Essays are driving me nuts. Sucking all the guts out of me, sapping my will to work, blahblahblah.
So thank God Asagi released his solo single, eh?!?!?! I like it lots. <3 I really want to get my copy or have someone scan theirs so I can look at the lyrics for "Corvinus" - from what little I can piece out, it seems like they're beautiful. From what I can piece out, he sings lines like, "Flying high... doko e... hai ga kono sora made mo nurikaete... doku wo kakushi yowaku chiisana jiyuu wa tachikirareta..." If Asagi couldn't sing as well as he can, the song really just wouldn't have worked. (Maybe now he can work on singing well live, 'cause from what I've seen and heard, it's pretty sucky.) "Unknown" is pretty good, too. If I get too fed up with my work, maybe I'll procrastinate by writing a fanletter.
What is up what chemistry homework? Srsly. It seems simple, but when I actually try to do it, nothing works. I think I'm missing some major formulas or something.
Work work work, death death death.
I had to leave my guitar behind at a shop today. ;_; Granted, I willingly took it there because it definitely need some work, but... ;_; I feel like... well, lots of melodramatic words and turns of phrase come to mind, but I'm still feeling bereft. Over the last two weeks, playing it was a really good source of stress relief. Now I'll be relegated to reading bad fanfiction in order to destress!
I will say that I hope these guys are as good as my teacher said they are, 'cause I practically went over-the-meadow-and-through-the-woods to get to these guys. And I was DRIPPING with sweat 'cause it was so damn humid. Getting to the grocery store from there was also a trip, but I won't go into details because I feel annoyed just thinking about it. I will say that I stopped by Guitar Center on my way, and left in a matter of minutes - that place was so scary! Full of people and instruments and noise and NEON and...
By the time I got to the grocery store, I was very thirsty, so I made an impulse purchase of a half-gallon of my favorite kind of orange juice because it was on sale. Today, I've probably consumed 200-some calories just from orange juice. >__>;
Med school apps make me want to die, where "die" is shorthand for "procrastinate like mad". Now that I think of it, school makes me want to die, too.
I've been bitten by the LJ-icon-making bug. I never thought I'd get into this all-too-trendy pasttime, but I like it because each project is so small. When you get a hit of inspiration, it's easy to turn it into a final product within half an hour, at the most. Not at all like making a blog layout, which takes hours and hours.
I should make a list of the sites that I visit frequently, just so you all can see how dorky I am.
Luckily, the NYUMed application error was easy to fix. I called the admissions office, and the person who picked up the phone was like, "Yeah, the form's given us a lot of trouble. We plan to change it next year." I was privately headdesking. Regardless, I just had to shoot off an email saying that I made a mistake. Just for good measure, I listed all my courses again, in the event that I screwed up something else in addition to the biology courses. Whew. (Even if my changes don't get appended to my file, that's okay - NYUMed is at the bottom of my want-to-go list.)
I need to call UPenn to make sure all my materials are in. I'm paranoid like that.
Ben WILL roll his eyes, but for the last two days I've been obsessed with Ultraviolet. Great ideas, not-bad CGI, Milla Jovovich... bad script/editing. I wonder who's to blame for that - I read that the studio chopped a ridiculous amount from the shooting script to produce the final release. The unrated DVD has an extra scene which is kinda nice. I bought a used copy of the novelization on Amazon because I heard it had a lot more backstory and detail and that it was based on the original script. I hope I'm not disappointed.
Yeah, it sucks. To further clarify, it is teh suck. Someone is angsting so hard, I think it might make them constipated. Especially if they don't eat their veggies.
BLARGHSPJDFPWIEOHGWEPOUHG! You'd think NYU Med School's application WOULD BE EASY TO FILL OUT, BUT IT IS NOT SO! I made a mistake for the lack of a preview/back button, and now I have to call them to try and get it fixed. BLARGHOIHWQEOIHEWGWOIERG!! Welcome to the World Wide Wide circa 1999, NYU!
But at least I think I filled out UPenn's application alright.
I should get little smilies for my blog. Scapeforums.com has some really cool ones, like a Gackt-cheesy-face and a Kyo-blargh-zetsubou-face. Actually... I just could really use the zetsubou face.
I've been listening to the Weiss Kreuz song "Blue Mask" and deadman's "in media". "Blue Mask" is good for angst, and "in media" is good for when I feel that everything's gone crazy.
As I said to Erin on the phone today, "I think that everyone, at some point in time, has a crush on Dan." Expect to see the catchphrases "gonads and income" and "useless sack of manflesh" making the rounds soon.
I've set a date - on September 30th, all of the secondary essays must be written. If it takes a few more days to send the forms out and stuff, that's okay - but all the essays must be done by then. Wish me luck.
If my suitemate isn't home by the time I get home tomorrow, I'm gonna start making phone calls. o_o; I checked their bedroom, and I'll check tomorrow to see if the bed's been rearranged.
It's too late - I've started reading the Weiss Kreuz Side B manga. I'm a total sucker.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I wonder.
How should I write the answer to this question? "Describe a personal experience which resulted in a substantial moral or ethical dilemma. What was the outcome? We are reluctant to accept assertions that you have never encountered such a situation. Please do not address cheating in an academic setting. (Limit your response to 250 words or less.)" It's for University of Pittsburgh.
Ugh, still medical school essays.
A catchy pop song for the opening of a rather trashy anime. Whaaaaat? I just caught myself searching teh Intarnets for Weiss Kruez. I've totally forgotten what happened in the first two seasons and OVAs. (Hello, Aya's real name is Ran? Totally forgot!) I'm wondering if I should try and find out what happens in Gluhen.
I WAS RIGHT!! FOR ONCE, I WAS RIGHT! I WAS SO RIGHT, IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY! I WAS RIGHT!
I really can't write any of these med school essays. I have no idea what I'm going to do.
Lots of work, tired as heck, feeling guilty because I made absolutely no progress on the essays...
The downtown event that I staffed today was rough - no shade, lots of sun and heat, and we were wearing black t-shirts. >_< I got lots of free stuff, though. o.o; I traded a CD of Michael Bolton singing Sinatra songs for some Tori Amos piano bit. Pepsi's Diet Jazz is absolutely awful tasting - yuckity yuckity yuck. I also won a couple of tickets to see Mary J. Blige, but since I'm not a fan at all, I traded for a free haircut. :D Sure, it's probably not worth as much monetarily, but the girl I traded with will have a total blast at the show, I'm sure, and I'll have a spiffy new haircut. ^__^
Actually, it's more like writing about Zetsuai and Bronze. So far I've churned through the five volumes of Zetsuai and now I'm up to volume eight of Bronze. The reason I'm writing is to tick off a list of cliches or otherwise unbelievable things that have happened so far. XD
So, in... 13 volumes of manga, there have been:
- two self-inflicted wounds requiring hospitalization. One was a self-inflicted amputation - yes, amputation *eyeroll* resulting in the acquisition of the BestRobotArmProsthesisEverInANonSciFiManga! Also, a cryogenically frozen limb. If that all isn't weird enough for you, the other self-inflicted wound would be your cup of tea.
- one stabbing. Which did not require hospitalization because, "Grrr, I'm a manly man! No hospital for me, bwahaha!"
- one surgery for a torn tendon in a knee. This was actually quite reasonable.
- two comas/vegetative states. (No angsty manga is complete without at least one coma!)
- interminable insides of hospital rooms
- one scene in a cherry tree orchard when the flowers are in full bloom. Dramatic whooshing around of sakura petals.
- one, or two, attempted or successful rapes, depending on how you count it. (Yes, wrap your head around that!)
- a veiled drawing of attempted masturbation. I think.
- bunch of sex scenes, expensive cars, pretty actresses and stylists...
- one TINY Speedo (which I just saw now. My eyebrows crawled into my hairline for safety...)
- and I bet you there's another sex scene coming up...
- oh yes, the time-tested trick of using your knee to prod at your boyfriend's crotch!
- if Minami Ozaki is going to draw an underwater sex scene in which one of the players is missing his BestRobotArmProsthesisEverInANonSciFiManga, then I just totally give up! At all pretenses of believing this manga's so-called realism...
- oh, phew, no underwater-sex-scene-sans-robotarm and no hotel-pool-sex-scene. I can swim in pools again without wondering if there's been hot non-BestRobotArmProsthesisEverInANonSciFiManga-sex in them!
- now this is becoming self-indulgent. But that's okay, right? :D
- yes, pouring champagne over your hot date's face is going to get their motor going! I wonder if sparkling apple cider works just as well...
- is that XXXXXXX I see? *eyeball*
- that was... kinda cute. o_o;
And I'm going to stop there, because it's really getting self-indulgent.
I gotta work an event tomorrow. God help me. >__>;; I guess it's part of the job description, so it's okay, but I'm not expecting it to be a big ball of fun. If I get sunburned, I'll be really unhappy - my skin's already really irritated from being so dry.
Yeesh, Dan, are you ignoring me? I keep sending you text messages asking you to pick up your phone, and I haven't gotten any responses.
I hope we get a TV soon. I want to watch House and L&O:SVU, and maybe a Steelers game or two.
Med school app essays will be the death of me, I tell you! Seriously, I just want an interview. I'm pretty sure I can kick ass face to face, but when I have to write all these little essays, it's just like death by papercut.
My Pchem class increased in size by 50% today - we got a third student. :D Apparently people are peeved about the organic reactions course being taught by a new, hardass teacher, so they're dropping out and taking new courses. Hopefully we don't get any bigger - it won't be as enjoyable. Today's lecture was a review of some of the concepts we covered last semester. It was much easier to understand this time around. The ease of understanding made the material seem unfamiliar, so much so that I wasn't sure if I'd seen it before. I'm glad that I haven't forgotten everything from last semester, but I definitely need to review this weekend.
Tomorrow, after a painfully nervous summer, my new lab work gets off the ground! Whew! I met with one of the deans today - I set up an appointment in mid-August, when I wasn't sure if things were going to work out, and I got some reassurances, so I feel better now.
And, totally unrelated to everything else, inspired by a few thoughts I had while reading Bronze, have you guys ever looked at the thighs on those rugby players in the UK? It's really... well, "amazing" and "scary" come to mind. Their thighs are HUGE! The better to run, charge, jump, and trample with, yeah?
It's like the second day of school, and I'm stressed out. But it has to do with other-than-school things. Specifically my job and my med school apps. If all I had to deal with was school, I'd be a-okay. But noooooooooooooooooo, my job has to be disorganized, and med school apps are BREATHING DOWN MY NECK. I'm trying my best to write the essays, okay?!
(I guess this is when I break out the guitar to practice in anticipation of upcoming lessons and for stress relief.)
"uso" has finally won out over "ameoto no kioku" as my favorite kein song. "kikoeteru? kaesanai! kocchi wo muite. aishiteru. dare yori..."
My Pchem III class has two people in it. XD I've known the other kid since freshman year, when we were both in Honors Gen. Chem. I and II. Now we're both in Pchem III, with a professor who taught for a few chapters for Honors Gen. Chem. II. Chemistry is a small, small world. :D My only concern is that the class doesn't get cancelled because it's such a small class. If it were to get cancelled, I have no idea what other high-level elective I'd take. They're all either boring or don't fit into my schedule. I don't think it will, though, 'cause they always offer Pchem III, with the expectation that it'll be small. I mean, I think 6-7 people is considered a large class.
It could be either really fun or really awkward. o__o;; I wonder what my professor will say when he learns that both of us are pre-med, ie. we have no intention of going to grad school for chemistry.
School starts tomorrow. T___T; I... have a lot to do: go to the drugstore >__>!!!!, get a locker, print out my schedule, maybe see my research professor...
I started work on a new layout today. It's okay, but I'm not really sold on it.
I really do need to buy a TV. o_o; That and tomorrow is the season premiere of House. I hope the show gets out of its trashy-soap-opera pit and back onto the road of interesting. The second half of the last season was just too overwrought. Ben put it best: "I can't believe they're using all these cliches so early in the show's life."
I took a look at the Physical Chemistry III syllabus. My thoughts are, in the following order:
- "Oh my God, what did I get myself into?! I hate spectroscopy! (I think!)"
- "Well... Biochem I is totally out of the question 'cause I hate the schedule and... spectroscopy might be okay for medical school, right?"
- "Um... two projects being 70% of the grade, with the other 30% being homework... I think I'd rather have tests instead of projects. If the professor isn't lenient with grading, I'm going to shoot myself."
I've been secretly reading Zetsuai 1989 since... yesterday. The art is so bad! XD Ben, if you thought Hanazakari no kimi-tachi e was terrible on white space, this would drive you nuts! (It's starting to annoy me, too.) That and the proportions are epic-ally awful. The story is... a little creepy and overwrought, but that's okay, too. The only reason I started reading is because it's a pretty famous angsty manga. So.
Oh, and: apparently Steve Irwin really is dead. That really sucks. I wonder what Animal Planet will do now.
erratic evolution is freshly upgraded! Maybe in a little while there'll be a new look, too.
School starts on Tuesday and I'm really not looking forward to it. I did like nothing school-related this summer, so when I go back I'm afraid I'll be a total dunce. >____>;;
I had some more thoughts relating to GitS:SAC, but I can't remember them now.
Oh, right, now I remember what I was going to say. At least, about Miyavi.
Funny how a person can go from releasing a great double-single like "Senor senora senorita/Gigpig boogie" and then nine months later put out a turd like MYV☆POPS, with just three new, acoustic turds. He's starting to bore me, both musically and looks-wise. (If you'd like the new tracks, Erin, let me know.) Zannen da na...omoshiroi yatsu kara.
So, for the last... four-six months, I was teh suck at blogging. I'm going to try to rectify that, for a reason I'll explain later, when I'm done talking about other things.
Let's begin with the small things first.
One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because somehow, my archive pages were infected with a Trojan. I still have no idea how it happened, and I think I've solved the problem by rebuilding all the pages, but you've been given fair warning. I've refused to upgrade my edition of MT because I didn't like the early versions of MT3, but since my last visit to the official website a month or so ago, I've been won over again. So I'll try to upgrade my software sometime in the future, as well, and hopefully the Trojan problem will never happen again.
I really need a new blog layout. This standard one is starting to get on my nerves. I'm trying to decide between the first castle from the Howl's Moving Castle movie or the band D, since they've since supplanted Miyavi in my musical affections. (MYV☆POPS was teh suck.)
Yay for Howl's Moving Castle, in general! Today on the bus on the way back to school, I read the novel, which I bought yesterday at Borders. It's a lot different from the moobie. o_o; While I think Miyazaki did a much better job envisioning the characters and concepts (Calcifer cuteness! Castle-y wonderfulness! Sophie-older-younger interestingness!) the book was much more coherent and better at explaining things. Until the end, when neither the book (Howl and Sophie falling in love? Sure, it's great, but I couldn't figure out how one was supposed to see that coming!) nor movie (Haha, Turniphead is a prince! Let's end the war!) was really good at tying up loose ends in an explicable manner.
But the big point of all this was to tell Erin that she should be very pleased because I've been thinking very hard about GitS:SAC. (Yes, "git's-sack" is how I'll pronounce it!)
I'm still working on the idea of "stand alone complex" meaning "copies without an original." It seems to me that "sac" essentially means that the same concept or meme can arise in multiple entities at the same time with no interaction between the entities. If that's the case, then "copies without an original" is entirely misleading. My understanding of "sac" postulates the existence of "multiple originals (whose identicality to each other can be debated) which then can be copied/transmitted." Because my idea and "copies without an original" don't agree at all, I think I'm still not getting the GitS:SAC concept of "sac". I'm definitely going to have to reread the Wikipedia entries for Stand Alone Complex, second-order simulacra, and meme again. The second-order simulacra and meme are interesting things, even if they're not central to the understanding of "sac".
Is the Chief the Laughing Man? I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. There may or may not exist a Laughing Man (after all, it never named itself), which may or may not be just a bunch of copies, and yet one has managed to take human form? What's going on at the Health Ministry, where everyone acts so strangely?! Argh!
I'm also thinking about the idea of external memory. I'm still not sure that that is in terms of GitS:SAC, but I remembering reading somewhere online that the Major doesn't like keepsakes because it would be possible for someone to "reconstruct" her based on the things she might keep around. Just earlier today, I threw out the little City Museum of New York because it seemed like garbage, but I realized that if I have that around, I'll be able to remember so many things surrounding my visit to the museum just by looking at it. (I'm going to fish it out of the trash.) I try not to be too sentimental, but the packrat sentimentalist in me just can't bear to throw the bazillions of knick-knacks I've acquired over the years. When I think or see those little things, I can remember so many other things, events, feelings, and thoughts that otherwise I easily forget. In that sense, those items are my external memory.
Of course, this has to do with my blog revival. This is a valuable thing for remembering. (The entries are pretty simple-minded, and the infomation and linked memories are sometimes embarrassing, but those things are worth remembering, I think.)