fishing

Thank you, everyone, for sympathy regarding Sphinx. I have appreciated it, and passed it onto my brother. I mentioned that Sphinx was his daemon in the last update, but only today listened to lecture and discovered the concept of daemon's is from Plato's Phaedo, not from Philip Pullman's trilogy. Doy...

This is one of those things I should wait a few days to update because I'll probably realize it's not as funny as I think it is, or at least that it's not going to translate well into a story, but here I go anyway because I haven't updated on this blog for a long time.

This is from my international policy class. We were talking about whether a country should stop trade or sanction a country if its industry is harming the environment. We talked about the scenarios of the country harming its own environment (say, an island's water supply) vs. a country harming the global environment (arguments that there is no truly isolated part of "the environment" aside). We got to the example of what if a country kills a lot of dolphins as it catches tuna. It was a heated debate! Then, E--, who has limited-but-pointed contributions to the class, and has a deep voice with a lovely accent (he's from Uganda) said after a reprieve in the debate during which several people were actively trying to not hate several other people:

What is so great about dolphins?

And the professor (kind of nerd-gone-cute, somewhat frenetic, high-voiced) quickly said:

That's a good question! Does anybody know?

And after giving only a moment's silence, before anyone could collect their thoughts on the topic, he answered his own question (in a Boston accent that was a reference to something no one knew):

Because they're wicked smaht! E-- here might be okay with eating a dolphin sandwhich, but most people are just as likely to eat tuna that was caught along with live humans!

I think most of this debate on global public goods got lost in the debate on morals. The one person that was staunchly in the camp of under no circumsances do you meddle in another country's workings lost credibility when she reveals she didn't believe greenhouse gases caused climate change. I think you have to believe there really is an issue that a country can contribute to globally before you can decide what policy choices would be "right" in dealing with it! We probably should have changed the topics from dolphins and global warming, and in fact we did: to fishing rights, and it became much, much more boring.

ataxia

First, the sad news: Sphinx, my little brother's cat, died unexpectedly on Monday. We are all very sad. He was my brother's daemon, and we thought they'd be together for years to come. We still think of him as "little cat," the kitten that could fit in the palm of your hand and had a desperate love for cookies 'n' cream ice cream. Maybe he had a stroke, maybe he got poisoned somehow--it's not worth an autopsy. He just faded away Monday night after a few days of dizziness and no clear diagnosis.

Second, I am updating because my first midterm is tomorrow, and I have grown weary of this week's Bizarre Procrastination Technique I developed: reading the plots to every slasher movie I can find. Besides, I only get nervous about the exam when I start studying (because I realize, 'Oh, I don't exactly remember how to do all the so-and-so problems'), but feel confident and nonchalant while not studying. So, by not studying, I'm saving myself a lot of worry. It's open book anyway. What could go wrong?

bumper stickers

Let's vote on which blatant presidential lie is more horrifying:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
or
"This government does not torture"

Sadly, though I like powerful bumper stickers (Who would Jesus bomb being my favorite), I don't like the one that sums up the above question (No one died when Clinton lied), I think just because it rhymes (la-ame! Like if Mother Goose were leading a protest rally).

When you get an MRI, before they put you in the tube, they give you headphones and a panic button.

The panic button is for if you suddenly freak out or get claustrophobic. There's not much to think about in that tube. I tried meditating, but of course when I do that, I think of the one thing I am trying not to think about. In this case, for a good portion of the hour in the tube, I was thinking "Don't get claustrophobic." I'm never claustrophobic, but I did have a few moments of thinking I might suddenly be. Then for a while, when the machine was making really loud noises, my brain happened to think to (and about) itself "Skull, give up your secrets!" So for a while, all I could think was this phrase. It was an appropriate thing to be willing to happen, I guess, I just wish my brain had hit upon a less silly phrasing.

The headphones are for listening to music since the machine is so loud. I should have been more specific about what station to put it on, but I figured I'd be fine with the mix station she said it was already tuned to, so I said OK. The closest I actually came to hitting the panic button was when "My Heart Will Go On" came on the radio. I don't think I was actually panicked, I just wanted to get her attention to change the channel, but I didn't want to be stuck in that tube any longer than necessary (since I was developing claustrophobia), so I didn't squeeze the button.

I will try to remember to update results, since I know I sometimes leave readers of my blog hanging (BC has never turned up; the thing in my cupboard was mice--I still have it taped up and empty. Every once in a while, I untape it, spray it down with about a gallon of bleach, and tape it up again; the bamboo flooring looks lovely; the cats have ringworm; but the cats really love each other and area always cleaning each others heads, so they bring me sorrow and joy in equal measure, but giving pills to cats is my least favorite thing to do ever). But I'm not worried about the MRI results. My headaches have all but vanished since I started school. I'm taking it reeeal easy! I'm thinking of 1) taking 5 classes next semester and 2) adding on a second masters degree in order to get 2 in 3 years!

JOB ALERT: Those of you in Austin, if you know someone who is a good typer and moderately smart, the place I do medical transcriptions needs some help because the full-time person quit, and, as I said, I'm taking it easy and don't want to add on a full-time job to my schedule right now. Contact me for details!

С днём рождения

Happy Birthday Katya and Alexis! (I think I got this right--sorry it's so late in the day, though).

I have nothing to offer you but links. Everyone has crushes on Maria Bamford, and perhaps you will, too, after watching her show on SuperDeluxe:

It's the Maria Bamford show!

Quote from the guy installing my bamboo flooring:

"Do you know what a baby panda smells like?

This wood--when you cut it. It's somewhat exotic...but in a way, it's not."


I don't know him well enough to know his intentions behind this statement, but this is the funniest thing I've heard all day.


While I'm quoting, here are two quotes from moms on Britney's VMA performance:

J's mom [paraphrased]: "She was either really, really drunk, or she was just so nervous that... she got really, really drunk to calm her nerves."

my mom: "She's just really lost her confidence! And, well, that was all she ever had!"

more ads that don't make sense

If I had my camera phone, I would just show you this simple billboard ad rather than the over-explanation I'm about to go into. But, in the frat district of UT, there is a billboard for Natural Light beer that I pass every day on the way to school. It is of a man's hand reaching out of a shower for his Natty Light, and there are just the words "Been There" underneath. It's pretty straightforward. Except for the question: is this an ad for beer? Or for AA? Because honestly, and I know I'm not in the frat demographic they are targeting, I don't think I have ever "been there." And if I had "been" where I was drinking my cheap-ass alcohol from inside the shower because I couldn't go 6 minutes without, I don't think I'd want a whimsical reminder of it to try to sell me some more failure.

one more character

One more person from my summer statistics course was the kid that sat right in front of me every day. The only thing I ever heard him say was the last day, when he said, to no one, "Dude's funny," about Crackers, the class clown. One odd thing about this kid was that he wore the exact same shirt, every day we had class. It's very possible he got a bunch of them for free or something, so I won't make fun of that fact (maybe he's very poor! Or doesn't value fashion! I have respect for those things really!). But I will make fun of the shirt itself which said:

If you can read this
You must be wearing Focus contact lenses.

Since I had every single classtime to contemplate the inanity of the statement, I of course now have to share it with all of you. It took me a while to stop expecting "thank a teacher" to be the second line, so the first indignity is the implication that being able to see the letters is the hard part of reading. Hey! Learning to read was hard and it sometimes is still hard! If I have dyslexia, Focus contact lenses are not helping! But your blue font does make it difficult to focus on the text, so thanks for that! Also! I am NOT wearing Focus contact lenses, and I would imagine the vast majority of people are able to read that are also NOT wearing Focus contact lenses, so you lose all credibility with your "must." After a summer of getting unreasonably angry about this, I'm pretty determined not to ever, ever get Focus contact lenses.

happy birthday, dad, who doesn't read this!

I am now officially a student. I had a class yesterday, so.... student. However, I am also on book 7 of Harry Potter--subsequent to a re-reading of the entire series. So right now I am torn between reading a lot of stuff for my upcoming classes (letting Hermione be my guide), or reading The Deathy Hallows, which I actually read less than a month ago. It shouldn't be that hard a decision. Also, sleep should be in the mix somewhere, but for some reason it's not.

Anyway, I'm vascillating between being so anxious I cry about school, and between blithely planning the next series of children's books I will re-read. To calm myself down at one point, I watched The Saint. As per usual, the first 30 minutes just made me either more anxious, or laugh hysterically. I almost turned it off because I thought it wasn't doing any good, but I did watch all of it, and then I felt perfectly at peace. And honestly, everything has gone better since then. So, mental note, watch The Saint when worried about anything. It has Elisabeth Shue, Val Kilmer, Oxford, and Russia. And finely crafted dialogue. In fact, maybe instead of reading The Golden Compass again, I will begin my screenplay: The Saint 2: Back in the Habit. Or maybe "Back in the Halo" would be more appropriate.

I haven't updated. Everything that has happened that I think "Oh, haha, that was funny, I should blog about that" completely escapes me when I sit down to type. Possibly now that I finally (after a year) got my router to work, I can blog from bed, when important thoughts occur to me.

Other things that I did: went to New Orleans, had two houseguests (hi Mia! hi Leigh!), hosted a Shadowrun game (and blew up one helicopter with another helicopter! With my brain!), washed my phone (no pictures for a while), got my SNES cleaned (goes without saying I've been playing a lot of Tetris Attack), and oh yes, got a kitten.

The new kitten's name is Ladybird. Xander mostly thinks she's the greatest toy I have ever brought home for him. But sometimes he is annoyed that she reacts to violently to his stepping on her face. She's getting used to him. He's at least 5 times as big as her, and the size differential shows signs of only slight decrease in the future.

I don't know if I blogged about this, but from the start, my condo's shower has been boiling hot. It starts off cold, but as soon as it warms up, it's boiling hot, and you can't control the temperature and pressure separately, so I avoided long showers, and took baths pretty often. A friend tried to fix it, but it only resulted in boiling hot water shooting from the wall at firehouse strength, and as it was midnight, and it took a while for the emergency plumber to arrive, the whole two bedroom apartment was a steambath, even though luckily my friend was able to deflect most of the actual water into the tub. So anyway, two results to follow with: I might at long last actually be getting it fixed tomorrow, and mom will be coming in September and we'll repaint some parts of the apartment.

So, at this point, as I have googled Elisabeth Shue twice since starting this entry 8 minutes ago, I think it's safe to say that I like to google Elisabeth Shue. But I'm always disappointed by it. I think I secretly hope it will make me her friend if I do it enough.

Now I've googled Tetris Attack Tournament (more on that later... one day), so I've branchced out.

But now, really, really, really I will read this article on foreign policy. Even though I have four days with no classes.

trapper keeper

I'm all in school and everything! Yesterday I graphed a third degree polynomial function! Then I all up and took the partial derivative of a three-variable function!

Then last night, at second work, I started hyperventilating about all the math I will be expected to know come September.

I'm trying to work out what was different when I was a good, orderly student (i.e. 3rd grade), and I have determined the crucial variable is that was the last year I had a Lisa Frank unicorn Trapper Keeper (R) . Therefore, I plan to make an old fashioned back-to-school purchase of notebook paper and a Trapper Keeper (the new Fall line is out), and maybe some mechanical pencils. And a pencil box. And lady-bug safety scissors.