so I'm not being an uber-geek, or a techno-freak (yay for rhyming).
How this transpired is that my longtime friend and musical partner (after my leaving of the band we had both started, Under Autumn Skies) started working on our "project". For a long time we had been contemplating making music in which only the two of us played. the problem there is that we want so many things to be in the music, that we would be forced to either be a band which only did recordings, or we would have to find other musicians for live pereformances. when we went to Oregon to record and Paul (my guitarists) brother in law's house, we decided that we simply would never even try to find more members, he can sing and play his insane guitar riffs at the same time, and I can compose things on the computer, and since I got a hold of a very good editing program called Ableton Live 5, I am able to play just about anything, and edit just about anything on my own.
the recordings we have posted now are of a rough nature, i have done very little mastering on them yet.
Paul plays guitar and sings
I play the Bass and the Laptop

we both write everything, he writes all guitar lines, and most times makes the general form of the basslines, I do the general stuff for the drums, and I write the lyrics. the rest is colaborative.

we are at
www.myspace.com/thehemlockcatharsis

thank you for tolerating this shameless plug
now back to our regular programing

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Epiphany

I do beleive I've had a genuine epiphany. Well, as it seems to be a bit more zen bhudist in nature I'll refer to it as a glimpse of enlightenment.
I've had this realization multiple times, but it was so strong tonight that it felt worth mention.
not even a full second was taken up by the actual expirience.
I was talking to myself in my bathroom mirror. not the usual criticisms and approval remarks that people make to themselves in mirrors, more random comments on things on my mind, tonight that was medicine (the profession, not drugs)
I had a flash of insight when I looked directly at my mirror image
"this is me"
but it wasn't long enough for something that verbal to form.
the thought was too all encompasing for one phrase
there were elements of
"what is existence?"
"do I exist?'
and
"I am going to die"

the most shocking thing about this is that in the past when I am hit with that realization, that I am going to die, a deep seated fear rises its ugly head, but this time I felt calm relaxed and OK about my eventual death.

My eventual death felt right.
that is part of what made this whole thing so surreal. I would never think of my death as right.
I know I will die, and I'll deal with it weather or not I want to, but I am about to go into medicine, the profession of fighting death, I am not naturaly comfortable with my own, or anyonelses death.
It almost makes me think that this calm, is not mine. be it from God, or from some collective conciousness, my own personal halucination, or simply another step on my path to enlightenment, it wasn't something that the me I know would do.

quite a conundrum eh?

Friday, May 19, 2006

my new phone

I take back every bad thing I said about my new phone, except for the comments on the camera, that's still ridiculous. I have found that some of the newfangled bells and whistles are awesome. I love the fact that I can set my phone to display lights when i'm getting a call. this is great, especialy since this is now my primary phone. at night if i set the phone on my nightstand and get a call, I can actualy see the phone, and it looks kick ass. (ok so maybe I just think its the definition of awesome when my phone displays a light show.)
I can see how someone would get very caught up in playing with their technology, of course I have little time for that anymore, but the computer geek who must get every new thing may never die in me, even if he is subdued.

Davis

I just came back from Davis today. I was down to talk to a financial aid advisor and get some other things in line (find out where my bank is, get new cell phone service) and I am reminded why I decided to go to UC Davis in the first place. It is absolutly perfect. I cannot think of anywhere I would rather go. And lately I've been thinking that if i go to med school (as keeps seeming like a more and more likely event) instead of going to UC San Fransisco as I had previously aspired I may want to go to UC Davis Medical School. I'll obviously have to decide this when I get a feel for what it's like to live in Davis and after I have a better feel for if I like UCD Med Center or not.

I also had a conversation with a fellow pre-med today, who is double majoring in Psychology and NPB (Neurobiology Physiology and Behaviour), and I have come to the conclusion that I may want to double major as well. Not because other people are doing it, but upon hearing about how she was doing hers I got rather excited about the possibilites, suggesting that that would be a good call. NPB would likely be a good second major for me (I am already accepted to UC Davis as a Psychology major, and i'm getting my BS in Pyschology no matter what) I looked into biological sciences and mollecular biology and biomedical engineering and a few other alternate majors, but none seems so perfectly tailored to what i'd like to do as NPB. (what i'd like to do being either Medicine or Clinical Psychology)

Ah, the joys of deciding.

I also got a new cell phone as I mentioned at the begining of this post. It's one of those newfangled Sony Ericsson phones. ( feel like such an old fogey using words like newfangled [old fogey at 18, that's sad])
I can't for the life of me think of why i'd need to use all of the features on this thing, my old phone (which is now obsolete) worked just fine, with out all the bells and whistles on this new one, for instance a camera. Being somewhat interested in photography, I am ashamed that cameras have been added to every phone in existance. if I want to take a photo I want it to look good, and taking a photo with a cell phone doesn't exactly inspire one to be careful about lighting or inspire your subject to not act like an ass.
for all that I can't immagine the necessity for all the bells and whistles on this new phone I must say that it is nice having a good 50% more pocket space than I did before. no longer do my phone my pocket knife and my sharpie contend for front row seats to my crotch.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Dreams of my Russian Summers

This book is the only thing that has ever made me want to learn French. Written by Andrei Makine, "Dreams of my Russian Summers" was orriginaly written in french, and of course I read a translation. If the prose was this brilliant and chilling and wonderfull and joyus, after translation, I simply can't comprehned how good it must be in French.
I would suggest this book to absolutly any thinking, or feeling (or some combination thereof) person in existence.
I have a tendency to over praise books, this is not an exemplification of that tendency.
I don't use the term genius lightly.
this book is genius.
go buy it

(if you take whatever I say with a grain of salt, maybe you'll like it that much more when you're surprised to find that I'm totaly right.)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

inactivity

I haven't posted on here for quite some time. That's not as consequential since I have no readership.

this is something I wrote back in the day, I don't know how relevant it is (if at all), but here it is, I may expand it some day, but it's pretty straight forward so I don't know if there's much to expand

All American Love Story

Her eyes were blue, but he couldn’t have cared less. Her hair was blond, but he didn’t think it mattered. Her body was that of a goddess, and he could live without it. Her heart was golden, he longed for that more than anything. Her mind was strong and alert, he wanted with all his heart to have that mind at his disposal, to be able to add to her intelligence.

Of course her beauty was the first thing he noticed, but with no heart, no soul, what is a person worth? Ugly people have a bad time with that, great people but they’re not noticed due to ugliness of body. She had the gift of being as beautiful on the outside as she was within. Perhaps he obsessed too much, but even so he loved her. He might have tried just a little too hard, but still he noticed her(unlike some other guys). The fact that he loved her for more than her outward appearance was what made him differ from others, he didn’t just want her, he loved her. Even with his exceptional love for her, she time after time turned him down. She had a boyfriend a week, and yet he was never one of those boys, always just watching, waiting for the next gap between boyfriends. He spent four years waiting, and then he got his nerve and asked her for the hundred and somethingth time, once again he was rejected. Over and over she told him to screw off, but he persisted. Over time he slowly became deranged with the terrible yearning of unrequited love, and in a heat of fury and passion (hardly justifies it) he killed her boyfriend. He had known her boyfriend all his life, he was actually his best friend but that didn’t stop him. He knew she’d never give him a chance so he took the life of he who she had. As he would do again if necessary if only to keep her isolated. His mind was torn between murder and losing the one he loved, he chose quickly and as you can tell he chose the terrible crime committed. He acted too harshly and it was a terrible deed he knew but the murder was in some way committed with reason(in his mind). There was his chance. He asked once again, the blood of the crime still on his hands and soon found that she was not the girl he though she was. She was a bitch. She was a snob. She was a slut. She wasn’t worth it. That night he “put her out of her misery” and disposed of himself. What an all American love story.



wow, i had forgoten how macarbe that is. but yea, thats sort of, deranged.